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Last week’s vote by the FCC to approve new net neutrality rules was seen as a big win for streaming services like Netflix, as it prevents ISPs from throttling or blocking access to online content and from prioritizing any data. And indeed, Netflix has been one of the more vocal corporate cheerleaders for neutrality. But that apparently hasn’t stopped the company from making deals that calls into question Netflix’s actual stance on the issue.

When Netflix launches in Australia later this month, some broadband users won’t have to worry that their binge-watching might push them over their monthly limits. That’s because Netflix is making deals Down Under that would exempt its data from counting against data caps.

The question is whether or not this sort of “zero-rating” offering — similar to how T-Mobile doesn’t count certain streaming music services against data caps — violates the neutrality rules’ prohibition against prioritization.

It definitely offers consumers an incentive to use the data-sponsoring service rather than a competitor whose data will go against their monthly cap. At the same time, there is no actual speeding up or improving of the data involved.

There is no cut-and-dry answer in the FCC’s new rules, as they do not explicitly forbid or allow sponsored data. Under the order’s standard of conduct, the FCC can look at specific zero-rating offers to determine if they are a threat to neutrality, but there is no blanket ban against them.

And as DSLreports.com points out, the streaming video market in Australia has a more flexible attitude toward sponsored data, with multiple media companies footing the bill for their users’ usage.

Regardless of whether or not such arrangements would violate net neutrality guidelines in the U.S., Australia, or Antarctica, Netflix leadership had previously been very clear on its position regarding this topic.

In 2012, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings accused Comcast of violating the original neutrality rules by not counting data coming through its Xfinity streaming services against data caps.

“Comcast should apply caps equally, or not at all,” he wrote at the time. “In what way is this neutral?”

And in a statement to The Verge, Netflix simultaneously acknowledges the shortcomings of sponsored data while saying it’s going to do it if the other guys do it.

“Zero rating isn’t great for consumers as it has the potential to distort consumer choice in favor of choices selected by an ISP,” reads the statement. “We’ll push back against such efforts, but we won’t put our service or our members at a disadvantage.”

As mentioned above, the door isn’t shut on sponsored data stateside. You can expect ISPs and deep-pocketed content companies to push the boundaries on these deals to see exactly what the FCC will and won’t allow.

NEW YORK (AP) — Leonardo DiCaprio is partnering with Netflix for a series of documentaries he will produce for the streaming service.

Netflix announced Wednesday that DiCaprio and his production company, Appian Way, have signed a first-look deal with Netflix for nonfiction projects. The company says DiCaprio and Netflix will seek to develop and acquire documentaries and docuseries "with partial focus on environmental and conservation themes."

DiCaprio teamed with Netflix last year to release the Oscar-nominated documentary "Virunga." In a statement, DiCaprio said "Virunga" ''sparked a shared vision" between him and the streaming service.

The deal adds to a growing stable of Hollywood talent Netflix has lured to its expanding original film operations. Along with an earlier deal with Adam Sandler, Netflix recently acquired "Beasts of No Nation" by "True Detective" director Cary Fukunaga.

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A tenacious little red-eared slider turtle and a fluffy black cat play an adorable game of tag around a brick pillar.

[catsss/via uraflght]

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Electronic Arts is closing Maxis, the studio behind the SimCity franchise, EA confirmed in a statement to Polygon today, following reports on Twitter from now-former employees of the company.

Development on SimCity and The Sims will continue at EA's studios in Redwood Shores, California; Salt Lake City; Helsinki; and Melbourne, Australia. However, the Maxis home offices in Emeryville, California, are being closed.

Here's the full statement from EA:

Today we are consolidating Maxis IP development to our studios in Redwood Shores, Salt Lake City, Helsinki and Melbourne locations as we close our Emeryville location. Maxis continues to support and develop new experiences for current Sims and SimCity players, while expanding our...

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There are many perks of growing old — seeing your kids have kids, wearing shirts that say “World’s Best Grandma,” calling rowdy youngsters “whippersnappers” and more — and getting discounts on things is definitely not the least of those. But one centenarian learned that he’d reached a point where you can actually get a free mail and get paid just for your age.

A 101-year-old New Hampshire man had breakfast on the house at a Manchester restaurant that rewards customers dining on their birthdays with a discount based on their age, reports WMUR.com.

