williewmsyouthfdn.com

“The idea is to create a more consistent, enhanced experience for our customers,” Dudley said. “We can’t allow a small percentage of customers to use an inordinate amount of the network to the detriment of the majority of customers.”

Think about this. Today Time Warner offers a fixed priced for data service. The fastest speed service available is for 10 Mbps downloads and 512 kbps uploads for $44.95 a month. Someone who is willing to spend $45 a month for 10 Mbps of bandwidth is probably the same person who uses peer-to-peer applications. Your basic run-of-the-mill users are probably subscribing to the cheaper 1.5 Mbps/256 kbps service for $29.95

I can almost guarantee you that the $44.95 customers are also savvy enough to know that they are going to lose in the metered-Web model. And they will likely just switch to a competitor, such as Verizon Communications, which offers 15 Mbps downloads and 2 Mbps uploads on its Fios fiber service for $53 a month. Of course, the problem for most consumers is that Fios isn’t available everywhere.

Time Warner Cable is testing a new pricing structure where heavy broadband users will be charged based on how much data they transfer, a company spokesman said Wednesday.

Peer-to-peer protocols allow users to access content that is distributed throughout the network on other computers running the same application. It’s commonly used to transfer music and video files, as well as other large data files.

Service providers, such as AT&T, Comcast, and Time Warner, have been complaining recently that peer-to-peer traffic eats up valuable bandwidth. AT&T argues that much of this traffic is used to distribute illegal content, and the company is testing filtering technology to block it.

Comcast has taken a different approach. It has used traffic shaping to slow down some kinds of peer-to-peer traffic. These moves have prompted outcries from consumer groups, and the Federal Communications Commission is currently investigating whether Comcast has violated any of its policies or principles.

My first impression of this new model is that Time Warner is treading on some dangerous territory. What is ironic to me is that the company will probably scare off the very high-end customers it wants to attract.

A trial for the new pricing scheme is expected to begin in Beaumont, Texas, later this year. Time Warner is testing the new pricing model to see if it can curb usage of peer-to-peer applications on its network, said Alex Dudley, a spokesman for the company.

Meanwhile, Time Warner thinks that metering bandwidth usage will help solve the problem.

Sina’s imagery takes it a bit further, however. I think it would have been possible to get across the point that CNN’s reports have not been always the best informed–a claim I can neither confirm nor deny as I haven’t been watching–without seeming to encourage individuals to turn guns on the network.

Shanghaiist had perhaps the most visually compelling post on the “Red Heart” campaign. It shows an MSN list full of hearts and a Twitter feed utterly concerned with spreading the word about the pride effort.

The story of Grace Wang, told in her own words in The Washington Post, should serve as a cautionary tale.

The graphic at the head of the anti-CNN page on China's largest Internet portal.

(Credit: Sina.com)

“Will” at Imagethief noticed this banner on a special page devoted to resisting “Western” media coverage about Tibet and China in general.

The logo looks like something CNN would cook up at the dawn of a new military campaign, but this time the computer-generated bullet holes are in the CNN logo itself.

On a related note, I have previously reported on the patriotic “Red Heart China” campaign sweeping the Chinese Internet.

All this national sentiment is perhaps not unexpected, and this serves in my mind mostly as an example of the potential effectiveness of online peer pressure. Individuals not especially concerned about recent events may just be going along with the campaign. It would be awkward to be the only person on your friends’ buddy lists not displaying the heart.

Here’s a good Global Voices post on the general anti-CNN movement, which actually is more generally an anti-foreign-media campaign.

The text, according to Will’s translation, which is about as good as I can do as well, reads: “Rise up! Angrily resist the demonization of the Tibet affair! / Chinese netizens roast CNN and other Western media!”

In addition to the smart dryers, Whirlpool has pledged that by 2015, it will discontinue making appliances sans the ability to communicate with smart grids. It will no longer make “dumb” appliances at all.

Whirlpool, which markets appliances under the brand names Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid, Jenn-Air, Amana, Brastemp, Consul, and Bauknecht, joins General Electric in what seems to be a quest for designing the most well-behaved appliances.

Whirlpool, which will get its funding over a two-year period, plans to match the funds in order to have a million smart-grid-compatible dryers available for public purchase by 2011. The smart dryers will be manufactured in the United States, and the company estimates that the dryers could save consumers $20 to $40 per year in energy savings.

“This commitment is dependent on two important public-private partnerships: the development by the end of 2010 of an open, global standard for transmitting signals to, and receiving signals from, a home appliance; and appropriate policies that reward consumers, manufacturers, and utilities for using and adding these new peak-demand reduction capabilities,” Whirlpool said in a statement.

