Last week, just one day before Steve Jobs’ death, Apple’s big iPhone announcement entitled Let’s Talk iPhone was something of a let down for iPhone lovers around the world who had anticipated not the iPhone 4S, but the iPhone 5.  The 4S looks on the outside almost exactly like the iPhone 4, but inside, it’s quite impressive. A powerful A5 processor and longer battery life are only two of the improvements.  One of the most impressive changes is in the camera, which is now 8 megapixels and can capture true HD 1080p video, and has advanced illuminating sensors for capturing up to 60% more light. Let’s look at what’s new with the iPhone 4S.

In the infographic below, the basic changes between the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 4 are presented in an easy to read side by side arrangement.  Pricing, features, and even entirely new concepts such as Siri are all included here:

iPhone users are some of the biggest consumers of Internet services, visitors of web pages, and constant social media checkers.  Most really successful companies with a powerful online presence have special pages that are optimized for mobile devices and tablets, and more specifically for iOS and Apple’s mobile Safari web browser.  The user base for iPhones makes for an interesting group of people, and some amusing stereotypes have been born as a result. There are users of all kinds, of course, but only the most prevalent and noticeable types have made the infographic.  You’ll laugh to yourself as you notice qualities that people you know share, and you might even see yourself in the types of users listed below.

According to this, the seven types of iPhone users are the Fanboy, the Unappreciative, the Overuser, the Desk Job, the Hacker, the Senior Citizen and the Complainer.  It’s really cute to note all the interesting hallmark quirks of each type of user.  Personally, I fall into the Fanboy club — with maybe just a little bit of Hacker.  Which type do you most strongly identify with?

Putting the Puzzle Pieces Together For the iPhone 5

Beacuse it is September, many Apple lovers and iPhone users are anxiously awaiting to hear some kind of a date when the new iPhone 5 will be released.  Still though, it goes unknown when this phone will be ready to be sold.  Many rumors and speculations are surfacing and going around about the new features, size, and more options that will be found on the iPhone 5.  There are even videos displaying a use of a laser keyboard, a hologram display, and a paper thin prototype.  While I am not too sure that these things are realistic, I do think that Apple will not disappoint with this model of the beloved iPhone.

In this video from CNETTV’s the Apple Byte reveals some new things that give us some more clues about the iPhone 5 including a picture that is sure to have been taken from an iPhone 5.

Take a closer look at the picture that is decided to have been captured using an iPhone 5 and not an iPhone 4.

The photo was taken by software engineer for Apple, Anton D’Auria.  All the hidden clues point to the fact that this was surely not done by an iPhone 4.

So you might be using legal herbs direct to calm yourself a bit while you wait in anticipation and while you’re doing that let us know:  What do you think the new Apple iPhone 5 will feature, and when do you think it will be launched?

Online donations and giving have become a quick, convenient way for people to contribute to their pet causes.  In recent years, non profit organizations have benefited greatly from the availability of technologies that allow fast and nearly instant donations made online.  Users generally enjoy making online donations, too;  it saves them a little time, the cost of a postage stamp, and eliminates the need to write a check.  People tend to respond faster after a natural disaster here or overseas when prompted to donate online rather than through traditional channels.So, who are the people making these generous gifts online?  How much are they spending?  Where are they choosing to place their money?  The infographic below sheds some light on the matter, providing statistics about online giving including how much money has been raised online in the past three years, and what the average household’s gift amounted to.  Very interesting facts!  Enjoy.  And remember to click the image to make it larger, so you can read it.

What if there was no Google?  Would you be able to survive?  Would you even want to?  Since time out of mind, Internet users have grown accustomed to “googling it” — not matter what it happens to be at the moment.  People tired of going through all kinds of security and compatibility issues with older forms for free, Web-based email have switched over to Gmail.    Lost?  You’ll need to try Google Maps, right?  And how would you create, share, and collaborate on documents in real time without Google Docs?  It’s almost impossible to picture a world without Google, especially with the company’s latest product, Google+, making significant strides in social networking.  Enjoy the infographic below for a run-down and timeline of Google’s meteoric rise to the top of…well, almost everything.

