20 Years of the WWW

On 30 April, 1993, CERN put the world wide web into the public domain. The first web page to be published has been restored to its original URL at http://info.cern.ch/. You can see a copy of the original web site here: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html.

It’s not much to look at by today’s standards, but its like looking back in time. It’s just plain HTML without the CSS and flash elements that make websites look modern. It’s just text and links.

If you understand how the web works, you know that the WWW is a bunch of html documents (or pages) linked to each other via links. This first page contained links to other pages and so on and so forth. Today, the WWW is made up of approximately 14.3 billion such pages worldwide.

This web page is the Adam of the web, where it all started.

Source: BBC

An Internet Minute

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New York ain’t got nothing on the internet. According to some figures published by Intel, more happens on the internet in 60 seconds, especially on the social web, than even the wildest of New York minutes. Here’s a summary:

6 new Wikipedia articles published
100 new Linkedin accounts
1,300 new mobile users
47,000 app downloads
61,141 hours of music listened to on Pandora
83,000 $ in Amazon sales
100,000 tweets on Twitter
277,000 Facebook logins
1,300,000 videos viewed on Youtube
2,000,000 Google searches
20,000,000 photos viewed on Flickr
204,000,000 emails sent

via: Daily Mail

Source: scoop.intel.com

Netflix’s ISP Speed Index

Netflix is pretty great, but if your internet connection doesn’t give you the bandwidth needed to stream video without interruption, you might be better off going to Redbox.

Netflix has indexed the largest internet service providers and ranked them according to average download speeds. The ISPs rank as follows:

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What exactly does this mean for us who watch video online? Well, the bandwidth needed for streaming video, according to hometheater.com, goes like this:

Standard definition (480p) requires 1 Mbps
High definition (720p) requires 2.25 Mbps
XHigh definition (1080p) requires 4.5 Mbps

This means that most ISPs give us enough bandwidth for standard definition video, but unless you pay for the high tier service, high definition is out of the question. If I could give these ISPs a letter grade, the ones below 2.0 Mbps would get a measly C, while only Google Fiber gets an A.

Source: ispspeedindex.netflix.com

Wearable Computing is on Its Way

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Google and Apple are both working on wearable computing devices expected to hit the market soon. Google’s Glass should hit stores sometime this year with a $1,500 price tag, according to a post by The Verge’s Joshua Topolsky. Apple is reportedly working on an “iWatch” with few details available other than the usual Apple rumors going around the blogosphere.

I can see why a smart watch would be a great gadget to have. There are some features on our smart phones that would work fine on the smaller screen of a wrist watch. Like, for example, the calendar, reminders, the clock (duh!), and other stuff. However, Apple’s iWatch is nowhere as innovative as what Mountain View has in store.

Google Glass looks like a much more ambitious project which includes which puts a computer screen right in front of your eyes. It reminds me of a primitive version of Jarvis, the state-of-the-art and witty AI connected to the Iron Man suit, which gives Tony Stark an augmented reality we can only dream of. Google is taking baby steps towards something like that.

Would anyone wear something so ubergeeky? Maybe not at first, but keep in mind, this is only the first model of what could be the first of many, each smaller, more mainstream, and less intrusive than the last. I can see a trend of different types of wearable computing devices coming our way, starting with a watch and glasses, and then other more mouthwatering gizmos.

I’m not the product, but I play one on the internet.

Balancing response to the “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product” line popular on the web, and the recent outcry over changes at Instagram’s privacy and terms of use policies, by Derek Powazek, CEO of Cute-Fight, whose recent blog post made it to the front page of Techmeme.

Powazek shrwedly outlines, among other things, how free, ad-based media is nothing new and has been around since before the internet existed, and how companies whose products we pay for don’t necessarily treat us any better than those whose products we don’t pay for.

It’s a sobering post if you’re geeky enough to want to be in the know of these kinds of issues and want to hear another side of the story.

Source: powazek.com

iCulture This neat little graphic from Nielsen Wire shows Apple’s dominance in the consumer market, specifically, the digital arena. One out of 5 people, who want a shiny new toy to play with, are shopping for iPads, not just any tablet computer, but iPads. Add the iPad Mini to that and you have nearly 1 in 3 shoppers wanting either of the two iPad models. I haven’t jumped on the iPad bandwagon yet. To me it’s just a toy for grown-ups. Between my smartphone and laptop, I have all my computing needs covered, but never say never.
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iCulture

This neat little graphic from Nielsen Wire shows Apple’s dominance in the consumer market, specifically, the digital arena. One out of 5 people, who want a shiny new toy to play with, are shopping for iPads, not just any tablet computer, but iPads.

Add the iPad Mini to that and you have nearly 1 in 3 shoppers wanting either of the two iPad models.

I haven’t jumped on the iPad bandwagon yet. To me it’s just a toy for grown-ups. Between my smartphone and laptop, I have all my computing needs covered, but never say never.

Source: blog.nielsen.com