Netflix streaming overtakes surfing as biggest driver of Web traffic

 Netflix movies and videos now take up the Internet through many American homes. A study published Tuesday by Sandvine Inc. shows that Netflix movies and TV shows account for nearly 30 per cent of traffic into homes during peak evening hours, compared with less than 17 per cent for Web browsing. Only about a quarter of homes with broadband subscribe to Netflix, but watching movies and TV shows online takes up a lot of bandwidth compared with Web surfing, e-mail and practically every other Internet activity except file sharing and videoconferencing. As late as last year, Web surfing and peer-to-peer file sharing – mainly the illegal trading of copyrighted movies – were each larger than Netflix’s traffic.
 

The number of Netflix customers is growing quickly, to 23.6 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada as of the end of March. The growing use of the streaming service is good news for the company, which is trying to reduce what it spends to mail DVDs. This site continues to grow every day as it advertises through several YouTube channels and YouTube itself. However, its growing popularity is considered a potential danger to profits for Canada’s cable operators, including Rogers (RCI.B-T36.160.531.49%), Bell (BCE-T37.87), who have the service on their radar as analysts speculate whether Netflix’s array of TV and movie offerings will convince more people to cancel their cable packages. This is causing other business to go bankrupt such as rogers video and blockbuster. This is great for Netflix but obviously bad for the other companies.

My Opinion :

In my personal belief, I believe that Netflix is a great company who had a wonderful invention which dominated the movie market. It is unfortunate that they are moving companies such as Blockbuster and Rogers Video out of business. As well as starting to lower the views of Bell T.V and Rogers On Demand. I believe that soon Netflix will dominate more and more of the market of movies and soon enough will be the only movie company in the world. Overall this article has revealed to me the popularity of Netflix and overall it was a great invention.

B.C. journalist released from Iran

Dorothy Parvaz, a B.C. journalist who was detained on her way to cover anti-government uprisings in Syria and was deported to Iran, has been freed, family members say. Parvaz's father, Fred, told CBC News that his daughter called his Vancouver home around 9:30 p.m. PT from the airport in Doha, Qatar, where she was clearing customs. "It was one of the best moments of my life," he said. "I'm 68 years old and I've never had a moment like it."Fred Parvaz said she indicated she had been treated well. "She was in good spirits, she was in good health," he said, adding that he didn't have any more details on his daughter's release from custody. "Finally, my sister is free," Parvaz's brother, Dan, posted on a Facebook page devoted to securing her release. That page has attracted more than 16,000 followers. Dorothy Parvaz's fiancé, Todd Barker, said he had spoken with her as well. He said she was due to return to Vancouver soon. "She can't get to Vancouver fast enough, in my opinion," he said. A spokesman for her employer, the Al-Jazeera broadcaster, said "we are with her now to find out more about her ordeal over the last nineteen days." A correspondent for Al-Jazeera's English-language channel, Parvaz went missing after she left the broadcaster's base in Qatar on April 29 for Syria to report on the political turmoil there. Last week, Al-Jazeera said it had been told by Syrian officials that Parvaz was sent to Iran after she was detained in Damascus. On Tuesday, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Parvaz had committed several passport violations on her trip to Syria, Ramin Mehmanparast said that the journalist had "travelled to Syria with expired Iranian passport, planned to work without a press permit and had several passports on her." At the time of his comments, Mehmanparast did not offer details on Parvaz's whereabouts. Parvaz is Iranian-born and has Canadian, U.S. and Iranian citizenship. It's unclear what rules could be broken by travelling with multiple valid passports, but Mehmanparast reiterated that Iran does not recognize multiple nationalities for Iranians. Iranians do not need advance visas to enter Syria. Parvaz joined Al-Jazeera in 2010. She was born in Iran and moved to Vancouver as a teenager, later graduating from the University of British Columbia. She also has a masters degree from Arizona University and held journalism fellowships at both Harvard and Cambridge universities. She previously worked as a columnist and feature writer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in the United States.

My Opinion :

This event is truly breath taking, I am extremely happy that the B.C Journalist, Parvaz was finally released. This event is sort of unexpected because Parvaz was actually born in Iran which makes it weird why there would be any issues. None the less this is an inspirational story to here that she was finally released from being held captive, there family can finally relax and breathe a little now.

Baby named after Facebook button

Inspired by Facebook, a couple in central Israel have named their baby daughter “Like”. “It’s short and sweet,” Vardit Adler, Like’s mother, told Reuters on Tuesday. “It’s very important to me and to my husband that the names we give our children are unique, creative and totally new,” she said. Six-day-old Like has two older sisters, 10-year-old Dvash, Hebrew for honey, and five-year-old Pie, “as in apple pie,” Adler said.

“I’m not worried about other children teasing Like. Dvash and Pie don’t seem to mind their special names and nobody teases them,” Adler said. Surprised by media attention her newborn daughter was getting in Israel, Adler noted that Like has already received hundreds of comments on her own Facebook page.

My Opinion :

Personally, I don't appreciate the fact that anyone would name their child "Like" or anything that co relates with Facebook or anything technology is a disgrace to any name. Personally this just shows how social networking is taking over the world and now people are even naming their children after Facebook options like in this situation. This is kind of mocking the regular names of the world. It is funny how much popularity they have gotten on facebook from this which then backs up my point on how social networking is taking over the world. To be honest this is very disappointing.

