-Opening Comments
“Welcome to HiWEB-Interactive, bringing you information from the edge of technology”
*This is a summary
of recent news and technology highlights.
HiWEB-Interactive – Show #12 – From May 22th 2008
Airing weekly Thursdays at 8p (PST) – And available on LIVE.HIWEB.NET as well as archived
-Hot NewsTopics this week
(*Prepped 24 Hours Prior)
1 -
AT&T To Finish Deploying Faster 3G Network In June
2 -
ArsTechnica acquired
3 -'Major'
Flash Player beta released
4 -
Comcast Lied to FCC, Blocks BitTorrent Traffic 24/7
5 -
A win for digital distribution as Netflix set-top box debuts
6 -Sprint
to limit data usage on everything plans
*Youtube viewers make sure to see HiWEB.NET for the live streaming, also this entire show and other past shows.
-Review of Hot Topics
(*Elaborate on Hot Topics)
*SEE PRINTED
NOTES…..
1 -AT&T
To Finish Deploying Faster 3G Network In June -
AT&Ton Wednesday said it would complete the deployment of its faster 3G wireless
broadband service by the end of June.The telecommunications company said the
remaining six markets
would be connected
to its HSUPA technology, which delivers up to 800 KB per second in upload speeds
and 1.4 Mb per second in download capabilities. The service will be available to
customers who have supporting devices, such as notebooks with AT&T's Laptop
Connect wireless modems. However, such high-speed services among carriers are
expensive with rates of $60 a month or more.HSUPA, or high-speed uplink packet
access, is a 3G, or third generation, mobile telephony protocol. The technology
is expected to be an improvement over AT&T's slower HSDPA high-speed service.
Since 2005, AT&T has invested more than $20 billion in network improvements and
upgrades, according to the company.The HSUPA deployment is expected to put AT&T
on par with Sprint and Verizon Wireless, which offer EVDO-based mobile
broadband. HSUPA is part of the HSPA, or high-speed packet access, family of 3G
standards, and EVDO belongs to the CDMA2000 family.AT&T said it plans to
continue boosting network performance with the eventual adoption of HSPA+ and
later LTE, or long term evolution, technologies. LTE
has evolved as the wireless networking technology of choice
for the future. Verizon (NYSE:
VZ)
Wireless and Alltel (NYSE:
AT)
have also chosen the fourth-generation wireless technology for future
deployment.AT&T claims to have the largest digital voice and data networks in
the United States, with 3G roaming available in 60 countries, including Japan
and South Korea; and voice calling in more than 200 countries.More than three
quarters of the mobile phones in AT&T handset portfolio is 3G capable, the
company said. AT&T plans to introduce more phones in the summer and fall.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/3G/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207801696
<Change Slide>
2 -ArsTechnica
acquired by Conde Nast
-
On the heels of CBS acquiring CNET for $1.8-billion comes another deal involving
“old” media and “new” media:
according to TechCrunch,
the folks over at Conde Nast — the magazine publishing family that owns Vogue,
the New Yorker and Wired — have plunked down about $25-million for ArsTechnica,
the tech site that recently caused a minor blog storm over an alleged
lack of attribution
in their blogs posts. Although Conde Nast is mostly known for print magazines,
it has been making inroads into digital publishing, including the purchase of
Wired (for about $25-million) last year, as well as the acquisition of Digg
competitor Reddit. Conde also owns
Epicurious.com
and the recently-launched online magazine Portfolio, and has other online assets
including
Style.com
and
Brides.com.
Conde Nast is a unit of Advance Publications, a private company controlled by
the Newhouse family that also owns a number of local business journals and
U.S. newspapers.
According to FM Publishing’s page on ArsTechnica,
the site gets
about 19 million page views a month (TechCrunch says the site gets 4.5 million
uniques a month, according to a source). With a CPM fee of about $36 per ad,
that means the site could make as much as $2-million a month in advertising
revenue — and it apparently has just eight employees, including co-founders Ken
“Caesar” Fisher and Jon “Hannibal” Stokes, who
started the site
in 1998.
In less than a month, ArsTechnica will be 10 years old. In 10 years time we've
accomplished much, but uncovered far more work we want to do. For the past six
months, we've been obsessed internally with the question of how to get
ArsTechnica into the fast lane, to grow our staff, coverage, and community at an
even greater clip.
http://mathewingram.com/media/2008/05/16/ars-technica-acquired-by-conde-nast/
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080519-ars-technica-acquired-by-conde-nast-the-low-down.html
<Change Slide>
3-
'Major' Flash Player beta released -
The "first major" Flash Player update since Adobe Systems completed its 2005
acquisition of Macromedia is due to be made available today as a beta.
The Flash Player 10 beta features a brand-new Just In Time (JIT) engine to load
pixel bytecode into the Flash Player engine.
The JIT engine will support a planned expansion in graphics and effects
rendering, with users themselves expected to create their own filters. Flash
Player 10 will incorporate
Adobe's Pixel Blender
- a language and toolkit previously codenamed Hydra - that'll let users build
their own pixel filters.
