kansas

Summer is still three months away, but here in Northern California, with bright sunshine outside (and windows to keep the chilly wind out), it already feels like it's just around the corner.

That's also because I've already started the planning for Road Trip 2013, my eighth-annual journey to highlight some of the best destinations around for technology, military, architecture, science, nature, and so on.

For six of the past seven years, CNET Road Trip has taken me all around the roads of the United States, giving me the opportunity to visit the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, the … Read more

Subscribers of Google's Fiber TV service who own a 3D TV and glasses can now opt to watch a couple of new channels in 3D.

Announced yesterday, Google has launched 3net and ESPN3D.

Subscribers to the Google Fiber Gigabit + TV Plan will automatically receive 3net, which will offer documentaries, family entertainment, concerts, lifestyle and cooking shows, and scripted series, all in 3D.

Sports fans who want to catch their favorite teams in 3D can grab ESPN3D for an additional $5 per month with their Gigabit + TV plan. Subscribers can call Google Fiber to sign up for ESPN3D.

Launched last July, … Read more

If you've spent any time online, you've played the waiting game. Waiting for a site to load. Waiting for your photos to upload. Waiting for a video to download.

That's why so many of us salivated when we first heard about Google Fiber, the blazingly fast connection that promised Internet speeds 100 times faster than what most Americans have today.

It's been three months since the service launched in Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan. And, yes, it's fast. Street View images load almost instantly. You can open multiple browser windows and simultaneously play … Read more

After years in the making, Google announced today that it has started connecting people in Kansas City, Kan., to its ultra high-speed fiber-to-the-home Internet service. Acting as guinea pigs of sorts, these locals will be the first people in the world who get to test out Google's new service and decide whether it lives up to the hype.

When Google first announced its nationwide Google Fiber project in 2010, around 1,100 U.S. towns and cities applied to get in on the deal. When Kansas City won out, Google Access General Manager Kevin Lo said, "new high-speed … Read more

The slow demise of cursive handwriting is not a new story, but lately the death knell has been tolling a little louder. In a recent example, the State Board of Education of Kansas is about to debate the role of cursive lessons in the schools amid a nationwide decline in those lessons.

School districts large and small have been phasing out cursive. Verona, Wis., will phase out most third-grade cursive instruction by 2014. Indiana formally de-emphasized cursive last year in favor of pushing proficiency in keyboard use.

Common Core State Standards for what students are expected to learn have been picked up by most of the states in the union. Those standards don't require cursive. Keyboarding skills, however, are featured in the writing standards. That means most states no longer have a mandate for teaching cursive.… Read more

Google's special treatment in Kansas City has caught the attention of its competitors.

According to The Wall Street Journal, which obtained a copy of agreements on file with the city government, Google was offered everything from free office space to a team of government employees "dedicated" to the development of its Gigabit Internet service. In addition, the company is able to use all city "assets and infrastructure -- including fiber, buildings, land, and computer tools" for free, the Journal has learned.

Although the deal was great for Google, it has become an issue for competitors … Read more

Turns out Smallville may be real after all. Superman's fictional home on our planet has some suspicious similarities to the town of Hutchinson, Kan. There's now an active Facebook campaign to rename Hutchinson as Smallville.

The campaign has culled facts from various Superman sources, including graphic novels, comic books, and the "Smallville" TV series, to find ways Hutchinson statistically matches up.

Here are some of the overlaps. Smallville is on the Arkansas River. So is Hutchinson. Smallville has a population of 45,000 people. Hutchinson has 42,080. They are both located in agricultural areas. The nearest big city for each is about three hours away (Metropolis for Smallville and Kansas City for Hutchinson). … Read more

Google goes fiber and Samsung doubles up on Apple:

Google has launched a Fiber TV and Internet service in Kansas City, Mo., as part of a beta test. The service provides customers with 1Gbps broadband speed and fiber television that uses an interactive interface. Now while it may not get you all of your favorite channels, Google is trying to show the cable providers of the world that this is how content should be delivered. Google hopes that the technology will spark the interest of other companies who are using older communication mediums. Those who sign up for the service … Read more

Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, and San Antonio will have access to Sprint's 4G LTE network on July 15, the company announced today.

This signals the beginning of what Sprint hopes will be an aggressive expansion of its 3G and 4G network. 4G LTE boasts faster data speeds for downloads and streaming, while an improved 3G network should mean better signal strength, fewer dropped calls, and faster data speeds as well.

Sprint was having a tough time earlier this year with buying the wireless spectrum it needed to continue building its network. Now that it has jumped into the … Read more