Canadian Internet News

Looks like Internet wholesalers will have to play on an even playing field with their resellers. Traditionally companies like Bell or Rogers have throttled or providers slower download speeds to their resellers to maintain an advantage but the jig is up. The CRTC has ruled that they must provide the same speed for the services they provide to their resellers. As well they will only be able to charge a maximum of 10% markup. This is big victory for smaller companies like Teksavvy and others who have been battling the bigger companies. Get ready for more competitive Internet pricing plans. Yahoo

In other Canadian Internet news Bell and Bell Aliant will be teaming up to monopolize the rural market. In Ontario they are planning on building a high speed network to offer faster Internet speeds to those outside of major metropolitan areas. The project is estimated to cost $170 million over 2 or 3 years. This is good news for rural areas and desperate farmers who have been stuck with dial up service. Enjoy the animal porn in glorious high speed! Yahoo

New Xbox controller hawt, price not hot

Have you seen the upcoming Xbox controller? It looks hawt. Press shots show it in a silver finish, shiny D-pad (with improved functionality). Minor tweaking to the shape to allow for easier manipulation of the D-pad and analog thumb sticks should improve overall gaming experience. Price? Not hot. $65 compared to the $40 you can spend now on a plain old wireless Xbox controller. Get your credit card ready for a November 9 launch. Major Nelson

Also for the throngs of you who make my life miserable in Modern Warfare I have bad news for you. Your favorite pastime will become more expensive in the coming months. Xbox Live is set to raise prices in November. The price for month to month will be $2 more, three months $5 more, and the annual subscription will cost you $10 more. A small price to pay to dish out virtual head shots and verbal abuse about one’s mother. Ars Technica

Dell throws more money at 3PAR and wins

Update: What’s going on here? It’s a deal, it’s not a deal? HP has countered with a $2.4 billion offer. Oh snap! Techcrunch

Dell 1 HP 0
Looks like this bidding war went in favor of Dell. You win this time Dell (shakes fist). Dell was forced to up it’s original offer of $18 to $24.30 ($0.30/share more than HP’s). 3PAR gave Dell 3 days to come to the table with a better offer and they did not disappoint. Both Dell and HP are battling for the computer industry and expanding the range of their offerings.

So what’s so great about 3PAR? They are a data storage solutions provider. Big customers include Ask.com, MySpace.com, Priceline.com, and some government agencies. Scale-able cloud storage flexible enough for many corporations. Clearly Dell thinks it can make a cash cow out of this data storage company (who lost $3.2 million last year). In any event it looks like Dell just added 670 people to it’s workforce.

License to blog?

What do you do for a living? or even part time? If you live in Philadelphia, don’t say you’re a blogger. The cash strapped city is finding new ways to tax it’s citizens. Introducing the business privilege license that will cost you $300 in Philly. Even if you’ve made $50 expect to receive a letter from the city demanding you pay the fee. I bet you’re regretting including that ad revenue from your blog on your last tax return …

3TB External is hot … literally

Look out storage nuts, 3 terabytes is on the horizon. And it’s hot, literally. Anandtech reports that the 3 TB drive gets a little hot when put to work for extended periods. That what happens when you cram 5 platters into a 3.5″ plastic shell with little ventilation. Temperatures sometimes getting as hot as 69 degrees Celsius. Performance suffered as well. The heat issue could come back to bite you in the butt if you have any important data on the drive and happens to fail at a critical moment. However with this external unit available for sale the OEM 3 TB hard drive should be showing up at local retailers shortly.

I would take a pass on this one. Pickup two 1.5TB drives instead. USB 3.0 is nice but not worth the design risk. Also, who carries around 3 TB of data with them? There HAS to be a better way to transport data.