Cities with the best economies in America

San Antonio leaps from No. 14 a year ago to the top of the list

It turns out “Don’t Mess With Texas,” is more than just a slogan. At least judging by the state’s ability to rebound from the Great Recession, and its dominance over the rankings in a new report highlighting the best-performing U.S. cities.

San Antonio heads up the Milken Institute’s 2011 Best-Performing Cities index, but is just one of four Texas cities in the top five and nine of the 25 best in the country. The Lone Star State grades out well in job creation, according to the report, which found that Texas employers were responsible for one of every five U.S. jobs created from June 2010 to June 2011.

Ross DeVol, the Milken Institute’s chief research officer, leads the team that compiles the index and said that a number of factors lie behind Texas’ success, some unique to the region and others that cities elsewhere in the U.S. can try to emulate.

For one thing, many Texas metro areas are benefiting from the military’s Base Realignment and Consolidation process, which has brought more families near the state’s armed forces facilities, from San Antonio’s Lackland Air Force Base to Killeen’s Fort Hood. Those families need housing, health care and other services, DeVol points out.

Texas is also seeing a surge in IT equipment and software employment. DeVol highlights Apple’s expansion in Austin, where the company is said to be getting chips for its iPad, as well as significant presences from the likes of AT&T, IBM and Advanced Micro Devices.

“Given the depth of the Great Recession,” DeVol says, “businesses have become more focused on cost.” Texas, which has no state income tax, is very understanding of “the need for companies to be competitive,” he adds, citing streamlined processes that allow employers to get new facilities up and running faster and aggressive recruiting of out-of-state businesses to cities where they can hire qualified workers for less than in New York, California, Massachusetts or many other states.

The cost issue is also a big factor in Utah, the only state other than Texas to put more than one metro area among the 25 best performers. Provo touts the educated workforce stemming from Brigham Young University, while Salt Lake City was a big gainer in a year when its mining presence was greeted with big demand for gold and silver. Both, along with Ogden and Logan (Utah-Idaho), which topped the Milken Institute’s list of best-performing small cities, offer low-cost destinations for employers focused on keeping expenses in line.

Utah also benefits by having plenty of room for development, an issue that limits the potential for growth in some larger metro areas like the one around New York. While DeVol points out that the NYC area was hurt by the loss of financial services jobs in 2011 — a trend that has continued with cuts announced at Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and others this fall — he also notes that many bigger metro areas did not fall off as much as others during the Great Recession.

While that means those economies proved more resilient to the downturn, it also means they are not springing back off a depressed base. To wit, none of the 10 largest metros cracked the top 10 Best-Performing Cities for the first time since 2008.

In terms of movers, Merced, Calif. saw the biggest gain from a year ago, rising 105 spots to 63rd, thanks to a correction in one of the housing markets hit hardest by the bubble’s collapse. Among decliners, BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico happened in 2010, but the decreased drilling activity in the Gulf persists and continues to hamper drilling-service centers like Lafayette, La., which dropped 82 places to 93rd.

The Milken Institute’s index ranks cities based on growth in jobs, wages and salaries, and technology output. It weighs those factors over a five-year span to account for varying business cycles and the latest year’s performance, and then adds 12-month job growth performance to account for recent momentum.

Cities in Texas measure strongly across all those categories, and its “assertive recruiting” of out-of-state businesses adds to the state’s “secret sauce,” but DeVol acknowledges that it also has another big chip in its favor: the state happens to be sitting on a gigantic pile of natural resources. While the Milken Institute touts the other sectors bolstering Texas economies, increased oil and gas exploration, in large part thanks to new drilling techniques, remains a crucial source of fuel for the state’s growth engine.

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Predicting The Top Five Health Trends For 2012

According to a leading national research group investigating health-related behavior and attitudes in the United States, some of the top consumer health trends expected in 2012 are improved sleep and energy drinks, as well as health-related smartphone apps. 

