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AT&T quietly introduces $10 DSL plan
NEW YORK — Without any sort of fanfare, AT&T Inc. has started offering a broadband Internet service for $10 a month, half the price of its cheapest advertised plan.
The DSL, or digital subscriber line, plan introduced Saturday is part of the concessions made by San Antonio-based AT&T to the Federal Communications Commission to get its $86 billion acquisition of BellSouth Corp. approved last December.
The $10 offer is available to customers in the 22-state AT&T service region, which includes former BellSouth areas, who have never had AT&T or BellSouth broadband, spokesman Michael Coe confirmed today. Local phone service and a one-year contract are required. The modem is free.
The plan was not mentioned in a Friday news release about AT&T's DSL plans, and is slightly hidden on the AT&T Web site. A page describing DSL options doesn't mention it, but clicking a link for "Term contract plans" reveals it. It's also presented to customers who go into the application process, Coe said.
The service provides download speeds of up to 768 kilobits per second and upload speeds of up to 128 kbps, matching AT&T's $19.95 plan.
The agreement with the FCC required the company to offer the plan for at least 2 1/2 years. Coe said he could not comment on future advertising plans for the offer.
The introduction of the plan, slightly before the deadline at the end of June, was first reported by The Tennessean in Nashville.
Another concession to the FCC is yet to come: a plan for DSL that doesn't require local phone service. AT&T has another six months to introduce that option, which should cost at most $19.95 per month.
Consumer advocates have fought for this so-called "naked DSL plan," because DSL can carry Internet-based phone calls for less than the price of local phone service. However, at 768 kbps, the download speed may be too low to appeal to the relatively sophisticated customers who use the Internet for phone calls.
Source : www.chron.com
Fresh Ways to Burn More Calories
Jump in the water, hop on a swing, or run with a hound to burn more calories this summer—sans gym membership.
by Bethany Lye
by Bethany Lye
From hula-hooping to picking berries, we’ve got 18 surprising ways to rev up your heart rate and help you slim down.
Boosting your heart rate keeps your heart in top form and burns serious calories—no gym membership required. Here are 18 simple, surprising tips to help you get your heart pumping this summer.
1. Move your workout into the water. The next time you’re at the beach or poolside, take a break from lounge-chair languishing and try a shallow-water workout instead. Walking through thigh-deep water burns nearly twice as many calories as walking on land.
Total burn: More than 210 calories per half-hour
2. Hold the ’07 Olympic trials in your backyard. The real Games may be a year off, but you can make your mark in the garden-rock shot put or sandbox long jump. Choose your favorite summer Olympic sport and tweak it to make it backyard-friendly. Then gather all the friends and family you can and go for the gold.
Total burn: 170 calories per half-hour
3. Adopt a stretch of park or beach and keep it clean. Picking up trash can help both your community and your heart. Start by recruiting buddies, then crank up some fast-paced tunes on your boom box or MP3 player and get to work. All that squatting and lunging will leave you—and the land—looking beautiful.
Total burn: 102 calories per half-hour
4. Take a bike tour of a nearby city. Explore new neighborhoods, or grab a friend and a map to create your own sightseeing trip. Your heart will be racing in no time.
Total burn: Around 270 calories per half-hour at a moderate pace
5. Pick your own berries. Get a full-body workout while you gather fresh fruit. Walk the fields at a nearby farm, pick to your heart’s content, then carry the berry-filled baskets back to your car. To find a local farm, visit pickyourown.org.
Total burn: 102 calories per half-hour
6. “Test out” playground equipment. 170 calories per half-hour
7. Crank up the iPod and get your groove on. 153 calories per half-hour
8. Go canoeing. 119 calories per half-hour
9. Scale the longest staircase in town. 272 calories per half-hour
10. Get spinning with a hula hoop. 153 calories per half-hour
11. Jog on the beach. 238 calories per half-hour
12. Twirl a jump rope. 340 calories per half-hour
13. Play a game of tennis—with no out-of-bounds. 238 calories per half-hour
14. Volunteer to walk dogs at a local shelter. 102 calories per half-hour
15. Take a self-defense class. 340 calories per half-hour
16. Listen to books on tape while walking the chapters away. 129 calories per half-hour
17. Cultivate a garden of your family’s favorite veggies. 136 calories per half-hour
18. Pack a picnic and hike to the perfect spot. 238 calories per half-hour
Note: All calorie estimates are based on a 150-pound woman.
Source : www.health.com
YouTube expanding reach to Brazil, Japan, parts of Europe
SAN FRANCISCO — Unshaken by its legal problems in the United States, online video leader YouTube will attempt to extend its cultural reach and increase its moneymaking opportunities by programming new channels in nine other countries.
The expansion, announced today in Paris, will make new YouTube sites available in Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom.
The Web sites will be translated into the native languages of each country, when necessary, and allow YouTube to highlight videos that appeal to their respective audiences.
Most of the visitors to YouTube's Web site in the United States already come from computers located in other countries, so creating more international channels is a step the San Bruno-based company always hoped to take, co-founder Steve Chen said in a phone interview from France.
But the expansion didn't become viable until online search leader Google Inc. bought YouTube for $1.76 billion late last year.
Besides giving YouTube more computing power, Google also supplied its new subsidiary with the expertise it needed to diversify. The international expansion is being overseen by Sakina Arsiwala, who previously worked on Google's search engines outside the United States. Arsiwala eventually hopes to engineer additional YouTube channels in dozens of other countries.
YouTube says it already streams more than 200 million videos each day.
By making its programming more accessible to people who don't speak English, YouTube is hoping to stimulate even more usage outside the United States. Targeting specific markets may also appeal to advertisers.
"We really feel like we are going to be providing a better product around the world," YouTube Chief Executive Chad Hurley said in a phone interview.
The expansion also could deliver new challenges for YouTube as it tries to adhere to the laws and community standards of other nations.
YouTube already is battling allegations that it has profited from copyright videos that users post without proper authorization.
In the highest profile case, Viacom Inc. is suing YouTube and Google for $1 billion in damages. YouTube and Google have denied any wrongdoing, citing their practice of removing videos as soon as a copyright owner sends a notice of unauthorized usage.
Another federal lawsuit filed in New York already has provided a glimpse at some of the legal trouble that YouTube could encounter in other counties.
The parties who filed the class-action suit include the Premier League, a top soccer league in England; the Federation Francaise de Tennis, which puts on the French Open; and the Ligue de Football Professionnel, another soccer group in France.
The claims in the case are currently limited to copyright violations that occurred on YouTube's U.S. site, said Louis Solomon, an attorney representing the sports leagues.
"But if they operate in the same unlawful manner that they do in the United States, they will get lawsuits in other countries, too," said Solomon.
YouTube has worked out licensing agreements with more than 150 content providers in Europe and is trying to negotiate more. YouTube also remains committed to protecting the copyrights of those who don't want their videos shown on the site, Hurley said.
Source : www.chron.com