With the Federal Communications Commission going back to the drawing board on Net Neutrality and Comcast recently announcing its proposed take-over of Time Warner Cable, the internet landscape as we know it is changing. National Latino organizations are reacting - with what could be described as "skeptical optimism."
The presence of Google (and other tech giants) in the San Francisco Bay Area has already sparked local protests against corporate bussing, gentrification, and rising housing prices - as well as a paranoid anti-tech underground - but Google's latest plans may turn up the heat even more. Google is planning on moving some of its operations into the Latino and immigrant-heavy Mission District.
Just in time for Valentine's Day, the Pew Research Internet Project has released a survey about how the internet and social media has impacted couples' lives. The takeaway? The internet and the devices connected to it can be good relationship tools, if treated properly. Also, people are sexting more.
While Latinos remain underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs and professions in the U.S., Puerto Rico is having a different sort of problem: U.S. recruiters are stealing away with Puerto Rican STEM graduates. But the island's government is trying to end the brain drain, using LinkedIn as a tool.
"Hispanics are ahead of the digital curve" according to a new report from Nielsen, which found that the average Latino is more likely to own a smartphone and frequently use cutting-edge digital media on the internet.
As part of a campaign to help increase low-income and monolingual Latinos' access to online education, as well as health care information, some groups in California are providing personal computers and internet access. One group in the San Francisco Bay Area have made strides, helped by a holiday-time campaign and fund drive.
AOL hasn't been mentioned much in online conversations since the late 1990s, but the company is trying to change that by reaching out to hip, growing, and increasingly moneyed audiences - and it's found the online Latino demographic a perfect target. The company just closed a licensing deal with multi-channel Latino web video network MiTú.
Latinos are one of the fastest growing segments of internet users, which also happens to be predominantly Catholic. For Catholics, if there was any doubt that Pope Francis like the internet (he tweets from his account @Pontifex), there isn't now: Pope Francis has called the internet a "gift from God."
T-Mobile has now become notorious for upending the wireless industry with its "Uncarrier" plans (plus other shenanigans from CEO John Legere), and now the company is planning to "un" bank your finances. After surveying the market and finding that banks were charging too many fees and weren't appealing enough to customer needs - including U.S. Latinos - T-Mobile has decided to shake up the banking industry as well with a service called "Mobile Money".
