China's Internet users soar as mobile drives growth

China had 649 million people online at the end of 2014, up by 31 million people from a year earlier. Mobile Internet users grew by 57 million people.

The number of Internet users in China continues to skyrocket.

China added 31 million Internet users for a total of 649 million, the country's China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) reported Tuesday, according to Reuters, which obtained a copy of the report. The country's total number of mobile Internet users jumped by 57 million to 557 million, CNNIC reported.






China's Internet growth over the last several years has been nothing short of staggering. The country adds tens of millions of people to the Web each year. But with a total population of over 1 billion, China still has a long way to go. China's Internet penetration rate at the end of 2014 was 47.9 percent. By contrast, more than 40 nations have at least a 70 percent penetration rate, according to an Internet Society report released last year.


Source:
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/chinas-internet-user-base-continues-to-soar-as-mobile-drives-growth/

China’s Great Firewall Gets Taller

China’s government has unveiled a smarter and stricter Internet filter, riling web users and widening the divide between China’s Internet and the World Wide Web.

A recent upgrade to China’s web filters, commonly referred to as the Great Firewall, has made it more difficult to use services called virtual private networks to circumvent the country’s blocks to U.S. services like Google and Facebook .






Chinese officials confirmed a crackdown on VPNs this week, saying that new measures were needed as the Internet evolved. In the past week, major VPN providers such as Astrill have reported disruptions to their services.

The move is further indication of China’s desire to create a parallel Internet environment that it can more easily control. The web filters serve a dual purpose of screening out content critical of the Chinese government and providing protection for China’s own growing web firms against stronger overseas rivals.


Source:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-great-firewall-gets-taller-1422607143

Inmarsat Courts Developers, Opens Its Satellite Broadband Platform To All

Inmarsat, the UK-based satellite company that provides voice and broadband services to users in the air and on land and sea, is today announcing that it will open its platform for all developers to access. The move is calculated to help the company expand its services beyond its traditional customer base — businesses and individuals in remote areas that terrestrial networks don’t reach — to a new class of always-connected users and use-cases, such as the rise of the Internet of Things.

“We recognise the constant need for people and things to be connected regardless of time or location. We have been providing global mobile connectivity for decades and want to leverage this position to facilitate the development of new applications, enhancing the way in which people interact with our technologies,” said Michele Franci, Inmarsat’s CTO said in a statement.

The company is expected to provide more details of its strategy later today at it Developer Conference, the first time that the company is formally opening its doors to third parties in this way. In line with that, Inmarsat is also opening up a new Certified Application Partner program.

Source:

http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/20/inmarsat-open-source/

Inmarsat Developer Conference:

http://www.inmarsat.com/inmarsat-developer-conference

QUALCOMM BACKS SATELLITE INTERNET VENTURE

ONEWEB PLANS TO DEPLOY 648 LOW-ORBIT SATELLITES FOR RURAL BROADBAND

Qualcomm has joined The Virgin Group as investors in a startup company that aims to deploy a low-orbit constellation of 648 microsatellites to bring high-speed Internet to rural areas.

WorldVu Satellites, operating as OneWeb, said Thursday that Virgin’s Richard Branson and Qualcomm Executive Chairman Paul Jacobs would join its board of directors.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Qualcomm declined to provide additional details, including the amount it invested.

“We have a shared vision to bring connectivity to underserved areas around the world,” said Jacobs in a statement. “We are pleased to join Virgin as an initial investor, and we look forward to helping fund initial technical feasibility work for the satellite system.” OneWeb said in a statement that it plans to bring in additional investors to fund construction, launch and operation of its satellite cluster. It will use Virgin Galactic’s LauncherOne program to carry its satellites into orbit.

Source:

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/jan/16/Qualcomm-Virgin-OneWeb-Worldvu-satellite-internet/

Internet Archive breathes life back into 2,300 MS DOS games

GATHER ROUND all you things-ain't-as-good-as-they-used-to-be people, because the Internet Archive is offering the modern world a taste of what gaming looked like when we did it through MS DOS.
Basic, is the short answer, but 'very playable' serves as an excellent footnote. There are a lot of old classics on the list, and this is an opportunity to indulge in those that you did not quite master.
Seminal games like Oregon Trail, an early adventure title, and Ms PacMan are back now and ready to play on machines whenever you are.
They are joined by over 2,000 more thanks to the venerable free digital lending library. The Internet Archive is making them free to play through a range of browsers, and on PC and Mac, via an emulator.

The games are available through one of the website's massive archives, and at the last count there were 2,314 online.


Source:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2389352/internet-archive-breathes-life-back-into-2-300-ms-dos-games

FCC to define broadband as minimum 25Mbps

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is proposing to raise the minimum speeds allowed for broadband from 4Mbps down, 1Mbps up to 25Mbps down, 3Mbps up.

The FCC is responsible for reporting to Congress on the state of broadband in the United States, and in the next Annual Broadband Progress Report, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler has indicated that he is likely to raise the defined minimum benchmark for services to be able to be described as "broadband".

According to a circulated fact sheet, the FCC is considering raising the definition to "reflect current consumer demands, deployment trends, and technological advances".

As a result, the draft report found that the broadband being deployed in rural areas, tribal land, and US territories is not being done so in a reasonable and timely fashion.

Source:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/fcc-to-define-broadband-as-minimum-25mbps/

Google to FCC: if the internet is a Title II utility, let us expand Fiber

Verizon famously said that if the FCC heeds President Obama's urging and declares the internet a Title II utility, it would cause "great harm to an open Internet, competition and innovation." But exactly the opposite of that may happen, according to a letter from Google to the FCC. Mountain View pointed out that if broadband internet access is declared to be a Title II service, then Google Fiber should be granted the same access as other utilities to poles and other essential infrastructure. It went on to say that doing so would actually "promote broadband deployment and competition."

Google is often forced to dig trenches for its Fiber internet, limiting the highly sought service to just a few communities so far. That's because access to poles, ducts and conduits (at a tenth the cost) is limited by federal law to traditional cable TV and telecom suppliers. Google doesn't legally fit that definition, even though it provides internet-based TV and telephone services. It has had pole access hassles in the past with carriers like AT&T, which said last year that that it would cooperate more with Google only when it "qualifies as a telecom or cable provider" under federal law.

Source:

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/01/google-letter-fcc-title-ii/