In order to determine the top 5 health and wellness trends individuals in the U.S. are most likely to utilize in 2012, observational investigations were used by The Values Institute at DGWB, a social science research entity based in Santa Ana, California. The list is an expansion of the Institute's thorough work in social entrepreneurialism and value-based marketing, in addition to a long-term collaboration with the Iconoculture of Minneapolis, an international research organization. 

Top 5 health trends for 2012:

• Natural Energy Drinks - over the last few years there has been an increase in the popularity of energy drinks, such as Monster, Red Bull, and 5-Hour Energy, which is expected to continue in 2012. These drinks are increasingly popular among seniors, as evidenced by 5-Hour's partnership with John Ratzenberger. However, there is potential for a backlash as more health conscious individuals seek to get the same boost from drinks that contain 100% natural ingredients, such as vitamins, whole grains, tea extract, bananas, and dates, as well as specifically designed products like v8 Energy Shots and Jamba Juice.
• Sleep - Studies have shown that not getting enough sleep is associated with hypertension, weight gain, lowered immunity and depression. In 2012, more Americans will associate sleep with health. 76% of individuals in the U.S. would like to enhance the quality and quantity of sleep they get. In addition, the National Sleep Foundation states that two-thirds of women have regular sleep problems. According to the World Association of Sleep Medicine, 45% of people in the world suffer from sleep deprivation.
• "Flexitarians" - Although the ratio of vegetarians and vegans in the U.S. will remain small, in 2012 more individuals will become "Flexitarians," individuals that consciously lower their intake of meat for health reasons, but still consume animal protein on occasion. One evidence of this trend is the increasing popularity and social media following of the nonprofit Meatless Monday initiative, created in collaboration with John Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health.
• Digital Motivation - Although many individuals understand the importance of exercise, they often are not motivated enough or lack accountability to make it part of their everyday routine. However, current social media platforms provide this motivation digitally. Reebok Promise Keep awards users with a Twitter or Facebook "call-out" when they complete a scheduled workout, while Stikk.com allows users to create "Commitment Contracts" to quit smoking, lose weight, or exercise regularly. In 2012, more products like Jawbone Up or FitBit Ultra will allow users to wirelessly track their progress and physical activity online.
• DIY health app - what began as a backlash to expensive medical costs and impersonal service, the DIY health movement will continue to surface in 2012 in the form of smartphone apps that allow users to track their health 24/7 365 days a year. Examples range from the Skin Scan, which scans and monitors moles over time, to Withering's Blood Pressure Monitor, which takes the user's blood pressure and sends it directly to a doctor. By the end of 2012, the 9,000+ health-related apps in the Apple App Store is expected to increase to 13,000.

Mike Weisman, president of the Values Institute at DGWB, said: 

"These trends are consistent with the growing importance of health in America - If not yet as a daily routine than certainly as a primary goal in 2012 for three out of four consumers. It's not an exaggeration to say that health is the new prestige barometer in the country - meaning that the great majority of Americans would rather be considered healthy rather than wealthy.

Certainly, this trend will have major implications for marketers and retailers looking to sway consumer opinion in the New Year and beyond."

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Now You See It, Now You Don't: Time Cloak Created

It's one thing to make an object invisible, like Harry Potter's mythical cloak. But scientists have made an entire event impossible to see. They have invented a time masker.

Think of it as an art heist that takes place before your eyes and surveillance cameras. You don't see the thief strolling into the museum, taking the painting down or walking away, but he did. It's not just that the thief is invisible -- his whole activity is.

What scientists at Cornell University did was on a much smaller scale, both in terms of events and time. It happened so quickly that it's not even a blink of an eye. Their time cloak lasts an incredibly tiny fraction of a fraction of a second. They hid an event for 40 trillionths of a second, according to a study appearing in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature.

We see events happening as light from them reaches our eyes. Usually it's a continuous flow of light. In the new research, however, scientists were able to interrupt that flow for just an instant.

