According to StatCounter.com, mobile internet usage has sky-rocketed up to 8 1/2 percent this year; way up from only 4.3 percent last year comparatively. The graph below shows what it looks like compared to desktop use.

CEO of StatCounter.com, Aodhan Cullen had this to say:

“While global internet usage through mobiles is still under 10%, the pace of growth is remarkable.”

Cullen went on to say:

“Following repeated requests, we’ve decided to make our new mobile vendor stats publicly available. As the mobile space is constantly evolving, we keep our detection under constant review.”

The website has been gathering and compiling data for some time now to present this information. Nokia is a front runner due to its popularity in India, they say. Globally speaking, Apple is in second place, but they remain on top in US and UK markets.

For awhile now, users have been able to access the new profile look if they chose to do so. But since it was still voluntary, many users just ignored it and went about their normal, everyday Facebooking. Facebook has always said that the Timeline would eventually become a mandatory part of everyone’s Facebook experience, but it wasn’t until last week that Facebook announced the switch to Timeline was imminent.

Will the mandatory switch to the Timeline cause you to reevaluate your participation in the network? Are you upset that Facebook is putting it on users to clean up their Timeline data, or do you think users should be responsible for everything the post – even stuff from half a decade ago? Let us know what you think.

Over the next couple of weeks, the Timeline will be rolling out to everyone. Once your profile switches over, you’ll have a week-long “grace period.” During this week, your Timeline view will only be able to be seen by you – this gives you time to clean it up and make it presentable for mass consumption.

Personally, I kind of like the Timeline. I think that it’s a much-needed upgrade of a fairly stale profile page. But then again, I’m not that private of a person and I don’t really care about the skeletons from 2005 that the timeline allow people to dig up if they so choose.

Having said that, here’s some news for Facebook users that have yet to switch to Timeline: it is quite overwhelming at first. I joined Facebook on Halloween, 2004 – and since then have amassed a shocking number of wall posts, status updates, photos, and shared links. And while I wouldn’t call any of it embarrassing, there are some things that if they went away, it wouldn’t bother me. A drunken photo here, an over-zealous political status update there – eight years of living publicly through Facebook is bound to reveal minor indiscretions.

But I know that I’m abnormal in the fact that I don’t really care about all of that. For a large percentage of Facebook users, the company is crossing some lines with Timeline. The main concern is that Facebook seems to have adopted an “opt-out” strategy when it comes to information sharing. The Timeline puts everything out there by default, and it’s the user’s job to clean it up and make sure that they aren’t publicly sharing something that they want to remain private.

Of course, this discussion of “private information” doesn’t just include old, unearthed photos and statuses – but the series of “frictionless” apps that are going to be an integral part of the Timeline. These apps, like “social readers” and music apps like Spotify automatically share your activities with friends. Although Facebook has stressed that the Timeline doesn’t disclose any more private information than the old profile and that all of the apps are voluntary, online privacy groups have voiced concerns.

One, for example, is the Electronic Privacy Information Center. They have asked the FTC to look into whether or not the Timeline violates Facebook’s privacy promises, stemming from a previous agreement with the FTC.

“With Timeline, Facebook has once again taken control over the user’s data from the user and has now made information that was essentially archived and inaccessible widely available without the consent of the user,” they said in a letter, adding that Facebook “promotes oversharing” and wants users to “abandon restraint.”

So, how do Facebook users feel about the Timeline? Is it just a bunch of isolated bitching, or is there mass concern? According to a poll by IT security company Sophos, a majority of people are apprehensive about the changes.

Over 51% said that the Timeline worries them. Another 32% said that they aren’t even sure why they’re on Facebook anymore:

Sophos admits that their poll might have involved people who are a little more concerned with privacy and security issues than the average Joe, but it’s still a striking figure. With this kind of widespread apprehension, it’s no wonder that scam apps have popped up all over Facebook offering to deactivate users’ Timeline.

Facebook Timeline is like a time-travel machine for stalking.

