Technology companies shouldn't neglect the importance of silver surfers
Silver surfers are a more important market than generations X and Y yet are often ignored by technology companies according to new research by Gartner. With many markets now having an aging population, technology designers and marketers need to refocus on the opportunities offered by older users.
Speaking at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo on Australia's Gold Coast, vice president and Gartner Fellow David Furlonger says, "In recent years, technology decision makers have focused their work largely on the perceived wants and needs of younger demographics. They have created and sold products targeted explicitly at an already-saturated market of financially poor 'digital natives' in Generations X and Y. This emphasis on the young is unsurprising, since many technologists are themselves part of these younger age groups. However, it is a very serious mistake, because it neglects the most promising technology market demographic of all: the affluent, increasingly technologically sophisticated older generation we are calling the 'silver surfers'".
What to expect from the Gigabit Explorer Challenge
Gigabit Internet has arrived, and it's time to figure out just what we should do with it. A gigabit is a billion bits per second. Average Internet speeds today range around 5 million bits per second. It's a bit of a speed mismatch, the cheetah vs. the caterpillar -- and the cheetah gets a head start. At these speeds, the "what" and "how" to use it far outreach the way we use the Internet today.
Forget the speed, for a moment. Not to downplay the value of instantaneously downloading a season of The Wire but ultrafast Internet is about more than speed. Innovation grew in the space where 50 kbps Internet was once seen as lightning fast -- a space with email, file transfers and remote logins. What modernization will emerge from this new space?
AI firm Vicarious cracks CAPTCHA codes
CAPTCHA are a thorn in the side of web users. Those almost indecipherable string of letters and numbers that are meant to help websites determine that you are a human rather than a spambot often cause more frustration for users than anything else, and they have now been cracked.
Vicarious, a California-based AI team, reveals that it has been able to develop algorithms that can successfully solve CAPTCHAs from the likes of Google, Yahoo and PayPal.
[Update -- fixed!] Social sharing service Buffer is hacked -- temporarily takes itself offline
The latest web service to fall victim to a hack attack is Buffer, the social sharing tool that can be used to schedule posts to multiple social networks. Although it looks as though customers' passwords and billing details are safe, the problem was noticed late Saturday morning when spam type posts started to appear on users' Facebook and Twitter accounts. The Buffer team has been quick to take action and notified users via Facebook.
Buffer co-founder Leo Widrich posted saying "hey everyone! We greatly apologize for this big mess we've created. Buffer has been hacked." Shortly after this Facebook postings were disabled in a bid to stop the spread of spam and Buffer assured users that "We're continuing to work on this and trying to investigate and fix".
RSS reader Feedly pushes preposterous pricing for Pro package -- $299!
It is now four months since Google Reader shut up shop. At the time, Google cited a declining interest in the product and many people were quick to suggest that RSS was a technology past its sell-by date used by very few. But this seems to be contradicted by the staggering number of Google Reader alternatives that popped up to cater for the large numbers of RSS fans who bemoaned the loss of Google's tool.
One tool that quickly gained a large following is Feedly. In fact, so many people switched to Feedly that servers were unable to cope, and the service briefly collapsed under the weight of its own popularity. This was a temporary blip and things were soon back up and running. I was one of thousands of people who made the jump -- in fact I had a period of crossover using Feedly and Google Reader simultaneously to help ease the transition -- and things went fairly well.
Three in four UK homes now has access to superfast broadband
UK telecoms regulator Ofcom's annual Infrastructure Report update published today shows that 73 percent of premises are now able to receive superfast broadband, up from 65 percent last year.
Ofcom defines "superfast" as networks delivering download speeds of at least 30 Mbit/s, typically delivered using fiber optic cabling. Around 22 percent of connections now fall into this category with some 4.8 million consumers now having superfast connections, more than doubling last year's 2.1 million figure.
Google breaks its promise and experiments with banner ads
Google's ad-supported model is one that we're now all familiar with. Spend any amount of time online and, unless you have installed some form of ad-blocker, you'll see text advertisements littering numerous websites you visit, including in your search results.
Sponsored search results are nothing new, but Google is now experimenting with large banner ads which show up when certain searches are performed.
Yahoo acquires image recognition startup LookFlow -- Flickr to benefit
One of Yahoo's most popular and successful products is Flickr. Adding to its list of acquisitions, the company is now taking LookFlow under its wing.
