Internet & Websites - Page 24

Just in case you lay awake at night pondering the meaning of life, along with wondering exactly how our global population consume their pornography - look no further because TweakTown has you covered. Don't worry - everything in this article is safe for work.

According to statistics released by PornHub, the United States still sits at #1 in the consumer scale, with the United Kingdom taking up less than half the traffic flow followed by Canada. This ranges across their websites crazy 78.9 billion video views throughout the 12 months of 2014, alongside a crazy 5800 visits every second.

With teens being on the main agenda, the apparently intriguing category of "step mom" has raised up a massive 14 places, now sitting at 4th overall. If data is more your thing, this review shows that over 50 gigabytes per second of bandwidth is needed by their servers, offering up 1.57 million terabytes of data throughout the last calendar year. This is coupled with a total of 18.35 billion total visits and just over 1 million comments - seeing the word "love" being most-used.

There has been some great news unleashed for Sydney, Melbourne and ACT apartment residents, with NBN Co confirming that they are beginning their fibre-to-the-basement (FTTB) roll-outs to approximately 6,000 Aussie apartments. Including 43 apartment blocks in total, these apartments will be the first to be connected to FTTB technology.

The first 2,000 apartments will be ready for full operation in March, as claimed by NBN co, with the other 4,000 said to be ready by the end of June. With a targeted list of locations involved being the Sydney CBD, Balmain, Elizabeth Bay, Erskineville, Haymarket, Rushcutters Bay, Potts Point, Pyrmont, Randwick, Mascot, Alexandria, and St Leonards in New South Wales, TPG is also rolling out their own FTTB services to Pyrmont and the Sydney CBD.

As far is other locations are concerned, NBN Co is targeting Melbourne's Carlton, Keysborough and Brunswick, and also Civic in the ACT.

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and his administration board have just announced its next (third) part of the "2015 State of the Opportunity" agenda, being a $1 billion broadband internet program that sees public and private resources utilized.

Cuomo has stated that the plan will create a $500 million NY Broadband Program set to use capital funds from bank settlements, offering this sum of money as an incentive to private sector parties in order to expand high-speed internet access is high-needs areas. If ISPs wish to qualify for this funding, they must pledge a 1:1 match in finances, seeing this plan grow from the $500 million figure stated above to a massive $1 billion total. ISPs must also offer up a minimum of 100Mbps internet speed to clients as part of the contract.

There has been no mention of quota limitations as of yet, with Cuomo's staff stating they will prioritize ISPs whom deliver the highest speed at lowest cost. Hopefully this won't see ISPs flock to this agenda only to offer extremely high-speed broadband options with extremely tiny download limits.

The massive social media network Facebook has just hired Teehan+Lax, claimed as one of Toronto's most successful digital design agencies - seeing three of its top partners joining Facebook as part of a talent acquisition, claimed as not a company buyout.

With John Lax, Geoff Teehan and David Gillis joining the big blue F, their company has in turn decided to shut down. Some previous company employee's are also looking to join Facebook, whereas others are on the search for a new occupation. After the being founded in 2002 and working on large contracts such as Flipboard and some of Facebook's Atlas ad-serving services, these ex-employee's should have no issue moving to somewhere else.

Teehan+Lax's website contained a lengthy closure message, explaining the companies directions, the top three designers' thoughts and feelings and a glimpse into the future. Part of this announcement reads "We are incredibly excited about the future. The things we will be doing at Facebook are amazing new challenges. The scope and scale of them are simultaneously thrilling and scary. The opportunity to make things that will impact over a billion people is extraordinary."

Police authorities in Myanmar are seizing pirated copies of "The Interview," per an official request by the North Korean embassy.

"We seized them because they were unapproved and pirated," according to a police officer speaking to Reuters.

Rangoon chief minister Mying Swe spoke with North Korean Ambassador Kim Sok Choi, and they both deny official orders to seize pirated copies of the film. Shortly after the meeting, the film disappeared from DVD stalls in Yangyon, with stall owners claiming the film was now banned.

Over the past month a number of websites, including TweakTown, have experienced sporadic redirects to scam websites. It has been exceptionally difficult to track down the source of these redirects, and our team has been working tirelessly to isolate the source of the issue. The source of the issue appears to be malicious code injected into Google Adsense ads, which are used by websites around the world.

In December a number of webmasters took to Google's Adsense Forum to complain of the issue, which seems to have peaked around January 9th. A total of 180 complaints were made on that day alone. Web security company Sucuri explains that cybercriminals possibly exploited two Adsense campaigns with Javascript code that loaded the malicious code. This redirect unfolds whether the user clicks the ad or not. Sucuri was able to track down the source, and notes:

Facebook and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have teamed up to bring Amber Alert messages to the No. 1 social networking website. The new alert system will post images to users in the same geographic targeted area, with users unable to opt out of the alerts - though they can be deleted.

