Newzity

That is what AT&T would like us to believe. The company says unless a lot of money is spent on network infrastructure we will run out of bandwidth by 2010. But before you panic remember AT&T may be to coming up with these dire warnings for selfish reasons and they may have little to do with helping the average people like us.

One possibility is that they want to jack up the price. It will go something like this: some of the spending in the infrastructure will be passed on to the consumer as a premium service. That means unless we pay up we will get a reduced rate service under the current plan. Today’s regular service will be tomorrow’s premium. Then there is the net neutrality debate that is raging in capital hill. Companies like AT&T would love to charge different price for different traffic. That way they can make more money. That argument goes like this: the bandwidth is limited and to make sure everyone gets a fair share companies like AT&T should have the right to allocate who gets how much. Sounds logical until we realize it is just another way of controlling price to make more money. People are already complaining that companies like AT&T are engaged in prioritizing traffic giving preference to data from certain source and ignoring others.

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You might have to consider the question if PETA has its way. After trying to fight the meat eating habits for a long time, PETA now wants to give up. Not entirely though, they want you to eat test tube meat. They are offering $1 million prize for anyone who can make commercially viable meat in the lab.

Growing meat in the lab is nothing new. Scientists can grow tissue cultures that can be shaped and textured like the real meat using the same techniques used for soy burgers. The advantage is that it would need much less resource like land and water to produce, and for PETA it won’t involve any real animal. So cruelty against animal is out of the question. With right flavoring and texture the test tube meat can be made to replace chicken, beef, fish, or anything else you want. A separate organization called New Harvest that promotes meat substitute points at other benefits:

“Because meat substitutes are produced under controlled conditions impossible to maintain in traditional animal farms, they can be safer, more nutritious, less polluting and more humane than conventional meat.”

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Yes. Starting on Monday Skype will offer unlimited international calling plan for just $10 per month. You can call any landline phone in 34 countries.

The unlimited international calling plan is nothing new. Everyone from Vonage to cable companies offer them but for a lot more money. Skype’s plan offers the lowest price to call international numbers without per minute charge. This is an expansion of Skype’s North America plan with unlimited calls to anywhere in US and Canada for $3 a month. Skye will also offer that would include part of Mexico for $6 a month. Most of European counties are included in the international plan, as well as, Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Japan, Korea and Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Taiwan. Normally, people calling from US would use their computer to call. But they can also use their phone to call a local number to get international connection - the local calls are not part of the deal.

In the first quarter of this year Skype users made calls to phones for 1.7 billion minutes. Skype was acquired by eBay in 2005, but eBay is now looking to sell it off.

Yes, if you are a patient of New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Dwight McPherson, who works in the admissions department, is charged with stealing 50 thousands patient records and selling them to identity thieves.

He had access to all the registration information stored at the hospital’s computer. In 2006, when he was approached by ID thieves for records of 38 to 58 year old male patients, he agreed to steal the information for money. He collected the names, addresses, and social security numbers and sold them over the period of two years leading to his arrest on Friday night. Police uncovered his scheme when a print out of the record showed up in Atlanta during a postal investigation. How much did he get for selling those records? About $600 to $700 dollars for a batch of 1000 records. For less than a dollar, our identity can be in the hands of crooks. His lawyer claimed that “He is a hard working, honest man.” Right, stealing people’s personal information is really hard work.

Identity theft is a serious problem - besides the financial loss it can ruin someone’s life. And of all places we would think hospitals, where we need to disclose all our personal information and history, would be a safe place. But as it turns out that is not the case.

I guess money and greed took over. Google just hired Frank “the crook” Quattrone to advise them on Yahoo and Microsoft merger.

Legally, Google faces hurdles if they want to buy Yahoo. So they are trying to bend the rules and trying to find a loophole to do that. Why such big and profitable company like Google needs to do that? It is all about money and Microsoft. Microsoft is not only trying to get Yahoo, they are in talks with News Corporation that bought MySpace. Microsoft missed the search engine boat, and Google missed the social networking ship. That makes Google nervous about their future if Microsoft catches up on the social networking side. Yeah Google has Orkut, but Orkut is no MySpace or Facebook. That reminds me, Orkut started with stolen software. The possibility of Microsoft getting Yahoo and teaming up with MySpace is something that scares Google. So it is time to call up old buddy who knows a thing or two about bending the rules. Mr. Quattrone is an old buddy of Google CEO Eric Schmidt. No one is surprised that Mr. Schmidt called his friend for “expert” advice on how to go around the laws.

So what happened to Do No Evil principle? Well it is easy for a startup to come up with a catchy phrase, but really hard for a giant to live up to it. Maybe all these years we blamed Microsoft for nothing.

May be soon. FCC has just approved a plan for nation wide emergency broadcast system over the mobile network so that anyone with a cell phone can get text messages about all sorts of crisis from natural disaster to terrorist attack.

The Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) would reach 250 million people with cell phones. The idea is not new. Given the popularity and availability of cell phones, people already used them as a primary means of communication in times of crisis including 9/11 and Virginia Tech killings. The plan combines the national alert system with the cell phone network to quickly reach more people. There would be three kinds of alerts: imminent threats for natural disasters, Amber alerts for missing children, and Presidential alerts for national emergency such as terrorist attacks. For now, the system would send text messages, but in future it would include multimedia.

Though FCC and all the major mobile carriers are supporting the move, there are some hurdles to cross. FCC does not have the authority to run the public alert system and wants FEMA, which runs the current TV and Radio based alert system, to take the responsibility. However, FEMA is not ready due to budget and other constraints. For now, we just have to wait a bit longer for emergency SMS to arrive.

On the Internet one can find more information on how to commit suicide than how not to. Not only that, a British study found that half of the Internet sites that are dedicated to suicide related information promote the act. Only one in eight sites provides information on prevention.

The study used 12 suicide related terms on four difference search engines - Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com. They collected a total of 480 links - top ten from each search, and found 240 unique sites. Almost half of those 240 sites had information on suicide methods. One fifth of all 480 sites were primarily dedicated to suicide. Half of those dedicated sites were considered encouraging suicide, not trying to prevent it. Only 62 of the total 480 sites had information on prevention, and 59 sites clearly discouraged suicide. All the three sites that came up most frequently on the search encouraged the visitor to commit suicide.

It is depressing since people with suicidal thoughts may not reach out to other people and try to look for information on the Internet. And as it turns out they are most likely to find encouragement and not much help.

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