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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 15 Issue 26
Volume 15, Issue 26 Atari Online News, Etc. July 5, 2013
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2013
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1526 07/05/13
~ Cyber Crime Sentences! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Win 8 on Xbox One?
~ Vita Crushing Wii U?! ~ Douglas Engelbart Dies ~ Justin Carter Case!
~ Google Wants Safer Web ~ Ballmer New Xbox Chief ~ Win 8.1 Not Helping!
~ Apple Worries Vendors! ~ ~ NYC Gets New Domain!
-* Bushnell Blames Shareholders *-
-* U.S., China To Discuss Cybersecurity *-
-* Americans Spend 23 Hours Per Week Online! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
A belated 4th of July greeting to you all. We hope that you had an
enjoyable holiday, and enjoying the long holiday weekend if you're
fortunate to have it! Me, unfortunately, it's "just" a weekend because
I'm working. Well, some has to do so! But, I hope to be able to get in
some holiday weekend celebration, barbecue style at some point!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Ballmer Taking Over as Xbox One Chief!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" PS Vita Is Now Crushing Nintendos Wii U!
Bushnell Blames Shareholders for Companys Bankruptcy!
And more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Get Ready for More PS4 Trash Talk:
Ballmer Taking Over as Xbox One Chief
When former Xbox chief Don Mattrick announced that he was leaving
Microsoft on Monday, talk naturally turned to who would replace him,
especially since the company is preparing to launch its new Xbox One
console in just a few months. Geek notes that for the time being,
Microsofts Xbox division will be run by none other than Microsoft CEO
Steve Ballmer, who told employees in an email on Monday that Dons
directs will report to me and will continue to drive the day-to-day
business as a team, particularly focused on shipping Xbox One this
holiday. Its unclear if Ballmers takeover of the Xbox division is a
temporary measure or whether he sees himself as the best man for the job
long-term.
PS Vita Is Now Crushing Nintendos Wii U
A fascinating drama is playing out in Sony and Nintendos home market
the PS Vita has found a new lease on life, while the Wii U continues
flatlining. This could have a profound impact on how powerful Japanese
game developers map out their 2014 and 2015 software strategies. During
the week ending in June 30, Sonys portable console found the third
biggest smash of its life cycle so far as Toukiden sales for the PS
Vita hit 127,000 in its first week of availability. According to Famitsu,
this lifted Vitas weekly hardware sales to 34,000 from 14,000 in the
previous week. This is splendid for Sony on two different levels. First,
a title that wasnt expected to be a big seller managed to top 100,000
units without a massive marketing push. Second, the Toukiden debut
had an immediate and substantial impact on Vita sales. Some of the recent
Vita games have been very effective in helping to push system sales.
Meanwhile, Wii U is wilting in the heat of the media hype now surrounding
the upcoming PlayStation 4 and Xbox One launches. In the latest weekly
tracking data, Wii U sales clocked in at 5,800 in Japan. This is barely 5%
of Japans total console sales, even though PlayStation 3 sales are now
weak as consumers have started anticipating its successor.
The power of the portable machines in Japan is now a sight to behold. The
combined sales of Nintendos 3DS and Sonys PS Vita now make up nearly 74%
of the total console market. During good weeks for the Vita, Sony manages
to nearly close the gap with 3DS the most recent tally showed the 3DS at
45,000 units and the PS Vita at 34,000 units.
This is setting up a situation where it would be tempting for the Japanese
game developers to draft a 3DS/Vita portable game strategy combined with
some ambitious PlayStation 4 games for 2014. How is the Wii U going to get
any third-party backing with its dismal hardware performance? Can Nintendo
possibly reignite Wii U sales with Mario and Pokemon titles now that the
PlayStation 4 media bandwagon is picking up momentum? And perhaps most
intriguingly, will Japan become a console market that will continue to be
dominated by portable consoles even after the PS4 debuts?
