Internet Issues Doom Comcast Merger With Time Warner Cable (video)

Deals in 2014: Why $800B Is Still Pending - Comcast deal dead?

As we get ready to enter the new year, there are still $800 billion in corporate mergers and acquisitions that aren’t done yet.

As Comcast merger enters final phase, deal may be on thin ice —  "...“What makes Comcast unique is its power in three different facets — as a programmer, a distributor and an ISP.” Earlier this year, Comcast demanded that Netflix pay tolls to prevent its internet stream from being degraded. In the future, critics fear, a merger would make it easier for Comcast to exercise the same sort of control over a wide range of other over-the-top internet services, including a standalone HBO. Comcast could one day control online entertainment options in the same way that it currently controls TV channels. Such fears have led merger opponents to say the FCC or the Justice Department should step in not because of cable TV concentration, but to ensure that Comcast can’t monopolize broadband-based content...."

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US Phone Subsidies Fading, Apple Vulnerable

As Phone Subsidies Fade, Apple Could Be Hurt: Wireless Carriers Shift Customers to Installment Plans, Where Sticker Shock Is Likely - U.S. wireless carriers are making unexpectedly fast progress moving their customers away from subsidized phones, a shift that could put further pressure on sales of expensive devices like the iPhone. (source: Wall Street Journal )

RIP Flash: Why HTML5 Will Finally Take Over Video and Web in 2014: "...HTML5 isn’t perfect; it’s still in its early years. Fortunately, talented companies are focusing on solving those problems for you – doing the work with a SaaS platform so you can just concentrate on the creative. However, that’s not stopping enterprise and game developers. In a recent report from Sencha, a provider of open-source Web application frameworks, more than 60 percent of business application developers have converted to HTML5 and hybrid development of their key projects, and more than 70 percent of HTML5/hybrid developers are using HTML5 more this year than last...."

AT&T announces 21 potential markets for ultra-fast Internet service - latimes.com: "....Already, AT&T has rolled out U-Verse GigaPower in Austin, Texas, and it plans on launching the service in Dallas this summer. The company previously announced that it is in discussions to bring the service to the Raleigh-Durham and Winston-Salem markets in North Carolina Among the candidate cities announced Monday were Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego and Atlanta. AT&T said it will commit to the candidate cities that demonstrate they have the necessary facilities, friendly policies and high demand for the U-Verse GigaPower service. AT&T said it will share more information once agreements are in place...."

Netflix Calls Out AT&T for Subpar Streaming Performance - Bloomberg: "Netflix Inc. (NFLX), stepping up its criticism of Internet service providers, called out AT&T Inc. (T) for offering video-streaming speeds that trail even those of phone companies with inferior technology. AT&T, the biggest landline phone company in the U.S., provided an average speed in March of 1.73 megabits a second for Netflix’s service on fiber-based connections, trailing CenturyLink Inc. and Windstream Holdings Inc., which use older DSL lines, Netflix said. AT&T could improve its speeds by using a free interconnection with Netflix, the video company said...."

Time Warner Cable's Hotspot 2.0 Network Off and Running
Channel Partners
Time Warner Cable's nationwide Hotspot 2.0 network has made its debut, allowing customers to connect to its 33,000-node wireless network without entering passwords or using login screens. Hotspot 2.0 makes public Wi-Fi work like a cellular network by ...

Report: New Start menu and free cloud-based Windows to debut this fall
PCWorld (blog)
Microsoft will reportedly debut its revamped Start menu—along with a free, cloud-based version of Windows—this fall. According to information reportedly authored by Wzor, a Russian blogger notorious for his accurate leaks of Windows information, Microsoft ...

Apple offers free recycling of its products worldwide
PCWorld
Apple is offering to recycle its products for free worldwide, and has included even third-party products like mobile phones and PCs in the program in ...

Amazon Sales Take a Hit in States With Online Tax
MSN Money
Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) is taking a hit in states that are collecting an online sales tax. In one of the first efforts to quantify the impact of states accruing ...

Facebook Plans Mobile-Ad Network
Wall Street Journal
Facebook's new ad network could increase the amount of targeted ads .... global mobile-advertising market last year, second only to Google's 53%.