So for example, if you’re turning five years old, the restaurant covers 5% of your bill. If you’re 85, you get 85% of your tab paid. That means that at 100, your birthday meal is free — and at 101, you actually get 101% of your meal paid for — or a 1% refund.

Thus, after chomping on scrambled eggs and ham and a piece of chocolate cake for free, the World War II veteran got $0.07 back from the restaurant. Not a bad birthday gift, if you ask me.

Man, 101, eats birthday breakfast on the house [WMUR.com]

How do you control your virtual reality experience in Valve and HTC's sensor-covered Vive VR headset ? With a pair of sensor-pocked motion controlled wands, of course.

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During the Windows 10 event at GDC 2015, head of ID@Xbox Chris Charla hinted that there may be a future for the classic game series Battletoads.

While speaking about games being played between Windows 10 devices, Charla revealed that the Battletoads would be making an appearance in the recently-announced Xbox One version of Shovel Knight. He then went on to cryptically say "I wonder when we'll see them next?"

This isn't an official announcement, but several hints in the past have pointed to the possibility that Rare's tough-as-nails brawler could be making a comeback to modern platforms. Xbox head Phil Spencer has noted his fondness for them in the past and even sported a Battletoads t-shirt while presenting at the Windows 10 event earlier this year. Additionally, in November 2014 Microsoft filed a trademark for Battletoads, explaining to IGN that this was done "as part of its

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In the aftermath of the revelations that Hillary Clinton had exclusively used a personal email account to conduct state correspondence with diplomatic leaders around the globe and pretty much everyone else, it was only a matter of time before the subpoenas started flying. That time is now and as WaPo reports, the "House investigative committee is preparing to send out subpoenas later Wednesday to gather a deeper look into former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton’s nearly exclusive use of personal e-mails to do her official business as the government’s top diplomat, according to people familiar with the probe."

As a reminder, here is a sampling of some of the emails Clinton had sent to at least one recipient, Sidney Blumenthal, whose email account had been hacked by the infamous Romanian hacker "Guccifer".

The Committee is asking for all e-mails related to the attack from all Clintonemail.com accounts and any other staff members’ personal accounts.

The subpoenas are expected to go out to the State Department later Wednesday. The move escalates the panel’s conflict with Clinton and could complicate her expected run for president.

As the WaPo adds, the White House on Tuesday said Clinton appeared to have operated in violation of “very specific guidance” from the West Wing that members of the Obama administration use government e-mail accounts to carry out official business.

What makes this case different than the IRS email subpoena is that unlike in the instance of Lois Lerner where massive hardware failure was blamed for the failure to produce the discovery request, according to AP the computer server she used traces back to her family's New York home.

The unusual practice of a Cabinet-level official running her own email server would have given Clinton — who is expected to run for president in the 2016 campaign — significant control over limiting access to her message archives.

According to AP, this would also complicate the State Department's legal responsibilities in finding and turning over official emails in response to any investigations, lawsuits or public records requests. The department would be the position of accepting Clinton's assurances she was surrendering everything required that was in her control.

The White House said it was Clinton's responsibility to make sure any emails about official business weren't deleted from her private server. "There's a responsibility that's associated with that, which is it's important to ensure that when official business is conducted on personal email, that those records are properly maintained and preserved," spokesman Josh Earnest said. He added there was no security review planned for Clinton's email server.

And of course, the White House will gladly give the next democratic presidential hopeful, the benefit of the doubt that she never abused the email retention protocol, even if it means that nobody can actually check.

Except for the NSA of course, which thanks to Edward Snowden, we now know has a copy of virtually every single email to traverse the US internet in the last few years.

Where this story gets even more bizarre is that it was not immediately clear exactly where Clinton's computer server was run. A business record for the Internet connection it used was registered under the home address for her residence in Chappaqua, New York, as early as August 2010. The customer was listed as Eric Hoteham.

An aide to then-first lady Clinton was identified in a 2002 congressional report as Eric Hothem, whose name is spelled differently than in the Internet records. Hothem was not available to take a phone call when reached at his office Wednesday.

 

A parody Twitter account for Hoteham appeared Wednesday after the AP cited the records, sending satirical tweets supporting Clinton's campaign. Hoteham's name had not appeared with that spelling in public-record databases, campaign contribution records or online background searches.

