Whitehouse Supports Net Neutrality

Net neutrality has been a big headline multiple times in the past few years and despite there being a lot of arguing, no real resolution has ever been reached. Today that argument is once again back in the headlines but this time it is looking like good news. President Obama officially announced today that he and the White House support net neutrality and they will be pushing cable companies to support it as well.

In the past there has been some serious opposition to net neutrality, primarily because it severely hurts cable and internet providers. The fact that the government is starting to push for net neutrality to become a reality is absolutely fantastic news. Net neutrality is pretty much fully supported by the average citizen in both America, and around the world, and this is very likely the first step towards it become real.

Obviously this isn’t the end of the conversation, but it is a great way to get it started again. Net neutrality is all but required if internet prices are going to remain low and speeds high, so now is the time to once again celebrate that there is finally some positive light being shined on the entire industry.

Google Planning to Expand Fiber Network

Currently Google Fiber is only available in very select markets in the United States and while they’ve been a pretty big success Google has been a little slow to branch out any beyond those areas. Fortunately this week Google announced that they’re now officially considering adding numerous large metropolitan areas to their Google Fiber coverage map, which would be great for any and all of the cities involved.

Google Fiber brought hundreds of businesses to the Kansas City area when it first went live and many analysts feel that the result will be the same in any other new cities. Google is reportedly considering 9 major metropolitan areas as well as the surrounding cities, although it is still unclear when Google will actually choose where to expand to next. Either way this is good news because Google is doing a great job at driving competition in the otherwise stale internet provider market. Google has the opportunity to bring something new and fresh to the market which is otherwise unchanging in the United States. Numerous technology analysts feel that this could be exactly what the country needs, especially since two of the largest cable internet providers are now going through a merger.

Ever since news of the NSA’s spying capability and extreme reach began to spread millions of Americans have become concerned even more about their privacy online. At this point the NSA still has very few limitations or restrictions but as support continues to grow among the people more and more companies have also stepped into the fight. This week numerous technology giant such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and many more sent an official letter in support of much tighter NSA restrictions.

This is great news for Americans as well as people worldwide simply due to the incredible reach of the NSA right now. Nearly everything online is tracked or monitored by the NSA according to reports and this obviously has many people very upset. The fact that so many people support tighter restrictions is a good thing, the fact that technology companies like these are stepping on board is an even better piece of information. Many experts feel it is only a matter of time before some sort of NSA overhaul or restriction change happens and continued support from companies like this are likely to be the only possible way to do that. More companies are expected to sign the letter in support as well in the coming weeks.

Today Google announced a new policy that will likely become one of the largest anti-piracy functions they’ve ever gone through. Piracy is alive and well online for any number of reasons and currently most if not all piracy websites are thriving by showing substantial advertisements through Google Adsense and other advertising systems. These advertisements are literally the only reason these websites can stay alive and now Google is going to be doing everything they can to put a stop to that.

Starting today Google Adsense will no longer be allowing their advertisements to be displayed on any website that provides pirated material or any website that links to such a website. This is a huge step in the right direction and the US Government is very happy to hear that Google is taking such a step forward. Google is not the only company making this step either, multiple other advertising agencies have agreed to do the same thanks to Google’s support. By cutting off advertising revenue Google and others are hopeful that they’ll eventually be able to put a stop to piracy websites or at least make it much harder for them to operate. This is great news because it should definitely lead to a significant reduction in piracy and that is great news for everyone.

WiFi is a heavily regulated part of the wireless spectrum in America, and as a result the rest of the world. Fortunately this week the FCC announced that they’re planning to make some new rules on WiFi networks so that there will be less wireless signal overlap which should offer a number of benefits. This is great news for a number of reasons and it is expected to be a big deal for the technology industry worldwide.

The exact changes the FCC hopes to implement are not official yet but they have said that the overall change will include some additional wireless spectrum licensing which will increase speed and range of all wireless routers substantially. This may only be legally binding in America but nearly all WiFi routers worldwide follow US FCC rulings so this is going to affect the wireless spectrum worldwide.

Experts are hopeful that a speed increase of around 40% will be seen from this small change and in the future the FCC hopes to continue making improvements to increase speed even more. No word yet on when the changes will become legally binding but when they do most manufactures are expected to jump on the bandwagon immediately.

