How Will Connected Cars Impact the Internet?

Cars have long been considered highly innovative inventions, but in spite of the fact that this is the case the incorporation of various forms of technology have played a role in taking them to the next stage. Modern cars come packed with a wide assortment of technological features including an average of 200 sensors that collect data to help them perform better than might have been the case otherwise.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this ends up creating a vast quantity of data that might put a strain on the world wide web. Companies that are in the business of manufacturing these so called connected cars plan to upload anywhere from 50% to 70% of the data they collect directly to the internet.

It is predicted that this could result in the amount of data going into the internet increasing a thousand times over with all things having been considered and taken into account. The total amount of data will be in excess of 10 exabytes, which is concerning because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up breaking the internet and its surrounding and related infrastructure.

Each individual vehicle that is driven on a regular basis could end up generating hundreds of terabytes of data. The question here is where is all of this data going to end up being stored? The current maximum capacity of storage serves and the like is about 8 zettabytes.

At the rate of data collection that is predicted, this entire capacity could be exhausted in as little as 2.2 years. While there are plans to increase this upper limit to 16 zettabytes, that would only buy a couple more years of time before things start to get risky.

Car manufacturers will have to figure out how they are going to deal with this issue. The internet is a necessary utility, and it needs to remain consistent otherwise the entire world could start to suffer a series of cataclysmic events that would compound on each other.

H/T: Visualcapitalist
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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

FTC Demands Top Social Media Apps Including Twitter, Instagram, And YouTube Submit Data On How They’re Stopping Deceptive Ads

In case you haven’t noticed, there has been a dramatic rise in deceptive ads on various social media apps.

No matter how many probes have been conducted and new legislations have been introduced, the FTC revealed on Thursday how it was now working hard to investigate the ordeal.

This cited a large rise in consumers who were falling for fraud related to such ads online. Therefore, to tackle the ordeal, this American regulating firm is working hard to issue orders and demand the apps submit data to try and prevent this from arising in the first place.

The companies being outlined include Facebook, Twitch, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Moreover, the FTC says all of these firms are needed by the law to comply with the request.

See, by calling out all of these firms, the FTC is indirectly trying to produce a study that would examine the entire problem like how fraudsters are circulating the ads in today’s time.

So now, these companies are forced to submit their version of the report that includes data from 2019 to 2023.

The study is designed to assist the firm make sure all social media and video streaming firms do all that is in their power to keep scammers away. Similarly, they’re trying to keep deceptive ads off the app.

With reference to this own data, the FTC adds how consumers from 2022 mentioned losing nearly $1.2 billion to fund fraud schemes seen rolling around social media. And when you come to think of it, it’s more than any other means for contacting.

Most apps have plenty of safeguards in place that stop fraudsters from carrying out abuse on the system. But the FTC says it wishes to see which firms are carrying out an inspection for compliance, including those conducting human-based reviews of advertisements through automated systems.

Other than that, the American regulation will conduct an examination of the financial incentives of different social media firms that turn a blind eye to scam ads.

These orders also need the firms to report advertising revenue and the number of views each ad got, alongside so many more metrics being used today.

The crackdown is definitely appearing to be positive so far but only time will tell what benefits it brings to the table in the near future.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

The Apple Watch Could Help Sickle Cell Disease Patients Feel Less Pain

Apple has done a great job of creating a brand new field of tech, namely that of wearables. The Apple Watch provides a wide range of features, with its health features usually standing out because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up informing people about impending crises.

Researchers working at Duke University in collaboration with Northwestern University have revealed that the Apple Watch can be especially useful with a particular chronic illness known as sickle cell disease. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this Apple product could help users predict when they will get a painful flare up so that they can prepare accordingly.

Sickle cell disease causes a wide array of painful symptoms. Chief among them is something known as vaso-occlusive crisis. This can cause the most severe pain of all, but knowing about it in advance could make it cause less suffering than might have been the case otherwise.

Researchers hooked up test subjects with sickle cell diseas to Apple Watches and asked them to provide pain scores whenever there was a flare up. The various types of data collected by the watch allowed researchers to predict the pain well beforehand, and that enabled them to greatly reduce it with all things having been considered and taken into account.

