Created by former Gmail and iPhone team members, the Electric Imp is a tiny processor with industry-standard wi-fi that allows you to control any appliance over the Internet.
Keywords: tech,gadgets,wifi,diy,dist-youtube,hardware,sd,newsy,appliance,connected devices
Last night, Time Inc. threw a pretty badass party in NYC to celebrate “Ten Startups To Watch.” Among the ten were Fancy Hands, a site that offers up a personal assistant for every and any need you might have, and Stamped, a social network that lets you put your stamp of approval on the things you like.
We pulled aside founders of both companies to find out a little more about them, their business models, and why they think they deserve a spot on Time Inc.’s list.
In the case of Fancy Hands, founder Ted Roden justified his slot on the list with staying power. He’s been working on the site, that up until a recent $1 million funding round was entirely bootstrapped, for three years, with the site alive and growing for the past two years.
In his opinion, Time Inc. chose Fancy Hands because it’s not necessarily all about how much hype you get at launch, but your ability to scale and grow over time.
For Stamped the story is a bit different. After asking co-founder and CEO Billy Stein why he was named one of Time Inc.’s 10 best startups, his answer was all about disruption.
“We think that we’re trying to do something that will hopefully disrupt the way people think about discovering new information, and really transform the model from one that’s more crowd-sourced and anonymous to one that’s extremely personal,” said Stein.
Did you ever think that a fountain could be used to tell the time or to display pics? Well the Japanese sure did and this latest kind of display is pure awesomesauce, as it can even display artwork.
This mesmerizing water display was created by Koei Industry and it’s located in the South Gate Building in the Osaka Station City shopping mall in Japan. Flowing sheets of water act as a shimmering canvas, as the display is part waterfall and digital printer rolled into one. The water streams are lit up to display an ever-changing array of patterns and designs.
This looks pretty cool. I wonder if they’ll end up making HDTVs that will fit in water fountains someday.
[via NOTCOT]
Did you ever think that a fountain could be used to tell the time or to display pics? Well the Japanese sure did and this latest kind of display is pure awesomesauce, as it can even display artwork.
This mesmerizing water display was created by Koei Industry and it’s located in the South Gate Building in the Osaka Station City shopping mall in Japan. Flowing sheets of water act as a shimmering canvas, as the display is part waterfall and digital printer rolled into one. The water streams are lit up to display an ever-changing array of patterns and designs.
This looks pretty cool. I wonder if they’ll end up making HDTVs that will fit in water fountains someday.
[via NOTCOT]
Got a lot of things plugged into one outlet? Get organized with Plug Out Plug Organizers. You can’t always have a giant surge protector at every crowded outlet in your home and you’re probably tired of hanging upside down looking under your bed, couch, or table to find that rogue charger cord. The Plug Out sticks via non-marking adhesive right below a power outlet and keeps your unplugged cords in place. Simple, effective. You get a set of two (either black/white or lime/orange) for under $8.
Filed under: Aftermarket, Safety, Technology
Apple granted patent for steering-wheel controls to curb distracted driving originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 17 May 2012 14:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Freshdesk is trying to make waves in cloud customer support. Launched in June of last year, the young company is on a mission to help businesses of all sizes manage customer service through both traditional channels, like email and phone, as well on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Earlier this week, Freshdesk added to its customer support suite, launching support for private customer messages via the new Brand Pages Facebook launched back in February. This means that, using the new Pages, customers can initiate private conversations with brands, with the ability to share the kind of sensitive information they wouldn’t post publicly on Facebook or Twitter, like passwords and credit card numbers.
Freshdesk said that it’s the first customer support platform to offer this kind of integration, a shot across the bow of its two largest and well-established competitors, Zendesk and Salesforce’s Desk.com. To compete, the startup is making a push to differentiate its platform, adding private messaging via Brand Pages on top of what it believes is its core differentiator: Allowing its customers to support and manage multiple products and brands from one simple web interface.