— SororityGirlProblems (@SororityProblem) January 30, 2012

Other than concerns about crazy stalkers and shocked family members having access to evidence of debauchery, users are worried about identity theft. Could a yet-to-be-vetted Timeline serve as a treasure trove for cyber criminals that use personal information in various unsavory ways?

Sure, but let’s also think about it like this: Facebook isn’t crafting stories out of thin air and using them to populate your Timeline. Anything that the Timeline shows from five years ago, you willfully posted (whether you remember it or not). Sure, Timeline kind of opens up old wounds in a way. Things that you thought buried by time are now prominently visible again. Old information is inarguably much more accessible with Timeline.

But if you shared it, shouldn’t you own it?

And as far as the concern over frictionless sharing with new apps, the answer is fairly simple. If you don’t want everyone to see what you’re listening to with Spotify, don’t connect Spotify to your Facebook account. If their recent actions haven’t made it clear, Facebook is going all-in with sharing. That’s what “frictionless” means – without impediments. The free flow of information has to be curbed by the user, if they want certain activities to remain private.

But the bottom line for some: Facebook is putting the onus of privacy control on the user by putting it all out there and asking everyone to do all the work in making sure their privacy concerns are met.

Will the forced Timeline cause users to jump ship? I doubt it. It seems like every Facebook change brings out the “i’m gonna ditch” threats. Despite this, Facebook continues to grow – because it has become such an important part of our culture. But there is quite a bit of hate out there for the Timeline, so we’ll have to wait and see the reaction when it has finally rolled out to everyone.

What do you think about the Timeline? Are you concerned about how Facebook is handling user privacy? Do you think people are overreacting? Let us know in the comments.

The telephone market is dominated by Slim Telefonos de Mexico A.K.A. Telemex which provides nearly 80 percent of the services, while billionaire Carlos Slim controls around 70 percent of the cellphone market with America Movil.

Dionisio Perez-Jacome, minister of Communications and Transport had this to say, according to one source:

“This is a critical study…that exposes the weakness of the telecommunications sector in Mexico.”

In the year 2008, Telemex had a profit margin of nearly 50 percent, while countries like Canada and the UK only had close to 30 percent. Mexican Government is, in the mean time, trying to increase broadband speeds in mexico, which apparently they feel will soften the blow of thee high prices. Evidently in their opinion broadband speed trumps ridiculous price.

In your opinion, does speed outweigh price or do steep prices steer you elsewhere? Should speed and price equal each other? With this economy who can afford expensive internet anyway? Leave your opinions in the comments section

Data belonging to users of Megaupload could be deleted as soon as Thursday according to federal prosecutors. CBS is reporting that the company is defending itself by saying that their service was primarily used to store data like family photos and personal documents. Those users hoped they would be able to get their data back.

Megaupload hired two outside companies to store the data. As part of the investigation, the federal government froze the company’s account so they can’t pay the hosting fees.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia filed a letter in the case Friday saying that the storage companies, Carpatha Hosting and Cogent Communications Group, may begin deleting data Thursday.

The letter went on to say that the government copied some data from the servers. They have executed their search warrants so they have no right to access the data. The servers belong to the two companies so any inquiries need to be brought up with them.

Megaupload’s attorney Ira Rothken said that the company is working towards an agreement to keep the data from being erased. Not only is the data important to the 50 million customers that used the service, but it is essential for the company’s defense as well.

“We’re cautiously optimistic at this point that because the United States, as well as Megaupload, should have a common desire to protect consumers, that this type of agreement will get done,” he said.

This could complicate efforts by the Pirate Party to bring a formal complaint against the FBI for the many users who used the service for legal file storage.

We’ll keep you up to date on any developments in the Mega saga.

Take that back. In any climate, John Mizuno would have to be outside of his mind to introduce a bill like this. That is, unless it passes – in which case we will all feel like we’re the ones taking the crazy pills.

Anyway, the idiotic and dangerous bill that I’m referring to was proposed on Friday and would basically require all internet providers to retain customer records for a time “no less than two years.” The “customer records” would not only include each subscriber’s personal information, but their entire browsing history.

