Internet

  • Internet,  Social Media

    You Reddit Beginners Guide

    Reddit is one of the most popular websites in the world, in fact it is the Eighteenth most popular worldwide. It is also the Sixth most popular in the USA. Of course, Reddit is a Social Media, but it is quite different from the rest. At the heart, it is a social sharing website. Links, pictures and text are all shared, and voted on by the members. The highest vote-catchers are rewarded by increasing visibility and wider distribution, while the most unpopular fall downwards on this scale, until it becomes extinct. Let us now examine this interesting phenomenon more closely and follow this Introduction To Reddit.

    Fact Check

    Reddit was founded by the famous trio of Steve Huffman, Aaron Swartz and Alexis Ohanian. Its parent organization is Advance Publications, with subsidiary titled RedditGifts.com. Steve Huffman has been the CEO since July 10th 2015, till the present date. Reddit was founded on June 23rd 2005, at Medford, Massachusetts, USA. The present Headquarters is located in the city of San Francisco, California, USA. Reddit has been written in Python and React Programming languages. Two 22 year old graduates of the University of Virginia, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, originally found Reddit after getting funds from a company called Y Combinator, in June 2005. In October 2006, they sold it to a Publication house, Conde Naste. This was. Then, starting on September 2011, Reddit has been operating as a direct supplementary of Advance Publications, Conde Naste’s parent company. Advance Publications also owns a large number of other popular Internet sites, newspapers, magazines and cable TV channels. Some of these are quite well known in their own right, such as, Web Monkey, Style and Wired News. In 2008, Open Source was transformed from Reddit’s Source Code, and all codes were obtainable on Github. By May 2010, Reddit was being touted as one of 2010 Hottest San Francisco Companies. But Reddit was still suffering from chronic shortage of funding. This leads it to introduce Reddit Gold, in July 2010. Costing Users just US$3.99 per month, it offered a whole lot of features to User Members. This included a trophy on the Member’s User Page, the option of viewing double the normal comments shown without clicking, and so on. In August 2011, Reddit’s main competitor, Digg.com, attempted to change their business model, which resulted in a mass migration of Users to Reddit. This in turn created Reddit’s target member as a 35-44 year old male, with some collage education and an income of US$25,000 to US$49,000. In a startling turn-around, Reddit jumped from around two million unique visitors per month, at the time just prior to Digg’s misadventure, to over 15 million unique visitors per month just after it. Reddit’s traffic continues to grow, as does its profile.

    Structure

    Beginners are sometimes confused with their first look at Reddit. So an explanation of its structure follows. Reddit is further divided into several million bits, which are known as ‘Subreddits’. Each Subreddit talks about a new topic, and the name starts with ‘/r/’, this being an URL section that Reddit uses. For instance, ‘/r/nba’ is a Subreddit in which the topic of discussion for the members is the National Basketball Association. The Home Page or Front Page on the Reddit site shows a number of trending posts in current use, which are pulled from a variety of Subreddits. Selection can be made by clicking the ‘Sort’ button to separate the ‘hot’ or Trending Topics from the rest. Any Reddit account holder can create a Subreddit for any topic. Of course the Community Guidelines must be strictly followed. ‘Mods’ or Moderators are volunteers who edit the appearance of a particular Subreddit, manage the activities, and dictate what type of content are allowed in that particular Subreddit. They have the power to delete content or posts, or even ban Users from the Subreddit. Overall power is vested in the employees of Reddit who govern the administration.

    Reddit Premium

    Reddit Premium can be purchased by members in order to support the Community. At the moment for a Reddit Premium of US$6 per month, Premium Users have access to features and powers far in excess of regular members.

    Signing Up

    Readers who are interested in signing up for membership of Reddit, may do so by visiting the Login Page, and confirming their User name, Password and Email, before verifying that the applicant is not a robot. Members are welcome to hold multiple accounts. They can set up multiple User names and have their choice of which Subreddit to participate in at that point of time.

    A Final Word (Or Two)

    Reddit’s star continues to rise, along with its burgeoning traffic. And so does its reputation as an egalitarian society. And all the while, it becomes more high profile, and this concludes our Introduction To Reddit.