Other newly created invisibility cloaks fashioned by scientists move the light beams away in the traditional three dimensions. The Cornell team alters not where the light flows but how fast it moves, changing in the dimension of time, not space.

They tinkered with the speed of beams of light in a way that would make it appear to surveillance cameras or laser security beams that an event, such as an art heist, isn't happening.

Another way to think of it is as if scientists edited or erased a split second of history. It's as if you are watching a movie with a scene inserted that you don't see or notice. It's there in the movie, but it's not something you saw, said study co-author Moti Fridman, a physics researcher at Cornell.

The scientists created a lens of not just light, but time. Their method splits light, speeding up one part of light and slowing down another. It creates a gap and that gap is where an event is masked.

"You kind of create a hole in time where an event takes place," said study co-author Alexander Gaeta, director of Cornell's School of Applied and Engineering Physics. "You just don't know that anything ever happened."

This is all happening in beams of light that move too fast for the human eye to see. Using fiber optics, the hole in time is created as light moves along inside a fiber much thinner than a human hair. The scientists shoot the beam of light out, and then with other beams, they create a time lens that splits the light into two different speed beams that create the effect of invisibility by being too fast or too slow. The whole work is a mess of fibers on a long table and almost looks like a pile of spaghetti, Fridman said.

It is the first time that scientists have been able to mask an event in time, a concept only first theorized by Martin McCall, a professor of theoretical optics at Imperial College in London. Gaeta, Fridman and others at Cornell, who had already been working on time lenses, decided to see if they could do what McCall envisioned.

It only took a few months, a blink of an eye in scientific research time.

"It is significant because it opens up a whole new realm to ideas involving invisibility," McCall said.

Researchers at Duke University and in Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have made progress on making an object appear invisible spatially. The earlier invisibility cloak work bent light around an object in three dimensions.

Between those two approaches, the idea of invisibility will work its way into useful technology, predicts McCall, who wasn't part of either team.

The science is legitimate, but it's still only a fraction of a second, added City College of New York physicist Michio Kaku, who specializes in the physics of science fiction.

"That's not enough time to wander around Hogwarts," Kaku wrote in an email. "The next step therefore will be to increase this time interval, perhaps to a millionth of a second. So we see that there's a long way to go before we have true invisibility as seen in science fiction."

Gaeta said he thinks he can get make the cloak last a millionth of a second or maybe even a thousandth of a second. But McCall said the mathematics dictate that it would take too big a machine -- about 18,600 miles long -- to make the cloak last a full second. "You have to start somewhere and this is a proof of concept," Gaeta said.

Still, there are practical applications, Gaeta and Fridman said. This is a way of adding a packet of information to high-speed data unseen without interrupting the flow of information. But that may not be a good thing if used for computer viruses, Fridman conceded.

There may be good uses of this technology, Gaeta said, but "for some reason people are more interested in the more illicit applications."

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Yahoo Names PayPal President Thompson as New CEO

Yahoo (YHOO: 15.78, -0.50, -3.10%) named PayPal President Scott Thompson its new chief executive Wednesday morning, replacing former CEO Carol Bartz, who was fired in September.

Thompson is replacing interim leader Tim Morse, who will resume his role as chief financial officer. The move is a part of Yahoo’s ongoing strategic review as it struggles to compete against web majors Google (GOOG: 668.28, +2.87, +0.43%) and Facebook, among others.

The new CEO, whose chief role and appointment to the Yahoo board will become effective on January 9, has headed the online payments units of eBay (EBAY: 30.16, -1.18, -3.77%), PayPal, since early 2008 and was previously its chief technology officer.

Under his watch, PayPal solidified its lead as the global online payment service, expanding its customer base to more than 104 million from 50 million and growing revenue to $4 billion from $1.8 billion. In the third quarter of 2011, the company processed $29 billion in payments.

“Scott brings to Yahoo a proven record of building on a solid foundation of existing assets and resources to reignite innovation and drive growth, precisely the formula we need at Yahoo,” said Roy Bostock, the company’s chairman.

