drag2share: Getting Streaming Video Onto Screens Takes A Huge Amount Of Bandwidth â This Is How It Works

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/streaming-video-onto-screens-takes-a-huge-amount-of-bandwidth-2014-5

Internet traffic has exploded. That's largely thanks to the growth of video streaming services such as Netflix, YouTube, iTunes, and Twitch.  

Video files are massive in data terms, and rather than traveling over the open web unaided they often require sophisticated infrastructure to get them from content providers to audiences. 

In a new report from BI Intelligence on the online video streaming ecosystem, we explain the complexities and conflicts shaping this video delivery ecosystem, and examine the dynamic role played by content providers, content delivery networks, provider-run CDNs, transit providers, internet service providers, and peering agreements. 

Access The Full Report And Data By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>

Here are the key dynamics surrounding the video streaming ecosystem: 

• More and more video traffic is flowing through this new infrastructure: The content delivery networks or CDNs will collectively account for nearly three-fifths of consumer Internet traffic in the U.S. in 2014.
• Pricing is complicated: Pricing for CDNs and for the more specialized transit providers that optimize video delivery, balancing performance and cost, varies a great deal. These players offer plans based on factors like bandwidth, time of day, and volume. Bandwidth is the key factor in pricing, but far from the only one. And special agreements dictate quality parameters.
• Which is why more and more content providers are building their own CDNs: Google and Netflix have these in place, and rumors are building that Apple is also assembling its own infrastructure. 
  
• Peering agreements are the big point of contention: The price of connecting video pipes directly has become a fraught issue in the video world. Netflix is striking up agreements with ISPs to guarantee video performance, but at the same time crying foul that they have to do so. Regulators seem undecided on whether this is a good practice. We dive into the hard business decisions driving the debate. 
• All the sides — content providers, transit providers, and ISPs — have misrepresented the mechanics and economics of the digital video industry in the context of "net neutrality." We expect more peering agreements that balance the needs of both — and the consumer. The disputes over video streaming fees boil down to who should pay for the exploding popularity of streaming video, and at what quality of service.

The report is full of charts and data that can be easily downloaded and put to use. 

In full, the report:

• Compares the market share and/or roles of transit and CDN players like Akamai, Limelight, Level3, Cogent and others. 
• Provides an overview and infographics explaining the streaming video ecosystem.
• Explains the role and underlying economics of settlement free peering, content distribution networks (CDNs), and transit providers.
• Compares the pricing models that underlie each of these different mechanisms for routing video traffic.
• Lays out the landscape of “last-mile” Internet service providers (ISPs).
• Looks at the real place of peering agreements in the net neutrality debate.

 

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drag2share: The First Multi-Cellular Digital Organism Is About To Be Brought To Life

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/first-digital-organism-is-coming-to-life-2014-5

The first animal to have its genome mapped is about to be the first to be completely re-created in the digital world.

This is thanks to a Kickstarter project called OpenWorm, which will digitally construct the roundworm C. elegans. Biology has already assembled a thorough picture of this microscopic worm since it is made up of only 1,000 cells. Not only has its genome been sequenced, scientists have mapped its complete development.

OpenWorm's cofounders hope that by recreating "the most studied organism in all of biology," in a digital space, they can help illuminate diseases, like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, which have "proto-equivalents" whose origins can be studied in the tiny worm.

Those who pledged the Kickstarter (which just closed) will receive access to "WormSim" the latest incarnation of OpenWorm. "Think Sim City or Google Earth, but for worms," said the Steven Larson, the cofounder of OpenWorm in the Kickstarter video.

What exactly is a worm simulation?

"When we say simulation, we are specifically referring to writing computer programs that use equations from physics that are applied to what we know about the worm," Larson told io9."Through this simulation we want to understand how its proto-brain controls its muscles to move its body around an environment, and then how the environment is interpreted by the proto-brain."

The WormSim program will allow users to view and rotate the worm in 3D, o! bserve t he worm's motions and the muscles driving them, and explore the traits of individual cells.

C. elegans, pictured in the flesh below, isn't the first organism whose biology has gone digital (that award goes to a small bacteria), but it is the first animal. C. elegans is also the most biologically well-understood organism with a brain, making it an ideal organism to simulate. It has even been the subject of three Nobel prize winning projects.

So why have researchers all over the world dedicated decades to studying a tiny slithery creature?

It's partly due to the animal's transparency, which allows scientists to watch the worm's cells — even those under its skin — develop and move around the body. By tagging cells with glowing or colored proteins, they've been able to map all 302 of its neurons and all of its neural connections. They've also mapped how each cell divides and moves while the worm develops.

And because C. elegans is actually an animal, it's our relative on the evolutionary tree. We are similar enough cellularly that studying the worm's biology can illuminate the workings of more complex organisms.

