Recent Comments:
Piicron: why choose, when you can have it all? Invest now! {Engadget}
Sep 3rd 2008 12:34AM If that "13.37" didn't give this thing away as a joke, I don't know what would...
Pandora finally (finally!) gets a ship date and price {Engadget}
Sep 2nd 2008 9:14AM I didn't see any RickRolling going on there, but I admittedly got bored and stopped watching it after about 4-5 minutes.
USB anion humidifier soda can confirms you shouldn't be allowed to have a credit card {Engadget}
Aug 31st 2008 4:20PM "...gives great surface feeling"
Well, that just kinda opens all kinds of doors, doesn't it...
Comcast set to begin bandwidth capping come October 1st {Engadget}
Aug 30th 2008 11:13PM Please don't be so ignorant.
I go over 250GB a month regularly and I'm not doing anything illegal, nor am I running a business from my home. I work for a company who has the majority of their 300,000+ employees classified as "mobile" or "home office" workers. We get reimbursed for office supplies, cell/home phone and broadband Internet service.
The average size of a single one of our products is probably around 300MB. To do an install of a solution based on those products can mean 5-10GB of product downloads. Building VMware images and then uploading those back to central servers is 10-20GB a pop.
Add to that 8-10 hours a day of VOIP phone calls, web conferences and/or remote access sessions.
Fortunately, I haven't seemed to catch Comcast's attention, though I know I'm regularly hitting between 150GB-300GB a month in usage, and that's if I leave out the large video files I end up transferring as part of a filmmaking/editing hobby I have.
There are no other options that Comcast offers me outside of two residential plans--the terms of service allow for all of the activities I've mentioned above. If they offered a higher bandwidth plan, I'd probably take them up on it. If they offered a business option, I would likely take that as well even though I'm not running any servers here.
The least that Comcast can do here is meet their high-usage minority halfway. Am I using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth compared to my neighbors? Probably, but since there's nothing in the ToS that addressed that issue before, I think I've been entitled to use the connection I've been paying for. If they now want to impose a limit that they haven't chosen to enforce before, then offer me a premium account that allows for higher consumption.
Seriously, this is common business sense. I know that's a bit of a stretch for any telco, particularly when they get lazy with no real competition, but bad karma's still bad karma...
Lastly, if you pull more than this in bandwidth, you're probably either doing something illegal (like mass downloads of movies or music) or running a business. Since this cap refers to the residential line, according to the terms of your service agreement, you are not supposed to be running a business on this line. If anything like Time Warner (and I'm sure it is) there is a separate commercial business line you can purchase that will give you unlimited bandwidth (for a bunch more cash).
Comcast set to begin bandwidth capping come October 1st {Engadget}
Aug 30th 2008 11:00PM No, I don't have Comcast for television. It's a single outlet coming into my house and it's a new (well, new when I ordered the service) run from the junction box, which is in my back yard. It's got nothing to do with the wiring--my neighbors have the same issue, so I chalk it up to the "shared bandwidth" thing and poor capacity planning on Comcast's part.
And Comcast doesn't offer any business plans for my area for reasons no one seems interested in explaining to me. There are two residential plans (6 down/768 up and 8 down/2 up) and that's all we get. My employer does pay for the service, but that still doesn't give me a workable solution if Comcast indeeds enforces these limits. I'm too far from the CO for DSL, Verizon isn't planning on coming here anytime soon, and AT&T, despite having new VRADs nearby, won't tell anyone when U-Verse will be available because they're terrified of Comcast. Sad thing is that it isn't like I live in BFE...I'm in a Chicago suburb with a population of 40K.
Comcast set to begin bandwidth capping come October 1st {Engadget}
Aug 29th 2008 10:53PM Despite Comcast claiming that my connection is 8 down/2 up, I never came close to reaching that speed either way.
That said, I find it interesting that the US providers are moving towards a metered policy while other countries are going the opposite direction. My in-laws live in Russia and were only offered metered plans until this year...now they have an "unlimited" option (no MB limits, though the speed seems to be more in the range of 2 down/1 up).
Wouldn't you think these guys would work towards supporting the reality to come of larger streaming downloads and people working from home? I routinely transfer 10+GB VMware images and am constantly on VOIP and/or VNC sessions. We also do a lot of our software distribution via torrents (Eclipse).
Instead of threatening to boot the "violators", why not offer them a higher capacity package at a premium? I'd pay a few bucks more if it meant I didn't have to babysit my bandwidth usage.
Epson stirs pot, conjures up 4-inch high-res LTPS LCD {Engadget}
Aug 28th 2008 11:45AM Too much trouble for you to actually read the source material, Darren?
Product specifications
4-Inch LTPS LCD for Photo Viewer P-6000/7000
Screen size 10.2 cm / 4.03 inches
Pixels 640 x R-YG-B-EG x 480 dot VGA
4Color Filter (Red, Yellow Green, Blue, Emerald Green)
Type Low-temperature polysilicon TFT (LTPS)
Viewing angle 160 degrees
Display mode Photo Fine Vistarich, transmissive
Pixel pitch Approx. 200 ppi
No. of colors Approx. 16,770k
Other features Back light: White LED
New Indiana Jones game rated for DS, PSP {Joystiq}
Aug 28th 2008 11:14AM No Indiana Jones on a console, huh?
>goes back to playing Raiders on Atari 2600...
M2E says it will deliver cellphone-charging motion power device in 2009 {Engadget}
Aug 26th 2008 7:14PM Scott eVest makes gadget jackets that have a "soft" solar panel flap that attaches to the back...
http://www.scottevest.com/v3_product_info/solar_faq.shtml
And a review:
http://www.pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=reviews&id=596
Seems that they're not actively promoting it with their current products, though.
iriver's Mplayer ties one on {Engadget}
Aug 6th 2008 7:46AM Darren Murph thinks these are pretty.
