Seagate teams up with XO Communications to create an infographic on the future of the storage industry-- according to the  Cisco Visual Networking Index the amount of data transferred annually by the internet will exceed 1 Zettabyte by end 2016.

A ZB represents a pretty large number of zeroes making a huge number of bytes. How big? As much as 21 zeros, or 1000000000000000000000 bytes. One can also describe a ZB as equivalent to 1.1 trillion GB. Within the perspective of even bigger numbers, 1024 Terabytes make 1 Petabyte, while 1024 Petabytes make 1 Exabyte, and 1024 Exabytes make 1 ZB. Insane, right?

According to the Internet Live Stats tracker the number of websites on the internet exceeds 1 billion-- a milestone figure reached on September 2014, if one in need of confirmation due to inactive website number fluctuations.

Internet Live States defines "website" as a unique hostname, a name one can resolve (via name server) into an IP address. Around 75% of websites are inactive, being parked domains and the like.

The figure follows the internet's 25th birthday on April this year. Back in 1989 Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, together with the first web server, first browser, editor (the "WorldWideWeb.app") and HTTP. October 1990 saw the creation of the first version of HTML.

UC Berkeley and Stanford University engineers develop a possible solution for the wireless demands of the Internet of Things-- a cheap tiny (3.7mm x 1.2mm) dual-band radio powered by the signals it receives.

Similar tiny radios already exist, but unlike similar solutions (which operate on low frequencies), the Berkeley/Stanford radio receives data on the 24GHz band and transmits on 60GHz. This reduces the power requirements by so much the radio charges itself with energy from received signals.

Higher frequencies also allow very fast data transmission rates, even if in the data transmitted is of low volume.

“One of the benefits of going to high frequencies is that the wavelengths get smaller and you can put the antennas on the chip itself,” UC Berkeley Wireless Research Center director Ali Niknejad tells Wired.

Netgear launches the latest member of its Stealth Fighter-esque Nighthawk router range at IFA 2014-- the Nighthawk X4 AC2350 (R7500), claiming to push the fastest dual-band 802.11ac wifi via Quad-Stream wifi architecture.

It carries a 1.4GHz dual-core processor and the Quantenna 802.11ac Wave 2, 4x4 MU-MIMO (Multi-User MIMO) wifi solution, and reaches combined network speeds of up to 2.33Gbps (up to 1733Mbps on the 5.0GHz band + 600Mbps on the 2.4GHz band).

Meanwhile Dynamic QoS prioritisation recognises individual applications (such as gaming, video streams or file transfers) and allocates bandwidth accordingly. The company says the X4 is also device-aware to further ensure lag-free online games and jitter-free HD video streams.

Intel reveals what it claims is the smallest standalone 3G modem in the world-- the XMM 6255, a chip around 300m2 in size designed for networked sensors, wearable devices and other Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

It features a SMART I UE2p transceiver, an Intel design combining transmitter and receiver functionality with an integrated power amplifier and power management on a single chip.

Intel says the design not only allows for a smaller modem, but also protects the radio from overheating, voltage peaks and damage from tough conditions. It also simplifies the design and minimises production costs.

Nest, Samsung, ARM, Big Ass Fans, Freescale, Silicon Labs and Yale team up in the name of the internet of things (IoT) to present Thread, an IP-based wireless networking protocol to connect smart home devices without need for hub hardware.

According to the Thread Group current 802.15.4-based networking technologies such as ZigBee or Z-Wave have "critical issues" making them unsuitable for the IoT, including lack of interoperability, inability to carry IPv6 communications, high power requirements and "hub and spoke" models dependent on one device. Thread promises to solve such issues, being a low-power wireless mesh network able to simultaneously connect and provide internet/cloud access to over 250 devices.

"A number of networking solutions and platforms have been introduced to address the growing demand for connected products in the home," IHS Technology says. "Built on well-proven standards, including IEEE 802.15.4, IETF IPv6 and 6LoWPAN, Thread represents a resilient, IP-based solution for the rapidly growing Internet of Things."

Qualcomm moves forward in WiGig 60GHz wireless technology (aka 802.11ad wifi) adoption with the acquisition of pioneer Wilocity and the announcement of a mobile SoC reference design featuring the technology.

"WiGig will play an important role in Qualcomm's strategy to address consumers' increasingly sophisticated smartphone, tablet and computing requirements," the company says. It does not reveal how much it paid for Wilocity, but its pricetag was reportedly set at around $300 million.

Wilocity is one of the founding members of the 802.11ad working group, and already sells WiGig solutions to Dell and Cisco.

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index report wifi traffic is to exceed wired traffic by 2018 as global IP traffic across fixed and mobile connections grows nearly 3-fold over the 2013-2018 forecast period.

Spurring such growth are growing internet user and device numbers, faster broadband speeds and increased video viewing-- for instance Cisco predicts the FIFA World Cup alone will generate 4.3 exabytes of IP traffic, 3 times the monthly IP traffic generated by host city Brazil.

Following that Cisco expects global IP traffic to reach 132 exabytes per month by 2018, the equivalent of 8.8 billion simultaneous 4K/UHD World Cup final streams.

Non-PC devices are a main IP traffic driver-- 33% of 2013 IP traffic came from non-PC devices, a share forecast to grow to 57% by 2018 through TVs, tablets, smartphones and M2M connections.