Despite being only 1,000 cells, the worm has many genetic similarities to humans. It also displays many complex traits such as learning and social behaviors.

The worm is expected to be released in May 2015.

Watch a recent simulation:

SEE ALSO: An Unmanned Submarine Imploded 6 Miles Under The Ocean Surface

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drag2share: 4 Barbecue Festivals Worth Traveling For This Summer

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/summer-bbq-festivals-2014-5

If you're an ambitious gastrotourist, you can find great barbecue festivals happening around the U.S. all year long. But the summer season, starting with National Barbecue Month in May, is really the sweet spot.

Thousands of barbecue festivals happen during the summer, each with its own regional governing body, according to Myron Mixon, who claims to have won more barbecue awards and competitions than anyone else in the world.

He's visited plenty of them with his "BBQ Pitmasters" TV show on Destination America.

Mixon gave us a rundown of the barbecue festivals worth traveling for this summer:

• Safeway Barbecue Battle in Washington, D.C., June 21- 22: "Twelve blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue are closed off for this one," Mixon said. "It's a good time. There are a lot of big vendors. You get to cook BBQ on the most famous street in America. It's the best to look down one end of the street at the Capital Building and then have rows of BBQ between you and it."
• I Love Barbecue Festival in Lake Placid, N.Y., July 4 - 6:  "This is a nice looking place to have a BBQ," Mixon said. "You're in the mountains by a lake right in the spot where they had the Winter Olympics."
• The American Royal World Series of Barbecue in Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 2 - 5: "This festival is the largest in the country with over 600 contestants," Mixon said. "You can do a nice BBQ crawl here. All the BBQ restaurants around the Royal will give you a different type of BBQ, plus you have the competitors at the festival. There's a lot of hip places for BBQ in Kansas City. A lot of the hip people from up north will feel right at home."
• The Plant City Pig Jam in Plant City, Fla., Nov. 22: "They run their fest in conjunction with a Strawberry festival," Mixon said. "They have strawberry shortcake and strawberry milkshakes, which are my weakness. It's a great complement to the BBQ main event. I like BBQ festivals that are happening at the same time as other food festivals."

If you can't make it to one of these festivals and want to plan your own barbecue road trip, here's what you'll fin in America's various barbecue regions, according to Mixon:

• In the lower Eastern seaboard from Virginia down around to Mississippi, the barbecue is Carolina style, and that means pork. Traditionally, you'll get pulled pork, pork ribs and the whole hog in a vinegar-based sauce.
• Memphis, Tenn., is known as the Super Bowl of Pork. It has a ketchup-based sauce that's sweeter than it is in the rest of the South.   
• In Texas, Kansas City, Mo., and elsewhere in the Midwest, beef "dictates and describes" barbecue, Mixon said. Here. you'll traditionally find spicier sauces with a ketchup base. Especially in Texas, the sauce will be spicier, while in the Midwest, it will be sweeter with a hickory flavor.

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drag2share: Pepsi Just Unveiled A Crazy New Soda Machine

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/fqvP8kR6bMg/pepsis-new-spire-soda-machine-2014-5

Pepsi has unveiled a new soda machine capable of making more than 1,000 beverages. 

The company revealed new self-service drink equipment at the National Restaurant Association show, Stephanie Strom at The New York Times reported. 

The new machine, Spire, was created to compete with Coca-Cola's Freestyle machine, Strom writes. It has the appearance of a large tablet or iPhone, and lets customers use a touchscreen to select flavors. 

The Spire is considerably smaller than the original Freestyle. Coke has recently released a smaller version after businesses complained, according to Strom.

Sara Eisen at CNBC tweeted a rendering of the new machine.

Not an iPad... Pepsi's new spire fountain machine pic.twitter.com/R4N9p0LXll

— Sara Eisen (@SaraEisen) May 18, 2014

Pepsi's Spire is available in select locations and will continue to roll out this year, the company said in a news release. 

Examples of customizable beverages include Raspberry Lemon Mountain Dew and Vanilla Strawberry Diet Pepsi. 

Pepsi provided this photo showing different versions of the Spire machinery. 

Pepsi has been innovating products to better compete with its chief rival. 

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drag2share: This Tower Of Power Gives You 40 USB Ports For Charging Everything

Source: http://gizmodo.com/this-tower-of-power-gives-you-40-usb-ports-for-charging-1578397573

It started off as a more elegant (and faster) alternative to parallel and SCSI computer ports, but now that USB can even be used to charge everything from phones to cameras, there never seem to be enough of them. It's, admittedly, a first world problem, but one that's now thankfully solved with this plug-in tower that includes 40 powered USB ports.

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