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Comcast Stream TV. (credit: Comcast)

Consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge has asked regulators to stop Comcast from exempting its own streaming video service from Internet data caps, saying that selective enforcement of caps violates a merger condition from when Comcast purchased NBCUniversal and may violate a net neutrality rule.

Public Knowledge filed its petition with the Federal Communications Commission yesterday. It relates to "Stream TV," a service for Comcast's Internet-only customers that streams live TV channels to computers, tablets, and phones. Stream TV doesn't require a set-top box, but Comcast says it "is an in-home cable service delivered over Comcast's cable system, not over the Internet." Stream TV offers some video outside the home, but live TV channels can only be watched on Comcast customers' home Internet connections.

Public Knowledge points out that when Comcast won government approval to buy NBCUniversal in 2011, the FCC and Department of Justice "prohibited Comcast from excluding its own services from data caps or metering and required it to count traffic from competing online video services the same as its own." Public Knowledge also says the data cap exemption for Stream TV should be stopped by the FCC's net neutrality order; though the net neutrality rules don't specifically ban zero-rating, the FCC imposed a "general conduct" rule to be applied on a case-by-case basis. That rule is meant to stop practices that limit consumers' access to content or the ability of online service providers to reach consumers.

It's not a Rebel ship, swear!

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LOS ANGELES—Up until this week, the space-exploration video game No Man’s Sky has existed mostly as a promise of infinite possibility. Years of teaser videos and excitable ramblings from lead designer Sean Murray have hinted at a game that looks beautiful and seems incredibly big—but which might not add up as a game. You get into a spaceship, and you fly from one procedurally generated planet to the next. And then… what?

On Tuesday, Murray and the rest of the Hello Games design team brought their game’s near-final build to a trippy Los Angeles studio space, intent on answering that very question. They were forthcoming with more gameplay and more details than ever before—including the announcement of a June 21st release date on both PlayStation 4 and Windows PCs—and they even handed controllers to us to explore the game however we saw fit.

Yet while our combined hour of chaperoned demos and free-to-roam gameplay was illustrative, it was also frustratingly distant. The more we learn about this game, the more questions we have.

Sure, roller coasters are fun and all. Visually, though, looking around at the sky and the track and the back of other passengers' heads and the massive amusement park parking lot can be a bit dull. Samsung and Six Flags Entertainment are teaming up to try to fix this apparent problem, equipping roller coasters at nine North American parks with Gear VR headsets that will sync their virtual worlds to the usual thrill ride movements.

This seems like a best-of-both worlds solution to the sometimes sickening disconnect between apparent virtual-world motion and real-world motion in seated VR experiences. By timing a pre-planned VR experience precisely to the predictable dips, turns, and loops of a roller coaster, passengers' bodies will actually feel the same movements that they're seeing in the 360° virtual world flying by on their headset screens. It certainly sounds like a step up from the usual theme park "simulator" rides, which simply tilt and bounce the cabin to fool the body into the sensation of screen-matching movement.

The revamped coasters also seem like a smart way for a massive chain like Six Flags to use its size and space to build onto consumer-grade VR, creating an experience that even early adopting users can't recreate at home. They're not the only ones with the same kind of idea; outfits like VRcade in Seattle are working to build arena-sized virtual playspaces, with untethered headsets and real-world barriers that correspond to the virtual environment.