Appliance manufacturer Whirlpool has received $19.3 million in U.S. Department of Energy funding as part of its Smart Grid Investment Grant program, the company announced Thursday.

Whirlpool’s announcement follows President Obama’s release this week of plans to overhaul the country’s electrical grid to turn it into a smart-grid system. An estimated $8.1 billion is planned to be spent on 100 smart-grid projects in 49 states. Utilities themselves will kick in $4.7 billion, while the remaining $3.4 billion will come from the U.S. government as stimulus money.

(Credit:
Whirlpool)

The Whirlpool Duet washer and dryer is part of the company's 2009 line of eco-efficient laundry appliances. With Department of Energy funds, it plans to have a million smart-grid-compliant dryers ready for sale by 2011.

Similar to GE’s smart-appliance ambitions, Whirlpool plans to develop home appliances that can connect and communicate with municipal smart grids. The machines will be able to receive signals from a smart grid, letting it know of off-peak hours, a good time to turn on and run.

That promise, however, is dependent on a few things happening.

District Attorney Daniel Conley said Tuesday: “He probably thought he was going to get away with it. He thought he was too smart for us.”

He was jailed without bail.

This news comes on the same day that it was revealed that Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, is to speak at a memorial service for Katherine Olsen, the 24-year-old woman who was murdered in 2007 by a man who found her using a Craigslist ad.

They also claim to have found plastic ‘zip-tie’ handcuffs, similar to those that are said to have been used during the assault and murder of the masseuse who had been contacted through Craigslist, Julissa Brisman.

James Kehoe, a friend of Mr. Markoff’s at SUNY Albany, told The New York Times that Mr. Markoff regularly played poker with other students: “He did used to play a lot, into the late hours. He got into debt with the games and kept trying to win it back.”

In his court appearance, Mr. Markoff stared straight ahead, blinked with great speed, and said nothing.

Police have also begun to theorize that Mr. Markoff’s motive may well have been robbery.

However, the District Attorney seemed less concerned with the motive and more concerned with communicating the nature of the murder: “This was a brutal, vicious crime–savage, and it shows Philip Markoff is a man who is willing to take advantage of women, to hurt them, to beat them, to rob them.”

(Credit: CC BL Murch/Flickr)

Philip Markoff, suspected of killing a woman he met through Craigslist at a Boston hotel, appeared in court Thursday to face charges of murder, armed robbery, and kidnapping.

They believe he may have needed money to cover gambling debts. A police source was quoted by several newspapers as suggesting that Mr. Markoff gambled as much as $1,000 a hand at Foxwoods casino.

Police have revealed that in a search of the apartment Mr. Markoff shared with his fiancee, 25-year-old Megan McAllister, they found a semiautomatic weapon, bullets, and duct tape.

As he did, Boston police began to reveal more details of a crime that seems to have shocked many for the very sad reason that Mr. Markoff doesn’t conform to the supposed image of what a killer should be and look like.

It’s true that the questions we asked the candidates were limited; we didn’t include some that we could have (and maybe, in retrospect, should have) on topics like Internet service providers detecting copyrighted material, the problems of doing business in China, and so on. But even with their limitations, we hope our 2008 Voters’ Guide and the above chart will help you out if you’re voting on Tuesday–assuming, that is, that you bother voting at all.

Who would be the most tech-friendly president?

The source for this chart is the 2008 Voters’ Guide we published last month. To create it, we contacted all the leading candidates and reproduced their replies verbatim. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, by the way, refused to respond even though we gave them more than a month, so their positions are gleaned where possible from other news coverage. Because those are our interpretations of their positions, they’re marked with an asterisk.

We asked Hillary Clinton whether she supported a permanent ban on Internet taxes, but she evaded the question. (Clinton said only that she supported a temporary moratorium, which is an answer to a different question.) We asked John McCain whether he supported forcing Internet service providers to retain data on their users’ activities. He replied only that he wants to find the “best path forward”–which might be forgivable obfuscation from a neophyte, but not from the former chairman of the Senate committee overseeing this area of Internet law.

Q: Congress has considered Net neutrality legislation, but it never became law. Do you support the legislation that was re-introduced in 2007 (S 215), which gives the FCC the power to punish “discriminatory” conduct by broadband providers?

Q: The Department of Homeland Security has proposed extensive Real ID requirements restricting which state ID cards can be accepted at federal buildings and airports. Do you support those regulations as written, would you want to repeal Real ID, or would you prefer something in between?

The short answer: it depends. Do you like the idea of Net neutrality so much that you’d hand the Federal Communications Commission the authority to levy open-ended Internet regulations? Do you support pro-fair use changes to copyright law, which many programmers and computer scientists do–but which practically all software and video game companies oppose?

