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Via [Gizmodo]

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Comcast, America’s most beloved ISP, has reacted to an FCC investigation into its alleged traffic shaping by updating its terms of service for the first time in two years. The new TOS says it “uses reasonable network management practices that are consistent with industry standards” to prevent “spam, viruses, security attacks, network congestion, and other […]

Comcast, America’s most beloved ISP, has reacted to an FCC investigation into its alleged traffic shaping by updating its terms of service for the first time in two years. The new TOS states it “uses reasonable network management practices that are consistent with industry standards” to prevent “spam, viruses, security attacks, network congestion, and other risks and degradations of service.” All done, of course, to “deliver the ideal possible Internet experience to all of its customers.”

Maybe I’m crazy. Probably. But it seems to me that when Comcast purposely interferes with packets I’ve requested that’s tantamount to a “degradation of service.” It’s certainly not an improvement, right?

The thinking on Comcast’s part was that if they codified their policies, users couldn’t drag it into court for the shaping. Regardless, tech-savvy will complain. Hopefully their complaints will trickle down to Joe Public.

Comcast tweaks Terms of Service in wake of throttling uproar [Ars Technica via Slashdot]

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Via [crunchgear]

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A couple of new Blackberry patents have been unearthed that may or might not give us some hints as to what to expect in upcoming models. First up is a design for a phone with a screen that angles up, presumable for watching video when the phone is placed on a flat surface. The second patent is for a new LCD touchscreen technology.

It’s a multi-touch display patent, but in addition to being able to detect multiple points of contact at once, it can also detect just how much pressure is being used by each finger. That’s a pretty interesting twist on touchscreens, one that one can imagine a multitude of functions for, such as zooming in on a picture when you press down harder on the screen. We’ll see which of these, if either, will be appearing on RIM devices in the future. [Unwired View]

Via [Gizmodo]

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Those looking for a PeeCee version of Apple’s MacBook Air might want to start poking around to find details about the rumored Lenovo ThinkPad X300. Word is it’ll clock in with a similar 13.3-inch screen, weight just 2.5 pounds, and also feature a 64GB SSD HD. Unlike the Air, it has an interated DVD burner […]

Those looking for a PeeCee version of Apple’s MacBook Air might want to start poking around to find details about the rumored Lenovo ThinkPad X300. Word is it’ll clock in with a similar 13.3-inch screen, weight just 2.5 pounds, and also feature a 64GB SSD HD. Unlike the Air, it has an interated DVD burner and optional WiMAX for about $2750.

Now we’ve got confirmation from Electronista that BestBuy, among others, has a pre-order page up. Tasty indeed!

Lenovo ThinkPad X300 preorders surface, show details [Electronista]

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Via [crunchgear]

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Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? That’s one of many, many questions that arose in my mind when I saw this art exhibit in France that’s made up of 10,000 “Canburgers.” And no, these aren’t just bought from the place we found the originals in, they were specially commissioned by the artist, Mike Bouchet. And it just went up a month ago. What. The. Hell. Let’s unravel this mystery, super sleuths.

I think there’s got to be some connection between this exhibit and the for-sale canburgers, as the exhibit says that Bouchet contacted a meat-canning company in Germany to develop the product for him, and the original canburger is sold from a German site. Could it be that the canburger was initially dreamt up as some sort of commentary on sustainable food but was deemed to be such a swell idea that the German company just ran with it?

That would explain why such a ridiculous item was unceremoniously put up for sale on an otherwise-straightforward camping food site, wouldn’t it? I mean, once they figured out how to make such a product for the artist, why wouldn’t they offer it up for sale?

Or maybe two different people came up with the idea for a cheeseburger in a can at the same time. Either way. [Galerie Vallois]

Via [Gizmodo]

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Stephan Beckert, research director at TeleGeography, studies these undersea data cables each day of his life, and has the ideal guesses as to what really put them out of commission. UPDATE: Yep, confirmed.

•There probably isn’t a fifth cable, according to his sources and the Khaleez Times in the UAB seems to have double counted one.
•One cable is officially not cut, but is suffering a power outage.
•Likely, the rest of the cables have been damaged by fishing nets or boat anchors (those two causes account for 65% and 18% of all undersea cable problems).
•Officially, he believes the chances of the cables being cut by “sharks with laser beams on their fricking heads” is unlikely.
•While two cables cut in a week is a bit higher than average, its not unusual: Last year, 50 cables were damaged in the Atlantic alone.

Why are we still speaking about this? Because I somehow find it fascinating, although Beckert’s explanations make it less so. [WSJ Blog, thanks Ben Worthen. Previously on Giz]

Via [Gizmodo]

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We’ve got a handful of tippages today that Apple will be holding a press conference later this month to announce, well, something. We’re guessing MacBook Pro upgrades, or maybe something to do with Apple Television. It won’t be new MacBooks or iPods or iPhones, so calm yourselves. ShareThis

We’ve got a handful of tippages this day that Apple will be holding a press conference later this month to announce, well, something. We’re guessing MacBook Pro upgrades, or maybe something to do with Apple Television. It won’t be new MacBooks or iPods or iPhones, so calm yourselves.

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Via [crunchgear]

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