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Comms and Internet

Not Barks, But Tweets

06 October 2010 Marco Attard Comms and Internet
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Not Barks, But Tweets

Why should humans have all the fun? Mattel's Puppy Tweets lets dogs tweet their owners.  Dogs wear a collar-attached device that interprets the dog's physical activity and sends an appropriate tweet (from of a choice of 500 dog-favoured activities).

Dog tweets range from "Chasing everything that moves is a full-time job!" if the dog is very active to "Your comforter does what its name says it does" if it's sleeping.

The device runs on wi-fi and the USB receiver needs to be plugged in a switched-on Continue reading...

The Death of the JPEG?

04 October 2010 Bob Snyder Comms and Internet
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The Death of the JPEG?

Google will unveil WebP, their new graphics format for displaying. JPEG file format is traditionally used for images on the web, but Google finds it too slow. 65% of bytes on the Web are from images and WebP could cut 40% from image file sizes.

The most common image formats on the web today work on technology from more than a decade ago. Engineers at Google looked for a way to further compress images like JPEG to make them load faster, yet preserve quality and resolution.

You can bet Google Continue reading...

An Internet 100x Faster and Cheaper

03 August 2010 Bob Snyder Comms and Internet
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An Internet 100x Faster and Cheaper

MIT researchers say they can make the Internet 100X to 1000X faster and a lot cheaper (by reducing the amount of energy it consumes).

The trick gain is to replace electrical signals inside the routers with faster optical signals would make the Internet 100, if not 1,000 times faster, while also reducing the amount of energy it consumes.

Yes, optical fibers are already widely used in the Internet. But the routers that direct traffic on the Internet typically convert optical signals to electrical Continue reading...

Digital Download Passes Blu-ray for First Time

03 August 2010 Bob Snyder Comms and Internet
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Digital Download Passes Blu-ray for First Time

Tt's not that Blu-ray isn't finally racing along…it's more the danger than digital download is sprinting faster and threatens to permanently overtake Blu-ray any time soon.

Now digital distribution platforms for in-home entertainment (including video-on-demand) have outpaced Blu-ray Disc in US consumer spending during the first half of 2010, passing the $1 billion mark for the first time, according to new figures released by DEG.

Electronic sell-through increased 37% year-over-year to $285 million Continue reading...

Internet Could Win Nobel Peace Prize

08 July 2010 Bob Snyder Comms and Internet
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Internet Could Win Nobel Peace Prize

The internet is in the running for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

You may think this is very Scandinavian concept because this week Finland residents will have the right by law to access a broadband connection at a mandated speed (at least 1 Mbps, with a goal of 100 Mbps by 2015.)

Yet the Nobel nomination actually follows a campaign by the Italian edition of Wired magazine.

Following the Dynamite-inventor’s will, Alfred Nobel's Peace Prize is to go to whoever "shall have done the most or th Continue reading...

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