Internet & Websites - Page 48

I know this isn't tech related - but TweakTown is intertwined with Facebook and so are 500, 000, 000 and counting users.

Internode launched 1TB plans yesterday, as well as increasing data amounts to existing plans.

Managing director of Internode, Simon Hackett, labelled the new plans like T-Shirt sizes. S to XXL. The new plans are for data starved customers, but are free of "off-peak" limitations.

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Internode now have the "Easy Broadband XXL" plan, which includes 1000GB (1TB) of quota, available at all times, without peak or off peak, for $119.95 a month when bundled with their NodeLine phone service.

Simon had the following to say about the new plans "Next, Internode has trebled the data quota available at its most popular price point for ADSL2+ broadband. The new Internode Easy Broadband S (Small) plan, which costs $49.95 when bundled, now includes a massive 150GB of monthly quota. This compares to the 50GB per month quota offered at the same price by the previous entry-level Easy Broadband plan, which is now 'grandfathered' (that is, maintained for existing customers, but not offered for sale)."

Hackett also added they've introduced the Easy Broadband M plan with 250GB quota at $69.95 bundled, Easy Broadband L with 350GB quota at $89.95 bundled and also the 600GB XL for $99.95 bundled.

These latest plan revisions and additions show Internode's commitment to their customers. Hackett also stated that there are new analogue telephone services coming in the next month. They are being introduced as "NodeLine HomePlus" and "NodeLine BizPlus". On top of this, there are new Internode Easy Broadband options coming... which are targetted at SOHO customers and also a revision to their DSL plans for Business customers is on the cards.

So if you're an Internode customer, or were thinking of changing - this seems to be the time. On top of Internode's great customer service, game servers. games.on.net service, free internet radio - it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas for Internode pre-existing customers and soon to be Noder's.

Twitter is holding a small and casual press conference at its offices at the moment and it has been talking about the new Twitter.com. We referenced a story from Mashable in an earlier post today and those rumors have turned out true.

There have been stories going around the web this week stating that a limited edition high-end ATI video card had been stolen from the factory carrying the XFX band. XFX had warned people to not buy the card, which was supposedly listed on eBay.

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XFX sent out another email this week that again stated the supposed story that one of the limited edition 5970 Black Edition cards had been stolen, specifically serial number 68. The email stated that people involved with the theft would be prosecuted and it looked real overall.

If you glance under the picture of the car in the email, you will notice that it states clearly the email is an XFX Gamertainment Campaign. In other words, a viral marketing stunt that clearly worked very well. Did you fall for it?

Sascha of Netbooknews has been able to get a running video demonstration of the frontend behind a german tablet known as the WePad which is coming to market very soon and will be sold by Neofonie in cooperation with content publishers and mobile carriers.

Whilst many people gave a sour face to Apple's decision to exclude Flash from the HTML5 supporting iPad, some HTML5 experts who work for Google have given a terrific demonstration of what HTML5 is capable of.

They've managed to do a HTML5 port of iD Software's Quake II engine and while Quake Live based on the id Tech 3 engine may seem more impressive, the difference is it requires a graphics rendering plugin to work which has its setbacks.

This Quake II port using HTML5 is more impressive in that together with the use of Google's Chrome or Apple Safari web browser, it does not require a plug-in and utilizes WebGL, the Canvas API, HTML5 [audio] elements, the local storage API and WebSockets which is all inclusive of the HTML5 specification.

You can watch the streaming video below to see how it looks. More details can be found at the source.

Earlier today I visited the Thermaltake headquarters here in Taipei and was able to get an exclusive look at the near finished products to be launched under the new eSPORTS by Thermaltake brand that caters strictly for the most demanding of gamers around the world.

James Huang from the eSPORTS division of Thermaltake was shy at first, but soon shined to the camera as he gave us a solid introduction and preview of the Challenger Pro professional gaming keyboard, their impressive mechanical keyboard as well as the "Black" professional gaming grade mouse.

Before we entered the meeting room, we filmed walking from outside the building through to where the goodies were waiting for us to check out. You get a look at the non-boring Thermaltake office and all the case mods and such that are on display throughout the building. From time to time, we were told that Thermaltake actually holds mod design contests within the organization and employees who win may receive free products or cash bonuses. This is a look at something that most will never get to see and I thought it would be interesting, especially for Thermaltake fans.

Watch the video below, will ya?

So, Google has lifted the curtain on the searches in China. This is seen by many as a very bold move and one that on the surface proves Google's stated commitment to net neutrality. To do this they have re-routed all Google.cn requests to Google.com.hk. They claim this is a legal way to get around China's censorship laws.