Some of the parody tweets are shown below:

Vast right wing conspiracy on full display today. #ReadyForHillary

— Eric Hoteham (@erichoteham) March 4, 2015

Thank you @davidbrockdc for correcting the record and putting the pathetic RWNJs on Morning Joe in their place. #ReadyForHillary

— Eric Hoteham (@erichoteham) March 4, 2015

ICYMI: Trusted national figure Gov. Ed Rendell destroys phony email scandal. Checkmate, "reporters." #ReadyForHillary http://t.co/NwJA8sY2OD

— Eric Hoteham (@erichoteham) March 4, 2015

But why would Hillary Clinton have her own server?

In most cases, individuals who operate their own email servers are technical experts or users so concerned about issues of privacy and surveillance they take matters into their own hands. Clinton has not described her motivation for using a private email account — hdr22@clintonemail.com, which appears to include a nod to her middle name, Diane. A spokesman for her did not respond to requests seeking comment from the AP on Tuesday or Wednesday. Clinton did not mention the issue during a speech Tuesday night at the 30th anniversary gala of EMILY's List, which works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights.

The AP adds that operating her own server "would have afforded Clinton additional legal opportunities to block government or private subpoenas in criminal, administrative or civil cases because her lawyers could object in court before being forced to turn over any emails. And since the Secret Service was guarding Clinton's home, an email server there would have been well protected from theft or a physical hacking."

This story makes even less sense when one considers that Hillary's email options included using an official State Department account or even a secret agency email address, which the AP revealed in 2013 as a common practice across the U.S. government and by previous administrations. Many senior U.S. officials use alternate addresses that aren't disclosed to the public for official business so they are not inundated with unwanted messages.

The humorous punchline is that "the State Department's email system might not have been attractive to Clinton because it is frequently targeted by hackers."

In other words, we will soon hear the excuse that the Clintons used personal email servers because they were safer than government ones.

That excuse may not fly: Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the special House committee investigating the Benghazi attacks, said the panel learned last summer — when department documents were turned over — that Clinton had used a private email account while secretary of state. More recently the committee learned that she used private email accounts exclusively and had more than one, Gowdy said.

"It doesn't matter if the server was in Foggy Bottom, Chappaqua, or Bora Bora," House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday. "The Benghazi Select Committee needs to see all of these emails, because the American people deserve all of the facts."

Actually, what the American people deserve more than anything is a daily farcical tragicomedy, and with the latest Clinton revelations and the ensuing imminent kangaroo court in which the former SecState will pull the Sgt. Schultz defense, they will get just that.

Plus, in a world in which Goldman Sachs and the Federal Reserve call all the shots anyway, and only the NSA really knows what actually happened - an agency that is just as unsupervised as Clinton's now defunct email account, what difference does it make which email account Mrs. Clinton was using?

IBT reports a slew of new (supposed) details about HBO's forthcoming standalone subscription . The name? HBO Now. How much will it cost? $15. Should you be excited? Yes!

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At GDC 2015, Microsoft announced plans to release a wireless adapter for Xbox One controllers on Windows later this year. Great news, but we need dates, Phil Spencer. Specific dates!

I had terrible luck with my wireless adapter for the Xbox 360 gamepad -- damn thing was spotty at best, non-functional at worst -- so here's hoping these new ones are an improvement.

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Yesterday I wrote about my experience with Nextdoor, the neighborhood-based social network that just raised $110 million in new funding at a reported $1.1 billion valuation. 

Here's a gist of how it works: Once you've verified your name and address, you can only communicate with people in close proximity. And, like a local message board, you can also post news, offer up items for sale, or get a group of neighbors together for a block party.

I found it pretty useless. It was basically people worrying about strangers and getting into fights about parenting styles. 

I also asked Business Insider readers what they thought, and a lot of them agreed with me. One reader in West Hollywood said 90% of her feed was filled out with random messages about a homeless guy who supposedly steals dogs.

But there were some dissenting opinions.

One person in rural Phoenix said he had found a handyman, cleaning lady, and babysitters through the site, and that some people had found lost dogs. Another in Boise said he'd found a handyman and learned useful neighborhood news through the site as well.

And one reader who lives in Oakland said Nextdoor helped people in his neighborhood break up a crime ring:

Stolen cars from a Mercedes dealership in San Jose were cruising around the neighborhoods, casing houses, and looking for opportunities for armed burglary and carjacking.  Thanks to Nextdoor, pictures of the vehicles and the perpetrators themselves (taken from Dropcams and security cameras) were rapidly circulated on the Nextdoor site.  License plate numbers were documented, and in several cases, OPD was called when suspicious vehicles were sighted.  This led to over 9 arrests, and has basically dismantled this burglary ring.  