Bostock will be looking to Thompson to restore the “energy, focus, and momentum necessary to grow” the company’s core business and return the once-dominant search engine and media firm to a “path of robust growth and industry-leading innovation.”

The chairman says Yahoo intends to remain a public company and has no plans to go private, according to Dow Jones. The new CEO appointment won't slow the strategic review, he said.

Thompson says he will work directly with region leaders and sales teams globally to get a clearer understanding of the needs of advertisers and publishers as part of the ongoing strategic review. He noted that transferrable skills from PayPal to Yahoo are knowing how to balance merchant and customer needs while creating value for the two parties. 

Yahoo, whose services include email, search and news, was a web pioneer that enjoyed rapid growth throughout the 1990s. Recently, however, it has struggled to keep up with rivals in the face of dwindling advertising revenue.

The company rejected a $44 billion bid in 2008 from Microsoft (MSFT: 27.40, +0.64, +2.37%), which hammered its stock price and caused its co-founder, Jerry Yang, to step down later that year. Bartz was let go in September after failing to fix the company’s fortunes despite more than two years on the job.

Shares of Yahoo were down more than 1% shortly after the announcement; perhaps a sign that investors question whether Thompson was the right choice for the job. Shares of eBay, meanwhile, shed 4%. 

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4 Facebook Security Tips to Stay Safe in 2012

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was hacked last month.

On December 7, more than a dozen private photos of Zuckerberg were leaked to photo-sharing site Imgur under the headline, "It's time to fix those security flaws Facebook." The social network later confirmed that the flaw was the result of a recent code push and was live "for a limited period of time"--affecting not just Zuckerberg's account, but also an undetermined number of others.

This latest security problem comes one week after Facebook agreed to settle the charges with the FTC that it deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, then allowed it to be shared and made public.

Unfortunate timing for Facebook, no doubt. But, according to Mike Geide, senior security researcher at Zscaler ThreatLabZ, a cloud security company, Facebook has stepped up its security measures in the last year, though "there's certainly room for improvement," he says.

"Hackers are getting more and more sophisticated with their attacks," Geide says. "Facebook credentials that are stolen and sold underground are a huge commodity--kind of like email addresses are for spammers."

As hackers up the ante with attacks, Facebook users need to take extra precautions and exercise better judgment to ensure their accounts--and their personal information--stay safe. Here are four ways to do so.

[Facebook Privacy: 11 Settings to Revisit Now]

1. Enable SSL Encryption

In the past, Facebook used HTTPS--Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure--only when you entered your password. If you've shopped or banked online, you might also notice this amped-up security feature, denoted by a small lock icon that appears in your address bar, or just a green address bar. Facebook now applies SSL encryption to all browsing done on the site, and it is strongly recommended if you use public computers or access points, such as at coffee shops, airports or libraries.

To enable this security feature, visit your Account Settings page, then choose "Security" from the options on the left side of the screen. Here, you'll be able to see whether this option, "Secure Browsing," is enabled or disabled. Click "Edit" to enable it.

Do note that encrypted pages take longer to load in this mode and that not all third-party apps may support it.

2. Be Wary of Information You Share

The information you share in your profile may seem harmless, but particular pieces are popular "ins" with hackers. Take, for example, your birthday. This piece of data, Geide says, is sometimes used in security questions. Disclosing it at will could put you at risk.

Geide also recommends opting out of the feature that lets you--and your friends--check you into places. Here's how to find this setting:

Navigate to your Privacy Settings page and click "Edit Settings" next to "How Tags Work." Then, turn it off.

Geide says that hackers use your location data not just for physical-world attacks such as stalking and robbery, but for social-engineering attacks, too. One example of this: messaging you to say, "Hey, I met you at XYZ conference last week," in order to obtain more information or promote a malicious link.

