Houstonist Tech Buzz - 090907

Local tech news in a compact, digital format.

Comcast Raises Your Rates In October
Get ready to dig deeper to pay your cable bill because the amount you pay will be going up. Yes, that's right, Comcast will be raising your cable rates starting with your October bill. How much is this rate increase? Comcast says bills are going up 6.1% for all its subscribers. What are you getting for this 6.1% increase? Increased (not necessarily better) customer service reps, a few more HD channels (we can always use those) and more video on demand. We don't know if the increase is worth it, but other than satellite or slower DSL, what choice do we have?

Field Emission Displays To Make LCD TV's Obsolete?
The folks at U of H are just cranking out new technology and advances like nobody's business. We don't know what's in the water over there off of 45 South but it must be good because we have reported on no fewer than 3 or 4 amazing advances by those 'Coogs. The latest is Field Emission Displays. According to Science Daily, "Vincent Donnelly, Demetre Economou and Paul Ruchhoeft, all of the Cullen College of Engineering, have developed a technique that allows nanotech devices to be mass-produced, which could move the television industry away from the LCD display to the superior field emission display (FED). FEDs use a large array of carbon nanotubes – the most efficient emitters known – to create a higher resolution picture than an LCD." How cool is that?

Local User Group Events
• Houston Dot Net User Group is hosting its 71st meeting on September 13th from 6:30PM-8:30PM at the Microsoft Houston Meeting Facility at 2000 West Sam Houston Pkwy South. Please visit the HDNUG Events section for agenda and directions.

• Houston Area Apple User Group will host their next meeting at the Rice University Media Center on Saturday, September 15th and their guest speaker will be Jennifer Bell of ProSoft Engineering, Inc.

Windows Live Writer Beta
Local blogger Grand Stream Dreams is beta testing Windows Live Writer. WLW is a desktop application that enhances your ability to publish rich content to your blog. Grand Stream Dreams goes through the complete process of installing WLW and covers the basics of the new application.

Chronicle Tech Roundup
And finally the tech crew at The Chronicle rounds out the Tech Buzz for today. Dwight Silverman informs us about our options for wi-fi here in Houston. Jay Lee helps a reader with printing calendar tasks in Outlook 2007. Dr. Mac breaks apart Apple's iWork '08 and reviews their latest app, Numbers. At Home covers Brain Age 2 as well as Picross DS for the Nintendo DS.

If you have something you would like to see in the Tech Buzz, drop us an email or leave us a comment.

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