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Posts Tagged ‘internet’

You use the Internet and, of course, you watch television, but have you ever tried Internet television?

Most people are unaware of one of the more recent developments in interactive Internet use. This new technology brings all the benefits of the Internet and television together to create your own personalised viewing experience. In simple terms Internet television means that you can watch TV straight from your laptop or desktop PC.

Internet TV allows you to you maximize the use of your computer and your Internet connection. I expect you have probably thought that there must be more you could do with your personal computer or laptop. You know that typing the occasional letter, transferring your MP3 collection to your iPod or playing the odd game or two online is hardly making use of its full potential. Now you can explore a trusted method of entertainment with access to unlimited viewing and you don’t even have to stop your usual computer activities.

If you are someone who can’t get enough of watching programs on television, think about how Internet television will open up new options for free viewing. You can catch up with current news stories, watch real time sports action, keep up to date with stock market movements or enjoy a little light comedy. You are provided with a wide variety of entertainment possibilities that continues to grow, gaining in popularity every day.

At the time of writing, FIFA World Cup 2006 is just around the corner and, for many, Internet TV will provide access to free live football streams. Viewers will be able to keep up with the latest action from all the international football games involving teams including Brazil, Argentina, France, England and many more. Japan’s third largest TV broadcaster, Tokyo Broadcasting System, has recently announced plans to air World Cup programmes over the Internet and on mobile phones.

If you use the Internet for any kind of research (even if it’s only helping the kids with their homework), you no longer have to view what you find in the usual format of text and pictures. Now you can see this information through streams of live or pre-recorded video enabling you to see details that simply wouldn’t be visible in a series of pictures.

5 Features of Internet Television:

1. Stations are available internationally. Currently over 150 countries have Internet access so you can rest assured that your country has at least one Internet TV station you can watch.

2. No additional hardware is required. In the past, watching television on your computer would require the fitting of a PC TV card but this is no longer necessary. Improvements in the telecommunications industry have made broadband connections more widely available and cheaper than ever before allowing more and more people to view high quality streaming media on their computer.

3. Anyone with an Internet connection can watch. A minimum connection speed of 56K is recommended and watching at this speed should give you a reasonable picture. Higher connection speeds will improve the picture quality (dependant on the server capabilities) and the fastest connections can enable you to view programmes in DVD quality.
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If you have any personal information on your computer at all and access the Internet it is vitally important that you consider the benefits of a computer firewall. Many people lock their homes, lock their cars, keep a watchful eye on their children, and yet leave the bank accounts, personal information, and all kinds of other information vulnerable and exposed through their personal computers.
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There has been a lot of talk recently about Google Talk and how there are serious privacy concerns with the new application.

The biggest concern seems to come with the ability to search and share multiple computers with one account. In other words, you could use a single desktop search account to search, index and allow you to share files between your desktop and laptop for example.

But are these concerns grounded in truth? Is there really a privacy issue here?

I downloaded and installed the new Desktop Search beta the other day. It has some interesting new features such as the ability to remove panels from the sidebar and dock them anywhere you like on your desktop.

And there are several more panels available to let you do anything from manage what is indexed, to passing time by playing games.

One of the coolest features is its ability to reach beyond the desktop it is on to do a variety of things. Now, I can play tic tac toe with co-workers, or even friends around the world.

But the biggest, and most troubling update to some is the ability to remotely index files, as well as share them using Google servers to temporarily store the items.

By turning this feature on you give Google the right to store your files for up to 30 days. Therein lies the crux of the issue – there seems to be no way around this 30 day requirement.

All I have to say is ‘so what?’

So what if you have to give Google this ability? Google will encrypt the data so that no one else can access it. And even if there is some sort of DOJ subpoena requiring access to these files I don’t think it would stand up in court.
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