Seriously. The language is as plain as it is vague. Check it out:

Recordkeeping requirements for internet service providers. Any internet service provider that provides internet service to a consumer in the State shall retain consumer records for no less than two years. The required data for the consumer records shall include each subscriber’s information and internet destination history information. Destination information shall include any of the following:

(1) Internet protocol address;
(2) Domain name; or
(3) Host name.

This is the only directive included in H.B. 2288. Nothing else to describe motivations, or specific clarifications either. When a politician introduces legislation this moronic, one immediately thinks about ulterior motives. But what could Rep. Mizuno have to gain from this?

The bill simply requires ISPs to log all of this data and makes no mentions of how they can use it or who they can give it to – the police? Advertisers?

And as CNET points out, if passed, this could end up affecting more than just Hawaiian citizens:

Because the wording is so broad and applies to any company that “provides access to the Internet,” Mizuno’s legislation could sweep in far more than AT&T, Verizon, and Hawaii’s local Internet providers. It could also impose sweeping new requirements on coffee shops, bookstores, and hotels frequented by the over 6 million tourists who visit the islands each year.

The bill is being heard in the House today. A companion bill has also been introduced in the Hawaii State Senate, with no hearing yet scheduled.

I’m not sure that I’ve heard legislation so dangerously vague in quite some time. What do you guys think? Let us know in the comments.

Key takeaway: If you really love trees, just stay away from the middle of the United States.

Although most of you probably already knew that little tidbit, I bet you’ve never seen a map of the U.S. based on “woody biomass” before.

This tree density map, released by NASA, is a product of a collaboration between Josef Kellndorfer and Wayne Walker of the Woods Hole Research Center, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Geological Survey. As a lover of woodlands, I must say, it’s nice to live near the Appalachians. Check it out below:

The visualization above was created with data from the National Biomass and Carbon Dataset. What you’re really seeing is concentrations of organic carbon, which is stored in the trees. More carbon concentration = more trees.

Here’s how NASA describes the effort:

Over six years, researchers assembled the national forest map from space-based radar, satellite sensors, computer models, and a massive amount of ground-based data. It is possibly the highest resolution and most detailed view of forest structure and carbon storage ever assembled for any country.

Forests in the U.S. were mapped down to a scale of 30 meters, or roughly 10 computer display pixels for every hectare of land (4 pixels per acre). They divided the country into 66 mapping zones and ended up mapping 265 million segments of the American land surface. Kellndorfer estimates that their mapping database includes measurements of about five million trees.

Bonus Takeaway: the tree density map really looks like a population density map of the U.S. Go figure.

Researchers at IBM last week stored a bit, the smallest form of computer memory, into 12 atoms. They make the point of saying that this is significantly less than today’s hard drives that use about one million atoms to store a single bit of information. They say that the ability to manipulate matter by its most basic components could lead to our ability to build smaller, faster and more energy-efficient devices.

The usual route of technological advancement is to start out big and work your way down to smaller devices. The team at IBM flipped that notion on its head and started at the smallest they could go: a single atom. From there, they tested it to see how many atoms they could get before it would take to a single bit.

The researchers demonstrated magnetic storage that is at least 100 times more dense than today’s hard drives and solid state drives. Think of the load times off of something that compact. It would create a huge advancement in computing!

The team thinks that future applications of nanostructures built one atom at a time that apply their unconventional form of magnetism called antiferromagnetism could allow people to store 100 times more data in the same space of today’s disk drives.

“The chip industry will continue its pursuit of incremental scaling in semiconductor technology but, as components continue to shrink, the march continues to the inevitable end point: the atom. We’re taking the opposite approach and starting with the smallest unit — single atoms — to build computing devices one atom at a time.” Andreas Heinrich, the lead investigator into atomic storage at IBM Research – Almaden, in California, said.