Mark Zuckerburg and the crew at Facebook held a highly publicized press conference yesterday.  Ahead of the “event,” news leaked that Zuck had promised an awesome announcement of an exciting new product from Facebook.  Thousands of people tuned in to Facebook Live and other tech news outlets that were carrying the event live via satellite, or who offered text transcripts during the broadcast. So,what was the awesome announcement?  That Facebook and Skype have teamed up to bring video chat to Facebook.

In the immortal words of Queen Victoria of England, “We are not amused.”

Video chat, according to Facebook, is the next big thing.  Only, it’s been around for quite some years now.  Apple has done it.  Google has done it.  Even AIM has managed it.  In iChat, people have been able to video chat using their Macs’ built-in eyesight cameras for a long time.  My first ever video chat was on MSN messenger, if memory serves me, and this was in the early 2000s.  So what was so exciting (to Mark Zuckerburg, at least) about bringing a fairly old and established feature to Facebook, so late in the game?  Your guess is as good as ours.  It was called a way for Facebook’s more than 750,000,000 users to get in touch.  Aren’t they already in touch?  They’re on Facebook.

Beyond the hype, another question remains:  how does Facebook’s new video chat compare with the video chat tools already found in Google+, the social network Google recently launched for its users?

Facebook’s video chat will, according to predictions, be so seamless as to help users connect almost instantly.  If you’ve tried other services (not including Apple Facetime or iChat, because they are far and away superior to either Facebook or Google, and cannot even be compared fairly) then you know starting up a video chat brings its own set of hiccups nearly every time.  Google is no different.  With Facebook the user interface is built right alongside the ordinary social networking experience and is so greatly integrated that users won’t have to go to any trouble to start video chatting.

So, was the announcement really something awesome after all?  If you really expected something to get excited about, you might have just purchased a truckload of wholesale herbal incense and inhaled deeply, rather than tuning in to yesterday’s over hyped press conference.

When you first woke up this morning, grabbed your glass of refreshing OJ and settled down in your comfy Herman Miller aeron chair, you might have missed the point of Google’s daily doodle.  That’s because, on first inspection, it appears to some hacked out electric guitar parts, with nothing else going on.   it would have been easy to miss the magic of it all through bleary morning eyes, especially if you are a coffee drinker and have not yet had your first cup of java.  Perhaps you mildly wondered to yourself “Ay?  Whatssthat for?”  then sauntered along the information superhighway to bigger and better things, like Johnny Depp’s birthday, or the SubwayFan hashtag at Twitter.  Innocent mistake.  Hopefully, one you righted later in the day.  Not to worry, though, because even if you didn’t, you can still see it now.

Basically, today is the 96th birthday of Les Paul, the Wizard of Waukesha.  Yes, Les Paul’s birthday is a big deal for all of the entertainment and technology worlds, really, since he pioneered the way electric guitars were made.  And so, today’s Google doodle is really an interactive set of strings you can actually play by mousing over them!  Turn up your volume and give it a try.  Oh, and that little button in the lower right side corner of the doodle?  It’s a “record” button.  Yes, you can record your very own work of electric guitar music genius, then you automatically get a link to a place you can playback the file.  Pretty clever, Google!  And lots of fun.  It’s kind of like a slum version of Garage Band.  Except, not.

So yes, today is also Johnny Depp’s 48th (can you believe that???) birthday, and he seems to be holding up well for an old guy.  Yes, the Internet is all abuzz about Depp’s birthday.  And why not?  He’s a hot commodity in Hollywood right now, with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Rango, and The Tourist among his most recent films, two of which are still in circulation.  It’s only fitting that the online world should want to honor this illustrious American ex-pat with many well wishes on the occasion of his forty-eighth birthday.

So, next time you hop on to Google to look for ADT dealers, play a little diddy!

