Comcast VP: 300GB data cap is “business policy,” not technical necessity

Why does Comcast Internet service have a 300GB monthly data cap? When asked that question today, Comcast’s vice president of Internet services, Jason Livingood, said that he doesn’t know, because setting the monthly data limit is a business decision, not one driven by technical necessity. “Cable Cares,” a parody account on Twitter, asked Livingood, “Serious question, why are Comcast’s caps set so low compared to the speeds they’re being sold at? 100mbps can hit 300GB in 6hr~.” Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Comcast VP: 300GB data cap is “business policy,” not technical necessity

Facebook user gets away with nearly a full day of trolling Target commenters

Mike Melgaard 9 more images in gallery While Facebook facilitates plenty of interaction between big companies and their customers, its interface doesn’t scale incredibly well once company-page comments creep into the hundreds (or more) per day. In particular, “comments by users” on a company page are relegated to a sidebar that is pretty hard to parse. On Sunday, one intrepid Facebook user took advantage of that to sneak onto a company page and mess with commenters before the company could get wise to it—and lucky for us, he screencapped the whole thing. This week’s case came from American retailer Target, whose Facebook feed began to blow up with unhappy comments over the weekend after the company announced plans to remove gender-specific signs in departments such as Toys and Entertainment. The retailer didn’t get around to individually responding to commenters, but that didn’t stop a user from creating a new account on Sunday, giving it a Target-styled bullseye icon and pretending to be an official company spokesperson. That user, Scottsdale, Arizona, resident Mike Melgaard , went on to respond to at least 52 negative comments left on Target’s official Facebook page with an account named “Ask ForHelp,” but rarely were his responses helpful . Melgaard heaped on sarcastic smiley faces, grammatical criticisms, and jokes about doing away with all gender-specific labels at the store (including bathrooms and changing rooms). It’s hard to pick a favorite among the jokes—we’ve posted a few of its safe-for-work screencaps above—but our favorite might be when he got into a multiple-comment conversation with one complainer, which he ended with a phony exclamation that it was his “first day, and this is just really frustrating dealing with all of this!” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Facebook user gets away with nearly a full day of trolling Target commenters

Samsung unveils 2.5-inch 16TB SSD: The world’s largest hard drive

At the Flash Memory Summit in California, Samsung has unveiled what appears to be the world’s largest hard drive—and somewhat surprisingly, it uses NAND flash chips rather than spinning platters. The rather boringly named PM1633a, which is being targeted at the enterprise market, manages to cram almost  16 terabytes into a 2.5-inch SSD package. By comparison, the largest conventional hard drives made by Seagate and Western Digital currently max out at 8 or 10TB. The secret sauce behind Samsung’s 16TB SSD is the company’s new 256Gbit (32GB) NAND flash die , twice the capacity of 128Gbit NAND dies that were commercialised last year by various chip makers. To reach such astonishing capacities, Samsung has managed to cram 48 layers of 3-bits-per-cell (TLC) 3D V-NAND into a single die. This is up from 24 layers in 2013, and then 36 layers in 2014. A diagram that goes some way to explaining what 3D NAND is. Historically, like most computer chips, NAND flash has been planar—that is, the functional structures on the chip are (for the most part), laid down on a single two-dimensional plane. In a similar way to how logic chips are moving towards 3D transistors ( FinFETs ), Samsung (and more recently Toshiba and Intel) has been forging ahead with 3D NAND . Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Samsung unveils 2.5-inch 16TB SSD: The world’s largest hard drive

HTC Is Now Essentially Worthless (And Insecure)

 Internet hyperbole (and financial analysis) have rendered HTC, a once high-flying mobile brand, essentially valueless. In short, the company is trading below cash on hand which means if you bought all HTC stock the company would have to pay, you, the buyer to take it over. This means the company’s factories, stock, and brand are worth nothing, at least on Wall Street. Furthermore, the… Read More

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HTC Is Now Essentially Worthless (And Insecure)