  • Internet,  Mobile Internet

    What You Need To Know About 5G

    After 4G, 5G is already knocking on our doors. But users are wondering about the nature of this latest development, and how it will affect them. This is therefore a brief article, on 5G Explained, for guidance.

    The G-Factor

    The G-Factor came to us in this manner:

    5G: Mobile Technology became sophisticated, and developed to serve consumers as well as carry out digitization of industries. There will be far greater opportunities for service providers to offer new services.
    4G: Mobile Video consumption increased multifold, as Data speed increased. Data packages became more important than voice and sms packages.
    3G: Mobile Web Browsing began to become popular.
    2G: Mobile Voice calls further enhanced, as well as SMS.
    1G: Mobile Voice calls improved beyond recognition.

    How is 5G Better?

    The connectivity needs of the world are constantly increasing. As the use of the Internet penetrates ever deeper into our everyday life, dense urban areas no longer are sufficiently served by 4G networks. It is now estimated that the Global Mobile traffic will multiply over five times before the end of 2024. And present infrastructure will simply crumble in the face of the demand onslaught.

    5G will immediately mean enhanced mobile broadband for smartphone users, as well as fixed wireless access to homes. Speed will increase to the extent that downloading complete HD movies will be a matter of seconds on the phone. But that is just scratching the surface. 5G will result in immense improvement in telecommunication overall, generating huge improvements in the execution of businesses through augmented business activities. Large industries will be better connected, as well dense population centers such as cities. But the benefits that will penetrate into the hinterlands of countries, the under-developed rural and impoverished areas , will be startling to say the least.

    5G is a game changer. Network connection stability and security will increase dramatically with great speeds. Sharing videos from crowded arenas will no longer cause disruptions. Buffering will gradually become a thing of the past. Newsfeeds will no longer be frustrating.

    Among the many direct innovations and improvements that will accrue with the coming of 5G, the following will be immediately observable (and measurable) :

    • Data Rates will be 100 times faster, giving almost instant access to apps and services.
    • Network Slicing technology is part of 5G, where a unique portion of the 5G network can be dedicated to a particular service.
    • Network Latency will reduce in startling manner, to just 1 to 10ms.
    • Cost Efficiency Improvement of the enhanced mobile broadband will mean that the 5G network will cost 10 times less than cost per Gigabyte than the current 4G networks.
    • Capacity Enhancement to handle growing data traffic will multiply in step with demand.
    • New Technologies like Massive MIMO and 5G New Radio will be introduced, causing enormous decrease in cost per Gigabyte
    • Streaming Video will now be fully continuous, without any “buffering” whatsoever.
    • Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) will be available widely with 5G, which can provide connectivity for households and businesses more cost-effectively. Economic studies have shown that the payback time is less than two years , particularly when connecting under served and suburban households on the existing wireless network. It is therefore expected that this once moribund service will now be re-energized, and become a top revenue generator for the Operators.
  • Internet,  IoT,  Mobile Internet

    History of IOT (Internet of Things) Explained

    Internet of things which is also well-known as IoT is referred to the billions of devices all over the world which are connected via the internet. This is the reference made with their physical existence. These devices are collecting data and at the same time, they are sharing the same. Today there are processors and wireless networks in an affordable range. Using these facilities we can turn anything and make it part of the IoT. Through this, you can easily achieve digital intelligence to all these available devices and make them useful rather than just leaving them “dumb.”

    Through the internet of things, devices all over the world can start communicating in real-time and for doing this they don’t need any human intervention. They can merge these two worlds that are physical and digital very effectively.

    Internet Of Things- How To Understand This?

    It is possible to turn any physical object into IoT. So, this transformation is done through connecting the device into the internet and after that, it will be controlled through the internet.

