Sure, time tracking comes in handy when trying to make your workflow as efficient as possible. Perhaps you're looking for a more visual indication of how your time is spent on that MacBook Pro. That's where ThreadWatch comes in handy. Thanks to developer Alex Milde, you can visually analyze your daily task habits on a Mac. After a rather quick and painless app download, the tech monitors software being used on the desktop, taking notes on their individual memory and CPU consumption. The collected info is placed in a text file that you'll then upload to ThreadWatch to create the graphical splendor you see above. Each color indicates a different application and you won't have to worry about having your tracked data catalogued. To take the kit for a spin, hit the source link below to start monitoring your procrastination... er, work sessions.

Visualized: ThreadWatch tracks daily workflow on a Mac, turns the data into eye candy originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 May 2012 16:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Gigabit Squared strikes deal to bring ultra high-speed broadband to six communities

Gigabit Squared strikes deal to bring ultra high-speed broadband to six communities originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 May 2012 06:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Aereo's mini-antenna arrays started streaming OTA television broadcasts in Gotham a couple months ago in spite of the lawsuit filed by a few of New York's local stations to stop them from doing so. Today, it was able to dismiss its opponents' state law unfair competition claim under the theory of federal preemption. Essentially, Aereo argued (and the judge agreed) that the anti-competition claim was actually an attempt to vindicate the broadcasters' rights to control the performance of their copyrighted materials. Because those rights are granted under federal law, the state law claim was preempted and dismissed from the lawsuit pursuant to the Copyright Act. Despite this courtroom victory, Aereo still has a lot of legal legwork to do, as it still faces two copyright claims that could still shut down the OTA streaming party. Stay tuned.

Aereo gets unfair competition claim dismissed, still faces two claims of copyright infringement originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 May 2012 19:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Motorola is demonstrating how it expects TVs of the future will work with its DreamGallery concept. Powered by the company's Medios cloud-service, the display is designed to let you browse content as if it was the internet -- with bookmarks, personalized recommendations and interactive search tools. Its designed to work across your TV, computer, tablet and smartphone, aggregating Cable, Internet TV and VOD under a single interface that sits behind pull-tabs around the picture. If you're curious to see if this is easier to use than TiVo, head on past the break to catch your first glimpse.

Continue reading Motorola reinvents the TV interface with DreamGallery concept (video)

Motorola reinvents the TV interface with DreamGallery concept (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 May 2012 13:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The European Union has been taking a leisurely pace investigating Google over possible antitrust abuses, but it's now accelerating to a full-on sprint. European Commission competition head Joaquin Almunia has given Google just a "matter of weeks" to propose how it would patch things up and soften fears that it was unfairly pushing its own web services over others. If Google makes the Commission happy, Almunia says, the whole investigation might wrap up and avoid fines. Google hasn't responded yet, but we wouldn't guarantee that it makes a deal: its execs have usually argued that there's nothing keeping users from going to another search site, and the company has been eager to emphasize that competition still exists. That said, Google only has to see what happened to Microsoft to know how expensive an EU antitrust fight can be.

EU competition head gives Google a 'matter of weeks' to offer an antitrust fix originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 May 2012 09:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Comcast's bandwidth policy has come under fire from several directions lately, and today it's announced plans to test two new systems for managing capacity. In a company blog post, VP Cathy Avgiris describes the new "flexible" approaches it will be testing out in certain markets that start off by raising the limit to 300GB (from 250GB where it's been since 2008) per month. One of the plans involves offering 300GB as a base on its Essentials, Economy, and Performance internet packages, and higher limits on its Blast and Extreme tiers, with extra data available as an add-on, possibly $10 for 50GB or so. The other plan simply bumps all tiers to 300GB per month and offers the additional blocks of data as needed. For markets where it's not testing the new plans, it's suspending enforcement of the 250GB cap entirely for now, although it says it will still contact "excessive" users about their usage.

We're currently on a conference call concerning the changes and Comcast is reaffirming its belief that the FCC has decided it can "manage" data usage on its network, and that it will continue to do so in a "non-discriminatory" way. Particularly since the launch of its Xfinity TV Xbox 360 app others like Netflix and some consumer and networking watchdogs would beg to differ, it will be interesting to see if these approaches change anything. Executives on the call noted "noise" around the Xbox 360 app in making the change, but also pointed to an "ongoing internal discussion" and simply that times have changed from four years ago. The words that keep coming up so far are choice and flexibility, as well as mentioning that even today, very few customers approach the previous 250GB limit. In response to a question, Avgiris indicated the median usage for customers is still around 8-10GB per month.We'll find out more like where the test markets are later, for now hit the source link for all the information currently available.

