Geek News

Oregon legislators just took a step towards protecting net neutrality in their state. The Oregon House of Representatives passed a proposal yesterday that would require state agencies to sign internet service contracts with providers that abide by net neutrality practices, meaning no blocking, throttling or paid prioritization. The bill now heads to the state Senate. While governors in Montana , New York , New Jersey , Hawaii and Vermont have signed executive orders that institute similar requirements on state agencies, a handful of states are pursuing comparable statutes through legislation. States that are going the legislative route include Iowa , Maryland , Kansas , Rhode Island , South Dakota , Tennessee and Wisconsin . By prohibiting state agencies from working with ISPs that don't adhere to net neutrality ideals, these states believe they are circumventing the FCC order that prevents state governments from passing laws that contradict its own rules. By changing the rul...

Last year, billionaire Joe Ricketts shut down Gothamist and DNAInfo a week after newsroom employees unionized. Though there was immediate public outcry over the decision, the sites' future has remained bleak and uncertain, but, as Wired reports, they're now getting an unexpected helping hand from some old-school media -- public radio . At least three public radio stations -- New York's WNYC , Washington DC's WAMU and Southern California's KPCC -- will be taking over Gothamist and associated sites like LAist, DCist and DNAInfo, maintaining their archives and adding new content in the near future. Gothamist founders Jake Dobkin and Jen Chung said that the sudden shutdown of the sites last year was unexpected. "We tried to do our best to improve the situation and bring something positive out of it, and we did," Dobkin told Wired . Two anonymous donors have provided funds for the deal, though the amount hasn't been disclosed. Going forward, WNYC will ...

The Winter Olympics' opening ceremony took place today in Pyeongchang and it featured a light show from a record-breaking 1,218 drones, Wired reports. The display was created with Intel's Shooting Star drones , the same ones used in Lady Gaga's Super Bowl halftime show last year and Intel's CES keynote in January , and featured drone murmurations that depicted images like a snowboarder and the interlocking Olympic rings. The Shooting Star light show was pre-recorded, just like Lady Gaga's American flag, but that's because Pyeongchang can get very cold and very windy. Neither of those conditions are great for drone performance and the city's weather caused Intel to cancel the planned live version of the display. However, the company is planning on doing smaller-scale, 300-drone shows during the medal ceremonies and it has tweaked the Shooting Star's design a little in order to accommodate South Korea's weather conditions. The rotor cages were cha...