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Communications provider Comcast on Wednesday announced two new tiers of service for heavy residential downloaders, along with speed upgrades for subscribers of its existing services.

Residential services
(new) Extreme 50 (50/10 Mbps down/up) - $139.95/month
(new) Ultra (22/5 Mbps down/up) - $62.95/month
Performance Plus (16/2 Mbps down/up) $52.95/month
Performance (12/2 Mbps down/up) - $42.95/month

The speed bumps, which are being rolled out to 10 major markets between now and next year come at a cost. The somewhat confusingly named Extreme and Ultra tiers come in at $139.95 and $62.95 a month, amounting to an annual cost close to $1,700 a year for subscribers of the Extreme–nearly three times that of Comcast’s standard monthly residential service.

Cost aside, what may be the most controversial aspect of this speed bump is that subscribers of the residential plans will get no higher cap over the 250GB monthly limit which was instated earlier this October. Comcast’s own release prides the new Extreme plan on letting customers “download a high-def movie (6 GB) in about 16 minutes, a standard-def movie (2 GB) in about 5 minutes and a standard-def TV show (300 MB) in a matter of seconds.” Do the math and you’ll see that an extreme subscriber could easily blow past the 250 GB cap in a matter of hours.

So quickly–to sum up the new and updated plans:

Business services
Deluxe 50 (50/10 Mbps down/up) - $189.95/month
(new) Premium (22/5 Mbps down/up) - $99.95/month
Starter (12/2 Mbps down/up) - Price unknown

The two new plans, dubbed “Extreme” and “Ultra” clock in at 50 and 22 Mbps of downstream respectively and 10 and 5 Mbps of upstream. Comparatively, customers of Comcast’s “performance” plans are getting a big jump from 8 to 16 Mbps on the downspeed, however, upload performance remains at 2 Mbps.

Alongside these residential tiers, Comcast is also introducing a new business tier called “Premium,” which comes in at 22/5 Mbps down/up for $99.95 a month, as well as beefing up its Deluxe tier to match the Ultra plan at 50/10 Mbps down/up for $189.95 a month. Meanwhile, the “Starter” business tier has received a similar speed bump to that of the residential plans, moving from 6 to 12 Mbps.

Comcast’s PR representative Charlie Douglas tells me the cap will remain in place for residential customers, although for right now business customers are free to go over that. Any potential residential customers who think they may go over, the slightly more expensive business tiers might offer a safe haven from having your heavy bandwidth habit limited.

Unbeknownst to many patent practitioners, however, the USPTO is getting ready to wrap up a yearlong pilot project directed at giving the examiners a little help in turning up prior art.

According to the “Peer to Patent” Web site, over 2,000 people have signed up to participate as reviewers of patent applications and have submitted 192 pieces of prior art on 42 patent applications.

For more information about the process, see the USPTO’s description of the program here.

It’s a simple fact that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (the “USPTO”) is inundated with patent applications. Given the sheer volume of applications, patent examiners can only spend a limited amount of time examining those applications. Further, given the fact that an applicant for a patent does not have to conduct a “prior art” search before filing, it is virtually impossible for an examiner to turn up all of the prior art that is relevant to a patent application.

Last year the USPTO, in conjunction with the New York Law School, launched a program titled “Peer to Patent.” This pilot project enables the public to comment on and submit prior art that may be relevant to pending patent applications. The project is somewhat limited in scope as only patent applications that relate to computer architecture, software, and information security are eligible for this process and applicants must agree to submit their patent applications to this process. However, preliminary numbers reported by the organization indicate that the project may be an effective means of reviewing patent applications.

Craigslist plans to make a formal response to the complaint in the next few weeks, the company said on its blog.

In response to that, Craigslist reorganized its stock structure in January, reducing eBay’s stake in the online classified site from 28.04 percent to 24.85 percent. The reduction mean that eBay loses the ability to elect a director.

According to the heavily redacted, public copy of the complaint, which names Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist views Kijiji as a competitive activity that cancels some shareholder rights that eBay acquired in 2004 when it bought a stake in Craigslist.

However, eBay feels Craigslist overstepped its rights and has filed suit over the diluting of its stake.

The lawsuit also discloses that Meg Whitman, who was CEO of eBay at the time, offered to buy the remainder of Craigslist in a letter to Craigslist in July 2007. Whitman’s letter was in response to a letter Buckmaster sent that expressed “‘negative’ feelings toward eBay’s launch of Kijiji,” and that stated “we are no longer comfortable having eBay as a shareholder.”

She went on to say that eBay was “so happy” with its relationship with Craigslist that “we would welcome the opportunity to acquire the remainder of (the company) we do not already own whenever you and (Newmark) feel it would be appropriate,” according to the lawsuit.

Whitman responded by saying that eBay had taken steps to “firewall off” its Kijiji operations from the corporate management of its equity stake in Craigslist, according to the suit.

