The long arm of the internet reaches 5B devices

Yes, that header is correct — this month will see the five billionth device connected to the world via the internet Something to think about there. From the early days of ARPANET up to today’s World Wide Web full of commercialization, social media, viral video and everything else you can track down in the online world, human communication has gone through an honest revolution. A revolution I doubt very many of us would want to see rolled back.

From the first link:

Sometime this month, the 5 billionth device will plug into the Internet. And in 10 years, that number will grow by more than a factor of four, according to IMS Research, which tracks the installed base of equipment that can access the Internet.

On the surface, this second tidal wave of growth will be driven by cell phones and new classes of consumer electronics, according to an IMS statement. But an even bigger driver will be largely invisible: machine-to-machine communications in various kinds of smart grids for energy management, surveillance and public safety, traffic and parking control, and sensor networks.

Earlier this year, Cisco forecast equally steep growth rates in personal devices and overall Internet traffic. [See “Global IP traffic to increase fivefold by 2013, Cisco predicts“]

Today, there are over 1 billion computers that regularly connect to the Internet. That class of devices, including PCs and laptops and their associated networking gear, continues to grow.

Cell phones and brain cancer

Maybe there isn’t too much to worry about after all. Lots of frightening real and virtual ink has been spilled on the topic of cell phone usage and brain tumors. Looks like current research isn’t seeing a problem there. Of course brain cancer is not the only medical worry with cell phone usage.

From the first link, the release:

No change in brain tumor incidence during a time when cell phone usage increased

There was no substantial change in brain tumor incidence among adults 5 to 10 years after cell phone usage sharply increased, according to a new brief communication published online December 3 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Although cell phone use has been proposed as a risk factor for brain tumors, a biological mechanism to explain this association is not known.

Isabelle Deltour, Ph.D., of the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology, Danish Cancer Society, in Copenhagen, and colleagues analyzed annual incidence rates of glioma and meningioma among adults aged 20󈞻 years from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Researchers identified 60,000 patients who were diagnosed with these types of brain tumors between 1974 and 2003.

The researchers found that incidence rates over this 30 year-period were stable, decreased, or continued a gradual increase that started before the introduction of cell phones. They also found no change in incidence trends in brain tumors from 1998 to 2003. The authors say this finding may be due to one of several reasons: that the induction period relating cell phone use to brain tumors exceeds 5󈝶 years; that the increased risk in this population is too small to be observed; that the increased risk is restricted to subgroups of brain tumors or cell phone users; or that there is no increased risk.

The authors did not assess cell phone usage at the individual level during this time period, only brain tumor incidence.

“Because of the high prevalence of mobile phone exposure in this population and worldwide, longer follow-up of time trends in brain tumor incidence rates are warranted,” the authors write.

Note:

The Journal of the National Cancer Institute is published by Oxford University Press and is not affiliated with the National Cancer Institute. Attribution to the Journal of the National Cancer Institute is requested in all news coverage.

Visit JNCI online at http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org and the JNCI

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HTML5 = compatibility

Part two of two posts (find part one here)

CIO.com has an informative article on “Five New Technologies That Will Change Everything.” I’m breaking this particular link into two posts because two of those techs deserve individual attention because of the sea-change they are going to create in your computing and browsing experience respectively.

This post is on the latest HTML version — HTML5. The idea behind HTML5 is creating a standard that allows every web page to look essentially the same regardless which browser, or platform (computer, mobile device, etc.), the user is viewing the page with/on. A lofty goal considering how the browser wars have been fought since IE and Navigator tussled way back in the last century, but here’s to the success of HTML5.

From the link:

Web pages built with HTML5 will display the same on any browser–desktop or mobile.

Hulk VI was great, but what should you watch this evening? Before heading off to work in the morning, you click to some trailers on a movie Website, but you don’t have time to watch many. So you use your mobile phone to snap a picture of the 2D barcode on one of the videos; the phone’s browser then takes you to the same site. On the commuter train to the office, you watch the previews over a 4G cell phone connection. A few of the movies have associated games that you try out on your phone, too.

Remember when every Website had a badge that read “optimized for Netscape Navigator” or “requires Internet Explorer 4”? In the old days, people made Web pages that worked best with–or only with–certain browsers. To some extent, they still do.

The new flavor of the HTML–the standard program for writing Web pages–is called HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language version 5); and HTML5 aims to put that practice to bed for good.

Specifically, HTML5 may do away with the need for audio, video, and interactive plug-ins. It will allow designers to create Websites that work essentially the same on every browser–whether on a desktop, a laptop, or a mobile device–and it will give users a better, faster, richer Web experience.

Instead of leaving each browser maker to rely on a combination of its in-house technology and third-party plug-ins for multimedia, HTML5 requires that the browser have built-in methods for audio, video, and 2D graphics display. Patent and licensing issues cloud the question of which audio and video formats will achieve universal support, but companies have plenty of motivation to work out those details.

In turn, Website designers and Web app developers won’t have to deal with multiple incompatible formats and workarounds in their efforts to create the same user experience in every browser.