Update: Netflix has responded to the move, and it's about what you'd expect. In other words, it appreciates the notion, but it's still mad.

Comcast rethinks bandwidth caps, trials two new policies that involve higher 300GB monthly limits originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 May 2012 13:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In its ongoing battle against internet bottlenecks -- or let's face it -- techie bragging rights, Netgear has launched two more devices with that sweet, sweet 802.11ac data flow. Joining its recently announced R6300 router, is the R6200 model, which supports a combined WiFi speed of 1200 Mbps, has a USB port for networking devices, and of course also rides the a, b, g and n waves too -- if you don't have any 802.11ac kit just yet. Well, as it happens, Netgear thought of that, and has also announced the A6200 dual band USB WiFi adapter to, literally, bring your existing kit up to speed. If you want in on the action, you'll need to spend $179.99 and $69.99 respectively when they launch in Q3 this year. Full specs in the PR after the break.

Continue reading Netgear adds R6200 router and A6200 USB adapter to its 802.11ac family

Netgear adds R6200 router and A6200 USB adapter to its 802.11ac family originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 May 2012 08:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Complaints by Netflix's Reed Hastings and a handful of politicians must have rankled Comcast CTO Tony Werner, as he just posted a particularly detailed explanation of why Comcast believes the Xfinity TV app on the Xbox 360 isn't violating net neutrality. We'd previously heard the argument that the Xfinity app's traffic is simply being routed through Comcast's internal network and isn't the same as the Internet data of Netflix, but Werner now contends that the Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) tags that some think are breaking FCC rules by favoring Xfinity video are really just necessary switches. They're not prioritizing traffic, they're setting it aside, the claim goes. Of course, Hastings and others believe that setting Xfinity video aside is prioritizing, and Comcast's point of view sidesteps the practical reality that watching Netflix, Amazon Instant Video or iTunes will lead you closer to that ever-present 250GB cap while Xfinity doesn't. The FCC during its rulemaking warned against special private services being used as end-runs around neutrality concerns; it's up to the agency to decide whether or not that's true here, or whether Comcast is just offering its usual service in a new way.

Comcast fires back over Xfinity TV on Xbox 360, says no way, no how it's violating net neutrality originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 May 2012 19:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Although it's been true for some time that Google Maps will remember frequent searches as long as you're signed in to Google, it hasn't had the option of permanently tagging important places by their familiar names. An update to the web version of Maps now lets you define specific home and work locations that will stay attached to your Google account, no matter how much PC-hopping you do. Along with just speeding up day-to-day direction searches, the locations are particularly handy if you're staying in a foreign country and don't yet have the neighborhood committed to heart. The addition should already be live, so you can establish home base at the same time as you're checking out Chrome 19's tab syncing. Update: Google has had to delay rolling out the location feature and is promising that it will come "soon."

Google Maps adds always-available home and work locations for the navigation-needy originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 May 2012 17:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Update: Yahoo has confirmed Thompson's departure in an official press release (after the break), placing Ross Levinsohn in a interim CEO position, as expected. The firm also mentions that Roy Bostock's seat as Chairman of the board will be filled by Fred Amoroso. Hit the break for the official statement.

Continue reading ATD: Yahoo's CEO Scott Thompson to step down amidst degree scandal (update: confirmed)

ATD: Yahoo's CEO Scott Thompson to step down amidst degree scandal (update: confirmed) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 May 2012 12:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

So, Google wasn't merry-dancing when it promised to update its search engine with new "semantic" algorithms. One of our readers sent in the screen grab above, which shows what happens when they search for "Howard Carter." In addition to all the regular links, there's a box on the right that seems to be distinctly aware of who that poor fellow was (er, happy birthday old bean). We haven't been able to replicate these results, which probably means it's a limited roll-out at this time. Nevertheless, if we're right, then this archaeologist's name will have wormed its way through Mountain View's constantly updated knowledge database, which we're told can link facts together rather than just match keywords. Carter's cause of death? Hmm, clearly the system still as a few things to learn about mummies and curses.