The current strength of the 3DS/Vita duo might not be attributable only to
the Wii Us weakness. It is possible that the age of home consoles is
simply drawing to an end as the mass market migrates towards the
combination of smartphones, tablets and portable consoles.
Microsoft Teases Windows 8 Apps on Xbox One
Microsoft's Build developers conference in San Francisco has mainly
focused on Windows 8.1 so far, but the company spent a few minutes talking
about the future Xbox One development platform on Thursday. Steve
Guggenheimer, vice president of Microsoft's Developer and Platform
Evangelism group, provided big hints at how developers can target the Xbox
One in the future. "Xbox one has two engines, it's got a gaming engine and
it essentially has a Windows 8 engine," said Guggenheimer, referring to
the new Xbox One architecture that lets the next-generation console run on
the Windows 8 kernel.
Guggenheimer demonstrated remote debugging of a basic web application that
appeared to be running on an Xbox One, noting that the app included an
xbox.js library. "Nothing to announce today, but when I talk about that
common core you're seeing that common core in action, being able to target
other devices devices over time that run the Windows 8 engine," said
Guggenheimer. He then proceeded to tease developers by encouraging them to
develop Windows 8 apps in order to build Xbox One apps. "If you want to
know about how to get a head start about thinking about developing for
Xbox One, the logical thing to do is go build Windows 8 applications,"
said Guggenheimer.
The development platform is still unclear, but Microsoft did note it will
support native apps on Xbox One alongside web versions. It appears that
developers may need to work with development tools that are almost
identical to Windows 8 tools to create Xbox One apps. Microsoft also
announced a new partnership with Unity to support all Microsoft platforms,
including Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox One, and Xbox 360. The toolset
lets developers more easily develop games to run across multiple
platforms.
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
Atari Founder Blames Shareholders for Companys Bankruptcy
Atari founder Nolan Bushnell has blamed the collapse of the game company
on its shareholders, who, according to Bushnell, preferred to exploit the
Atari brand via merchandise rather than work on creating new games.
In an interview with VG24/7, Bushnell, who co-founder Atari in 1972,
accused the company's shareholders of "nursing" the brand, saying that "no
attempt" was made to bring Atari up to date with the current game market:
"It was clear that it was all about eyewash. It wasn't about content; it
wasn't about trying to do something unique and interesting.
"It was just a case of them paying themselves large salaries and nursing
the brand. I mean the brand took in $10 million in royalties every year
just from t-shirts and sheets and peripherals and stuff like that, because
the logo was strong. That didn't mean the company had anything, it was
just historical with no attempt to bring it into today."
Atari Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January of this year, and is
currently auctioning its intellectual property rights for $22m (£14m).
The company's revenues dropped 34% in 2012, compared to 2011, with The Los
Angeles Times reporting that around 17% of Atari's overall business came
from merchandise using the company's logo.
Serves them right
As well as discussing Atari, Bushnell also spoke on other struggling game
companies, including Zynga which last month was forced to lay off 500
employees:
"In some cases it serves them right. I hate to see the brand be abused but
you just can't continue to abuse something. It's like killing the goose
that laid the golden egg."
Several gaming companies have recently been forced to close, including
Sony Liverpool and THQ, which in January auctioned off IPs such as Red
Faction, Homefront and Darksiders.
As well as firing staff, shuttering games and closing down studios, Zynga
is also attempting to turn itself around by branching into real-money
gambling.
The company recently appointed former Xbox One boss Don Mattrick as CEO.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
China, US To Discuss Cybersecurity at Forum
China is ready to discuss strengthening cybersecurity with U.S. officials
at a high-level forum next week and wants Washington to help settle
territorial disputes in East Asia, officials said Friday.
Next week's two-day Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington will
also include talks on finance and climate change and the inaugural
gathering of a U.S.-Chinese cybersecurity group, the officials said at a
government briefing.
Beijing is under U.S. pressure to crack down on cyberspying after security
consultants tracked a wave of hacking attacks to China.