"These alerts, which include photographs and other details about the missing child, are shown on mobile and desktop," a Facebook press release states. "People can share the alert with friends and link directly to the National Center's missing child poster, which always has the most up-to-date information about the case."

Amber Alerts were created as a method for law enforcement, wireless carriers, transportation agencies and broadcasters to share data on missing children.

President Obama has been covering some of the issues he intends to address in the coming year in the build-up to his State of the Union speech. The White House posted a video of President Obama announcing new executive actions that will allow easier local investment, that in the end will provide every American access to 1000Mbps internet speeds.

For us in the tech world it is widely known how badly American internet speeds lag behind other countries. The US is ranked 24th in the world for average broadband speeds according to Webindex. However, average citizens aren't as aware of how woefully inadequate our internet speeds are, especially considering the much higher prices we pay. For instance, Seoul has an average cost of $30 per month for the fastest internet, which would cost $300 a month in the U.S.

Obama used a tablet to highlight the difference between American internet speeds in several cities to the speed of other cities around the world. With the exception of a few key cities, such as Kansas City (which has Google Fiber), the overall US trails far behind competing countries. Obama did not outline the details of the plan, but mentioned that through executive actions he can take steps to encourage and enhance investment. Obama has wide latitude with executive actions, which do not require congressional approval.

Twitter is planning to roll out their native video feature in just a few short weeks, reports claim. This service is said to not be a competitor to YouTube, but to help promote a positive experience for users and keep them coming back to the social media platform - don't forget that Twitter own Vine, so this is certainly possible.

Rumors claim that 20 seconds is the possible video length to be available, which is a vast improvement on Vine's six seconds or the fact that every other Twitter-linked video would have to have been from an alternative source. However this 20-second limit isn't set in stone, Twitter are reportedly going to be 'testing the waters' over the next few weeks, months or years.

This feature will be coming to the browser and the app versions, seeing users gain the ability to record their video through the app itself or upload any pre-existing clip.

There's been a bit of talk over the past couple of years that people are getting annoyed with the advertising and intrusive spying that Facebook has been reported on by various news outlets, with many user claiming to ditch this social media platform for good - looking to utilize other media entities or simply put down their smartphone.

In a recent data analysis released by Pew Internet, 58 percent of American adults are still on board with Facebook - with their closest competitor, Linked In, sitting at 23 percent and Pintrest bringing up third place at 22 percent.

Even more surprising is the fact that both Twitter and Instagram don't make the top three placements. With Instagram ranking fourth at 21 percent and Twitter straggling in fifth place, with 19 percent. All of these results are, once again, only of the adult population - meaning 18 years and older.

"The Interview" has racked up $31 million in on-demand and digital sales, closing in on the $41 million it cost to create the film. The movie was released online on Christmas Eve, and while it was an instant hit among Internet pirates, has also generated impressive sales and rental figures from paid users.

The controversial movie racked up $15 million in sales during the four days it was released, and continues to generate success. Apple iTunes, Amazon Instant Video and cable video on-demand services now offer the movie for rental and sale.

"The Interview" will receive a UK release in the future, Sony noted, and it appears Netflix want access to the film. Just a few days after the movie was released, there was talk as to whether or not the film could help spur same-day online launches for future Hollywood films.

A senior commander of the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar Islamic terrorist group, Ehsanullah Ehsan, reportedly is making contacts via the LinkedIn social business networking website, according to reports. Promoting his ties to Islamic extremism, Ehsan listed his skills to include "jihad" and "journalism" on LinkedIn.

The account had around 70 contacts before being suspended from the popular business networking website. The Pakistan government has a $1 million bounty for the capture or death of Ehsan.

"[I] can't say for certain that it is someone else... but I can say that our security team has a high degree of confidence that it is a fake account, which is reason enough to restrict it," a LinkedIn spokesperson told The Telegraph. "[I] also can't say for certain who might have set it up if it is fake."

U2 front man Bono is appreciative to see Apple and Spotify stepping up to pay musicians during a turbulent time in music. Digital album and song downloads are sliding, as more listeners turn to streaming music services, and some artists aren't supportive of the current trend.

Bono said Apple is "unique in big tech in trying to get artists paid," at a time when iTunes, Spotify, and other services garner various acceptance from musicians and the music industry.

"We all now understand the Internet is giving us access to information that is mostly flattening an uneven playing field," Bono recently said. "This is all good except when some technologists think that creative content is only valuable in its ability to show off their wares - hard or soft."

Thanks to a new advancement, Google are giving students some much needed assistance in the form of rental textbooks for all Aussie students.

Textbooks are often very expensive, seeing most university courses asking you to put up hundreds of dollars for lengthy books that you sometimes barely use - which is obviously quite hard given you are a student and generally don't have much money to spare.

