Comcast has announced that it will be offering a couple of new Internet access plans in the Bay Area that are incredibly fast. The connectivity is via Comcast’s next generation DOCSIS 3.0 network and the top speed offering will be a package with up to 50Mbps of bandwidth.

The best news is that Comcast is doubling the speed at no additional cost to users of the service. The service will begin in Silicon Valley, Tri-Valley, and Monterey and then roll out to San Francisco, Oakland, and other Bay Area cities later this year.

Philips has introduced it’s Net TV service that will target it’s high-end TV line (the Philips 8000 and 9000 range), and allow you to surf only ceratin selected sites from your living room. Sadly, not everything from the Internet can be accessed. You’ll be restricted to a pre-determined set of sites like YouTube, TomTom, eBay, Funspot and MyAlbum among others.

These sites have been specially modified for the Philips Net TV service so that your eyes will benefit from large text. While you can view other sites, these have yet to be optimized.

This year’s CES will see Blaupunkt and miRoamer put Internet radio into car dashboards for the first time. According to miRoamer founder and CEO George Parthimos, “miRoamer’s development with Blaupunkt is the first seamless Internet radio solution. With the simple push of a button, users can access AM/FM stations or Internet radio’s thousands of music, entertainment, news and talk stations from around the world, all from the same car stereo.”

The first model will connect to a 3G/HSDPA/HSPA device via Bluetooth for Internet connectivity. When connecting to the Internet from an external device (Like an iPhone), the customer’s existing service provider is the default network. They have various models in the pipeline which may have their own internal modem.

If you want to tune in to Internet radio, but lack the means, then you may want to check out the user friendly iRadioPop Internet radio dongle. Just plug it into any available USB 2.0 port and you’re ready to go.

The interesting thing about this device and what makes it stand out is that it features an integrated recorder which allows you to capture and store your favorite songs. Preset station favorites let you go straight to your regular online radio places without having to search them out.

When you think about it, it’s kind of weird that toast is such a hugely popular food. I mean it’s basically burnt bread that’s ready to crumble in your hands. What’s weirder are all the new ways we’ve found to enjoy toast. We can even make it in our PC’s and decorate it with a frakken cylon. The Scan Toaster printer concept takes it all a step further, from designer Sung Bae Chang.

Details are a bit thin, but it connects to the internet via USB and can print images or text on bread using a flexible “module” unit heated by a wire. What it means is that you could read the news on the very breakfast that you eat. The Scan Toaster concept was a finalist in the 2008 Electrolux Design Lab competition. Sadly, it may be awhile before it hits the kitchen.

We’ve all been there. You need to pet your chicken even though your chicken is miles away. How do you do it? Maybe it’s sick of being fondled and that’s probably why the chicken crossed the road in the first place. It got sick of your harassment. Thankfully a group from the National University of Singapore’s Mixed Reality Lab have developed a way to pet your chicken through the internet. No chicken will be safe!

The idea was inspired by acts of pets and animal abuse through lack of welfare. This system enables humans to provide care for pets even though they are physically not together. The system enables a human to remotely touch her pet which is kept at home while she is away (in her office), and at the same time monitor the movement of the pet. This is realized by using a doll, which resembles the real pet located remotely, sitting on a mechanical positioning table. The pet owner interacts with the real pet by touching the doll.

AOL launched this morning a Flash-based Web version of its instant messaging AIM service. It is called AIM Express and you need not install any software to make it run.

AIM Express includes as features tabbed IM conversations, status message indicator, text messages to cell phones, rollovers of friend names to see status and compatibility with most popular browsers. The company also unveiled AIM for Windows Mobile, offering functions for phones like the Motorola Q, Samsung BlackJack and many Palm Treos such as status messages, buddy icons and text messaging. It works with devices using the Windows Mobile 5 and 6 operating systems.

AOL

Here’s a new wireless Philips concept by Flynn Product Design that offers something drastically different and ultra-awesome in a Sci-Fi kind of way. So awesome in fact that you’ll be watching it from the corner of your eye, waiting for it to ponce and suck out your insides.