[Thanks, Joseph]

First signs of Google's new 'semantic search' spotted, put to good use originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 May 2012 05:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Netgear updates its Genie app to make even the loneliest printer AirPrint compatible

Netgear updates its Genie app to make even the loneliest printer AirPrint compatible originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 May 2012 00:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yesterday the IEEE announced an update to the 802.11 WiFi standard, and today it's promptly moving on to the Ethernet side of things. The association just approved the 802.1aq Shortest Path Bridging standard, which will streamline the management and build-out of networks by using the latest-gen VLAN with a higher service capacity. Basically, a larger scale for more efficiency and less errors. Head past the break for the full presser.

Continue reading New 802.1aq standard promises to improve Ethernet efficiency

New 802.1aq standard promises to improve Ethernet efficiency originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 May 2012 14:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Gogo grabs 1MHz spectrum from JetBlue subsidiary LiveTV, beefs up in-flight bandwidth

Gogo grabs 1MHz spectrum from JetBlue subsidiary LiveTV, beefs up in-flight bandwidth originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 May 2012 18:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The hottest tech news of the day in Europe will undoubtedly be the next Galaxy phone, launching tonight in London. Music fans on that side of the pond woke up to another surprise, however, with the launch of Rdio's online streaming service in France and the UK. Pricing starts at £4.99 (about $8) per month for unlimited web streaming, jumping to £9.99 (roughly $16) when you add mobile support. Ready to rock? Hit up the source link below for a six-day free mobile trial, without any need to hand over those precious credit card deets.

Rdio grows its European presence, hits France and the UK starting at £4.99 per month originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 May 2012 06:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Wikipad's Android 4.0 gaming tablet still hasn't received a definitive release date despite having just half a season left to meet its launch target, but that hasn't stopped its creator from boosting the feature set. When the tablet does arrive, it will now bake in Gaikai's game streaming service for you to start playing games as soon as the shrink wrap's off the box. In return for the long wait since CES, Wikipad is also giving its slate a heavy makeover: the 8.1-inch screen is ballooning to 10.1 inches, while a lighter body will carry an unnamed quad-core processor and an option for 3G. Otherwise, you're looking at much of the same formula that first emerged in January, which includes traditional gamepad-like controls on either side as well as front and back cameras, 1080p video support and 8GB of space to store your games when you don't want to bring a microSD card. We're looking forward to getting our paws on those dual analog sticks soon, but for now you can check the news release after the break.

Continue reading Wikipad's Android tablet amps up with Gaikai game streaming, quad-core, 10-inch screen

Wikipad's Android tablet amps up with Gaikai game streaming, quad-core, 10-inch screen originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 May 2012 05:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Google's Language Immersion Chrome extension translates random text to teach foreign lingo

Google's Language Immersion Chrome extension translates random text to teach foreign lingo originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 May 2012 19:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We'll forgive you if you failed to take MIT up on its offer take its courses for free when it rolled out its MITx online learning platform last year. However, Harvard took notice of its efforts, and has joined MIT online to form the edX platform and offer courses and content for free on the web. There's no word on the available subjects just yet, but video lessons, quizzes and online labs will all be a part of the curriculum, and those who comprehend the coursework can get a certificate of mastery upon completion. edX won't just benefit those who log on, either, as it'll be used to research how students learn and how technology can be used to improve teaching in both virtual and brick and mortar classrooms. The cost for this altruistic educational venture? 60 million dollars, with each party ponying up half. The first courses will be announced this summer, and classes are slated to start this fall. Want to know more? Check out the future of higher education more fully in the PR and video after the break.

Continue reading MIT and Harvard announce edX web education platform, make online learning cheap and easy

MIT and Harvard announce edX web education platform, make online learning cheap and easy originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 May 2012 18:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Mozilla has shown off ideas for future versions of Firefox as it becomes less of a traditional browser and more of a "soft, friendly, human" ecosystem. Slides released on the web hint at a new desktop environ with a simplified menu, cleaner download interface, and a more functional startpage -- all the while maintaining the same curved-edge look as the mobile variant. A Windows 8 Metro tile-based version is also in the works that's similar to the Firefox tab layout on Android. There's no word when Mozilla's so-called Kilimanjaro project will come to fruition, but you can check out the slideshow after the break for an early glimpse.

