Cisco CRS-3 Carrier Routing System

Cisco today announced the Cisco CRS-3 Carrier Routing System (CRS), a major advancement in Internet networking designed to serve as the foundation of the next-generation Internet and set the pace for the astonishing growth of video transmission, mobile devices and new online servicesfor the coming decades.

With over 12 times the traffic capacity of the nearest competing system, the company says that Cisco CRS-3 is designed to transform the broadband communication and entertainment industry by accelerating the delivery of compelling new experiences for consumers, new revenue opportunities for service providers, and new ways to collaborate in the workplace.

According to a survey conducted by the Enterprise Desktop Alliance, 260 IT administrators from large organizations with both Macs and PCs said that Macs are less expensive than PCs to manage.  In some categories such as troubleshooting, user training and help desk calls, three times as many administrators said that Macs cost less to manage.  

The full survey enquired about buying plans, IT management and administration issues, and the cost of managing the systems.  Related to the cost of managing Macs, the survey asked the respondents to estimate the relative cost of a number of factors including: software license fees, time troubleshooting, user training, help desk calls, system configuration, and supporting infrastructure (servers, network, and printers).

The browser choice screen presents a list of leading browsers.

As of today, Microsoft will begin offering a “Web browser choice screen” to Internet Explorer users in Europe, following demands from the European Commission.

In December last year, the European Commission and Microsoft arrived at a resolution of a number of long-standing competition law issues. Microsoft agreed to use Windows Update to provide a browser choice screen to Windows users in Europe who are running Internet Explorer as their default browser. This browser choice screen presents a list of browsers, with links to learn more about them and to install them. According to Microsoft, the design and operation of this choice screen was worked out in the course of extensive discussions with the Commission. Users who get the choice screen will be free to choose any browser or stick with the browser they already installed.

Example of a Google Money Scheme

You probably came across hundreds of online ads and Tweets about various schemes that can "make you money" instantly through Google advertising technology and the like. The so called "Google Money" schemes claim that users who register with them would be able to earn an average of $1,000 per day without "doing much" and by working from home. Sounds familiar? Well, if you ever wondered about the authenticity of such schemes, Google made an official announcement today that it is in the process of taking legal actions against these websites and the companies behind them. In its official blog post, Google highlighted that nearly all of these schemes which use Google's name or logo, and sounded too good to be true, are scams. "despite hundreds of consumer complaints and our own efforts to keep these sites from tricking people, some scams continue, " the company stated.

So to fight back, Google is working to stop various fraudulent "Google Money" schemes and have this week filed suit against Pacific WebWorks and several other unnamed defendants. The following is Google's official statement posted in its blog:

Google hasn't created or endorsed any of the sites like those described in our complaint. Misleading ads try to take advantage of consumers in the midst of a difficult economy, and as the economic situation has worsened, the problem has only grown. As far as we can tell, thousands of people have been tricked into sending payment information and being charged hidden fees by questionable operations.

The service, which is will be live from December 10th, is useful for those that find themselves away from home, such as servicemen and women, students studying abroad, travellers and ex-pats, to send something meaningful to family and friends who are far away.

Futuristic Intel Chip: Single Chip Cloud Computer has 48 Intel cores and runs at as low as 25 watts

Researchers from Intel Labs demonstrated an experimental "single-chip cloud computer," a 48-core Intel processor that rethinks many of the approaches used in today's designs for laptops, PCs and servers. According to Intel's announcement, this futuristic chip boasts about 10 to 20 times the processing engines inside today's most popular Intel Core-branded processors. Intel's new experimental research chip uses a similar approach to cloud computing where cloud datacenters are comprised of tens to thousands of computers connected by a physically cabled network, distributing large tasks and massive datasets in parallel. The video below describes this process in detail.

Intel's researchers highlighted that their long-term goal is to add "incredible scaling" features to future computers that spur entirely new software applications and human-machine interfaces. The company plans to engage industry and academia next year by sharing 100 or more of these experimental chips for hands-on research in developing new software applications and programming models. This prototype contains 48 fully programmable Intel processing cores and includes a high-speed on-chip network for sharing information.

One key feature that was emphasized is the newly invented power management capabilities that allow all 48 cores to operate with high energy efficiency at only 25 watts, and at 125 watts when running at maximum performance (equivalent to two standard household light bulbs).

Small businesses who integrate product or peer review systems into their web sites are seeing significant returns according to a recent survey from RatePoint, provider of customer feedback and online reputation management services. Reviews have always been used by businesses to build trust and achieve higher sales, especially during holiday seasons.

"Reviews help small business owners learn more about how customers use their products, find latent issues with their site or shopping process they hadn't yet discovered and most importantly, find satisfied customers whose positive feedback will build trust with potential customers," said Neal Creighton, CEO of RatePoint. "Missing out on all of the information and opportunities that reviews provide is something that small businesses simply can't afford to do."

According to the survey results, of the 30 percent of small business retailers who had integrated product reviews into their web sites, 43 percent said reviews had resulted in more sales, while 28 percent indicated reviews had resulted in more traffic.

A new study found that the Asia-Pacific region has seen significant growth in Internet audiences during the past year, increasing 22 percent to nearly half a billion visitors to Internet sites, with most individual countries in the region experiencing double-digit growth rates. comScore, a provider of digital marketing intelligence, released a report earlier this month discussing this rapid growth based on data from its comScore World Metrix service.

Growth Fueled by China, Japan and India

The report shows that in September 2009 the Internet population in the Asia-Pacific region reached 484 million visitors age 15+ that accessed the Internet from a home or work location, an increase of 22 percent from the previous year. With nearly half a billion people online, the region now accounts for 41 percent of the total 1.2 billion person global Internet audience. China, home to the largest Internet population in the world, experienced a 31-percent increase to 220.8 million, making it the fastest-growing Internet country in the region. Japan saw its online population surge 18 percent to 68.3 million, while India climbed 17 percent to 35.8 million users.

comScore today released the results of a study of the online habits of Portuguese Internet users, based on data from the comScore World Metrix service. Over 3.8 million people (age 15 and older) accessed the Internet from a home or work location in Portugal in September, viewing an average 1,843 pages and spending an average 1.9 hours online per person during the month.

"Portugal represents a dynamic and growing Internet market in Europe with users continuing to be more active and engaged online," said Mike Read, comScore managing director for Europe and Ibero America. "The average Internet user in Portugal is spending more time online engaging in different behaviors such as reading news and articles, search, conducting personal financial transactions and social networking. As these behaviors continue to take hold in the Portuguese market there will be an increasing number of opportunities to leverage the Internet for marketing and advertising purposes."

Web 2.0 is arguably the biggest buzzword in the software and the IT industry today, and rightly so. The idea of providing users with almost full control and freedom to manipulate and customize online applications and software packages took the world by storm. Business and IT sectors all over the world have picked up the pace on this and have produced hundreds of highly creative and powerful online tools and applications. Not to mention most of which are free! Another element of Web 2.0's success.