Ars is running a story on a new report by IDC (that was funded by Microsoft) that states/shows that $1 of piracy = $5.50 in “lost opportunities”. Cheng argues that just because “every single dollar that…has been ‘lost’ to copyright infringement [can’t] be turned around into a dollar worth of sales” that we should “take this report with about $5.50 of salt.” Should it really matter if each dollar of piracy would actually be a dollar of sales though?

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Soapbox is a regular feature where I sound off on various tech topics/products that I’m interested in (or hate). This is just my $.02, so consider yourself warned. This week’s subjects are World of Warcraft, Netflix and Microsoft, and Apple’s marketing are all on the hot seat. Read more

On a recent call to Cox about a billing issue I was having I stumbled across a very interesting finding: Cox is already implementing data transfer caps. The rep on the phone told me about it, and acted like it was no big deal. Intrigued, I looked into this further and found some interesting insights.

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Paul’s Soapbox is a regular feature of TechConsumer where I sound off on various tech topics/products that I’m interested in (or hate). This is just my $.02, so consider yourself warned. This week’s subjects are all over the place: DRM, “3G” Wireless, and Playstation Home.

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I know this will seem like another “me too” post after the well publicized Comcast story at TechCrunch, but I actually wrote about 95% of this a couple of weeks ago, mostly while I was on hold with “tech” “support.” I was going to wait until the issue was resolved, but I’ve decided to post it now. This is my story of how Comcast took over the cable services of my lowly regional cable provider, and how bad things can get worse. Read the rest after the jump.

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