For those wondering how they did it, IBM used ferromagnets which have similar properties to the magnets inside refrigerators. The ferromagnets align the spins of all of bound atoms in a single direction. The problem came from the bits on the atomic level that could strongly affect their neighboring bits. It took precise control on the part of the IMB researchers to control the interactions between the bits.

The researchers then used a scanning tunneling microscope to atomically engineer a group of twelve coupled atoms that stored a bit of data for hours at low temperatures. Taking advantage of their magnetic spin directions, they were able to pack the magnetic bits much closer together than was ever previously thought. They did all this without the atom structure becoming unstable.

The lead image shows a magnetic byte imaged five times in different magnetic states to store the ASCII code for each letter of the word THINK, IBM’s corporate mantra since 1914. The team achieved this by using 96 iron atoms, one bit was stored by 12 atoms and there are eight bits in each byte.

For those who want to know more or would prefer an audio-visual explanation of how they did it, IBM has you covered.

From that announcement:

“Facebook will compile mentions of the candidates in U.S. users’ posts and comments as well as assess positive and negative sentiments expressed about them. Facebook’s data team will use automated software tools frequently used by researchers to infer sentiment from text.”

As an example of the kind of data this mining will reveal, they offer this. Here are some screenshots:

In a post on his blog, he says:

In building Wolfram|Alpha, we’ve absorbed an immense amount of data, across a huge number of domains. But—perhaps surprisingly—almost none of it has come in any direct way from the visible internet. Instead, it’s mostly from a complicated patchwork of data files and feeds and database dumps.

There are product catalogs, store information, event calendars, regulatory filings, inventory data, historical reference material, contact information—lots of things that can be very usefully computed from. But even if these things are somewhere on an organization’s website, there’s no standard way to find them, let alone standard structured formats for them.

He goes on to express the idea of creating the “data web” to “parallel” the ordinary web, bug geared toward computational use.

Essentially, there would be a data-driven .data alongside a site’s .com.

Wolfram says they’re seeking input and partners for the effort. He appears to be taking a leadership role for the initiative.

Would do you think of this concept?

Or do you just walk by, unable to burden yourself with one more thing to do in your busy day?

According to some research by QR skeptic youth marketing agency Archrival, there is at least one important group of the population that’s failing to muster any excitement for QR codes.

They asked over 500 students across 24 different U.S. college campuses about the technology and found that although recognition of the codes was pretty high, interaction was just the opposite.

Students were shown a picture of a QR code and then asked questions like: Can you identify what this is? Do you know how to use it? How likely are you to engage with these in the future?

Here are just a few of our findings:

• 81% of students owned a smartphone
• 80% of students had previously seen a QR code
• 21% of students successfully scanned our QR code example.
• 75% of students said they are “Not Likely” to scan a QR code in the future.

Apparently, these college kids know all about QR codes and have the smartphones they need to interact with them, but really have no desire to investigate further when they encounter one.

It looks like one of the big problems is actually a lack of comprehensive understanding of the process. Some of the students thought that their smartphone camera in some way included a native QR code reader, and had no idea that a 3rd party app was necessary to read the code. Many just thought the whole thing took too long and abandoned the process before completion. Either way, that 75% figure of students who said that don’t plan to scan a QR code in the future is an interesting one to marketers and promoters.

QR codes can be used effectively for viral marketing – for instance when a team constructing an underground art show sticks QR stickers all over town, and scanning them leads directly to the show’s website. Still, even this interesting promotional concept requires curiosity from the public.

And of course QR codes have simple data storage purposes, which are very practical in daily life. Take for instance airlines that use them for electronic boarding passes. Some entering the work force have also taken to putting QR codes on their resumes, providing employers with a way to access more information. Hospitals are even using the codes to help women schedule mammograms.

But as far as college kids are concerned, Archrival has some advice for those wanting to use QR codes for marketing purposes: “Unless QR codes become easier, more nimble, and can provide content that engenders a more meaningful connection to the brand or product, students will continue to shower them with apathy.”

Check out the infographic below and let us know your feelings about QR code marketing and promotion in the comments.

[Lead Image courtesy Wikipedia]