Starting Thursday, June 5th, Time Warner will begin a trial program which will impose a monthly consumption cap of 40GB on the internet for it’s customers in Beaumont, Texas.

Users will be given two months to get used to the cap, and then after that they will be charged $1.00 for every gigabyte over the limit that they go.

Time Warner Cable’s plan to test metered service was originally revealed to the public when an internal company memo was leaked in January and later confirmed by the company. The memo indicated that the results of the trial would be used to determine whether to roll out the bandwidth-capping plan to other regions.

Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable executive vice president of advanced technology, told the Associated Press that the variable billing model is being adopted to address the disparity in bandwidth consumption among Time Warner Cable users. Five percent of the subscribers are consuming half of the local line capacity, Leddy says.

The caps differ depending on the tier of service paid for by the consumer. The lowest level of service is a 768Kbps connection with a 5GB cap for $29.95 per month. The high-end package will offer 15MBps with a 40GB cap for $54.90 per month. Consumers will pay by the gigabyte for consumption in excess of the established caps. Customers will be able to see how much bandwidth they have left by visiting the Time Warner Cable web site.

This may not, at first glance, seem like a problem, but considering where technology is gong, and the concepts of cloud computing becoming so prevalant, it seems hard to imagine that even the average consumer will be able to subsist on a max of 40GB each month.

If Mr. Leddy is concerned about the 5% of subscribers who are consuming half the local line capacity, then perhaps a plan targetted towards them would be more appropriate.  Time Warner is certainly capable of determining who is abusing thier bandwidth, and even if they can’t then at the very least put together a program that is more reasonable.  Uncapped DSL is cheaper then $30.00 a month and for that Time Warner will cap you at 5GB ?? I used more then 5GB this month on my iPhone over the edge network…

With the advent of “set-top” internet boxes such as the Apple TV, Netflix and Blockbuster, most consumers will find that they hit these caps after just a couple of movies in the month.  Scary that a cable company is able to completely establish a policy that effectively removes the ability to use a product that would be considered a competitor, and no one takes notice.

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Apple on Tuesday officially kicked off its largest back-to-school promo in the company’s history, offering a free 8GB iPod touch to students and educational staffers who purchase a qualifying Mac.

More specifically, [ the promotion ] offers a $299 rebate that cancels out the price of an 8GB iPod touch, though the rebate can also be applied towards the purchase of the 16GB ($399) or 32GB ($499) model. Alternatively, participants can elect to receive a free 8GB iPod nano for the reduced rebate value of $199.

In order to qualify for the offer, the iPod and Mac system must be purchased at the same time and appear on the same receipt. Apple lists qualifying Mac systems as the MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac Pro. The Mac mini, previous-generation 17” iMac, Apple TV, iPhone, iPod shuffle, iPod classic, 4GB iPod nano, and refurbished products are not eligible.

The products must be purchased from the Apple Online Store for Education Individuals, an Apple Retail Store, Apple Telesales, or an Apple Authorized Campus Store located in the 50 United States or the District of Columbia.

Faculty and staff of higher education institutions and students attending or accepted into a higher education institution are eligible. Any employee of a public or private K–12 institution or Qualified Homeschoolers in the United States or District of Columbia are also eligible.

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With just a week to go before WWDC, the 3G iPhone rumor mill is pretty much on fire.  Some rumors are just crazy, but most seem likely, so here is your roundup to get you excited.

• It’ll be announced during the WWDC keynote

I buy this one.  I don’t think at this point Apple could delay the announcement, even if they hadn’t initially planned on it.  Apple would suffer seriously if they don’t announce it.

• It’ll ship on the same day as the announcement

I am not sure about this one.  If this were the case, images of the phone would have leaked out, since once the Apple store employees, and more likely the at&t employees open the boxes pictures will appear in about 32 seconds.

• Battery life will be improved

I think this is a must.. I get great battery life off my current iPhone, but I know with all the added features, 3G and GPS being the biggest battery suckers, they will have to increase the life.

• Twice the current memory – 16GB and 32GB

Again, I think this will be an obvious, Apple never releases anything without beefing it up..

• It’ll have GPS

I am not too sure about this. I haven’t seen anything conclusive on whether it will have the hardware inside to support GPS, and while I think it would be nice, the WiFi option has worked well for me so far.

• Front-facing Camera

meh… I don’t care one way or the other on this one.  I can see the obvious video calling aspect of it, but it is doubtful that I would ever use it.  I think I have used the built i-sight camera on my MacBook Pro once and that was just because my nephew was playing with Photo Booth.

• Stereo Bluetooth support.

The fact that stereo bluetooth (A2DP) support hasn’t been on the iPhone from day one is crazy.  Music and wireless are Apple’s thing, now. They go together well, so even though the ruomrs on this have been quieter, this is one of my top 5 most anticipated features and since Leopard comes out of the box with A2DP support, Apple’s at least has proven it is a feature they are interested in.

• 3 megapixel Camera

It should be at least 3 mega pixels. The current iPhone rocks a 2 megapixel camera. The SGOLD3 chipset rumored to be in use on the 3G iPhone supports up to 5. Any thing less than a full megapixel bump would be an under utilization of the current hardware.

• It’ll be 22% slimmer

Steve Jobs is more obsessed with thin then a cracker fed super model blowing in the wind, so I completely believe this. 22% sounds like a whole lot, but it only shaves it down to around 9.1 mm – still a bit thicker than the iPod touch.

