Gadgetory

it's Friday February 18th I'm Natali Morris and it's time to get loaded comcast and that's the launch of a new 24-hour 3d channel called Xfinity 3d the channel does not seem to have any theme addict thread it just plays whatever is in 3d that Comcast could find for example it starts with the NHL Heritage Classic followed by a Kings of Leon concert don't most cable channels have kind of a point like news or music this is sort of just a channel of whatever is in this format I find it very odd the channel launches for the very few Comcast customers that have 3d TVs on Sunday the Commerce Department published a result of a study that claims that five to ten percent of the nation does not have access to broadband speed connections according to the study this percentage of population does not have data that's fast enough to either surf the web or view photos and videos the Department published a map showing where access is the most lacking this study wasn't really an experiment in the traditional sense though the government just compiled data based on advertising rates from the major carriers like AT&T and Verizon they did not test for speeds or alternatives so we should take this with a grain of salt but we also hope for better nationwide service from Obama's 18 billion-dollar Broadband Plan in other political and tech news President Obama dined with the heads of major Silicon Valley firms on Thursday including Apple CEO Steve Jobs Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google Chief Eric Schmidt the event was in Silicon Valley and the purpose was to discuss innovation research and job creation also present was Paul Otellini head of Intel who has since been appointed to join the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness I'm sorry to say no one from C net was invited a pilot program in California is going to put GPS chips on students to make sure they go to class this is a six week trial and it began last week in the Anaheim Union School District seventh and eighth graders who have had four or more unexcused absences will be assigned a handheld GPS device about the size of a cell phone the device will notify students when it's time to go to school and then track their location until 8 o'clock at night the device itself costs between three and four hundred dollars and the service costs $8 per student per day the motorola atrix is coming out sooner than expected this is the 4G Motorola Android phone with the external laptop shell it was expected to ship on March 6 but we got word that it will instead ship February 21st and be in stores on the 22nd we got an early review unit and reviewed it both as a laptop and a phone here on CNET make sure you watch that the Amazon Kindle got an update this week that gives users what they have long been asking for real page numbers version 2.6 of the Kindle app allows you to see real page numbers instead of some weird number that gives you a relativity of where you are in the book it also allows you to look upwards through Google and Wikipedia without leaving the app this only applies to iPad iPhone and iPod Touch apps no word on when it will happen on other platforms like blackberry or Android and finally research is underway to figure out if computers can be controlled with our minds researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Pittsburgh have received more than 6 million dollars to continue work on something called the brain computer interface they have already tested this on monkeys by implanting electrodes on the monkey brain and asking the computer to process activity that is activated by neurons the monkey has been able to extend a robotic arm turn doorknobs and eat marshmallows next up we'll see if humans can do this who would like to volunteer that's your news of the day and that wraps up your week of getting loaded we will see you next Tuesday because Monday is the Presidents Day holiday have fun behave we'll see you soon and remember cnet-dot-com-slash-loaded for links to any of our stories today I'm Natali Morris for Cena and you're just been loaded