internet

NCR Patents the Internet

I came across this old story (back from 2003) on Slashdot – NCR Patents the Internet – and it even more hilarious now than it was back than:

We all know about NCR’s lawsuit against Palm & Handspring, but I haven’t seen much press about patent infringements they are claiming against some of the biggest sites on the planet. According to documentation that a friend’s company has recently received, their patents protect everything from keyword searching to product categorization. Patents to look for (and filed in 1998) include 6,253,203, 6,169,997, 6,151,601, 6,085,223 and 5,991,791 . IMHO, this is absolutely outrageous and is likely to cause billions in both legal fees and eventual licensing fees (eBay, Amazon and MSFT have already licensed from NCR). How is this not the lead story on every site? every day? Maybe because no one wants to get sued for having an online business.

The comments are hilarious as well.

Imagine the world without Muslims

This is one of those things that I love about the Internet. When you are wrong, the Internet doesn’t just gently mention it. It absolutely destroys you, shoving the reality so hard down your throat, you forget how to breath for a while. And then, next time, if you haven’t killed yourself yet, you think long and hard before saying anything out loud. If you have a half a brain or more, of course.

Continue reading Imagine the world without Muslims

Internet users in Cyprus

7 years ago, to the day, I’ve published this post, containing the Google screenshot for the graph of the Internet users in Cyprus. It used to be 38% of the population.

Today I decided to check exactly the same Google query and see how that number has changed. Here is how:

internet-users-in-cyprus

Yup. We went from 38% to 65.5% in 7 years. Considering the fact that the population grew as well, in the absolute numbers the statistics will be even more staggering.

How the Internet works

Ars Technica runs a nice overview article “How the Internet works: Submarine fiber, brains in jars, and coaxial cables“. It features plenty of cool images, statistics, and details of the Internet wiring from under the sea to the last mile to the last 100 meters. It’s mostly focused on UK, but it provides a good understanding of what’s involved in the modern day connectivity.

P.S.: On a less serious note, here’s The IT Crowd take on how the Internet works. Thanks to Maxym Balabaev for a reminder.

21st century is finally here with PrimeTel Fibernet

The apartment building where I live in for the last few years had some cabling issues. That prevented me from joining the rest of the world in the 21st century, when it comes to home Internet connectivity. Here’s what I’ve been on until today:

Today, I’ve got my connection updated. PrimeTel Fibernet, which is currently only available to select buildings, brought the modern age of technology into my house. Here’s how it looks:

Yup, that’s a 50 Mbps download with 8 Mbps upload connection. Nearly a 10x speed increase, but not only that. Have a look at 1 ms ping now vs. 35 ms ping before. And that all is for the same price. And nothing else had to change – I still have the same TV channels and the same landline number. Ah, no, wait, my home IP address changed, but who cares about that, right?

This thing is so far indeed, that to fully utilize it I need to use the Ethernet cable. Gladly, that’s how both my PlayStation 3 and the home media server are connected. With my laptop’s WiFi, I get the numbers like this:

I’m not yet sure why, but I’ll probably need to look into my wireless card drivers or something.

Anyways, WiFi or not, it’s way faster than it used to be, both in bandwidth and latency. Which are amazing news!

P.S.: Thanks to SpeedTest.net for cool graphics and years in service too.