Find Our Latest Video Reviews on YouTube!
If you want to stay on top of all of our video reviews of the latest tech, be sure to check out and subscribe to the Gear Live YouTube channel, hosted by Andru Edwards! It’s free!
Comcast Raising Cable Internet Speeds
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Hot Deals, Internet,
Good news for those of us who are serviced by Comcast for cable and high speed Internet. Beginning in July, Comcast will be upgrading subscribers speeds by a whole 2.0 Mbps at no cost. If you currently subscribe to at least Comcast Expanded Basic Cable TV service or above, the following HSI options are available to you:
6.0/384 - $42.95 - Up from 4.0/384
8.0/768 - $52.95 - Up from 6.0/768
As Comcast just recently upgraded their network just a few months ago, a second speed increase leads me to believe that they are feeling the heat from services like Verizon FIOS.
Read More 
| Venturus
Advertisement
Have you been in a “brainstorming” session where each person just defended their own ideas? Worse is when people don’t suggest ideas at all, for fear they’ll be attacked. That’s no way to brainstorm. Brainstorming is using the power of many minds, and ideas should flow freely and trigger other ideas. How do you make that happen?
Click to continue reading Brainstorming Secrets
The folks over at Control Our Junk have created a working train set which can be controlled by anyone with an Internet connection. Using a Java console, visitors can control the speed of the train. The commands are routed to the server running a .NET application, which in turn sends the command to the train set. The train is always on, and can be viewed and/or controlled at any time.
Read More | Control Our Junk via Slashdot
Latest Gear Live Videos
The Drive+Play From Harmon/Kardon
Posted by Devin Categories: Accessories, Misc. Tech, Portable Audio / Video,
The Drive+Play from Harman/Kardon is the most convienient iPod accesory I’ve seen in a while. Consisting of three parts, it makes listening to your favorite songs while driving a breeze. The first piece slightly resembles a joystick, but it actually has a clickwheel-like control on the top which allows you to control your iPod without ever having to touch it. Just place it anywhere in your car that’s easy for you to get to. The next piece of the Drive+Play is a small, 5 line LCD that you can place anywhere on your dash, which allows you to see what song is playing, or what menu screen you’re at. The last piece is what you might consider the “brains” of the whole operation. It has a connecting port for your iPod, and serves as an information processor. Inside, there’s a wireless FM modulator with five set frequencies and you even have the ability to add one in if you’d like. A 3.5mm output jack allows you to connect the Drive+Play to any vehicle with an auxiliary input, and there’s even and input jack if you ever have the need to connect any other audio signals into your car’s audio system. It even features automatic shut-off and will charge your iPod when docked. Harman/Kardon’s Drive+Play hits stores in September and is expeced to retail for around $200.
Read More | Oh Gizmo!
We have written about the Internet Archive recently and are surprised to see that they are being sued - for providing the archive itself! A Philadelphia law firm was defending a health care company being sued in a trademark violation. The firm used the way-back machine to show the courts old web-pages dating back to 1999 to prove their use of the trademark. Now the plaintiff is filing suit against the Internet Archive for violations of two federal laws: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Now I am not a lawyer, but I don’t see how they broke copyright by archiving a copy of a public website, and making it available for the Internet in general.
Read More | NYTimes - Reg Required
Just about 30 percent of households in the United Kingdom have broadband now, a number that suggests that by 2010 the number of people watching TV via their broadband connection will be higher than those viewing with an analog television. Media regulator Ofcom also says that there are now 8.1 million broadband connections accross the UK, while only 7.5 million households are using dial up, a number that has dropped 1.1 million in the last six months alone. It seems falling broadband prices and increased connection speeds are responsible for the nearly 2 million people who have signed up for broadband since December of 2004.
Read More | BBC News
Is Canada about to outlaw search engines and Internet archive sites? Bill C-60, which calls to amend the Copyright Act, hints that it just may be illegal for sites such as Google or the Internet Archive to provide someone with copyrighted information through “information-location tools”. Right now, it’s not all that clear, but thats due to the bill being written so vaguely.
The way it is drafted strongly suggests that the reproduction and caching activity done by Google or the Wayback Machine at archive.org and similar essential research tools would be illegal in Canada. It could be read by a court as a ‘deeming’ provision, which was hopefully not the intention. “We shouldn’t cripple the Googles of the world by imposing copyright chill on the very basis of their architecture. In fact, they perform a very useful service to copyright owners by enabling easy detection of infringement. The owners should go after the actual infringer, rather than effectively shooting the messenger.
Read More | Globe Technology
Check it out - this guy removed the casing a standard Nintendo Entertainment System, and put the innards into a custom-built LEGO shell. The result was a fully playable LEGO-ized retro NES. Double retro!
Read More | Spoocher
...Glenn Alvin Reed, 31 of Waco, Texas who apparently managed to piss off every juror while on trial for stealing a cell phone by making an obscene gesture to a Texas Ranger that testified against him and going off into profanity-laced tirades. Reed told they jury, “There’s things I choose to do, like, if I go in a store and choose to take a Snickers bar. If you catch me, you catch me. If not, I’m going to go home and eat it up and go on about my business, dog.” Trying hard to sound tough, he told the jury that he didn’t care if they gave him life in prison. I guess in this case, the defendants’ wish was the jurys’ command, as they gave him 99 years in prison. Have fun, Glenn!
Read More | Wired
We’ve all heard that the entertainment industry expects ISP’s to hand over IP information when suspected pirating has occured. On a positive front, Tuesday in the Netherlands a court ruled that Dutch ISP’s do not have to hand over IP info, and even went as far as to say that doing so is a violation of privacy laws. As with everything in life, there are a few exceptions, and this ruling is pretty specific to the case, but it’s nice to see a court protecting privacy instead of giving out information over little evidence.
Read More | Constitutional Code
Advertisement
© Gear Live Inc. {year} – User-posted content, unless source is quoted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License. Gear Live graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, videos, articles, blogs, forums, scripts and other service names are the trademarks of Gear Live Inc.