Web page size balloons

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

A report from WebSiteOptimization.com shows that websites have ballooned in size over the past few years. Between 2003 and 2008 the average web page size has grown from 93.1 kilobytes to 312 kilobytes. For people with decent broadband connections 312 kilobytes is drop in the bucket, but for those with ...

Broadband 2.0 finally comes the US

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

Verizon and Comcast are rolling out the next generation of high-speed technology to limited markets. The new connections are going to deliver about 25 times the rate of the average broadband connections that are most widely available today. Verizon's FiOS has been available to folks in a number of states ...

The commercial web for kids

Saturday, April 26th, 2008

So what do kids do the on the Internet? Warren Buckleitner, the editor of Children's Technology Review magazine, studied children in 10 different households who had access to high-speed Internet. Buckleitner put video cameras in the homes and had parents record how the kids used the Internet. He found that the ...

The digital New Deal

Monday, April 21st, 2008

The San Francisco Chronicle has an interesting op-ed up on their website about a Digital New Deal. With a recession and a lot of young people coming of age having used the Internet for most of their lives, the author, Helen De Michiel, argues that the government should start an ...

Ad-supported broadband access?

Friday, April 18th, 2008

Is the way to offset the cost of building wireless networks to provide Internet access through advertising? Los Angles-based FreeFi Networks has deployed a campus wide wireless network at Roxbury Community College in Boston. The company has partnered with Microsoft, a company called Front Porch which produces adware, and another ...

Election season might halt progress on broadband legislation

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008, introduced in the House by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.) in the beginning of February might be in trouble. The goal of the legislation is to address Net Neutrality issues and broadband issues. The law, if passed, would require the ...

Next generation Internet: WSJ takes a look

Sunday, April 13th, 2008

The Wall Street Journal has a good article up about next generation high-speed Internet services in the United States. Comcast recently started upgrading their infrastructure with a new version of cable internet technology called DOCSIS 3, which is now being offered to Minnesotians. The upgrade will let Comcast offer download ...

Broadband by the bit

Sunday, April 13th, 2008

In the past few months high-speed Internet service providers have begun to offer faster plans that charge by the gigabyte. The plans give you a preset limit of how much data you can download every month, and if you go over, you get hit with fees. There is one service provider ...

Internet access for all in UK? Bollocks.

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

A few years ago, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair proclaimed that there would be "universal internet access for all who want it." This goal was set for 2005. According to this recent article on Silicon.com, around 35 percent of homes in the UK do not have access to Internet, ...

Not everybody’s on the Internet

Monday, April 7th, 2008

The era of global communication is upon us, and the Internet is changing the way people work, find information about their world and talk to friends and family. But many people are left behind because they can't afford a computer, have no Internet access where they live, or are just ...