CourseCast of the Week

Episode 0040, 03/16/2008

Title: CourseCast 40: Exploding Digital Universe, Verizon P4P Technology, Online Advertising Set to Ramp Up

Description: Exploding Digital Universe, Verizon P4P Technology, Online Advertising Set to Ramp Up

Welcome to Course Technology's CourseCast of the Week, Episode 40, recorded March 16th, 2008 in Nashville Tennessee, where I am temporarily stranded due to airline equipment failure. This is Ken Baldauf bringing you this week's technology news and information through the condenser mic on my Macbook Air at the Nashville Holiday Inn Express. I've enjoyed several days in Nashville attending Course Technology's national conference where I've had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with technology educators from across the country and around the world. This CourseCast is brought to you by Course Technology. Check out www.course.com for innovative textbooks and creative electronic learning solutions.

Story 1 - The Exploding Digital Universe

A report from IDC, called The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe, estimates the size of the digital universe to be 281 exabytes, or 281 billion gigabytes. By 2011, there will be 1,800 exabytes of electronic data in existence, or 1.8 zettabytes. IDC says that the number of bits stored exceeds the estimated number of stars in the universe.

The fastest-growing areas of digital data are related to digital television, surveillance cameras, Internet access in emerging countries, sensor-based applications, cloud computing, and social networks, the study found. The report outlines areas of concern with the future management of digital information.

IDC recommends that IT organizations move now to create policies, tools and standards to accommodate the approaching tidal wave of information.

Sources: Exploding Digital Data Growth Is a Challenge for IT (Top Tech News), Study: Digital universe and its impact bigger than we thought (Computerworld)

Story 2 - Verizon P4P Technology

Concern is growing over the amount of Internet bandwidth being consumed by P2P technology. Some are wondering if overall Internet speeds won't suffer due to the growing use of P2P for large media files. P2P stands for Peer-to-Peer, and is a popular technology used for sharing music and video files over the Internet. Comcast has been defending its practice of throttling, and holding back P2P traffic over its network in its efforts to keep its other types of Internet traffic running smoothly. Recently, Verizon released information about a new technology it has implemented to reduce the bandwidth requirements of P2P by fifty percent over its network. The technology is called P4P, and rather than throttling the P2P traffic, it routes it in a more efficient manner.

Sources: Verizon Reports P4P Can Slash P2P's Impact on ISPs (Top Tech News), Is the Internet Slowing Down? (Top Tech News)

Story 3 - Online Advertising Set to Ramp Up

The European Union has given its formal approval for Google to purchase online marketing and advertising giant Double Click for $3.1 billion. This approval, and the approval of the US Federal Trade Commission that was acquired last December, indicates a consensus that the acquisition will not provide Google with an unfair advantage in the market. Google has bee quick to act on the decision, and has finalized its purchase of Double-click and launched a beta version of its first Double-click driven application. Ad manager is an application that assists small businesses with tracking online ad sales and serving.

Six cable companies have banded together to offer package deals for advertising across their networks. Cable companies will be a powerful force in the online ads battle since they have access to both user television habits and Internet habits. This information can provide fuel for powerful targeted advertising campaigns custom-designed and delivered to meet the needs of each individual user.

Meanwhile Microsoft is meeting with Yahoo in its first attempts at negotiations on its $44.6 billion takeover bid. If the deal goes through it will give Microsoft a leg-up in the online advertising market.

Sources: EU clears Google-DoubleClick's $3.1 billion merger (Ars Technica), Google Rolls Out Ad Manager from DoubleClick (Top Tech News), Cable companies band together to sell ads, challenge Google (Ars Technica) Microsoft Talks With Yahoo Make Price Negotiations More Likely (Bloomberg.com)

New Briefs

  • A student at Colgate University was arrested after posting a message on juicycampus.com exploring the idea of shooting students on campus in order to shut down the school. [Ars Technica]
  • A spammer that authorities dubbed "the King of Spam" has pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and tax evasion and is facing up to 26-years in jail. [Computerworld]
  • Communist Cuba has lifted its ban on computer and DVD sales under the new leadership of Raul Castro. [Reuters]
  • Servers at Harvard University's Grad School of Arts and Sciences have been hacked and Harvard has notified 10,000 students and applicants that personal information may have been stolen. [Computerworld]
  • Online video service, Hulu, is now open to the public. Web users can go to www.hulu.com to access more than 250 televisions series, including The Simpsons and Buffy the Vampire Slayer along with more than 100 movies, and sporting events. [Computerworld]
  • Game giant Electronic Arts has launched a hostile takeover of Take-Two, maker of Grand Theft Auto. [Top Tech News]
  • Microsoft has released major patches for Office 2007 and Office 2008 for Mac. [Top Tech News, Computerworld]
  • Intel has taken in interest in solid-state drives and promises to deliver 160GB SSD's in the second quarter of 2008. [Computerworld]
  • Intel has also stated that more than 25 low-cost notebooks from popular manufacturers are being designed based on its upcoming Atom processor. The notebooks will cost between $250 and $300 dollars and should be available in mid 2008. [Computerworld]
  • Yahoo has announced that it is adopting key standards of the semantic Web in what some feel is an effort to set the stage for Web 3.0. [Headline Watch]
  • Amazon has purchased social networking site Bebo for $850 million. [Reuters]

That's it for this week's CourseCast. Links to this week's stories and many more news and information resources are provided at the CourseCast Web site at www.course.com/coursecasts. E-mail us with your suggestions for the show at course.coursecasts@cengage.com. Until next week, when I hope to be back recording in my studio, have a great week and be sure to take advantage of the Power -- of Technology!