In less than a year, Freshdesk has already raised $6 million in venture funding from Tiger Global and Accel, and, though it believes that the biggest market opportunity down the road will be in offering its brand of cloud customer support to the enterprise, Freshdesk wants to entice (and give back to) the little guys as well.
That’s why the startup is today announcing the first phase of its “Future Fund,” which will provide customer support services to 501 startups and early-stage businesses through a $10 million “fund,” which includes free support for one year. Freshdesk has teamed up with incubators and angel funds, like YouWeb, Tandem Entrepreneurs, Internet India Fund, 500 Startups, and Proudly Made to begin giving their early-stage businesses customer support tools so that they don’t have to worry about allocating their own money to CRM tools at those critical, early stages of growth.
Not unlike any other fund that provides growth services, value, or support to young businesses, Freshdesk is looking to give startups a painless way to start generating customer love early on in their growth.
So what does the Future Fund offer? Qualifying startups (any company that has under $1 million in annual revenues is welcome to apply, it’s not limited to the accelerators we mentioned earlier) will get up to three full-time customer support agents free for an entire year as part of Freshdesk’s “Garden” plan. The plan includes multi-channel support, which startups can use to support customer relation management through email, phone, their website, Facebook, and Twitter from one dashboard.
This means that they can view and manage queries, lead or sales questions, ticketing functionality, as well as community management capabilities that allow teams to engage customers in discussion forums and let early adopters suggest and vote on ideas. Startups with multiple brands or product lines can support their brands through a single account.
Freshdesk is supporting the fund from its internal revenues, and although it’s not disclosing rev growth, the team did say that it was supporting 700 companies as of April, which has doubled since February. With its Future Fund, Freshdesk believes that it’s doing a community service by way of a free service that lets young businesses focus on their product while maintaining quality customer support, but this is also very much an initiative that it hopes will introduce SaaS support to a new generation of companies, which it will try to convert to paying customers when the year of free service expires.
Like others, Freshdesk is free to start, with a tiered pricing scheme that escalates based on the number of agents and customization features a business needs. More on pricing here.
For startups looking to participate in the Future Fund, check out its landing page here.
Project Title: BOWDEN + SHEFFIELD Minimalist iPad Cases
Status: $13,746 of $20,000 goal, with five days left.
Closing Date for Funding: May 23, 2012
URL of the Project: BOWDEN + SHEFFIELD Minimalist iPad Cases
From the Creatives:
The Bowden and Sheffield are minimalist, hand crafted cases for iPad. The inspiration for the project came from Levi when he was unable to find a case that featured minimalist design and a high level of protection while not being attached to the iPad full-time.
The cases are hand crafted from the highest quality, most natural materials possible. Additionally, the majority of the materials are produced within fifty miles of fine grain’s studio in Utah. Both cases feature a magnetic closure system on the cover and ultra-soft inner felt lining to help keep the iPad safe and secure. To pay homage to those who have come before them, the cases are named after Eric and Levi’s ancestor’s surnames.
The Bowden is milled from aircraft-grade aluminum, bead-blasted and hard anodized. Other features include a choice of hand finished walnut or cherry hardwood and black or brown full-grain, chrome-tanned leather.
The Sheffield is made of milled polycarbonate, also with a choice of hand finished cherry or walnut hardwood. The cover is 100% natural wool felt. One of the more intriguing features of the Sheffield is its ability to be used as a dry-erase board.
Who at Gear Diary Backed It: No one, yet.
At What Level Did We Back: You can get in for $50, which will get you the simple brown leather Palmer sleeve (MSRP $90), but to get into the Bowden or the Sheffield, you are looking at $120 and $100, respectively. That’s the early bird special, but there seem to be enough of those left that you should be able to get in. After the early bird special is used up, the Bowden will be $170 and the Sheffield will be $150. That’s still a good deal, considering that retail on the Bowden will be $210 with the Sheffield at $190.
