4Mbps the minimum speed generally required!

Different download speeds for broadband services can give Internet users a variety of online experiences.

Internet speed - or a lack thereof - could influence the quality of experience you have with everything from emailing and web browsing to online gaming and video conferencing.

So, to help you figure out what speed is right for you, you should first understand that connection speeds are calibrated in megabits per second (Mb or Mbps), a number referring to how many bits of data - in millions - can be moved in a second.

The other factor for measuring speeds is bandwidth, or the "size of the conduit in which the data is traveling," says David Salway, director of the Broadband Program Office for New York State.

Download Speed: 4-6 Mbps:
The Federal Communications Commission considers 4 Mbps the minimum speed "generally required for using today's video-rich broadband applications and services, while retaining sufficient capacity for basic web browsing and e-mail."

Salway offers a similar opinion, saying most users with 4-6 Mbps typically will have smooth sailing if they are emailing or, in some cases, streaming music.

But online gaming applications, which might require much higher speeds, could fail at this connection tier, depending on the network traffic.

In fact, the FCC reports you might be at the very minimum speed for two-way online gaming in high definition or streaming HD-quality movies. So, if you're a movie buff or gamer, your lifestyle might be better suited to higher internet speeds.

What You Can Do: File sharing (small/medium files), IPTV (Internet TV services)*

Read more: Yahoo Homes (source)
By: Tony Moton

Alibaba's Singles' Day sales $14.3 billion

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's total value of goods transacted during its Singles' Day shopping festival was 91.2 billion yuan ($14.32 billion), the Chinese e-commerce giant said in Beijing on Thursday.

The numbers got a boost this year from adding the sales from various new channels, including its affiliates and investees. In all, the figure for this year's Singles' Day is up 60 percent from 2014.

The results are preliminary and unaudited, Alibaba said. Of the total value of transactions, 68 percent was through orders from mobile devices.

Alibaba founder and chairman Jack Ma gestures as he attends Alibaba Group's 11.11 Global shopping festival in Beijing, China, November 10, 2015.
 REUTERS/CHINA DAILY

Six years ago, Alibaba turned Nov. 11 into China's equivalent of United States shopping event Cyber Monday. It has now become larger than both Cyber Monday and Black Friday combined, and a closely watched barometer of the company's performance.

"Alibaba is positioned as the number one player in the Chinese e-commerce market, so it has to be seen to be maintaining, or gaining ground really," said Duncan Clark, chairman of Beijing-based tech consultancy BDA.

Read more: REUTERS (source)

BEIJING | BY PAUL CARSTEN

Optical Fibre Cable market in India will reach $424m by 2020

A recently published report released by TechSci Research suggests that the Optical Fiber Cable market in India will reach $424m by 2020 based on the growing adoption of smartphones, broadband services and upcoming 4G roll out.

It is believed that Indian consumers are heading towards internet driven applications such as video on demand and HDTV, this in turn is boosting future investments in fibre.

In comparison to copper cables, fiber optic technology delivers much higher bandwidth, which has become extremely vital for supporting burgeoning data traffic.

“Government of India, on its part, is doing every bit to contribute towards expanding telecom infrastructure. This is evident from government’s participation in various telecom support projects such as National Optic Fiber Network (NOFN) to connect Gram Panchayats in rural pockets of India with a principal telecom network, for high speed data transmission and internet services.

“The NOFN project is expected to be one of the major drivers for OFC installations in India over the next five years.” said Mr. Karan Chechi, Research Director with TechSci Research, a global market research and consulting company.

“India Optical Fiber Cables Market Forecast & Opportunities,2020” has evaluated future growth potential of OFC market in India and provides statistics and information on market structure, industry behavior and trends. The report includes market projections and demand forecasting.

“The report is intended to provide cutting-edge market intelligence and help decision makers in taking sound investment decisions. Besides, the report also identifies and analyzes the emerging trends along with essential drivers, challenges and opportunities in India’s OFC market.”

Read more: TechSci Research

Apple has $137.1 Billion in cash

Apple has $137.1 billion in cash reserves, according to the company's recent first-quarter earnings , with $94 billion is stored offshore. If Apple wants to repatriate this cash, it will have to pay huge amounts in taxes and would lose a significant percent overall. 