"We are ready to work with the United States and engage in dialogue and
communication and, on the basis of mutual respect and mutual trust,
enhance understanding and consensus and work with the international
community to build a peaceful, secure, open and cooperative cyberspace,"
said Zheng Zeguang, an assistant foreign minister.
The U.S. delegation to the dialogue is to be led by Secretary of State
John F. Kerry and Secretary of the Treasury Jacob J. Lew. The chief
Chinese envoys will be State Councilor Yang Jiechi and Vice Premier Wang
Yang. They are to be joined by finance, military, energy, environmental
and other officials.
The annual talks are aimed at heading off trade and other disputes between
the world's two largest economies and to promote cooperation on managing
the global economy, climate change and other issues.
Security experts say China is a base for a large share of the world's
cyberspying, some of which might be carried out by its military. Beijing
has rejected that, saying China is a victim of computer hacking.
Asked about disclosures by former NSA employee Edward Snowden about U.S.
government spying and whether those would influence the talks, Zheng said,
"The information released by the media shows once again that China is
among the victims of cyberattacks."
On regional issues, Zheng said Beijing wants Washington to "do more to
contribute" to settling tensions over territorial disputes.
Referring to China's conflicting claims with the Philippines, Vietnam and
other governments over the South China Sea, Zheng said, "the United States
should do more to contribute to a proper settlement of the issue."
As for Beijing's dispute with Japan over a group of uninhabited islands in
the East China Sea, Zheng said Washington "should send correct instead of
wrong signals and do more to contribute to the cooling of the situation."
Justin Carter Case: How One Man's Facebook 'Banter' Is Another's 'Threat'
Did Justin Carter make a threat, or a sarcastic joke? Thats the question
in the case of the New Braunfels, Texas, teenager arrested for a comment
posted on Facebook thats generating national attention.
Mr. Carter was arrested several months ago on a third-degree felony charge
of making a terroristic threat. According to court documents, police
allege that he posted, Im [expletive] in the head alright. Ima shoot
up a kindergarten/ And watch the blood of the innocent rain down/ And eat
the beating heart of one of them.
According to Carters family and lawyer, the comment was a sarcastic
response to a comment by another Facebook poster. He was 18 at the time,
and this was banter by kids on the Internet
. Hes a gamer
. He never
intended to threaten anyone, he wasnt serious, says Donald Flanary, a
defense attorney who recently took up the case on a pro bono basis.
A tip routed to a regional intelligence center led to Carters arrest,
Mr. Flanary says. I can see how law enforcement can be sensitive to those
kinds of comments, and Im glad that theres a system to catch it, he
adds. But for Carter to be jailed for months based on Facebook comments
taken out of context, with bail set at $500,000 about five times higher
than many murder cases is an injustice, he says.
This isnt the first time a teen Facebook post has led to charges of
making threats. In Massachusetts this spring, an 18-year-old was arrested
for a comment referring to bombing and murder, but a grand jury
determined it was in the context of rap lyrics he was writing rather than
a genuine threat.
Theres no widespread trend of such cases, but even a handful of cases
where Americans lose their liberty for intemperate postings should get
our attention, says Ken Paulson, president of the First Amendment Center
at the Newseum in Washington and dean of the College of Mass
Communication at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.
There are safeguards that should lead to a critical analysis of
provocative speech, he says.
In Carters case, Mr. Paulson says, it seems like the entire [legal]
system has overreacted to this post.
Its also one example of the myriad ways people are stumbling into trouble
for behavior that has a wider audience on the Internet but would never get
people into trouble back in the day when trash-talking simply took place
in the living room as people played a violent video game, or when
drunkenness was witnessed only by a few friends at a party.
Societally, people may want to steer fellow citizens away from using
violent imagery in their online comments, but when it comes to police
involvement, its critical that we ensure their constitutional rights are
protected, and free speech is at the core of that, Paulson says.