Penguins starving due to climate change

      Falling populations of penguins in the West Antarctic Peninsula are being driven by a reduction of their main food source, Antarctic krill, according to a new study. The chinstrap penguin, as shown in this picture are the most vulnerable to the warming climate. Over the time of the global weather increase, they noted that populations of penguin species declined by more than 50 per cent, with fewer juveniles surviving and returning to breed. The penguins are starving and declining in population because of their main food source. They struggle to get food because the polar ice caps have melted and the Antarctic krill migrated north. Also scientists have noticed that due to the melting of the ice more species have struggled to find different food due to their habitat being ruined, therefore there is a lot more competition and a lot of the animals in the Arctic can soon be affected.

My Opinion:

I believe that these issues in the Arctic are quite tragic and due to the fact that the Arctic is just struggling through this now, I can't even imagine what this can lead to in our population once the temperatures still increase. As far as the penguins I feel sorry for them because they are unable to survive and tend to be quite gentile creatures therefore they will get dominated by their competition. The horrible part is that their is really nothing we can do as far as the climate, but I feel as if we should migrate some penguins to zoos due to the fact that they will not starve and they will live a better life. Overall this is truly a horrible issue.

Thought-controlled prosthetic arm vies for prize

A prosthetic arm controlled by its user's thoughts, invented by two Toronto students, is competing for funding to take it to market.
The Artificial Muscle-Operated (AMO) Arm created by Ryerson University biomedical engineering students Michal Prywata and Thiago Caires has a headset that picks up electrical signals from the brain. "When you think about a certain movement, the arm moves accordingly," Prywata told CBC's As it Happens Monday.
The arm can raise and lower at the shoulder and the elbow, rotate its wrist and close its fingers to grasp objects. It is manoeuvred with pneumatic pumps and valves and powered by a small, refillable canister of compressed air in the user's pocket. Tests show that it takes 10 or 15 minutes to learn to move the arm up and down and close the hand, Prywata said. However, the device has not yet been tested by any amputees.
They hope to sell it for around $20,000. They say other prosthetic arms capable of complex movements often sell for more than $80,000.  Prywata said he and Caires envisioned something that didn't require surgery — a limb that would be as easy to purchase as a cellphone. "You lost your arm, you go online, you buy a prosthetic, it comes to your house in a box, you open up the box, you attach it, and you start training."

My Opinion :

First and foremost, this is a wonderful invention! This arm is truly amazing especially how it reacts on what you are thinking. I find it great that they are selling for a considerably lower price the the 80 000 dollar arm, which they are selling theirs at 20 000 dollars. One of the great features, is that is attachable and there is absolutely no surgery which is very important. The only downside is that it has not been tested on a prosthetic, so hopefully once it is, everything will go great and they will get this new invention on the market! Overall this is a wonderful idea, and I hope the very best.

Why not a metered Internet?

More than half of Canadians were surveyed last summer on their thoughts of Internet plans being unlimited – a veritable buffet of bandwidth, with all the high-definition video streaming and file-transferring they could consume.They were completely wrong. More than 90 per cent of the country’s plans are finite, with set limits and stinging charges for going over. The vast majority of people in that poll by Solutions Research Group had never even heard of the concept of paying for Internet based on how much they used. Many Internet providers in the world charge monthly fee's including a certain limit of material downloaded each month, and if that limit is exceeded there shall be an extra charge. The average amount of data downloaded per Canadian each month is approximately 15.4 gigabytes, which is equal to about 10 full films. This has slowly become a concern for many Canadians, also it allows the Internet Providers to take advantage of this opportunity by charging Internet users by the amount of information downloaded/used per month. Thus eliminating monthly rates and creating rates per Internet usage. This could cause many problems.

My Opinion

Personally, I feel as if the Internet is taking advantage of their consumers, there is no need for Internet providers to charge additional fees exceeding monthly fees and having rates per usage. Also i feel as if they are being very secretive because 90% of the customers had no clue about additional fees per exceeding usage. This can cause many terrible things in the world if Internet providers were to start charging rates per usage and personally I would be extremely frustrated if I was a consumer in that situation. Also this opens the market for a new Internet provider to not charge fee's per usage which will make the consumers happy. Overall I feel that the Internet should be sustained at a monthly fee and if they change this many customers throughout the world will probably switch providers.

Last 'Net provider in Egypt goes dark

   The last Internet provider of Egypt known as, the Noor Group, has shut down. The Noor Group was the only Internet service that remained online even after Egypt's 4 main Internet providers shut down which were : Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr. These Internet providers were becoming flooding due to the "web traffic" in Egpyt due to the over 1,000,000 people in the streets, texting and twittering about this event. Over 1,000,000 people were protesting their government. At about 11:00 p.m Egypt time all Internet services were unreachable. Finally on Saturday Cell Phone service was restored but has been having some trouble due to the high traffic in texting and phone calling.These network providers had to be shut down due to the possible chance of corruption.

My Opinion

      Personally, I believe that this symbolizes the tragedies occurring in Egypt, this truly reveals how serious this event has become and is. During this difficult time, the Egyptians are forced to not rely on the Internet in this terrible time, which also minimizes the popularity of this event. Personally, this would be very hard to be limited to no Internet access in such a tough time, and this event would cause the Egyptians to be more frustrated, thus creating more protesters.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/crisis-in-egypt/last-net-provider-in-egypt-goes-dark/article1889553/