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Cable Companies: We're Afraid Netflix Will Demand Payment From ISPs 200

Posted by timothy from the who-pays-whom-for-what dept.
Dega704 (1454673) writes While the network neutrality debate has focused primarily on whether ISPs should be able to charge companies like Netflix for faster access to consumers, cable companies are now arguing that it's really Netflix who holds the market power to charge them. This argument popped up in comments submitted to the FCC by Time Warner Cable and industry groups that represent cable companies. (National Journal writer Brendan Sasso pointed this out.) The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), which represents many companies including Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Cox, and Charter wrote to the FCC:

"Even if broadband providers had an incentive to degrade their customers' online experience in some circumstances, they have no practical ability to act on such an incentive. Today's Internet ecosystem is dominated by a number of "hyper-giants" with growing power over key aspects of the Internet experience—including Google in search, Netflix and Google (YouTube) in online video, Amazon and eBay in e-commerce, and Facebook in social media. If a broadband provider were to approach one of these hyper-giants and threaten to block or degrade access to its site if it refused to pay a significant fee, such a strategy almost certainly would be self-defeating, in light of the immediately hostile reaction of consumers to such conduct. Indeed, it is more likely that these large edge providers would seek to extract payment from ISPs for delivery of video over last-mile networks." Related: an article at Gizmodo explains that it takes surprisingly little hardware to replicate (at least most of) Netflix's current online catalog in a local data center.

Submission + - Enraged Verizon FiOS Customer Seemingly Demonstrates Netflix Throttling (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: The ongoing battle between Netflix and ISPs that can't seem to handle the streaming video service's traffic, boiled over to an infuriating level for Colin Nederkoon, a startup CEO who resides in New York City. Rather than accept excuses and finger pointing from either side, Nederkoon did a little investigating into why he was receiving such slow Netflix streams on his Verizon FiOS connection. What he discovered is that there appears to be a clear culprit. Nederkoon pays for Internet service that promises 75Mbps downstream and 35Mbps upstream through his FiOS connection. However, his Netflix video streams were limping along at just 375kbps (0.375mbps), equivalent to 0.5 percent of the speed he's paying for. On a hunch, he decided to connect to a VPN service, which in theory should actually make things slower since it's adding extra hops. Speeds didn't get slower, they got much faster. After connecting to VyprVPN, his Netflix connection suddenly jumped to 3000kbps, the fastest the streaming service allows and around 10 times faster than when connecting directly with Verizon. Verizon may have a different explanation as to why Nederkoon's Netflix streams suddenly sped up, but in the meantime, it would appear that throttling shenanigans are taking place. It seems that by using a VPN, Verizon simply doesn't know which packets to throttle, hence the gross disparity in speed.

Comment Re:Heck, we probably already fund them (Score 1) 125

Many of the Gazans are Christian. From the 2009 assault on Gaza:

"Israeli missiles hit Hamas targets but also destroyed civilian buildings in the densely packed territory, including a Christian medical clinic in Shijaiya that had provided free health care to the poor since 1968. Atallah Tarazi, a Christian surgeon at Gaza City's Shifaa Hospital, said two ambulances were hit and six of his paramedics killed, and lamented the high percentage of civilian casualties received by his hospital.

Gaza's Christian community of 2,500 suffered at least three deaths in the fighting—including 14-year-old Christine Turok, who died of a heart attack from fear—and Gaza Baptist Church and the Palestinian Bible Society were damaged by Israeli airstrikes.

A broad cross-section of Christian agencies mobilized aid to Gaza and southern Israel.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/march/1.13.html?paging=off

Comment Re:Heck, we probably already fund them (Score 3, Insightful) 125

Some Palestinians have, if at all, just seconds to leave before an attack but many do leave and flee to the school buildings that under control of the United Nations. The schools are opened especially for this and the UN personnel take care of the refugees and keep both "militants" and weapons out of its buildings.

It also provides the Israeli military with the exact coordinates of the schools. So guess what happens next:

Israeli shells hit UN shelter in Gaza:

As many as 30 people have been reported killed and 100 injured in the Israeli shelling of a UN school in Gaza that was being used as an emergency shelter.

Al Jazeera's correspondent Nicole Johnston, reporting from Gaza, said the school in Beit Hanoun came under shelling on Thursday. She said sources had told Al Jazeera that up up to 30 people had been killed in the bombardment.

The AFP reported a UN official as confirming "multiple dead and injured".

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Robert Turner, the director for UNRWA, the UN's refugee organisation in Gaza, said there was no warning from the Israelis before the shells landed. He confirmed there were casualties.

He said the UNRWA were in contact with Israeli forces about a window to evacuate the school before the attack happened

"This is a designated emergency shelter," he said. "The location was conveyed to the Israelis.

"This is the fourth strike on our installations in three days."