A hearing to reconsider Carters bail is set for July 16.
Carters father tells NPR that his son has been traumatized in jail
seriously assaulted and put in solitary confinement because hes been
depressed. Attorney Flanary says that Carter could eventually pursue a
federal civil rights lawsuit for being wrongfully arrested and detained.
The legal process has failed at several points along the way, Flanary
says. Carter was arrested before police confirmed that the Facebook post
genuinely came from his computer a step thats usually routine before
even suspected child pornographers are arrested, he says. Police searched
his house and found no guns or other threatening material. And it appears
that they didnt look at the context of the Facebook post before
arresting him.
Flanary says that prosecutors have since subpoenaed that information from
Facebook but havent produced anything along those lines yet.
Flanary also says the small screenshot originally sent by the tipster
includes a negative comment against Carter, and that context was not
included in the arrest warrant and indictment materials.
Context is important because if Carters post was provoked by anothers
comment and was followed up by an acronym such as JK for just kidding
as his father has said in an interview with National Public Radio -
then on the face of it, it would clearly not be a threat, Paulson of the
First Amendment Center says.
Flanary speculates that one reason Carter has been jailed is that no
individual agency wants to be the one that says, Its not a threat, let
it go, because then if something happens
they have to explain why they
didnt do more.
Comal County (Texas) District Attorney Jennifer Tharp would not comment on
the details of a pending case but said in a press release that the charge
carries a potential penalty of two to 10 years in prison and a fine of up
to $10,000. A defendant never previously convicted of a felony may be
eligible for deferred adjudication community supervision, which, if
served successfully, would not result in a criminal record.
Ever since the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999,
many states have bolstered laws to make it clear that threats against
schools will be taken seriously and prosecuted, says Ronald Stephens,
executive director of the National School Safety Center in Westlake
Village, Calif. Indeed, tips from students about suspicious statements by
their peers have prevented school attacks in recent years.
But threat assessment teams that include educators, law enforcement, and
mental health experts should be in place to determine when someones
comments or actions constitute a real threat, Mr. Stephens says.
We rely on those enforcing the laws to use good, solid, fair, consistent
judgment, and that seems to be the question in this [Carter] case
whether its been fair and reasonable, Stephens says. If prosecutors
cant at some point produce their threat assessment process, theyve got
a real problem, he says.
Google Adds Malware, Phishing Numbers to Its
Transparency Report to Make the Web 'Safer'
Google is revealing some new numbers around malware and phishing attempts
in an effort to get more people thinking about online security and to make
the Web safer.
The data is being incorporated into the companys biannual transparency
reports, which are meant to provide clarity on the numbers for user data
requests Google receives from government agencies and courts, as well as
figures on removal requests received from copyright owners and governments
and traffic reports for Google services worldwide.
The malware and phishing data stems from Googles Safe Browsing technology,
which was established in 2006 to examine billions of URLs each day to find
unsafe websites. These unsafe sites, Google said, generally fall into two
categories: malware sites, which use code to install malicious software on
users computers; and phishing sites, which fake their legitimacy while
trying to trick people into giving their user names and passwords or other
private information online.
As of June 16, for instance, the companys Safe Browsing program had
detected nearly 42,000 malware sites per week, according to data Google
released Tuesday. For phishing sites, the rate clocked in at roughly
26,000.
Concerns over online security have been heightened in recent months
following a spate of cyberattacks carried out against major companies such
as The New York Times and the Jeep car company on sites like Twitter.
Googles thinking is that by providing details about these sorts of
threats, we hope to shine some light on the state of web security and
encourage safer web security practices, the company said in its report.
Google Safe Browsing is currently used by some 1 billion people, the
company said. The service shows warnings when users navigate to unsafe
websites while using the Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari
browsers.
