Filed under: Robots

WowWee’s Rovio isn’t due to start shipping to the general populace for a few days still, but the mighty important folks over at RobotsRule were somehow able to procure one a hair early. Thankfully for us, it took the time to neatly unbox this home sentry and give us an up-close look at what it’s made of. A full-fledged review is promised within the next few days, but for now, just hit the read link and enjoy the shots.

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Via [Engadget]

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Dealzmodo: $200 Midway Tabletop Arcade [Deals]

We know that you can get your fill of Midway classics easily enough through emulation, but this officially licensed tabletop cabinet is pretty tempting all the same. For $200 (and $5 shipping) you get a 14″ CRT, a duo of 6-button joysticks and 12 games like Rampage, Joust and Root Beer Tapper. Plus, there are some A/V-in ports for those of you looking to bring your HD Xbox 360 experience to the small screen. [woot via dealnews]

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Comcast Opens Curtains On How They Filter Your Traffic [Comcast]

Comcast has just released a series of documents in response to the Federal Communications Commission detailing how, exactly, the ISP filters your traffic. Based on their traffic analysis, five protocols (Ares, BitTorrent, eDonkey, FastTrack and Gnutella) were especially filtered. Not anymore. Now Comcast is going to be throttling ALL traffic you generate, even if it’s from their own Fancast streaming video service, if you’re generating abnormally high traffic compared to your peers.

On the bright side, it’s good that your torrents aren’t getting slowed down, but on the other hand, “legal” applications like Netflix or Amazon will be affected as well. This probably won’t be a big deal to all that many of you, as Comcast says the throttling only occurs during periods of congestion, and in total will only impact 1% of users. (It’s likely that many Giz readers are in that 1% of bandwidth hogs though.) In any case, you’ll still have to watch out that you don’t run over the 250GB monthly cap, or else your net will become disconnected entirely. FAQ below:

Why does Comcast manage its network?

Comcast manages its network with one goal: to deliver the best possible broadband Internet experience to all of its customers. High-speed bandwidth and network resources are not unlimited. Managing the network is essential to promote the use and enjoyment of the Internet by all of our customers. We use reasonable network management practices that are consistent with industry standards. We also try to use tools and technologies that are minimally intrusive. Just as the Internet continues to change and evolve, so too, will our network management practices to address the challenges and threats on the Internet.

All Internet service providers need to manage their networks and Comcast is no different. In fact, many of them use the same or similar tools that Comcast does. If we didn’t manage our network, our customers would be subject to the negative effects of spam, viruses, security attacks, network congestion, and other risks and degradations of the service. By engaging in reasonable and responsible network management, Comcast can deliver the best possible broadband Internet experience to all of its customers.

How does Comcast manage its network?

Comcast uses various tools and techniques to manage its network, deliver the Service, and ensure compliance with the Acceptable Use Policy and the Comcast Agreement for Residential Services available at http://www.comcast.net/terms/subscriber/. These tools and techniques are dynamic, like the network and its usage, and can and do change frequently. For example, these network management activities may include identifying spam and preventing its delivery to customer e-mail accounts, detecting malicious Internet traffic and preventing the distribution of viruses or other harmful code or content and using other tools and techniques that Comcast may be required to implement in order to meet its goal of delivering the best possible broadband Internet experience to all of its customers.

Does network management change over time?

Yes. The Internet is highly dynamic. As the Internet and related technologies continue to evolve and advance, Comcast’s network management tools will evolve and keep pace so that we can deliver an excellent, reliable, and safe online experience to all of our customers.

In March 2008, Comcast announced that it will migrate to a new network congestion management technique before the end of the year. (See more FAQs about that in this section.)

How will the new technique work?

The new network congestion management practice works as follows:

If a certain area of the network nears a state of congestion, the technique will ensure that all customers have a fair share of access to the network. It will identify which customer accounts are using the greatest amounts of bandwidth and their Internet traffic will be temporarily managed until the period of congestion passes. Customers will still be able to do anything they want to online, and many activities will be unaffected, but they could experience things like: longer times to download or upload files, surfing the Web may seem somewhat slower, or playing games online may seem somewhat sluggish.

The new technique does not manage congestion based on the online activities, protocols or applications a customer uses, rather it only focuses on the heaviest users in real time, so the periods of congestion could be very fleeting and sporadic.

It is important to note that the effect of this technique is temporary and it has nothing to do with aggregate monthly data usage. Rather, it is dynamic and based on prevailing network conditions as well as very recent data usage.

Will the technique target P2P or other applications, or make decisions about the content of my traffic?

No. The new technique is “protocol-agnostic,” which means that the system does not manage congestion based on the applications being used by customers. It is content neutral, so it does not depend on the type of content that is generating traffic congestion. Said another way, customer traffic is congestion-managed not based on their applications, but based on current network conditions and recent bytes transferred by users.

How does the new network management technique impact me and my use of the Comcast High Speed Internet service?

