Hasta La Gadget!

Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days.

Whether you’ve got your head in the clouds, or your feet firmly locked on terra firma (or is that terrorist firma?) the last seven days in Alt have something for you. We look at a massive aircraft, that could revolutionize air travel as we know it, as well as look back at a real-world project that heralded a significant shift even further up in the sky. There’s the NASA logo that never came to be, and lastly, for those less fond of heights, we hear how a US government department is heading in the other direction — albeit culturally — all in the fight against terror. This is alt-week.

Continue reading Alt-week 7.21.12: Outer space, flying hotels and federal trolls

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Science, Internet

Alt-week 7.21.12: Outer space, flying hotels and federal trolls originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Jul 2012 14:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you have broadband Internet access in the US – which you probably do – then you are paying more for less. That is, if you compare the service to other regions around the world. According to a new study from the New America Foundation, cities in Japan, South Korea, France, and more all have broadband speeds that are faster than Americans are used to, and the cost to individual consumers is less.

To be fair, the study looked at the complete cost of “triple play” bundles in the US – not the promotional deals you get for the first 12 months when you sign up. It found that prices range from $65.60 for AT&T’s triple play in Louisiana, to $154.98 for Verizon’s service in New York City. Meanwhile, Seoul and Paris all had comparable packages for less than $40 per month.

And in most other major European cities – London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen – it was less than $50 per month. And in Hong Kong, you can get service for just $37.34, where download speeds are 500 Mbps. By comparison, San Francisco was almost the fastest city in the US at just 200 Mbps. The New America Foundation admits that some of this comparison is like comparing apples to oranges because it’s hard to really get a pulse for the experience you’re paying for with broadband connections, but those huge discrepancies show that there is at least some sort of higher price/performance ratio that US consumers are paying for broadband.

[via Ars Technica]

US broadband slower, more expensive than rest of world is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Well, we can’t exactly say we saw this one coming. Sparrow, maker of popular email apps for iOS and Mac OS X, has just announced that it’s been acquired by Google. Expectedly, details on the acquisition are being kept under wraps at the moment, but company CEO Dom Leca has confirmed in a blog post that Sparrow will be joining the Gmail team at Google to “accomplish a bigger vision.” Fans of the company’s apps will be glad to know, however, that the team will “continue to make Sparrow available and provide support for our users” while also working on new things at Google. That does sound like most of their attention will be focused elsewhere, though. You can find Leca’s full statement on the matter at the source link below.

Update: The Verge was able to get some notion of a cost for this deal, with “under $25 million” being a figure assigned to this, a figure that wasn’t inflated due to a bidding war. (That should answer those wondering if maybe Google bought this out from under Apple.)

Filed under: Internet, Software

Google acquires Sparrow, the Apple-focused email app maker originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Jul 2012 12:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer doesn’t just have the challenge of turning around the beleaguered company to look forward to, but a pay package worth as much as $100m over the next half-decade. Details of the ex-Googler’s new renumeration package were revealed courtesy of an SEC filing, with a base salary of $1m each year and the potential to increase that fivefold if Mayer hits her targets. However, salary and bonuses aren’t the only way the new CEO’s nest will be feathered.

In fact, thanks to the combination of stock, restricted stock units, retention equity and more, Mayer could be earning as much as $20m a year. That’s assuming she sticks it out at the troubled firm: the restricted stock units are set up as periodic rewards, landing in Mayer’s portfolio in stages between now and 2014.

If Mayer can turn around Yahoo’s balance sheet, however, the board and shareholders are likely to consider her well worth the money. The company has struggled to take advantage of its current services, such as Flickr, and to compete with Google and Bing on search.

Yahoo’s share price has climbed in the aftermath of the announcement of Mayer’s role, albeit only slightly, with the shadow of a subpar Q2 2012 hanging over the new CEO. The company confirmed that profit had dipped 4.2-percent year-on-year, to $227m.

Mayer facing $100m for rescuing Yahoo is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Sure, at 300Mbps Verizon’s FiOS Quantum is lightning fast — but reports say that Comcast is prepping a new tier that’s just a little faster. According to Broadband Reports sources, Comcast’s Neil Smit told employees that the company would be introducing a 305Mbps downstream tier in Verizon FiOS territories “soon,” but neglected to mention a strict timetable. Details regarding pricing and data caps are similarly scarce, of course. Comcast has yet to comment on the rumor, but we’ll let you know if we hear anything official.

Filed under: Internet

Comcast reportedly prepping 305Mbps internet service, aims to put FiOS in its place originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Jul 2012 05:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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