TECH-MEDIA

Smartphone, tablet users not satisfied with web speed: Survey

Smartphone and tablet users in the US are not satisfied with the internet speed and a largenumber of people want their desired web pages to load within seconds, a survey has said.An online survey of over 5,000 people in the US, conducted by research and analysis firm Keynote, found that 60 per cent of tablet users expect to wait less than three seconds to get to a website.

Further, 64 per cent of the smartphone owners want a website to load within four seconds. Among those working on a personal computer, 48 per cent of users want their download speeds to be faster than two seconds.

"Overall, the survey showed that while expectations vary somewhat depending on the platform desktop, smartphone or tablet they are definitely increasing. In short, user expectations, no matter the device, are for very fast performance," the study said.

Despite such high expectations, the survey found, many sites on smartphones and tablets continue to be slow and disappoint consumers on a regular basis.

As per the study, 66 per cent of the smartphone users found 'web pages slow to load' as the most frustrating issue, while 48 per cent found 'website not optimised for smartphone' a key problem.

"The expectation gap for performance has tightened considerably across platforms, and vendors ignore these increased expectations for blazing fast performance at their own peril," Keynote said.

In the cases where mobile websites take lot of time to load, 44 per cent of the survey respondents try refreshing the page, 21 per cent close the page and try again later while 16per cent give up.

The study further said that 29 per cent of smartphone users and 37 per cent of tablet users spend at least 1-2 hours browsing the internet.

Accessing local information emerged as top activity for 88 per cent of the smartphone users, while majority of the tablet users (79 per cent) go to internet for news and entertainment. In terms of usage, more than 40 per cent of the smartphone owners access e-mail, social media updates and map information on their devices, while a little over 30 per cent of the tablet users do the same.

Keynote said that smartphone users preferred to use mobile apps over mobile websites for map information, social media updates, e-mail, and banking information.

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Nasa's Curiosity robot lands on Mars                                           

Nasa's Curiosity  robotslands on Mars
After the most daring and complex landing of a robot on another planet, the search for evidence of life on Mars enters a new era.

 Nasa's Curiosity rover is now sitting inside Gale Crater, a vast depression close to the Martian equator.
Also known as the Mars Science Laboratory, the one tonne machine is the most sophisticated science robot ever placed on another world.

Over the coming years Curiosity will climb a mountain at the crater's heart, gathering evidence on one of science's greatest questions – was there ever life on Mars?

The $2.5 billion project will discover whether Mars once had conditions suitable for the evolution and survival of life.

BBC Space specialist Jonathan Amos talks to mission scientists about where Curiosity is going and what it will do as it trundles up Mars' Mount Sharp.
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NASA Chief: We Won't Go It Alone on Mars Mission

                            Mars is in the future for the American space program, but it won't be a U.S.-only venture. NASA chief Charles Bolden reiterated that Mars is the "ultimate destination for now" for human space exploration, but the mission inevitably will be international, as will any human landings on the moon. Bolden called the U.S. a leader in cooperation.   U.S. astronauts won't land on Mars by themselves but with international partners in the 2030s, NASA's chief said Wednesday.
NASA chief Charles Bolden focused on Mars as the "ultimate destination for now" for human space exploration in a meeting with the USA TODAY Editorial Board. His comments came days before the NASA Curiosity rover's scheduled landing on the Red Planet at 1:17 a.m. ET Monday.

"I have no desire to do a (manned) Mars landing on our own," Bolden said. "The U.S. cannot always be the leader , but we can be the inspirational leader through international cooperation" in space exploration. Obama administration plans are for the $17.7 billion space agency to land an astronaut on an asteroid in 2025, then go to Mars by the middle of the 2030s. The mission inevitably will be international, as will any human landings on the moon, Bolden said. "We already have gone there first," he said. The Obama administration's space plans have attracted criticism this year from some space-state senators such as Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who disagreed with its emphasis on private space rockets to resupply the International Space Station, rather than a heavy rocket that would send a spacecraft to circle the moon in 2017. NASA science chief John Grunsfeld put the odds as "very high" of the Curiosity mission's finding chemical signs of a habitable environment on the Red Planet perhaps 2.5 billion years ago. A human mission to Mars would send six astronauts, take six months to get there and stay a month before an eight-month trip back to Earth. "I believe that most Westerners presume that a human mission to Mars will quite likely be multinational. I certainly think so, and indeed would prefer this approach," said former NASA chief Michael Griffin, who has criticized the administration's manned spaceflight plans in the past. "I do not believe that China makes such a presumption," Griffin added, by e-mail. "I suspect that when China believes it is ready as a nation to go to the moon, it will do so, and later on exactly the same thing will be true of Mars." NASA has safely landed three mobile  spacecraft on Mars since 1997, including Opportunity, still roving after eight years. NASA said Wednesday it will televise in New York City's Times Square the landing of the $2.5 billion Curiosity rover. "We're going to put this thing on Mars like Buck Rogers used to do in the science fiction books," Bolden said.