Responding to criticism for its secrecy over its data centres, Google has lifted the veil a little on how much energy its information hotbeds use. The world's largest search engine insisted that Google-designed data centres used nearly five times less energy than conventional facilities, and launched a website to inform environmentally-bent customers on their 5-step approach to efficiency.

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3M's new Mobile ID Reader scans MRZ and RF chip data from passports and visas and immediately checks them against local or international watch lists by using wifi or GSM/GPRS EDGE networks. It seems like a great tool to further make you feel like you're living in some scary dystopian sci-fi novel, especially when you hear that dastardly monopolist Bill Gates got his little-loved Windows Mobile 6 OS onto the device.

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T-Mobile's just rolled back on their 1GB usage cap on their 3G plans for upcoming G1 Android customers, instead going to a hold-up-while-we-figure-this-out route. The statement they give now states that they can reduce throughput for "a small fraction" of users who are using too much data, but exact terms and limits are still being reviewed before they're finalised. Statement after the jump.

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I'm not sure how far to read into this, but a Boy Genius reader who uses an iPhone with a non-iPhone data plan sent in a note he or she received from AT&T. It was friendly and definitely not a threat, but it does border on stalkery, with a hint of forboding:

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It looks as thought the UKs Ministry of Defence is about to come down hard on the person responsible for leaving a USB drive loaded with troop movements on the floor of "The Beach" nightclub in Newquay, Cornwall. The drive was picked up by a random clubgoer who promptly turned it over to the most responsible party he could think of—a national newspaper. The MoD is currently investigating the incident but the fact is that more than 120 sensitive USB drives have been lost by the MoD since 2004—so it seems to me that the most appropriate course of action here is to stop putting classified data on USB drives and handing it to idiots. [BBC]

Apple has been working in new multi-touch technology that combines touch interfaces with input from the camera and the microphone. For example: this will allow you to select text in the iPhone, say "copy," go to another application and say "paste" to make this task really easy. The most intriguing part, however, is the use of a camera in laptops and desktops.

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If you're in the northeastern US and having troubles hitting up the internets or email from your phone, don't chuck it at the wall—a whole bunch of users are reporting that AT&T's data network is down and out this... Read More »

Your current cheap options for international data from AT&T are 20MB for US$24.99 or 50 MB for US$59.99--ream city, though without them there's no lube at all, as Blam found out when he came back from Brazil, where AT&T's int'l roaming discounts don't apply. AT&T now has two iPhone specific plans: 100MB for US$120, and 200MB for US$200, a savings of $0 and US$40, respectively. Still, ouch. [AT&T]

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If you're a total movie geek who wants quick access to every sliver of minutae about every Blu-ray disc out there—release date, studio, IMDB rating, disc size, codec, audio encoding and price comparisons—Blu-ray Statistics has them all in a neat table that you can sort by any of those criteria. It's not a pretty site, but damn handy if you wanna know every Fox movie released on a BD50 disc with MPEG-2 encoding, thereby averting bloodbaths with pasty white dudes arguing about codecs or Dolby vs. DTS. [Blu-ray Stats via Crave]

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The Net Neutrality battles have created and unexpected but welcome side effect. In it's ruling against Comcast last week, the FCC said in a round about way that unless a you are abusing your Internet connection then the carriers have... Read More »