Tag Archives: Akamai Technologies

Computers

Second-screen prototype hopes to boost couch commerce

Leave a comment

Akamai Technologies demonstrated a prototype second-screen system that presents complementary content on a smartphone or tablet that is synchronized with what’s happening on the main television screen.

To see the system in action at the NAB Show, watch a video on YouTube.

First users would need to sync their mobile device with their television. Akamai showed this using a QR code that could be scanned by the user watching the television. Every program on TV has a timestamp and content ID, which allows the mobile device to display complementary content just at the right time for the consumer.

“It’s something that can be synced in near-real time,” said Kris Alexander, chief strategist of connected devices and gaming at Akamai Technologies. “By the time somebody looks down from the primary screen it seems like the second screen is in real time.”

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

The Internet Is More Vulnerable Than You Think

Leave a comment

By Tim Beyers, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Most of the time, the Internet flows like water or electricity. But disruptions do happen, and last week brought a big one when an as-yet unidentified group attempted to take down the servers of European anti-spam group Spamhaus by slamming them with as much as 300 gbps of bogus traffic.

According to multiple reports, the digital onslaught — known in tech parlance as a distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attack — is the largest on record, and affected performance across the continent. Akamai Technologies , whose Kona security service is built to deflect Internet threats, was among the first  to report the dramatic rise in Web traffic in Europe.

Other reports said that worldwide sabotage of some undersea cables may be playing a bigger role in the European slowdown. Either way, the Internet is more vulnerable than any of us would like to admit, and we need to be investing accordingly, says Tim Beyers, of Motley Fool Rule Breakers and Motley Fool Supernova, in the following video.

Do you believe cloud computing providers have done enough to account for the known frailties of the Internet? Let us know where you stand  in the comments box below.

Too skittish to bet on airy Internet stocks? The Motley Fool‘s chief investment officer has taken from a classic, earthy industry for his No. 1 stock for this year. Find out which it is in the brand-new free report, “The Motley Fool’s Top Stock for 2013.” Just click here to access the report and find out the name of this under-the-radar company.

The article The Internet Is More Vulnerable Than You Think originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Tim Beyers is a member of the 
Motley Fool Rule Breakers
stock-picking team and the Motley Fool Supernova Odyssey I mission. He owned shares of, and had a long-term call options position in, Netflix at the time of publication. Check out Tim’s web home and portfolio holdings, or connect with him on Google+, Tumblr, or Twitter, where he goes by @milehighfool. You can also get his insights delivered directly to your RSS reader.The Motley Fool owns shares of Netflix. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Netflix. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

(function(c,a){window.mixpanel=a;var b,d,h,e;b=c.createElement(“script”);
b.type=”text/javascript”;b.async=!0;b.src=(“https:”===c.location.protocol?”https:”:”http:”)+
‘//cdn.mxpnl.com/libs/mixpanel-2.2.min.js’;d=c.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0];
d.parentNode.insertBefore(b,d);a._i=[];a.init=function(b,c,f){function d(a,b){
var c=b.split(“.”);2==c.length&&(a=a[c[0]],b=c[1]);a[b]=function(){a.push([b].concat(
Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments,0)))}}var g=a;”undefined”!==typeof f?g=a[f]=[]:
f=”mixpanel”;g.people=g.people||[];h=[‘disable’,’track’,’track_pageview’,’track_links’,
‘track_forms’,’register’,’register_once’,’unregister’,’identify’,’alias’,’name_tag’,
‘set_config’,’people.set’,’people.increment’];for(e=0;e<h.length;e++)d(g,h[e]);
a._i.push([b,c,f])};a.__SV=1.2;})(document,window.mixpanel||[]);
mixpanel.init("9659875b92ba8fa639ba476aedbb73b9");
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

3 of the Week's Biggest Surprises

Leave a comment

By Anders Bylund, The Motley Fool

YHOO Chart

Filed under:

Say what you want about the tech sector, but it’s never boring. Any given week will keep tech investors flooded with product announcements, earnings surprises, and crazy strategy shifts that absolutely nobody saw coming.

These are three of the most shocking pieces of tech news this week.

1. No more telecommuting
When Marissa Mayer took the CEO job at Yahoo! , you could smell change in the air. So far, she’s revamped the company’s cell-phone policies, pushed out a redesigned front page for Yahoo!’s crucial portal site, and delivered a rare 2% year-over-year revenue boost in her first quarter on the job.

Mayer clearly brought some of her Google mojo over from her former employer. As a Google shareholder, I’m sad to see her go because Big G lost an incredible talent here. And injecting some Google funk into Yahoo! Is never a bad idea, as even a cursory glance at the two companies’ stock charts will tell you:

YHOO data by YCharts

But this week, Mayer delivered a shocker. Yahoo! has long offered a generous telecommuting policy, placing more value on getting the job done than on doing it at the office. That’s a thing of the past. From now on, Mayer expects her workers to make the daily commute in order to set up meetings, mingle by the watercooler, and generally break down barriers between different projects and ideas.

Creating synergies and happy accidents by forcing people into the office may or may not work. Only time will really tell. But the whole concept flies in the face of contemporary management philosophy. Silicon Valley neighbor Netflix , for example, wants to staff its halls with superstars and overachievers. It’s done by demanding high performance from everyone, while mediocrity earns you “a generous severance package.”

But you’re free to work when you want, where you want, and how you want — as long as the results are impeccable. Netflix doesn’t have a vacation policy — just take as much time off as you need, and then come back with fully charged batteries and get back to doing an amazing job.

Other companies have followed Netflix’s lead. Data delivery expert Akamai Technologies stole its vacation policy outright. Telecommuting is standard operating procedure in many Valley firms, and it’s spreading to other industries as well. Mayer’s policy change feels like a big step backwards. Let’s see if she can prove me wrong with stronger innovation and better overall performance in the coming quarters and years.

2. Andrew Mason can joke about anything
Digital coupon wrangler Groupon delivered another terrible quarter this week, after which founder and CEO Andrew Mason made a quick exit.

So far, so expected. Mason has long been a liability to the company he founded, and Groupon’s rebate management operations never struck me as a great business plan anyway. But he did not go gentle into that …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance