Not news but somewhat entertaining: staff member and modem killer cabana notes just how helpful AT&T's technical support website can be. In an exploration of how to diagnose a troubled modem, AT&T feels it necessary to inform users that modems may not work if they're "smoking," "melted and misshapen," or my personal favorite: "smashed into bits and pieces." You should be aware that modems may also not work when submerged in maple syrup, while embedded in an animal's digestive tract, or immediately following nuclear impact.

Update: Looks like AT&T read our report and removed all references to modems that are smashed to bits and pieces not working effectively. Customers with their modems in bits may now be forever confused as to why the device doesn't seem to work when plugged in.

The European Satellite Navigation Competition recently saw a winner in a product called the eye-phone which uses a combination of satellite navigation technology and Internet information to provide users with an education in the items that surround them. For example, let’s say that you were at The Eiffel Tower and wanted to know more about it.

The Consumerist ran a poll this week asking users which service was better: Comcast or Verizon FiOS. Apparently Comcast really thought this was important, as they sent out an e-mail to employees urging that they stuff the ballot box. The push apparently didn't work, as Verizon FiOS still took 73% of the vote (damn you, unimpeded, symmetrical bandwidth!).

"Now, we're definitely more amused than this than anything else, but it certainly was odd," opines the Consumerist's Ben Popken. "Why would Comcast want to interfere with the torrents of peer to peer opinion sharing?"

Some people bought the PSP because they really wanted a portable gaming device. Others bought it because they couldn’t afford the PS3.

After the recent brouhaha over Comcast's traffic shaping practices, Maximum PC has some fun at the cable giant's expense. The magazine has penned a fantastic fake internal Comcast memo, outlining their plans to nickle and dime their way to broadband domination.

Need to know where your co-workers and friends are at all the time? Want to be able to easily text your latest news to everyone you know? Or would you rather be lazy and let GPS do it for you? With the new services for your phone that leave you always connected to your social network, these are all options.

There’s Twitter which lets you post microblogs to your phone which are then sent to the phones of your contacts and the Twitter website. There’s Groovr which allows the same thing but also lets you input your location and photos. And then there’s Loopt which uses built-in GPS to regularly update your contacts as to your current location.

Do you really want people to be able to find you all of the time?!

Let’s date ourselves for a moment; what did computer education look like when you were in elementary school? Perhaps you’re of the “learn to type” generation. Or maybe you’re from the “Oregon Trail” days. It’s not quite the same for today’s kids, of course. Just one example is “JumpStart World Kindergarten”, a preschooler’s software program which makes use of broadband Internet access to send information to the Internet during the child’s game, tracking their progress and automatically receiving new content based on that progress. And it even has built-in recess.

An encyclopedia of medical profanity, mammoth dung and toe wars skimmed from our forum comments, preheated and with food safety tips.

"When my toenails start slicing my socks that means war."

"We all know that lungs fell from the sky in a day."

"I don't think i am right now.

In the interest of driving online gamers to their Blue Room site, AT&T has signed a deal with Vivendi games to offer free two-week trials of World of Warcraft to new users. Blue Room is not just a gaming portal, it’s “a marketing portal for AT&T's branded high-speed Internet, wireless, voice and digital video services”. The hope for Vivendi is that new gamers will get hooked on the multi-player online game while the hope for AT&T is that Blue Room users will buy more of the company’s broadband products. And gamers get a couple of free weeks of playtime, so everyone wins, right?

While a wealth of technical expertise resides in the Site FAQ's and site forums, there are unrecognized gems of enlightened knowledge, keen insight, and unique perspective in forum posts. Several of these gems have been culled from postings of previous years, and are presented here as a public service.

U.S. News & World Report takes a look today at the differences in mobile phone use in three different areas of the world, starting with simply what we call our cell phones and moving on to their most common use in each area.

It’s mid-March, and if you’re from the kind of college-sports-frenzied town that I’m originally from, that means only one thing: NCAA March Madness. YouTube company heads must be from that kind of town because they have just announced that they are joining forces with the NCAA, CBS Sports and Pontiac to bring the basketball championship games to the site. YouTube NCAA offerings will include near-real-time clips and game highlights, press conference footage and other “various video”. Reported to be highly user-friendly, the clips are easily linked back to the real footage; combined with CBS online viewing, you don’t have to miss a single shot.

