You would think that after the Federal Communications Commission reclassified the Internet as a utility under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 that Netflix would be all smiles, giving the implications it has on imposing net neutrality rules. And sure enough, Netflix is putting its happy face on, but the company is also showing signs of what The Wall Street Journal has dubbed "lobbyist's remorse," an appropriate description for what Netflix CFO David Wells had to say on the subject.
It only took a week since the ruling was announced for Netflix to backpedal on its previous position of "relishing" its role as the lead lobbyist for net neutrality.
"Were we pleased it pushed to Title II? Probably not," Netflix chief financial officer David Wells said last week at the annual Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference, according to WSJ. "We were hoping there might be a non-regulated solution."
What's interesting about Wells' statement is that last June, Netflix was pushing the FCC to reclassify broadband as a telecom service, under Title II, just as it's now done. According to Variety, Netflix at the time wrote in a court filing that "Title II provides [the FCC with] a solid basis to adopt prohibitions on blocking and unreasonable discrimination by ISPs. Opposition to Title II is largely political, not legal."
So, what changed? We're not really sure. To be fair, WSJ pulled a soundbyte out of Wells' full statement, which you can hear for yourself here. After conceding that Title II might not have been the ideal path, despite Netflix pushing for it a year ago, the streaming provider is still "super pleased" that there's now a system in place for complaints when or if an ISP plays hardball with Netflix.
"Essentially Internet has become a utility," Wells added. "If you think about people's willingness to drop their broadband, I think there's been some studies that they're willing to drop many other things including buying milk before they dropped their broadband. That's a pretty strong indicator that you've got something that has become, you know, a utility. And in our opinion it was very important to protect those notions."
In semi-related news, Netflix today posted its Speed Index for the month of February. In the U.S., Charter jumped a couple of spots to number six with an average speed of 3.2Mbps, up from 3.14Mbps last month. Verizon FIOS is at the top of list at 3.53Mbps, while Clearwire is dead last at 1.10Mbps, followed by Verizon DSL (1.84Mbps).
Squish, squish, squish, backspace, backspace, squish, squish, squish -- "Dammit!" Backspace, squish, squish, squish, "Ugh!" Sound familiar? That's what it can be like typing on a crappy membrane keyboard. You fingers deserve better. And they can have it, in the form of mechanical key switches. Are you a fan of Cherry MX Blue key switches? Then check out today's top deal for a Corsair K70 Gaming Keyboard with Red LED and Cherry MX Blues for $110 with free shipping (normally $130). Cherry MX Blue switches are the ones that give that satisfying "Click!" sound when pressed, along with tactile feedback. This particular model also boasts contoured and textured WASD and 1-6 keys, plus programmable per-key backlighting.
During GDC, Valve was making quite an impression with attendants who experienced the company's SteamVR demonstration (you can read about the experience). But it wouldn't have been impressive if it weren't for some of the titles that are currently being developed. Maximum PC Online Managing Editor Jimmy Thang was able to interview a couple of the developers at Cloudhead Games about its VR title The Gallery: Six Elements, one of the VR tech demos being shown.
The Gallery: Six Elements is an exploration game with a fantasy setting that has been developed for virtual reality. It features a fully interactive environment where users will be able to pull, lift, grab, push, and even smash their way through different elemental worlds while trying to find the main character's sister.
Cloudhead Games developed its demo specifically for Valve's SteamVR demonstration though the developers say that The Gallery: Six Elements will be adjustable to accommodate a 4x4 up to a 15x15 foot area. For those worried about running into walls, though, the developers talked about Valve's Chaperone System which will show a graphical representation of a wall, in the game, when you get too close to a wall in your room. A feature that, according to the developers, will be in all SteamVR games.
Be sure to watch the video to learn more about The Gallery: Six Elements and Valve's SteamVR.
Show of hands, how many of you are rocking a Cougar brand power supply? Or Cougar brand anything? Now put your hands down if you don't live in the U.S. We suspect there aren't that many left in the air, and that's something the German company is hoping to change through intriguing product releases. Cougar's newest item up for grabs is its CMD Digital Power Supply, and it's unique in a few different ways.
The first is obvious -- it's a digital PSU, which puts it in select category. What that essentially means is there's a level of interaction, as you can not only monitor but control various aspects of the PSU through software. That includes all voltage levels.
A built-in fan controller is probably the most unique thing about the CMD. There are two 3-pin fan connectors integrated into the back of the PSU. It's intended for case fans, two of which you can monitor and control through Cougar's UIX software.
Above the fan ports is a port for the included TSR sensor. You can place it anywhere in your system for additional temp monitoring.
Fancy features aside, the CMD line is available in 500W and 600W models, both with single +12V rails (40A on the 500W, 49A on the 600W). These are modular units with three 4-pin peripheral connectors, 5 (500W) or 6 (600W) SATA connectors, two PCI-E 8 (6+2) pin connectors, a single 24 (20+4) pin main connectors, and a single 8 (4+4) pin CPU connector.
Cougar says the CMD Digital PSU line will be available next month. No word yet on price.
The tech colossus has reportedly assigned 'tens of engineers' to the project
Virtual reality was all the rage at the recently-concluded Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, with the SteamVR-powered HTC Vive headset stealing the show and some of Oculus Rift's gradually-accumulated thunder. But brace yourselves for another head-turning entry into the nascent VR market. According to the Wall Street Journal, an effort to develop a VR-optimized version of Android is currently underway at Google. This, the paper says, is the search engine giant's response to last year's $2 billion acquisition of Oculus VR by Facebook.
"Tens of engineers" are part of the project, per the Journal's sources, who described the whole effort as "speculative." This is due to the small number of virtual-reality headsets that are currently out there. The team is reportedly helmed by Clay Bavor and Jeremy Doig. A vice president of product management at Google, the former was part of the the team that built Cardboard, a DIY headset that lets anyone with an Android smartphone experience VR on a shoestring — pre-assembled units can be found on the internet for as low as $10.
For those eagerly awaiting the next official build of Windows 10 Technical Preview, we have a sneak peek of what's to come. A bunch of previously unseen Windows 10 screenshots leaked onto the web Thursday courtesy notorious Russian leaker WZor. These latest leaked images, all from the as-yet-unreleased build 10031, show a number of changes.
There's also a new login screen. Actually, it's not entirely new, having been hidden in some of the earlier builds as well — a registry hack is needed to enable it. However, it appears as though that in build 10031 it is enabled by default. Further, the Start button is now the same size as other icons.
However, there is no trace of Project Spartan — an upcoming browser confirmed as being Internet Explorer's replacement by Microsoft — in this build. But that does not mean there is no activity on this front as another Russian source has published some fresh images of the browser. Presumably from an entirely different build, these images show a browser that is still a bit rough around the edges. With Microsoft promising to include Spartan in the next preview release, the company appears to have its work cut out.
A bittersweet victory?
VR tech demo impresses attendants
Not your average PSU
The tech colossus has reportedly assigned 'tens of engineers' to the project
