Author: BRWC

By Ben Taylor.

You’ve probably lost a weekend (or three) to a Netflix binge, blazing through “House of Cards,” re-watching “Breaking Bad” or playing your favorite season of “The Office” on loop—a three-day carnival of cliffhangers, lost sleep and bad wine. Yes, you have a problem. No, you don’t need help.

The data says you’re not alone.

In 2015, over 36 percent of all Internet bandwidth in North America has come from Netflix streaming, more than the next eight biggest bandwidth hogs combined. The report comes from Sandvine, a networking equipment company that releases annual bandwidth statistics for all of the Web’s biggest players.

Note that the data only represents “downstream” bandwidth for “fixed access consumers.” In layman’s terms, that means we’re not counting upstream activity (ex: uploading your data to the cloud) and we’re focused on home and office Wi-Fi, not cellular network activity on 4G or LTE networks.

The rise of streaming services—such as Netflix for movies or Spotify for music—has claimed a variety of victims, from video rental giant Blockbuster to Apple’s 99¢-a-song iTunes Music Store. But it’s also taken a big bite out of BitTorrent.

For the uninitiated, BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer protocol that lets people share files with one another. While many BitTorrent use cases are perfectly legitimate, the protocol is infamous for allowing millions of people to illegally swap movie, TV and music files for free. By 2009, peer-to-peer file sharing (for which BitTorrent was the most popular protocol) accounted for roughly half of all Internet bandwidth—a massive community of (mostly illegal) file swapping.

Jump ahead to 2015, and BitTorrent has nearly fallen through the floor, snatching only 2.76% of the bandwidth pie.

With nearly unlimited TV, movies and music now available for $10 per month, it seems that most of North America has wandered back from illegal swapping to legal, affordable subscriptions. Throw in the dead simple interfaces for Hulu, Spotify and Apple Music, and it’s no wonder most people aren’t bothering with file sharing anymore. As Sandvine’s Dan Deeth put it in an interview with Mashable, “My mom doesn’t know how to use BitTorrent, but she sure knows how to use Netflix.”

Outside of Netflix and BitTorrent, other winners and losers emerge. YouTube remains the short-form-video streaming leader, but Facebook’s year-over-year growth suggests we’re in for a long-term tug-of-war between the two video giants. Apple also has reason to be bullish on its bandwidth, with Apple Music bolstering iTunes’ numbers, likely making up for the service’s decrease in individual song download activity.

Meanwhile, HTTP—which represents general web browsing—is down nearly 50 percent since last year. It’s likely that the proliferation of apps has eaten into the popularity of standard web pages. Increasingly, users are going straight to the service they need, rather than fiddling with Safari or Chrome in order to find the content.

That said, the methodology of the report may skew the results here. Given that Sandvine focuses only on “fixed access” (mostly home or office Wi-Fi), the report does not account for on-the-road, mobile browsing—activity that likely includes more general web browsing and less full-length movie watching.

For now, bandwidth is a slave to just a few masters, with Netflix and YouTube alone accounting for more than 50% of all North American online activity. But if BitTorrent can teach us any lesson, the pie could look a whole lot different in just a few years. If you’re skeptical, just ask the music industry.

By Andrew White.

If you dream about travels, but can’t venture to do that at the moment, the only worthy substitute for you will be a good movie about travels. Of course, no matter how wonderful these movies are, they will never replicate the experiences of real travels. However, they will provide you with more motivation and inspire for future traveling. Here is the list of the best and most inspiring travel movies:

1. Around the World in 80 Days (2004)

Eccentric London inventor Phileas Fogg makes a bet with Lord Kelvin that he will manage to travel around the world in no more than 80 days. Together with his valet Passepartout and French artist Monique Laroche, Fogg sets out for a trip by land, sea and air. During the journey, the characters get to the most exotic places on the Earth, where numerous adventures are waiting for them.