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In spite of the fact that this is the case, more work will need to be done in order to determine the true efficacy of the Apple Watch in this regard. It will be interesting to see what kind of a role this wearable tech can play in the health industry. If the findings of this research end up proving accurate, it could be a game changer for Apple’s entire business model since it could become a critical component in an essential service.

All in all, the Apple Watch is clearly bringing a lot of new value to the table. This is despite people criticizing it as a superfluous new product when it was first launched for consumers.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

According to "The State of Journalism 2023," report the two biggest problems facing journalists today are disinformation and lack of funding

Muck Rack recently conducted "The state of Journalism 2023," a journalism survey of 2,226 journalists from all around the world, including the U.S., Africa, Asia, and Europe, in collaboration with 15 other businesses. This survey was conducted between January 1 and February 6, 2023. The primary objective of this study was to inform people about the importance of journalism, its state now, and its growth potential.

About 50% of journalists expressed concern about inaccurate information and a lack of funding, which was the survey's most significant finding. Not just these two, but also declining readership (31%), declining media trust (40%), lack of time to cover their material (33%), lack of independence in news media (32%), and safety concerns (30%), too many stories to cover (17%), and news and media literacy (31%) are also contributing factors.

Also, the economy's unpredictability has impacted the content of many journalists, leading many of them to change employment (22%), while 33% have been unaffected. Despite this, journalism will likely remain very popular in 2023, as 58% of those polled said they are very enthusiastic about their future and career ambitions in this sector.

Also, according to 43% of respondents, there is currently no question that short videos like those on TikTok will be the most popular type of content in 2023.

As a reporter or journalist, there are a variety of sources you can rely on, with online newspapers and magazines ranking as the top ones (59%) followed by Twitter (14%), print newspapers and magazines (5%), radios, podcasts, and other social media platforms (2%).

The usefulness of Twitter as a social network has grown, and nearly all journalists rely on it. It received the most votes (78%) for "most valuable social network," beating out Facebook and LinkedIn. Several of the journalists who use Twitter stated that they use this platform to promote their work (78%), keep up with the news (83%), find sources for their articles (69%), stay in touch with fellow journalists (67%), and more.

Journalists are 7% more inclined than in the previous year's study to respond to pitches, although 53% of them will remain the same. However, 92% of reporters prefer to receive pitches via 1:1 emails, and the majority of them do not open these emails because they are too lengthy or come at an inconvenient time.

The study found that Gen Z and millennials are going to be the most targeted audiences, with 41% and 57% of respondents choosing these groups respectively, while 15% preferred audiences of all ages.

According to the survey, U.S. respondents reported their annual income as less than $40k (20%), between $40k and $70k (31%), between $70k and $100k (20%), and 15% said they would rather not disclose.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

This TikToker Revealed How Easy It Is to Dox People in Just Half an Hour

Doxing can be a very dangerous thing to go through because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up exposing your private information to countless individuals. Unfortunately, recent innovations in tech have made it so that doxing has become a great deal easier than might have been the case otherwise.

A TikTok users by the name of Kristen Sotakoun has turned doxing into a type of content, since users often consent to her revealing personal information like their birth date. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that it only takes Sotakoun around half an hour at most to find this information and reveal it if she receives permission from the people requesting it.

Sotakoun does this by leveraging something called Open Source Intelligence, and it can be a huge problem for people who want to try to maintain some kind of anonymity or privacy online. While Sotakoun only does this with express permission, there are a number of malicious actors who use similar practices for far more nefarious purposes with all things having been considered and taken into account.

A writer at Engadget asked Sotakoun to dox her, and this led to her discovering just how easy something like this can be. Sotakoun was able to uncover her private Twitter account and Instagram, and she was also able to learn quite a bit about her stepmother as well as her sister who she shares a name with.

This just goes to show that maintaining any semblance of privacy in this modern age has become exceptionally difficult in ways that people might not be able to properly predict or expect. More work needs to be done to educate consumers about the dangers of sharing so much information. They do so under the assumption that their data will always be safe and sound, but Sotakoun and so many others like her are continuing to reveal that this just doesn’t seem like the case in the real world.

Image: freepik
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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Political Spending in the US in 2022 Was 7.5% Lower Than Forecasts

2022 was an important year for the United States of America due to the countless elections that were occurring simultaneously. Election years can be a boon for the ad industry because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up pumping billions dollars into campaigns that seek to promote certain candidates. However, 2022 actually saw this spending miss the mark.

