According to Kickstarter, the crowd-funding site officially passed $1 billion in pledges yesterday. Of the one billion pledged by 5.7 million individuals from 224 countries and territories to help fund creative projects, more than half was pledged in the last 12 months. More than $663 million was pledged by nearly 3.76 million backers in the U.S. alone. Other top countries include the U.K., Canada, Australia, Germany and France. Interestingly, nearly 16,000 people have backed more than 50 projects. Continue reading New Milestone: Kickstarter Passes the $1 Billion Pledge Mark

The Never Ending Image Learner (NEIL), a computer program at Carnegie Mellon, searches the Web for images and tries to understand them in order to grow a visual database and gather common sense. This program is part of recent advances in computer vision where computer programs are able to identify and label objects in images, as well as recognize attributes such as color and lighting. This data will help computers comprehend the visual world. Continue reading Carnegie Mellon Computer Can Teach Itself Common Sense

Carrier aggregation allows for splicing and rearranging of the electromagnetic spectrum to create a super-charged network connection. A number of companies are experimenting with the technology, while networks in Asia are already touting faster speeds and breakthroughs in 4G. In June, SK Telecom announced its LTE-Advanced service with speeds two times faster than that of LTE, and 10 times faster than 3G. South Korea’s LG U+ followed in July, leaving Europe and North America to play catch up. Continue reading LTE Networks in Asia Could Set the Stage for U.S. and Europe

The final season of AMC’s “Breaking Bad” debuted with its best ever rating of 5.9 million viewers. Part of the high ratings can be attributed to Netflix, where subscribers can watch all previous episodes of the series, providing new viewers with a way to catch up prior to the new season. Along with the high ratings, there was a spike in illegal downloads of “Breaking Bad” episodes. This occurred despite the show being made available within hours across global regions. Continue reading Record Ratings and Illegal Download Spike for ‘Breaking Bad’

Revenue from digital platforms are up 24 percent for the first six months of 2013, as an increasing number of consumers are turning to online options for entertainment. While overall disc sales, including DVD and Blu-ray, declined 4.7 percent for the same period, revenue generated from Blu-ray discs are up 15 percent. According to the Digital Entertainment Group, consumer spending on home entertainment grew more than 2 percent to $8.6 billion. Continue reading Blu-ray, Electronic Sell Through and VOD Having Solid Year

News Corp. is planning a social networking expansion of its Wall Street Journal website, which will transform the site into a platform intended for more than simply delivering news. Lex Fenwick, CEO of Dow Jones, described the company’s plans during an investor day earlier this week. The focal point of the platform is a feature called WSJ Profile, which allows users to post what is essentially a digital resume and features social functions that could compete with LinkedIn. Continue reading News Corp. to Launch Social Network for Wall Street Journal