Continue reading Mozilla plans war on fragmentation, reveals unified UI design for Windows 8 and mobile devices

Mozilla plans war on fragmentation, reveals unified UI design for Windows 8 and mobile devices originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 May 2012 16:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If there's anything that Google doesn't like, it's things that collect dust. The company is famous for its annual spring cleaning efforts, in which the firm rids itself of redundant and dead-end projects, along with more bullish moves, such as its push to overhaul the internet's DNS system. Now it's looking to replace HTTP with a new protocol known as SPDY, and to that end, it's demonstrating the potential speed gains that one might expect on a mobile network. According to the company's benchmarks, mean page load times on the Galaxy Nexus are 23 percent faster with the new system, and it hypothesizes that further optimizations can be made for 3G and 4G networks. To its credit, Google has already implemented SPDY in Chrome, and the same is true for Firefox and Amazon Silk. Even Microsoft appears to be on-board. As a means to transition, the company proposes an Apache 2.2 module known as mod_spdy, which allows web servers to take advantage of features such as stream multiplexing and header compression. As for HTTP, it's no doubt been a reliable companion, but it seems that it'll need to work a bit harder to earn its keep. Stay weird, Google, the internet wouldn't be the same without you.

Google badmouths HTTP behind its back, proposes SPDY as a speedy successor originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 May 2012 14:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If you fancy seeing what headlines those who you follow on Twitter are chatting about in one compact list, some new functionality in the Discover tab will offer their insight in a few clicks. Essentially, the new feature tracks stories that your pals in the Twitterverse post and allows you to see what the commotion is all about via the "View Tweets" option along the bottom of each article link. From there, you can tweet the link yourself and include your thoughts on the particular matter. While the outfit boasts ongoing improvements to the Discover tab, this particular feature will see daylight on the web while hitting both iPhone and Android apps in the next few weeks. Go on. Navigate to your Twitter home page to take it for a spin yourself.

Twitter's Discover tab now snags popular stories and commentary from those in your Twitterverse originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 May 2012 02:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Here's an odd one: average connection speeds around the globe dropped 14 percent to just 2.3 Mbps during the last quarter of 2011. The drop off remains something of a mystery since the data used to calculate that result doesn't include mobile broadband (so its increased adoption can't be dragging down the whole) and Akamai offers no explanation. Still, it's not time to start panicking, just yet. Even though speeds in the US dropped 5.3 percent from the previous quarter, average connection rates are still up significantly over the previous year. Otherwise, things largely stayed the same. Global broadband adoption was steady at 66 percent and the US continued to trail its friends across the Pacific (by a lot) in the race for the fastest Internet connections.

Interestingly, while the number of broadband connections stayed consistent the number of narrowband lines (under 256 Kbps) declined dramatically. Yet, the percentage of the world's population connected to the web managed to increase 2.1 percent quarter over quarter -- and 13 percent for the year. So, while it may seem that the internet had a temporary set back in Q4 of 2011, the long term trends look good. The number of people online is increasing, the average speeds being pulled down by those people is climbing and the number of folks stuck in the dial up era is dropping. To get a copy of the full report hit up the source.

Internet speeds drop around the world according to Akamai, adoption rate up originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If you've been defiantly clinging onto Firefox 3.6 by your fingertips, bad news. Mozilla is officially putting it to sleep -- whether you like it or not -- by auto-updating users to version 12. You've still got a few days to bid your emotional farewells, with the switchover being pegged as early May. But, the browser's creators stop short of setting a date for you to get the flowers delivered by. Official support for the 2010 release finished this week, and the final bout of security fixes was back in January. At the other end of the spectrum, Firefox 13 wobbled up onto its beta legs yesterday, bringing a new homepage, Google's new SPDY protocol and tab extra features with it. If you're making the leap, don't panic if you find some old friends missing.

Mozilla dispatches Firefox 3.6, fills its chair with version 13 beta originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 Apr 2012 15:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We know what it's like to be in a foreign country without a mobile internet connection. Although there are domestic options making it easier to connect our devices abroad, Spanish company iPavement wants to help confused tourists (and their confused devices) by seamlessly integrating hotspots into tiles -- which are seamlessly integrated into the ground. It's unclear whether users will have open access to the entire world wide web, or only controlled info about the city, but the service is at least free to use. The 24kg (53lb) tiles are slightly larger than normal, installed a maximum of 20 meters (66 feet) from one another and only work at temperatures between -10 - 45 degrees Celsius (14 - 113 degrees Fahrenheit). Touristy cloud apps like maps, coupons, and traffic updates in various languages are also a part of the deal, and you would look like less of a tourist without that huge guide to Madrid. Just lose the fanny pack and you'll be set.