Still, if we look a little below the surface of the move we might see some murky water flowing around. It is important to remember that Google entered the Chinese market with the full knowledge that they would be required to censor search and ad results. They also knew that they would be required to give information to the Chinese government about the people using the search engines, G-Mail and Google Docs accounts.

Let me paint a picture - you've read our Radeon HD 5970 video card overclocking article here and you can't help but feel excited about the potential power that you're able to achieve from it. So you start going around and hunting one down, wondering which is the best to buy. So you go over to Newegg and find this. The XFX HD 5970 Black Edition, not only does it sound fancy, but the price tag of $709.99 and the specification saying Core Clock 725 MHz (up to +30% with OverVolt Tool) and Memory Clock 4GHz (up to +20% with OverVolt Tool).

I am not into the social networking scene at all. I really don't want to know what my friends had for breakfast or the results to the umpteenth poll they have taken. I don't like Twitter. I want more space to say what I think. Twitter is wildly popular though and as such, it was only a matter of time until other sites popped up like Twitter.

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Microsoft ha s unveiled its own Twitter style site today called MSN Juku in China. The software giant calls the service a "local innovation developed in China." Users can interact with contacts on Live Messenger with messages of 140 characters or less.

Juku is in beta right now and is likened as much to Plurk as Twitter. Other features of Juku include games and users can win prizes from playing the games. The little blue paper airplanes really remind me a lot of the blue Twitter bird.

With ATI set to launch the new Radeon HD 5500 and 5600 series at CES which starts on the 7th of January and the HD 5400 series later that month, the company is about to flood the market with a huge amount of low-end cards.

We've just received word that ATI have just sent out the design kit to its ATI partners this week. So what does that mean? Well it means that come January we'll begin to see companies offer their own design of Radeon HD 5800 series video cards, this also means that ATI probably have confidence in their supply of chips come early next year as well.

Last week a fellow called David Cummings, Director of Marketing for Desktop GPU from AMD, flew into Taipei and gave local press here in Taiwan a solid presentation on the new ATI Radeon 5970 dual GPU video that is being released today around the world.

When it comes to ultraportables, GIGABYTE like to make sure they're offering something different to capture one's attention. Not unlike their Booktop M1022, the new 1305 also comes with a desktop docking station which gives the notebook a GeForce GT 220 GPU to play with and 1GB of DDR3 memory.

Last Friday Microsoft held its Taiwan Windows 7 launch at the grand Formosa Regency hotel in Taipei City and we just had to go along and check it out and see if there were any surprises in store for us on the hardware side.

Codemasters all excited by the demonstration of its upcoming car racing game DiRT 2 during the recently finished Windows 7 launch event in NYC, sent us over a tech video off the game for us all to see.

We just got back from the Viewsonic press conference in Taipei city that concluded only a couple of hours ago.

Yesterday we described to you what new technologies like Intel's Light Peak could mean in the future. But there was no real hard evidence to show just how powerful something like this could be.

Today we have a video take by the gang at Engadget that shows a small sampling of what Light Peak is capable of even at this early stage of development.

What you see is a "hackintosh" system based on an Intel CPU and chipset. They then run 1080p video and a large file transfer over the Light Peak connection at the same time. Pretty impressive stuff if you ask me.

Now the next steps will be a method of putting this into a smaller footprint and making it affordable for the consumer. Can you imagine being able to swap out a single cable instead of the mass of cables we currently use? I suppose the next step is sending power of this line, at that point we will have a single step setup of our computers.

Of course the minor news here is that it looks like Intel might be violating Apple's EULA by not using genuine Apple products. Then again this seems like something that Apple would be very interested in and working with Intel on as it can maintain the sterile and clean look they so desire.

In today's episode of short attention span theatre we will show you how to expand your attention from a mere 2 seconds to a staggering 3.5.

To do this all you need to do is expand your twitter from 140 characters to 200. I am not sure why you would want to do this. After all most of your followers would not be interested in anything that would require them to read an additional 60 letters and/or spaces.

But as this must be in some sort of demand a company in New Zealand has found a way to do it. What they do is allow you to put your "tweet" into their web page and convert it to a slimmer version using Unicode characters. This makes your tweet look like a letter from a bad TV movie killer but does allow you to drone on about all the little things you are doing.

The companies name is Maxitweet and as an enjoyable diversion you can also view the best tweets ever on their webpage.