Oh ASUS, you bring us such joy. When this company isn't busy diluting its Eee brand, it loves to pick fights with noted rivals, and this latest spat with Gigabyte (who isn't at all innocent in this war) is wonderfully trivial. Apparently ASRock, ASUS's budget motherboard wing, has taken it upon itself to inform hardware review websites like HEXUS of Gigabyte's wasteful implementation of copper. The email ponders: "While the demand for copper keeps increasing and with that the price of this natural resource, why would manufacturers choose to use more copper without any valid reason?" And it gets better: "I [unidentified] am not talking about unnecessary heatpipes that most people do not need, but about Gigabyte's '2 oz Copper PCB'. Gigabyte is adding more copper to the PCB to reduce the heat that is produced by their motherboard, and to spread it across the motherboard so that the heat will dissipate more quickly." Naturally ASRock's own P45 motherboard falls into none such pitfalls, offering better cooling with less copper, and they even provided a handy chart up above in case you don't believe them, you idiot. Say no to waste!

[Thanks, Jordan]

We know, it was a year ago yesterday that we had this very same conversation, but apparently, cable companies aren't heeding the advice of analysts. According to yet another study, this time by ABI Research, "cable providers will soon be faced with a serious bandwidth crunch" as more and more individuals look to online gaming, video-on-demand, and IPTV for enjoying their precious moments of leisure. Compounding the problem is the growing demand for more HD channels in the lineup, and considering that the satellite operators are already raising the bar, cable carriers can only play dumb for so much longer. Stan Schatt, VP and research director for ABI Research, was quoted as saying that "digital switching is key" to releasing some of the strain on current infrastructures, and while we aren't ones to believe that the influx of online TV delivery will debilitate the internet (or cable providers), something seemingly has to give -- and soon.

[Via Slashdot]

While this mishap may not look as if it would cost Vietnam nearly as much as the Alaskan vaporization, losing 27-miles of critical fiber-optic cabling connecting the underdeveloped nation to Thailand and Hong Kong is fairly serious (and pricey). As it turns out, hordes of Vietnamese fishermen were given permission to salvage war-era undersea copper lines to fetch whatever price they could on local markets, but things got out of hand when vital telecommunication pipelines began getting swiped instead of antiquated cabling. The country has since disallowed the removal of any underwater wire until things pan out, but it looks like Vietnam will be relying on a single cable to the outside world until it can pony up the $5.8 million in replacement costs.

Questions surrounding cable's ability to keep up with the big boys have been circulating for what feels like ages, but an intriguing new product from the labs of Ambit Broadband has some fairly substantial numbers to go along with it. The firm's Channel Bonding cable model will be available exclusively to subscribers of Hanaro, and by partnering with Netwave, the device will enable "triple play service" consisting of VoIP, IPTV, and high-speed internet. More interesting, however, is the reported maximum speeds that this thing can handle, as it boasts the "capability to bond three downstream channels to enable a maximum 144Mbps downstream and up to 30Mbps upstream." The modem also supports the usual interfaces such as gigabit Ethernet and USB 2.0, but it supposedly comes pre-ready for DOCSIS 3.0 and IPv6 -- you know, the protocols used to shatter the Internet2 transmission record. While it may all sound a bit sensational at the moment, the truth shall be unveiled when Ambit / Netwave delivers 150,000 of said modems to Hanaro "during Q2" of this year.

After our tear-filled eulogy of the Copper 680, we're pleased to report that rumors of the phone's death were greatly exaggerated -- specifically by Palm, who's "no longer available" warning kind was giving off those discontinued vibes. Those old messages have been removed from Palm's site, which is now listing all colored versions of the Treo 680 as shipping within 1-2 business days. So if you were holding off on a purchase, we're guessing you know what to do -- you internet savvy shopper, you. Still, and we're sorry to sound like a broken record here, but now that you've got those supply issues sorted out, how 'bout you start working on shaving a few millimeters off these things, huh Palm?

[Via Palm Infocenter]