Google Shortly To Unveil Gphone Plan?

The Wall Street Journal Online is reporting "Within the next two weeks, Google is expected to announce advanced software and services that would allow handset makers to bring Google-powered phones to market by the middle of next year...
The Google-powered phones are expected to wrap together several Google applications -- among them, its search engine, Google Maps, YouTube and Gmail email -- that have already made their way onto some mobile devices. The most radical element of the plan, though, is Google's push to make the phones' software 'open' right down to the operating system, the layer that controls applications and interacts with the hardware."

They've already patented a mobile phone Gpay system and have reportedly approached handset hardware makers about the idea of building a phone to support and bring all Google services together: Gpay, GoogleMaps, Gmail, YouTube, Blogger, and others. It would be a sort of holy grail device for the Google.
One phone to rule them all? It just might happen.

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Solar Wing On ISS Ripped

Nasa is trying to assess the damage in a newly unfurled solar wing at the International Space Station (ISS). The panel is part of an array held inside a girder that was moved on Tuesday from its temporary site on the platform to a new, permanent location. Ground controllers and two spacewalking astronauts watched with concern as the second of two wings in the array opened to reveal a rip along its edge.
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New Report Confirms Consumer Indifference For HD Formats

Even though both Blu-ray and HD-DVD camps are pulling out the stops this holiday season with heavy marketing campaigns and price drops, new research just released shows only 24% of consumers even consider high-def packaged media when upgrading their home entertainment systems.
The report found that an abundant supply of standard DVD movies, compared to a relative limited number of titles in HD-DVD and Blu-ray, has resulted in little motivation among consumers to adopt.
Also, CE manufacturers are undermining the formats by providing low-cost HD upconverting DVD players.

“The real competitor that both of these formats face is not each other, but rather [these] low-cost DVD players … that pass the ‘good enough’ test for most consumers,” said Michael Gartenberg, VP, Jupiter Research and author of the report.

What have I been saying...
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Daniel Craig Returning As Bond In 4 More Films

Firstshowing.net is reporting Daniel Craig will be returning as James Bond in three films in addition to the one currently filming and due out November 2008. If all these films are made, he will be second only to Sean Connery in number of films starring as Bond.

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Your Cash Not Good Enough To Buy iPhone Anymore

In a move to prevent unauthorized resellers from buying them, Apple has moved to require a credit or debit card be used to purchase any iPhone from now on. That's right, you now cannot go into an Apple store and purchase an iPhone with cash. Apple is also limiting iPhone sales to two per person. Many people have apparently purchased multiple iPhones to resell them, including those looking to unlock the phones so they work on networks other than AT&T.
Thus we come to the real reason behind this decision-Apple believes 250,000 iPhones sold so far were purchased with the intent of unlocking and resale.

At first I thought this would be illegal, since our money says it is "legal tender for all debts, public and private." And it's true if you owe someone a debt, they cannot refuse cash. However, according to the US Treasury website,

There is no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise.

Since you are buying a product, Apple apparently has the right to make the credit card only policy. Of course, this may be challenged in court if someone has the determination to sue Sir Steve over this.

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Scientists Fire Most Powerful Antimatter Beam Ever

Scientists recently announced they have fired the most powerful antimatter beam ever created. Comprised of positrons (antimatter electrons) emitted from a large plate and focused into a beam, the emission strength exceeds the previous record held by a laboratory in Munich, Germany. Looking like something out of a Star Trek engine room, the reactor fired a beam that was five times more powerful than any other ever emitted by man.
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Battlestar Galactica 'Razor' Theatrical Release- Free Admission

In an event somewhat reminiscent of the 1978 'Sensurround' theatrical release of recycled Battlestar Galactica episodes, producers of the current BG series are staging their own theatrical event. Two weeks before it will premiere on the Sci-Fi Channel, Battlestar Galactica Razor will be shown in select theaters-for free. It will show at theaters in Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle.
Sci-Fi Channel and Microsoft are sponsoring the event, which will be used to promote the Xbox360 game Mass Effect and the Zune media player.
You do have to pre-register at BattlestarEvent.com in order to attend.
One disappointment-it will be the TV edited version, not the uncut version that will make it to DVD on Dec. 4.