Cingular has teamed up with World Wrestling Entertainment to bring the world of wrestling to your mobile phone. Cingular customers who already use the company’s existing media service plan will soon be able to access WWE videos as part of that package. For additional fees, WWE fans can get WrestleMania highlights, video of weekly matches and annual tournaments, high speed web links and even ring tones featuring the voices of famous wrestlers. Details at Yahoo! News.

Trying to decide whether you’re going to stick with YouTube or head over to Joost to get your daily dose of video content? If you’re a fan of the BBC, you’ll want to keep YouTube bookmarked because of a new multi-year, non-exclusive deal allowing BBC content on the site. IT Newswire reports that the content will include clips of current BBC shows, up-to-the-minute BBC news clips and content (such as video diaries) created specifically for YouTube.

A press release from PR Leap announces that The Weather Channel has launched a new broadband site called Epic which is a "video-centric, interactive web experience presenting captivating exclusive video" which "highlights the impact of weather on surfing, snow-skiing, mountain biking, whitewater rafting and sailing." Designed to focus on the way in which extreme weather impacts outdoor activities and extreme sports, Epic will feature new weekly material, including user-generated content with such features as video mash-ups. Epic is up and running now; check it out here.

Have you added tags to any of your online content lately? Of course you have – you posted a YouTube video somewhere and added tags to get it noticed on sites like Digg or you were organizing your photo collection online and used tags to make it easy to return to those pictures you want to show Grandma when she comes to visit. Well, it comes as no surprise then that a survey by Pew Internet & American Life Project has determined that content tagging is a regular activity by many Internet users. The Centre Daily reports that the study found that most people who use tags regularly are “under age 40, use broadband Internet connections and have above-average income and education.”

Cisco may be involved in activities such as opposition to Cyren Call, but that doesn’t mean the company doesn’t have time to take on new endeavors. In fact, it just announced its 116th company acquisition since 1993, the take-over of Five Across, Inc., a small San Francisco social networking company. The acquisition is Cisco’s first move into the world of social networking but is reported to be just a first step which analysts interviewed by The Casper StarTribune believe may help Cisco develop its core business which is the sale of “routers and switches that direct data traffic over computer networks”.

The wireless networks have been preparing for months to make sure that they have enough coverage ability to adequately meet the needs of customers during the big event. Cingular / AT&T is reported to have been preparing for the last six months and is “using its entire South Florida 70 megahertz spectrum in Dolphin Stadium and the surrounding areas, where the company anticipates a spike in network traffic” to accommodate the increased activity. Likewise, journalists in Indiana report that Verizon “is taking steps to insure that Indianapolis Colts' fans will be able to send videos of the crowd, photos and text messages from the Super Bowl. The company will have two Cells on Light Trucks or COLTs outside Dolphin Stadium to handle the expected increase in call volume.” And in similar news, with a twist, Sprint Wireless has been working for a year on a wireless recycling program which will culminate at the Super Bowl.

As parents who support educational television for their children know, TV can be both positive and negative for its viewers. Bob Geldorf aims to make it a bit more positive for users across the world with his work on a new television channel currently being called Peace TV. The channel, which will be available worldwide via web broadcast, will have both video and social networking functions and will be funded by multiple international organizations. See InTheNews for more details.

Can legal, free music download sites challenge the big mp3 industry players such as Apple’s iPod/iTunes site or even Zune’s Marketplace? Companies such as Spiral Frog, Mashboxx and Qtrax are all hoping to break ground by offering ad-supported music libraries filled with downloads which will be free to consumers. Digital Journal suggests that if companies like Spiral Frog can partner with big names such as Samsung, the appeal of free music may outweigh the annoyance of having to sit through ads on the sites. But Warez.com reports that delays in the launch of all three companies could reflect the industry knowledge that ad-loaded sites are never loved by consumers.