Q: Do you support enacting federal laws providing for a permanent moratorium on Internet access taxes?

On the Republican side, Paul is definitely libertarian-leaning: He doesn’t want the government involved in Internet taxation or regulation — even if it’s supposedly done to protect children. If something is pro-law enforcement, like Real ID or retroactive immunity for telephone companies, McCain’s a fan.

In Romney’s case, his major Internet platform seems to be pledging to “fight the modern plague of Internet pornography.” Huckabee seems to be sympathetic to Internet taxes (his counter-argument is here). He also appears to endorse Net neutrality on “fairness” grounds — though his answer was vague — and has criticized warrantless wiretapping.

Even with the missing answers, these positions seem to reflect the candidates’ broader philosophies. Obama appears more liberal than Clinton, flatly opposing the Real ID Act while she’s less forceful, saying it needs to be reviewed. Both engage in a careful lapse in memory: unlike Paul, Clinton and Obama voted for Real ID as part of a broader “Global War on Terror” spending bill three years ago before turning around and criticizing it.

Q: The Bush administration has supported legally requiring Internet service providers, and perhaps search engines and social-networking Web sites as well, to keep logs on who their users are and what they do. Do you support federal legislation, such as HR 837, to mandate data retention?

Net neutrality legislation
Telecom spying immunity
DMCA fair use reform
Supports Real ID Act
ISP data retention required
Permanent Net-tax ban
Increased H1-B visas Clinton
Strong yes
No
Ducked question
Maybe
Ducked question
Ducked question
Probably yes Huckabee
Maybe*
Ducked question
Ducked question
Ducked question
Ducked question
Probably not*
Ducked question McCain
No
Probably yes
Ducked question
Strong yes
Ducked question
Yes
Strong yes Obama
Strong yes
No
Probably yes
No
No
Yes
Probably yes Paul
No
Strong no
Probably yes
Strong no
No
Yes
Yes Romney
Ducked question
Ducked question
Ducked question
Yes*
Ducked question
Yes*
Yes*

Q: The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s section restricting the “circumvention” of copy protection measures is supported by many copyright holders but has been criticized by some technologists as hindering innovation. Would you support changing the DMCA to permit Americans to make a single backup copy of a DVD, Blu-ray Disc DVD, HD DVD, or video game disc they have legally purchased?

Anyway, the first thing you probably noticed in the chart is that even candidates who answered some questions ducked others, which is deeply disappointing. Any would-be president should be able to answer without equivocation. Only Barack Obama and Ron Paul gave us forthright replies, and they deserve credit for their directness.

The questions we asked the candidates that are summarized in the chart’s columns are these:

Q: Telecommunications companies such as AT&T have been accused in court of opening their networks to the government in violation of federal privacy law. Do you support giving them retroactive immunity for any illicit cooperation with intelligence agencies or law enforcement, which was proposed by the Senate Intelligence Committee this fall (S 2248)?

And to stave off the usual objections in advance, we know that the economy, the occupation of Iraq, and so on are more pressing topics than these. We know that there are many methods of evaluating candidates. But this chart provides a useful glimpse of a politician’s core beliefs, including what the role of the federal government should be, and those are important beyond what we write about here at News.com.

Q: Do you support enacting federal laws providing for an increase in the current limits on H-1B visas?

To help clear things up for our readers living in the 24 states that are holding primaries or caucuses on Tuesday, we’ve assembled a sketch of the leading contenders’ technology-related positions in the following chart.

(Credit:
Engadget)

Surprising virtually no one, Dell has some top-secret new laptops coming out, and there’s already a bunch of leaked docs about them floating around the Interwebs this morning.

The mainstream Inspiron line, currently sitting at the 1420, 1525, and 1720 level, is getting an upgrade with three new models–the 14-inch 1435, the 15-inch 1535, and the 17-inch 1735, according to Engadget. (At least they stick to a simple, relatively obvious naming system–now can someone please explain to me why HP’s 14-inch laptop is called the 2700?)

The leaked docs we saw give a release date of October for the 1435, May 26 for the 1535, and June 9 for the 1735.

These look like they have a tapered design and prominent side hinge that’s similar to the well-regarded XPS 1330 and 1530 models, as well as slot-loading optical drives and capacitive touch buttons.

The Samsung CLP-315 laser printer comes dressed in black, but it cranks out glorious color. Normally $200, Staples has the CLP-315 on sale for $129.98 after a $70 mail-in rebate. Shipping is free, though you may have to pay sales tax.

