How to make the internet faster... no, really!

Ok, so the advertisements for internet programs designed to "make the internet faster" have been around for years, and sort of died in lieu of broadband speeds. But Google has an answer to the problem too.

Google has released a series of instructions designed to help web developers code their websites in a way that utilizes modern compression and rendering technologies.

"The belief is that human beings around the 100th millisecond, the 10th-of-a-second range, can start to perceive change in time" said Bill Coughran, senior vice president for engineering at Google. The idea is that every small improvement added up can make a large difference to the end user if everyone participates in making their web development as optimized as possible.

The guidelines are available at http://code.google.com/speed/articles/

Digital TV is here, what's on the airwaves at 700MHz tonight?

You may remember when digital TV was going to take over analog TV signals years ago and the government kept pushing the deadline back. Well, there's no turning back now, as television providers have finally locked into the new frequencies of digital transmission.

The question this leaves is what exactly will the left over 700MHz block of frequencies give us? Cliff Kuang of Wired Magazine reports that it might be the solution to what was supposed to be the wireless internet revolution. "The airwaves will instead be paved with a new generation of wireless broadband. Some of these so-called 4G networks will use the 700-MHz spectrum that the government auctioned off last year, and they promise to blanket every medium to large city in Net-ready radio waves."

This is all well and good, but there's an additional sense of skepticism that the band will actually be used for that purpose. 802.11a/b/g have become such a household standard for laptops and devices that it's hard to imagine the industry reinventing itself to use a new wireless protocol.

There has been some good news on this however. Many newer laptops come with SIM cards to access cell carrier digital networks wirelessly via traditional cellphone towers. I haven't heard great things about the bandwidth, but it's wireless! Also, companies are starting to release mobile wifi routers with cell carrier technologies embedded. Just after years ago we suggested it was a good idea.

The industry is unpredictable at this point. Let's hope that Google and Verizon don't have to duke it out for who has the best interpretation of what to do with our newfound, cuddly 700MHz spectrum.