Among other features are a new text engine and the ability to create native 3D
effects. Flash Player 10 will also extend support for Linux to Ubuntu versions 7
and 8, going beyond the current Red Hat, SuSE, Mac OS/X and Windows.
Tom Barclay, Adobe senior product marketing manager, called version 10 the
"major release" of the ubiquitous Flash Player since Adobe's $3.4bn acquisition
of Macromedia. The first full version of Flash Player 9 shipped in June 2006,
six months after the deal was completed. There's no date yet for final
availability of version 10, other than "this year."®
http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/05/15/flash_player_10_beta/
<Change Slide>
4-Comcast
Lied to FCC, Blocks BitTorrent Traffic 24/7 -
New data on Comcast’s interference with BitTorrent traffic shows that the
company misinformed the FCC this February. Comcast has always argued that
BitTorrent upstream traffic was only blocked during periods of heavy network
traffic, this turns out to be a lie.
This is far from the truth. As can be seen for the graph, there is little
difference in the percentage of blocked customers throughout day. Furthermore,
the data shows
that there is also no difference between weekends and weekdays. BitTorrent is
simply blocked all day long, no matter how busy their network is.
The Max Planck Institute tested the connections of 788 Comcast customers, 494
(62%) experienced a slowdown of BitTorrent traffic. Comcast is not alone though,
well over 50% of the Cox subscribers that participated in the study were also
throttled. The good news is, other ISPs don’t seem to restrict BitTorrent
traffic on a wide scale.
After being pressured by the press and thousands of upset customers, Comcast
has announced
that it will stop targeting BitTorrent transfers, (somewhere in the future) and
promised to invest in its network capacity. For the time being the company will
continue to throttle BitTorrent users.
We have asked the FCC for a response, but they had not yet responded at time of
going to press
http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-lied-to-fcc-blocks-bittorrent-traffic-247-080515/
<Change Slide>
5–A
win for digital distribution as Netflix set-top box debuts -Finally
living up to its name, Netflix today introduced the Netflix Player by Roku, a
small piece of hardware that can play any Netflix titles available for Internet
streaming. With a cheap price and Netflix's signature subscription model, the
Netflix Player brings a new set of rules to the video distribution table.
Manufactured by Silicon Valley startup
Roku,
the Netflix Player is about the size of a Mac mini and a bit thicker than an
Apple TV. The unit impressively includes a full gamut of outputs, including
HDMI, component video, S-video, optical audio, and even good ol' fashioned
composite RCA jacks. Netflix doesn't want to leave any viewers in the dust just
because they haven't sprung for the latest and greatest. The Netflix Player can
get online via Ethernet or Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, and setup reportedly requires not
much more than entering a five-digit code the player gives you into your Netflix
account.
The cost? This is where things get interesting. Roku'sNetflix Player is a
one-time purchase of $99 (and available now). As long as you subscribe to any
Netflix plan costing $8.99 or more, you're ready to stream as much content as
you want.
<Change Slide>
6 -
Sprint to limit data usage on everything plans -
When is unlimited not unlimited? Apparently when it comes from
Sprint.
Though the carrier has been very active about touting its new "simply
everything" plan, which includes unlimited mobile Internet and messaging, it
plans to place a cap on monthly data usage next month. Sprint will limit its
simply everything customers to 5GB of data usage per month, plus 300MB per month
for off-network data roaming.BetaNews said Sprint began notifying customers in
monthly bills that were mailed this week. The change will go into effect 30 days
after customers receive the note. Also, the carrier said it will call customers
next month to make sure they're aware of the changes.
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9949646-1.html
<Change Slide>
- Viewer Questions
(*Troubleshooting, New Tech,
Etc.)
How to create your own Virtual Private Network?
What's Hamachi VPN?
-
The free Hamachi desktop application gives you secure, zero-configuration LAN
over the internet. Any app that works over a local network can be used with
Hamachi over the internet, like Windows file sharing, iTunes, Remote Desktop,
FTP, VNC and gaming. All of Hamachi's connections are secure, encrypted,
authenticated and peer-to-peer. Though Hamachi acts as a mediator between your
computers and creates the tunnel for their communication, Hamachi's servers
don't listen in on or log your activity.
Some situations you might use Hamachi:
You're on the road with your laptop
and want secure access to your PC's files.
Your office or dorm room computer
is behind a restrictive firewall that doesn't let you reach it from the
internet.
You want to add encryption to insecure network protocols like VNC.
You want to set up a shared folder
of files for friends and family to access.
Hamachi
will run on Microsoft Windows 2000, XP Pro and Home, Server 2003, and Windows
Vista. It will also run on Linux and Mac OSX.
Downloand Here
àhttps://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/vpn.asp?lang=en
More instructions at
http://lifehacker.com/software/vpn/geek-to-live--create-your-own-virtual-private-network-with-hamachi-201786.php
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-New
Technology to keep an Eye On
(Auto
Tech, Alt. Fuel, Environment, Hacking, High Tech, etc…)
1 -
World's Largest Tidal Turbine: First Pictures!