Apparently eBay feels that its ownership stake in Craigslist was unfairly reduced following eBay’s launch of rival online classifieds service Kijiji, which went live overseas in 2005 and in the U.S. in 2007, according to the 26-page lawsuit filed in Delaware’s Court of Chancery and made available by eBay on Wednesday.

The mystery over what prompted eBay to sue Craigslist last week appears to be solved.

“The original agreement between the two parties always envisioned that there could be competitive activity,” eBay spokeswoman Kim Rubey told the Associated Press.

“Sadly, we have an uncomfortably conflicted shareholder in our midst, one that is obsessed with dominating online classifieds for the purpose of maximizing its own profits,” Craigslist’s blog said.

All those cities, especially New York, dealt with the tragedy of those attacks and have gone on to thrive. Let’s hope Bangalore is no different. History is on its side.

Bangalore, of course, is of particular interest to the tech industry. In addition to the large Indian outsourcing companies and smaller software outfits headquartered there, American companies such as Intel and Texas Instruments also have major offices in the city.

Were the bombs intended to send a message, and spread fear in a progressive city full of western investment? Definitely. But no one should expect that investment to screech to a halt. Plenty of cities–Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Paris, London, and let’s not forget New York and Washington, D.C.–have been attacked by terrorists over the last few decades.

Whatever the motivations were for the apparent terrorists who exploded a series of small bombs in India’s high-tech hub Bangalore earlier Friday, one thing they’re not likely to succeed in doing is slowing that city’s progress.

As Om Malik notes, residents of several cities in India have grown accustomed to terrorist attacks (Reuters has an account of the explosions that appear to have killed at least one person and injured many more.). They are a terrible part of life in a country that has struggled with extremism in various forms.

Bangalore is no stranger to bombings. The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom (note: The Guardian also reports two people were killed in Friday’s attacks) reports that a courthouse in the city was bombed in May. Authorities there suspect the bombing was linked to a banned Islamic student group.

Apple offered a free 30 days of service as a mea culpa for the launch issues, but a balky e-mail server continued to cause problems well into July, completely erasing some e-mail messages. David tells us that a syncing issue discovered Monday between MobileMe and the
iPhone and
iPod Touch has also been resolved.

Let us know if you continue to have problems with MobileMe.

(Credit:
Apple)

Now that the problems are supposedly behind the company it sounds like Apple is planning to address the MobileMe issues raised by reviewers, such as the delay in syncing changes made on a
Mac or PC, and the general sluggishness of the service.

With MobileMe apparently working, we'll retire the Fail MobileMe graphic–for now.

“By completing this restoration of Mail services, we hope we have put the vast majority of MobileMe Mail problems behind us and can now focus on improving other aspects of this new ambitious service,” David wrote.

The latest update to its MobileMe status blog posted by the mysterious David G. says that all is well with MobileMe, Apple’s replacement for .Mac that offers subscribers e-mail and access to Web-based contacts and calendars for $99 a year. “We have completed restoring Mail service, including historical messages, to all of the 1% of affected members. Thank you all for your extreme patience during this trying time.”

Almost three weeks after it launched, Apple is finally able to tell MobileMe customers that everything is working as it should.

Almost right from the launch hour, MobileMe was rife with problems. The site was down on its first day, and some subscribers have had trouble accessing their e-mail and syncing their contacts ever since.

Through increased scale and operational innovations, we’ve been able to lower the cost of running Amazon S3. We’ve always said we would pass on savings to our customers when we could, and we’re doing so again now.

After 50 terabytes, the cost goes down to 14 cents a gigabyte; for more than 500TB, it’s at 12 cents. See the new pricing chart.

We have a relentless focus on reducing our operational costs for hardware, storage, and other aspects of operating the Amazon Web Services’ infrastructure. In addition, with greater scale (S3 now houses >29 billion objects) have come further efficiencies. As we continue to reduce these costs, we’re able to pass the savings on to our customers.

Any small amount of additional flotation will no doubt be welcomed by tech companies today, though entrepreneurs may also want to heed Richard Stallman’s warning: cloud computing is “stupidity.”

Amazon.com has announced that it is dropping prices for heavy users of its hosted storage service, S3. The baseline monthly fee of 15 cents per gigabyte of storage remains, but high-volume users will be able to take advantage of a tiered pricing model.

I asked an Amazon representative if the company is reducing prices just because it could, or if it was the company’s way of helping to bail out tech companies that are going to be finding it harder to fund ongoing operations. The answer is the former:

Hansell writes, “But now many iPods are replacements by people who already have substantial music collections in iTunes. For those people, the choice is between buying an iPod that will simply work with all their music or investing the time and effort to try to convert everything into Zune’s formats.”

This is totally wrong. Microsoft knew it was coming from behind (way behind) and it took pains to make it as easy as possible for iTunes users to switch.

