Internet – Page 5 – Impact Lab

communication, Employment, Internet, new technology, Science & Technology News

How 5G will reinvent “working from home”

September 24, 2019

It’s 10:00 am. Do you know where your employee is? No doubt they are working—somewhere.

Thanks to greatly improved internet connectivity and workforce applications, employees in an increasing number of professions can work just about anywhere they want—in their home, at a coffee shop, on a plane. And chances are they’re more productive and more engaged than they would be if they were in the office. They may even be planning to stay in their job longer because of their flexible work location. In 2017, Stanford economics professor Nicholas Bloom, in a TED Talk, went so far as to call work-from-home potentially as innovative as the driverless car.

Now, work-from-home is itself about to be disrupted, by the coming of 5G and its ability to enable virtual reality (VR) anywhere through what’s known as XR, the combination of extended, augmented, virtual, and mixed reality technologies. Fifth-generation (5G) communications networks, with their exponentially faster connection speeds, capacity, and communication response times (known as latency), will make possible an astonishing range of innovative new products and services.

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Elon Musk, Internet, Science & Technology News

Bezos and Musk’s satellite internet could save Americans $30B a year

August 30, 2019

LEOs will change the game.

Consumer policy expert, BroadbandNow — Tyler has more than a decade of experience in IT and networking, and has been writing about broadband issues such as the digital divide, net neutrality, cybersecurity, and internet access since 2015.

Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites for broadband internet access are beginning to display signs of real potential. Recently, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin pulled back the curtain on its space intentions by announcing Project Kuiper, a 3,236-satellite constellation. Additionally, Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starlink recently launched a rocket containing 60 satellites from Florida’s Cape Canaveral.

The fight for space internet supremacy is on. Both players, alongside others like OneWeb, are spending billions in space in hopes of making further billions annually once the satellites go into service for consumers in the US and around the globe.

Continue reading… “Bezos and Musk’s satellite internet could save Americans $30B a year”

communication, Computer Security, Internet, Science & Technology News

You won’t see quantum internet coming

August 30, 2019

The quantum internet is coming sooner than you think—even sooner than quantum computing itself. When things change over, you might not even notice. But when they do, new rules will protect your data against attacks from computers that don’t even exist yet.

Despite the fancy name, the “quantum internet” won’t be some futuristic new way to navigate online. It won’t produce any mind-blowing new content, at least not for decades. The quantum internet will look more or less the same as the internet you’re using now, but scientists and cryptographers hope it could provide protection against not only theoretical threats but also those we haven’t dreamed up yet.

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Crime, Internet, Science & Technology News, security

Email sextortion scams are on the rise and they’re scary — here’s what to do if you get one

July 1, 2019

Overall, extortion by email is growing significantly, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Compliant Center (IC3). Last year, these complaints rose 242% to 51,146 reported crimes, with total losses of $83 million.

“The majority of extortion complaints received in 2018 were part of a sextortion campaign in which victims received an email threatening to send a pornographic video of them or other compromising information to family, friends, coworkers or social network contacts if a ransom was not paid,” according to the FBI

“Shame can be a tremendous weapon that these criminals use,” one expert explains.

Continue reading… “Email sextortion scams are on the rise and they’re scary — here’s what to do if you get one”

Amazon.com, Analysis, Internet, Latest Trend, Microsoft, Science & Technology News

Mary Meeker’s most important trends on the internet

June 25, 2019

Mary Meeker, Code 2019/Recode

It’s the holiday season for data nerds: That is, Mary Meeker is delivering her annual Internet Trends Report — the most highly anticipated slide deck in Silicon Valley — again at Code Conference 2019.

The general partner at venture capital firm Bond Capital delivered a rapid-fire 333-page slideshow that looked back at every important internet trend in the last year and looked forward about what these trends tell us to expect in the year ahead. The “Queen of the Internet” and former Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner touched on everything from accelerating internet ad spend in the US to the growth of digital delivery services in Latin America.

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Elon Musk, Internet, Science & Technology News, SpaceX

Elon Musk’s Starlink:The hidden agenda behind SpaceX’s mission to DOMINATE space internet?

June 23, 2019

ELON MUSK’s Starlink, the controversial space internet system designed by SpaceX, may have an undisclosed purpose.

Aside from providing high-speed internet access to billions of people in “underserved communities around the world”, Elon Musk’s vision could advance the ambitions of SpaceX’s sister company, Tesla. Manny Shar, head of analytics at Bryce Space and Technology, told Express.co.uk: “I do see the potential for Tesla with Starlink.” When a Tesla vehicle rolls off of the manufacturing line it comes internet-connected with an AT&T LTE cellular connection much like what is in a mobile phone.