With the new figures, people can see how many Safe Browsing warnings are
delivered to users each week (more than 88 million as of June 16); where
malicious sites are hosted around the world (Europe is a bit of a hotbed);
how quickly websites become reinfected after malware is removed (the rate
rises dramatically, due to periodic rescanning of infected sites, Google
said); and other tidbits like webmaster response time.
Were always looking for new ways to protect users security, said
Google software engineer Lucas Ballard in a blog post announcing the
data.
Users can report websites suspected of hosting or distributing malware
here, or a suspected phishing site here, Google notes.
The report also includes a section on notable events, which details some
specific security incidents that are responsible for the larger trends
contained in the report. Earlier this month, for instance, a campaign
targeting vulnerabilities in Java and Acrobat Reader infected more than
7,500 sites, resulting in more than 75 million Safe Browsing users to
receive malware warnings.
As part of its larger transparency report, Google last released numbers on
data removal requests in April, when they spiked to over 2000.
Sentences for Cyber Crime and Snooping To Be Tougher Across EU
EU lawmakers agreed on Thursday to toughen criminal penalties across the
European Union for cyber attacks, especially those that include harming
critical national infrastructure and hijacking computers to steal
sensitive data.
The 28 EU member states currently have a patchwork of varying tariffs for
cyber crime.
The decision mandates national maximum sentences of at least two years in
prison for attempting to illegally access information systems.
The maximum penalty for attacks against infrastructure such as power
plants, transport, or government networks will be set at five years or
more, higher than the current tariff in most member states.
The decision also increases the penalties for illegally intercepting
communications, or producing and selling tools to do this.
Cyber criminals often infect computers to form armies of zombie PCs known
as "botnets" by sending spam emails containing malicious links and
attachments, and by infecting legitimate websites with computer viruses.
Some botnet creators rent or sell infected machines on underground markets
to other cyber criminals looking to engage in a wide variety of activities
including credit card theft and attacks on government websites.
In June, Microsoft helped to break up one of the world's largest cyber
crime botnets, believed to have stolen more than $500 million from bank
accounts.
Under the new EU rules, companies that benefit from botnets or hire
hackers to steal secrets will be liable for any offences committed on
their behalf.
The European Parliament in Strasbourg voted 541 to 91 with nine
abstentions on the proposal by the European Commission, the EU executive.
However, Denmark has chosen to opt out of the rules, wanting to keep its
own system in place.
EU governments now have two years to translate the decision into national
law.
Windows 8.1 Doesnt Seem Likely To Help Sliding PC Sales
The upcoming launch of Windows 8.1 isnt expected to save the sliding PC
industry. Loren Loverde of IDC believes that worldwide PC shipments could
improve slightly in the second half of the year with the help of
back-to-school specials and holiday shopping. The analyst noted that the
results from May are behind pace for achieving the projected 2Q13 growth
rates, however. Despite projecting small improvements for later this
year, the firm warned that the market will likely remain cautious about
the second half of 2013.
The expectation for the second quarter was not all that high, showing
only minor improvement from the first quarter, Loverde said. But the
May results reflect deteriorating conditions rather than improvement and
the market will probably fall short of projections. IDC previously
estimated that annual PC sales will decline -7.8% in 2013.
Apples Latest Move Worries PC Vendor Rivals
Apple recently filed an application with the United States Patent and
Trademark Office for a new type of computer port that combines a memory
card reader with a standard USB port. The move seems somewhat innocuous on
the surface, but Digitimes unnamed supply chain sources say rival
computer makers are very worried over this new filing. According to the
report, notebook vendors believe the new technology will give Apple yet
another edge over their laptop computers in terms of design and thinness,
because Apple will be able to make its new MacBook line of computers even
slimmer by combining these ports. Apple already has design patents that
cover the MacBook Airs wedge design, the report noted, and this allows
Apple to make notebooks that are slimmer and lighter than the
competition.