Why We Haven’t Backed It:
Judie says – I’ll admit that I am struggling with this one. One the one hand, I really like the rich chocolate brown of the Bowden (shown below), because I am an absolute sucker for striking products that use good leather. But I’m not sure if this case could really meet my needs. It’s more a sleeve, or shell-type case, so to use the iPad, you have to remove it from the very thing that is protecting it. Odds are that I am going to drop my iPad 3 at least once, and that will most likely occur when I am actually using it, which means it would be out of this case. With that said, I still think it looks good, and the prices for getting in aren’t bad.
Dan says - This is an interesting idea but it looks big, thick and boxy. I try to be as minimalist as possible these days, and this case doesn’t fit that bill. In addition, I’m not a huge fan of cases that don’t protect the iPad all the time. The exposure that is introduced when pulling the iPad out or putting it back just isn’t for me.
How’s Communication From the Creatives Been?: There are four updates – only two of which that I, as a non-backer can see, and that seems pretty reasonable.
What Has the Experience Been: I have to give it to these guys for doing something different and putting themselves out there to make it happen. I like the
Would You Recommend this Kickstarter Project?: If you are fairly confident that you aren’t going to drop your unprotected iPad, then by all means! I just happen to have a history of klutziness, and I need all the help I can get in that department. =/
If there is one negative aspect about having a tablet computer, it is probably how to hold the thing. As their form factor is super handy when on the go or playing a game, it is not always easy to hold them when trying to get some real work done.
I have tried many products including cases that double as a stand, all with mixed results. Recently, I was able to check out a product called FlipStands. While it holds my iPad as several other gadgets do, the beauty is that it will work with virtually any tablet. Let’s take a look.
FlipStands is a simple product that promises to help users maximize their tablet’s potential by providing a base for almost any use case. The product touts a compact, lightweight and sturdy design being constructed of ABS plastic. The stand actually look like a small tablet when all folded up.
When the product is closed, simply press the release button and open to use. The stand includes 20 micro adjustments to provide the perfect viewing angle for any occasion. Moving the back tab will adjust the viewing angle of the tablet. Two tabs pop out easily to hold the computer in place and keep it safe. While in any of the upright positions, the FlipStands can be used in both landscape and portrait providing an easily viewable and workable surface.
As I have discovered, the product works amazingly well when pairing with a Bluetooth keyboard. I actually wrote this entire post on my iPad utilizing the Apple bluetooth keyboard along with the FlipStands. The combination is really interesting and probably better than most small laptops. In fact, this product might have just made my iPad even more useable for me while at work.
For anyone who likes to use their onboard keyboard while working on a tablet, the FlipStands also configures into a dedicated typing position. To use this setting, flip the two tabs up from the bottom of the inside and move the adjustment tab all the way down. This will set the tablet to an optimal height and angle to type directly on the tablet. I am actually surprised how fast I can type with the iPad at this angle.
The FlipStands is a great product not only because of the 20 angle adjustments plus dedicated typing position, but also due to being usable by any tablet on the market. I have found the product to be strong in design and materials so it should last longer than the tablet. The FlipStands has found a permanent spot in my gear bag. One of my students actually thought I had some sort of small computer when I was using it. I did have one, it just also easily doubled as an iPad.
MSRP: $19.95 introductory price; regular price will be $29.95
What I Like: Small, lightweight, durable and functional; a great product at a cheap price
What Needs Improvement: Color choices and an anti-stick front material might make the product a bit more exciting
Filed under: Aftermarket, Convertible, Performance, Ferrari
Continue reading Mansory channels Enzo styling in Ferrari 458 Spider Monaco Edition
Mansory channels Enzo styling in Ferrari 458 Spider Monaco Edition originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 17 May 2012 14:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tiny sidebar and news feed ads aren’t going to cut it. If Facebook wants to live up to a $100 billion valuation it will need bold new revenue streams. An offsite ad network, big glossy news feed ads, or and payments for physical goods are a few ways it could boost its average revenue per user far beyond the puny $4.34 a year it earns today.