    For example, a bulb can be switched on and off by using proper apps and smartphones. So, here the bulb is nothing but IoT. Other examples can be motion sensors and smart thermostat which are present in any office. There are varieties of IoT devices out there and sometimes it can be a child’s toy. In other cases, you can find a driverless truck as an example of an IoT device. A jet engine with hundreds of motion sensors can be the best example of a highly complicated IoT device. It is connected to the internet and it can transmit the required data and ensures everything is working fine efficiently.

    If you want to consider a still complicated and bigger example, then consider a smart city. A smart city will be filled with sensors and through which it becomes easy to control and understand the environment.

    IoT is mainly referred for devices that are actually not expected to be connected with the internet and share data. There is one more condition based on which the device is considered as IoT. This IoT device should transmit the required data without the help of human beings. Hence, normal PC, even though connected to the internet cannot be considered as an IoT device. To your surprise, even a smartphone is not an IoT device. But, fitness band and smart-watch are considered as IoT.

    History of the Internet of Things

    Throughout the decade 1980s-90s, there were discussions about the addition of sensors as well as intelligence to particular devices. But, nothing was happening fast other than some projects. There was one project where they achieved to end up with a vending machine that was successfully connected to the internet.

    Before achieving anything towards IoT they needed processors that are power-frugal and cheap. Only with this, they thought they can achieve a cost-effective solution so that they can connect many devices to the internet. Some of the issues were solved by RFID tags. These were nothing but low-cost chips that we’re able to communicate wirelessly.

    Another thing that helped was improvements that happened in a broadband connection. Later developments that helped IoT are wireless networking and cellular networking. IPv6 was the best thing through which they got enough IP address and they could assign them to the hundreds of devices on the internet. This was the best development through which they could scale IoT. Later it took more than a decade for IoT to actually come into the picture.

    IoT is the bridge between the interconnectedness of the digital information system and that of human culture. IoT is nothing but the internet.

    If you want to give an example for first or initial IoT applications, then it is the implementation of RFID tags. These tags were added to the expensive pieces and that helped in tracking these devices. Later we saw many improvements and the best thing happened was the cost of internet connection and the cost of the addition of sensors to the device significantly fell down.

    Today, it is possible to connect anything to the internet and experts predicted things long before.

    Earlier people who had an interest in IoT where manufacturing companies and businesses. M2M connection was as something, that is machine-to-machine was expected from IoT. But today it is not the case. The majority of the offices and even homes are filled with IoT devices. Hence, the transformation of IoT has reached everywhere and everyone.

    “blogjects” are the early devices which are considered as IoT. Invisible computing, ubiquitous computing, and pervasive computing are the next things that came up in series. But at last, IoT is something that succeeded.

    How Prevalent Is IoT?

    It is difficult to imagine how many devices are actually connected right now. It is definitely an outnumbered number of people present on this planet. This is really a bigger number and more and more people are getting interested in this IoT. Earlier it was just meant for business and manufacturing companies but today it is not. IoT is used on a daily basis by everyone on this earth.

    Benefits of IoT

    The benefits of IoT always depend on the implementation. Most importantly through IoT implementation, enterprises will be able to access more data at any point in time and they can easily control their own systems. With IoT facilities, it becomes easy to make changes on time.

    Majority of the manufacturers today trying to add sensors in all the products they are releasing. Through this, they are trying to transmit data back and with the data received they are efficiently checking how the devices are actually performing after implementation.

    The other major benefit of IoT is that different products and their hardware that are connected can interact with each other an function in collaboration. For example using a local sexfinder app like Free Fuckbook that can connect with the internet connected navigation of your vehicle or your watch would allow you to get to your hookup buddy in a seamless manner. Another example would be if you are exercising and your phone could connect with you exercise machine and function in cooperation you could have more optimized exercise or multipurpose functioning. This interaction between products especially of different brands and companies would not be possible without IoT.

    Bottom Line

    Apart from this, today because IoT we have changed our home into a smart home. People are easily gathering data about each and everything in their surroundings. They can sit at home and get data about pollution outside their home. Public places can be easily managed using IoT. We are already seeing cities getting transformed into smart cities through making use of IoT. So, IoT has made it possible to easily build and manage entire public spaces in smart cities.

