Archive for April, 2008

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Time Warner plans to spin off Time Warner Cable at long last

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

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Time Warner Cable, which just endeared itself to New Yorkers with a whole mess of HD channels, is finally getting a full break from parent company and all-around media conglomerate Time Warner. This has been speculated about for years, and a portion of TWC was spun off into Bright House Networks in 2003, but the clean break should give both companies a good shot at doing what they both do best: raking in obscene amounts of cash. There's no word on the timeline or method for the spin off just yet, only a promise to finalize an agreement "soon." [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]
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Netgear offers up 6-bay ReadyNAS Pro

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

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Four months is just too long to go without an all new ReadyNAS, so we suppose that's why Netgear is kicking out an all new 6-bay unit (6TB RNDP6610; 3TB RNDP6310; 1.5TB RNDP6350) for those obsessed with storage. The box can handle up to 6TB of HDD space and features an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM (up to 4GB supported), 128MB of embedded flash for the OS, a pair of gigabit Ethernet ports, three USB 2.0 sockets and support for RAID 0/1/5/6 and Auto-Expandable X-RAID2. As expected, Windows / Mac / Linux clients can all tap in, and the unit streams all sorts of media on the side. Of course, acquiring the industry's first 6-bay small-form-factor NAS drive won't come cheap, with the ReadyNAS Pro starting at around two large.
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White space networking could disrupt hospital telemetry systems

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

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The stumbling blocks keep piling up as white space networking struggles to get off the ground: it looks like the manufacturers of healthcare equipment are set to join NAB in opposing the technology. Wireless medical telemetry devices like heart monitors have been operating in broadcast white spaces since the late 80s, and manufacturers like GE Healthcare say that the Microsoft- and Google-backed white space networking initiative could potentially "directly interfere" and "prevent patient monitoring." For its part, the FCC has set aside all of channel 37 for medical telemetry devices in 1998 after interference from a nearby TV station shut down the system at Baylor University Medical Center, but it wasn't mandatory, and hospitals that haven't made the switch could face millions of dollars in upgrade costs. That's not say that medical telemetry concerns are a problem that can't be solved -- the new Google push includes a channel 37 exception, for example, and there are some other compromise solutions on the table -- but it seems like there's no end of issues for a technology that hasn't really even been demonstrated working yet.
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FCC’s broadband over power lines expansion hits major snag

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

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Powerline ModemIf you're waiting for broadband over power lines (BPL) as an alternative to cable or DSL in your area, it may be time to finally give in to one of the big companies. The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) -- a group of amateur radio enthusiasts -- has sued the FCC over its plan to speed up BPL's expansion, citing concerns that the service's radio emissions provide too many interference risks to the hobby / ham spectrum. While the FCC conducted a favorable study on BPL's potential problems, their published report had so many redacted sections that the ARRL wants to know what they missed. A D.C. district court agrees with the League, and plans for further rollout have been tabled until the FCC can come up with more facts.
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The mobile future is calling

Saturday, April 26th, 2008
Developers are being urged to unleash their creativity and make the mobile future a reality and bring the world to everyone's phone.

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Comcast tells AT&T to lay off its coax, seeks restraining order

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

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Never one shy to pick a fight, Comcast is now taking square aim at AT&T, which it alleges is wreaking havoc with its internet service as a result of shoddy installs of the company's U-verse TV service. More specifically, as Ars Technica points out, while both companies use different lines outside of the home (copper coax for Comcast and twisted pair for AT&T), they each use the same coaxial wiring inside the house, which Comcast says causes "feedback" to leak back out onto its network, possibly as a result of the two services using similar frequencies or filters. That, Comcast says, has caused service disruptions for some 20,000 users in the Chicago area, with it particularly affecting those that mix and match Comcast and U-verse services. To put a stop to that, Comcast is now seeking a restraining order against AT&T, although it apparently hasn't received one as of yet. For its part, AT&T not only unsurprisingly says that "the suit lacks merit and that the company intends to vigorously fight it," but that it plans to significantly ramp up the roll out of U-verse in Illinois.

[Via Online Media Daily, thanks Alan M]
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QNAP delivers BitTorrent-lovin’ TS-109 Pro II and TS-209 Pro II NAS drives

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

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QNAP's TS-109 / TS-209 NAS drives weren't anything to sneeze at, but the company's looking to improve overall responsiveness and speed up BitTorrent download performance with a pair of successors. The one-bay TS-109 Pro II and two-bay TS-209 Pro II both include a potent 500MHz Marvell processor and 256MB of DDR2 RAM, which is double the memory stuffed within the prior iterations. You'll also find a new and improved BT engine that promises "the [same] level of P2P download speed as PC-based BT downloads," built-in Joomla! CMS 1.5.1, scheduled backup / logging applications, DivX-friendly TwonkyMedia v4.4.4 and support for DLNA / NFS / SMB multimedia sharing. Sorry, no pricing deets to share at the moment.
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Thieves set up data supermarkets

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Cyber criminals are setting up web shops that sell stolen data for a knock-down price, say security experts.

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AT&T slashing 1.5 percent of workforce

Friday, April 18th, 2008

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Facing down a "sluggish" economy and in light of some recent regional acquisitions, AT&T announced today that it'll be cutting about 1.5 percent of its workforce, primarily concentrating on management. The company calls it the "next step in streamlining its operations," and will shelling out about $375 million in Q1 to make the layoffs happen. According to some dubious maths perpetrated by the Engadget staff, 1.5 percent of AT&T's workforce is about 4,635.75 humans, not a minuscule cut by a long shot. We'd certainly hate to be in Mr. 75 percent's shoes right now.
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Screen Grabs: giant Linksys WiFi router is The Internet

Friday, April 18th, 2008

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Screen grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com.


Complete internet downtime is no laughing matter, but more frightening still is the prospect that the world's data flow is completely beheld to a giant, taciturn Linksys WiFi router. South Park clip embedded after the break -- we're still trying to decide whether this trumps the Aqua Teen episode where they meet the Wwwyzzerdd, freakish master of the internet.

Continue reading Screen Grabs: giant Linksys WiFi router is The Internet

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