3. Use Applications and Games Sparingly

In the past, rogue Facebook apps have spammed users and hijacked accounts. Facebook has since put a number of safety protocols, such as App Passwords, in place to better vet their apps and ensure security.

App passwords are one-time passwords you use to log into your apps, without needing to enter your Facebook password. To get an app password, go to your Account Settings, then select the Security tab. Click "Edit" next to App Passwords, then follow the prompts.

Geide also recommends carefully reviewing the permissions granted to Facebook apps before you install and use them.

"Applications may use a number of permissions. Because of this, it is best to limit your applications to those that you actually use and have a level of trust for," he says.

Specifically, Geide recommends paying careful attention to which applications have the ability to write on your wall or message friends, as this could be used to propagate something malicious. Also, check to see what information the application is able to access about you and what content it can read--for example your wall, posts and photos.

"Think about the actual expected behavior of the application," he says. "And if the level of access that it is requesting doesn't seem needed for its functionality, the chances are that it's doing something in addition to what it is advertising."

4. Log Out of Facebook When You're Done

When you're finished browsing Facebook, be sure you log out, Geide says. "This will prevent threats, such as 'Likejacking,' that leverage logged-in sessions to Facebook," he says.

Likejacking is a form of clickjacking, or the malicious technique of tricking users into posting a status update for a site they did not intentionally mean to "like."

One example of this: In June 2010, hundreds of thousands of users fell victim to likejacking after clicking links that read, "LOL This girl gets OWNED after a POLICE OFFICER reads her STATUS MESSAGE," and, "This man takes a picture of himself EVERYDAY for 8 years!!"

After clicking the link, users were asked to "click here to continue." The following page contained a clickjacking worm that posted content to the users' walls.

If you have forgotten to log out of Facebook from a computer or mobile device, you can do so remotely. From your Account Settings page, click the "Security" tab on the left. Select "Edit" next to Active Sessions.

The following information will show you where you're logged in on other devices, when you last accessed it and the device. To log out of any of the sessions, just click "End Activity."

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Google, Facebook Rivalry to Heat up in 2012

As Google works to make its Google+ social network a major competitor to market leader Facebook, the battle between the two could reach a critical point in 2012, analysts say.

Facebook, the world's largest social network, and Google, the world's largest Internet company, are increasingly going head-to-head in a battle to be the top social media player and get the big advertising dollars that go with the position.

While most analysts think Facebook retained its wide edge this year, most agree that the battle is likely to heat up further in 2012. And that means users of both Facebook and Google+ should expect a lot of new features and more integration with third party products.

"This is a fight for survival for Facebook -- and for relevancy for Google," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. What happens in 2012, he added, "will make the difference between whether there is a Facebook by the end of the decade and whether Google can become truly relevant outside of search."

If Facebook files for an Initial Public Offering in the first half of 2012 as many expect, a huge influx of cash would bring it more muscle to take on Google.

"The big moment will be Facebook's IPO," said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. "This will define whether Facebook has the resources to hold off Google. A strong IPO would make Facebook a peer. And a more-focused Google could take Facebook out if the IPO fails. So it all hinges on a successful IPO."

Google was responsible for the biggest news in social networking in 2011 with the June unveiling of Google+.

Google's social network looked and functioned much like Facebook -- enabling users to post status updates, share links and upload photos. Right out of the gate, Google+ gained a lot of attention and a quick onrush of users.

To date, Google+ hasn't hurt Facebook, which turned out to be a tough competitor against a product that has the backing of a company with strong clout and deep pockets.

"Google+ hasn't made much progress versus Facebook this year," said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group. "While no one expected Google+ to blow Facebook out of the water, I do think most watchers believed that Google+ would present a larger challenge. After a big introduction and mostly positive buzz, Google+ has seemed to fizzle a bit."

But he expects the competition to intensify in 2012 as both companies seek some of the massive advertising money spent by major companies on social sites.

"We're not going to see any knockout blows in 2012," Olds said. "The companies are too closely matched for that.

