For the future of innovation in the United States, few things seem as important access to broadband Internet connections. The FCC seems to realize this, which is why they’ve set up the National Broadband Plan. And yet, we’re screwed.
As Harvard Law professor Yochai Benkler lays out in an excellent op-ed today in the New York Times, this new broadband plan may sound great, but it won’t go nearly far enough. The reason is that there is simply nowhere near enough competition in almost all of the markets in this country. In fact, under the new plan, some 85% of homes covered would have no choice when it comes to a provider. So while it’s great that just about everyone will potentially have broadband access in 2020, plenty likely won’t be able to afford it.
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LONDON — LIvestation, the small London-based start-up which organizes real time feeds of 20 of the world’s leading video news sources, had 5 million video views with 65 million minutes of video watched in January, according to founder and CEO Matteo Berlucci.
I caught up with Berlucci at our London event earlier this month. He explained how his business works with several of the world’s leading news services through both subscription and revenue share.
Last month, the company announced an iPhone app. It will soon release apps or Blackberry and Droid devices.
The site serves up many news sources, however, several including Bloomberg, CNBC and CNN are geo-blocked in the United States.
No, we can’t give you a clear reason why this particular chap did this particular thing, but good gravy, look at the pretty pictures! We’ve come across an iPhone-inspired font that looks to have been created by collating and color coding a vast collection of apps in order to properly represent the English alphabet. There’s not much info given beyond the app count and the fact it required an architect with “too much free time” on his hands, but we’re not going to begrudge a visual attraction when we can get one. You might be able to get the typography for yourself by contacting the author at the source link, or you can skip past the break to see it on video — if you’re careful enough you should be able to spot the world’s greatest mobile app making a guest appearance.
Continue reading iPhone font created out of 540 apps and a love for the arcane (video)
Virtual currency platform gWallet is announcing a partnership with online privacy certification company TRUSTe to reinforce gWallet ethical guidelines in the virtual currency space. gWallet partners with both brands and game developers to bring users virtual currency offers on games within social networks.
Following the Scamville controversy in the virtual offers space, the startups which provide these offers on games have been working to rid their platforms of misleading offers. In fact, Offerpal CEO George Garrick promised to take a leadership position in cleaning up scammy ads. Competitor Gwallet has also promised to never offer these type of ads, and is now partnering with TRUSTe to certify gWallet’s privacy practices. TRUSTe will also monitor offers submitted by gWallet‘s advertisers to ensure they aren’t misleading. For example, previously fake quizzes would be tied to long term mobile subscriptions, malware-laden toolbar downloads and and other scams. And Gwallet is betting on TRUSTe to keep these offers at bay.
Clearly, we love clean workspaces here at Lifehacker, and we’ve featured many ways to hack cable management solutions together. For those of you less DIY-oriented, you can get buy pre-made solutions from IKEA—just as cheaply as you could make them.
We’ve mentioned one member of the SIGNUM series before in our going cordless feature, and we still love it—it's cheap, spacious, and requires little DIY work. However, IKEA offers tons of other options if you need something smaller, cheaper, or a bit less unsightly. The $5 cable organiser, for example (pictured above), is great if you are a laptop user, as it's easily transportable and actually hides your cables (unlike the aforementioned under-the-desk basket)—it's not the prettiest, but it's certainly better than a mess of cables, as well as cheap and easier than, say, the rain gutter hack. Check out the rest of the line for cheap charging stations and cable managers galore.
Often people are quick to dismiss the benefits of frugal behavior modifications and decisions that yield only incremental savings. Factor in the economy of scale for the changes you’re making to see the true savings.
Over at the financial and frugality blog The Simple Dollar they took a hard look at how to judge whether a frugal change in your life actually yields a return and how you shouldn’t dismiss small amounts of savings that add up over time. They examine various examples of saving money and how that stacks up over years, including simple things like making your own breakfast:
Some weeks, writing this column is easy. All it takes is for an influential person – a politician, a business person, perhaps even a fellow columnist – to say something dumb and I get to spend a thousand words or so explaining precisely why they’re wrong. The “why x is wrong about y” construction is the columnist’s best friend: it’s as old as the hills and even easier to build a house on.
Some weeks though, it’s even easier than that. Someone will say something so breathtakingly wrong – so tracheotomy-cravingly moronic – that I don’t need to explain anything. Simply quoting their words back at them is sufficient to make the point.
Ah, springtime. Ain’t it beautiful? So beautiful, in fact, that you’re apt to want to capture the flowers blooming and the kids playing around you, which is probably why JVC finally decided to ship the Everio GZ-HM550 that it announced back at CES. As far as handheld camcorders go, it’s one of the better specced models on the market, touting a 10.6 megapixel CMOS sensor, 32GB of inbuilt storage, an SD / SDHC expansion slot, an integrated Bluetooth module (for controlling the camera’s play, zoom and record functions via cellphone) and geotagging support when used with a compatible BT phone. Oh, and users can even sync up a Bluetooth headset in order to monitor the recorded sound or input voice recordings. You’ll also get 1080p recording, a 16x zoom and the ability to snag 9 megapixel stills, all for the low, low price of $799.95. Go ahead — step your YouTube game way up.
Continue reading JVC ships Bluetooth-packin’, geotagging Everio GZ-HM550 camcorder
Three continents, three more milestone announcements for 3D. First up is Sky TV, which, with or without 15,000 or so flat screens from LG, is officially launching its Sky 3D channel around the Man. U/Chelsea game on April 3. Already have a 3DTV and Sky’s “top channels and HD pack?” Call the company with details for activation, while everyone else checks to see if their local pub is among the thousand plus already signed up to receive the six live 3D matches slated for this season (plus the Coca Cola league playoff finals) and demo reel for all non-footy hours of the day. Bringing the focus back home, ESPN 3D has scheduled the first event it will produce and air itself, the MLB Home Run Derby on July 12, a day after launching with the SA/Mexico World Cup game. Other events officially on deck (the plan for the first year is still about 85) include several college basketball tournaments and the ACC Championship football game in December. Last but not least is Japan, already home to at least one 3D network, which will soon have access to even more over the cross-manufacturer AcTVila video on-demand service. Clearly, the only logical thing to do is to keep that “3D will never take off” comment macro keyed up, it will be getting a lot of use over the next few months.
Three for 3D: ESPN 3D adds Home Run Derby, Sky 3D launches 4/3, AcTVila makes the jump this summer originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 21 Mar 2010 06:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where peoplemail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.