Facebook has a tough decision to make now that’s going public. It will have to strike a new balance between the good of its users, advertisers, app developers, and investors. If it refuses to explore new business models, its share price could sink. But if it strays too far in favor of making money, Facebook could lose its addictiveness and the faith of its users. Here’s the four aces Mark Zuckerberg could have up his sleeve.
Most ads suck because most advertisers don’t know much about who you are. But Facebook does. What if any website could use everything Facebook knows about you to show you ads you’d want to click? Well, those sites would pay Facebook a lot of money. They also might use Facebook to replace Google AdSense, the current leader amongst ad networks, which analyzes a site and automatically displays relevant ads.
Facebook’s ad network essentially turn ad real estate on any website into places to serve the campaigns that advertisers buy for display on Facebook.com. Anyone currently logged into Facebook who visits one of these sites would be shown ads targeted by their Facebook information, such as age, gender, location, work and education history, interests, app usage, and friends. Facebook and the site hosting an ad would then split the money made on clicks or impressions.
Facebook has denied this product is in the works whenever it’s been asked, but last week it revised its privacy policy to expand its ability to serve ads to its user while they’re outside of Facebook.com. There’d be little reason to do this if something wasn’t in the works. The march across the web of its other social plugins such as the Like button have also paved the way for an ad network plugin. It might need to develop or acquire a company with expertise in analyzing site content so it could serve somewhat relevant ads to site visitors who aren’t logged in to Facebook.
The biggest obstacle, and likely the reason Facebook hasn’t already launched an offsite ad network, is that the world might not be ready. People are already skittish about Facebook using all their personal data to target them with ads when they’re on its site. Even though Facebook wouldn’t technically be “tracking” user web browsing history to power ad targeting, seeing offsite ads targeted from their onsite data might cause some people to have an all-out privacy meltdown. But if it worked, the ad network could double or triple Facebook’s ad revenue.
Facebook has its own virtual currency called Credits that’s typically used to let gamers make in-game purchases like powerups, clothing for their characters, and of course, cows for their farms. Users buy the Credits for $0.10 each, and when they spend them Facebook gives 70% to the game’s developer and keeps the other 30%. These in-game payments are a healthy business for Facebook, and they’ve made game developers like Zynga rich because creating and selling virtual goods is cheap.
The problem is that the 30% tax is too high to for people to sell physical goods for Credits. And while Apple also charges 30% to sell music, games, and in-app purchases through iTunes and its App Store, it has a tight grip on the digital media market. Facebook allows media sales with Credits, but only a few developers and content producers are experimenting with it as the tax is prohibitive.
But if Facebook wanted to get serious about making money on payments, it could reduce its 30% tax for digital media and physical goods. In fact, its S-1 filing to IPO noted that “In the future, if we extend Payments outside of games, the percentage fee we receive from developers may vary.” That could turn Facebook into a competitor to Amazon for the huge market of physical goods, and pit it against Apple, Google, and Amazon for selling music, films, and more.
The real power of Facebook Payments comes in its tie in with Facebook Connect. Together they could one day let you make a purchase and fill in your shipping info anywhere on the web with just a click or two. Before privacy fear-mongers in the media and congress made Facebook retreat, the social network briefly allowed apps to ask for your home address, aka your shipping address. Eventually Facebook will bring this back. Then this frictionless purchase system could increase conversion rates for ecommerce stores enough that they’d gladly implement Facebook Payments and Connet…
There were over 550,000 apps and integrated websites on the Facebook platform as of a few years ago. Many rely on Facebook’s identity system to replace or provide an easier alternative to signing up for an app-specific account complete with another password to remember and profile to fill out. This service saves app developers from having to build their own identity system, and primes users for social sharing that can drive crucial referral traffic to apps.
Could Facebook convince some of the developers to pay either a subscription or per-user fee? Yes, but the price would have to be steep to make it a serious revenue stream. If it got 300,000 apps paying $100 a month each it’d still only be make $360 million a year. $100 a month could be a bargain for popular apps, but it might discourage smaller developers from signing on. Meanwhile a per user fee would disincentivize growth, and force apps that suddenly get popular to abandon Facebook’s identity platform.
