Android users can choose from 3.718 million applications in the Google Play Store. When installing applications, the majority of consumers trust Google to keep their devices safe from hackers. However, the reality is different. Just back in May 2023, researchers discovered over 101 infected applications in the Android store. Many of these apps counted over 400 million downloads. more
Gaming is a huge business. In 2021, gaming generated $214 billion in revenues worldwide. That represents over 6% of all spending on entertainment. Gaming market experts are predicting that this will grow to over 10% during this decade. The pandemic triggered a growth spurt in gaming, with revenues almost tripling since 2019. During that time, there was also a big change in the dynamics of the industry, where many games are offered for free. more
In a recent article in LightReading, Mike Dano quotes Dan Rampton of Meta as saying that the immersive metaverse experience is going to require a customer latency between 10 and 20 milliseconds. The quote came from a Wireless Infrastructure Association Connect (WIAC) trade show presentation. Dano says the presentation was aimed at big players like American Tower and DigitalBridge, which are investing heavily in major data centers. more
In a previous article, I reported on the problems that Facebook (Meta) is facing – currently betting the house on its Meta service, based on a software platform that will create a virtual reality (VR) networked environment. I mentioned that I was critical about this business model and that I don’t see, at least for the foreseeable future, a platform (based on VR) that would turn the internet or mobile networks into VR environments. I also mention that I do see interesting markets for VR in certain sectors. more
Marketers far and wide have piled onto the non-fungible token (NFT) craze. To some great success and fanfare, NFTs are being used to promote and monetize media, goods, and services in almost every segment. Media, Fashion, Entertainment, Sports, Gaming, Art, Beverage, Consumer Goods, Financial, and even Enterprise Software companies are getting into the mix. This brief review examines why, how, and where marketers are using NFTs, how NFTs are being abused and gives high-level advice to marketers and brand protection professionals. more
Months ago, while watching a Saturday Night Live skit about non-fungible tokens (NFT) featuring a parody of Janet Yellen speaking to a high school economics class, I realized what an NFT is and how they work. What they represent, how they are minted, and how their value is exchanged became clear while watching Pete Davidson in a boy wonder unitard rap about the latest crypto-phenomena. It was only later that I realized that NFTs have plenty of practical applications. more
Neal Stephenson’s foundational cyberpunk novel Snow Crash brought to the public the concept of a metaverse, a virtual reality in which people interact using avatars in a manufactured ecosystem, eschewing the limitations of human existence. More recently, Ready Player One capitalized on that idea and brought it back to prominence with a bestselling novel and subsequent film adaptation. Amid rebranding efforts and seeking a new way forward, Mark Zuckerberg has made it Facebook’s (now Meta Platforms) priority to build a platform that could enable the metaverse to become a mainstream technology with the sort of reach that their social networks and WhatsApp have. more
I had already written this blog before Facebook announced it would be hiring at least 10,000 programmers to start moving the company towards the metaverse. I see the metaverse as one of the next big drivers of increased bandwidth usage. Wikipedia defines the metaverse as a collective virtual shared space created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual reality worlds, augmented reality, and the Internet. In the most basic sense, the metaverse consists of online worlds where people interact through avatars. more
There is a recent industry phenomenon that could have major impacts on ISP networks in the relatively near future. There has been an explosion of households that subscribe to gigabit data plans. At the end of 2018, only 1.8% of US homes subscribed to a gigabit plan. This grew to 2.8% by the end of 2019. With the pandemic, millions of homes upgraded to gigabit plans in an attempt to find a service that would support working from home. more
Broadband usage has spiked across the US this year as students and employees suddenly found themselves working from home and needing broadband to connect to school and work servers. But there is another quickly growing demand for broadband coming from gaming. We've had online gaming of some sort over the last decade, but gaming has not been a data-intensive activity for ISPs. more
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