Recent Internet Stats

Did you know that, according to Internet Live Stats, there are close to 3.5 billion Internet users in the entire world? It’s a huge number, I agree, but here’s an even more shocking stat: there are over 1 billion websites in the world, one for every three or four users.

Of course, most people focus on a small number of very popular websites, and this means that the other sites are condemned to attracting digital dust, and then dying a slow death. And this isn’t happening because their webmasters are lazy! Website owners publish about 1.8 million articles each day! Naturally, people don’t have the time to read that much content, even if we are talking about specialists who are trying to keep up to date with the latest industry news.

As odd as it may sound, people continue to use email as their primary form of communication. Yes, we’ve got all these instant messaging applications, and yet people send about 9 billion emails each day.

Apple may be a threat in the future, but Google continues to reign in the search engine world for now, and people use its services to perform close to 2 billion searches per day. Social media continues to enrich our lives, and Facebook leads the pack with close to 2 billion active users. Of course, we’ve also got Twitter, with its 250 million daily tweets, Tumblr with its 40 million daily posts and Instagram, where people religiously upload over 25 million pictures each day.

Pinterest continues to grow, with its user base reaching almost 150 million active users. Twitter has gotten a user base that’s twice as big for now, but their growth is much slower. The same can be said about Google+, a social networking website that has over 450 million active users, but it’s not growing as fast as it used to in the past. And then, we’ve got YouTube, one of the world’s largest search engines, which has hundreds of millions of users, who are watching close to 5 billion videos on a daily basis.

When it comes to search, Microsoft’s Bing isn’t doing that great at the moment, even though Cortana’s integration into Windows may change the things within the next few years.

And yet, Microsoft has gotten something right – its Skype Internet phone system, which has finally started to take off. People are making close to 100 million Skype calls each day, and about 5% of them are to landline numbers, and thus bring in a hefty profit.

We’ve discussed quite a bit about websites, Internet related stats and the applications behind them. What about the hardware that makes it all possible? Regular computers are sold in much smaller numbers these days. The lion’s share is taken by smartphones this year. There are now close to 1.5 billion smartphones in the entire world, and close to 500,000 tablets leave the stores and reach people’s homes on a daily basis.

As you would expect, all these devices use a lot of Internet data – about 1.3 million GB per day, to be more precise. The electricity used to power all these devices on a daily basis exceeds 1.3 million MW. Also, the CO2 emissions caused by the electricity used for the Internet exceeds 1.2 million tons. The good news is that more and more Internet providers are investing into green energy. Nevertheless, we’ll have to wait for a few more decades to see the day when data centers will be fully powered by green energy.

Wi-Fi News

Italian Mayor Plans to Shut Down Wi-Fi in Schools

The mayor of Turin, Chiara Appendino, wants to shut down Wi-Fi in state schools and government buildings, due to concerns that Wi-Fi waves may affect people’s health.

The mayor considers that Wi-Fi radiation is another facet of pollution, and asks authorities to do whatever they can to reduce Wi-Fi power, while making sure that good Internet connectivity remains a priority.

It’s an ambitious plan, but it’s in line with the mayor’s other revolutionary ideas – her proposal to turn Turin into a vegetarian town, for example.

The Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, doesn’t see Wi-Fi as a threat, though. He has recently closed $200 million deals with Amazon, Apple and Cisco.

 

Seamless Station-To-Train Wi-Fi System

It’s happening in the UK: passengers are now able to move from stations to trains without having to reconnect their devices to the network. People used high gain antennas and specialized extension cables to stay connected until now.

Arriva UK Trains, the company behind this system, has installed its seamless system in 28 stations so far. The passengers will log on to the network once, and then forget about it. When the passengers approach a station, they will be automatically connected to its Wi-Fi network, thus getting access to faster Internet speeds.

 

Google Maps Has Gotten a Wi-Fi Only Mode

I don’t know about you, but Google Maps is my favorite navigation system. I have tried several GPS applications, but none of them proved to be as accurate as Google’s app. Still, Google Maps only works with cellular data, and that data can be quite expensive, especially when you are traveling abroad.

If you like Google’s GPS application, you will be pleased to know that many of its users are reporting about a new setting, which has replaced the “offline areas” option. Once it is activated, Google Maps will make use of whatever Wi-Fi networks it can find to download your route data. Of course, when Wi-Fi networks aren’t available, the application will utilize small amounts of cellular data.

 

New Wi-Fi AC HDD from Western Digital

Western Digital’s My Passport Wireless Pro is an external hard drive like no other. First of all, it consists of a two or 3 TB hard drive. Then, it incorporates a dual band Wi-Fi router, which can operate as a media server as well. It’s also got an SD card slot and USB 3.0 connectivity.

The company has designed this product for people who need reliable backup on the go. The main target are small businesses, photographers, artists, people who work with large files.

The recommended price is $350 for the 2 TB version and $400 for the 3 TB version. The hard drive includes a 6.4 Amps battery, which can also be used as a power bank for your phone or tablet.