Month: February 2017

Enlarge / FCC Chairman Ajit Pai speaks during a keynote speech at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 28, 2017. (credit: LLUIS GENE/AFP/Getty Images)

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai today said his "light-touch" approach to regulation is already helping consumers in the form of unlimited smartphone data plans from major US carriers. And he predicted that getting rid of "utility-style regulation" over broadband providers will boost Internet access across the US.

Pai, a Republican and ex-Verizon lawyer who was appointed FCC chair by President Donald Trump, made his case in a speech today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain (full text). Just before touting the recent expansion of unlimited data plans, he discussed his decision to end an investigation into data cap exemptions, also known as zero-rating. Pai's FCC rescinded the commission's previous determination that AT&T and Verizon Wireless violated net neutrality rules by exempting their own video services from data caps while charging other providers for the same zero-rating treatment.

This decision, Pai said, led to a surge in unlimited data offerings:

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Joe Raedle )

The chicken in Subway Restaurants’ chicken sandwiches may only contain around 50 percent chicken, according to an investigation by Canadian media outlet, CBC. The rest: soy.

The investigation involved DNA testing chicken sandwiches collected from five popular fast food restaurants. The rest of the sandwiches contained mostly chicken. But in testing, Subway’s oven roasted chicken and the chicken strips in its Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sandwich clocked in with just 53.6 percent and 42.8 percent chicken, respectively. The results stood up after extra rounds of sampling.

Subway responded to the CBC in a statement:

Enlarge / With its lunar ambitions, SpaceX is testing the strength of its relationship with William Gerstenmaier, NASA's chief of human exploration. (credit: NASA)

NASA is far from a perfect government agency. As former space shuttle program manager Wayne Hale recently noted, NASA is hobbled by three major problems—rivalries between field centers, "mind-numbing" bureaucracy, and a "paralyzing" cultural requirement for perfection in all things.

But for all of its problems, NASA remains an organization capable of doing great things, filled with talented and motivated people. And among the goals NASA has committed to is encouraging US companies to invest in spaceflight and develop sustainable business plans. NASA seeks to open outer space for business, particularly low Earth orbit.

To that end, NASA has been a great partner to SpaceX and its goal of reducing the cost of access to space. NASA essentially saved the launch company with a $1.6 billion contract in 2008 to provide cargo delivery to the International Space Station. The space agency is also in the midst of providing the company more than $3 billion to develop and begin flying crewed missions to the station. These funds have allowed SpaceX to design and develop its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket and two variants of the Dragon spacecraft, including the Dragon 2 capsule the company proposed to send two humans around the Moon in next year.

Enlarge / A promotional image shows some of the games you'll be able to download for one monthly subscription price through Xbox Game Pass. (credit: Xbox Wire)

Borrowing a page from Netflix's unlimited subscription model, Microsoft today announced Game Pass, a service that will offer downloadable copies of over 100 Xbox One and backwards-compatible Xbox 360 games from the systems' legacy catalogs for a $10-per-month subscription (£8).

Microsoft hasn't provided a full list of games that will be available yet, but an e-mailed announcement included Halo 5: Guardians, Saints Row IV Re-Elected, NBA 2K16, Mad Max, LEGO Batman, Mega Man Legacy Collection, Terraria, Payday 2, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, Fable III, SoulCalibur II, and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 as examples of what to expect at launch. Publishers taking part in the program include 2K, 505 Games, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Codemasters, Deep Silver, Focus Home Interactive, Sega, SNK, THQ Nordic GmbH, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and Microsoft Studios.

New games will cycle in and out of availability with some regularity, Microsoft said. Still, based on the above list, we wouldn't expect any major new releases to hit Game Pass until well after their traditional retail launches.