I’ve not found any hard-hitting reviews of this model, though three Staples customers had very positive things to say. If you’re looking for cheap, high-quality color printing (in my book, lasers always trump inkjets) and don’t mind waiting on a rebate, this looks like a solid deal.

The printer features a 150-sheet input tray, a maximum print resolution of 2,400 x 600 dpi, and rated print speeds of 17 pages per minute and 4 ppm for black and color, respectively. Alas, it’s not a network printer, and it doesn’t even come with a USB cable. (For the love of Cheapskate, don’t pay Staples $19.99 for one; get one from someplace like Monoprice for 88 cents.)

Update: As an astute reader pointed out, the rebate is actually a Visa debit card, not a check. You’re still getting $70 back, but you can’t put it in your bank account. Sorry for the confusion.

(Credit:
Samsung)

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

In a recent report, Forrester advised its clients to plan months ahead to figure out which Microsoft licensing option made the most financial sense. The analysis firm also said that Microsoft’s Software Assurance support program is more expensive compared with rivals.

The program’s two main attractions are the fact that it is not tied to a specific term and it makes it easier for different subsidiaries of a company to take advantage of their combined purchasing power.

Microsoft said Monday that it is adding a new licensing option, this one dubbed Select Plus and targeted largely at midsize firms.

“Many customers end up with multiple agreements because Select is not as flexible as customers would like,” he said. Microsoft isn’t getting rid of Select, but expects that over time, customers will choose the new option.

“Microsoft’s software maintenance agreement is among the industry’s most expensive–25 percent for server products and 29 percent for desktop products,” Forrester said in the report. “In terms of upgrade rights–the major element–this
is only cost-justified by a three- to four-year upgrade cycle, but Microsoft has undermined Software Assurance’s value proposition by missing delivery dates for new versions.”

The software maker has come under criticism from some customers and analysts for both the cost and the complexity of its licensing programs.

Although it adds yet another option, Joe Matz, corporate vice president at Microsoft, said that Select Plus fills a need.

The additional option runs counter to the trend at Microsoft, which has been working to scale back the number of different licensing plans. The company had managed to shrink its number of options–from 107 programs in 2006 to 23 as of last year. With Select Plus, the number of Microsoft licensing programs has crept back up to 26.

Despite having a working relationship integrating Adobe’s media editing technologies on videos, photo hosting giant Photobucket isn’t waiting around for Adobe to release Photoshop Express, and instead has partnered with FotoFlexer to serves as its de facto editor. Starting tomorrow, users will be able to edit any photo right inside Photobucket using FotoFlexer’s editing tools. Edited photos can replace or be stored alongside existing shots.

The functionality is scheduled to go live early tomorrow morning. In the meantime we have a couple of screenshots of the new functionality after the break.

(Credit:
Photobucket Inc.)

I got a chance to talk to Alex Welch, CEO and co-founder of Photobucket about picking FotoFlexer over building out an in-house editing tool. Welch said that editing was the No. 1 user requested feature on the service, and that choosing an outside company’s technology was the better choice given the time frame they were looking at. He said building an in-house editing tool would have simply taken too long.

(Credit:
Photobucket Inc.)

Photobucket users can now edit shots without leaving the site using FotoFlexer.

In many ways this is an answer to what Flickr has done with Picnik, a move that has cross pollinated both services with new users, and given a hefty boost to Picnik’s traffic and premium service subscriptions (see more on this). FotoFlexer has a “professional” service of its own, although it’s completely free, unlike competitor Picnik, which charges $25 a year for access to advanced editing tools that later trickle down to free users.

In regards to the company’s relationship with Adobe, going forward Welch said they’re sticking with FotoFlexer as the integrated editing tool and that the upcoming Photoshop Express looks to be more of a “finishing tool” than what users were looking for. Welch said FotoFlexer provides more of what “our demographics really want.”

Want to turn a picture of your girlfriend into a cat? You can now do so using FotoFlexer's editing tools right inside of Photobucket.

(Credit:
New Balance)

(Credit:
CNET Networks/Jasmine France)

I hope it looks better than this!

(via Wired)

If you’re a big Joy Division fan, I’ve got good news for you–unless of course you’re also a huge iPod fan. Microsoft is set to release a limited edition Joy Division
Zune on June 10, to coincide with an upcoming DVD about the band. The player will feature an etching of the cover art from band’s 1979 debut, Unknown Pleasures. Perhaps Microsoft will even throw in a digital copy of the album, though there is nothing to substantiate this postulating. There are no images available of the new Zune just yet, but my subpar mock-up at right might give you some idea. Or look below for an image of New Balances of a similar nature that came out around this time last year.