Samsung expert: Apple should get only $38.4M for infringement, not $2.2B
CNET
Log In to CNET; Sign In with Facebook Google Yahoo; Join CNET ... Assuming Samsung infringed Apple's five patents, Apple should receive $1.75 per ... Apple and Samsung are battling in a San Jose, Calif., court. .... Android" and that Google had invented certain features before Apple patented them.

Google Glass eyeing nonprofits to discover new use cases
ZDNet
Highlighting the deployment of Glass and Glassware apps from the Arctic to the Amazonby the World Wildlife Fund as just one example, Google plans ...

Microsoft's new, new Windows cadence: Once a year is not enough
ZDNet
Just a year ago, Microsoft officials were crowing about Windows' much improved delivery cadence. Instead of rolling out a new version of Windows ...

Apple, Microsoft are not the keys to this week's news
MarketWatch
With Apple and Microsoft reporting quarterly earnings this week, we're getting the standard jeremiads about how the direction of the stock market rests ...

Facebook, Apple Q1 lobbying hit new records Netflix goes on record against Comcast deal
Politico
For Facebook, the filing — which eclipses their first-quarter spend from a ... Other figures:Microsoft was down to $2.1 million from $2.7 million in the ...

Microsoft Bing Enters Prediction Business
InformationWeek
From Google's Flu Trends project to Nate Silver's election forecasts, ... queries and social media data from sources such as Facebook and Twitter.

Google Glass dips its toe into iOS pool
Computerworld
Computerworld - As Google added a taste of iOS functionality to Glass, one analyst said the move is just the beginning of efforts to draw in Apple users ...

Mobile-Payments Startup Square Discusses Possible Sale - WSJ.com: "...The five-year-old company paid out roughly $110 million more in cash last year than it took in, according to two people familiar with the matter. Over the past three years, the startup has consumed more than half of the roughly $340 million it has raised from at least four rounds of equity financing since 2009, two people familiar with the company's performance said. A spokesman for Square said, "We are not, nor have we ever been in acquisition talks with Google."..."

Fred Wilson Leads $23M Funding In CrowdRise, A ‘Charity Water’ For Everyone | TechCrunch: "...Along with the financing, CrowdRise is also announcing partnerships with the New York City Marathon, the Boston Marathon, the Chicago Marathon, the Iron Man events, Red Cross, UNICEF, the wedding site The Knot, and the Today Show and a new “social good” functionality, which allows people to raise for good causes beyond non-profits, like for health care treatments a la Watsi. Wilson thinks that the company is a huge opportunity, not just from a business standpoint, but because it will eventually compel people to further donate to charity, “People are going to do a lot more donating because it’s going to be fast and easy. ” And that’s a good thing...."

Apple Takes Jab at Samsung in Full Page Earth Day Newspaper Ad - Mac Rumors
By Richard Padilla
Apple is honoring Earth Day in a new ad found on newspapers across the UK that appears to also include a jab at rival Samsung, reports CNET.
MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors...

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Why Is Broadband Internet More Expensive in the US?

Basically it comes down to a failure of regulation -- the FCC and Obama Administration have dropped the ball -- and there probably isn't a more important issue for economic progress and infrastructure. Will Washington wake up, or will Obama's carrier-connected, conflicted FCC chair, continue to cater to ISPs?

BBC News - Why is broadband more expensive in the US?: "...The price of basic broadband, TV and phone packages - or bundles as they are known - is much higher in American cities than elsewhere, suggests the New America Foundation think tank, which compared hundreds of available packages worldwide. Looking at some of the cheaper ones available in certain cities, at lower to mid download speeds, San Francisco ($99/£61), New York ($70) and Washington DC ($68) dwarf London ($38), Paris ($35) and Seoul ($15)..."

Why is Netflix streaming slow? Major peering dispute with ISPs | BGR: " . . . What this really boils down to, explains Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin, is a dispute over peering. Most of the time, ISPs and bandwidth providers such as Cogent Communications have peering agreements to swap traffic with one another without any additional charge. However, ISPs apparently think the rise of video streaming over their networks has upset the balance that peering agreements have traditionally struck which is why they’re trying to change things up. . . ."