Taiwan-based connector maker Kuang Ying pointed out that a conventional
SD card port has a width of about 27.1mm and a USB port about 13.5mm,
Digitimes Joseph Tsai wrote. If the two ports are combined, brand
vendors will be able to save about 12-13mm of space on their notebooks
exterior design, allowing them to add more functions.
Douglas Engelbart, Father of the Mouse, Dies at 88
Douglas C. Engelbart, a technologist who conceived of the computer mouse
and laid out a vision of an Internet decades before others brought those
ideas to the mass market, died on Tuesday night. He was 88.
Engelbart had suffered from poor health and died peacefully in his sleep,
his daughter, Christina, told friends in an email.
Engelbart arrived at his crowning moment relatively early in his career,
on a winter afternoon in 1968, when he delivered an hour-long
presentation containing so many far-reaching ideas that it would be
referred to decades later as the "mother of all demos."
Speaking before an audience of 1,000 leading technologists in San
Francisco, Engelbart, a computer scientist at the Stanford Research
Institute, showed off a cubic device with two rolling discs called an "X-Y
position indicator for a display system." It was the mouse's public debut.
Engelbart then summoned, in real-time, the image and voice of a colleague
30 miles away. That was the first videoconference. And he explained a
theory of how pages of information could be tied together using
text-based links, an idea that would later form the bedrock of the Web's
architecture.
At a time when computing was largely pursued by government researchers or
hobbyists with a countercultural bent, Engelbart never sought or enjoyed
the explosive wealth that would later become synonymous with Silicon
Valley success. He never received any royalties for the mouse, for
instance, which SRI patented and later licensed to Apple Computer.
He was intensely driven instead by a belief that computers could be used
to augment human intellect. In talks and papers, he described with zeal
and bravado a vision of a society in which groups of highly productive
workers would spend many hours a day collectively manipulating information
on shared computers.
"The possibilities we are pursuing involve an integrated man-machine
working relationship, where close, continuous interaction with a computer
avails the human of radically changed information-handling and -portrayal
skills," he wrote in a 1961 research proposal at SRI.
His work, he argued with typical conviction, "competes in social
significance with research toward harnessing thermonuclear power,
exploring outer space, or conquering cancer."
By 2000, Engelbart had won prestigious accolades including the National
Medal of Technology and the Turing Award. He lived in comfort in Atherton,
a leafy suburb near Stanford University.
At the same time, he wrestled with his fade into obscurity even as
technology entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates built fortunes off
of the personal computer and became celebrity billionaires by realizing
some of his early ideas.
In 2005, he told Tom Foremski, a technology journalist, that he felt the
last two decades of his life had been a "failure" because he could not
receive funding for his research or "engage anybody in a dialogue."
Douglas Carl Engelbart was born on January 30, 1925 in Portland to a radio
repairman father and a homemaker mother.
He enrolled at Oregon State University, but was drafted into the U.S. Navy
and shipped to the Pacific before he could graduate. He resolved to change
the world as a computer scientist after coming across a 1945 article by
Vannevar Bush, the head of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research, while
scouring a Red Cross library in a native hut in the Philippines, he told
an interviewer years later.
After returning to the United States to complete his degree, Engelbart
took a teaching position at the University of California, Berkeley, after
Stanford declined to hire him because his research seemed too removed from
practical applications.
He took a job at SRI in 1957, and by the early-1960s Engelbart led a team
had begun to seriously investigate tools for interactive computing.
After coming back from a computer graphics conference in 1961, Engelbart
sketched a design and tasked Bill English, an engineering colleague, to
carve a prototype out of wood. Engelbart's team considered other designs,
including a device that would be affixed to the underside of a table and
controlled by the knee, but the desktop mouse won out. SRI would later
license the technology for $40,000 to Apple, which released the first
commercial mouse with its Lisa computer in 1983.
By the late 1970s, Engelbart's research group was acquired by a company
called Tymshare, and he struggled to secure funding for his work or return
to the same heights of influence.
In his later years he founded a management seminar program called the
Bootstrap Institute with his daughter Christina.
