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Verizon Wireless CFO Fran Shammo earlier this week stated that the company would be killing off unlimited data plans for users who were grandfathered after the company stopped selling unlimited data back in 2010. According to Shammo, the company is going to force many of those users on 3G to move to upcoming shared data plans if they want to migrate to LTE. After the negative press Shammo's comments generated, Verizon circulated a statement to the press promising that the phase out of these grandfathered unlimited plans will be a slow affair, and largely dependent on when and if these users wan't to upgrade to new subsidized LTE devices. According to Verizon Wireless:
•Customers will not be automatically moved to new shared data plans. If a 3G or 4G smartphone customer is on an unlimited plan now and they do not want to change their plan, they will not have to do so. •When we introduce our new shared data plans, Unlimited Data will no longer be available to customers when purchasing handsets at discounted pricing. •Customers who purchase phones at full retail price and are on an unlimited smartphone data plan will be able to keep that plan. •The same pricing and policies will be applied to all 3G and 4GLTE smartphones. read comment(s)
benrothke writes "Elementary Information Security, based on its title, weight and page length, I assumed was filled with mindless screen shots of elementary information security topics, written with a large font, in order to jack up the page count. Such an approach is typical of far too many security books. With that, if there ever was a misnomer of title, Elementary Information Security is it." Read below for the rest of Ben's review
mblase writes "SpaceX and NASA have been working hard to make this weekend's launch happen — and that has meant navigating the cultural differences between this small, young startup and the huge veteran space agency. The relationship involves daily calls and emails between people who live in two different worlds: age versus youth, bureaucracy versus a flat startup-like structure, and a sense of caution versus a desire to move forward quickly. But they both have an almost religious belief in the need for humans to venture forth into space, a geeky love for rockets, and technical know-how — plus, they both need each other to succeed."The launch is scheduled for 4:55AM EDT (08:55 GMT) tomorrow morning. NASA TV will begin coverage at 3:30AM EDT, and there will be a press conference at 8:30AM. SpaceX's press kit (PDF) has mission details. The rendezvous with the ISS is scheduled for day 4 of the mission after a series of maneuvering tests to ensure the Dragon capsule can approach safely. It carries 1,200 pounds of supplies for the people aboard the ISS, and it carries 11 science experiments designed by students.
The Bad Astronomer writes "What's the nearest star to Earth that can explode as a supernova? Spica, at 260 light years away, is the nearest massive star that can explode, but IK Pegasi — a Sirius-like binary composed of a normal star and a white dwarf — will also one day blow. At a distance of 150 light years, it's truly the closest supernova candidate. Happily, that's too far away to damage the Earth when it goes off — and it won't explode for millions of years at least, by which time it'll be even farther away. Either way, we're safe... for now."
medv4380 writes "38 Studios, run by Curt Schilling, is having a hard time paying its bills and employees. The gaming community hasn't been happy with the company since the issue with an Online Pass for Single Player Content, which we discussed previously. Now, 38 Studios has bounced a check intended as a payment on its $75 million loan from the state of Rhode Island. If the company defaults, Rhode Island taxpayers will have to cover the loan and interest, which could total nearly $100 million."
Facebook's much-hyped IPO kicked off today, but an anonymous reader points out that things didn't go quite as smoothly as investors hoped. "Public trading didn't get underway until about 11:30 a.m. ET, half an hour after it was supposed to. The delay was likely caused by the huge amount of interest in the stock – especially by retail investors. In the first few minutes of trading, Facebook shares were only up between 5 and 10 per cent and by noon were essentially back down to the IPO price of $38. Many observers had expected the stock to double in price by the end of the day, if not sooner." The NY Times has a data visualization showing how Facebook's IPO compares to other tech IPOs throughout the years, and how the first day of trading treated all of those companies. Meanwhile, the debate is lively over whether the social networking giant will be a good investment. "The banks helping take Facebook public want us to value this 8-year-old upstart at as much as $104 billion, more than Disney or Kraft Foods, though those companies earn three and four times more. That top valuation is also more than 100 times Facebook's earnings last year, versus 13 times for the average company. At such a high price, it will take years for this so-called earnings multiple to fall to a more reasonable level, and that's assuming the company can maintain its torrid earnings growth."
Sparrowvsrevolution writes "On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing to discuss a proposed bill to limit location tracking of electronic devices without a warrant — what it's calling the Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance Act, or the GPS Act. Ahead of that hearing, University of Pennsylvania computer science professor Matt Blaze submitted written testimony (PDF) telling Congress that phone carriers, as well as the law enforcement agencies with which they share data, can now use phones' proximity to cell towers and other sources of cellular data to track their location as precisely or even more precisely than they can with global positioning satellites. Thanks to the growing density of cell towers and the proliferation of devices like picocells and femtocells that transmit cell signals indoors, even GPS-less phones can be tracked with a high degree of precision and can offer data that GPS can't, like the location of someone inside a building or what floor they're on. With the GPS Act, Congress is considering expanding the ban on warrantless tracking of cars with GPS devices that the Supreme Court decided on in January. Blaze's testimony suggests they need to include non-GPS tracking of cell phones in that ban, a measure law enforcement agencies are strongly resisting."
bonch writes "Autoparts manufacturer Delphi has developed a diesel-like ignition engine running on gasoline, providing a potential 50 percent efficiency improvement over existing gas-powered engines. Engineers have long sought to run diesel-like engines on gasoline for its higher efficiency and low emissions. Delphi's engine, using a technique called gasoline-direct-injection compression ignition, could rival the performance of hybrid automobiles at a cheaper cost."