Asus Eee PC 701 Review

It's Laptop Magazine's review of the new tiny Asus Linux PC. With a 7" screen, 4G of RAM and solid-state design (no hard drive or optical drive) this almost-handheld weighs two pounds. This machine should "tempt anyone looking for a lightweight budget PC that weighs next to nothing and connects to the Internet easily. It's ten times simpler to use than any Windows machine, starts up twice as fast (no crapware!), and is only about a fifth of the cost of other systems in its weight class. It's a little rough around the edges, but the Eee PC is a remarkably versatile machine for the price."
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It's The Prius Limo!

From autoblog: Most people looking to modify their Prius do so in order to extract even more fuel economy from the world's most popular hybrid. There undoubtedly aren't a whole lot of mechanically inclined Prius owners thinking limo, but there is one Canadian who did. The custom 10-seater was hacked at the middle, re-formed and re-stuffed, and welded back together.
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Defect Suspected in Fabric of Space-Time

Eddies in the space-time continuum? Scientists think that shortly after the Big Bang, as the universe cooled and expanded, exotic particles transformed into the particles we know today via phase transitions similar to the gas-liquid-solid transitions that matter now experiences on Earth. And like phase transitions on Earth, defects inevitably occur. When water crystallizes to ice, for example, cloudy spots appear in the ice that mark where water molecules are misaligned. Physicists predict that similar defects happened during the phase transitions of the early universe, and that the defects took different forms. read more | digg story

Chunks Of Smashed Moon Detected in Saturn's Rings

A camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft spotted wakes ahead of and trailing behind these fragments, where other ring material has been affected by the gravitational forces exerted by the pieces. The scientists called the fragments seen in this relatively narrow belt within Saturn's outermost ring "moonlets." They were not directly observed by Cassini, but the scientists inferred their existence because of eight propeller-shaped wakes. There is a scientific debate over the origins of Saturn's rings. These findings support the idea that the material that makes up the rings is debris from collisions involving moons orbiting the giant planet that has spread out over time.

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Storm Worm-Still A Threat?

Two articles published on the web on the same day offer differing thoughts about the Storm Worm and it's impact.
First, this article from UK's Guardian Unlimited states the Storm Worm is gathering speed and "that more than 90 per cent of the world's PCs are vulnerable. Nobody knows how big the Storm botnet has become, but reputable security professionals cite estimates of between one million and 50 million computers worldwide." The article takes an ominous tone and questions if there is yet a yet unseen ultimate future purpose for the botnet.
However, a much more reassuring article at PCWorld tells us "the real story is significantly less terrifying. In July, for example...Storm appeared to have infected about 1.5 million PCs, about 200,000 of which were accessible at any given time."
PCWorld also quotes a network security analyst, Brandon Enright, as saying "the vast majority of those [infected computers] have been cleaned up and are no longer part of the Storm network."
Whatever it's true purpose, the botnet to date has mainly only been used to spread itself or to tout penny stocks in 'pump and dump' spam. According to other research I've read, the number of infected computers has dropped from last month to now quite probably due to Microsoft's malicious software removal tool updates being pushed out every month.
Here is a link to some security tips you can use to generally protect your computer against spyware and viruses. The first tip is a little dated, IE 7 is far more secure than previous versions, but if you're using it you have to make sure it's IE7 and not an earlier version!

Superman Screenwriters Not Returning For Sequel

This does not bode well for any follow up movie to Superman Returns. According to Variety, Superman Returns screenwriters Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris have opted not to come back and write a sequel. Warner Bros is now taking story pitches for Man of Steel. Industry chatter claimed the studio would start fresh with a new take on the Man of Steel, as if the previous pic never happened. This would almost certainly mean Bryan Singer is out of any next film to be produced. Crap.

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Wired Exclusive: I Was A Hacker For The MPAA

Remember that incident about the MPAA paying a 'hacker' $15,000 for stolen emails? Well 'hacker' Robert Anderson now tells for the first time how the MPAA promised him money and power if he provided confidential information on TorrentSpy, a popular BitTorrent search site.
In 2005, the MPAA paid Anderson $15,000 for inside information about TorrentSpy. That much is not disputed. The rest of his story is being disputed by the MPAA. Evidently much of his information he obtained were from emails belonging to TorrentSpy which Anderson would intercept before even being delivered to them. He states he accomplished this by guessing the password in 30 tries.
If nothing else, this story should teach us that email isn't truly private or secure unless you encrypt it using special software or a service like Hushmail. And if you do, use a better password than TorrentSpy evidently did.
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Astronomers Find Planet Only 20 Light-Years Away