  • internet heat map
    Global Internet,  Internet,  Internet Censorship,  Mobile Internet

    A Look At Countries With Limited Or No Internet Access

    The Internet is one of the most significant inventions of the modern times which has opened up incredible avenues and opportunities for people across the globe. The internet revolutionized how daily affairs as well as businesses are conducted. Today with the help of the click of a button you can transfer money, buy stuff online, read books, watch movies, do research, download songs, complete academics and all sorts of stuff thanks to the internet. As such the internet has become an integral part of peoples’ lives across societies and communities. For most of us it is very difficult to imagine a life without internet connectivity. However there are still a large number of people as well as multiple countries where there is no internet connectivity or very limited access to the internet.

    There are approximately 13 countries and close to 4 billion people that are still without internet connectivity or limited connectivity. When these stats are laid out, it looks staggering considering internet has become such a necessary service across the board. So which are the countries that have limited or no access to the internet? Let us have a look.

    Profiling the countries with limited or no internet connectivity

    Some of the countries where you will have trouble accessing the internet include Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Vietnam and Uzbekistan amongst others. We take a brief look at some of these countries and the status of internet connection in these nations. Limited internet in these regions is not always due to the same reasons. Sometimes the cause is lack of infrastructure in which case accessing the internet is difficult. In other cases governments attempt to censor the sites that they choose. While certain countries like to say that they censor content they don’t feel is good for the people such as pornography, sex sites, or hookup apps. However, the truth is they are not truly concerned about their citizens accessing free sex sites to find a fuck buddy. The censorship of adult content is often simply smoke and mirrors to veil attempts to censor information and limit access to information that doesn’t support state sponsored propaganda. Let’s take a look at countries with little or no internet access and some of the underlying reasons.

    Belarus: In the years from 2006 to 2008, Belarus was categorized as “internet enemy” by the RWB. The Belarus government uses second or third generational controls for managing information space of Belarus. Pre 2006 most of the areas and regions in Belarus didn’t have any access to the internet. As of now, Minsk, which is the capital of Belarus is the most connected region in the nation and the internet connectivity in the rural areas is fairly limited or restricted.

    North Korea: As per reporters without borders (RWB), North Korea is categorized in the list of “enemies of internet”. The internet status of North Korea is such that access is only granted to those who have special authorization from the government and even then the country has its own network which is called Kwangmyong. The number of users that have access to the internet in North Korea is low. Since the country falls under dictatorial regime, there are vast restriction on the free usage and connectivity of the internet. As per the estimations, there is only about 4% of the population in North Korea that has access to the internet. And even amongst those who have access to the internet connectivity, they are only allowed to browse specific and limited websites that are especially created or formulated by the government. In addition to this, every action or transaction that people do on the internet is closely monitored and observed by the respective authorities.

    China: China is one of the largest consumers of internet in the world however the internet censorship in the country is extreme. The government in China have implemented in excess of 60 internet or online regulations that greatly curb the free internet experience. The officials monitor and track the access of internet by various individuals, and put a block on the website content where they deem it necessary. Some of the most popular websites such as Google, Facebook and You Tube are blocked or not available in China. The country provides its own personalized version of the social network websites, e-commerce sites and search which are also controlled as well as monitored by the authorities. As is the norm with various countries, China makes use of VPN to bypass the blockages so that they some of the banned stuff.

    Cuba: The internet was first introduced in Cuba in the late 1990s and then later it got stagnated due to various reasons such as extreme government restrains and lack of appropriate funding. Even today there is high level of censorship by the government authorities who control the internet and its usage amongst the people of the country. As it stands, less than 50% of the population in Cuba has internet access and thus a majority of the people still don’t have internet connectivity. It is also important to note, that there is no mobile internet availability in the country thus people only have to rely on broadband and similar types of internet connectivity options.

    Saudi Arabia: In Saudi Arabia there are some specific websites that are banned and others which are restricted owing to the administrations rules and regulations. There was a time when even Google translate and Wikipedia were banned since people were using them to bypass governments censors. The internet connectivity in Saudi Arabia is considered as low quality and expensive.