While most of the FCC’s new Broadband plan has been about, well, broadband, there’s also some great news for HDTV fans. We expected a few mentions about CableCARD and its future when the FCC requested comments and declared it a failure , but we’re still glad to see that the FCC listened to consumer electronics companies like TiVo and Sony — among others. The biggest news is that the FCC has asked the industry to come up with a residential IP gateway that is open and that will provide same abilities as your provider’s equipment, and most importantly, it should enable the very same gear to work no matter what type of service you prefer, whether it be satellite, cable or fiber — for example, via various gateways the same TiVo would work with either DirecTV or Comcast. But while the FCC has given the industry until December of 2012 to define and deploy these IP gateways before implementing an “appropriate enforcement mechanism,” in the meantime the FCC wants to see the biggest issues with CableCARDs resolved by this Fall. The list below of immediate fixes is pretty impressive, and other than the persistent lack of video on demand support, it’ll help make CableCARD a pretty respectable solution

According to iLounge , Apple is instituting a ban on all protective screen film products from its online and retail stores starting in May. It’s a move that’ll take away some of Apple’s most popular third-party products. But what for? More

Available at AT&T stores starting in May (for an unknown price), the AT&T Zero Charger is the world’s first wall-based USB charger that draws absolutely no power when it’s not refilling a cellphone. Now follow suit, everyone else. [ AT&T ] More

If data centers are the brains of an information company, then Google is one of the brainiest there is. Though always evolving, it is, fundamentally, in the business of knowing everything. Here are some of the ways it stays sharp. More

They’re a bit complicated and somewhat experimental, but these instructions for homemade organic LEDs are nothing short of thorough. Sure you can just buy OLEDs, but that’s just not even half as fun as struggling to make them yourself. More

The most interesting parts of Microsoft’s Mix conference have come to a close, leaving us with two steaming news lumps: One for Windows Phone 7 , and one for Internet Explorer 9 . Here’s what’s in them! More

Microsoft is having a good old time at MIX10 , showing off all sorts of new things. New things like… Internet Explorer 9 , which has just been previewed at the developer event, and here’s what we’ve gleaned about it so far. First off, as expected it will support HTML5 video , boast a new Microsoft JavaScript engine which is codenamed “Chakra,” and it’ll support new-fangled web technologies like CSS3 and SVG2.

The Astro A40 headset is an expensive set of cans designed for professional gamers. It’s not really for you and me. The A30 takes what made pro nerds love it and brings it down to our level. More

Microsoft showed off its new retro-tastic Game Room UI for Xbox 360 in playable form at GDC last week. While the “make a virtual representation of a gaming space” idea might seem ripped straight from Sony’s Home , there aren’t really any actual similarities — outside of the fact they’re both in 3D, at least. You dive disembodied through the different game rooms pretty intuitively, with different company collections on the bottom “level” of the mall-like UI, and upper levels set aside for your own collections of the games. Unfortunately, once you actually select an arcade cabinet, the UI gets rather overly complex, with all sorts of modes you can play the game in, sorts of scores to be tracked and an indecipherable menu tree that makes it a real chore to exit a game. We’re sure arcade fanatics, ready to pit their scores against the best of them and looking for truly in-depth functionality are going to love all this, but for us poor simpletons it’s a little much to take in all at once

One day, you’re going to die. And when you do, you online presence—like your social network profiles, your blog comments, and your web services—will serve as your very first memorial. Here’s how it’ll play out. More