Tag: NETWORKING

We had almost forgotten that Google promised to bring an experimental, super high-speed fiber optic network to one lucky American city way back in February of 2010. Along with its +1 recommendation service, Google also announced today the winner of its gigabit-per-second second network: Kansas City, Kansas. With this city of only 145,000 people, Google is starting small. When the service ...

We've all done it: found an unencrypted Wi-Fi connection and decided to piggyback on an unsuspecting neighbor's Web hookup -- even if it was only a temporary fix while we waited for a repairman, or until we could get cable installed in a new apartment. According to a recent poll conducted by Wakefield Research and the Wi-Fi Alliance, 32-percent of respondents admitted to trying to steal a ...

A reader asks: I recently got a new laptop that supposedly has super-fast Wi-Fi, but I honestly don't see any difference from before, which is a disappointment. I've been googling around and discovered that maybe I need to upgrade the device thingie that my DSL service provides. I honestly don't understand all this, but I really feel the need for speed, so Just Tell Me What To Get! Dear ...

For better or worse, Wi-Fi is an increasingly common amenity on flights, both domestic and international. The upside is that you can get work done in transit. The down side is that you're expected to get online and get work done in transit. Many now fly assuming they'll have Internet access at 30,000 feet, but that isn't always the case, and there hasn't been a particularly easy way to check ...

Share Way back in 1998, 'The Truman Show' provided a revealing, and prescient, glimpse into the burgeoning world of reality television and surreptitious marketing techniques. Annoying and (sometimes) sneaky product placements are certainly not a new phenomenon, but the advertising scheme has almost reached ubiquitous Truman-esque status as it has expanded to corrupt almost all aspects of ...

Japanese researchers discovered a way to transmit data, at broadband speeds, using the human body back in 2005. Now Korean scientists have improved on that demonstration by performing the same feat with using a set of slightly modified electrodes. Using low-frequency electromagnetic signals, which travel easily and safely across human skin and are free of the interference common to wireless ...

With more and more people using Wi-Fi-enabled devices -- from iPhones to netbooks to standard laptops -- the need for public Internet access is steadily growing. Unfortunately, cybercriminals are very aware of this fact and, according to Fox News, are exploiting it to the best of their ability. By creating phony Wi-Fi networks in places such as hotels and airports, crooks target carefree ...

We've heard it said that a terrorist's most powerful weapon is the Internet. For our part, we've seen no shortage of stories about extremist recruiters using Facebook, or Twitter, or even 'World of Warcraft' to further their dastardly deeds. We've always been a bit incredulous, and now a report from the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence backs that up, ...

One of the first things you should do if you think you have a virus is to quarantine your PC and disconnect from your home network to prevent the infection from spreading to other computers in your home. You don't want to disconnect from the Internet entirely however or you won't be able to download updates for your anti-virus software. Doing this on a Mac (in Preferences: Sharing) or in Vista ...

Vanishing staplers aren't the only employee-related phenomena bleeding the corporate world dry. According to a new study by U.K.-based employment law firm Peninsula, roughly £130 million (or about $264 million U.S.) is lost per day by British corporations due to office workers dillydallying on Facebook. That's the equivalent of 233 million employee hours per month. And British companies ...

In his quest to leave no social-networking stone unturned, Barack Obama has joined the professional networking service LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site that allows you to do many of the standard social networking things such as send messages, connect with your friends, and create profiles, but instead of listing the bands you like and fending off requests from ...

The attorneys general of North Carolina, Connecticut, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania have issued a letter to MySpace asking the social networking giant to supply a list of the registered sex offenders who use the site. According to a statement by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, the demand comes after law enforcement agencies in those states identified 200 ...