The World Cup is going to shatter Internet traffic records

By Sam Colt From Business Insider

The FIFA World Cup is going to shatter internet traffic records, according to Cisco’s State of the Internet Report.

The global soccer tournament, which begins this week, is predicted to generate a mind-boggling 4.3 exabytes of IP traffic. That’s the same amount of traffic the entire country of Brazil (the World Cup’s host country) generates in three months.

What’s more, Cisco claims that the mobile traffic generated by 60,000 people in a soccer stadium will surpass the busy-hour traffic of Brazil’s 94 million smartphone users. This isn’t as shocking because most Brazilian smartphone are more likely to get online for messaging, whereas visiting soccer fans will be uploading and viewing large image and video files.

The Cisco report then breaks down future internet usage in terms we can understand: watching the World Cup and streaming HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”

The company predicts 132 exabytes of traffic by 2018, which it claims is equivalent to:

8.8 billion people streaming the World Cup final (on 4K HDTVs) simultaneously

5.5 billion people watching Season 4 of “Game of Thrones” in HD simultaneously

4.5 trillion YouTube clips

In case you wanted to break down that data in measurable terms, that’s 940 quadrillion text messages. Current projections put the world population at around 7.5 billion by 2018, so using the entire internet to watch the 2018 World Cup seems out of reach.

IMAGE: world cup final ball Adidias

For more on this story go to: http://www.businessinsider.com/world-cup-internet-traffic-2014-6#ixzz34LI4pTJ1

Related stories:

Jennifer Lopez backs out of World Cup opening in Brazil

From Caribbean360

United States, Wednesday June 11, 2014 – After daunting setbacks from fatal construction accidents to strikes and angry protests, Brazil is facing yet another blow as host country of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

This time it’s the news that Puerto Rico-born pop diva Jennifer Lopez, who was scheduled to perform the official song of this year’s World Cup at the opening ceremony this week, has abruptly backed out.

In the words of a statement issued late Sunday night: “Regretfully Jennifer Lopez will not be attending this year’s World Cup opening ceremonies.”

No explanation was offered for the award-winning singer’s last minute withdrawal.

The popular American Idol personality teamed up with Brazilian star Claudia Leitte and rapper Pitbull to record Brazil 2014′s official song, “We Are One (Ola Ola).”

The trio, now apparently reduced to “We Are Three Minus One,” was scheduled to perform at the tournament’s opening ceremony ahead of the host nation’s first match with Croatia in Sao Paulo on Thursday.

Soon after the song was released, Pitbull expressed his pleasure at being a part of the project.

“I’m honoured to join Jennifer Lopez and Claudia Leitte at the FIFA World Cup to bring the world together,” the rapper said.

“I truly believe that this great game and the power of music will help unify us, because we are best when we are one.”

The World Cup song tradition had its genesis at the 1966 World Cup in England, when a song dedicated to the tournament mascot, a lion named “World Cup Willie,” was released.

Four years ago, ahead of South Africa 2010, Shakira did the World Cup honours with “Waka Waka.”

For more on this story go to: http://www.caribbean360.com/sports/jennifer-lopez-backs-out-of-world-cup-opening-in-brazi?utm_source=Caribbean360%20Newsletters&utm_campaign=caf59deda3-Vol_9_Issue_116_News6_11_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_350247989a-caf59deda3-39393477

This cool Google Calendar trick makes sure you won’t miss any World Cup matches

From BGR By Chris Smith on Jun 10, 2014 at 4:08 PM

In two days, this year’s World Cup kicks off, and no less than 64 games between international teams will take place in various Brazilian cities. To help users better manage their busy daily schedules and still catch as many games as possible, Googler Dan Cobley posted on Google+ a cool Google Calendar trick that makes sure users won’t miss any soccer games.

To insert all World Cup games inside their calendars, users who have Google accounts only need to go to the web version of Google Calendar on a desktop, log into the app with the Google ID, and then select Other Calendars from the left sidebar. From there, users should go to the Add by URL option from the menu and once there paste in the following URL:

https://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/vdmtdcektajkqjk51vvda4ni4k%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic and then click on Add Calendar.

Once that’s done, the World Cup schedule should be available across devices, and the dates and timings should be converted in the users’ time zones.

Furthermore, this special World Cup calendar should automatically update as “teams qualify and teams get sent home.”

IMAGE: INTERNET World Cup 2014: Google Calendar

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