Some using the term 'second Earth,' researchers detected a planet orbiting one of Earth's nearest stars, a cool red dwarf called Gliese581, 20 light years away in the constellation of Libra. Measurements of the planet's celestial path suggest it is 1½ times the size of our home planet, and orbits close to its sun, with a year of just 13 days. The planet's orbit brings it 14 times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun. Since Gliese581 burns at half the temperature of our own sun, researchers claim the planet ranges from 0-40 degrees Celsius and is likely to have an atmosphere.

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Why Commercials Before Movies Is Worse Than Piracy

Interesting post by John over at The Movie Blog. Essential argument: If studios want us to stop pirating movies, stop pirating our time. I don't know, I really don't see that many of these commercials that play during the trailers... maybe the local theater chain doesn't show that many or maybe I don't see that many movies. I certainly have never seen 15 minutes of actual commercials before the feature. Have you?
If it annoys you that much, you could do what this site is suggesting.
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First Look: The Cast of JJ Abrams’ Star Trek

I still don't know what to think about re-making TOS of Star Trek with new actors. What's the point? To show we can cast new actors that kind of look like the original cast? To me the only way this will work is be totally re-inventing Trek ignoring continuity with the previous series. Follow the link to check out more pictures.

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Best Buy Stops Selling Analog TVs

In 488 days the era of analog broadcast television in the United States will end as the nation completes its transition to an all-digital system.
Although personal observations indicate some retailers have already stopped stocking analog TVs, this is the first time a big retailer has publicly announced their exit from analog TV.
Best Buy yesterday announced that they have pulled all remaining analog television products from store shelves and will only sell digital video tuners in the future. Stores were instructed to stop selling these products on October 1, 2007.
This announcement will no doubt spur people who still are ignorant of the DTV switchover to start coming into their local electronics stores to ask about it. Hopefully they will be given correct information. If you want more information on the digital switchover, visit DTV Transistion.

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RIAA Sues Usenet.com, Decries It As Next Napster

The Recording Industry Association of America is suing usenet.com, decrying it as the next Napster, Kazaa and other peer-to-peer, illicit file-sharing sites.
I wonder if they think they are actually suing usenet itself...
This of course comes after their big victory against Kazza Mom, Jammie Thomas. Now after their big win they seem to be adding a new component to the lawsuit campaign against single moms, children, grandmothers, dead people, and people that don't have computers.

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FCC Fines RadioShack: No DTV Disclaimers

The FCC Tuesday fined a half-dozen retail stores, including RadioShack, almost $100,000 for failing to properly label their TV sets...As of May 25, according to FCC rules, sets without digital tuners must be clearly marked, either on the set or in close proximity, with the warning that the sets won't receive over-the-air broadcasts after Feb 2009..
Apparently people are still buying analog TVs, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as it's an informed purchase. I mean, 85% of people get cable or satellite, both of which will still work with analog TVs after the digital switchover. Only 15% of the population still receives over the air broadcasts.
Still, from my observations people who buy consumer electronics at Radio Shack aren't the most well-informed consumers and the warning labels are required for a reason.
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CNet: HD Format "War" A Joke

From Cnet:

Many column inches and much screen space have been filled with discussions of a "war" between two rival next-generation DVD formats. But more than 18 months after the launch of both formats, the question remains, should the average consumer care?
But the bickering and public posturing over the last year looks patently ridiculous when one considers how few discs and players these industry giants are actually arguing over.

This article brings out what I've been saying about low-cost upconverting DVD players being the primary competition for these new competing formats. When you can go into Wal-Mart and buy a $44 Philips DVD player that upconverts to HD (which many people are hard-pressed to tell any difference from real HD) paying hundreds of dollars for a new format which may not become the standard and may be incompatible with future versions of the same format seems ridiculous.

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Kazza Mom Appeals Excessive Judgment

A week after saying she would appeal the $222,000 verdict, Jammie Thomas has officially asked the court for a retrial on the actual damages suffered by the plaintiff, the RIAA. The argument has to do the the RIAA seeking statutory damages as they always do, and not punitive damages. Any award above and beyond the plaintiff's actual damages is being claimed to be punitive and unconstitutional. Should the court decide against a new trial on damages, Jammie has 30 days to appeal the actual verdict, possibly including that interesting jury instruction given by the judge.

