If it’s right for them to regulate content of TV and radio, then why not newspapers and blogs and the Internet in general?  Why are they different?

Governmental regulation of these has nothing to do with anything except controlling a mass medium of information dissemination.  They can shut down anything they need to when they need to when it comes down to it. Do you want them to have that same control over the Internet?  Too many people are looking at this in a shortsighted way.  They don’t want companies to be able to prioritize traffic, yet they don’t want the FCC or any other government agency to control any other part of the Internet.  You don’t get it both ways when dealing with the government.   Haven’t you learned that yet?  Apparently not.

It’s just like the Patriot Act.  You are willing to give up your freedom for some sense of security, and you are willing to give up the free and open internet for some sense that you have some control over mass media companies like Google and Verizon.  Either way you won’t have the control you want but the government will.  It’s simply a very bad idea.

Last month, 35 Tea Party groups came out against net neutrality in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The letter accused the FCC of “relentlessly pursuing a massive regulatory regime” that would stifle the growth of the Internet.

The FCC is considering a move to boost its authority over broadband providers through a controversial process known as reclassification. The process could give federal regulators the power to impose net-neutrality rules, which would prevent Internet access providers from favoring some content and applications over others.

via Net-neutrality group challenged by ties to MoveOn.Org, ACORN – The Hill’s Hillicon Valley.

On the misuse of information for criminal or anti-social purposes:
“The only way to manage this is true transparency and no anonymity. In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it.”

via Google CEO Schmidt: “People Aren’t Ready for the Technology Revolution”.

Will the Web get faster, or just more expensive? That’s the issue at the heart of the “net neutrality” debate.

Content providers and creators are teaming up to optimize the delivery of certain types of information, notably bandwidth heavy video files. This may ease demand on over-taxed service providers, but could lead to a tiered Internet, where consumers pay more for certain types of content.

And Google and Verizon

may be working to make it happen.

The companies are close to finalizing a proposal for network

neutrality rules, which would dictate how broadband providers treat Internet traffic flowing over their lines, according to a story in the New York Times.

A deal could be announced within days, said a person familiar with the deal, who did not want to be identified because negotiations are still ongoing.

A Google spokesman promptly refuted the story, however.

“The New York Times is quite simply wrong,” wrote Mistique Cano in an e-mail to Computerworld. “We have not had any conversations with Verizon about paying for carriage of Google traffic. We remain as committed as we always have been to an open Internet.”

via FOXNews.com – Google, Verizon Near Plan to Created Tiered Internet.

Chris Paget made a name for himself back in 2009 when he exposed security vulnerabilities in RFID that allowed him to wirelessly download the contents of US passports from a parked car and he’s making headlines again by exposing serious problems in the GSM cellphone network. Using nothing more than an off the shelf laptop, and a pair of RF antennas he was able to successfully imitate an AT&T cellphone tower which allowed him to intercept and record phone calls. “As far as your cell phones are concerned, I’m now indistinguishable from AT&T,” he told a crowd at this year’s DefCon security conference.

via Hacker Intercepts GSM Phone Calls Using a Homemade $1,500 IMSI Catcher | Maximum PC.

Remember that study that told you to pull the plug on your kid’s gaming corner if you didn’t want him/her to have the attention span of a dog with its head stuck out a car window? Well, it’s kind of wrong. Or at least, the experimenters in question blew their study way out of proportion and conducted some seriously sloppy research. So say Christopher Ferguson of Texas A&M and T. Atilla Ceranoglu of Harvard Medical School.

via Videogames Cause Short Attention Spans? Not So Much, Say Researchers | Maximum PC.

I hope that this will at least lead to some common sense in offshore drilling.  Best case, this should lead to some kind of new technology or advancement in existing technology to prevent similar accidents and set up contingencies for containing gushing spills like this.  I can’t imagine how they’ve been doing all of this drilling without any contingency in place.  I don’t have a clue as to what the problem is at the moment that’s preventing BP from capping the well, but it must be a huge hurdle.  Every day that it goes on, it further damages their credibility.

I also hope that BP will be held responsible for cleanup and damage to livelihoods.  I know that it will be tough to gauge, but it shouldn’t be that difficult to at least know who has been damaged by it.  Look at their income tax filings from last year and determine if they have indeed been making a living from a related business that has been damaged or destroyed.  As for the tourism industry, that’s a different matter altogether.  It will be extremely difficult to gauge who has been damaged and by how much right now.  The past 2 years have been so shaky economically, that you can’t necessarily go back to last year or even the year before and have an accurate measurement of loss.

Now President Obama (I still get nauseous when I say that) has decided that he needs to smack someone around about all of this.  It’s taken him 50 days to determine this?  He’s showing his inexperience again.  He’s relying too much on political hacks because he doesn’t have the executive experience that he needed to be able to handle such a huge job as president.  Don’t get me wrong, I know that it’s not his fault that this happened, but I also don’t blame President Bush.  There are agencies out there that should be monitoring such things and making sure that contingency plans are in place before they allow drilling.  The problem is in his response, or lack thereof.  His only responses so far have been political ones and not of any substance.  What a mess.  So now the question becomes, how do we get him out of office 2 years from now?

There are few moments in life quite as sickening as realizing that you’ve spilled a beverage on one of your gadgets. The feeling can range from mild infuriation spilling a Bud Light on your PlayStation controller to near-coronary levels knocking over a Mountain Dew: Code Red onto your brand-new laptop. Either way, it’s never something you want to go through. Because of that, we’ve put together a simple disaster plan for dealing with beverage-soiled electronics. We hope you never have to use it, but if you do, you’ll be glad you read it.

via How-To: Recover from a Soda-Spill Disaster | Maximum PC.

My spill was coffee onto my laptop keyboard.  At least the keyboard was solid underneath so it kept the spill from getting to anything else.  After a good cleaning and allowing it to dry, it lived to compute another day.

If you’re in the market for a low-cost tablet, hang tight, because several affordable models are on the way, says VIA’s Richard Brown, vice president of marketing at VIA. In an interview with Bloomberg, Brown said he expects about five different models ranging in price from $100 to $150 to be available in the second half of 2010, all of which will sport a VIA processor inside.

via VIA Predicts Stiff Competition for iPad with $100 Android Tablets | Maximum PC.

I hope that this is a legitimate contender.  I wouldn’t mind having a reasonably price tablet PC and Steve Jobs not getting any of my cash is a plus as well.

Using concrete for tech products is almost unheard of, so this Memory Weights USB Stick crafted from cement comes as a pleasant surprise. I really dig the way the capacity of the USB is branded into the block. Just to add a fun twist; the weight of the block is similar to the capacity in terms of grams…so simple and elegant, yet rugged!

Now that’s interesting.