Broadband Internet, Worst State (video)

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Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) –- If being online is the future of business, what future does a business have if it can't get online? That's the billion-dollar question in the state of Maine, where internet service is among the worst in the nation. Bloomberg's Michael McKee went to Maine to look for answers. (Source: Bloomberg)

Most of the US has no broadband competition at 25Mbps, FCC chair says | Ars Technica: "But will the FCC block Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger? Wheeler doesn't say."

T-Mobile's next Uncarrier event coming September 10 - GeekWire: "T-Mobile’s “Un-carrier” train just keeps on rolling. The company sent out invitations to members of the press today inviting them to the Un-carrier 7.0 event hosted on September 10 in San Francisco... the image bears a tagline saying “This time it’s personal.” It’s unclear what that means, though."

Baidu Builds Largest Computer Brain for Online Queries - Bloomberg: "With about 100 billion digitally simulated neural connections, Baidu’s computing cluster will be 100 times more powerful than the 2012 Google Inc. project dubbed “Google Brain,” Andrew Ng, chief scientist at the operator of China’s biggest search engine, said in an interview yesterday. Engineers at a Baidu lab in Silicon Valley are designing the project, which will be built in Beijing and completed in about six months, according to Ng."

Not Safe For Not Working On | Dan Kaminsky's Blog: "But noise doesn’t matter if nobody is listening.  Authentication systems could probably do more to detect brute force attacks across large numbers of accounts.  And given the wide variety of systems that interface with backend password stores, it’s foolish to expect them all to implement rate limiting correctly.  Limits need to exist as close as possible to the actual store, independent of access method."

Tim Cook Says Apple to Add Security Alerts for iCloud Users
Wall Street Journal
In his first interview on the subject, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said celebrities' iCloud accounts were compromised when hackers correctly ...
After nude celebrity hacking, Apple's Tim Cook says company will improve security - Washington Post
Apple boosts iCloud security measures after celebrity photo hacks - CBS News


Wall Street Journal
5 Things To Expect From Apple's iPhone 6 Event
Forbes
Apple is three days and 23 hours away from unveiling a new slate of shiny ... Google, LG and Nokia have all installed NFC chips, the technology has ...
How Apple Can Make Mobile Wallets Actually Work - Businessweek
Apple's 'iWallet' payments seen as unlikely to earn much money, but will lock in users to iPhone ... - Apple Insider


Wall Street Journal
Apple's Next Big Focus: Your Health
Wall Street Journal
Apple on Tuesday is expected to unveil a smartwatch embedded with more than 10 sensors to monitor health and fitness signs, according to people ...

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FCC should reclassify internet providers as Title II services

Netflix makes the case that the FCC has no other choice, and points out that two previous attempts at regulating internet providers as “information services” failed due to a poor legal framework. The company’s filing also highlights the recent controversy over “interconnection points” and who is to blame for congestion points at deeper reaches of the internet that caused Netflix traffic to degrade for Comcast and Verizon subscribers. According to Netflix, the cable giants deliberately failed to maintain these points, with the result that: “Due to Comcast’s degrading its interconnection points, the first customer received less than 6% of the broadband service she had purchased from Comcast, while the second received only 1%.”(source infra)

Netflix to FCC: reclassify Comcast and Verizon so they can’t choke the internet — Tech News and Analysis: "While many companies — including Comcast — have said the FCC should preserve a “free and open internet,” Netflix’s submission is unusually blunt and specific about the measures to take. Notably, Netflix told the FCC that it should reclassify the internet providers as so-called “Title II” services, which would allow the agency to treat them more akin to public utilities and bar them from favoring one website over another."

Netflix FCC Comments

Microsoft Echoes Google Response to European Privacy Ruling
Wall Street Journal (blog)
Microsoft's moves may have less impact than Google's, because the ... A Yahoo spokesman reiterated an earlier statement that the company is ...

Microsoft Embraces AI With Project Adam
PC Magazine
Google and IBM aren't the only tech firms eyeing artificial intelligence. Microsoft this week showed off its answer to AI: Project Adam. "The goal of ...

Microsoft boosts OneDrive storage to free terabyte
Computerworld
Computerworld - Microsoft has started boosting the free allowance of OneDrive, its cloud-based storage service, to one terabyte for subscribers to ...

Microsoft renews critical push into the cloud
Computerworld (blog)
"I believe Microsoft is a strong number three behind Amazon and Google in the cloud market," Rebello said. "Amazon is clearly the dominant player ...

Facebook launches Ads Manager for mobile - Inside Facebook
By Justin Lafferty
Now Facebook advertisers have a more reliable way to monitor ad performance on mobile devices. Facebook announced today that it is introducing ...
Inside Facebook

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Why Is Broadband Internet More Expensive in the US?

Basically it comes down to a failure of regulation -- the FCC and Obama Administration have dropped the ball -- and there probably isn't a more important issue for economic progress and infrastructure. Will Washington wake up, or will Obama's carrier-connected, conflicted FCC chair, continue to cater to ISPs?