2. The Art of Travel (2008)

A real traveler doesn’t follow the trodden path, but paves his or her way independently. High school graduate Conner Layne changes the course of his life by setting out for a trip to Central America after his wedding plans are frustrated. Together with Conner and his new friends, you will get to the dangerous republic of Nicaragua, see the impenetrable jungles of the Darien Gap, visit Columbia, Peru, Machu Picchu etc.

3. Kon-Tiki (2012)

The movie is based on the story of famous explorer Thor Heyerdal, who in 1947 managed to cross the Pacific Ocean on a small balsawood raft. Everything tried to prevent him from completing his mission ― giant whales, fights against hungry sharks, the lightning storm, the tearing wind, the battle for life under extreme conditions. The characters had to do their best in order to survive and make this travel not the last one in their life.

4. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

Walter Mitty is an ordinary employee of Life magazine. His work is rather boring and every day he gets into the world of his dreams, where he can be an astronaut, traveler or even Casanova. However, one day, the fate gives Walter a chance to prove that he can be a hero and induces him to go for a global journey.

5. Eat Pray Love (2010)

One day Elizabeth Gilbert understands that her life is far from being the one of her dreams. She unhesitatingly decides to change her life and the world around her. Having divorced with her husband, Elizabeth sets out for a trip, which will help her to open new horizons and “find herself”.

6. Into the Wild (2007)

Having graduated from college, Christopher McCandless, an athlete and one of the best students, gives his $24,000 savings to charity and hitchhikes to Alaska in order to plunge into the wild. On his way there, he gets acquainted with many people, who influence his life either directly or indirectly.

7. One Week (2008)

When Ben Tyler is diagnosed with cancer, the man decides that hospital treatment won’t save him. Instead, he starts to prepare for his last trip. Crossing Canada on his motorcycle, Ben finds many new friends, reconsiders his life and recollects his old dreams. But the most important is that he starts to understand that it’s impossible to find the meaning in his life without appreciating it.

8. The Beach (2000)

In the search of adventures, young American Richard travels to Thailand. He gets acquainted with strange man Daffy, who gives him a map of the mysterious island, full of natural-growing marijuana and inhabited by a group of “other” people. Richard meets a French couple, who are also fond of adventures, and they decide to visit that island together.

9. Seven Years in Tibet (1997)

Austrian mountain climber Heinrich Harrer leaves his pregnant wife alone at home and travels to the Himalayas to climb the highest mountain pick. This feat will surely perpetuate his name. However, the journey turns out to be much more complicated than he has supposed and the man gets to Tibetan town Lhasa, where he will spend 7 years, being a tutor of the 14th Dalai Lama.

10. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Two American girls, Vicky and Cristina, spend their holidays in Barcelona. They get acquainted with artist Juan Antonio and fall in love with him. Vicky is old-fashioned and prefers only serious relationships while Cristina is rather liberated. The artist gets enchanted by both girls and can’t decide whom he loves more. But the situation deteriorates when Antonio’s ex-wife decides to return the husband.

See also 9 Best Movies about Robots

By Daniel Faris.

As far as movie franchises go, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find one that’s touched as many lives as Star Wars. Ask any random sampling of adult men and women, and you’d probably find that most of them grew up pretending to be Stormtroopers marching to war, or Luke Skywalker doing battle with the forces of evil.

But adulthood comes with its own challenges that define us, and chief among these is car ownership. And that’s part of why this infographic is so charming: because it single-handedly unites two of the most powerful things that come to define us as people: our favorite movies from childhood, and the cars we drive when we become young adults.

What do you think? Did we get it right?

What we have here are answers to a surprising question—one that many of us might have thought about in idle moments, but perhaps never spoke aloud: What cars would our favorite Star Wars characters drive?

I’ll let the results speak for themselves, but I have to draw special attention to Jabba the Hutt’s windowless van, and Han Solo’s beat-up Mustang. I mean, these are perfect choices, right? Just as each of our choices in cars comes to define us, for better and for worse, as adults, each of these selections seems to perfectly match their Star Wars counterparts.

So take a look and let us know in the comments if you agree with the choices. And if you’d like to see this in video form, make sure you visit the original blog post and show them some love.