Posted 03/11/10 at 12:09:43 PM by David Murphy

Oh, Cisco. What a tease you are!  The company's been pumping up the general Internet crowd for a game-changing announcement, one that would--and I quote--"forever change the Internet."  I was honestly hoping that said unveiled device would be like, a super-crazy consumer router that would... well. I'm not really sure what it would do. Gigabit speeds are more than sufficient for anyone's home networking needs right now (when I'm looking for this column on a terabit connection in five years, I'll have a hearty laugh.)  And it's not like we have a new wireless draft on the way any time soon.

It would have been nice and revolutionary for Cisco to embrace--you guessed it--a more open-source platform for its hardware devices. One, it's what I write about and, two, we're kind of in a hardware lull, don't you think?  When it comes to consumer routing and switching devices, there's only so much one can do. Aside from adding on new antennas, shifting antennas around in new ways, or adding more ports to the back of a device, what's really propelling router technology forward nowadays?

Read More

Posted 03/10/10 at 07:25:21 AM by Paul Lilly

Networking specialist Cisco on Tuesday announced what it claims is a "major advancement in Internet networking" in its CRS-3 Carrier Routing System (CRS).

"With more than 12 times the traffic capacity of the nearest competing system, the Cisco CRS-3 is designed to transform the broadband communication and entertainment industry by accelerating the delivery of compelling new experiences for consumers, new revenue opportunities for service providers, and new ways to collaborate in the workplace," Cisco said.

Sound pretty ambitious, and Cisco has the numbers to match. The CRS-3 delivers up to 322Tbps (that's Terabits per second), which Cisco says is enough to enable the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress to be downloaded in just over one second. It's also more than triple the capacity of the 92Tbps CRS-1, and 12 times the capacity of any other core router in the industry.

"The next generation Internet is upon us and we are confident that the Cisco CRS-3 will play a crucial role as service providers like AT&T deliver an exciting, new array of video, mobile, data center, and cloud services," said Pankaj Patel, senior VP and GM, Service Provider Business, Cisco.

Read More

Posted 03/08/10 at 08:40:07 AM by Paul Lilly

Quick question: Is Web access a fundamental right or a privilege? If you think the Internet is a fundamental right, then you're in the clear majority, according to a new global survey conducted for the BBC World Service.

In a poll of 27,000 adults spread out through 26 countries, four out of five respondents described Web access as a right, and that number was even higher in South Korea and China. About 78 percent of respondents said the Internet gave them greater freedom, while half said the Web should never be regulated.

At the same time, some 65 percent of respondents in Japans said they didn't feel safe expressing their opinions online, a sentiment shared by pollsters living in South Korea, France, Germany, and China.

Other areas of concern include fraud, violent and explicit content, and threats to privacy, but none of these diminished the overall feeling.

"Despite worries about privacy and fraud, people around the world see access to the Internet as their fundamental right," said Doug Miller, the chairman of GlobeScan which conducted the survey. "They think the Web is a force for good, and most don't want governments to regulate it."

Read More

Posted 03/08/10 at 07:41:05 AM by Paul Lilly

Up to this point, Microsoft's bread and butter has been on desktop applications, like Windows and Office. But going forward, the software giant has its head in the cloud, according to Steve Ballmer, who said Microsoft is "betting our company" on cloud computing.

To prove it, some 70 percent of Microsoft employees are hammering away on cloud-related projects as you read this. That's already well over half, but within a year, Ballmer says that number will climb to 90 percent.

Ballmer's remarks came during an address at the University of Washington, in which he also gave credit to Apple's app store for doing a "very nice job" with it.

This goes in line with what Kevin Turner, Microsoft's chief operating officer, recently said when he indicated that much of the company's planned $9.5 billion budget for research and development will go towards the cloud,  noting that Microsoft wants to reinvent itself.

Read More

Posted 03/04/10 at 07:38:22 AM by Paul Lilly

Network hardware vendor TRENDnet on Wednesday announced the launch of its 450Mbps Wireless N Gigabite Router, model TEW-691GR.

TRENDnet says its new router is designed for "extreme performance and unparralled quality of service." It comes with three external antennas broadcasting on the 2.4GHz spectrum, with three spatial streams per antenna.

"The 450Mbps TEW-691GR offers unsurpassed wireless throughput and coverage," stated Zak Wood, Director of Global Marketing for TRENDnet. "If you are looking for the ultimate in wireless performance, look for TRENDnet’s 450Mbps Wireless N Gigabit Router."

In addition to the staggering 450Mbps theoretical throughput, the TEW-691GR also boasts Multiple Input Multple Output (MIMO) technology to boost wireless coverage, signal strength, and throughput speed, TRENDnet says.

Read More

Posted 03/04/10 at 07:37:28 AM by Paul Lilly

AT&T is in good position to benefit from Apple's successful product launches. First there's the iPhone, which is available exclusively on AT&T's network in the U.S., and later this month, AT&T will provide service for iPad customers as well. So why isn't AT&T geeked?

"My expectation is that there's not going to be a lot of people out there looking for another subscription," said Randall Stephenson, chief executive, AT&T. Instead, Stephenson sees the iPad thriving mostly as a "Wi-Fi driven product."

If true, AT&T might have cause for concern, as many expect the telco's exclusivity agreement with Apple's iPhone to be nearing an end, but Stephenson didn't sound too worried. According to Stephenson, the iPhone will remain "an important part" of AT&T's phone line "for quite some period of time," Reuters reports.

See more here.

Read More

Posted 03/03/10 at 01:31:38 PM by David Murphy

It doesn't happen that often, but sometimes, you just need an FTP.  Or, rather, the problem is more like this: You need to access an FTP and you don't have a suitable software client on-hand for whatever reason.  Sure, you can usually access an FTP via your Web browser, but that just offers the most rudimentary form of functionality (read: downloads only) that you can get.  And that's even assuming that you can get into the FTP site you're trying to access--I've tested good ol' Mozilla Firefox on a few FTP sites that definitely work in a software client, yet do absolutely nothing when the ftp.*.* address is typed into a browser.

What do you do?  If you're a fan of Mozilla Firefox, all you need is but one simple extension to bridge both worlds together.  That's right--an FTP browser inside your Internet browser, which you can pull up into its own separate tab as if it was a new Web page, even though it's not.

What wizardry is this?  Click the jump to find out!

Read More

Posted 03/03/10 at 07:43:32 AM by Paul Lilly

Opera Software on Tuesday released Opera 10.50, calling it the "fastest Web browser thus-far produced for Windows computers."

That's a pretty big claim to live up to, and in terms of speed improvements, the latest release includes a new JavaScript engine called Carakan. Combined with the new graphics library (Vega), Opera Software says the end result is "no more waiting around for a site to load."

But it's not all about speed. Opera finally includes a Private browsing feature, and it's implementation is a little bit better than its competitors. Rather than open up a brand new session, you can enable Private browsing in a new tab.

Other features include improved standards support for HTML5 and CSS3, the addition of an Opera menu button giving you one-click access to the browser's new features, and support for Windows 7/Vista visuals such as Aero Glass, Aero Peek, and Jump Lists.

Download

Read More