Thanks to advancements in technology, these digital textbooks are fully searchable, notes can be taken, stored and exported at your will and your own notes can even be stored long after the textbook rental has expired. Also don't worry, if you're not yet a registered student, you can still gain full access to any of these textbooks - simply rent and try them out for yourselves.

Bing and Yahoo were experiencing some major issues just a few days ago thanks to Microsoft pushing an update without thoroughly checking it for bugs, as Reuters reported.

If you're an avid user of these search engines, you'll have noticed that after typing search.yahoo.com into your browser, you would have been met with an error message saying that Yahoo engineers were working to resolve the issue. Microsoft struggled to roll-back the updates changes, rectifying the outage a few hours later.

It has been reported that after the crash, Microsoft's initial roll-back failed, forcing them to shut down its groups of linked servers until eventually order was restored. According to an unnamed source, once the search was restored, Yahoo had some issues handling the backlog of search requests - eventually restoring order after a number of hours on the job.

Sony Pictures received a lot of public criticism, from the Obama Administration and the public, for its decision to pull "The Interview" from theaters ahead of its Christmas release. The company decided to push ahead and release the movie in a smaller number of theaters, while heavily pushing online rentals and sales.

There are now questions as to whether movie studios should begin offering movies directly to the Internet from day one - while also screening movies in theaters. It's not going to be an overnight change, as movie theaters still help produce increased revenue per viewer than online rentals or sales, industry figures indicate. However, this could help spur interest in movies from viewers that otherwise wouldn't go through the trouble of seeing a movie in theater.

"The floodgates are now open for digital distribution," said Roger Kay, technology analyst and founder of Endpoint Technologies Associates, in a statement published by the San Francisco Chronicle. "Yes, these were special circumstances, but they allowed the world to see there's no reason not to stream on day one. I think it will change movie distribution ever."

Netflix is undoubtedly one of the biggest and best online-streaming platforms available today, but unfortunately for some countries (like Australia), its services aren't supported - seeing them region locked due to copyright and various other laws. As there is a demand we've seen a sub-culture of users who are located within this 'exclusion zone' - they're still paying members of Netflix, but utilize a VPN to trick this service into thinking they live in America.

Are they pirates or not? Its a commonly asked question among media entities and the public. Although these users are paying members and are not stealing content, they're using a VPN to trick the streaming platform into thinking they live in a supported country.

TorrentFreak has just reported of Netflix's implementation of specific blocks, said to block some services that get around geo-blockers. Although not everything has been taken down just yet, reports claim that more of these VPN extensions and applications may be stamped out one-by-one from here on in.

"The Interview" might prove to be popular among Western movie watchers, but is no laughing matter for defectors that successfully escaped North Korea.

Following Sony's decision to release the movie after all, the community of 20,000+ North Korean defectors living in South Korea were quick to watch it. However, they seemed unimpressed with the crude humor that is laced throughout the movie, despite mentions of concentration camps, rampant starvation, and an overly-controlling government regime.

"Every defector I know has seen the movie," said Kim Sung-Min, a defector that created the anti-Pyongyang Free North Korea Radio Station, in a statement to the media. "We've talked a lot about this flick over the past week, and we simply did not understand why it gives foreigners laughs."

A New Zealand man suspected of fighting for ISIS in Syria accidentally revealed his location, because he simply forgot to turn off geotagging. Mark John Taylor, also known as Abu Abdul Rahman or Mohammad Daniel, realized his mistakes and turned off Twitter location services - while also deleting 45 tweets - but screenshots were already captured. The account in question, @M_Taylor_Kiwi, has been suspended.

Using Taylor's own tweets, iBrabo, a Canadian open source intelligence research firm, was able to track the militant's locations from Kafar Roma, into the desert, and into the Al Tabqah ISIS safe haven. As Taylor posted messages such as: "I've abandoned all international laws and only practice Islamic shariah laws! NZ laws are the worst of time. Sorry Johny, here to stay in IS," he was also revealing what house he was staying in.

"Taylor eager for the fame of being a violent jihadist took to Twitter to get attention for his exploits," iBrabo noted in a statement. "His statements and Twitter missteps have solidified his involvement with ISIS and will provide the evidence should he ever try to return to New Zealand."

Sony Pictures announced it is spreading release of "The Interview" to In Demand, a premium pay-per-view network that includes customers such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable, PlayStation Network, and other major carriers. Even with increased interest among Internet users to illegally pirate the movie, "The Interview" still appears to be racking up strong online rentals and purchases - which is why additional partners wanted to jump onboard.

Considering it wasn't long ago when Sony Pictures announced it would pull the movie from theaters - and online release also seemed in jeopardy - it's good to see the film hit additional markets. "We have always sought the widest possible distribution for "The Interview," and want to thank our new partners for helping us make that happen," said Michael Lynton, Sony Entertainment CEO, in a press statement.

Sony Pictures still hasn't outlined international release schedule for the film, but an announcement is expected to take place sometime in the near future.