Microsoft is actively encouraging its Windows Phone 7 developers to charge more money for the apps they develop.  This, they say, is what app developers really need and deserve:  more than just 99 cents for their hard work.  If they can successfully drive up the cost consumers are willing to pay for for apps, Microsoft knows that it will attract more developers.  And yet, the statement made was (this is a paraphrase and summary)  ”we would rather sell fewer apps for more money, than more apps for less per app,” generally speaking.  The problem with this concept is that the real impetus of hiking up the prices of Windows Phone apps is to try and give some semblance of credibility to Windows Phone as a viable and competitive smart phone OS in a world dominated by Apple Inc.’s iOS, and more recently, Google’s Android operating system. cable bundles Yet another problem with it is the math:  less apps at more per app is still always going to equal less profit for developers on a substandard and less popular platform than selling literally millions of 99 cent downloads on a popular and well loved platform.  I don’t think there is significant interest among all 47 Windows Phone users to support a large number of developers on that platform at all.  (I think 47 may not be the exact number of people interested in using Windows Phone, but it could be close.  I just pulled that number out of the air, like Steve Ballmer must have done when speculating about the ratio of app sales prices to purchases made.)

Everyone I personally know either uses an iPhone, an Android powered phone, or a plain old non-smart phone.  I have never met a live user of Windows Phone (of any iteration or build number.)  I have seen Windows Phone OS pictures in electronics stores, in sales flyers sometimes, and on Internet ads once in a very great while.  Sometimes, a technology writer will mention it in passing.  But I have zero empirical evidence that it really exists.  I have also seen pictures of unicorns in many stores, and of singing chipmunks, and of mutants with super human abilities.  I just don’t have a lot of faith to devote to this right now.  When it come to what is working, seeing and experiencing are what make converts and devotees — not raising app prices to give the illusion of  a reason for the existence of some bizarre proprietary smart phone OS.

Sorry for ranting.  It’s just that I really don’t understand Microsoft most days lately — and today, I don’t understand them at all.  Maybe that’s what’s wrong in Redmond lately.  Maybe Microsoft has so lost touch with what people want, need, and use that they’ve blown their last gasket, as it were.  There is no logical progression in Microsoft’s current marketing strategies.  In a world where consumer electronics dominate the majority of wealth generated from sales, Microsoft is left relying on enterprise business to support its ever expanding range of unnecessary new products aimed at the other crowd of consumers, who are already quite happy with what they have, thank you very much.

Remember those old commercials on tv channels in Los Angeles, where the guy is surfing the Web and suddenly stops on a page, where a woman’s voice can be heard announcing, “You have reached the end of the Internet.  There is nothing left to see.  Please go back now?”  Back in the day, it was such a preposterous idea that no one could do anything but laugh at it.  But in recent years, the Internet has been, well, running out of room.  In a way.

It all has to do with the number of available IPv4 addresses available.  The current system only supports about 4 billion unique IP addresses, and they are rapidly disappearing.  Does this mean that the Internet is about to cave in?  No, not at all.  The development of a new IP system, IPv6, has led to a greater number of available IP addresses – more than enough to last until something better comes along.

The new IP address system needs a little care before a seamless transition can be made.  For one thing, the types of IP addresses we have been used to for so long consist only of numbers and decimals.  These relied on a 32 bit system, divided into 4 octets, like this:  66.114.298.1   The new IP addresses will be in hexidecimal format, are 128 bit, and display as eight groups of numbers separated by colons, like this:   2001:0db8:85a3:0030:0100:8a3e:0370:7334

The potential for an enormously larger number of IP addresses is obvious, considering the information above.  More, in fact, than we could ever dream of exhausting.  The need to transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is growing, and will take several years to be completed — but while this conversion is under way, both protocols must be used simultaneously.  What does this mean to you?  Well, for one thing, if you want to be able to connect to any IPv6 sites, you have to change your browser settings to enable IPv6.  Most Macs and Linux operating systems already have IPv6 enabled by default, but for Windows, a tricky process is needed to activate IPv6.  You can find a link to that operation by doing a search on Microsoft’s homepage.

To answer the question originally posed in the title of this article, then, the answer is: both.  The “space” available on the Internet is infinite, but can be limited by our ability to parse and label its sectors.

The USA is doing everything it can to stop internet censorship in states such as China, Iran and India. New computer technologies are being developed that will allow internet users access to restricted content. Information that is censored will be redirected to email, blogs, and other sources on the internet. The chinese government has banned Facebook and Twitter along with other information. The US government is spending 30 million dollars on a project that will detect censored information and send it back to the internet.