For now, Apple's just sitting on it. Doing nothing. Nada.

An investor launched sued Apple after it announced plans to get rid of "black check preferred stock" instead of cold, hard cash. This led to Apple stating that is in "active discussions about returning additional cash to shareholders." 

Read More: ZDNet

Caption by: Zack Whittaker

Placing your router near a lamp slows down internet speeds

Experts warn that placing your router near a lamp slows down internet speeds

Few people would argue against the idea that router placement -- particularly when it comes to maximizing Wi-Fi footprint -- is important. But it is not just the location that's key; broadband speeds could also be affected by seemingly innocuous objects in the home.

The head of the UK's communications regulator Ofcom warns that numerous electrical goods in the home can interfere with signals and slow down the internet. It's a problem that affects around 20 percent of households, and while there are some obvious culprits on the list of web-killers such as stereos and baby monitors, there are also some surprises.

Ofcom's chief executive Sharon White says that many people who suffer with slow internet speeds actually have a fast connection delivered to their house. She blames people placing their router on a coffee table next to things like cordless phones and other electrical products.

source: betanews

By Mark Wilson

Bell Canada on pace to bring 1 Gbps FTTH service to 2.2M homes by the end of 2015

Bell Canada has extended the reach of its 1 Gbps FTTH service Gigabit Fibe to over 2 million homes across Quebec, Ontario, and the Atlantic region of Canada, with plans to extend it to a total of 2.2 million homes by the end of the year.

With four to five years of experience in rolling out FTTH via other subsidiaries like Bell Aliant, Bell Canada also has built a foundation to deliver speeds higher than 1 Gbps.

Speaking to investors during its third quarter earnings call, George Cope, president and CEO of BCE, said that it will be able to deliver 10 Gbps by 2017.

"FTTH technology also provides a clear path to -- significantly to support other speeds beyond one gig over time," Cope said during the earnings call, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript. "And by way of example ... by 2017 we'd have the ability to do 10 gig speeds."

Cope added that it could achieve the 10G speeds "without requiring any upgrade to our network" and unlike its cable competitors "any segmentation capital."

BCE, Bell Canada's parent, touted its ability to reach nearly 20 percent of its footprint with FTTH services while maintaining capital spending intensity of about 4 percent below its cable competition over the past three years.

"We anticipate that BCE's overall capex intensity in 2016 will again be in the range of 16% to 17%, as we continue our fiber build out throughout Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada," Cope said.  

Although rolling out FTTH requires a large amount of upfront capital to fund builds in the markets it is targeting, Bell Canada is finding that the infrastructure requires less maintenance than traditional copper.

Bell's experience is not uncommon. Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) has continued to migrate more of what it calls "chronic" copper customers, or those that have required three or four truck rolls in a year, onto fiber.

Read More: Fierce Telecom

By Sean Buckley

USB stick that can instantly fry any machine

Killer USB stick destroys your computer in seconds

Russian hackers have created a USB stick that can instantly fry any machine it is plugged into.

These 'killer' USB sticks can fry your laptop or phone in seconds, if plugged in.

A simple USB stick, created by a Russian security researcher known as 'Dark Purple' can instantly fry any machine it plugs into, including your laptop or TV.

The USB destroys laptops by sending 220 volts through the signal lines of the USB interface, rendering anything it is plugging into useless.

Dark Purple claims in a Russian-language blog post that the attack is not just limited to computers, but can used to incapacitate almost anything equipped with a USB drive. The examples he gives are smart phones that support USB mode, TVs, routers, modems, etc. His goal, he writes, is to test prototypes of "devices that perform only one function - the destruction of computers."

Although the laptop looks completely dead after the USB is done with it, Dark Purple claims that it will be restored once the motherboard has been replaced. "It is extremely unlikely that the hard disk or the information on it was damaged," he wrote.


This is good news as it means hackers who get their hands on the USB won't be able to wipe the data stored on your computer's hard drive - which is is probably more valuable to you or your business than the computer itself.

To protect yourself, don't plug in unknown USB sticks into your personal devices.