Predictably named iPavement puts hotspots into the sidewalk originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Apr 2012 13:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Zerg Rush is Google's latest easter egg and it's admittedly a little late for the holiday itself. Search for the term (it's a Starcraft thing), and you'll be welcomed by a point-and-shoot mini-game where your enemy is an infinite number of color-coded, marauding o's. These will proceed to decimate your search results, which is currently a bizarre meta view of people explaining the game's existence. Get your trigger finger ready -- the internet needs you. (You also can publish your final score with pride on Google Plus.)

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Google Zerg Rush: That was an order, soldier originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Similar to that other, foxy browser, Opera reached numerical version 12 (although in beta form), promising to be as fast and smooth as it's ever been. Included in the new revision are a slew of under-the-hood enhancements, along with a few cosmetic alterations. For starters, Opera 12 now offers complete 64-bit compatibility for both Mac and Windows, while "experimental" hardware acceleration and WebGL support are also in tow. Furthermore, the browser added a "smarter" tab-loading sequence, speed improvements for faster page uploads and a way to customize the look with a bundle of new themes -- of course, you can create your own as well. As for the backend tweaks, Opera announced it's abandoning its Unite and Widgets features in favor of an extension-driven model. Those of you eager to take it for a spin can hit the Opera link below to get started.

[Thanks, Yousef]

Opera 12 opens its beta doors: improves performance and stability, adds new themes originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The US federal government is, by far and away, the largest user of wireless spectrum in the States -- much of which is spoken for by the Department of Defense. A new Congressional committee will, however, be re-examining that position with the goal of freeing up airwaves for public and commercial use. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), who will co-chair the group, hopes the effort will ultimately end up saving taxpayers money and satiating the country's "exploding demand for mobile broadband services." Of course this isn't the first time the idea has been broached, but the bi-partisan collective suggests that an actionable plan to ease the spectrum squeeze might not be too far off. Let's all hope that the findings don't become quite as contentious as some of the other issues currently being debated in Congress's hallowed halls.

Congress to examine government's dominance in wireless spectrum originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

You're a multinational search company that has just rolled out a new cloud storage offering. You've also just given your millions and millions of email users an extra 2.5GB of storage, free of charge. What do you do next? Build another data center. The big G has announced its intentions to raise a $300 million information barn in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Construction on a 1,000 acre plot will begin immediately and, for its efforts, the Search Sultan will be gifted with a handful of tax incentives totaling over $9 million. Google is no stranger to the mean streets (we're not sure if they're actually mean) of Council Bluffs, though, as the company already operates a $600 million data facility within that city's limits. For those of you keeping track at home, that's a $900 million stimulus for the Hawkeye State.

Continue reading Google bringing extra bytes to Hawkeye State with $300 million data center

Google bringing extra bytes to Hawkeye State with $300 million data center originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Koss may be known for its budget-minded offerings in the headphone space, but today it's announced something to shake things up a bit. Falling under the Striva moniker, Koss has created what it claims as being the first lineup of headphones to use "WiFi technology that receives music directly from the Internet without wires." To start, there's the over-ear Pro model, loaded with gesture controls for volume and channel adjustments, while an in-ear set, dubbed Tap, is also available for extra portability. Interestingly, the Taps don't use a connecting wire -- instead, "microprocessors" inside of of each earpiece consistently ensure that the stereo signal stays in sync. To elaborate, both models feature Koss' Core, which the company describes as battery-powered microprocessors coupled with WiFi components. Utilizing its new MyKoss server, you'll be able to pull content from a variety of free audio streams and customize your own listening experience with the included music management software. Lastly, if you don't have a WiFi connection -- in cases such as using your cellphone -- each unit comes with a "matchbook-sized" Content Access Point, which lets you create a WiFi hotspot to enable wireless listening wherever you are.

If these headphones have piqued your interest, get ready for the kicker: the Taps are priced at $500, while the Pros are set at a slightly cheaper $450. Both models are available from Koss today, and you'll find more info in the press release and video just after the break.

