Blogs

What are SOPA and PIPA and Why Are We Protesting Them?

There are currently two bills before Congress – the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House of Representatives.  The simplest explanation is that these bills would censor the Internet and impose dangerous regulations on US businesses and consumers.  The intent of the bills is to fight online piracy.  We are OK with that – countless studies have shown that billions of dollars are lost by companies due to piracy.  Where we stop being OK is when the government says that to fight piracy, they will control the Internet and interfere in businesses.  Google sums it up best: Read more »

New Data Plans for AT&T Customers

AT&T announced yesterday that new data plans for smartphones and tablets will be available starting on Sunday, January 22. You can opt to stay with your current data plan or choose one of the new ones that include more data per month.

New Smartphone Plans

There are 3 new data plans available for smartphones:

  • 300 MB for $20 (AT&T Data Plus)
  • 3 GB for $30 (AT&T Data Pro 3 GB)
  • 5 GB for $50 (AT&T Data Pro 5 GB; this will also include mobile hotspot and tethering)

New Tablet Plans

There are 2 new data plans available for tablets:

  • 3 GB for $30 (AT&T DataConnect 3 GB)
  • 5 GB for $50 (AT&T DataConnect 5 GB)

The current 250 MB plan for $14.99 will also remain available for customers. Read more »

The Day OpenSpark Went Dark in Protest of SOPA and PIPA

Read more »re-we-protesting-them">We talked yesterday about the dangers of SOPA and PIPA, and many websites (including ours) went dark today to protest these dangerous bills.

A journey around the Internet today showed sites like Google, Wikipedia, reddit, Mozilla, Wired, Wordpress, and tens of thousands of others (check here for a full list) protesting SOPA and PIPA.  Here are a few that we encountered, including our own.

Websites protesting SOPA and PIPA