We've been nudged by a reliable source with supporting evidence who tells us Verizon will be raising the speed of several of their FiOS broadband tiers very soon. According to the source, Verizon's symmetrical 25 Mbps tier will soon be changed to 50 Mbps downstream and 25 Mbps upstream. The company's current symmetrical 35 Mbps tier will soon see a dramatic bump to 75 Mbps downstream and 35 Mbps upstream. "As far as I know, it will be like old upgrades where everyone will remain on the same plan and I'm assuming pay more for the increase," says the source. These changes should be arriving somewhere around June 18.
Verizon's pricing for these options vary slightly by market and bundle, and can be found at the Verizon website once you've plugged in your address details.
Despite market differences, the source notes that these new 50/25 and 75/35 tiers should be available in all markets, regardless of whether or not the market is on GPON or BPON. One interesting extra the source noted is that there has been talk of a 300 Mbps tier for GPON markets -- but it's not yet clear if that speed is going to be directed at residential accounts or enterprise users, and our source wasn't sure what the upload would be.
Needless to say, 300 Mbps would be a new high watermark for residential service and quite a marketing boon for a company that once called 100 Mbps service marketing gimmick. Verizon's fastest current offering is their 150/35 Mbps Ultimate tier. One of our more speed-hungry users recently bonded two Ultimate lines together in order to attain 300 Mbps connectivity. Again though, 75/35 will be the new highest tier for users still in BPON markets. read comment(s)
ananyo writes "A newly-discovered microbial community living tens of meters beneath the Pacific Ocean floor uses so little oxygen that researchers believe they may be living at the absolute minimum energy requirement needed to subsist. For years, scientists thought that the ascetic conditions of the deep sub-seabed — high pressure, minimal oxygen and a low supply of nutrients and energy — made such environments uninhabitable to any form of life. The discovery extends the lower bound for life (abstract). The surface of Mars, for instance, may be inhospitable, but there may be conditions below the surface that are reminiscent of the deep subsurface on Earth. As microbiologist Bo Jørgensen comments in the Nature piece, while the discovery does not mean there is life on Mars, 'it's now really challenging to show where there is no life.'"
As we noted yesterday, Comcast has announced the company is raising their universal 250GB usage cap to 300 GB -- while announcing that they'll be experimenting with a variety of usage-based surcharges over the coming months. Not too surprisingly, competitors and consumer advocates aren't too impressed with the changes -- Free Press arguing that the company's usage caps are not necessary and should be eliminated entirely. From a statement posted to the organization's website:
"Comcast has never had any legitimate reason to cap its Internet customers, and today's announcement of new overage charges is just another example of the cable giant's efforts to discriminate against and thwart online video competition. Data caps are not a reasonable or effective way to manage capacity problems, which are virtually non-existent for Comcast.
"While the move to increase its caps is overdue, the notion that Comcast would charge an exorbitant rate for additional bandwidth while continuing to exempt its own traffic under its Xbox deal -- illustrates that Comcast is really trying to discourage subscribers from experimenting with online video alternatives. We call on Comcast to drop the caps and these exorbitant overage fees entirely."
Increasing the data cap is a small step in the right direction, but unfortunately Comcast continues to treat its own Internet delivered video different under the cap than other Internet delivered video. We continue to stand by the principle that ISPs should treat all providers of video services equally."
Adding fuel to the fire, Level3 has posted analysis claiming they've looked at the data and that Comcast does appear to be giving their own streaming video traffic preferential treatment. You'll recall that Level3 and Comcast have had several years of disputes over network neutrality and additional connectivity surcharges. Meanwhile, Canadians, who deal with some of the most draconian caps and usage caps anywhere, say they'd love it if their ISPs raised their caps to 300 GB. read comment(s)
Axolotl_Rose writes with news that Hewlett-Packard is preparing to cut around 30,000 jobs, close to 10% of its total workforce. CEO Meg Whitman reportedly wants to use that money instead for new products and for bolstering the sales force. From the NY Times:"China, which is one of H.P.’s highest growth areas, will probably be spared, as will its research and development efforts. Ms. Whitman, who became H.P.’s chief executive last September, 'is trying to build a new company,' one senior executive said of the job cuts. 'You can count this as a part of that.' The final plan is expected to be announced on Wednesday, when H.P. announces earnings for its second fiscal quarter. Considered a slow-moving giant in the tech industry, H.P. had revenue of $127 billion in fiscal 2011, but net earnings of just $7.1 billion. While it has a leading position in the sales of low-margin personal computers, H.P. has been late or unsuccessful in many recent tech trends like providing cloud computing services for big companies and smartphones and tablet computers."An article at Forbes suggests HP should instead 'retool' those jobs by recruiting makers and hackers, TED conference speakers, and others who have experience building and inventing things.
Facebook will announce today its IPO which is reportedly priced at $38 a share. At that price, Facebook 's IPO will be the largest tech IPO in history. It 's the third largest U.S. IPO ever, trailing only the $19.7 billion raised by Visa in March 2008 and the $18.1 billion raised by automaker General Motors in November 2010, according to rankings by Thomson Reuters. Initially, the expected price was between $34 to $38 per share. The company had lifted both the price range and share count of the offering ...
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