First, the Zune natively supports AAC, the default file format that’s used by iTunes whenever you rip a CD. (iTunes can rip to MP3 as well, but that’s not the default.) This was a big deal for a company that had steadfastly promoted Windows Media Audio for many years before it offered full-bitrate support for MP3, mainly because it didn’t want to pay a royalty to the organization responsible for MPEG licensing. Here, Microsoft knew it had to support AAC and pay the royalty, or Zune would be dead on arrival.

Hansell is correct when he says that existing iPod users are more likely to upgrade to a new iPod, but that’s because of high customer satisfaction for the iPod and few compelling reasons (so far) to switch–not only to the Zune, but to any other MP3 player. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! I think the third generation of Zunes, used in conjunction with the Zune Pass, might offer enough compelling new features to start changing this equation. But only if Microsoft gets the word out–a good place to start would be informing journalists that yes, the Zune has always worked very well with existing iTunes libraries.

The only problem comes when you try to play a DRM-protected song that you purchased from the iTunes Music Store–neither the Zune nor any other player (or software) can play those songs unless you strip the DRM off by burning to CD and then re-ripping. But if you’re like most users, the vast majority of your library comes from CDs you’ve owned for years, not from the iTunes Store.

Second, when you install the Zune software, it automatically scans and adds songs from not only the My Music folder (as the Windows Media Player always did) but also the iTunes folder. I know this because I always rip my CDs in iTunes so they’ll work on both my Apple devices (iPod,
iPhone) and my Zune. I don’t have to do anything special–I rip them in iTunes, and the Zune software discovers them the next time I start it up.

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A column by Saul Hansell on the New York Times “Bits” blog caught my eye today because it makes a completely unfounded assertion about the
Zune versus the
iPod.

MySpace, and social networks in general, were far more under-the-radar in the last presidential election cycle, so their potential impact on turnout, awareness, and election results remains unmeasured. But the site’s stereotype as a teen hub shouldn’t get in the way: MySpace says that four-fifths of its members are of voting age.

The first presidential debate is September 26, followed by a vice presidential debate on October 2. This marks the first time that the CPD has officially partnered with a Web property for debate coverage.

Since the early days of the ‘08 electoral process, MySpace has been launching high-profile activism initiatives through “MySpace Impact,” a nonpartisan politics site. The social network has rolled out a register-to-vote contest geared toward indie bands, a citizen-journalism competition in conjunction with MSNBC, an NBC News-powered election site, and a series of polls. In addition, the site held a series of candidate “dialogues” in partnership with MTV.

The social network has been officially sanctioned by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) to launch MyDebates.org, which will debut Wednesday. The site offers a downloadable app that will stream the presidential debates live, archive them for on-demand viewing (searchable and tagged, naturally), participate in polls, and track the candidates’ stances on issues.

News Corp.’s MySpace has the presidential debate stamp of approval.

The hard drive issue does not require the user to force-reboot the computer, which would cause any unsaved work to be lost. Simply waiting out the unresponsive system apparently works every time.

There doesn’t appear to be any specific task that triggers the hard drive to enter its unresponsive state. Users on Apple’s support forums are reporting that it seems to be completely random and doesn’t matter where they are or what they are doing when it happens.

Owners of Apple MacBook Pro notebooks with 7200rpm 500GB hard drives have been complaining for months of clicking sounds followed by temporary stalling. According to Apple, a fix is in the works.

People have been reporting that they hear a beep from the computer shortly before the hard drive clicks and then the computer stops responding. The computer is unresponsive for 10 seconds or so and then begins to work normally again.

(Credit:
Apple)

It does appear that the issue only affects the 500GB hard drives that run at 7200rpm.

“We are aware of the issue and are working on a software update,” Apple representative Bill Evans, told CNET News on Monday. He gave no time frame for the release of the software update.

Intel’s sales chief said Wednesday he expects
Windows 7 to deploy at a faster pace than Vista did.

(Credit:
Intel)

“There was a reason not to deploy Vista because you’re waiting for service pack X or (because of) compatibility issues,” he said.

Intel sales chief Sean Maloney

Maloney’s comments were focused on business, but he said “consumer will happen, too.”

“There are really good reasons (to deploy Windows 7) for the business client. You’ve got compatibility mode that takes away that argument,” he said. “Security, power management. A lot of good reasons,” he said.

Intel made a splash last year when it said there was “no compelling reason” for Intel’s IT department to upgrade to Windows Vista.

“This time I think it will go faster,” said Sean Maloney, speaking Wednesday at the Intel Technology Summit.

He also addressed Netbooks saying that Netbooks will not attract first-time buyers. “The first time you buy something you want the real deal,” he said, referring to mainstream laptops. He also reiterated a recent Intel theme that Netbooks will become more of a market targeted at children.