GigaOm

Netflix is famous for the way it uses algorithms to determine what programs or movies its members might want to watch, but data plays a much broader role inside the company’s streaming service than just informing recommendations.

In a blog post, the company explained how it analyzes data to do everything from optimizing playback quality to identifying poorly translated subtitles. The post, written by Netflix ‎director of streaming science and algorithms Nirmal Govind, highlights several areas in which better algorithms could improve the Netflix experience, focusing largely on how to ensure the best-possible playback in any given situation --, at least, how to ensure users are getting the playback quality they expect.

However, the most interesting use of data Govind discussed might be how Netflix is using natural-language processing and text analysis to improve the actual quality of the movies and shows it streams.

Comcast is looking to test a new platform for the distribution of online videos through its new X1 cable set-top boxes by the end of 2014, the company’s SVP of Video Matt Strauss confirmed.

Strauss said that the service will be evaluated through what he called “limited tests.” He said that it will have some similarities to YouTube, allowing content creators to directly upload their videos to a server. These videos will then become available via a dedicated app running on Comcast’s X1 box, which the company has been gradually rolling out across its markets.

Without elaborating, Strauss said that the focus won’t be on user-generated content, which YouTube obviously started out with. However, YouTube has put a much bigger focus on professionally-produced and serialized content in recent years, and that seems where Comcast is aiming at with this initiative as well.

Strauss added that Comcast will be able to offer content producers a number of monetization options, which could include advertising as well as transactional fees, but said that the company is still evaluating its options.

A federal appeals court ruled that the HathiTrust, a searchable collection of digital books controlled by university libraries, does not violate copyright, and that the libraries can continue to make copies for digitally-impaired readers.

The decision is a setback for the Authors Guild and for other groups of copyright holders who joined the lawsuit to shut down the HathiTrust’s operations. By contrast, it is a victory for many scholars and librarians who regard the database as an invaluable repository of knowledge.

More broadly, the appeals court decision is the latest in a series of rulings about how copyright law should apply to digital versions of the tens of millions of library books scanned by Google.

The unanimous ruling by three judges of the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a 2012 decision that preceded the 2013 landmark ruling that declared that Google’s Book scanning project was fair use and had “many benefits.”

Lots of users. Lots of devices. Lots of video. This is the formula that will lead to global Internet traffic reaching an estimated total of 1.6 zettabytes in 2018 -- or 13 times the total Internet traffic from 2008.

A zettabyte is a trillion gigabytes, which in itself is almost meaningless to most people. The figure, provided by Cisco as part of its annual visual networking index, is part of an effort to track the growth of the Internet and overall IP traffic.

Cisco has been doing this for nine years, and is generally sound when it comes to forecasting the overall traffic (its more granular estimates can be less accurate). Besides the zettabytes, video and the growing constellation of devices are the star of the 2014 forecast.

Cisco estimates that video will comprise 79 percent of all IP traffic in 2018, up from 65 percent in 2013, and that people will own an average of 2.7 devices, up from 1.7 in 2013. About 52 percent of the global population, or 4 billion people, will be online.

A Q&A with Lance Crosby, the executive charged with IBM/SoftLayer’s cloud push. Maybe the National Security Agency did us a favor. Sure, news of its insatiable data snooping got nearly everyone’s knickers in a twist, but seriously, isn’t this a valuable teaching moment?

Crosby certainly thinks so. He acknowledged that customers outside the US often ask about securing their data from government eyes. His answer? Don’t focus on who’s snooping, protect your data from anyone.

“My response is protect your data against any third party -- whether it’s the NSA, other governments, hackers, terrorists, whatever…” he noted. “I say let’s stop worrying about the NSA and start talking about encryption and VPNs and all the ways you can protect yourself. Yes, the NSA got caught, but they’re not the first and won’t be the last.”

[Commentary] When you’re curled up on the couch, set to watch the second season of Orange is the New Black, and the video stream pixelates or just stops, it’s the modern-day equivalent of the “all circuits are busy now” message one can still hear on landline phones (or one could, if people were calling on them).

And the issues behind both problems are similar -- somewhere in the network there is too much demand and not enough capacity. But unlike the days of landline phones, when one industry controlled the calling experience (telephone companies that were forced by FCC regulations to connect calls on their networks), our broadband networks and the internet itself is controlled by varied industries and there are no rules around interconnections.

This is why we’re seeing Netflix and various ISPs battling it out in the press. The only broadband that matters is the broadband you have access to at your home. In most places, that’s not a competitive market. And with fights over interconnection agreements and the possibility that network neutrality transforms into paying for priority access, consumers get screwed again.

Take it from me. Having a bunch of bad choices is like having no choice at all.

The value that comes from connecting your thermostat to the Internet isn’t that you can now control it from your smartphone, or that it’s a theoretical home for new ads. The value is that you suddenly have access to cheap information about the temperature of your home, and by collating other data points or simple extrapolation techniques, you also have access to detailed information about what is happening in the home.

This can be cool. It can be creepy. And it can be convenient. But as is always the case when we encounter technological shifts, the Internet of things is really a tool. And like a hammer is used to expand the amount of force generated over a small area (allow you to hit something really hard), the Internet of things is a tool is for cheaply delivering and gathering information.

[Commentary] With the amount of data we are generating, we should be thinking about information overload. What will it look like when we have 50 billion devices connected to the Internet and contributing to an already large the data set? Will we eventually be able to extract any useful information?

If big data is on course to transform business and society, then open data has a role to play to make sure information is accessible and shared. And as we make data open we also need to consider adding context.

[Asin is the co-founder and CEO of Libelium, a hardware provider for wireless sensor networks used in Smart Cities and Internet of Things projects]

[Commentary] The war of words that erupted between Netflix and Verizon over who was responsible for low quality of service some Netflix subscribers were purportedly experiencing on Verizon FiOS escalated sharply when the telecommunications company sent Netflix a letter threatening legal action if the video company doesn’t cut out the trash-talking.

The likelihood that Verizon would actually follow through on its threat of legal action, in truth, is not very high. The discovery process involved in any sort of litigation would inevitably turn up a lot of laundry that Verizon would not want publicly aired concerning its dealings with various peering partners. Netflix, moreover, would likely welcome the lawsuit. It would give the video provider an opening to counter-sue and possibly give it leverage to renegotiate the terms of the interconnection deal the two companies recently signed on more favorable terms as part of any settlement agreement.

[Sweeting is Principal, Concurrent Media Strategies]

In Amazon and Hachette’s ongoing battle over a new contract, Amazon has received most of the blame -- and that’s probably not surprising since it’s the party cutting off pre-orders, messing with search and shipping Hachette books with multiweek delays.

Authors, in particular, have come out on Hachette’s side -- John Green, J. K. Rowling, James Patterson and Malcolm Gladwell (who shall henceforth be known as Explaino the Clown). So nobody’s on Amazon’s side, right? Well, not so fast. To every backlash there is a counter-backlash, and in recent days some pro-Amazon sentiment has trickled out -- or if it’s not fully pro-Amazon, exactly, it’s at least … conflicted. So who’s saying what? Here are the general themes:

• Hachette is a big company, too
• If authors hate Amazon so much, they should pull their books from it
• It’s complicated, i.e., everyone wants to make money.