Submitted by admin on Tue, 12/22/2020 - 10:17
The "big three" of social media--Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube--have become the targets of increasing criticism around the way they choose to allow some users to post "acceptable" content while censoring other types of content. The companies' defense is to claim the protection of Section 230, a portion of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.
Submitted by admin on Tue, 02/18/2020 - 13:45
Apple TV+, according to MacRumors, has the highest quality streaming service available, with the average streaming speed (bandwidth required) reaching 29 Megabits/second. So if you have two people in a household watching two Apple TV+ programs on two different devices, you need somewhere north of 60 Meg of bandwidth.
Submitted by acohill on Tue, 11/05/2019 - 10:07
Microsoft is developing a new glass-based storage technology that can hold many gigs of data on a small glass plate. We need something like this because all of the magnetic-based storage (e.g. hard drives) and DVD/CD disks eventually degrade and fail.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 01/11/2019 - 11:03
RSS, which stood for several different things, depending on who you asked (Real Simple Syndication was probably the most popular), has withered away. It was designed in the early days of the Web to make it easy to process and read news articles and blog posts from many different sites. Once you subscribed to a Web site using your RSS reader app, you could easily browse and read all the content from that site.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 11/12/2018 - 10:10
This recent article from USA Today says that cord cutting is accelerating.
Customers are looking at the incredible variety of content available from OTT (Over The Top) services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, and deciding that they can save money by just paying for Internet and a few OTT subscriptions.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 06/23/2017 - 10:45
YouTube (part of Google) has launched a streaming TV service, making the whole video on demand space an even more confusing array of services and options, which include Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Roku, offerings directly from some of the alphabet networks, and many others. But competition is a wonderful thing.
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 03/01/2017 - 12:01
I've been writing about the death of TV since 2005, and twelve years later, the body may be finally in rigor mortis, or close to it. YouTube has announced a $35/month TV service that includes Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, Disney, and....ESPN. It's ESPN that may finally break the back of the traditional cable subscription business model. We've heard very consistently that a lot of residential customers have not given up their cable or satellite subscription because they want to watch sports.
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 03/01/2017 - 11:53
Bio-diversity on the Internet is a good thing, just like bio-diversity in the real world is a good thing. The Amazon S3 failure yesterday caused major disruptions in a lot of Internet services, particularly on the east coast of the U.S.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 12/12/2016 - 08:45
As our portable devices become more common and more powerful, the Web is being wrecked by the blight of ads. I see this both with browsers on computers but also and especially on the portable devices, where the pop-up and pop-over advertising not only obscures the content but is often impossible to get rid of. On a smartphone, and I don't care how big the screen is, the little 'X' or "Close ad" button is so small as to be unusable.
It is now ordinary to visit a site and then leave within a few seconds without reading anything because the ads are so difficult to get rid of.
Submitted by acohill on Sun, 10/02/2016 - 13:48
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 11/27/2015 - 10:51
As "TV," which from here on out I will always put in quotes, since "TV" now really just means "sitting on the couch and watching video from any one of hundreds (thousands?) of sources," continues its death spiral, NBC is a perfect example of stupidity perfected.
NBC refuses to put some of its most popular shows on services like Hulu. Instead, they want to force viewers onto the NBC Web site and watch those shows using NBC's own streaming video. What is so bad about that? Well, two things.
Submitted by acohill on Thu, 10/22/2015 - 16:48
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 10/05/2015 - 11:52
So certain portions of the InnerTubes are all abuzz over this supposed new app and service called Peeple.
It is hard to know where to start, as there are layers of fear, loathing, intrigue, and suspicion swirling around this new service. The fact that it already has a page on Snopes.com should tell you something.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 09/21/2015 - 11:52
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 03/09/2015 - 14:06
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 01/07/2015 - 13:27
As the old saying goes, "It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings." Dish Network just brought the fat lady out on the stage, and she is singing Sling TV. It's a new OTT (Over The Top) streaming video service that will include ESPN, Disney, CNN, TNT, and a bunch of other "channels," and I have "channels" in quotes because it is an archaic concept that dates back to the 1950s. But we know what it means.
Submitted by acohill on Tue, 12/23/2014 - 15:43
New data suggests that the death of cable and satellite TV is being led by children. Kids don't care about watching the latest episode of a cartoon...reruns are just fine to keep them amused. Kids are growing up with on-demand services like Netflix and Hulu for their video fix. When they strike out on their own, the notion of buying a package of cable TV is going to seem quaint.
Submitted by acohill on Tue, 12/23/2014 - 08:49
David Strom has a thoughtful analysis of the Sony hacking mess and the subsequent North Korean threats against the Sony movie "The Interview," where he points out several sad ironies in the two incidents.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 08/25/2014 - 10:58
Tablet TV is a new venture that takes us back to the fifties, when everyone had a TV antenna on top of the house. Perhaps taking a hint from Aereo and its problems, Tablet TV has localized the Aereo concept. Where Aereo had thousands of centralized antennas that grabbed over the air digital TV signals in major markets, Tablet TV gives users an inexpensive, small box and antenna that grabs local over the air signals.
Pages