Daily Bits

Internet

Amazon Patents “Return-to-Sender” System

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bad presentChristmas is the time to give, but some people have a knack for giving inappropriate gifts. Inappropriate may be a relative label, but we know just how many people return unwanted Christmas gifts. We also know that this period after Christmas is the busiest time of the year for retailers when it comes to returning/exchanging items that are unwanted.

Now, personally, I don’t believe in returning gifts. I am a firm believer in the thought being more important than the actual gift, but apparently, not everyone thinks the same way; and due to this, shops such as Amazon have to deal with tons of requests after Christmas. In order to avoid this, the online superstore has reportedly come up with a system – patented, of course – that will avoid people having to return gifts (and Amazon having to deal with the issues).

The idea is simple: users can label people who have a knack for sending “bad” gifts. If these people send the user gifts, Amazon takes care of the “problem” even before it crops up. It does so by NOT sending the gift at all. More so, users will have options to customize the parameters as to what is a “bad” gift. For example, keywords such as “Hello Kitty” can be used – anything with this tag will not be sent to the user.

Now how do you deal with the sender who might get offended? It seems that Amazon has thought about this as well – users still know that they have “received” a gift and can thank the sender, without the latter knowing that the gift has not been delivered. (With everyone knowing about the system, though, wouldn’t paranoia just make things worse?)

I say it’s a nifty idea, technically, but poses a whole lot of potential complications (relationship-wise) that it simply isn’t worth it. If this thing pushes through, however, the face of online shopping might just change.

Photo via wfnx

A Guide to the Open Internet: What You Need to Know About Net Neutrality

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You’ve probably been reading/hearing about net neutrality in the recent months. Left and right, people are talking about it – either trying to push for the concept or trying to take it down. What is net neutrality anyway, and why should you bother about it?

Simply put, net neutrality is a concept which places ALL web sites and services on the same level; that is, they ought to be treated as being the same by Internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile phone/cable/phone companies. You may think that this sounds logical, but telecommunications companies are leaning towards the other end of the spectrum. They think that web sites and services ought to be grouped into different categories so that they can apply various charging schemes. You getting my drift?

To make the whole concept easier to understand, some guys have created an excellent web site which explains the “open Internet” and what ISPs want to happen: The Open Internet.

Here’s a screen shot of what a free and open Internet brings.
open internet

Get the word out – share the web site and help keep the Internet free and open for all of us!

The Web TV Battle

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Recently the battle between Apple, Google and other companies such as Roku has been heating up, with other big hitters like Amazon also looking to take on established Web TV providers such as Hulu and Google’s YouTube. This battle will be heating up even more in 2011 with Microsoft looking to re-enter the fray with a subscription service for their Xbox 360 game console with an estimated Xbox Live user base of over 20 million.

Below is an Infographic from the guys at Infographiclabs looking at how this current battle is panning out.

Enjoy this great Infographic from our friends at Infographiclabs

Twitter’s 2010 in Review: Justin Bieber, the iPad, and Android

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If Google has Zeitgeist 2010, then Twitter has its own review of the year that is almost gone. Twitter recently released the top trending topics on 2010, and if you want to know if you were “trendy” this year (or if you have nothing better to do), you might be interested at poring over the lists.

It may be hard for technophiles to swallow, but there are only two technology-related topics in the overall trending topics list, and they are at the bottom five! Yeah, we have to face it – for some people, the world does not revolve around the iPhone and other gadgets. We can be thankful, though, that these two (Apple iPad and Google Android) still ranked higher than Justin Bieber. Seriously now, if Bieber had ranked higher, I would be doubting the quality of tweets! (Then again, the data does not say whether the tweets are positive or negative.)
Overall Trending Topics

Narrowing the trending results a little bit, here is the list for trending topics in technology. Now it really is not surprising that Apple has practically hogged the list, is it? I am surprised, though, that Call of Duty Black Ops has made it to number 5. If the reaction of friends are anything to go by, the game is really something else, but I thought that the New Twitter would have ranked higher.
Tech Trends

There are other subtopics listed – check them out at Twitter Year in Review.

Google’s Zeitgeist 2010: Year in Review

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Zeitgeist2010
Live curious. That’s what National Geographic kept telling me all day yesterday when the TV was on to serve as background noise. One practical application of that piece of advice is this: take a look at what people have been searching for the most in the past 11 months. I guess the guys at Google have been watching Nat Geo as well!

So they just released Zeitgeist 2010, which showcases the most popular searches in the past year.

Search – that is such a cold term that does not convey much emotion. If you think about it, though, what people from all over the world search for is indicative of what is happening in real life. Indeed, a line from the blog post yesterday says it all: “…most popular and fastest rising queries from the year to capture the joys, sorrows and curiosity that many of us felt—capturing the spirit of 2010.”

Call me sentimental, but I find 2010 to be one of those years that one doesn’t just put in the memory shelves to gather dust. Watch the video below, and most likely, you will experience similar emotions. Oh, and is it just me, or did Google try uber hard to include its vast array of services in the video? (I wouldn’t be surprised if advertising was part of their agenda.)

There is also a dedicated site for Zeitgeist 2010, wherein users can interactively discover more about the searches that shaped 2010 (or searches that were shaped by 2010, depends on how you want to look at it).

Google’s right. As we near the end of the year, one can’t help but wonder what 2011 will bring. I don’t know about you, but I feel optimistic. 🙂

Movies and E-books More Desirable Than MP3s

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You may not be involved in illegal downloading or file sharing anymore, but bits of useless information trivia always come in handy, don’t they?

According to Find That File, the file type that is downloaded the most today is AVI. This covers movies and other video files. Next in line are the PDF and RAR, which typically refer to e-books. The pie chart below shows downloading preferences of people with regard to the type of content.

The “winning” file types do not really come as a surprise. With high quality movies and videos available and people not having the time to go to the cinema or watch TV series as they are aired, downloading is a more convenient alternative. Note that I say convenient – in no way am I implying that it is ethical. (Then again, there are services which allow you to download or stream legally – we are walking a thin line here.)

The proliferation of e-book readers is also contributing to the popularity of e-book downloads. Add to that the fact that mobility is key to most people, having books in electronic format is really bound to make e-books more popular.

What about mp3s? Where did they go? For sure, people are still downloading music via shady means, but I think that the ease and price of legal downloads play a role here somehow. More so, we also know that albums and discographies can be downloaded in RAR or ZIP format. Since the survey only took the extensions in consideration, music can actually be part of the top downloaded file types.

Photo via gigaom