Children on the internet is becoming more and more of a hot topic as the number of young internet users continues to increase dramatically. Fortunately for parents there are a number of child protection laws on the books already that keep children safe online and just this week the FTC added even more regulations designed to protect children online.

The FTC officially added a number of new protections to the 1998 Children’s Online Protection Act that will protect children on social networking sites as well as add privacy when it comes to apps and data sharing. The idea behind the changes is that more and more children are beginning to use social media so more needs to be done in order to protect them and their personal data.

There were numerous changes implemented and the FTC is hopeful that they will be very successful. Many privacy and security analysts also agree that these will be very beneficial and should help parents feel safer about their children being on the internet. Of course this still won’t make everything perfectly safe for children but it is absolutely a step in the right direction according to nearly everyone so at least for now children are a little safer online.

Wifi has become a household word in much of the world, especially the US, and now it appears that in the coming year or two Wifi is going to become even more exciting and useful. Currently a system called “super Wifi” is being developed and even used in some locations and if things work as well as planned this new interface will bring wireless internet to millions of people with little effort required.

Traditional Wifi has trouble traveling more than 50 to 100 feet, which is good enough for most homes but terrible for group coverage, fortunately “super Wifi” is going to resolve this. Current expectations are that a single connection point or router will be able to provide high speed Wifi coverage to significantly larger areas covering entire neighborhoods or even cities.

Super Wifi is going to be a big deal for the internet industry because for once it will be possible to give millions of people wireless internet access without any additional hardware. This will not only mean big profits for the companies but also significantly lower prices for the customers. Things are still in the development phases in many ways but the current expectation is that Super Wifi will likely be spreading across the US and other countries in the coming year so things should be very exciting to watch.

Today YouTube announced a revolutionary new feature which will definitely be a much appreciated change to the popular video sharing site. Currently millions of people around the world live in fear of being exposed in the videos they upload and for many this exposure could bring stiff legal repercussions, YouTube now has a solution to this problem.

The new system is basically an automated face blurring technology that gives uploaders the option of blurring any and all human faces present in a video. The goal is that the feature will be used by protesters, vigilantes, political activists, and more, all around the world to spread news and information around through the internet.

Many of these individual activists already upload videos to YouTube to show the world what is happening but for a number of reasons they’re in fear of political retaliation, now that YouTube is going to provide a simple means to block out their face these people will finally be free to upload their informative videos without any threat of political attack.

YouTube has not officially made the feature available yet but it expected to be available in the coming days all around the world. Millions of people around the world will finally be free to upload their opinions and news to YouTube without any fear of being arrested, attacked or punished by governments and regimes in their area.

This week a very heartbreaking video and story have been circling the internet and over the course of a few days millions of people have seen the video. The video was shot by a student on a school bus in New York and after it was uploaded to Youtube the world reacted very quickly.

Throughout the 6 minute long video dozens of kids were seen bullying and harassing the elderly bus monitor until she began to cry, nothing was done to punish the kids or resolve the situation in the video but an online fundraising group has done what they can to remedy the situation. The video originally went viral early this week and in just a few days the online fund has raised over $350,000 for the woman.

The response has been absolutely overwhelming according to the women in the video and thanks to the new found internet fame she has been able to speak out against bullying and harassment around the country. The funds that have been raised will go in part to her, and in part to a variety of anti-bullying groups so that hopefully this sort of incident will not continue. The fact that the internet response has been so overwhelming is very heartwarming and the victim in the case has been able to reach millions of victims that suffer from bullying every day and will hopefully be able to make a difference in people’s lives.

Censorship has been around forever and now that newer and more robust forms of communication are available many countries and governments are being forced to work even harder to enforce censorship. Obviously censoring the internet has become a big deal for some countries and while they are able to effectively sensor some information they are unable to do so without the help of sites like Google.

The good news is that this week Google reported seeing a very significant increase in the number of censorship requests they’ve received and still continued to ignore them. Google has always been a supporter of providing information without censorship and they have once again continued to do just that. Despite the fact that Google is now receiving thousands of censorship requests from hundreds of countries, governments, and government agencies but is still remaining open and transparent for the world to view is absolutely great news.

The minute a major website like Google begins to play into world censorship is the minute the internet will lose its information and communication methods. Google has made it clear that they will continue to share the information to the world and will continue to fight against censorship which is absolutely amazing news for anyone and everyone online. Google will likely keep getting censorship requests, but at this time it doesn’t look like they’re going to do anything of the sort.