internet

Google has gotten the green light for the first expansion of Google Fiber, the Internet and video service the Web giant offers to the twin cities of Kansas City.

Google announced today that the Kansas City suburb of Olathe, Kan., (population 125,000) would be getting access to the high-speed Internet service after the Olathe city council approved the company's service roll-out proposal. Google, which didn't offer any launch specifics, said it was also poised to launch service in other locations.

"We think that Fiber and widespread Internet access will help to create jobs, grow local businesses, … Read more

Yep, there's another Steve Jobs movie on the way.

No, it's not the one featuring Ashton Kutcher as the late, mercurial technology executive. And it's not the one still being penned by Aaron Sorkin either.

Instead, it's a 60-minute film produced by Funny or Die, the same comedy site that made "The Landlord," a two-minute clip featuring actor Will Ferrell and co-creator Adam McKay's 2-year-old daughter that's since tallied just shy of 80 million views.

According to The New York Times, Funny or Die has put together a film called "iSteve" starring Justin Long, the same actor Apple tapped for its famous switch ads featuring Long and John Hodgman as personifications of Apple's Mac and Microsoft's Windows PCs. … Read more

A researcher used a simple, binary technique to take control of more than 420,000 insecure devices including Webcams, routers, and printers running on the Internet -- and says that's just a hint of the potential for real trouble to get started.

In a SecLists posting yesterday, the unnamed researcher describes how he was able to take control of open, embedded devices on the Internet. The researcher did so by using either empty or default credentials such as "root:root" or "admin:admin", indicating how a surprisingly large number of devices connected to the Web … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif.--The value at stake for the "Internet of Everything" is $14.4 trillion that businesses and customers can capture in the next decade, according to Cisco.

In other terms, Cisco is projecting that the Internet of Everything has the potential to grow global corporate profits by 21 percent in aggregate by 2022.

"The opportunity here -- and the challenge -- is the next level of scale," said Rob Lloyd, president of sales and development at Cisco, while speaking at Cisco's second annual Editors Conference at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters here … Read more

The old stereotype that teens love using telephones still holds true even in the digital age.

Now, though, instead of landlines, almost all teenagers use cell phones. And, according to a new Pew Research Center report (PDF) released today, more and more U.S. adolescents own smartphones. Pew's survey looked at technology use in 802 teens from the ages 12 to 17 in July and September of 2012.

Seventy-eight percent of American teens owned a cell phone in 2012 and nearly half of that group had a smartphone. This means that overall 37 percent of all teenagers had a … Read more

Internet radio and music services offer a lot of customization options that allow us to focus on just the music. However, if you feel a bit out of touch with what's happening in the world around you, iHeartRadio's new Add-ins might be able to help. The new Add-ins insert local news, traffic, and weather updates to your custom stations every hour.

To enable Add-ins, log in to your iHeartRadio account on the Web and go to the Add-ins section in Settings. iHeartRadio will use your current location to provide local updates, or you can manually set a location … Read more

Is your Internet provider as fast as its rivals? A new Netflix page could provide the answer.

Launched today, the site's ISP Speed Index page displays the performance of certain ISPs in the U.S., the U.K., Ireland, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. As such, it doesn't cover the entire world but simply those countries where Netflix is available.

In the U.S., Google Fiber took the top spot with an average speed of 3.35 megabits per second. Cablevision's Optimum service was No. 2 with a speed of 2.35Mbps, followed by Suddenlink, Cox, … Read more

Google's rumored Amazon Prime competitor, Google Shopping Express, has at least a couple of major retail partners, according to a report published yesterday.

In an e-mail reportedly sent to employees, Google said that its Shopping Express platform works at several retailers, including Target and Babies R Us, according to TechCrunch, which obtained a copy of the message. Google employees who are currently testing out the service and have opted to become members are allowed free shipping. Those who are simply testing it out but won't become members pay $4.99 per delivery, according to the e-mail.

TechCrunch last … Read more