Charging for identity has potential, but it could also backfire and send developers fleeing to Twitter and Google’s free identity systems. That’s a huge problem because Facebook relies on third-party apps to contribute content to its news feed which Facebook monetizes with ads. So instead I think Facebook’s best bet to boost revenue in the short-term is…
Advertisers don’t want to have their message crammed into the little sidebar ad boxes. And while they’re happy to have their ads made social as Sponsored Stories and injected into the news feed everyone reads, they also want less subtle marketing options. Facebook is trying to be flexible with the launch of Reach Generator and the big logout page ad unit, but advertisers want a louder marketing channel within the core Facebook experience. But beyond advertisers and investors looking to make a quick buck, nobody wants to see more ads on Facebook.
So the trick is for Facebook to make ads seem like content instead. Content we actually want to consume. Tiny boxes don’t do that, but large, high-impact full screen or near-full screen ads could. Flipboard and some other mobile apps have been experimenting with these big, glossy ad formats in their mobile apps.
Imagine scrolling down your news feed on the web or mobile and when you got to where there’d be a “More” button or fold (if Facebook didn’t have infinite scrolling), you’d see a large or full-screen ad. You could scroll right over it, or Facebook could make it snap into place for a second before you were free to move on.
These ads could be clicked to open an advertiser’s presence on Facebook such as their Page or App, or to open the buyer’s website. Facebook could even require the ads to be social, essentially creating a glossy Sponsored Story format that could only reach you if you Liked the advertiser’s Page or your friends had interacted with or Liked the brand.
As Facebook’s user base is quickly shifting to mobile where it only shows a few Sponsored Stories ads a day rather than multiple ads per page on the web, glossy ads could let Facebook make more money on mobile without having to show ads too frequently. Users might complain at first, and it could make people slightly less likely to visit the news feed. Still, Facebook could watch the data and manage rate limits to show these glossy ads only occasionally, and less often to users who immediately leave the site or app when they see them.
The fact is that Facebook is responsible to its outside shareholders, even if they don’t have enough voting rights to forcibly change the company’s course. If investors are smart, they won’t grumble if Facebook doesn’t immediately flood the site and the rest of the web with ads, payments, and subscription fees. Facebook got us all to connect. Now its biggest challenge is to remain cool while making more money. If Facebook expands its revenue streams slow and steady, it will have an ocean of users to draw from for years to come.
US Cellular is continuing to expand its LTE lineup with the release of the Samsung SCH-LC11, a 4G LTE hotspot that was previously launched on Verizon. The hotspot is being sold now through the US Cellular website and will come to stores May 21st, it's currently one of a handful of devices on the fledgling LTE network. Right now, it's $49.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate, although it's apparently only priced that way for a limited time. It's also only at this price point in areas where LTE will either launch soon or has already launched, like parts of Wisconsin, Texas, Oklahoma, Maine, North Carolina, and Iowa. Everywhere else, it's $199.99, and that's after a $50 rebate as well.
On the data plan side, you'll get more options than you would...
HP is reportedly going to be announcing massive layoffs next Wednesday. Conflicting reports state somewhere between 25K and 30K jobs, between 7% and 8% of HP’s global workforce, could be eliminated in an effort to absorb losses from decreasing demand for the company’s products and services. The cuts could happen over the next year, rather than a mass layoff, according to AllThingsD who also state that the total number is still undecided.
Wall Street is reacting positively to the news. HP’s stock price dropped shortly after the news but quickly recovered and started climbing with word of the restructuring. During the writing of this post, the stock price dropped slightly but is still up for the day.
If true, this is the latest of new CEO Meg Whitman’s drastic changes within HP. When she took over for Leo Apotheker, she nearly immediately announced that HP would not spin-off its PC division, the Personal Systems Group, as Apotheker once considered. Instead, Whitman’s team combined the PSG with the profitable Imaging and Printing Group.
