Google just unveiled the pricing plans for the super-fast Google Fiber gigabit Internet service it's rolling out in the Kansas Cities in both Missouri and Kansas, and wow, subscribers get a lot for a little. Basic fiber-based gigabit Internet only costs $70; gigabit Internet plus TV (with a full channel lineup) costs $120 per month; and there's even an option to receive totally free Internet for at least 7 years.
They say bad things come in threes, and that was definitely true for folks who rely on the Internet for communications and cloud-based data centers today. The woes started this morning when Google Talk went down and stayed down for several hours. Then Microsoft's Windows Azure service went belly up in Europe, followed by some users running into outage issues with Twitter. And without Twitter, how are you going to complain about the other services being down?
For privacy-minded types and people in repressed parts of the world, Tor is a valuable tool. The anonymity-enabling onion routing service does have a few drawbacks, however, including its sometimes sub-optimal connection speeds. Tor's browsing speeds have gotten noticeably better over recent months and years, and the poor connections may disappear completely if a proposal that's currently under consideration is adopted: actually paying people and organizations with fast connections to act as a Tor exit relay.
Netflix's recent return to profits must have made CEO Reed Hastings a wee bit giddy; buried deep in the company's new earnings report was a paragraph that teased the possibility of a Netflix-HBO partnership. Will we someday be able to stream Game of Thrones? In a word: no. After the press circulated the speculation yesterday, HBO promptly released a statement squashing the rumor with extreme prejudice.
One of the biggest pet peeves in a technology enthusiast's life is the plethora of proprietary power cables that plague the consumer market, each with a slightly different design. Can't we all just get along and charge via USB? That utopian vision took one step closer to becoming reality yesterday, as the USB 3.0/2.0 Promoter Groups announced a USB power delivery spec that makes the every-port capable of delivering up to 100W of pure power. Yep, your PC can now charge a notebook. Heck, a laptop could even theoretically charge another notebook.
Have you noticed how cheap NAND-powered memory devices have gotten? Flash drives and SSDs aren't quite a dime a dozen these days, but they're significantly cheaper than they have been in the past. While you and I may appreciate the decline in costs, low pricing is putting the pinch on NAND manufacturers, and Toshiba is cutting its NAND production by about 30 percent to compensate. (And drive up prices, of course.)
Usually, when you hear about CEO compensation, it's in relation to how mind-blowingly much executives make, or how a dismissed honcho left riding on a golden parachute. Not at Lenovo. The PC provider has been on a tear in recent months and is on the verge of supplanting HP as the number one computer manufacturer in the world. That top-notch performance made CEO Yang Yuanqing eligible for a big fat bonus check. Rather than keeping the cash for himself, he divvied up the $3 million performance-related bonus into 10,000-ish slices and distributed it to the everymen (and women) who make up the bulk of the company.
What, a 100Mbps cable broadband connection isn't fast enough for you? Then you've only got one choice, my friend: switch to Verizon FiOS and bask in the 300Mbps fiber-tastic service the company unveiled a few months back. What, even 300Mbps isn't fast enough for you? Then maybe Comcast's apparent plans to launch a competing 305Mbps offering might wet your whistle, instead. (And if not, what the heck are you using all that speed for?)
Netflix may still be the go-to service when it comes to streaming video, but Amazon's doing all it can to make its Prime Instant Video an attractive deal for $80 a year. Today, Amazon announced that it has signed a deal with Warner Brothers to bring its shows to Prime, including an exclusive deal for Fringe and The West Wing.
Critics say that the collective interwebz can never again generate as much political pressure as it did in the days leading up to the SOPA/PIPA votes. A new organization scoffs at the idea and promises to sound a warning alarm whenever the open Internet is threatened. The idea behind The Internet Defense League sounds lofty, but the group already has many of the major forces behind the blackout on board and ready to spring to action.
-
Technology
Entertainment
-
Music
-
Creative
Sport & Auto
- About Future
- Jobs
- News
- Advertising
- Digital Future
- Privacy Policy
- Cookies Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Shop
- Investor Relations
- Contact Future
© Future US, Inc. 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, California, 94080. All Rights Reserved.