DSL Reports has gotten word that Comcast will soon be offering its Internet subscribers a bandwidth usage meter as early as the first week of January. With the new system users would presumably be able to see how much bandwidth they’ve used, akin to cellular service providers offering estimates to keep customers from going over their allotted limit. Such a tool for Internet bandwidth would let customers adjust their usage habits accordingly.
Back in October the communications company imposed a limit on user downloads to 250 GB a month without providing …

The algorithmically generated tech news aggregator Techmeme now has a human editor, Techmeme founder and developer Gabe Rivera revealed in a blog post today. The new overload to the Techmeme robots: Megan McCarthy, formerly of Valleywag and Wired.com.

Megan McCarthy, when she worked for Valleywag
I talked with McCarthy about her new role. She describes her job as, “really, just to see all the things coming in, to make sure everything is current and relevant.” The site posts about 140 to 150 items a day, she said. Her role is to make …

A company called Proximic says it has developed an easier way for consumers to do complex searches from their cell phones.
While Apple’s iPhone has helped make surfing the Web from a mobile device easier, it’s still difficult to type in complex search queries. But Proximic has introduced a new application called Promixic Agents for the iPhone that will help. The new technology, which is language-independent, uses point-and-click technology to highlight bits of text. This means that users don’t have to type in a long string of search terms.

Unlike other search …

A new Firefox extension called Pirates of the Amazon lets users download movies, games, TV shows, and MP3s free of charge by cross referencing Amazon’s product pages with torrent files from the Pirate Bay.
If the content can be found on the Pirate Bay’s search index it shows up as a “Download 4 Free” link on the top of the Amazon product page. This links directly to the hosted .torrent tracker file, letting the user avoid having to make a purchase from Amazon in place of acquiring it illegally via BitTorrent.
The …

Google and the Hallmark Channel announced Wednesday that they have formed a partnership that will make Google TV Ads the channel’s exclusive advertiser. All of the ads will be placed on both the Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel.
According to Hallmark, many of the advertisers it’s now trying to attract through Google’s TV Ads platform are new to the television platform, so it will provide more in-depth viewership data to help advertising partners make “real-time adjustments” to campaigns.
Google TV Ads are unique in the television advertising business. Instead …

If you’re going to be traveling solo in a few weeks for round two of the holiday season, worth checking out is the Boarding Project. It’s a social service that uses Twitter to helps you meet up with others at the same airport. To use it you simply tweet #boarding along with your airport code. It’ll send you a reply with a link to the other Twitter users who you can message directly to meet up with.
What’s neat is that Boarding Project’s system does not require users to sign up …

On Wednesday, Amazon announced the throwing open of its virtual doors to iPhone and iPod Touch users everywhere with Amazon Mobile, a free app now available in the iTunes App Store.
It’s a pretty nice offering that simplifies the search experience for products found not just on Amazon.com, but also on partner retailers Target and Macy’s.
The bulk of the app is dominated by a search bar you can launch either from the home screen or from a separate Search screen. While there’s a tiny promo area on Amazon Mobile’s home screen, …

Good OS, the people who brought you the Linux-based gOS found on the $199 Wal-Mart gPC last year, announced a browser-based OS called Cloud at the Netbook World Summit in Paris on Monday. (You know you’ve made it as a form factor when you have your very own world summit. Kudos, Netbook!)
The Cloud OS features a browser with an integrated, OS X-like dock and a Linux kernel that boots “in seconds,” according to the company. The browser looks oddly similar to Google’s Chrome, though no official connection between Google and …

With the economy in continuing decline, keeping tight control over your money is no longer just for obsessives. These financial apps for Google Android help you count every penny.
Personal Budget Droid is a simple budget- and bills-tracker that lets you create multiple monthly budgets for groceries, housing costs, and so on. You enter every budget name and transaction by hand, but the app keeps a transaction history and calculates how much you have left for each category.
The more sophisticated FireWallet works with budgets inside various accounts and protects your information …

There’s yet another new blogging platform out there: Kontain. It’s designed for non-technical users, and it’s easy to use and very good-looking. I don’t think I’ve seen an easier platform for beginning bloggers, in fact. Everything on the site is clear and simple. But there’s a downside.
The negative of Kontain is that while it’s easy to use, it’s very limited on the presentation side. You get no blog templates to choose from. While the default layout of Kontain blogs is attractive enough, the lack of customizability is surprising in a …