Continue reading… “Elon Musk’s Starlink:The hidden agenda behind SpaceX’s mission to DOMINATE space internet?”

Analysis, Human Behavior, Internet, Science & Technology News

Average US time spent with mobile in 2019 has increased

June 16, 2019

US Adults Spend More Time on Mobile than They Do Watching TV

For the first time ever, US consumers will spend more time using their mobile devices than watching TV, with smartphone use dominating that time spent.

Consumers’ use of smartphones will continue to make up the majority of their media consumption, but we predict that use will plateau by 2020, as consumers become increasingly uneasy about overuse of mobile devices.

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Apple, Entertainment, Internet, Music, Science & Technology News

Apple is pulling the plug on iTunes after 18 Years

June 13, 2019

Apple CEO Steve Jobs gestures as he announces Apple ‘iTunes’ Music Store in the UK, France and Germany 15 June, 2004 at a press release party in London. The iTunes Music Store will allow music fans in the three countries the same large online2011 AFP

Apple is finally putting to rest the program that started a “music revolution.” iTunes, which helped usher in the mp3 era of music, will shutter after nearly two decades. Bloomberg reports the tech giant will announce the iTunes shutdown at a developer conference that begins Monday.

This development has been rumored for years, as subscription-based streaming services — including the company’s own Apple Music — have overtaken music downloads. According to the RIAA’s 2018 year-end report, streaming amounted to 75% of the U.S. music industry’s revenue.

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Big Problems, Internet, New Viewpoints, Science & Technology News, Science Fiction

In a world awash in information, the curator is king

June 11, 2019

A sci-fi novelist on what he learned writing a trilogy of speculative novels that extrapolate how feeds shape our lives, politics, and future

Feeds shape our world. Google uses hundreds of variables to determine the search results you see. A complex statistical engine produces your personalized Netflix queue. Facebook uses everything it knows about you and your friends to build your timeline. Your credit score is compiled from third-party data brokers. Taylor Swift uses facial recognition software to identify stalkers at concerts. Even these Herculean efforts are dwarfed in scale by the Chinese social credit system that will integrate data from many disparate public and private sources.

Feeds are inevitable to the extent that they are useful. Every minute of every day, 156 million emails are sent, 400 hours of video are uploaded to Youtube, and there are 600 new page edits to Wikipedia. There is so much more information than we can possibly digest, and feeds are the imperfect filters that we use to try to distill what we want from all that’s out there. But their imperfections generate horrendous side effects, like unjust parole decisions made on the basis of racially biased data. And even more fundamentally, the sheer scale of feeds, and their incomprehensibility to most users, give their masters enormous hidden power.

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Elon Musk, Internet, Science & Technology News, Space, SpaceX

Space X launches 60 satellites for Elon Musk’s Starlink Internet Constellation

June 4, 2019

The 60 satellites packed tightly into a fairing.

With one launch in the books and potentially dozens still to go, SpaceX has begun its build-out of the ambitious Starlink internet constellation—a series of interconnected satellites designed to deliver high-speed internet to paying customers around the globe.

The 60 Starlink satellites, each weighing 500 pounds (227 kg), were released to low Earth orbit (LEO) yesterday at around 11:32 pm ET, SpaceX confirmed in a series of tweets. Together, the tightly packed satellites weighed 13.6 metric tons, “making this launch the heaviest mission for SpaceX to date,” according to SpaceNews.

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communication, facebook, Internet, Science & Technology News

The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

June 5, 2019

This is also what the internet is becoming: a dark forest

In his sci-fi trilogy The Three Body Problem, author Liu Cixin presents the dark forest theory of the universe.

When we look out into space, the theory goes, we’re struck by its silence. It seems like we’re the only ones here. After all, if other forms of life existed, wouldn’t they show themselves? Since they haven’t, we assume there’s no one else out there.

Liu invites us to think about this a different way.

Imagine a dark forest at night. It’s deathly quiet. Nothing moves. Nothing stirs. This could lead one to assume that the forest is devoid of life. But of course, it’s not. The dark forest is full of life. It’s quiet because night is when the predators come out. To survive, the animals stay silent.

Is our universe an empty forest or a dark one? If it’s a dark forest, then only Earth is foolish enough to ping the heavens and announce its presence. The rest of the universe already knows the real reason why the forest stays dark. It’s only a matter of time before the Earth learns as well.

This is also what the internet is becoming: a dark forest.

Continue reading… “The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet”