Internet economy set to hit $4.2T in 2016, half of world’s population will be online

The Internet economy among G-20 nations is expected to nearly double by 2016, reaching $4.2 trillion (up from $2.3 trillion in 2010), according to a projection released today by the Boston Consulting Group.

The big drive in the web economy over the next few years will be a massive influx of new users — with 3 billion users in 2016, up from 1.9 billion in 2010 — the consulting group reports.

“No company or country … Continue Reading

Nintendo 3DS scores free Boingo wi-fi access in 42 airports

Nintendo and wireless service provider Boingo announced a new partnership today that gives 3DS owners free wi-fi access at 42 airports across North America.

Unlike both smartphones and Sony’s upcoming Vita handheld gaming competitor, the Nintendo 3DS can’t connect to the internet through a cellular network, which limits the ability to download games/updates and online play to locations with a reliable wireless hotspot.

As part of the new partnership, travelers at Chicago’s O’Hare, New York’s … Continue Reading

Verizon’s FiOS Xbox 360 plans: 26 live TV channels with Kinect support

Christmas comes early for gamers on Verizon’s FiOS cable and Internet service. The company finally dished out plans for its previously announced Xbox 360 integration today, which includes an initial bundle of 26 live channels with Kinect voice and gesture support.

The FiOS channels will be accessible through a new app on the Xbox 360, which will be available in December. Additionally, Verizon announced a new triple-play bundle today (TV/internet/phone service), which starts at $90 … Continue Reading

Vint Cerf: The government is going overboard in Internet copyright control

“When Bob and I started writing the specs for the Internet in 1973…”

Only a handful of people can start a sentence anything like that.

Today, Vint Cerf, one of the godfathers of the Internet, stood on a stage at the Google campus and addressed attendees of Atmosphere, the company’s cloud computing event.

With his snow-white beard and three-piece suit, Cerf looked like something out of a Jules Verne novel, subtly different from the Brooks … Continue Reading

Just like with TV, there’s a prime-time for apps too

Mobile app usage peaks at around 7 pm during the day, according to the mobile analytics firm Flurry. The data shows that, just as there is with television, there is a prime-time for mobile apps as well.

Mobile app users generally use their apps from 3 pm to 10 pm, with the peak time being around 7 pm. That’s slightly off from the usual television prime-time, which lasts from around 7 pm to 11 pm. … Continue Reading

Actually Comcastic: Comcast shows off Gigabit broadband

Comcast showed off its gigabit broadband service today.

It took about one and a half minutes for Comcast CEO Brian Roberts to download an entire season of NBC sitcom 30 Rock during the live presentation given at cable industry trade event The Cable Show.

The official data transfer speed topped out at 1084 mbps, according the speedtest.net test conducted during the presentation, which Roberts pointed out was a real download, not a canned demo.

Acknowledging … Continue Reading

Level 3 buys broadband provider Global Crossing for $3B

Level 3 Communications said it will buy broadband services provider Global Crossing for $1.9 billion plus $1.1 billion in debt assumption. The aim is to create a global broadband network across three continents and reduce overall expenses.

The deal brings a much-needed consolidation to the broadband market, where the potential for traffic growth is huge but the major players have been hurt by low prices.

Broomfield, Colo.-based Level 3 agreed to buy Global Crossing in … Continue Reading

Japan's Internet holds up despite quake, tsunami

Japan’s network infrastructure has stayed largely intact despite the huge earthquakes and tsunami which struck the island nation Friday.

Renesys reported that the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and its aftershocks have not really affected the Internet’s undersea cables that keep Japan connected to the rest of the world. A small percentage of Japanese internet connections went down and many of those have come back up. That shows that, in a country immersed in technology, the Internet can … Continue Reading

2010: the year in internet stats

The internet is at the stage where it’s producing some pretty incredible numbers.

