Interestingly, in Australia we have had Data Caps for a significant amount of time (2002 I believe was when Telstra introduced the 3gb Cable Cap).

I know it's not US based, but looking at ISP's and their offerings elsewhere, there are options available. For example I have an Unlimited ADSL2+ connection from TPG (www.tpg.com.au). The trend locally seems to be ISP's offering more data and more value for money (Unlimited in some cases, but 500GB / 1TB plans for marginal fees per month)

I'm also with TPG and can't fathom having a cap, much less the typically tiny ones offered. Recently I noticed that Optus is now offering an unlimited account for a reasonable price. I've heard anecdotally from people working there that it would be cheaper for Optus to do away with the caps because of the internal overhead that tracking and accounting requires.

If throughout the unwrapping of the gifts, there was a Microsoft Surface, then I'd agree with you but for the most part I believe this reads as genuine.

Microsoft was a means to a beginning for Gates. Some CEOs die with their product, not Gates.

I think I was misunderstood — he's very genuine, and has always been. The copycats, though, are more unlikely to be.

Without putting too much thought into the subject, the state of Office in the enterprise upsets me. Over the last six years I've gradually rolled away from Outlook and Word in favour of Google Apps / Drive. True, it's not perfect, but for the 'lay user' (students per se?) it is sufficient and the barrier to entry is low.

My real concern with Office comes from what if in the future I'm not in a position where the company I work for is still tied to the Office Suite of products. Productivity wise, switching back to Office (even Office365) is a real killer for someone that is proceeding efficient at the former.

Registered specifically to post this.

Today seems to be an interesting day on HN.

First, Google's ad revenue's are down ~5%, every jumps up and down saying the end is near and they need to shape up before they fade into irrelevance.

Now a hint of a forthcoming feature where they are doing just that, making a change to increase revenue and people lose their minds.

Lets think about this. The feature is under Promotions, a section already laden with junk for most people. Are we all saying that John from "matresses online" can send me news about this weeks greatest sleep position and special offers like 5% off pillow fluffing, but Google couldn't input it's own ad, which would likely be tailored to your interests in any case? If you signup to promotions for numerous sources (enough to warrant the promotions tab) you might appreciate the ad, no? If you don't, well you'll never be in the Promoted tab in most cases anyway, so it likely wont affect you all that much (assuming they wouldn't inject ad's into main inbox stream).

> The feature is under Promotions, a section already laden with junk for most people

In my case, as a journalist, it includes a huge amount of useful email. Either way, I'd have to check it often, because Gmail's sorting into categories is abysmal. (For the same reason I have to check the spam folder multiple times a day. It contains a high proportion of legitimate email.)

However, it's a moot point because I turned the tabs off within a day.

>The feature is under Promotions, a section already laden with junk for most people.

I don't know... I don't know how Google decides mail goes into the Promotions tab, but I have no junk in there. The things that went into my Promotions tab were:

-My auto insurance policy

-A notice from my vet saying my cats were due for vaccinations.

-Some (but not all) emails from my college's Alumni association (which probably would be considered promotional)

-Emails telling me my phone bill was due.

-Email confirming a car rental.

-Emails telling me that my auto loan payment was due.

-Email from Walgreens telling me that I have a prescription that was due for refill, and to reply to that email to automatically refill that prescription.

-Some emails that sites send after you create an account with them.

All these are important for me, but I wouldn't consider any of them promotional material. I don't sign up for promotions.

I went and disabled these silly tabs...

Google's advertising revenues are not down 5%. Google's total revenue is up 19% year over year and 1% quarter over quarter. All categories of revenue are up except for network revenue (which is up 7% Y/Y but down 2% Q/Q).

You may be thinking of the share price which in after hours trading dropped 5% but recovered most of that this morning. Or perhaps you're thinking about the Cost-Per-Click metric which decreased somewhere around 5%.

http://investor.google.com/pdf/2013Q2_google_earnings_slides...

Side note, for reference I'm a Google apps user with ads disabled for my domain, who doesn't use this new inbox style, so I'd assume the ads wouldn't display for me in any case.