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Remember last summer when the eastern hemisphere kept getting knocked offline by severed undersea cables? TeleGeography has a beautiful interactive map showing the many undersea cables that keep the world connected, and it’s far more than I ever expected.
Cables shown include international and US domestic submarine cables with a maximum upgradeable capacity of at least 5 Gbps. Cable routes are stylized to improve readability, and do not reflect the physical cable location. Similarly, cable landing stations do not show the precise coordinates of the building, and are meant to serve as a general guide to where a cable system lands.
via Submarine Cable Map.
Graphics interactive, internet, map
Intel has a pretty new infographic online showing the explosion of internet connected devices since the first computer came online back 1960.
The time was when the internet was people on their PCs sending email and surfing web content dished up by servers. Sure, it was around before that in its academic/military guise, but as far as the public consciousness was concerned, PCs, laptops, email and the web, was all the internet meant. A few years ago that changed, imperceptibly at first, such that now the recurrent understanding of the internet is far more diverse, feral even. Myriad devices and people creating content in multiple forms, for consumption on an increasing array of devices. And it’s changing industry too- internet-connected combine harvesters, anyone? It has become known as the internet of things, guided by the fact that if something has an on/off switch, it should probably compute, and if it is going to compute, it should also connect to the internet.
I agree with Randy Krum’s take on it, it’s realliy pretty but lacking any true information. OF course, their point was to show address space explosion, but all of the points twist and tangle for apparently no real reason other than to look pretty.
This is one of those graphs that has the illusion of far more information than is actually there.
via The Internet of Things Infographic.
Graphics intel, internet
Michael Ciarlo has a great visual depiction of the internet now and how it could wind up given the current state of Net Neutrality law. Without regulations keeping the internet open and nondiscriminatory, he visualizes the way that ISP’s could suddenly start charging per-pageview or impacting performance on competing services (Eg. Comcast could charge you extra for using Hulu instead of their own Fancast site).
I created TheOpenInter.net to depict a time in the future when ISPs control the Internet and all data is not downloaded equally. While creating the site’s design, I had the idea to bundle Netflix and Hulu as a package ISPs required you to buy. Halfway through development, I questioned the reality of my portrayal. Was I too far off-base? Then to my surprise a Wired article titled “Mobile Carriers Dream of Charging per Page” showed almost the exact same scenario. While there is no documentation within the article to prove wireless carriers have any current plans to implement a similar pricing structure, the fact that evidence exists to suggest its consideration is frightening.
It’s a great visualization, all built on a single very-tall webpage with HTML and CSS.
via Michael Ciarlo // Designer, Developer, Gamer.
Graphics internet, netneutrality
The BBC has a new interactive infographic online that shows the growth of the internet from 1998 to present, as part of their Superpower series. In addition to the above interactive graphic, they have a 14-page slideshow on “How the Web Works” as well as some statistics like “E-mail messages sent today” (121 Billion as of this writing).
BBC News – Mapping the growth of the internet.
Science infographic, internet
Focus.com has another infographic for you today. This time the graphic focuses on the state of the Internet. Both men and women equally use the internet. However, when one starts to look at income and education, then the richer you are and the higher your level of education, the more likely you are to have broadband access. The only thing I do not understand is the last graphic where 3 anonymous wireless internet providers are compared. Why not name them?
See the full-size graphic after the break.
via : State of the Internet 2009
Read more…
Graphics infographic, internet
Both YouTube and Vimeo announced last week that they would begin to support (on a limited basis) the new HTML5 ‘Video’ tag that allows video playback without relying on Flash. The technology is impressive, but users quickly noticed that it didn’t work with FireFox. Odd, since FireFox is 3.5 compliant, but it seemed to only work with Safari and Chrome? Mozilla has finally come out with a response, and the big problem is that while YouTube and Vimeo are supporting a public standard (the HTML5 Video tag), they’re using it with a non-public proprietary codec, the classic H264. Mozilla believes that using this proprietary codec is a bad idea for both providers and consumers, and is instead pushing something more open like the OggTheora codecs.
Apart from the issues with H.264 support in clients, there are also huge issues around H.264 for Web authors and content providers. Currently providing H.264 content on the Internet is zero-cost, but after 2010 that will almost certainly change. (…) We won/t know much about the terms until the end of this month. The key issue is not exactly how much it will cost, but that if you want to publish H.264 you will probably have to hire lawyers and negotiate a license with the MPEG-LA. If you just want to put a few videos on your Web site, or add a help video to your Web application, or put a video cut-scene in your Web game, that is probably not something you want to do.
I particularly love this comment from Robert O’Callahan:
But the MPEG-LA won’t bother suing me or my project, we’re not worth bothering with. Perhaps true, but I hope “remain irrelevant” is not the favoured strategy for most free software projects.
via Well, I’m Back: Video, Freedom And Mozilla. and Shaver: HTML5 Video and Codecs
Science browser, codecs, firefox, h264, html5, internet, mozilla, video
Work on bringing 3D Acceleration to the web continues, and the latest advancement is that now WebGL is part of the regularly WebKit nightlies. WebKit is the foundation of Safari, and many other browsers, and if you’re on OSX you can check it out and take it for a test drive.
WebGL is a new standard being worked on in the Khronos consortium. The work done in Khronos is only available to its members, so I can’t show you the spec just yet. But it will become public within the next few months after a review by Khronos members. The good news is that WebGL is now available in WebKit nightlies as of October 4, 2009 (r49073). So if you’re running Leopard or Snow Leopard you can try it out for yourself. WebGL runs in the HTML Canvas element, so it works very similarly to the 2D Canvas capability currently in WebKit.
Even if you’re not on a Mac, you can hit the site for examples and code-snippets and see how the implementation is shaping up.
via Surfin’ Safari – Blog Archive » WebGL Now Available in WebKit Nightlies.
Science 3d, api, internet, webgl, webkit
A new FireFox extension from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab collects web browsing behavior and compiles some interesting graphics showing your usage history.
Eyebrowse [csail.mit.edu] is an add-on for Firefox developed by the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, which has the ability to record, visualize, and share one’s browser history in real-time. The resulting data is represented as a collection of insightful data visualizations, such as individual profiles, tickers, page stats or more data-heavy bar graphs, timelines and dot charts that highlight day-by-day usage patterns (e.g. top URLs, #websites over time and time patterns respectively).
Such data could one day supplement (or replace) information from search engine companies like Google & Alexa, making targeted information and detailed analytics more accurate.
via EyeBrowse: Record, Visualize and Share your Browser History – information aesthetics.
Science firefox, infographic, internet, mit, web
VizWorld.com 
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