BBC News - Why is broadband more expensive in the US?: "...The price of basic broadband, TV and phone packages - or bundles as they are known - is much higher in American cities than elsewhere, suggests the New America Foundation think tank, which compared hundreds of available packages worldwide. Looking at some of the cheaper ones available in certain cities, at lower to mid download speeds, San Francisco ($99/£61), New York ($70) and Washington DC ($68) dwarf London ($38), Paris ($35) and Seoul ($15)..."

Why is Netflix streaming slow? Major peering dispute with ISPs | BGR: " . . . What this really boils down to, explains Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin, is a dispute over peering. Most of the time, ISPs and bandwidth providers such as Cogent Communications have peering agreements to swap traffic with one another without any additional charge. However, ISPs apparently think the rise of video streaming over their networks has upset the balance that peering agreements have traditionally struck which is why they’re trying to change things up. . . ."

Time Warner Cable Raises Rates (Again), Adds 'Broadcast TV' Fee | DSLReports, ISP Information: "As with most rate hikes, the notices are accompanied with the insistence that the hikes are about bringing you added "value," and necessary because of all the great upgrades the companies have been busy with. Except in Time Warner Cable's case those upgrades have been slow in coming, the company considerably slower than Comcast in deploying faster DOCSIS 3.0 speeds or new TV technologies."

Inside Scoop: Samsung S5 and other Mobile World Congress soothsayings Video
CNET
....All eyes are on Barcelona, Spain, ...(Mobile World Congress, February 24-27, Barcelona)

How Will WhatsApp Coexist With a Company Whose Business It Hates?
Businessweek
In recent weeks Facebook has been talking up the strategy it hopes will help keep it from fading into obsolescence during its second decade. In earnings calls and profiles in prestigious business publications, Mark Zuckerberg has talked about the value of ...

YouTube Gets a Makeover With Layout, Playlist Tweaks
PC Magazine
If you browsed over to YouTube this morning, you may have noticed that things look a little bit different. The Google-owned video-sharing site has received a mini-makeover, including changes to the layout and playlists. "The way you watch YouTube keeps ...
What Is WhatsApp? An Explainer | News & Opinion | PCMag.com: " The app also uploads all of a user's contacts and requires them to individually block users with whom they do not want contact. Additionally, even the numbers of those who do not use WhatsApp are stored in the app in perpetuity."

Google's Project Tango Sees All
InformationWeek
Current smartphones can manage limited tracking of position and orientation, but lack the full range of sensors and precision to run the kinds of applications Google envisions. More significantly, they aren't designed to place the device within a 3D ...

Hey Microsoft, where's the next Mac Office?
Computerworld
Historically, Microsoft has hewn to a three-year development cycle for both Office on the Mac and the far-more-popular Office suite for Windows, with a new version of the former following the newest of the latter by several months at a minimum. Office ...

Apple Acting More Like Microsoft Than Facebook
Forbes
Not only has Apple been slow to enter new categories with in-house products, it has also been beaten out for acquisitions by rivals like Facebook and Google Google. Whether or not Apple bid for assets like smart appliance maker Nest Labs, which Google ...

Google Fiber Plans Expansion To 34 New Cities (Including Salt Lake)
Forbes
The race for the Internet gigabit space took another leap forward this week with Google Google Fiber's announcement that it has targeted 34 more cities in 9 metro areas for access to Google internet services at the increasingly popular 1Gps speed. Salt ...

Google Borrows $1 Billion With First Bond Sale in Three Years
Bloomberg
Google Inc. (GOOG) sold bonds for the first time in three years, borrowing funds to refinance $1 billion of maturing debt even after its cash hoard swelled to a record of more than $60 billion. The owner of the world's largest search engine issued 3 ...

Google Fiber may be fast, but it takes time to build
San Jose Mercury News
If you live in one of the five Silicon Valley cities Google may wire for high speed Internet, don't expect it to happen overnight. Based on the experience of Kansas City, whereGoogle is building its first high-speed network, it could take a couple of ...

Microsoft Stops Hiding Office's Free Online Edition
TIME
PS Apple has iCloud and it's giving Office Online a run for its money and totally blows Google Drive out of the water when it comes to presentations (haven't tried it for anything else)....

Google makes good on threat, flips 'kill switch' on some Chrome add-ons
Computerworld
By forcing add-on developers to publish their work in the Store, Google moved another step closer to a closed market, the kind popularized by Apple's mobile app ecosystem, where it can more easily vet the extensions and then yank them if necessary. On ...

Google deal is no 'gentlemen's agreement', says EU antitrust chief
Chicago Tribune
PARIS (Reuters) - The EU antitrust chief defended a deal with Google over how it displays web search results, following criticism from rival firms and his own colleagues, saying there had been no gentlemen's agreement to close the case. The world's ...

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