Gallery: Koss Striva Pro and Tap headphones (press photos)

Continue reading Koss intros Striva headphone systems, lets you stream music over WiFi straight to your ears

Koss intros Striva headphone systems, lets you stream music over WiFi straight to your ears originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Who'd have thought those tiny reminders of the site you're browsing could bite your backside? Apparently Mozilla did, and with its latest nightly Firefox build it has expunged favicons from their eternal perch just left of the URL. The problem is that instead something friendly -- like Google's famous "g" -- nefarious sites can use a padlock or similar image, making you think you're on a secure SSL page. So, starting from mid-July you'll see a generic globe for standard websites, green padlocks for SSL sites with validation, and gray padlocks for SSL sites without it. Take note that (so far) tabs will keep their favicons, so those of us with 43 sites open at the same time will still know where in the web we are.

Firefox deems favicons risky, banishes them from address bar originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Major League Baseball has Cooperstown, Robots have their HOF in Pittsburgh and now we finally have a Hall of Fame to call our own. Today marks the inaugural set of Pioneers, Innovators and Global Connectors inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame, having taken place at an Internet Society conference in Geneva, Switzerland. The web HOF is part of an initiative by the nonprofit organization to "celebrate the advancements of 33 talented people who have made significant contributions to the design, development, and expansion of the internet." Among these are folks such as the Father of the Internet Vint Cerf, ARPANET engineer Paul Baran and the 45th US Vice President Al Gore, just to mention a few names. Between the 2012 inductees there were nine different countries represented, 11 PhDs, 11 published authors and a winner of an Academy Award and Nobel Prize. Interested in knowing who else made it in? The full list of inductees can be found at the source below.

Continue reading Internet Hall of Fame gets first inductees at inaugural event in Switzerland

Internet Hall of Fame gets first inductees at inaugural event in Switzerland originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Huawei's annual earnings report is out and it's a mixed bag, since while turnover increased by 11.7 percent to 203.9 RMB ($32.3 billion), profits plummeted 53 percent to 11.6 billion RMB ($1.8 billion). Revenue from overseas sales (138.4 billion RMB) equated for over half the company's total income and it boasted of having sold 150 million consumer devices, including 20 million smartphones in the year. The company didn't provide reasons for the drop in profit, emphasizing that it's increased R&D spending by 34.2 percent to 23.7 billion RMB ($3.75 billion) and that in any event, it's got around $30 billion of assets that can shoulder the brunt of a bad year.

However, the company may not see a rosy 2012 either, after both America and Australia refused to give the company big infrastructure deals (Huawei's bread and butter) thanks to allegedly close relationships between the company and the Chinese government. It seems to be following a similar trajectory to rival ZTE, which also felt margins squeeze as it entered the global retail space and felt the heat when its political dealings were thrown in the spotlight.

Continue reading Huawei 2011 financials: 20 million smartphones sold yet profit down 53 percent

Huawei 2011 financials: 20 million smartphones sold yet profit down 53 percent originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

UK department store John Lewis launches broadband service, get in on the ground floor originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 22 Apr 2012 06:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Since breaking ground in Western North Carolina some 16 months ago, Facebook has been running at full speed to get its newest data center online. This week, Zuckerberg & Co. flipped the switch. The new facility, located in Forest City, touts the "first major deployment" of the outfit's Open Compute Project web servers and will be the first "live test" of the OPC's outdoor air-cooling design. It tends to get pretty warm around those parts and humidity levels are a bit outside of ideal data center conditions. The Carolina facility will mirror the projected power utilization effectiveness (PUE) of FB's Oregon data center at just a smidge above 1 - somewhere between 1.06 and 1.08 to be exact. In other words, this means the ratio of power used by the structure and the actual power sent to the hardware is almost perfect with minimal energy loss. No matter, it'll still be using plenty of power. A second identical building is slated to open on the site later this year, but for now, hit the source link for a bit more info on the initial launch.

Continue reading Facebook flips the switch on its North Carolina data center, cooled with balmy mountain air

Facebook flips the switch on its North Carolina data center, cooled with balmy mountain air originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Apr 2012 03:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Key Google employees were in attendance this week at the 2nd annual Open Network Summit in Santa Clara, CA to discuss some significant changes, including the implementation of OpenFlow -- an open-source technology designed to change the way that data is used, transferred and managed -- and is supposed to significantly reduce costs by a projected 20-30 percent, increase efficiency, and better organize the massive amounts of data that the company handles on a daily basis. Google said it went public at the summit with hopes of provoking change all over the internet by disclosing that it has recently made some of the most significant modifications to its network infrastructure since setting up shop in the days of The Backstreet Boys and Furbies, aka 1998. Extensive information is available at the source links.