Time Warner Cable Raises Rates (Again), Adds 'Broadcast TV' Fee | DSLReports, ISP Information: "As with most rate hikes, the notices are accompanied with the insistence that the hikes are about bringing you added "value," and necessary because of all the great upgrades the companies have been busy with. Except in Time Warner Cable's case those upgrades have been slow in coming, the company considerably slower than Comcast in deploying faster DOCSIS 3.0 speeds or new TV technologies."

Inside Scoop: Samsung S5 and other Mobile World Congress soothsayings Video
CNET
....All eyes are on Barcelona, Spain, ...(Mobile World Congress, February 24-27, Barcelona)

How Will WhatsApp Coexist With a Company Whose Business It Hates?
Businessweek
In recent weeks Facebook has been talking up the strategy it hopes will help keep it from fading into obsolescence during its second decade. In earnings calls and profiles in prestigious business publications, Mark Zuckerberg has talked about the value of ...

YouTube Gets a Makeover With Layout, Playlist Tweaks
PC Magazine
If you browsed over to YouTube this morning, you may have noticed that things look a little bit different. The Google-owned video-sharing site has received a mini-makeover, including changes to the layout and playlists. "The way you watch YouTube keeps ...
What Is WhatsApp? An Explainer | News & Opinion | PCMag.com: " The app also uploads all of a user's contacts and requires them to individually block users with whom they do not want contact. Additionally, even the numbers of those who do not use WhatsApp are stored in the app in perpetuity."

Google's Project Tango Sees All
InformationWeek
Current smartphones can manage limited tracking of position and orientation, but lack the full range of sensors and precision to run the kinds of applications Google envisions. More significantly, they aren't designed to place the device within a 3D ...

Hey Microsoft, where's the next Mac Office?
Computerworld
Historically, Microsoft has hewn to a three-year development cycle for both Office on the Mac and the far-more-popular Office suite for Windows, with a new version of the former following the newest of the latter by several months at a minimum. Office ...

Apple Acting More Like Microsoft Than Facebook
Forbes
Not only has Apple been slow to enter new categories with in-house products, it has also been beaten out for acquisitions by rivals like Facebook and Google Google. Whether or not Apple bid for assets like smart appliance maker Nest Labs, which Google ...

Google Fiber Plans Expansion To 34 New Cities (Including Salt Lake)
Forbes
The race for the Internet gigabit space took another leap forward this week with Google Google Fiber's announcement that it has targeted 34 more cities in 9 metro areas for access to Google internet services at the increasingly popular 1Gps speed. Salt ...

Google Borrows $1 Billion With First Bond Sale in Three Years
Bloomberg
Google Inc. (GOOG) sold bonds for the first time in three years, borrowing funds to refinance $1 billion of maturing debt even after its cash hoard swelled to a record of more than $60 billion. The owner of the world's largest search engine issued 3 ...

Google Fiber may be fast, but it takes time to build
San Jose Mercury News
If you live in one of the five Silicon Valley cities Google may wire for high speed Internet, don't expect it to happen overnight. Based on the experience of Kansas City, whereGoogle is building its first high-speed network, it could take a couple of ...

Microsoft Stops Hiding Office's Free Online Edition
TIME
PS Apple has iCloud and it's giving Office Online a run for its money and totally blows Google Drive out of the water when it comes to presentations (haven't tried it for anything else)....

Google makes good on threat, flips 'kill switch' on some Chrome add-ons
Computerworld
By forcing add-on developers to publish their work in the Store, Google moved another step closer to a closed market, the kind popularized by Apple's mobile app ecosystem, where it can more easily vet the extensions and then yank them if necessary. On ...

Google deal is no 'gentlemen's agreement', says EU antitrust chief
Chicago Tribune
PARIS (Reuters) - The EU antitrust chief defended a deal with Google over how it displays web search results, following criticism from rival firms and his own colleagues, saying there had been no gentlemen's agreement to close the case. The world's ...

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