Amazon’s Alexa is gaining knowledge at a rapid clip.
Continue reading… “Amazon’s Alexa has gained 14,000 skills in the last year”
The tiny satellites ushering in the new space revolution
Planet Labs and other companies are sending hundreds of low-cost satellites into orbit. We’re only beginning to understand how that will change life on Earth.
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Blockchain: The Next Generation of the Internet
Blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, could soon give rise to a new internet era even more disruptive and transformative than the current one, according to a white paper, Realizing the Potential of Blockchain, published by the World Economic Forum today.
We’re running out of domain names—what happens when they’re all gone?
The world is nearly out of good “.com” domain names—and even the fourth circuit of the United States Court of Appeals agrees.
As global internet usage rises, .com naming is going to get more and more complicated. Our languages only contain a finite number of meaningful words, so brand naming is becoming much more than coming up with a unique, snazzy moniker—it also involves knowledge of intellectual property rights, law, and a large of dash of luck.
Continue reading… “We’re running out of domain names—what happens when they’re all gone?”
Mary Meeker’s 2017 internet trends report
Mary Meeker, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, delivered her annual rapid-fire internet trends report at Code Conference at the Terranea Resort in California.
Here’s a first look at the most highly anticipated slide deck in Silicon Valley. This year’s report includes 355 slides and tons of information, including a new section on healthcare that Meeker didn’t present live.
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A New, More Rigorous Study Confirms: The More You Use Facebook, the Worse You Feel
The average Facebook user spends almost an hour on the site every day, according to data provided by the company last year. A Deloitte survey found that for many smartphone users, checking social media apps are the first thing they do in the morning – often before even getting out of bed. Of course, social interaction is a healthy and necessary part of human existence. Thousands of studies have concluded that most human beings thrive when they have strong, positive relationships with other human beings.
Continue reading… “A New, More Rigorous Study Confirms: The More You Use Facebook, the Worse You Feel”
A New Type of Li-Fi Has Reportedly Cracked 40 Gbps, 100 Times Faster Than the Best Wi-Fi
If you’re frustrated with slow wi-fi, you might be one of the many people eagerly awaiting the commercialisation of li-fi (or light-based wi-fi), which promises to be up to 100 times faster than the connections we use today.
Most li-fi systems rely on transmitting data via LED bulbs, which means there are some limitations to how easily the technology could be applied to systems outside the lab. But researchers have come up with a new type of li-fi that uses infrared light instead, and it’s reportedly already cracked 40 gigabits per second (gbps) in early testing.
The World Wide Web’s inventor warns it’s in peril on 28th anniversary
Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web, now wants to save it.
The computer scientist who wrote the blueprint for what would become the World Wide Web 28 years ago today is alarmed at what has happened to it in the past year.
“Over the past 12 months, I’ve become increasingly worried about three new trends, which I believe we must tackle in order for the web to fulfill its true potential as a tool which serves all of humanity,” he said in a statement issued from London. He cited compromised personal data; fake news that he says has “spread like wildfire”; and the lack of regulation in political advertising, which he says threatens democracy.
Continue reading… “The World Wide Web’s inventor warns it’s in peril on 28th anniversary”
What software engineers are making around the world right now
A new study published by the data science team at Hired, a jobs marketplace for tech workers, shows why it’s becoming harder for software engineers to afford life in San Francisco, even while they make more money than their peers elsewhere in the U.S. and the world.
Based on 280,000 interview requests and job offers provided by more than 5,000 companies to 45,000 job seekers on Hired’s platform, the company’s data team has determined that the average salary for a software engineer in the Bay Area is $134,000. That’s more than software engineers anywhere in the country, through Seattle trails closely behind, paying engineers an average of $126,000. In other tech hubs, including Boston, Austin, L.A., New York, and Washington, D.C., software engineers are paid on average between $110,000 and $120,000.
Yet higher salaries don’t mean much with jaw-dropping rents and other soaring expenses associated with life in “Silicon Valley,” and San Francisco more specifically. Indeed, factoring in the cost of living, San Francisco is now one of the lowest-paying cities for software engineers, according to Hired’s lead data scientist, Jessica Kirkpatrick. According to her analysis, the $110,000 that an Austin engineer makes is the rough equivalent of being paid $198,000 in the Bay Area, considering how much further each dollar goes in the sprawling capital of Texas. The same is true of Melbourne, Australia, where software engineers are paid a comparatively low $107,000 on average, but who are making the equivalent of $150,000 in San Francisco.
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Dash Passes Litecoin and Monero to Claim Number 4 Cryptocurrency Status
In a major price surge, Dash has nearly doubled market cap over the last month, overtaking Litecoin and Monero to become the fourth most valued cryptocurrency.
This week one year ago, Dash was the #7 ranked cryptocurrency with a market cap of about $23 mln. This number grew steadily over the course of the year, finishing out the year with a market cap of $69 mln and maintained #7 ranking. Over the course of 2017 so far, however, Dash’s growth has significantly picked up steam, exceeding $100 mln over January. This month Dash has risen to a nearly $200 mln market cap, currently with a value of over $27 and 0.23 Bitcoin at present time.
Continue reading… “Dash Passes Litecoin and Monero to Claim Number 4 Cryptocurrency Status”
What if the internet stopped working for a day?
Jeff Hancock likes to give his Stanford University students weekend assignments that let them experience concepts discussed in class for themselves. Before 2008, he would sometimes challenge his students to stay off the internet for 48 hours and then discuss how it affected them. But when Hancock returned to work in 2009, after a year-long sabbatical, things had changed.
“When I tried to introduce the task, there was a class revolt,” says Hancock, who studies the psychological and social processes involved in online communication. “The students emphatically said the assignment was impossible and unfair.”
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Welcome to the Internet of Dangerous Things
Bruce Schneier: Last year, on October 21, your digital video recorder — or at least a DVR like yours — knocked Twitter off the internet. Someone used your DVR, along with millions of insecure webcams, routers, and other connected devices, to launch an attack that started a chain reaction, resulting in Twitter, Reddit, Netflix, and many sites going off the internet. You probably didn’t realize that your DVR had that kind of power. But it does.
Continue reading… “Welcome to the Internet of Dangerous Things”