With this new technique, most customers will notice no change in their Internet experience. The goal of congestion management is to enable all users to have access to a fair share of the network at peak times, when congestion occasionally occurs. Congestion management focuses on the consumption activity of individual customer accounts that are using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth. As a result, and based on our technical trials of this technique, we expect that the large majority of customers will not be affected by it. In fact, based on consumer data collected from these trials, we found that on average less than 1% of our high-speed Internet customers are affected by the approach.

How often does Comcast expect to use this technique?

Based on market trials to date, Comcast expects that select portions of the network will be in a congested state only for relatively small portions of the day, if at all.

During these trials, Comcast did not receive a single customer complaint that could be traced to this new congestion management practice, despite having publicized the trials and notifying customers involved in the trials via e-mail.

Comcast will continue to monitor how user traffic is affected by these new congestion management techniques and will make the adjustments reasonably necessary to ensure that our Comcast High-Speed Internet customers have a high-quality online experience.

Can you give me some “real world” examples of how much bandwidth consumption would be considered too much? For example, how many movies would I have to download to be affected by this new technique?

Since the technique is dynamic and works in real time, the answer really depends on a number of factors including overall usage, time of day and the number of applications a customer might be running at the same time. First, the local network must be approaching a congested state for our new technique to even look for traffic to manage. Assuming that is the case, customers’ accounts must exceed a certain percentage of their upstream or downstream (both currently set at 70%) bandwidth for longer than a certain period of time, currently set at fifteen minutes.

A significant amount of normal Internet usage by our customers does not last that long. For example, most downloads would have completed within that time, and the majority of streaming and downloading will not exceed the threshold to be eligible for congestion management. And the majority of longer-running applications, such as VoIP, video conferencing, and streaming video content (including HD streaming on most sites) will not exceed these thresholds either.

The point of the technique is to deliver the best overall online experience possible. The technique should help ensure that all customers get their fair share of bandwidth resources to enjoy all that the Internet has to offer and that includes surfing the web, reading emails, downloading movies, watching streaming video, gaming or listening to music.

How will customers know they are being managed?

We are exploring ways to create new tools that will let customers know when the management is occurring. In the short term, our efforts are focused on transitioning to the new technique as soon as possible.

We believe this sort of congestion notification should be an Internet standard and have been discussing this issue in technical bodies like the Internet Engineering Task Force. We believe the use of Internet Standards for such a real-time notification is important as applications developers can write for networks beyond the Comcast network. However we are planning to develop a capability that may enable a customer to see if they were managed in the past, though this is not yet ready for testing.

Does this technique apply to both Commercial and Residential services?

Yes.
How is this announcement related to the recent 250 GB monthly usage threshold?

The two are completely separate and distinct. The new congestion management technique is based on real-time Internet activity. The goal is to avoid congestion on our network that is being caused by the heaviest users. The technique is different from the recent announcement that 250 GB/month is the aggregate monthly usage threshold that defines excessive use.

Is Comcast Digital Voice affected by this technique? What about other VoIP providers?

Comcast Digital Voice is a separate facilities-based IP phone service that is not affected by this technique.

Comcast customers who use VoIP providers that rely on delivering calls over the public Internet who are also using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth during a period when this network management technique goes into effect may experience a degradation of their call quality at times of network congestion. It is important to note, however, that VoIP calling in and of itself does not use a significant amount of bandwidth. Furthermore, our real-world testing of this technique did not indicate any significant change in the quality of VoIP calls, even for managed customer traffic during periods of congestion.

What about Fancast.com and streaming video or video downloads? What will happen to them?

During periods of congestion, any customers who are using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth – no matter what type or content of the online activity (for example, it does not matter if the content is coming from a Comcast owned site like Fancast.com or not) – may be affected by this technique.

Our technique also has no ability to determine the applications or protocols being used or the content, source or destination.

Does Comcast block peer-to-peer (”P2P”) traffic or applications like BitTorrent, Gnutella, or others?

No. Today, Comcast does not block P2P traffic or applications like BitTorrent, Gnutella, or others as part of its current network congestion management technique.

It is important to note, however, that the current network congestion technique, which will be replaced by the end of 2008, may on a limited basis temporarily delay certain P2P traffic when that traffic has, or is projected to have, an adverse effect on other customers’ use of the service. We do this because, in certain situations, that type of traffic consumes a disproportionately large amount of network resources.

Does Comcast discriminate against particular types of online content?

No. Comcast provides its customers with full access to all the content, services, and applications that the Internet has to offer. However, we are committed to protecting customers from spam, phishing, and other unwanted or harmful online content and activities. Comcast uses industry standard tools and generally accepted best practices and policies to help it meet this customer commitment. In cases where these tools and policies identify certain online content as harmful and unwanted, such as spam or phishing Web sites, this content is usually prevented from reaching customers. In other cases, these tools and policies may permit customers to identify certain content that is not clearly harmful or unwanted, such as bulk e-mails or Web sites with questionable security ratings, and enable those customers to inspect the content further if they want to do so.

