Ahead of next year's 10th anniversary for Hearthstone, senior game designer Cora Georgiou took to the stage at BlizzCon today to reveal what's coming next for both the standard game mode and its (arguably more popular) Battlegrounds spin-off.
18.10.2023 - 03:29 / tech.hindustantimes.com
James Joyce once defined sentimentality as “unearned emotion.” The same phrase might describe America's episodic fights over net neutrality. With a new Democratic majority in place, the Federal Communications Commission announced on Sept. 26 that it plans to reclassify internet service providers as “common carriers” under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act. The stated rationale, as with a similar effort almost a decade ago, is to impose so-called net-neutrality rules, which would in theory prevent ISPs from blocking rival apps and services on their networks or offering “fast lanes” for paying content providers.
That goal is fine as far as it goes; such conduct might indeed harm competition. But preventing it doesn't require a century-old telecoms rulebook that imposes reams of irrelevant red tape and confers outsized power on regulators, including the ability to set rates. A second run at this failed experiment would waste as much time and effort as the first.
Barack Obama's administration originally foisted Title II on ISPs in 2015. Its initial proposal caused an exodus from broadband stocks and reduced telecom investment by as much as $40 billion annually over five years. In the two years the new rules were in place, broadband investment by ISPs dipped substantially, according to research cited by the FCC, the first-ever decline outside a recession. Small providers serving rural and low-income communities were hardest hit.
In 2017, a new Republican-appointed chairman, Ajit Pai, proposed rescinding the Title II designation. Activists went berserk. Politicians warned of the “end of the internet as we know it.” One outlet said the decision would “Destroy Everything That Makes The Internet Great.” Although Pai and his family faced weeks of bizarre harassment and unhinged threats, he went ahead anyway.
And then ... nothing happened. The internet as we know it did not end. To the contrary, investment soared, competition intensified, subscriber costs declined and average fixed broadband speeds increased by some 300%.
As for net neutrality? The fact is, the principle is so obvious as to hardly need enforcing. The conduct that Democratic commissioners warn would impede competition is already prohibited under antitrust law. More to the point, ISPs generally don't want to violate these principles because doing so would have high risks and limited benefit; consumers want no part of it. In its years of pondering this issue, the FCC has identified only four instances of a company even potentially contravening such norms — all of which were resolved years ago. As Pai has put it: This entire effort “is a solution that won't work to a problem that doesn't exist.”
One final complication deserves mention. A recent
Ahead of next year's 10th anniversary for Hearthstone, senior game designer Cora Georgiou took to the stage at BlizzCon today to reveal what's coming next for both the standard game mode and its (arguably more popular) Battlegrounds spin-off.
The first trailer for Marvel Studios’ Echo is full of surprises. It’s shockingly violent, as we watch Kingpin beat a man half to death, and see his adoptive daughter Maya Lopez (the eponymous Echo) throwing savage blows and snapping the necks of street-level scum. There’s even a very brief Daredevil cameo. (OK, that last part is not really a surprise; we knew that Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio would return as Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk, respectively, for Echo.)
The latest Baldur's Gate 3 patch has changed Karlach and Halsin's kiss animations for the better - but left Astarion fans demanding more.
Ubisoft has lots of reasons to be proud of its mega-successful Assassin's Creed series, but you wouldn't know that from how they've treated poor Ezio on Twitter recently. To celebrate Halloween yesterday, the official Twitter account for Ubisoft in the Netherlands asked fans whether they were team trick or treat, under which was a soulless AI-generated Halloween-themed monstrosity.
Taiko no Tatsujin RHYTHM CONNECT is now available for iOS via App Store and Android via Google Play in Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau as a free-to-play title with in-app purchases.
Get ready to slash. Beat Saber is cranking up the amps with a music pack from the unparalleled rock legends, The Rolling Stones, in celebration of Hackney Diamonds, their first album in 18 years. Players can now slash cubes to new singles, like Angry, Live by the Sword, and epic classics like Paint It Black and Start Me Up.
Ubisoft’s pirate action-adventure game remains landlocked with another delay. The publisher has pushed the troubled game’s release window back to early 2024.
Sylvester Stallone's 2022 superhero movie Samaritan is getting the sequel treatment at Prime Video.
By Chris Welch, a reviewer specializing in personal audio and home theater. Since 2011, he has published nearly 6,000 articles, from breaking news and reviews to useful how-tos.
The packaging for the PS5 Slim seems to have been spotted in the wild, and it seems that players will need an internet connection to install its optional disc drive.
Retail boxes for the PS5 Slim have revealed an internet connection is required to pair the detachable disc drive to the console before it can be used.
Dracula is one of the most enduring characters and stories in all of fiction, and now two top creators of horror comics, writer Matt Wagner and artist Kelley Jones, are coming together for a new tale that digs into the untold history of Bram Stoker's legendary vampire.