SCIENTISTS TRYING TO SOLVE INTERNET BUFFERING ISSUE

Scientists and information technology researchers from all over the world have been hired to finally put a stop to that most annoying of internet issue-- the endless buffering that happens right in the middle of so many videos viewed across the Web.

To make this happen, the European Commission will spend €3,569,000 until 2016 in an effort to reduce internet latency without a requirement for newer or stronger connections.

Instead, the team will have to come up with a new method to rewrite how computers and servers send data to each other in order to speed up the network of all networks.

Taken from the University of Aberdeen, Simula Research Labs in Norway, the University of Oslo and Karlstad University in Sweden, the team will work with people from British Telecom, Alcatel-Lucent, Bell in Belgium and Institut Mines-Telecom in France.

The scientists will try to determine new mechanisms in the network and the end-hosts to reduce or get rid of the effects of delay on gamers, video-oIP (video over IP) users and internet people that need higher speeds at downloading large files or streaming video.

“It’s a real issue that we all face, especially when using a program like Skype. If anyone else in the house is watching a video at the same time, your video connection suddenly becomes spotty and often simply disconnects," said professor Gorry Fairhurst, and internet engineer at Aberdeen University in the U.K.

“To be sure, this affects gamers who want to play online in real time and individuals that need to download large files of data – both end up buying special and expensive internet connections to make these work, but often it’s not more bandwidth that’s needed to go faster but less delay in getting it in the first place. We think we can reduce this delay by making a set of small but important changes to the way computers, servers and the network process the internet data,” he added.

The team and its backers say that if they manage to come up with a workable solution to get rid of buffering, it will help users all over the globe with slow internet speeds.

"We’re focussed on one defined issue and we think there are solutions for this, but we have to change the current internet standards for the Web," he added.

"This isn’t something that companies like Cisco, IBM, Microsoft and Apple will undertake lightly, but we expect they’ll take up what we’re doing because this has benefits for everyone in the long term. If we can’t do something that the rest of the world stands up and says – ‘ok I get it, we’ll standardise it’, then we’ve failed," added Fairhurst.

INTEL READY FOR INTERNET TV

 Erik Huggers, the head of Intel Media, joined Walt Mossberg onstage at AllThingsD's media conference today to confirm that the chip giant will be introducing its first internet-based TV before the year is over. By declaring it all the rumors are now over.

The company will be providing the hardware and services directly to consumers, and the device will come with a camera that can detect who is in front of the TV.Huggers said there will be services like live TV, on demad and others

He added that the set-top box will be be powered by an Intel chip and noted that the company is working with the entire television industry to figure out how to distribute live television, "catch-up TV," on-demand, and other services via the internet.Though Intel hopes to revolutionize the TV industry, the new service will resemble current cable offerings. For one, don't count on saving money with Intel's new offering. Huggers noted that Intel's push isn't a value play and won't cut a user's television bill in half.

Additionally, users will have the option to have channels dictated by intels team."What consumers want is choice, control, and convenience," Huggers said. "If bundles are done right, there's real value in that. I don't believe the industry is ready for pure a la carte."
However, Intel's history in the TV industry has been choppy, to say the least. It was early to push Google TVs and other smart TVs, with its processors powering a Sony Google TV and a Logitech Google TV set-top box. But those products were a failure, and Intel shut down its TV  business in late 2011 after failing to gain much traction.

Huggers joined Intel that same year following stints at the BBC and Microsoft. During his time at the BBC, he was on the executive board and served as director of BBC future media and technology, overseeing the company's online push and other initiatives.And during his time at Microsoft, Huggers worked in various digital media areas. While Intel stopped pushing its processors for use in smart TVs, the company clearly didn't give up on the market entirely.
Huggers noted that Intel has been building its media business for about a year. It will be interesting to see how all of this pans out, and the kind of success this new initiative will offer Intel.

Android 4.2.2 for Nexus 7 and 10

There is one software going to launch for the users of Galaxy Nexus, Nexus7 or 10 with GSM. According to multiple users, Android 4.2.2, a minor update to Android Jelly Bean, is being rolled out to all users.

This update has been long awaited by Jelly Bean users due to a Bluetooth issue that was present in the system, making it really difficult to perform intensive tasks using the wireless protocol, such as streamingmusic to a car. According to a user, this issue seems to have partially been fixed, albeit some “hiccups” are still clearly present, with the connection breaking up occasionally:

“Much less hiccups when streaming from Rdio or GMusic, but still not perfect. I got disconnected from my stereo when it switched from WiFi to 3G.”

Some cosmetic changes seem to be present as well. According to the same user, the notification shade drop is slightly slower and the background color of the Settings app uses a slightly lighter shade of grey.

The update seems to be in the process of being rolled out to GSM phones all over the world. There have been reports of it arriving on smartphones in Australia and the United States, making us to believe that this is a worldwide release. Remember that since AT&T and T-Mobile are the only major carriers that use GSM as a standard, users on Verizon and Sprint may have to wait a little bit longer.

Other than these changes, however, there is unlikely for there to be any major new features or tweaks, though bug fixes are likely present all over the place. For users who have custom ROMs, upgrading as of yet made not be such a good idea, since we are not yet aware if any carrier has snuck in any code to stop those “rooting” the device, similar to what happened recently with an update to the Samsung Galaxy Note II. It’s also worth noting that the update is not being pushed out to the Nexus 4, but we’re somewhat certain that it will be in the future.