This is an especially valuable advance for mobile devices, as their browsers today typically have only limited multimedia support. The iPhone’s Safari browser, for example, doesn’t handle Adobe Flash–even though Flash is a prime method of delivering video content across platforms and browsers.

“It’ll take a couple of years to roll out, but if all the browser companies are supporting video display with no JavaScript [for compatibility handling], just the video tag and no plug-in, then there’s no downside to using a mobile device,” says Jeffrey Zeldman, a Web designer and leading Web standards guru. “Less and less expert users will have better and better experiences.”

Makers of operating systems and browsers appear to be falling into line behind HTML5. Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Opera, and WebKit (the development package that underlies many mobile and desktop programs), among others, are all moving toward HTML5 support.

For its part, Microsoft says that Internet Explorer 8 will support only parts of HTML5. But Microsoft may not want to risk having its Internet Explorer browser lose more market share by resisting HTML5 in the face of consensus among the other OS and browser makers.

HTML5 is now completing its last march toward a final draft and official support by the World Wide Web Consortium.

Protecting mobile devices

This is a pretty cool award-winning invention from Maverick Mobile.

From the link:

Maverick Secure Mobile software installs in the hardware of mobile telephones, not in the changeable SIM cards that identify users to telecom service providers.

The application runs in an unseen “hidden mode” in mobile telephones, encrypting contact numbers and other data if crooks puts new SIM cards in the handsets.

The India-based firm’s software also retrieves contact lists from devices and sends new SIM card telephone number and location data to mobile telephones designated by original owners.

The application also sends copies of any telephone numbers a thief has called and copies of text messages he or she may send.

“And its all sent using their data plan, so the best part is the thief pays for it,” Jain said.

Owners of stolen devices are given the power to disable stolen mobile telephones or make them play blaring alarms that only stop when the batteries are out. Replacing a battery re-initiates the irritating sound.

Secure Mobile was given a “Demogod” award as one of the top launches at the Southern California event.

Google’s OS for mobile phones introduced

Android, Google’s operating system for mobile devices was introduced yesterday. Looks like Google is pushing hard into established spaces — the browser war with Chrome, iPhone’s ubiquity with the Android OS, etc.

From the Technology Review link:

At a press conference in New York yesterday, Google and T-Mobile showed off the long-anticipated G1, a powerful smartphone that runs Google’s Android operating system for mobile devices.

The handset, priced at $179, will be available from T-Mobile on October 22. It boasts features to rank it at the top end of the smartphone market, and its software offers some neat surprises and tricks. At the same time, the G1 undoubtedly lacks the sparkle of the iPhone, probably its closest competitor. Furthermore, some experts question whether Google’s scheme for delivering new applications for the phone–an online store called Android Market–could run into problems that slow down mass adoption.

T-Mobile’s G1 is the first phone that uses Google’s Android operating system.

Yahoo rolls out Fire Eagle

Fire Eagle is a management system for location data and had only been available to invited users. The service is now open to everyone.

From the Technology Review link:

With Fire Eagle, Coates and Yahoo are betting that location-aware technology is going to be big. The sort of future that Coates envisions is one in which your location can be broadcast to any website, added to your blog, and used to help you search for friends, news, and shopping deals nearby–all with your permission, of course. Fire Eagle, Coates said yesterday, can be the single place that a person needs to visit to set privacy requirements and make sure that the right type of location information (exact address, neighborhood, city, state, and country) is being displayed where you want it.

Here’s how it works: if you go directly to the Fire Eagle site, you can manually set your location; if your computer, cell phone, or GPS navigation unit can find your position, you can have these gadgets send that data automatically to Fire Eagle. When Fire Eagle gets your location, it doesn’t do anything with it until you select the Web services to which you want that information sent. For instance, if you have it sent to Pownce, Fire Eagle will update your location in your activity stream. If you allow Fire Eagle to send your location to a service called Radar, it can show you news stories that occur within 1,000 feet of your position. And there are a handful of services that can use your location information to help you see which friends (who also use the services) are nearby.

Tiny projectors and space elevators

From KurzweilAI.net today — tiny digital projectors for cell phones and other portable media devices, and outlining a potential problem with the space elevator concept.

Coming Soon, to Any Flat Surface Near You

New York Times, Mar. 30, 2008Tiny digital projectors for cellphones and portable media players are in the works, able to project video on any smooth surface. The microprojectors, still in prototype, use light-emitting diodes, lasers or a combination of the two to cast a display of up to 50 or 60 inches, or perhaps even wider, in darkened spaces and 7 to 20 inches or so when there is ambient light. Later, the projector modules will be directly embedded in cellphones and other devices. Read Original Article>>

Space elevators face wobble problem

New Scientist news service, Mar. 28, 2008A Czech Academy of Sciences study suggests that building and maintaining a space elevator would be an bigger challenge than previously thought, because it would need to include built-in thrusters to stabilize itself against dangerous vibrations. Read Original Article>>