As the ongoing Meerkatification of humanity proves, the internet (in one form or another) is becoming more and more about video. At peak times, Netflix and YouTube alone account for half of all web traffic. That’s an understandably huge burden for ISPs to carry. But as well as making the pipes bigger, we can also shrink down what goes through them. Read more…
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Why You Should Care About VP9, Google’s Clever Video Codec
The Roku 2 and Roku 3 streaming boxes are getting refreshed today, with new hardware providing faster movement through the interface as you jump around between channels and apps. Read More
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Roku’s Boxes Get Better Hardware And News Ways To Find Stuff To Watch
schwit1 writes with this snippet from Ars Technica: In the wake of the Thursday arrest of two women accused of attempting to build a bomb, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wrote on her website that the 1971 book on bomb making, which may have aided the terror suspects in some small way, should be “banned from the Internet.” The senator seems to fail to realize that not only has The Anarchist Cookbook been in print for decades (it’s sold on Amazon!), but also has openly circulated online for nearly the same period of time. In short, removing it from the Internet would be impossible. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Sen. Feinstein Says Anarchist Cookbook Should Be "Removed From the Internet"
Exactly half a century ago this week, a rocket shot off from the California coast. It carried the U.S.’s first and only (known) space nuclear reactor, SNAP-10A, which has been circling the Earth ever since and will continue to circle for another 3, 000 years. Read more…
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For 50 Years Now, the U.S. Has Had a Nuclear Reactor Orbiting in Space
When announcing that a Windows 10 Preview with the new Project Spartan browser was available , Microsoft made clear that the browser ain’t done yet. What we have now is an early iteration of the company’s take on a legacy-free forward-looking browser—a browser that’s going to ditch the venerable Internet Explorer name. Superficially, everything about the browser is new. Its interface takes cues from all the competition: tabs on top, in the title bar, the address bar inside each tab. The look is simple and unadorned; monochrome line-art for icons, rectangular tabs, and a flat look—the address bar, for example, doesn’t live in a recessed pit (as it does in Chrome) and is integral with the toolbar (unlike Internet Explorer). The design concept works well for me, though I doubt this will be universal. As is so often the case on Windows, it doesn’t really fit with the rest of the operating system. While parts of Windows 10 have a similar appearance—most notably the Settings app—Windows overall remains an inconsistent mish-mash of looks and feels, to its detriment. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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First look at Project Spartan, Microsoft’s take on the modern browser
msm1267 writes Dark corners of the Internet harbor trouble. They’re supposed to. But what about when Yahoo, CNN.com, TMZ and other busy destination sites heave disaster upon visitors? That’s the challenge posed by malvertising, the latest hacker Golden Goose used in cybercrime operations and even in some targeted attacks. Hackers are thriving in this arena because they have found an unwittingly complicit partner in the sundry ad networks to move malicious ads through legitimate processes. Adding gasoline to the raging fire is the abuse of real-time ad bidding, a revolution in the way online ads are sold. RTB enables better ad targeting for advertisers and less unsold inventory for publishers. Hackers can also hitch a ride with RTB and target malicious ads on any site they wish, much the way a legitimate advertiser would use the same system. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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How Malvertising Abuses Real-Time Bidding On Ad Networks
Only a few minutes ago, the entire music industry stood on a stage in a collective display of how rich and out of touch they are. They think you are willing to pay up to double the price of other streaming music services to pay for their streaming music service, because they are crazy. Read more…
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The World’s Most Famous Musicians Just Hosted a Bonkers Press Conference
If you have AT&T’s gigabit Internet service and wonder why it seems so affordable, here’s the reason—AT&T is boosting profits by rerouting all your Web browsing to an in-house traffic scanning platform, analyzing your Internet habits, then using the results to deliver personalized ads to the websites you visit, e-mail to your inbox, and junk mail to your front door. In a few select areas including Austin, Texas, and Kansas City, Missouri—places where AT&T competes against the $70-per-month Google Fiber—Ma Bell offers its own $70-per-month ” GigaPower ” fiber-to-the-home Internet access. But signing up for the deal also opts customers in to AT&T’s “Internet Preferences” program, which gives the company permission to examine each customer’s Web traffic in exchange for a price that matches Google’s. AT&T charges at least another $29 a month ($99 total) to provide standalone Internet service that doesn’t perform this extra scanning of your Web traffic. The privacy fee can balloon to more than $60 for bundles including TV or phone service. Certain modem rental and installation fees also apply only to service plans without Internet Preferences. Read 67 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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AT&T’s plan to watch your Web browsing—and what you can do about it
Biometric security is a feature already found on lots of mobile phones and tablets and it’s getting better and better , but Microsoft wants to bring the tech front and center on Windows 10, using fingerprint, faces, and even your irises to completely kill the password once and for all. Read more…
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Windows 10 Could Mean Never Typing a Password Again
jones_supa writes: In Windows 8, you were trapped in either the Modern UI or using the desktop, and going back and forth between the two worlds was cumbersome. Windows 10 takes a hybrid approach, allowing the user to choose between a classic desktop and a full-screen mobile experience. The feature, which has been developed under the name “Continuum, ” is now simply called “Tablet mode”. In the build 9926 of Windows 10 Technical Preview, switching between the modes can finally be tried out. The leaked build 10036 shows that eventually you will also have the option to automate the process for dockable devices. Since Windows 10 is being positioned as the one OS for all of Microsoft’s devices, being able to control the desktop and tablet experiences like this is critical to appeasing the consumer. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Windows 10 Enables Switching Between Desktop and Tablet Modes