Google talks specifics about its network infrastructure, hopes to inspire the rest of the internet originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Apr 2012 22:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

When Google makes a new move in advertising, people are bound to take notice, and it's made a fairly big one today. It's announced what it's dubbed the Brand Activate Initiative at the Ad Age Digital Conference today, something that initially consists of two new services for advertisers: Active View and Active GRP. The latter is a so-called gross rating point metric that's modeled to some extent on TV advertising, while Active View is something that Google hopes will become a standard for all online advertising. In short, it measures both how long an ad remains on a person's screen and how much of it is viewed -- if at least 50 percent of it is viewable for at least one second it's counted as an viewed impression. Both of those options are rolling out today, but they're apparently just the beginning of the broader initiative. You can see Google itself explain it in the video after the break, and on its DoubleClick blog linked below.

Continue reading Google announces Brand Activate Initiative for online advertising, hopes to establish new standard

Google announces Brand Activate Initiative for online advertising, hopes to establish new standard originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Sergey Brin wasn't too happy with how his critique of Apple and Facebook was represented in the media following an interview he gave to the Guardian. In a post on Google+ (hey, if he won't use it, who will?) Brin lamented that, "my thoughts got particularly distorted... in a way that distracts from my central tenets." The founder believes that undue attention was given to his complaints about Facebook and Apple's "restrictive" walled gardens, when he sees oppressive governments and state-sanctioned censorship as much larger issues. Of course, while Brin does say he admires his competitors, he never truly backpedals from his criticism or says that it was taken out of context. To let Sergey explain himself, hit up the source link.

Sergey Brin clarifies Apple and Facebook critique, says statement was 'distorted' originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ever consulted a crowdsourced review for a product or service before committing your hard-earned funds to the cause? Have you wondered how legit the opinions you read really are? Well, it seems that help is on the way to uncover paid opinion spamming and KIRF reviews. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have released detailed calculations in the report Spotting Fake Reviewer Groups in Consumer Reviews -- an effort aided by a Google Faculty Research Award. Exactly how does this work, you ask? Using the GSRank (Group Spam Rank) algorithm, behaviors of both individuals and a group as a whole are used to gather data on the suspected spammers.

Factors such as content similarity, reviewing products early (to be most effective), ratio of the group size to total reviewers and the number of products the group has been in cahoots on are a few bits of data that go into the analysis. The report states, "Experimental results showed that GSRank significantly outperformed the state-of-the-art supervised classification, regression, and learning to rank algorithms." Here's to hoping this research gets wrapped into a nice software application, but for now, review mods may want to brush up on their advanced math skills. If you're curious about the full explanation, hit the source link for the full-text PDF.

Researchers out faux product review groups with a lot of math and some help from Google originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If navigating away from a musician's timeline on Facebook to get a quick listen isn't your favorite activity, you're in luck. The folks in Palo Alto dropped a "Listen" button on artist pages today, giving you access to popular tracks instantly. Situated right beside the ever important "Like" button, the new feature first asks if you'd like to open your favorite music-streaming app -- either Spotify, MOG, Slacker Radio or Rdio. If you've yet to link a service to FB, it'll ask which you'd prefer to use. Once prompted in Spotify, for example, the app heads to the band's library and begins playing selections from the Top Hits category. The "Listen" button then becomes a play / pause control and clicking one on another artist's page makes the change in the app in a flash. To grab a look at the new control in action, head to your band of choice to give it a try.

Facebook places 'Listen' button on artist pages, now takes you to your go-to streaming app instantly originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

One of the qualifications for scoring a CE-Oh no 'round here is actually being a CEO -- so Sergey Brin does not receive that honor. We will, however, draw attention to what some might call his hyperbolic ramblings. In an interview with the Guardian, Google's cool uncle said he was worried about the state of the internet and that his company could not have flourished in an online ecosystem like today's. According to Brin, the threats are coming from all sides -- most notably governments. While oppressive regimes like those in China and Iran get top billing, the US doesn't escape without criticism thanks to SOPA and PIPA which seemed perilously close to passing with support from the media industry. The co-founder also took shots at Apple and Facebook, which he said have built "really restrictive" walled gardens. For more smack talk from one of the most influential men in the tech industry, hit up the source link.

[Image via Thomas Hawk]

Sergey Brin says the internet is under attack by governments, Apple and Facebook originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 11:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.