If spiderwebs suddenly appear near this thing, get rid of it immediately because: A. It’s alive. Or B: It’s attracting little baby spiders that think it’s their mama, who will grow into big spiders. Creepiness aside, this might be the best webcam design yet. Soon spider cams will be no doubt be following us everywhere. I’d like to extend a warm welcome to our new overlords and I’m looking forward to working with you in return for my life.

The Iocell Contents Phone looks pretty cool, but it has a big mouth, like that one friend of yours. It doesn’t keep things to itself, since it contains within it a hard disk which can be used for sending your conversations anywhere on the web.

Sure, it has an awesome look and will give you music on hold, record your conversations and play background music while you talk, but just remember, even if you don’t own one, the person you’re talking to might own one. In other words, be careful what you say from now on. Good looking phones are looking to snitch on you to the internets and hang you out to dry. From now on I’m just saying yeah, uh-huh and bye.

If you’ve ever wanted a domain which ends with .me, tomorrow is your chance to get one. This new domain, maintained by the .ME Registry, is set to begin taking your registrations at 15:00UTC July 17, 2008.

The .ME Registry was chosen by the government of Montenegro to make this domain extension available to the general public at this time. Over 85 accredited registrars from 24 countries will be selling .ME domains.

Mozilla has announced that they have set a new world record with over 8 million downloads of the Firefox 3 browser from Tuesday to Wednesday of this week, and they are just waiting for the Guinness folks to come around and verify the numbers. While we do like Firefox here at the ‘Brick and use it as our default browser, we did have a few questions about this record attempt in general.

For starters, there was really no Guinness record for the most number of downloads to begin with, so beating a record that was not there was a shoe-in for the company. Also, if someone wants to shoot it down it just might not be all that hard since Adobe says that 8 million Flash Player installs is just an average day. YouTube servers out over 100 million videos each day and what is the torrent download count at, like over 5 billion?

TV is everywhere. From the moment of it’s creation, it has spread into every corner of our lives, like the plague. It used to be you could get away from the TV in your car. Not anymore, thanks to USTelematics, who are delivering IPTV to their Voyager in-car entertainment systems.

And so, drivers can now be in the know regarding the latest antics of Desperate Housewives while stuck in rush-hour traffic. USTelematics will also offer a “mobilecast” program called 4VDO, which will deliver broadcast and video programming. I’m not sure if this is something our civilization needs, but who knows, maybe it will ease some Road rage.

Cubans have been able to get underground and illegal PCs for a while, but the Cuban government only recently lifted the official ban on them. The first publicly-available machines just went on sale Friday. The QTECH PCs are state-approved are only available at a single store. The crowds had a chance to gawk at some not too cutting edge tech. The towers cost $780 and feature Celeron processors, 512MB of RAM, Windows XP, and come with a CRT display.

And even should they buy one, most Cubans won’t be allowed to have Internet access. Silly Cubans, the net is only for certain “trusted officials” and state journalists. The good news is that with computers now legally available, some expect black market prices on more up-to-date gear down the road.

I generally travel a few times per year on business. Once in January to CES in Vegas, E3 in LA in the summer and sometimes to an auto show in the winter. Since I am a through and through Internet guy and spend most of my day online, being on a flight without web access for several hours isn’t a welcome thought for me.

If you are like me and want Internet access while on flights you will like today’s news. Aircell announced today that it has completed its coast-to-coast wireless network to provide seamless, border-to-border coverage providing Internet access to commercial flights in the US.

Sagem is probably better known for their budget cell phones, but now they’re releasing the mydu@l radio700 WiFi Internet radio clock. It’s perhaps not the sexiest radio, but you won’t need any computer to use it, and it will be able to get up to 7,000 Internet radio stations as long as it’s within a WiFi zone.

It does terrestrial radio too, with an integrated FM tuner, and you can also hook up USB devices and playback MP3, WMA and WAV files from it. To top it all off, it has an alarm clock function with a snooze button. You can get the Sagem mydu@l radio 700 at the special introductory price of £79.99.