reports

Report: Apple's iPad accounts for 94.64% of tablet Web traffic

Taking into account any Web query made from a tablet device across its ad network, Chitika was able to determine that not only was the iPad clearly the front-runner in Web usage with 94.64 percent, but that other tablet devices are nearly non-existent.

Coming in second place was the Samsung Galaxy Tab, representing 1.22 percent of Web traffic.

Despite pundit arguments that suggest Android devices are "winning" the mobile operating system race, in terms of usage, the numbers seem to put the iPad clearly ahead. And yes, this is a small sample set from a single … Read more

Facebook users: What? Facebook has privacy settings?

A lot of Facebook users seem to be in the dark over how to protect their private information.

Out of the 150 million Facebook users in the U.S., almost 13 million don't use or aren't aware of the site's privacy settings, according to a report published in the June issue of Consumer Reports. Further, 28 percent of the people polled by CR shared all, or almost all, of their wall posts with people beyond their friends.

Consumer Reports uncovered other types of risky behavior among Facebook users.

An estimated 4.8 million people have posted details … Read more

Seven years of Buzz Report: A retrospective

This week, my Web video series, the Buzz Report, is officially over. I don't know of a longer-running Web video series: it started on May 23, 2005, and lasted until this week, April 12, 2012. That's a pretty serious run. And although I know many of you are really upset about its passing (yes, I'm reading the feedback), I want you to know...I loved every minute of it.

Sarah Harbin, Buzz's producer and editor since 2007, and I tried to come up with some of the best moments of the past seven years and compile … Read more

Car audio at the New York auto show

I went to the New York International Auto Show with just one thing on my mind: car audio. Like many New Yorkers, I don't own a car, so this was my chance to sample a wide range of premium car audio systems in everything from Smart cars to Rolls-Royces. For the most part, generic car audio or famous name-brand systems like Bose and Mark Levinson sounded thick and muddy. Not one was up to the standards of a decent home hi-fi system. They played loud and had lots of bass, but even the most expensive car systems at the … Read more

People who love e-reading simply love reading

Things might be starting to look up for booksellers, authors, and publishers. A report released today by the Pew Research Center shows that one-fifth of U.S. adults have read an e-book in the last year and that e-reader owners not only prefer to buy rather than borrow books, but they also read more books.

"Those who have taken the plunge into reading e-books stand out in almost every way from other kinds of readers," the report's authors write. "Foremost, they are relatively avid readers of books in all formats: 88 percent of those who read … Read more

France criminalizes citizens who visit terrorist and hate Web sites

A 32-hour standoff between a French SWAT team and 23-year-old Mohamed Merah -- who was wanted for killing three French paratroopers, three Jewish schoolchildren, and a rabbi -- ended today with a dramatic firefight and the death of Merah who claimed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, according to the Associated Press.

Shortly after the confrontation, Reuters reports, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced he was making it illegal for citizens to visit Web sites that encourage terrorism or hate crimes.

"From now on, any person who habitually consults Web sites that advocate terrorism or that call for hatred and violence … Read more

Leave AT&T's unlimited plan and save

It may seem like those who pay for AT&T's unlimited data plan don't necessarily get their money's worth of service, but by how much and how many of them? As it turns out the numbers are quite substantial.

According to a report published today by Consumer Reports, almost half of the carrier's unlimited subscribers use just 300MB or less, effectively wasting $10 a month. This is similar to my personal experience.

Being one of those who got grandfathered in with the $30 unlimited data plan, I was quite happy since I don't have to worry about ever going over the limit. However, I found out recently that I actually never used more than 200MB per month.… Read more

Iran may have committed cyber-attack on BBC

Just days after watchdog group Reporters Without Borders named Iran as one of the "Enemies of the Internet," the BBC is now claiming to be the victim of a cyber-attack possibly perpetrated by the Iranian authorities.

The news source says that two of its satellite feeds into Iran were jammed earlier this month coinciding with a denial-of-service attack in which some parts of the BBC's e-mail and Internet services were unavailable. The director-general of the BBC Mark Thompson will be giving a speech to the Royal Television Society shortly, in which he plans to explain how the … Read more

Meet the 'Enemies of the Internet' 2012

If you're reading this, odds are that you're not living in one of the dozen countries that Reporters Without Borders has included in its annual list of "Enemies of the Internet."

Each year, the media watchdog group issues a report calling out nations that restrict its citizens' freedom of information as well as for curtailing their access to the Internet. As in previous reports, RWB chronicles the challenges faced by regular people trying to read and share information living under regimes determined to restrict the free flow of communication.

The report paints a grim picture, recounting … Read more