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300 MPG Jetsons Car Taking Pre-Orders

Looking like something out of The Jetsons, the Aptera can now be pre-ordered.

The Aptera is fuel-efficient because it is extremely light, and it keeps itself so light in a few ways. First, the engine is tiny, one cylinder, but that's OK, because it's only ever used to charge the batteries. It also stays light by doing away with one of the wheels. This also helps because then, according to American safety regulations, it is technically a motorcycle, and so doesn't have to jump through any of the normal safety hoops. This keeps weight (and costs) way down, but it also makes it pretty fantastically unsafe (but, of course, no less safe than a motorcycle.)

But it certainly is more comfortable than a motorcycle. The extreme aerodynamics keep things efficient but also spacious. Two bucket seats, a wraparound cockpit which gives excellent wraparound visuals.

The lack of side-view mirrors is compensated by rear cameras that display on the central video monitor. Oh...and speaking of awesomness, it has solar panels on the roof that power an air conditioner that keep the car cool on any sunny day....even when you're not in it!

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Sites That Make Firefox Sad

Why would you make Firefox sad? This is hilarious...this is not 1997, 50.2% of visitors of this site use Firefox or Mozilla; more than twice that of any other browser. Follow the link to a list of sites that actively block browsers other than Internet Explorer or have some serious problem that prevents the site from being usable in Firefox. I feel like ordering stuff from the Mozilla store after reading this. Come on, don't make Firefox sad...

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$399 PlayStation 3 Due In November

U.S. retailers are excited about a new stripped-down $399 model of the PlayStation 3, but stores are anticipating supply will be tight. A PlayStation spokesman continues to not comment on an impending rollout. However, sources say stores are preparing to start selling a $399 model on or near the first week of November.
One major clue to the upcoming launch is a leaked late-October Best Buy circular that pictures the $399 PS3. A Best Buy spokesman declined comment.

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Survey Reveals 80% of Students Have MP3 Player

Well, that headline isn't so shocking I guess. But there were some other interesting results of Piper Jaffray’s bi-annual survey of high school students. Of the 80% that own an mp3 player (a figure that has doubled in the last year and a half) 82% have an iPod. It seems the same 82% are also downloading music and of these, two thirds are still illegally downloading music on P2P networks.
Looks like for many, the RIAA lawsuit campaign is not having much effect.
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Star Trek 11 Casting News

Harold is Sulu and Shaun is Scotty. The Trek Movie Report is reporting John Cho cast as Sulu and Simon Pegg cast in the role of Scotty. Eric Bana will also be appearing as a villian (Romulan?) called Nero. The budget for this film is now reported to be more than $150 million, more than any other Trek film previously.
I really hope JJ Abrams knows what he's doing...

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Madonna Dumps Record Industry

Nine Inch Nails, Oasis and Jamiroquai have all reportedly dropped their record labels and have started selling music directly to the public. Now news is Madonna is dropping Maverick (Warner)and has signed a $120 million deal with L.A. based concert promotion firm Live Nation to distribute three studio albums, promote concert tours, sell merchandise and license Madonna’s name. Whats interesting about that is Live Nation is not an RIAA member company. So while she's not going to be selling music directly to the public like the three bands I mentioned, the RIAA (who has sued everyone from 12 year old girls to dead grandmothers; and even people who don't have computers for allegedly pirating music) isn't going to be paid royalties for her music from now on.
The bad news? Live Nation is a spin off of Clear Channel. D'oh!
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Australia Law Could Ban All Plasma TVs By 2011

If a revised Australian energy rating guide gets passed, then all plasma televisions would be banned from sale by 2011. That's right, all plasmas and even many power-hungry LCDs would be taken off store shelves due to their high energy consumption.
It's not yet publicly well known in America about the power consumption of plasma TVs, which consume considerably more power than LCD. This proposal shows that governments are becoming aware of how much. It's a shame any LCD makes the 'power hungry' list, because they don't need to consume that much power. That's why they are used on your laptop.

