feature: How Amsterdam was wired for open access fiber
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The city of Amsterdam has been involved for several years in building Citynet, a partnership between the city and two private investors to wire 40,000 Amsterdam buildings with fiber. And it’s not just fiber, it’s open access fiber—any ISP can sign up to use the infrastructure and deliver ultra-fast Internet access.
In 2008, the European Union ruled that the city’s involvement in the project was in fact legal, and ..read more
The people who originally branded file sharers as pirates get upset that the so-called pirates aren’t more upset, Googler Matt Cutts offers a high level explanation of how search engines like Google work, and Internet Explorer 9 won’t run on XP. More »
150,000 take FCC broadband speed test in first week
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The FCC has had it with ISPs. For more than a decade, the agency has relied on ISP reports to get a picture of broadband speeds and availability in the US, and the results have been uniformly terrible. The ISPs don’t want to report numbers detailed enough to be useful, so the feds finally dropped a pile of cash on the table last year to do some proper ..read more
Court documents in the $1 billion lawsuit between Viacom and YouTube were unsealed today, finally shedding some light on key questions: did Viacom have “smoking gun” evidence that YouTube was deliberately profiting from 62,637 Viacom clips that were watched more than 507 million times on the site? Was Google aware of the copyright infringement problems when it purchased YouTube in 2006? Were YouTube’s own founders involved in uploading ..read more
A Few Screens from Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days
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The message all should learn is ask and you shall receive. Yesterday, I was frantically trying to find a picture for our “Welcome to Shanghai” video for Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days article. Well, it is a day behind schedule, but my contact for Square-Enix sent over a few screens for our readers. The screens show our two main anti-heroes in action on the mean streets of Shanghai.
Check the jump for a couple more shots from Kane and Lynch ..read more
You may have already heard that Steam is arriving on Mac this April, terrific news for anyone who has encountered the dilemma of an acquired fondness for both Valve’s games and Apple’s Macs. Reassuringly Valve is taking the port and launch pretty darned seriously. With multiple teams’ input ensuring a worthwhile endeavor, Valve are regarding it “to be the biggest event in Steam’s history since the service was first launched”.
Valve’s director of Steam development, John Cook, mentions that encouraging input ..read more
First MAG DLC next week
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MAG will be getting its first piece of downloadable content next Thursday, on March 25, developer Zipper Interactive’s senior community manager Jeremy Dunham has announced on PlayStation’s official blog.
Going under the Trooper Gear Pack name, the content will include the apparently oft-requested flashbang grenade as well as new machine guns and uniforms; not the most ambitious DLC release, but a free one.
On the other hand, this is only the beginning of Zipper’s “ongoing commitment” to the title.
“In the coming months,” ..read more