The number of emails sent on the internet in 2010 was 107 trillion, according to statistics gathered by Royal Pingdom. Since antivirus companies say that about 89 percent of all email is spam, we can assume the amount of spam was 95.3 trillion messages. Here are some other cool stats from Royal Pingdom:

294 billion – Average number of email messages per … Continue Reading

Despite state censorship, China's Internet population crosses 450 million

The number of Internet users in China has surpassed 450 million people, a senior official of the country announced in a press conference this morning. The country is now the world’s largest Internet market: The United States has only 230 million users.

That number represents an increase of 30% in Internet users from last year, boosting the country’s Internet penetration to around 34 percent — suggesting there’s much more room to grow.

While the impact … Continue Reading

Verizon pushes for rewrite of "antiquated and anti-competitive" US telecom law

Tell us what you really think, Verizon. The company yesterday issued a press release titled “Congress Needs to Update the Nation’s Antiquated and Anti-Competitive Telecom Rules” — which, as you can guess, isn’t exactly a love letter to the FCC.

Verizon executive vice president of public affairs Tom Tauke is quoted as saying in the release: “The grinding you hear are the gears churning as policymakers try to fit fast-changing technologies and competitive markets into … Continue Reading

Google traffic now accounts for record 6.4% of all Internet

Traffic across Google sites broke a new record this month and now accounts for an impressive 6.4% of all Internet traffic around the world, according to a tally by network security firm Arbor Networks.

The tally included all Internet sites owned by Google, namely its main Google.com search engine, YouTube, GMail, Google Maps, Google’s office suite of products like Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and others. One expects a major contributor to the statistic to be … Continue Reading

Pogoplug launches Pro for sharing personal files over the Internet

Cloud Engines, maker of the Pogoplug device for accessing and sharing content from your hard drive via the internet, today announced the launch of Pogoplug Pro. And for those who never liked the device because it was bright pink, the new Pro comes in black.

The device lets users save content safely on USB hard drives connected to the Pogoplug device and is available from any Internet enabled device, including apps for the iPhone, Android, iPad, BlackBerry, … Continue Reading

Aryaka Networks: Stop sending the same files twice

Aryaka Networks, a provider of a cloud-based service that trims bandwidth usage and latency concerns for large companies, is launching today and has raised $14 million in its first round of funding.

The Milpitas, Calif., company provides optimization tools for wide-area networks (WANs), helping reduce bandwidth usage and mitigate latency issues that plague some large companies that need to transmit large amounts of data around the world by optimizing the files that are transferred. Aryaka … Continue Reading

Verizon names Lowell McAdam COO in preparation for CEO spot

Verizon today announced several changes to its executive roster in preparation for CEO Ivan Seidenberg’s retirement. The company named Lowell McAdam (pictured to the right alongside Google CEO Eric Schmidt), current president and CEO of Verizon Wireless, as Verizon’s new president and COO.

The move puts McAdam in charge of operations for Verizon Wireless, Verizon Telecom and Business, and Verizon Services Operations.

The company also named Francis Shammo, president of Verizon Telecom and Business, as … Continue Reading

Google and Verizon present their policy for an open internet

In a last-minute conference call today, Google CEO Eric Schmidt (pictured to the right with Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam)  and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg joined together to discuss their support for net neutrality, or the idea of an open internet.

The call was a response to reports from last week that the companies were nearing an agreement for Google to pay Verizon to speed up internet access to its services. Schmidt claimed that those … Continue Reading

RWI wants to raise $100 for second fund

In a last-minute conference call today, Google CEO Eric Schmidt (pictured to the right with Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam)  and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg joined together to discuss their support for net neutrality, or the idea of an open internet.

The call was a response to reports from last week that the companies were nearing an agreement for Google to pay Verizon to speed up internet access to its services. Schmidt claimed that those … Continue Reading

China rising: Venture investments increase 47 percent in third quarter

In a last-minute conference call today, Google CEO Eric Schmidt (pictured to the right with Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam)  and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg joined together to discuss their support for net neutrality, or the idea of an open internet.

The call was a response to reports from last week that the companies were nearing an agreement for Google to pay Verizon to speed up internet access to its services. Schmidt claimed that those … Continue Reading