"I think Facebook wins 2011," he added. "I'd say most observers would have predicted that Google and Google+ would put a big dent in Facebook by capturing a significant number of Facebook users. But that didn't happen. Facebook held onto their market share and even expanded it a bit."

Moorhead disagreed, giving Google an edge in 2011 as a company that gained a strong foothold in a market where it didn't even compete in 2011.

"Google finally arrived with a compelling value proposition, but is very far behind in engagement and reach," said Moorhead. "[For the next year], Google will integrate Google+ into every property it has, including the Android OS. Facebook will develop benefits programs to reward users to share every element of their life on Timeline -- where they eat, shop, drink, work out, what they watch, read, listen to."

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5 Major Changes Facing the Internet in 2012

2012 is poised to go down in Internet history as one of the most significant 12-month periods from both a technical and policy perspective since the late 1990s, when this network-of-networks stopped being a research project and became an engine of economic growth.

This year the Internet will face several milestones as it undergoes its biggest-ever technical upgrade, from Internet Protocol version 4 to version 6. In addition, key contracts that the U.S. federal government controls for Internet infrastructure and operations are being re-bid. Taken together, these events could result in monumental changes in both who operates the Internet infrastructure as well as how these operations are handled:

1. The root servers may have a new operator.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has overseen the operation of the Internet root servers since the non-profit was founded in 1998. However, ICANN's contract is due to expire in March, and a new U.S.-based organization could end up in charge of this critical technical function.

The Internet's 13 root server farms are at the top of the DNS hierarchy, which matches domain names with their corresponding IP addresses for looking up Web sites. The operation of the root server farms is overseen by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which reports to ICANN.

Instead of renewing ICANN's contract for the IANA function, the U.S. government has opened up the bid to other U.S.-based organizations. On Nov. 10, 2011, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued an open bid for the IANA function. Bids were due Dec. 12 and a contract is expected to be awarded in the first quarter of this year. The new contract for the IANA function will last from April 1, 2012 until March 31, 2015.

2. A new company could operate the .com registry.

Verisign has operated the .com domain since 1999. The .com domain is the Internet's most popular top-level domain, with about 100 million .com names registered as of last month. To put this figure in perspective, the Internet has a total of 220 million domain names registered in 280 top-level domains. The number of .com names dwarfs every other domain: It's more than five times greater than those registered in the second most popular extension, which is Germany's .de.

Verisign signed an agreement with ICANN on March 1, 2006 to operate .com, and that contract expires on Nov. 30, 2012.

One positive indicator for Verisign: Last June, ICANN renewed the company's contract to operate the .net registry, which has about 12 million registered names. Verisign will run the .net registry until 2017.

3. Up to 1,000 new top-level domains will start being introduced.

ICANN plans to launch a new program Jan. 12 to add hundreds of generic top-level domains (gTLDs) such as .hotel and .paris to the Internet. This controversial plan has been under discussion for six years, and it is finally scheduled to begin. ICANN's new gTLD program represents the biggest change to the Internet's naming system since 1998, when ICANN was formed.

ICANN has run two previous efforts to expand the Internet domain name space: once in 2000, when it added seven extensions including .biz and .info; and again in 2004, when it added eight more extensions such as .asia and .jobs. None of these new domain name extensions has been particularly successful.

However, if ICANN's latest attempt to expand the domain name space succeeds, it could fundamentally change the way domain names are used. Among the new categories of names that are expected to be approved include: internationalized domain names in non-English language scripts; geographically oriented domains for cities and regions; domain names tied to specific interests as well as domain names tied to individual companies and brand

4. An additional 10,000 Web sites will support IPv6.

Sept. 30, 2012 is the deadline for all U.S. federal government agencies to support IPv6 on their public-facing Web sites and Web services. An estimated 10,000 Web sites fall under this mandate, which could help drive IPv6 deployment in the United States during the next 12 months.