This California-based startup, which specializes in image recognition technology, is joining forces with Yahoo to "build a new deep learning group". It is likely that we'll see image based searching added to Flickr in the near future.
Microsoft targets musicians with the innovative Surface Music Kit
Microsoft is hoping to appeal to serious musicians and remixers with a new add-on for its tablet range. The Surface Music Kit is a backlit cover (called a Blade) that plugs into the Surface keyboard port and replicates the sort of hardware buttons typically used by a music producer or performer.
When you connect the Music Cover, it will install the companion app automatically, providing you with access to all of the building blocks of a song -- templates, drums, bass, keyboard, vocals, and so on. You can use it to create new music but it’s particularly well suited to remixes and mashups.
Torrent site isoHunt closes early to foil backup plan
In a bid to foil plans to create a backup of the site, isoHunt closes its doors ahead of its planned shutdown. On 16 October, isoHunt founder Gary Fung struck a deal with the MPAA, bringing to an end a series of court battles that have waged for several years.
Fung agreed to pay damages of $110 million and to shut down isoHunt -- along with TorrentBox, www.podtropolis.com and www.ed2k-it.com -- within seven days.
Google Ideas announces tools to combat online censorship #FreedomOfSpeech
Access to the internet and the ease of communication it affords us is something we now take for granted. In a sense this is how it should be -- access to the internet really should be seen as a right. But in all too many countries around the world, citizens find that government and dictatorships block or restrict access to the internet, or close down sites that speak out against regimes. This is something Google is keen to be involved in stopping, and this week launched a series of tools to help in the fight.
It's an idea which echoes of the Alliance for Affordable Internet campaign to make internet access cheaper, and Internet.org's dream of connecting the world, but there is a rather more political edge to it.
Microsoft brings Windows to Android and iOS phones and tablets
Microsoft's big release of the day may be Windows 8.1, but it doesn't end there. The desktop operating system may have stolen the headlines today, but Microsoft also recognizes the importance of mobile devices. The company is not only concerned with its own devices, realizing that Apple and Android still dominate the mobile arena. But this does not mean that mobile users do not need access to Windows PCs -- hence the release of Microsoft Remote Desktop for iOS and Android.
The prospect of running Windows on an Android or iOS device may be a little way off yet, but it can be achieved via remote access -- which has the handy side effects of making it possible to access files, apps and anything else that might be needed whilst away from your computer. There is no shortage of remote desktop apps in the App Store, but Microsoft's offering aims to keep things simple. As you would expect, this is an app -- free of course -- that can be used to control a Windows PC from an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Android device.
Ever wondered how much time you spend staring at screens?
You’ve probably never given any thought to exactly how much time you spend gazing, gawping, glowering and glaring at screens on a daily basis -- but with TVs, computers, tablets and smartphones being such a major part of our lives, you probably won’t be surprised to hear it’s a lot.
Virtual meetings specialist PGi was curious to find out exactly how much time the average person spends a day looking at various screens and has created an infographic which reveals the shocking (or, depending on your viewpoint, not so shocking) results.
iriver ON monitors your exercise while playing music
Over the years, I have been, first increasingly, then decreasingly, weighed down on my daily runs. A simple Ironman watch morphed into the first GPS watch, complete with a transmitter strapped to my arm, and then a chest strap for heart rate monitoring was added to the mix. Since then devices have become smaller and functionality has been rolled together. Now iriver announces ON, which takes that concept another step.
The ON is an exercise headset that does a bit more than just let you listen to your tunes to pass the miles away. "Powered by PerformTek sensor technology, the iriver ON accurately monitors more real-time fitness data from a single source than any other personal monitor, including heart rate, distance, speed, VO2 max (aerobic fitness level) and calories burned", the announcement explains.
Breaking Moore’s Law
No law is more powerful or important in Silicon Valley than Moore’s Law -- the simple idea that transistor density is continually increasing which means computing power goes up just as costs and energy consumption go down. It’s a clever idea we rightly attribute to Gordon Moore. The power lies in the Law’s predictability. There’s no other trillion dollar business where you can look down the road and have a pretty clear idea what you’ll get. Moore’s Law lets us take chances on the future and generally get away with them. But what happens when you break Moore’s Law? That’s what I have been thinking about lately. That’s when destinies change.
There may have been many times that Moore’s Law has been broken. I’m sure readers will tell us. But I only know of two times -- once when it was quite deliberate and in the open and another time when it was more like breaking and entering.
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