As the intertubes overtake boob tubes and telephone tubes as our primary mode of communication, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that access is available and affordable for all Americans. The FCC’s ambitious new plan looks to do just that. More

If you visit the US embassy in London now, it’s a pit of concrete, barbed wire, bollards and soldiers with machine guns. You feel like a criminal just walking past it. This carbon neutral redesign is radical in comparison. It’s been described as encompassing the United States’ “core beliefs of our democracy - transparency, openness and equality.” It’ll cost at least $1 billion to construct, and should be opening its doors in 2017. The current building was constructed in the 1950s, but didn’t open until 1960—and certainly can’t boast anything like a moat, that’s seen in the plans for the new building. Surrounded by an “Embassy Park,” with moat, the glass cube building will also look like a certain Apple building in Manhattan , don’t you think

Akamai released their quarterly State of the Internet report this week, along with this chart showing the fastest national networks in the world. From 2008 to 2009, on average, the world’s internet got 13% faster. America’s got 2.4% slower. There are tons of interesting tidbits to be found in Akamai’s State of the Internet report for Q3 2009.

What does the Freedom Tray do? Lots of stuff, ok? Shut up. Is this a patriotic tray? Yeah, that’s more like it. The official answer, to this official question : The Freedom Tray is a tribute to the world class manufacturing and dedication of the hard working people of this country

Bacon-Flavored Mmmvelopes are envelopes with adhesive that tastes like bacon. So when you seal an envelope, you get the taste of bacon and a deep feeling of emptiness inside yourself. So it’s kind of a double-edged sword. [ Mmmvelopes via Uncrate ]

People are always eager to point out cool technologies that America ignores, but what about the ones that we—and only we—use? Enough with the grousing: Here’s what we’ve got that they don’t. TiVo For a long while, TiVo was the undisputed king of TV recording. Other DVRs have come a long way in the last ten years, but they’re all late to the party, and still playing catchup: The TiVo name is now permanently tattooed into the public’s consciousness, synonymous with recording shows and backed up by still-impressive hardware. But the fact that TiVo has attained a near-Kleenex level of brand recognition in the US doesn’t mean a thing overseas.

We Americans have Fusion-io’s ioDrive and OCZ’s Z Drive to look forward to when it comes to slamming down a PCIe-based SSD solution in our lightning fast rigs, but what about the savvy Japanese? Enter PhotoFast, who has just revealed a luscious PCIe SSD of its own, ranging from 256GB to one whole terabyte in size. The unit includes a couple of SSDs hooked together in a RAID0 setup in order to provide up to 750MB/sec read rates and 700MB/sec write rates. As with most SSDs, this unit also boasts a 1.5 million hour MTBF and should work perfectly within Windows XP and Vista machines. Those in and around Osaka can expect these to land around mid-October for about the cost of a new TV — seriously. [Via Engadget Japanese ] Filed under: Storage PhotoFast intros 256GB to 1TB G-Monster PCIe SSD originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:43:00 EST.

OnLive , the system/service that renders current-gen video games in the cloud , is by no means perfect. That said, I’m shocked at how well it actually works. I think there are two main concerns running through the heads of anyone that’s heard of this thing: a) Latency between your control inputs and the action on the screen and b) picture quality. While this system is still in pre-beta, and both of these aspects are inferior compared to a home console or PC experience, I still think OnLive will serve well the gamer who doesn’t want to kick down the cash for the latest hardware. I played Bioshock using the PC setup, which involved an average looking Dell laptop, and a Logitech control pad. The game was running 50 miles away on a server in Santa Clara, and load times are pretty much the same as running the game on your PC.

Najmi Jarwala , the president of Sony Ericsson U.S.’ division, announced today that he will be leaving the company. Likely in response to those terrible Sony Ericsson sales . [ Sony Ericsson via Boing Boing ]

Long before Predator drones and PackBots patrolled Iraq and Afghanistan, unmanned systems were used in combat—as far back as WWI and WWII, in fact. Here’s a quick look at the coolest of the old-timey warbots: While reading PW Singer’s Wired for War , I was surprised by the ingenuity on both sides in coming up with unmanned—and even radio-controlled—machines that were occasionally actually used during the two biggies. I’ve highlighted six, plus an exceptional example of early computer intelligence, that are all covered at some length in the book. (If you’re skimming this, just be sure to watch the second YouTube video below.) WORLD WAR I FL-7 remote-controlled boat (1916) - Sadly unpictured - These German “sprengbootes” carried 300lbs.