Parents the winner in Leopard, Vista showdown

Posted by signup

When Apple unveiled its newest operating system on October 26, the computer maker made its first major overture to parents by infusing Leopard with a slick set of child controls. New settings help parents manage a child’s time online, block use of certain Web sites or applications like instant chat or iTunes, and watch over what kids do and who they communicate with when Mom and Dad aren’t around.

More »

PS3’s U.S. sales double after price cut

Posted by signup

U.S. sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3 more than doubled in the weeks following a price cut and the launch of a lower-priced version, the company said Friday. Sony said it sold about 75,000 PS3 consoles in the week of October 29 in the United States, and more than 100,000 in the following week, compared with weekly sales of 30,000 to 40,000 before.

Sony cut the U.S. price of its PS3 with an 80GB hard drive by 17 percent to $499 in mid-October. It started selling a new model with a 40GB hard drive on November 2 for $399 in an effort to ignite demand ahead of the crucial holiday-shopping season.

Sony, locked in battle with Microsoft and Nintendo in the global video game market, suffered a slow start for the PS3 after its launch a year ago because of high prices and a scarcity of strong game titles.

Nintendo sold 519,000 units of the Wii in the United States in October, while Microsoft sold 366,000 Xbox 360 consoles and Sony sold 121,000 of its PS3 machines, data from market researcher NPD released Thursday.

Digg goes political - one step further

Posted by multippt

Looks like Digg decided to add in more political fun. Yes, they have that political section that has gained considerable popularity, but now that they have this new feature - Digg the candidates (hmm, catchy), perhaps it takes politics online to a higher level? Perhaps you didn’t know those politicians have Digg accounts too.

More »

Unlocking Thresholds - Social Bookmarking

Posted by multippt

It is great to know how many votes/digg/whatever… you need in order to get your story upfront. After all, it is great for planning right?

More »

Net gridlock by 2010 study warns

Posted by signup

Consumer demand for bandwidth could see the internet running out of capacity as early as 2010, a new study warns.

A future net meltdown could bring the return of waiting for downloads
US analyst firm Nemertes Research predicted a drastic slowdown as the network struggles to cope with the amount of data being carried on it.

Such gridlock would drastically affect how people use the web and could mean the next Google or YouTube simply doesn’t get off the ground, it said.

The report said billions needed to be spent upgrading broadband networks.

It put the figure at around $137bn (£66bn) globally.

For users, the slowdown could see a return to the bad old days of dial-up, the report predicts.

Stifling innovation

“It may take more than one attempt to confirm an online purchase or it may take longer to download the latest video from YouTube,” the report cited.

But it is the knock-on effect for new services that could be the real problem, report authors think.

“The next Amazon, Google or YouTube might not arise, not from a lack of user demand but because of insufficient infrastructure preventing applications and companies emerging,” the report warned.

The demand for bandwidth-intensive applications shows no sign of abating.

Nearly 75% of US internet users watched an average of 158 minutes of online video and viewed more than 8.3bn video streams during May, according to research by measurement firm comScore.

The financial invested required to “bridge the gap” between demand and capacity would range from $42bn (£20bn) to $55bn (£27bn) in the US, Nemertes estimates.

The report is part-funded by the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA) which campaigns for universal broadband in the US.

“We must take the necessary steps to build out network capacity or potentially face internet gridlock that could wreak havoc on internet services,” said Larry Irving, co-chairman of the IIA.

Getting valuable links as a developer

Posted by multippt

If you happen to be on these jobs and have websites, you have the opportunity to grab some high quality (non no-follow) links the white-hat way.

More »

How accurate is RealRank?

Posted by multippt

In response to the ongoing Google PageRank carnage (now more than a reduction of pagerank - a pagerank straight to zero), Izea decided to come up with a new ranking system - RealRank.

More »