Posts

Showing posts with the label 2018 at 08:44AM Rachel England

Google plans Snapchat-esque stories for mobile search results

Image
Assuming you have a basic understanding of social media and haven't been living under a rock for the last year, you're going to be familiar with "Stories" -- full screen displays of content that you can swipe or tap through, which are available for a limited time. Snapchat got the ball rolling, Instagram got on board, Facebook followed suit, and now Google is getting in on the action, following the initial report it would back in August. According to a Google blog post, "AMP Stories" are in the works, and soon they could completely shake up the look of your search results. "AMP" stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages -- optimized web pages displayed on your smartphone via Google search results, and as the name would suggest, they load fast (in around a second) and use ten times less data than non-AMP pages (although they have created some controversy -- their URL prefix can make link sharing a pain, and some publishers have annoyed Google by ...

President Trump signs order to promote broadband in rural areas

Image
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that will make it easier for companies to install high-speed broadband networks in rural areas. The move is designed to tackle the economic challenges of integrating broadband infrastructure in these communities -- where 39 percent of people don't have access to broadband -- which the Obama administration highlighted two years ago. Earlier this year Trump commented on his "$1 trillion infrastructure proposal", but this latest order doesn't appear to offer any funding to promote broadband in rural areas. Instead, it expedites federal permitting requirements, essentially removing governmental bottlenecks for broadband companies looking to install and operate wireless towers in these places. Trump signed the order in front of nearly 5,000 American Farm Bureau Federation members in Nashville, telling them, "Those towers are going to go up, and you're going to have great, great broadband." Via: USA T...