Good news Charter customers, you’re getting a speed bump! The DOCSIS 3.0-based cable service is boosting both download and upload speeds across all tiers of its service — starting at the bottom with its Express package, which will be a 15 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up offering from now on. The “flagship” Plus level is getting its rates almost doubled from 18 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up to 30 Mbps down and 4 Mbps up, offering you plenty of bandwidth for streaming, torrenting and browsing all at the same time. The fastest connection is getting not just a new speed (100 Mbps down), but a new name — Ultra 100. Sadly, your $60 a month for the big bits doesn’t get you particularly blazing upload speeds. Charter’s tops out at a pretty modest 5 Mbps up. Check out the PR after the break for a few more details.

Continue reading Charter Cable boosts downloads to 100Mbps, keeps uploads limited to a modest 5Mbps

Charter Cable boosts downloads to 100Mbps, keeps uploads limited to a modest 5Mbps originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 Dec 2011 13:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Charter Cable boosts downloads to 100Mbps, keeps uploads limited to a modest 5Mbps

You can do just about anything to an image with Photoshop, but if you don’t have the cash to shell out, free program the GIMP—available for Windows, Linux, and OS X—can take you pretty far. Here are our favorite Photoshop how-tos that also work in the GIMP. More »

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Top 10 Photoshop Tricks You Can Use Without Buying Photoshop [Video]

wasimkadak writes “One in three people in Switzerland download unauthorized music, movies and games from the Internet, and — since last year — the government has been wondering what to do about it. This week their response was published, and it was crystal clear. Not only will downloading for personal use stay completely legal, but the copyright holders won’t suffer because of it, since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Swiss Gov't: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay Legal

While it won’t likely mean your old card can magically run the latest games on ultra settings, overclocking your video card is a solid way to eke a bit of extra gaming performance out of your computer. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it properly. More »

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How to Overclock Your Video Card and Boost Your Gaming Performance [How To]

Facebook is reportedly acquiring location sharing service Gowalla and bringing “most” of its employees and founder Josh Williams over to Palo Alto headquarters to work on Timeline, according to CNN. We could not get confirmation from Facebook, Gowalla or several investors in the company at this time. Facebook spokesperson Jonathan Thaw said the company doesn’t comment on rumors or speculation.

The Austin-based company launched as a location-sharing service back in 2009 but never got the same sort of traction that New York-based rival Foursquare saw. Today, we can see that the Gowalla app has 10,000 daily active users connected to Facebook against Foursquare’s 560,000 daily actives. Facebook also has its location product Places, which it changed a few months ago to scrap the check-in feed from its mobile platform. Instead, Facebook users must add a city location or tag a specific Place in their Wall or Timeline posts.

Gowalla pivoted earlier this year too, changing its check in-centric app to one that is like a crowdsourced local and travel guide.

The company has raised around $10.4 million in two rounds of funding with investors including Kevin Rose, Chris Sacca, Jason Calacanis, Shervin Pishevar, Gary Vaynerchuk, Ron Conway along with venture firms like Greylock Partners, Shasta Ventures, Founders Fund and Floodgate.

Given the amount of money the company raised, Facebook would have had to pay somewhere around $30 million or so for investors to have made their money back. In 2009, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington reported that the company’s post-money valuation was $28.4 million at the time of the second venture round. Given Gowalla’s lack of traction plus how aggressively Facebook’s valuation is priced in within private secondary markets, it’s unclear whether this deal would make investors whole.

If this was a pure talent acquisition, we would expect to see Facebook shutdown the standalone Gowalla app too.

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Facebook Reportedly Acquires Gowalla, No Confirmation From Either Company

If you purchased the cheaper, subsidized Kindle with ads and have now grown tired (either physically or philosophically) of the ads, you’ve got two choices. You could pay Amazon $30 to get rid of them, or you could do it yourself for free. Blog Y42K shows you how. More »

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Kill the Kindle Special Offers Ads For Free [Kindle]