Established by the Obama Administration two years ago, the federal IPv6 mandate also requires agencies to upgrade internal client applications that communicate with public Internet servers to use native IPv6. But agencies have another two years - until September 2014 - to meet this second deadline. Federal agencies are required to designate an IPv6 transition manager and to purchase network hardware and software that complies with the federal government's IPv6 testing process.

IPv6 features an expanded addressing scheme that can support billions of devices connected directly to the Internet. But IPv6 is not backwards compatible with IPv4, which is running out of addresses. Network operators can either support both protocols in what's called dual-stack mode or translate between IPv4 and IPv6, which could add latency and overhead cost.

5. Europe will run out of IPv4 addresses.

The European regional Internet registry - RIPE - is expected to run out of IPv4 addresses in 2012. Geoff Huston, adjunct research fellow at the Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures at Swinburne University of Technology, estimates that RIPE will run out of its remaining IPv4 address space on July 22, 2012.

In April 2011, Asia depleted all of its IPv4 address space except a small fraction held in reserve for start-up network operators. The North American registry is expected to deplete its IPv4 address space in 2013.

The depletion of IPv4 addresses in various regions of the world will put more pressure on U.S. carriers and enterprises to begin transitioning their networks to IPv6. For example, Comcast has said it will offer production-quality IPv6 services across its nationwide network in 2012.

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What's coming in Firefox 11

Big changes are arriving in the developer's build of Firefox for Androidin a bid to make it more appealing, while the significantly more popular desktop version is getting several noteworthy but smaller changes, the company announced at the end of 2011.

Available for download now, the first versions of Firefox 11 Aurora for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android came out just after the stable build of the browser updated to version 9. The Android update is again the more notable release, as the new native Android interface reaches a wider audience. For the first time, the browser also supports playing Adobe Flash content, which competitors like Dolphin HD and Opera have offered for a while.

This is more than a new look, though, as many of the browser's features have been stripped out. This includes Firefox Sync, which allows seamless synchronization of personal data like bookmarks, passwords, and browsing history, and Mozilla's popular add-ons. In a blog post announcing Firefox 11 Aurora for Android, Mozilla promises that Sync and add-ons will return "soon."

Personally, I've found Sync to be the single most useful feature in the mobile browser. To be able to open a tab on the desktop, and have it nearly instantaneously pushed to my Android, makes jumping from desktop to phone or tablet practically seamless. On the other hand, very rough testing indicates that Firefox 11 is a much faster browser. While site-loading tests indicate speed gains only around half a second to a full second, initial app start time tests show major speed gains over the current Firefox 9 of around 50 percent.

Meanwhile, Firefox 11 Aurora for desktops gets two useful changes. Windows 7 and Vista users will no longer see the User Account Control (UAC) for Firefox after the browser's initial installation. This completes Firefox's alignment with Chrome's seamless updates, which haven't required your interaction with the UAC. On first installation, the browser now adds Chrome to its list of browsers from which it can import your personal data.

Other changes in Firefox 11 Aurora are aimed at developers. More HTML5 code is supported,Google's SPDY protocol for faster site loading can now be tested, Tilt support allows for 3D Web page visualization, and the HTML5 video controls have been redesigned. 

The new Aurora builds bump Firefox 10 to beta status. Changes in this version offer users an improved add-on experience, as all compatible add-ons except for binary add-ons will not be disabled by the browser. This sorts out the "maxversion" situation, which required developers to set a Firefox version number with which the add-on would stop being compatible. Mozilla expects that this will significantly decrease the number of problems related to add-ons. The Sync setup process has been improved, too.

For developers, Firefox 10 beta improves the developer experience in the browser with a bucket of changes. These include support of the full-screen API for better gaming in Firefox, Page Inspector and Style Inspector for testing new code, WebGL improvements for better 3D rendering, and Orion code editor support in the Scratchpad tool for on-the-fly coding. Mozilla released the Firefox 10 beta changelog here, with a scheduled graduation to stable release the last week in January.

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