The layoffs will reportedly be announced alongside HP’s quarterly earnings. Whitman will, at least per AllThingsD, deem the layoffs as necessary to make much-needed investments. Rather than just cutting people, the company will cut its workforce and then reinvest across the company.
This comes as HP is struggling to regain its dominant position in the PC and services world. While still on top per the numbers, competitors, including Apple, are racing forward with hot products. This is something that Whitman previously acknowledged to the company, predicting that Apple might surpass HP this year, but 2013 will be the year HP employees can once again celebrate — except for the 30K about to get pink slipped.
Everyme, the Y Combinator-backed mobile startup that helps users create groups for private sharing, is launching a whole bunch of new stuff today.
For starters, it’s releasing apps for both Android and the Web. Co-founder Vibhu Norby says both products have the same features as the iPhone app. On the Android side, Norby says “worked really hard” to create an app that was designed for the platform, rather than just porting over the iPhone app.
On the Web side, Norby notes that it’s unusual for “mobile-first companies like ours” to build more than a barebones website pointing to the mobile app. But Everyme isn’t a normal mobile company — even though its initial product was a mobiel app, it also allowed users to participate in groups through text messaging and emails. Norby says it was important that someone who got an Everyme email on their desktop or laptop computer could follow the link and join the conversation right now.
The company also made some improvements to the iPhone app too. Groups on Everyme are called Circles, and Norby says the process for creating them was “pretty bad.” Now the process has been streamlined, so you can add or remove people from circles with just a couple of taps. The invite process has been too. Previously, if you added someone to a circle who wasn’t already a member of Everyme, they wouldn’t know about it until they joined the app, or until someone shared a story in the circle. Now if you add a non-member to a circle, you can turn invites on to notify them by email or text.
One of the cooler features is something called Magic Stories, where the app automatically generates Everyme updates based on updates from your other social networks. Today it’s adding Instagram integration, so if you post a popular photo on Instagram, it will be shared in Everyme too.
Filed under: Hybrid, Minivan/Van, Wagon, Europe, Hatchback, Ford, Toyota, Electric
Continue reading Ford C-Max pricing to undercut Toyota Prius V
Ford C-Max pricing to undercut Toyota Prius V originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 17 May 2012 14:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsLEGO has announced that it is giving away a free exclusive and limited edition Hulk minifig. The special minifig is available only at LEGO stores and online with purchases of $50 or more. LEGO has been offering a bunch of different play sets to celebrate Marvel superheroes and the release of the Avengers movie.
As a matter of fact, we mentioned back in March that LEGO was giving away a free limited-edition minifig Avengers movie poster to 2 million people. LEGO isn’t clear on how many of the free Hulk minifigs it will be giving away though. It does say “limited-edition,” but that could mean 2000 or 2 million for all we know.
The Hulk minifig is automatically added to your cart if you purchase $50 worth of merchandise from LEGO online or in-store while supplies last.
Editor’s Note: TechCrunch columnist Semil Shah currently works at Votizen and is based in Palo Alto. You can follow him on Twitter @semil
“In the Studio” hosts a Silicon Valley technology veteran this week, someone who has been around tech since 1977, in venture since 1995, an early investor in Twitter, Yammer, and Millennial Media, a former executive in the gaming console industry, and while in college, took an interest in economics where his thesis advisor just happened to be Nobel Laureate Franco Modigliani.
It’s become fashionable for certain breeds of celebrity tech pundits to sound the alarm bell for their audiences about the impending bubble we are in, or have been in, or will be in. It all reminds me of one of Gordon Gecko’s lines in Wall Street II, “like a rooster taking credit for the dawn.” Economic bubbles come and go, they are natural cycles that humans have lived through for centuries. A more interesting question to ask is: What phase are we in relative to the current economic cycle? This is exactly what George Zachary of Charles River Ventures dissects in this fascinating conversation.