Source: The Telegraph

By:  Madhumita Murgia

Dell to buy EMC in $67 billion record tech deal

Dell to buy EMC in $67 billion record tech deal, aims for cloud market:

Computer-maker Dell Inc struck a deal on Monday to buy data storage company EMC Corp for $67 billion, setting a record in the technology industry, as it tries to transform itself into a giant in the fast-growing market for managing and storing corporate data.

The acquisition, the year's third-largest in all sectors, highlights the frenzy of dealmaking sweeping the economy, as big or mature companies take advantage of low interest rates to buy rivals as a way to spur growth.

The deal should help privately held Dell, the world's No. 3 computer maker, diversify from a stagnant consumer PC market and give it greater scale in the more profitable and faster-growing market for cloud-based data services.

That desire to reach beyond PCs - whose growth has been stopped in its tracks with the rise of mobile devices - echoes moves by Dell's big rivals. Hewlett-Packard Co, the No. 2 PC maker, is splitting off its computer and printer unit this year to focus on the corporate data business. IBM Corp sold its PC unit a decade ago.

By combining Dell's server businesses with EMC's storage and virtualization assets, the new, enlarged company will have a broader range of products to challenge Cisco Systems Inc, IBM and Hewlett-Packard in the areas of cloud computing, mobility and cyber security.

"I don’t think either Dell or EMC were viable over the long run as a standalone; they really needed each other," said Eric Johnson, dean of the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. "Dell was mostly on the consumer side, which is a terrible place to be. EMC had some enterprise products, but not the complete package."

The deal valued EMC at $33.15 a share as of the end of trading Friday. Dell will pay $24.05 per share in cash and will also give EMC shareholders a special stock that tracks the share price in VMWare Inc, the maker of cloud-based virtualization software majority-owned by EMC.

The stock market gave the deal a lukewarm response. EMC shares rose 1.8 percent to $28.36 after earlier jumping more than 2.5 percent. VMware shares plunged 7.8 percent to $72.48, decreasing the value of Dell's offer.

VMware will remain a publicly traded company. FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives said shareholders were concerned, however, that VMware would lose talented employees amid uncertainty about their future under Dell, eventually hurting the company's performance.

Read More: REUTERS

By: GREG ROUMELIOTIS AND JIM FINKLE

Battery life problem - iPhone 6S

IT SEEMS it's not just 'shutdowngate' plaguing iPhone 6S users, as the smartphone is reportedly suffering from a problem in the battery life department.

Not long after the iPhone 6S made its debut, it was revealed that there are two versions of the handset in the wild: one with a 16nm TMSC chip, and another with a Samsung chip built on the 14nm standard.

It was believed that, despite Samsung's chip being smaller, the two processors performed equally well, but MacRumours has revealed that this isn't the case. According to benchmark tests carried out on the iPhone 6S, the version with the TMSC chip offers almost two hours more battery life than the version with Samsung-made internals.

If you've got an iPhone 6S and want to check whether it has a TMSC or Samsung chip, you can do so by installing this app, users on Reddit are advising. TMSC's chip shows up as N66MAP or N71MAP, while Samsung's appears as N66AP or N17AP. However, it's worth noting that we tried using the app on our iPhone 6S, but didn't have much luck.


Read more: the INQUIRER
By Carly Page

Peruvian shamans pray for protection from El Nino

Photo: Martin Mejia, AP
Shamans hold up a statue of baby Jesus, or "El Nino" in Spanish, as they play drums and maracas during a ritual asking for protection from the natural phenomenon known as El Nino, on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2015. 


LIMA, PERU — Shamans in Peru participated in a ritual Thursday asking for protection from the natural phenomenon known as El Nino on the outskirts of Lima.

Peruvian sailors named the formation El Nino—the (Christ) Child—because it was most noticeable around Christmas.

Every few years, the winds shift and the water in the Pacific Ocean gets warmer than usual. That water sloshes back and forth around the equator in the Pacific, interacts with the winds above and then changes weather worldwide. 

In Peru, they've already declared a preemptive emergency to prepare for devastating flooding.

source: SFGATE
by: Martin Mejia, Associated Press