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A recent Nielsen report states that smartphone data use has increased 89% since 2010. The average data being consumed on a monthly basis has risen to 435MB, up from 230MB. The good news for consumers is that the average price for data use has decreased from 14 cents a megabyte, to 8 cents. Read the Continue Reading →

ICANN, the group that oversees domains names, is expected to approve a measure that would drastically increase the amount of available URLs. The change has been waiting approval for years and the organization expects users will soon see branded extensions like .canon. Steep fines will be enforced to prevent domain name squatting on the new Continue Reading →

[wpaudio url=”https://media.shellypalmer.com/wp-content/images/usrn/110620_SHELLYPALMER_GEN_BED.mp3″ text=”Click to play … ” dl=”0″] The United States is working on building its own small scale version of the Internet to test its cyber war defense. Testing and developing network defense systems has received over $500 million from the Defense Department. With the growing activity of cybercrime, this ‘virtual firing range’ is Continue Reading →

Movie rental kiosk Redbox now offers videogame rentals for $2 a day. With nearly every video game hitting the $60 price point, Redbox’s rentals can serve as a good way to try-before-you-buy. If Redbox can refresh the titles regularly, this might be another big money maker for the already successful company. Read the full article Continue Reading →

In his book Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years, Jared Diamond offers a couple of explanations for the evolution of bureaucracies. One may be the physiological limit to the number of faces you can store in your mind as “friend or foe.” The other may have been the need for centralized irrigation in dry, lowland regions. He may be right or he may be wrong, but one thing is for certain – stable, overblown, crushingly oversized bureaucracies have evolved from the very dawn of history. They are big, bulky and decidedly analog. Continue Reading →

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion recently announced severely lower revenue expectations and plans to make layoffs. The company’s shares fell 15% in one night, hitting their lowest numbers in nearly five years. With the limited success of recent RIM products, don’t expect a turnaround anytime soon. Read the full article at WSJ.com Continue Reading →

Microsoft stated that consumers are being scammed by over-the-phone tech support offers. 22% of those who received calls from people claiming to be Microsoft tech support were tricked into handing over information. The average amount of money lost per scam was $875. Read the full article at PCMag.com   Continue Reading →

Spammers are inundating Amazon’s self-publishing system, which lets users sell books for the Kindle online. By using content generators, spammers can publish over ten books a day, increasing their chances of being purchased. If Amazon doesn’t figure out how to stop the spam, it could seriously hinder the self-publishing market. Continue Reading →

Facebook is working on a new project that utilizes HTML5 to bring its own applications to mobile web browsers. Dubbed ‘Project Spartan,’ Facebook would allow app purchases using its existing credits system. By making apps available for mobile phones, Facebook wants to reach another 100 million users. Read the full article at TechCrunch.com   Continue Reading →

Shelly Palmer chats with John Abell about protecting your data online. Continue Reading →