With the Facebook IPO tomorrow, Zachary carefully walks us through a previous Valley bubble, explaining its formation, its growth, and the factors that led it to burst. We let the camera roll a bit longer on this one because it turned out Zachary has studied the history of economic bubbles and shared deeper insights into current market dynamics that have implications for the early-stage technology community. In this video, he almosts delivers a point-by-point lecture on the similarities and differences between the atmosphere around Netscape’s IPO versus the period we are in today. Zachary also spends time discussing what the rest of 2012 could look like for venture capital firms and early-stage founders who go into this market to raise funds. I’d recommend this video for any investor or entrepreneur investing in the consumer web and mobile spaces, a chance to hear a thoughtful opinion from someone who has a unique point of view on the current climate.
Filed under: Concept Cars, Performance, Hatchback, Volkswagen, Misc. Auto Shows
Continue reading Volkswagen previews 220-hp Polo WRC Street special ahead of Wörthersee debut
Volkswagen previews 220-hp Polo WRC Street special ahead of Wörthersee debut originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 17 May 2012 13:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Ever have a busy day where it’s never really convenient to sit down and find a charger for your iPhone? Ever sit down on a transcontinental flight only to find out your iPod doesn’t have as much juice left as you thought? Ever wish you had a cable handy to charge or sync your device? Well, USBFever has the right tool for you that does all of this: the Card Type Emergency Charger for iPhone/iPod.
Featuring an emergency charger capability with its own internal 400mAh battery and housed in an 87 x 56mm case only 7mm thick, the Emergency Charger can re-energize your iPod or iPhone and keep it running in a pinch without adding extra physical drag to your gear. Besides its charge capability, the Card Type Emergency Charger also boasts a data cable for mobile iOS devices for syncing data and permits charging from any standard USB charger. In addition, the Emergency Charger card also possesses an LED torch-light to help illuminate an area in dark conditions.
The charger supports the following devices:
USBFever Card Type Emergency Charger
MSRP: $11.99
Comcast announced today that it is doing away with its 250 GB data cap, and will be moving to test out new plans will charge customers based on usage, rather than cutting them off.
Since 2008, Comcast has had a data usage cap of 250GB for all its broadband plans. At that time, the cap was mainly meant to deter users from abusing the network, largely by downloading or distributing pirated video files. But times have changed, streaming media is now a thing, and services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and TV Everywhere services like Xfinity TV and HBO Go are using up massive amounts of data for some customers.
“Four years after we put it in place, we don’t think a static, non-flexible data cap is the best approach,” David Cohen, EVP of Comcast, said on a call with press.
Comcast’s response is to cancel its 250 GB data cap and to test out different approaches to dealing with broadband data management. That starts with increasing everyone’s data plan to 300 GB, and putting into effect two new plans in test markets.
The first test will start its minimum broadband plan — Internet essentials, which is priced at $9.95 a month — at 300GB and will gradually increase the amount of data available to customers who buy higher-speed broadband plans. The second test will provide all broadband customers with 300 GB, regardless of data plan, and charge them more — say, $10 per 50 GB — on an incremental basis for data used over and above that.
For those who don’t live in the test markets, the 250 GB threshold will disappear completely, and customers will no longer be cut off if they hit the old cap. Comcast will still contact those who come close, if only to ensure that customers aren’t getting hit by botnets or other malware.
The goal for Comcast is to make sure it’s not cutting customers off who are reaching that 250 GB limit — and to also make sure that customers who are using a huge amount of data pay their fair share. The company is also hoping to allay concerns from customer concerns that they might hit those caps due to using services like Netflix, or even TV Everywhere services.
Comcast wouldn’t get into specifics about what percentage of customers bump up against the current threshold, but said that median broadband usage is around 8-10 GB per month. That gives most customers a lot of leeway with 300 GB, but the new plans remove any hypothetical threat of disconnection due to usage.
At the same time, one of the main reasons that the data cap discussion came about was due to criticism Comcast received over its Xbox Live streaming VOD service. That service, while delivered via IP, wasn’t being counted toward its cap. That won’t change going forward, and Xbox streams still won’t count against its customer broadband usage.
[Image via Flickr/Kevin Burkett]