A marketing intelligence firm by the name of AdImpact recently revealed that political ad dollars in the US were 7.5% lower than initially predicted. The forecasted ad spending was at around $9.67 billion, but in spite of the fact that this is the case it fell short by over half a billion dollars to settle at around $8.94 billion instead.

According to estimates, around $1.85 billion was supposed to be spent on House of Representatives races. The final number that was noted ended up being closer to $1.55 billion instead. This shortfall can be seen across the board with almost all types of elections save for downballot races. These were the only elections that ended up exceeding expectations, with the $2.99 billion forecast getting overshadowed by the $3.28 billion final total.

One thing to note here is that some forms of media actually exceeded expectations. Cable news was expected to receive $1.54 billion in ad dollars, which would’ve comprised 15.9% of the projected total. However, when the numbers came, it was found that cable TV received $1.79 billion, and that came up to an impressive 20% of the total ad dollars that came in.

Broadcast television did not perform quite as well. The estimated political ad income for broadcast networks was $4.98 billion, or 51.45% of the total. While broadcast TV was still the biggest player in the arena, it received slightly less than what was predicted with $4.73 billion.

This just goes to show how challenging it can be to make accurate predictions in this regard. AdImpact has stated that it will be using the data from this shortfall to improve the accuracy of future predictions so that they can be used more effectively.

H/T: MP

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Ad Revenue Hits 5 Year Low, Here’s What That Means for the Industry

The digital landscape is largely defined by ad revenue, and it turns out that these revenues have been decreasing over the past few years. A report from PlayWire recently revealed that ad revenues reached their lowest rates in half a decade, and that means that marketers, creators and other people that rely on this revenue have less to work with than might have been the case otherwise.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that we are in a time period where ad revenues are historically known to drop off. Revenues can decrease by a whopping 77% between the months of December and January, but in spite of the fact that this is the case 2022 represented the lowest total from December as well with all things having been considered and taken into account.

When compared to 2021, the month of December in 2022 brought in 30% less revenues. That is concerning because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up creating an imbalance within the industry that could take several years to fully play out in any capacity.

The rise of Covid a few years ago likely played a role in declining revenues across the board. However, things have not picked up despite the pandemic more or less receding from public view. Advertisers have a bearish outlook on the future of the industry, and this could lead to the recovery process taking far longer than it needs to in the near future.

It can be easy to assume that the current drop in revenue is largely being caused by the notorious December to January drop, but that would ignore the reality that December revenues have been stubbornly low as well.

Based on the data presented in this study, the ad revenues from March of 2023 represent an Ad Index of just 23. The index has never come close to dipping this low, even during the absolute heyday of the pandemic. This does not bode well for the future of the industry, and most major players are worried about what the consequences of this dip might end up looking like.

Countless website owners, experienced webmasters and Google AdSense web publishers around the world are beginning to complain about this. A number of them stated that they have failed to meet the threshold required to request a payment for the month for the first time in over a decade. These site owners frequently earned tens of thousands of dollars a month from AdSense revenue, and them not being able to meet the minimum payment amount is a definite sign that something is amiss.

The post pandemic recovery after the lows of 2019 and 2020 made some people think that a better future was on the horizon. Unfortunately, a multitude of factors including global economy upset, inflation and shift in advertising trends have led to ad revenues dipping once again, so we will need yet another miracle to turn the ship around. The data from Ezoic's Ad Revenue Index shows that ad earnings of global sites is slowing down further in 2023. While Optad360's statistics of "websites’ and mobile apps’ programmatic advertising revenue" illustrates an all time low index value.

However, experts are saying that there might still be some hope yet. While the first half of 2023 is likely going to be a nightmare for people who rely on AdSense revenues to any extent, it should be mentioned that the second half of the year is hopefully going to play out far better and that will bolster support for the long term performance of the industry.

It will be interesting to see where things go from here. Industries that rely on ad revenue are in a state of perpetual crisis, and with personal privacy and data protection laws further limiting their ability to grow, only time will tell us the right solutions. Either way, 2023 will be a litmus test that will determine the future of the industry.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World