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Schools Using iPods to Teach

Amazing it took this long to figure out. Mp3 players are excellent learning tools. Teachers could post homework assignments on school websites in mp3 form, and some do. This would especially be useful in teaching language skills, or to distribute class lectures. Many colleges are getting in on this idea.
Many mp3 players are quite inexpensive. Too bad this program seems like someone is padding the expense somewhere. 300 iPods for $130,000 = $433 each. They could have bought 300 $79 mp3 players for under $24,000. Or bought one for every student in school for what they spent.
Granted, some of that money must have gone to curriculum software but it seems too expensive.

Next month, the Union City district will give out 300 iPods at its schools as part of a $130,000 experiment in one of New Jersey’s poorest urban school systems. The effort has spurred a handful of other districts in the state, including the ones in Perth Amboy and South Brunswick, to start their own iPod programs in the last year, and the project has drawn the attention of other educators...

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New Blu-Ray Movies Not Playing on All Players

Remember when you could buy a movie or album and it would just work? The tape would play on your VCR, the record would play on your record player, the CD would play on your CD player and so on. Welcome to the new world of digital media, complicated by DRM. Although incompatibility issues were seen on a smaller scale with DVD, this is a case of discs produced to Blu-ray spec and not playing on existing Blu-ray players.
From ars technica: With the new generation of HD DVD and Blu-ray video players, however, this is the norm: firmware updates are to be expected because the players are constantly evolving and are built around a DRM scheme (AACS) that can be "updated" in the event that a hack is found.
This latest twist on HD media is concerning new releases from Fox Home Video that will either not play on some models, giving you the red screen of death seen here, will play after an incredible two-minute load time, or stutter during playback. It is not yet confirmed if the source of the problem in BD-Java or BD+, a DRM scheme that is only now being added to discs produced from Fox studios. Although BD+ was always part of the Blu-ray spec, no studio had yet included it on any release.
This is not the first time there have been compatibility issues due to copy protection. Back in April, Sony released DVD titles with additional ARccOS copy protection files which caused playback problems on some players, including Sony players.
At any rate, Fox is blaming the incompatibility to manufacturers not including the latest firmware updates available for their players when they are sold and instructs consumers to visit their manufacturers website to find out how to install the latest firmware on their Blu-ray player. The playback problems are reported to mainly be on LG and Samsung Blu-ray players.
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Breaking News:Google Buys Jaiku

From the Jaiku front page:

Exciting news, Jaiku is joining Google!
While it’s too soon to comment on specific plans, we look forward to working with our new friends at Google over the coming months to expand in ways we hope you'll find interesting and useful. Our engineers are excited to be working together and enthusiastic developers lead to great innovation. We look forward to accomplishing great things together. In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have decided to close new user sign-ups for now.

Does The Google have to buy everything? Will there be any internet services left to sign up for that have not been acquired by Google? For a complete list of Google acquisitions over the last several years, click here.
DejaNews in 2001. Blogger in 2003. YouTube in 2006. DoubleClick (pending) in 2007. Now Jaiku. Compiling all this information together with your actual activity on Google and one thing's for sure. Google will know more about you than you do.

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Kazaa Mom Will Appeal RIAA Verdict; Taking Donations

In an appearance on CNN along with her attorney Brian Toder, Jammie Thomas announced her decision to appeal last week's $222,000 willful copyright infringement verdict. The basis of her appeal will be jury instruction no. 15, which told the jurors that they could find Thomas liable for copyright infringement if she made the recordings available over a file-sharing network, "regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown." According to a post on Thomas' MySpace page, the appeal will center around the "making available" argument. The hope is that the RIAA "would actually have to prove a file was shared and by someone other than (themselves.)"
A video of Jammie talking about her appeal is playable below. If you want to donate toward her legal fund, click here.

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Warner Bros: “No More Female Lead Characters?”

Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Warner Bros president of production Jeff Robinov has made a new decree that "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead".
If this is true, what an utterly ridiculous decision based on the results of just a few films. How about just making some good movies people will want to see, regardless of who is in the lead?
(The Game Plan? Resident Evil: Extinction? Yawn.)
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Indiana Town Questions Redbox Rentals

Legislators in a small Indiana town are questioning why Redbox includes R-rated movies in its kiosks.
The trademark red kiosks, which rent DVDs are often located in kid-trafficked areas such as McDonalds. This has been a cause of concern for the Union City, Indiana city council who has asked the local McDonald's franchise to remove R-rated and unrated titles from it's kiosks and carry only G-rated product(!) Having received no response from the franchise, the council is preparing to seek a state injunction to remove the mature movies from McDonald's locations.
This will be interesting to see how this plays out. Their argument will undoubtedly be 'cigarettes and alcohol are not sold in vending machines, neither should these movies.' That may be, but while there are laws against selling alcohol and cigarettes to minors, entertainment product is not covered by similar laws. The rating systems for movies, games, and TV shows are voluntary, not enforced by any law or government agency (unless there are local ordinances against the rental, sale, or exhibition of movies with a certain MPAA rating.)
Redbox is co-owned by McDonald's and Coinstar.