Like any good rumor, apply salt liberally, but these are all just a collection of what I think are the most reasonable rumors.

Think I’ve hit them all? Did I miss something? Drop a comment!

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HP does deal with Microsoft to embed toolbar on desktop. nVidia takes on the Intel Atom chip with its own processors. The line is called Tegra. Windows 7 GUI to be designed by Office 2007 interface? That cannot be good. Time-Warner experimenting with metering the Internet. Venezuela appealing OOXML. ASUS now doing a Shuttle-killer. A computer the size of a pound cake. Gphone delayed until 2009? Computex underway. One hot topic is Wi-Fi replacing Bluetooth. Lots of stories about Windows 7.

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The recent, and quick, updates to the SSD (solid state drive) market are making me think that we will be seeing cheaper and more consumer friendly SSD’s for the rest of us, but for now, TDK has just announced what they are calling the smallest Micro SATA SSD drives and I think it is pretty cool…

The HS1 series will measure just 1.8 inches with 16, 32, and 64GB capacities and will use single-level cell NAND flash memory.

Read / write speeds are spinner-like 100MBps and 50MBps respectively and are expected to be energy efficient at 20mA.

Security wise, we’re looking at 128-bit AES encryption with 7-bit error correction.

They won’t come cheap, though: prices are expected to run $900 (16) , $1,500 (32) , and $2,000 (64) for the three capacities.

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According to the Apple rumor mill, which seems to be working more then overtime lately, some specs of the iPhone have been released, by “a programmer at a major software publisher.”

The following should be taken with a grain of salt, because salt makes everything more tasty.

According to [ Cult of Mac ] the iPhone 2 will have:

• 3G
• GPS
• 2 x memory (16GB and 32GB)
• 22 % thinner
• Longer battery life

The tipster says Apple will subsidize the iPhone’s price to better compete with RIM’s Blackberry. The London Times is reporting the same thing — that [ the iPhone will cost about $200 in the UK ] when it goes on sale in July.

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In a move that makes very little sense to this particular mac fanboy, Apple will be re-branding their very cool .mac service and begin calling it “mobile me”.

This is, of course, all rumor and conjecture, but given a lot of the buzz going on in the interwebs it seems likely.

Apple has bought a slew of .me domains, the soon-to-be-launched domain suffix for Montenegro that’s scheduled to go live on July 17th. Macworld UK spoke to Predrag Lesic, in charge of the Montenegro’s .me registry, and he thinks the domain will be an international hit.

Speculation around the web says Apple may be planning to re-brand its web service, .Mac, as Mobile Me. Daring Fireball points out that there is a new string inside one of iCal’s resource files hinting that .Mac will indeed be getting a new name, although it remains unknown what it will be.

These two facts go nicely together and it points to a whole new service coming through the .Mac gateway, hopefully it will integrate into the iPhone as well.  I just wish they would leave the name alone, or at least pick something that is not so “windowish”.

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There are plenty of iPhone/iPod Touch “stands” out there that are, basically, just for the purpose of watching, or listening to content on your iPhone.  This one is by far the coolest, and not just because of the name.

The [ iClooly ], from Japanese manufacturer RockRidgeSound, is a stand for your iPhone that makes it look like a lil’ baby iMac.

The iClooly even pivots 90º for landscape/portrait swapping goodness and has a dock connection inside. It’ll be ¥4,980 (roughly $47) when it hits the streets June 7th

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Not the music, but the hip-hop lovin’, back slide spinnin’, should have been a Porsche but ended up a Pontiac , transformer voiced by Darius McCrary.

Several sources have reported spotting both McCrary and a Pontiac Soltice on the shoot for the new Transformers movie.

Other rumors have Robert Orci stating :

I’d love and think we could almost barely manage ten on each side, with some front and center and others as more supporting.

In the past Bay has denied that Jazz would return, but we all know how producers and directors like to screw with our heads while they make films.

As for the 10 autobots, if I have a say, I would love to see Hound return.

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AIRPORT guards stopped a man boarding a plane — for wearing a Transformers T-shirt showing a cartoon gun.

Brad Jayakody, 30, was shocked when he was told to change his top if he wanted to catch his flight from Heathrow’s Terminal 5.

IT consultant Brad — on a British Airways trip with four colleagues to Dusseldorf, Germany — asked to see the security chief.

He thought the boss would “see sense” — but he backed up the decision and threatened him with ARREST.

Aussie-born Brad said:

“My mate set off the alarms and was searched.  But then the guy told me to stop and said ‘you cannot get on the plane because there is a gun on your T-shirt’.”

The top has the Transformers film character Optimus Prime on the front.

Brad added:

“It’s a cartoon robot with a gun as an arm. What was I going to do, use the shirt to pretend I have a gun? I was flabbergasted. I thought the supervisor would come over and see sense, but he didn’t. After I changed he said if I changed back I would be arrested.”

A spokesman for Heathrow operator BAA said:

“If a T-shirt had a rude word or a bomb on it for example, a passenger may be asked to remove it. We are investigating what happened to see if it came under this category.”

Last year Gatwick guards made a woman hand over a beef sandwich before boarding and last week a PhD student was stopped for wearing a gun-shaped charm necklace at an airport in Canada.

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