He is survived by Karen O'Leary Engelbart, his second wife, and four
children: Gerda, Diana, Christina and Norman. His wife Ballard died in
1997.
New Yorkers' New Domain: '.nyc' Gets Initial OK
New York City likes to think of itself as a domain like no other, and now
it's close to being able to boast as much on the web.
The city has gotten a key approval for a ".nyc" suffix online, Mayor
Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced
Tuesday. That would mean web addresses could end in ".nyc" instead of such
common suffixes as ".com" or ".org."
"Having our own unique, top-level domain .nyc puts New York City at
the forefront of the digital landscape and creates new opportunities for
our small businesses," Bloomberg said in a statement.
The city's new virtual realm is one of hundreds of new suffixes worldwide
that have passed what are called "initial evaluations" by the agency in
charge of online addresses, the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and
Numbers. The list includes Istanbul, London and Paris, among other cities.
While some further approvals are needed, New York officials envision the
new ".nyc" addresses becoming available late this year to city residents
and entities with offices here. Fees haven't yet been determined.
The city has striven to cultivate technology companies during Bloomberg's
administration while City Councilwoman Gale Brewer and Quinn championed
the idea of a ".nyc" domain several years ago.
Officials say it will make it easier for residents and visitors to
pinpoint local services, give businesses an easily visible tie to what the
city sees as a valuable locale-as-brand and help spread New York's image
around the world.
For businesses and other local website owners, it also could mean a shot
at getting their chosen name in ".nyc" if someone else already has taken
it in the ".com" address or other established domain.
Neustar Inc., a Sterling, Va.-based communications company, will run the
".nyc" registry and is covering the costs to get it approved, the city
said.
Nearly 2,000 bids for new top-level domain names from ".app" to ".pizza"
to words in Chinese and Arabic were submitted last year after ICANN
decided to embark on the largest expansion in the history of the online
address system.
Americans Spend 23 Hours Per Week Online, Texting
Staying up-to-date on emails, social media and other means of online
communication is a bigger time requirement than people may realize: New
research has found that the average user spends 23 hours a week emailing,
texting and using social media and other forms of online communication.
That number represents nearly 14 percent of the total time in a week. All
that time is taking a toll on users, a new eMarketer report found.
However, 54 percent of survey respondents said they have tried to decrease
their reliance on technology in the past year in favor of more in-person
contact. That number is only set to grow, with 62 percent of web users in
the United States saying they hope to be able to decrease tech usage in
the coming year so they can communicate face-to-face.
Despite those efforts, over the past year, users have increased the time
they have spent using social networks, emailing, watching online videos,
playing online games and reading or writing blogs. Additionally, time
spent each day on online radio, newspapers and magazines has stayed the
same over the past year.
Email is the biggest time consumer, the researchers found. Respondents
said they spend nearly eight hours a week checking emails. Respondents
also said they spend nearly seven hours a week on Facebook and five hours
a week on YouTube. Moreover, users spend nearly the same amount of time
each week on Google+ and Twitter.
Users are checking those platforms with varying frequency, though, the
eMarketer report found. More than 75 percent of users checked email,
texts, Facebook and Instagram at least one time a day. Other new platforms
are growing in popularity as well.
"Photo-focused sites, particularly suited to mobile, seem to be especially
popular," the eMarketer report said. "Instagram saw 70 percent of users
logging in daily, and the relatively new Snapchat was just behind, with
67 percent of its users logging in daily."
Two-thirds of users also said they check YouTube once a day, while nearly
60 percent check Google+ daily. Just 40 percent of LinkedIn users check
the site daily, but nearly half check it several times a week.
"Even as Web users report a desire to disconnect, and discussion
circulates about Facebook users decreasing time spent, it remains to be
seen whether social users will follow through on that promise to log off,
or perhaps simply translate their time spent on social to the sites that
best suit their communication needs," the eMarketer report said.
=~=~=~=
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