We’ve not had an incident in several weeks, and the OPD has indicated that the community involvement that was enabled by Nextdoor was key in bringing these thugs into custody.

So, as I mentioned in my original post, whether the site is useful to you will depend a lot on your neighborhood.

But I still think $1.1 billion is a rich valuation for a social network based on neighborhoods, rather than (say) cities or the whole world.

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Mobile device maker HTC has learned an important lesson about its new partner, Valve: One does not casually toss around the words "Half-Life."

HTC's chairwoman, Cher Wang, uttered the name of the series — whose anticipation for a sequel has become one of video gaming's longest-running memes — in an interview with the BBC yesterday. She was discussing Valve's big gaming hits and suggested they would all be playable on the Vive, the VR headset HTC is making with Valve.

"I think Valve's best game is Dota, right, and Portal and [Team Fortress], and I think they are very keen to have them [on Vive]," she said.

And then ...

"We are co-operating with Half-Life, and I think ... I hope, you know, it will be on it," she said.

Any person in...

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Maggie S. sent us this terrific video! “Here’s a cute video I took of my sweet budgie Chi-Chi bobbing his head to imitate his bobblehead giraffe toy. Thought I would share with you!”

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Birds

Back in 2010, divers off the coast of Finland stumbled upon some astonishingly old booze : champagne and beer preserved underwater in a 170-year-old shipwreck. Naturally, they had a taste. But now scientists are back with a rigorous chemical analysis of the beers.

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Earlier this week, HTC surprised the crowd at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with the HTC Vive, a new virtual reality headset borne out of a partnership with Valve, one of the most esteemed gaming companies in the industry. 

The first early reviews of the HTC Vive hit the web on Wednesday afternoon, and the consensus is overwhelmingly positive. By almost all accounts, HTC and Valve have created something truly special with the Vive, which many say is the first virtual reality headset that makes you truly believe you are somewhere else.

Just check out some of these headlines floating around the web.

The Verge:

Engadget:

TechCrunch:

Gizmodo:

CNET:

And Business Insider:

All of these reviews are worth reading, if only to pump you up about the future of virtual reality.

Though most critics said the actual visuals of HTC's device could improve, all of the reviewers were blown away by how well the Vive convinces you that you're in another world. It does this in several ways: The Vive has positional tracking, where you stick two sensors to your wall that can track the movement of your head, hands and body, and it comes with two "nunchuk-like" controllers with sensors that communicate with the sensors on your wall, and basically act as your "hands" that you can see right in the game.

The result is immersion unlike anything anyone has experienced: You can even freely walk around the room and you'll do so in your game — but don't worry, a grid will pop up on your display to let you know that you're approaching a physical wall or object in real life.

At Mobile World Congress, critics and journalists got to try a bunch of demos: A game where you prepare and cook virtual ingredients in a virtual kitchen; a demo of an underwater shipwreck populated by fish you could prod and touch; a game where you're a giant towering over some armies fighting each other, and you can crouch down to get a better look at the action; and, since it's Valve, a demo of one of the company's most popular games, "Portal," where you need to fix a malfunctioning door. 

Here's Business Insider's Steve Kovach:

Like the Oculus and other VR experiences, it's impossible to describe what it's like with mere words. It's simply one of those things you have to try to believe. In the short term, VR will bring on a new era of gaming. But there's so much more to it. Virtual travel. Shopping. Social networking. Movies. Porn. Fast forward a few years, once the hardware doesn't look like a bulky, geeky headset, and we'll wonder why we ever used a traditional flat screen for any of those things.

Of course, there's still a lot of work to do. During all the demos, HTC's hardware, including the headgear and the hand controllers, were hooked up to a PC — and HTC says it wants to make its wall-mounted sensors smaller before they start selling them to the public. But still, HTC and Valve are clearly putting a lot of pressure on other VR makers like Facebook-owned Oculus and Samsung: The Vive sounds like an extremely promising piece of hardware that might finally get people more excited about virtual reality.

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NOW WATCH: Watch Henry Blodget Freak Out When He Tries Oculus Rift And Looks Down From A Virtual Skyscraper