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Webpass radios on top of a San Francisco building. (credit: Webpass)

Google Fiber was planning to install fiber lines in San Jose starting last month, but has delayed the project while it considers a wireless alternative, according to a report today in the San Jose Mercury News.

Google Fiber recently announced plans to purchase Webpass, a company that uses point-to-point wireless technology to offer speeds up to 1Gbps, the same as Google's fiber-to-the-home network. San Jose may not be the only city where Google Fiber re-thinks current plans as a result of its newfound wireless capabilities. The Webpass purchase is expected to be completed this summer.

"Google Fiber is already up and running in seven other major cities, outside California, but a source familiar with the project says the company is putting additional fiber locations on the back burner to reassess the technology and explore a cheaper alternative—wireless service that does not require expensive, capital-intensive and time-consuming installation of fiber cables under the ground," the Mercury News reported. "The source said Google is now focusing more on aerial installation."

(credit: Sara Björk)

A federal appeals court in Denver has ruled that e-mailed images obtained by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children constituted a warrantless search, and therefore must be suppressed as part of a child pornography case.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last Friday in favor of a Kansas man who sent an e-mail in April 2013 with four attachments that included suspected child porn via his AOL account. AOL immediately flagged the message via its hash value matching algorithm, believing one of the attached images was suspect, and sent them all on to NCMEC. (Providers have a "duty to report" to the NCMEC if their users access, transmit, or store child pornography.) The agency then opened his message and confirmed that Walter Ackerman had indeed attempted to transmit not just one, but four illegal images.

The following month, a Homeland Security Investigations special agent got the tip through the NCMEC system, and he sought and received a warrant to search Ackerman's home in Lebanon, Kansas. Under questioning, Ackerman admitted to distributing child pornography via e-mail. Months later, Ackerman was formally indicted on two counts of child pornography. His lawyers filed a motion to suppress in February 2014, arguing that his e-mail was searched illegally. Ackerman eventually accepted a plea deal in September 2014. Although he was sentenced to 170 months in prison, he was kept out of custody pending an appeal on the Fourth Amendment question.

tktktk

If all had gone to plan, you'd have read this article five months ago. After a short ride in Chevrolet's new Volt at CES, I was curious to see how the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle fared on the day-to-day grind. There's only so much you can learn on a few laps of a test track in Las Vegas, after all. Matching—or even bettering—the published economy figures during carefully managed events is one thing, but would the car live up to the promise of a triple-digit MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) in practice, away from the PR people?

The second generation Volt has benefited greatly from Chevy's experience with the first car. Plenty of weight was taken out of the car, including the battery pack and motor/generator unit (MGU). It's quieter and the interior quality is a step up. It's even more parsimonious energy-wise; the official EPA numbers are 106MPGe (and 42MPG on gasoline) compared to 98MPGe (and 37MPG) for the first-gen Volt.