Apple Addresses Bendgate Complaints With Sturdier iPhone 6s Shell

 Supply chain leaks have indicated that Apple is working on an iPhone 6s, and details of the new device have been surfacing one at a time for the past few weeks. Unbox Therapy has obtained the rear casing of the 6s and meticulously compared it with the iPhone 6. Apple is reinforcing some weak points with this year’s new iteration, and the company is also switching to lighter, stronger… Read More

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Apple Addresses Bendgate Complaints With Sturdier iPhone 6s Shell

Spaniard fatally gored while trying to film bull run on smartphone

While the Spanish town of Pamplona hosts the world’s most well-known running of the bulls, other cities in Spain, Portugal, and nearby nations host their own annual runs where bulls run through city streets while locals and tourists run alongside—or away from—the giant beasts. For one participant of a Sunday bull run in Villasecra de la Sagra, Spain, trying to share his experience by way of a smartphone recording ended traumatically. According to details ascertained from a local Spanish-language report , an English-language AFP report , and bystander video of the incident, a 32-year-old man was gored from behind while attempting to film that city’s annual bull run. The bystander video, posted Sunday on Instagram (not linked here due to its graphic nature), showed the currently unidentified victim standing near a barricade so that he was behind other viewers and away from the general fray of the bull run. However, a stray bull appeared to become separated from the general herd, at which point it ran at full speed behind the crowd and struck the 32-year-old while he was holding a smartphone to film in the opposite direction. According to reports, after receiving brief treatment at a nearby bullring’s medical center, the victim was transferred to a hospital in nearby Toledo, where he was soon pronounced dead from neck and thigh wounds. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Spaniard fatally gored while trying to film bull run on smartphone

In just 2 years, Zynga’s daily average users have fallen by half

Have you played any Zynga games lately? Yeah, we didn’t think so. And that’s exactly the problem: in two years, the social gaming company’s daily average users (DAU) has plummeted from 39 million to 21 million. Consequently, on Thursday, Zynga announced that it had lost $26.8 million in the second quarter of 2015, and a total of $73.3 million in the first half of the year. Assuming that rate of loss holds, the company is on pace to lose over $150 million in 2015, and that’s on top of the over $472 million the company already lost from 2012 through 2014. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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In just 2 years, Zynga’s daily average users have fallen by half

Last New Zealand coal plant reaches the end of the line

Yesterday, one of New Zealand’s major energy producers announced that it is planning on shuttering the last of the country’s coal-fired power stations in 2018. The plant’s extended life comes despite the fact that running it has become economically marginal—the company that runs it says it is locked into a coal delivery contract until mid-2017 and has substantial stockpiles on site. New Zealand is fortunate to have abundant renewable energy sources, including a number of large hydroelectric plants. Fossil fuels have mostly been used to supplement the hydroelectric production during years of lower rainfall. But the country has also benefitted from trends that are seen in most other industrialized nations. Energy demand has largely been stable due to increased efficiency, while the cost of other renewable power sources has dropped. In New Zealand’s case, those new sources are wind and geothermal (part of the country sits atop a subduction zone). As the costs of developing wind and geothermal have dropped, the coal fired plant was being used less frequently. “These units have largely been operating at the margin of the market for a number of years, at very low utilisation rates,” said company CEO Albert Brantley. Shuttering them is expected to save the company over NZ$20 million a year. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Last New Zealand coal plant reaches the end of the line

Secret Origins Of The Japanese Superhero Show That Became Power Rangers

If you look at the picture above, you probably think of the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, costumed heroes who have been kicking their way across TV in different incarnations for nearly 20 years—but you’d be wrong. These are actually the Zyurangers, the stars of a Japanese TV series that inadvertently spawned a global sensation. Read more…

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Secret Origins Of The Japanese Superhero Show That Became Power Rangers

Everything You Can Ask Cortana to Do in Windows 10

Cortana is easily one of the coolest new features of Windows 10. You’re probably already familiar with personal assistants like Google Now and Siri, but now you have one built right into your desktop! Here’s how to get information, manage your schedule, and even run a few Google commands. Read more…

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Everything You Can Ask Cortana to Do in Windows 10