Last December a report from the Open Technology Institute accused internet service providers of using the threat of network congestion to justify data caps when their real motive was profit — and now the former head of the Federal Communications Commission appears to have admitted as much. B...
In the end: profit
Beloved internet folk musician Jonathan Coulton might be a champion of filesharing and liberal copyright laws, but it looks like he's not so happy with Glee's too-liberal use of his work: he took to Twitter today to note that a recent episode of...
Last month New York paper The Journal News garnered some serious attention by publishing a Google map that revealed the names and addresses of pistol and revolver permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties — but it has now pulled the information off the web. Politico reports that the publisher of the Journal News took the map offline at 5pm local time today in what the paper claims...
Google is building its new UK headquarters in central London. The company this week purchased a 2.4-acre plot in the King's Cross Central development, where it will begin construction on a new, 1 million square foot office. Google did not disclose an official price for the land, though a source close to the deal told Reuters that the company is investing £650 million ($1.04 billion) in the project. By the time construction is completed in 2016, the building is expected to be valued at more than £1 billion ($1.6 billion).
"This is a big investment by Google," Matt Britin, Google's VP for Northern and Central Europe, said in a statement. "We're committing further to the UK — where computing and the web were invented. It's good news for Google, for London, and for the UK."
Construction will begin later this year
Lasers, you know? It's like every time you turn around, they're beaming your priceless cultural artifacts to the moon. Then as soon as you get them to stop, they're taking naked pictures of you and showing everyone at the TSA. What's next? Lasers that kick the girl next to you in class and then disappear, so you get blamed for it? Lasers that steal your keys, and beam them to space? And here we...
Post only accessible using your Google password ring
The US installed a record number of wind farms in 2012, totaling 13.2 gigawatts of capacity, according to a report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The surge in production is attributed to two factors, namely falling costs for wind power and a production tax credit that was due to expire on December 31st. As a result in the surge in production, the US now produces 60 gigawatts of wind energy,...
Yesterday's decision by the Federal Aviation Administration to ground all US-based Boeing 787s — the crown jewel in Boeing's commercial aviation product portfolio — is unquestionably an alarming one: it halts the most advanced airliner ever designed from carrying passengers until Boeing can get to the bottom of lithium ion battery fires that have disrupted one flight and left another aircraft smoking at the gate. United, which owns all six of the US 787s currently in service, will be forced to cancel a number of international routes or backfill them with other aircraft until the...
Just two years ago, Andy Greenberg had an hours-long interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The author and Forbes reporter listened as Assange claimed to have a massive trove of documents, the release of which, he promised, could “take down a bank or two.” When Greenberg reported the story, stock speculation led to Bank of America losing $3.5 billion in market value in just a few hours. But the promised documents never materialized. Instead, the real story was in a casual remark Assange made at the end of the interview, after Greenberg’s recorder was turned off. He promised a “megaleak” seven times the size of the Iraq...
Nike's FuelBand and Nike+ running accessories are already among the most popular fitness trackers on the market, but the company is keenly aware the platform holds plenty of room for potential. To that end, today it's released a set of APIs that grant select third-party developers access to your workout metrics; type of activity, exercise duration, calories burned, and earned NikeFuel will all be available to app makers. Developers will also...
Outside devs can now tap into Fuel
Microsoft's promotional upgrade pricing for Windows 8 is coming to an end on January 31st and the company has revealed the long term cost for its new OS today. A Windows 8 Pro upgrade will be available online and in retail stores for $199.99, with the standard Windows 8 upgrade edition available...
When I reviewed the X1 Carbon, Lenovo's flagship ThinkPad laptop, I found few faults. It's an eye-catching computer that combines everything good about ThinkPads – great keyboard, sturdy design, solid performance — with a fit and finish I didn't expect from the company's "black box" line of...
It looks like we finally have a launch date for Microsoft Office 2013: January 29th. The date comes courtesy of a pre-order page on Canadian retailer Future Shop's website for Microsoft's Office 365 subscription service, which says that the...
Ronald D. Moore, best known for the acclaimed reboot of Battlestar Galactica, may be bringing a new TV show to SyFy later this year. Deadline reports that Moore and SyFy are finalizing a deal for Helix, a thriller about "a team of scientists investigating a possible disease...
Dish may have found itself on the wrong side of CNET's "Best of CES" award after parent company CBS forced the editorial staff of the website to revote, but that hasn't stopped Dish from making the most out of the controversy. The company originally broke the news in a press release, and now it...
Business Insider has posted an image from probably the most connected dinner ever to take place in Silicon Valley. Hosted by Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia, guests included Apple's Jony Ive, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, and Google X director Mike Cassidy, who posted the picture to Facebook. Also in attendance at what seems to have been a pizza banquet were the CEOs of services such as Yelp,...
“I think most people feel that if you can find a way to beat the casino, more power to you,” says Arnold Synder, his eyes, those telltale features, hidden behind a pair of black sunglasses. “This place set up the rules, they provide the...
Google Fiber is finally bringing gigabit internet speeds to users in Kansas City, but that's not good enough for the FCC. Chairman Julius Genachoski just issued the "Gigabit City Challenge" — he wants to see all 50 states have at least one community with gigabit internet by 2015. "American...
Should the lowly Chromebook — once a laughing stock of the PC world — have Microsoft worried?
Google first announced its Chrome operating...
It looks like LG may be readying a successor to its Optimus G. Rumored specifications for a so-called Optimus G Pro have surfaced on the web, and it appears that the Android device one-ups its...
NASA has just completed a successful test of laser communication — according to Space.com, the agency just beamed an image of the Mona Lisa from an installation in Maryland to the Lunar...
Kim Dotcom's new venture Mega isn't scheduled to launch publicly until tomorrow, but some press outlets including TechCrunch are getting an early peek at the cloud service right now. In addition to...
Ahead of the highly-anticipated SimCity launch on March 5th, EA and Maxis have announced that users can beta test the game from Friday, January 25th through Monday, January 28th. Interested players...
DNA donors have traditionally had their identities safeguarded under a cloak of anonymity, but a new study suggests that this information isn't as...
Google and the social web generally has been reasonably criticized for taking advantage of the people who create content (whether professionally or not) or those who distribute it, like ISPs. There's a conversation to be had about what responsibility Google has to pay its taxes or promote an even playing field of ideas, and whether the ad-supported business model of the web is capable of...
We already knew Verizon was committed to backing BlackBerry 10, but now we're seeing further evidence that the Z10 will be announced for the biggest US carrier soon. @evleaks has just released a small screenshot on Twitter of a Verizon promo site for "the new BlackBerry Z10," with a spot to sign...