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T-Mobile Android Event Liveblog on Tuesday: Whatcha Wanna See? [Android Liveblog]

We’ve got a little more than 72 hours before the first Android phone makes its official world debut, where we’ll be bringing it to you live at the usual spot, live.gizmodo.com. We’ll be getting there early, so come by to keep us company while we wait in line with a bunch of old, balding dudes until the event officially starts at 10:30AM Eastern. We put the question to you before the Let’s Rock event, but we’ll do it here too: What do you want to see from us at the event? Besides waffles, we’ll have plenty of those.

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Gateway’s new MC Series shown off, signs of life spotted

Filed under: Laptops

No bull whatsoever — we’re really digging this so-called MC Series that Gateway’s busy showing off in Budapest. According to Laptop Mag, who was on hand for the event, the family is designed to go after those mildly spectacular HDX rigs from HP and Sony’s FW crew. The model on display was packing a 16-inch widescreen LCD, color customizable lid with a leather strip running down its center, a backlit keyboard and a brushed metal palm rest. Also of note, editors spotted both AMD and Intel-powered versions, and while no pricing information was available, we’re told to keep an eye out for a November release. Head south to the read link for more pictures and a hands-on vid.

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Sexy Sony Vaio TZ Is About To Be TT? [Rumor]

Sony Insider is reporting a well-founded rumor that the Vaio team will announce a new notebook tomorrow, a replacement to the super-sweet TZ, now to be called TT. I don’t know if that’s an Audi reference or a boobie reference, but what I do know is that it will likely have wireless-N, Bluetooth and an EVDO option—no mention of HSDPA—and will be a full-powered Vista notebook with the same 11.1-inch screen as the lightweight TZ. Catchy name or not, this combination of features should make it a pretty hot item, so let’s all keep an eye out for the real news. [Sony Insider]

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Pentax Leaks Affordable New K-m DSLR [DSLRs]

There’ve been lots of rumors floating around about Pentax’s Photokina lineup, and it looks like the German Pentax site leaked some images and details about the K-m, an entry-level DSLR. Specs are a little bit sketchy, but it’s using the same 10.2MP Sony sensor as the K200D, and retains the 2.7-inch screen and the sad lack of Live View. But the iso gets a boost to 3200 and the fps to 3.5, and the pricing seems extremely competitive, at only 500 euro for the 1-lens kit and 600 for the 2-lens kit. The K line has been solid so far, so we’ll be watching out for it at Photokina. [1001 via Crunchgear]

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SentrySafe Hard Drive Endures Trial by Fire (and Water) [Hard Drives]

Whenever our journalistic brethren get to set something on fire and douse it with water, we like to commemorate the moment. Wired’s Gadget Lab just performed such a battery of tests on the SentrySafe fire-and-flood proof hard drives, ones we first saw almost a year ago. On one hand, the test went as predicted, but on the other hand, data doesn’t seem as protected as you might think.

The tester got a hold of SentrySafe’s QA0005, essentially an armor-plated 250GB Maxtor drive. Once it was loaded with a ton of movies, the fun part involved popping the damn thing in the oven to bake away. Not enough heat? It was tossed into the fireplace too, surviving both with ease. (It’s supposed to withstand 30 min. at up to 1550ºF.) The dunk test was far more impressive than the faucet shot above suggests: The thing went underwater, and stayed there for 12 full hours. Apparently it could have gone another 12.

Fire and water were no big whup, but the tester did have a problem with another potential act of God: The casing definitely wasn’t built to be shake-, make that quake-proof. Might want to save the $400 and buy a backup drive instead, to keep somewhere far far away. [Wired]

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Filed under: Robots

We haven’t heard a whole lot about Singapore’s DARPA-esque TechX robot challenge since it first kicked off early last year, but with the final round getting underway on Sunday, Popular Mechanics has now thankfully offered up a preview of what’s in store. Among those set to compete is the so-called Uni-Seeker bot (pictured above) from Nanyang Technological University, which is a heavily modded incarnation of iRobot’s ATRV Junior robot, and one of only six bots that managed to make it through all the qualifying rounds. Others include the considerably more intimidating AZROBOWAR Sharp Shooter, built completely from scratch, and a pair of robots built on iRobot’s popular PackBot platform. From the looks of it, they’ll each have their work cut out for them in the big event, with them required to start outside and navigate their way inside a building, then climb a flight of stairs, travel up an elevator, touch a few targets, and then exit the building again — without any human intervention, and in less than an hour. That $700,000 prize should provide plenty of motivation, though.

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Via [Engadget]

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MSI’s Wind U90 gets unboxed on video

Filed under: Laptops

You’ve seen the Wind U90 MSI has wanted you to see — you know, that version it brings to trade shows, possibly showered and cleaned up by professionals beforehand. But the U90 you’re about to see in the video past the break is the real deal. Ordered from Canada and shipped to the US of A, this 8.9-inch Wind looks pretty much exactly like its larger-screened sibling save for a bigger bezel and a few French symbols on the keyboard. But why listen to us spell it out when you can just click through and mash play?

Continue reading MSI’s Wind U90 gets unboxed on video

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