Four attacks on well known refugee centers within three days. Does anyone still believe that such attacks are some random accidents?

Comment Re:Heck, we probably already fund them (Score 1) 125

You basically argue: "We have a right to violate the norm of humanity and just, moral behavior because of a military expediency."

I spoke with the head military lawyer for the IDF, Joel Zinger. And I said “It’s clear you people are inflicting Nuremberg crimes on the Palestinians. Exactly what the Nazis did to the Jews. What’s your explanation?”

        He said: “Military necessity.”

        Notice, he didn’t disagree with me.

        I said: “That argument was rejected at Nuremberg when the lawyers for the Nazis made it.”

        And then he said: “Well, we have public relations people in the United States and they handle these matters for us.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ocj2ejJLTbg#t=219

When it comes down to it, Gaza was provoked into lobbing "Estes model rockets" into the land of their attackers, and then Israel respond with cluster munitions, flechette weapons and white phosphrous on the heads of children and cripples.

This is what I would expect from your shitty little racist country.

Submission + - Day One With the Brand New Oculus Rift DK2: The Good, The Ugly and The Games (roadtovr.com)

Submitted by muterobert
muterobert writes: Paul James goes hands on with one of the first next-gen Oculus Rifts in the wild:

"After much hacking (and some kind developer linkage) I stepped into a DK2 enabled version of Technolust and lost myself utterly! The stunning attention to detail, neon on black really lets the OLED panel shine here. In fact, this experience was the closest I think I’ve ever some to presence in virtual reality thus far. Leaning in to check the myriad retro objects, gawking at the lighting and just generally being blown away by the experience. This game was fabulous on the DK1, it’s utterly compelling now."

Comment More CS Majors ... (Score 1) 91

by perpenso (#47535877) Attached to: The Truth About Solar Storms

If the humanities infrastructure suffers, no doubt there'll be fewer English majors, and more CS majors, so it'll be a good thing, right? Or did someone mean "humanity's infrastructure"?

If we get more CS majors then maybe we can update the voice recognition software to do a better job of picking between phonetically similar words using context.
Government

FBI Studied How Much Drones Impact Your Privacy -- Then Marked It Secret 139

Posted by timothy from the awfully-suggestive dept.
v3rgEz writes When federal agencies adopt new technology, they're required by law to do Privacy Impact Assessments, which is exactly what the FBI did regarding its secretive drone program. The PIAs are created to help the public and federal government assess what they're risking through the adoption of new technology. That part is a little trickier, since the FBI is refusing to release any of the PIA on its drone project, stating it needs to be kept, er, private to protect national security.
Communications

The Truth About Solar Storms 91

Posted by timothy from the deepen-the-basement dept.
StartsWithABang (3485481) writes On Wednesday, The Washington Post ran a story about a very large solar flare two years ago that missed Earth, but not by too much. From a scientific point of view, what is it that happens when a solar flare interacts with Earth, and what are the potential dangers to both humans and humanities infrastructure? A very good overview, complete with what you can do — as both an individual and a power company — to minimize the risk and the damage when the big one comes. Unlike asteroids, these events happen every few centuries, and in our age of electronics, would now create a legitimate disaster.
Cellphones

Compromise Struck On Cellphone Unlocking Bill 77

Posted by timothy from the pit-carrier-against-carrier dept.
NotSanguine (1917456) writes The U.S. Senate has passed a bill (S.517) today, allowing users to unlock their phones when moving to another provider. From a recent article at thehill.com: "Consumers should be able to use their existing cell phones when they move their service to a new wireless provider," [Sen. Patrick] Leahy said in a statement. "Our laws should not prohibit consumers from carrying their cell phones to a new network, and we should promote and protect competition in the wireless marketplace," he said. [Sen. Chuck] Grassley called the bipartisan compromise "an important step forward in ensuring that there is competition in the industry and in safeguarding options for consumers as they look at new cell phone contracts." "Empowering people with the freedom to use the carrier of their choice after complying with their original terms of service is the right thing to do," he said. The House in February passed a companion bill sponsored on cellphone unlocking from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.)." Also at Ars Technica, as pointed out by reader jessepdx.

Submission + - The Amazon Fire Is the Dirtiest Smartphone

Submitted by Jason Koebler
Jason Koebler writes: The biggest thing that sets the Amazon Fire Phone apart from its Android and Apple competitors probably isn't the clean interface or the unlimited photo storage—it's the dirty power behind it. When Fire users upload their photos and data to Amazon's cloud, they'll be creating a lot more pollution than iPhone owners, Greenpeace says.
Apple has made a commitment to running its iCloud on 100 percent clean energy. Amazon, meanwhile, operates the dirtiest servers of any major tech giant that operates its own servers—only 15 percent of its energy comes from clean sources, which is about the default national average.

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