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RIAA Verdict: Mom, Pay $220,000 For Using Kazaa

After less than four hours of deliberations, a federal jury in Duluth, Minnesota handed the RIAA a victory in the first file-sharing case to go to trial, finding that Jammie Thomas, a 30 year old mother of two, willfully infringed on the record labels' copyrights, awarding them $222,000 in damages.
This was notable because it is the first of the RIAA lawsuits to go to trial. Of course, they'll never see that money. She will likely file bankruptcy and at best they will garnish her wages for the rest of her life.

The RIAA hopes that this and the 20,000 other cases serve as a deterrent to would-be file-sharers, but the question of whether or not the music industry is engendering so much hostility and bad press with its campaign that it outweighs any short-term benefits remains. With a verdict in their favor, the RIAA hopes to ratchet the campaign of fear up a notch and says it will press forward with its legal campaign.

This will no doubt bolster the RIAA's shotgun lawsuit campaign.
Whatever happens, if you share music online, it is evident that the RIAA is watching you.
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People Building Home Observatories

You probably have a home theater, what about a home observatory? This article highlights a trend among some of building your own amateur observatory right in your home. In fact, astronomy themed residential communities are popping up. And these things sound like the real deal.
I used to be into this, but getting out and setting up your telescope every time becomes a real chore, and in residential areas you have to deal with light pollution.

Domes in home observatories are typically made of metal or fiberglass and range in size from 8 to 30 feet in diameter. They are sold in kits from manufacturers like Ash or Technical Innovations and start at about $5,000, depending on the size, materials and features. The price includes a computer-controlled motorized system that opens the dome’s sliding or hatch-like shutter and rotates the dome...Most home observatories have between $10,000 and $40,000 in equipment, including telescopes, computers, refractors, filters and tracking mechanisms, according to astronomy equipment retailers.
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Farewell, Miss Moneypenny

Actress Lois Maxwell, who starred as Miss Moneypenny in 14 James Bond movies, has died at age 80. Maxwell starred alongside Sean Connery in Bond's first movie outing, Dr No, in 1962. She played the role until 1985's A View To A Kill with Roger Moore. Her roles in the films were small but memorable as she flirted with Bond in each film.
Typical scene...
From Diamonds Are Forever:
James Bond: What can I bring you back from Holland?
Miss Moneypenny: A diamond? In a ring?
James Bond: Would you settle for a tulip?
Miss Moneypenny: [Bond leaves; she sighs longingly] Mm, yes.

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Farewell to Business 2.0

I just got the last issue of Business 2.0 magazine in the mail. The cover of this last issue appears to the right.
Too bad, I really enjoyed reading this magazine, especially the annual 101 Dumbest Moments and monthly Hits and Misses. It was an article in the September 2006 issue that inspired me to start this site.
The cover states it "will no longer be published in print form." It is not known what Time Inc. is going to do with the Business 2.0 brand. You can read current and past articles here.

AT&T's New DSL TOS: Don't Talk Smack About Us

A sharp eyed ATT DSL subscriber noticed this little clause in his contract (Terms Of Service):
AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes...tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.
So 'conduct' that they 'believe tends to damage' their company can get you booted off any of their internet services. No legal proof of damages needed.
Would this very blog post constitute 'damaging the name/reputation' of ATT?
Interestingly, the arstechnica article brings out as an ISP, ATT enjoys legal protection from a user posting illegal content and from what their subscribers say and do online. As such, they are not compelled to police their network. Fine. But if they begin to regularly police content on their networks, will it become liable for content or speech posted using ATT? And if this takes place, will this policing of their network extend to other types of content/speech?
The clause seems poorly concieved at best and a deliberate draconian move at worst, but not entirely surprising from this company judging by what has been revealed over the last two years.
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