-
Off the coast of Ireland, history was just made. While windpower is taking off,
and could soon produce as much as 20% of America's power, harnessing energy from
the ocean is still in it's infancy.But recently
Marine Current Turbines
successfully
completed the installation
of the world's first megawatt-scale tidal turbine. And now we've got the first
images of the turbine installed to prove it. The 1000 tonSeaGen tidal turbine
was secured to the seabed and linked with Northern Ireland's electric grid. MCT
will now spend about 12 weeks testing the capabilities of the turbine before
regularly feeding power into the grid.Tidal power has several advantages over
wind. The power generation is more predictable (since you always know when the
tide will turn) and it is believed that they will have less ecological
impacts...since roads do not need to be built to them. There hasn't been enough
data yet to determine what affects they will have on marine life.
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1653/84/
<Change Slide>
2 -
The 80mph TRIAC Goes on Sale -
Although we love our public transportation here at Inhabitat, we cannot deny the
allure of a
zero-emission vehicle.
We’re always excited to see more sustainable transportation options for
consumers, especially when they go from concept to completely available. The
TRIAC,
designed by
Green Vehicles,
is a three wheeled highway capable plug-in electric vehicle that is ready to
achieve up to 80mph on the open road. This fun, fast, eco-friendly ride is set
to go on sale this summer!
The TRIAC is essentially a large, covered trike. The 20kw electric motor can
achieve a very reasonable 80mph, and will take you on travels up to 100 miles on
any given charge. It takes about 6 hours for its lithium-ion battery to recharge
fully and, as with most electric vehicles, it comes with a regenerative braking
system. The package for all of this three-wheeled fun runs about $20,000
dollars.
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/05/20/transportation-tuesday-the-80mph-triac-goes-on-sale/
<Change Slide>
3 -
Get a Dell dual-core desktop for $299
-
Check it out, baby, check it out (sorry, been watching too much American Idol):
Dell's rocking
Inspiron 530s desktops for just $299
(plus 30 bucks or so for shipping, and possibly sales tax as well) The
configuration includes a 2GHz Pentium E2180 dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, a
320GB hard drive, and a DVD burner--all wrapped in Dell's sexy little slimline
case.
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9949287-1.html
<Change Slide>
4
-
Turn Any Car into a Plug-In Hybrid for $3,300 -
Toyota
(Prius) and
GM
(the Volt and the Vue) seem to be in a race as to who will provide the first
mass-produced plug-in-hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV).
The backfit market is building, with options coming to market for
plug-in conversions for existing hybrids.
But what about the 10s of millions of normal, internal combustion engines out
there? Is there any hope for them?
If
PoulsenHydrid
is to be believed, the answer is a resounding YES.ThePoulsen Hybrid Power Assist
System "creats a PHEV by retrofitting electric motors, DC motor controllers,
storage batteries and an on-board charger to a conventional new or used
automobile." The electric system would be used for maintaining speed, after
acceleration.
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1649/69/
<Change Slide>
-Tech Tip / Demo
Convert PDF into editable
word documents….
PDF-to-Word Converter -
Windows only: There are many, many tools to convert Microsoft Word files into
PDF documents, including those built into the latest office suites, but what
about the other way around? Free PDF to Word Doc Converter is a small program
that solves a big headache for some office and document workers. Load up a PDF,
choose how you want to export the file—including images, shapes, and text layout
functions—and hit the convert button. My own tests found, like others, that some
pretty big Word files can come out, especially if you've got images and graphs
embedded, but for your standard text-only document, the free tool gets most of
the text and layout right. Free PDF to Word Converter is a free download for all
versions of Windows.
Free PDF to Word Converter
[via
FreewareGenius]
http://www.hellopdf.com/download.php
Some PDF to Word Converter
can help you to convert PDF to Word, so you can edit and reuse your PDF
content. Using Some PDF to Word Converter you can preserve original layout,
text, images, vector drawings of your pdf file.
Convert your PDF documents to Microsoft Word Documents - make your PDF content
editing and reusable with Some PDF to Word Converter!
Some PDF to Word Converter
[via
FreewareGenius]
http://somepdf.com/some-pdf-to-word-converter.html
-General Talk/Discussions
1-Viewers see giveaway link on HiWEB.NET for more details. Next Giveaway June 5th – Remember the eligibility requirements. Subscribe to Youtube, Register and Comment on Blog –*Andthen stay Tuned for Hot Giveaways
2- Future segments will include music production segments, hardware reviews and product demos…
3- We are currently engaging SME to produce custom segments away from live show –
4- Viewers can send show Tips / Recommendations to live@hiweb.net
5- HiWEB-Interactive Past Shows on http://www.hiweb.net/pastshows.html (past shows)
-Closing Comments
This was HiWEB-Interactive – Show #12
Remember tune in anytime at live.hiweb.net and Thursdays at 8p (PST) for the HiWEB-Interactive Tech Show
“Thank You for participating in HiWEB-Interactive, we look forward to bringing you more information from the edge of technology” Until next time have Fun with your technology – GottaJiboo!