The Canadian flag as seen through a microsocope. Photo courtesy of wisforworlddomination.

It's no secret that certain Internet service providers have made a practice of 'throttling' broadband access--reducing the bandwith available to heavy users, especially during periods. What's often more challenging to figure out is which ISPs are doing this and when. That's because the negative PR associated with throttling makes many ISPs reluctant to disclose such activities.

 A link to photos of the new First Family mistakenly leads to a gallery of Presidential pets

Change certainly came to Washington Tuesday, but change.gov did not. President Obama's former transition Web site is now defunct, with a note sending visitors to whitehouse.gov. The official presidential Web address relaunched as a shiny social-media hub at 12:01 p.m.—even before Obama took his delayed oath into office.

Immediately, the twitterati and tumblr set were abuzz over the site, noting how similar it looked to the campaign's previous sites (with its twilight blue background, Gotham font and a YouTube video highlighting the president-elect's train journey this past weekend) and marveling at the new chief executive's continued technological prowess. But it's worth wondering how many of these observers had ever actually looked at President Bush's site. It also had news updates (much like the blog on Obama's White House site), an "Interactive White House," a newsroom-like "Setting the Record Straight" feature, and slideshows—and oh yes, that famous Barney cam.

So the real difference is that the new site glosses with the buzzwords of social media and pristine politics: transparency! Participation! RSS feed! All these look good on paper (or, in this case, on screen) but delivering on the many promises won't be easy—making the Web site a near-perfect metaphor for the entire Obama presidency. The premier blog post, written by the director of new media, Macon Phillips, introduces a framework full of features, few of which are ready to use. Things that do work, like the slideshows, are rife with bugs. Early Tuesday evening, Obama's new site still referred to him as the president-elect in some places, and a link to a gallery of first families shows you pictures of presidential pets. "[Phillips's] first message was just about openness," says Rex Sorgatz, an online media consultant who runs fimoculous.com. "But you can't just crack open a wiki and say, 'Go at it.' Even forums or comments won't produce anything meaningful. You need to have a filter in order for productive discussions to rise to the top."

READ THE FULL STORY HERE.

 A purported image of visual voice mail on the BlackBerry Bold. Photo courtesy Boy Genius Report.

If the folks at Boy Genius Report are correct, it would appear that sometime this year, visual voicemail will be coming to users of the BlackBerry Bold on AT&T's wireless network.As one of the signature features of the iPhone since its debut--it allows you to select and play back individual voice messages rather than forward through your entire list of voice mails--it's a welcome addition to non-iPhone gadgets like the Bold. The only reason that I'm not more ecstatic is that I have a BlackBerry Pearl, with no intentions to surrender the diminutive device anytime soon. So if anyone from AT&T and RIM is listening, don't forget about us Pearl users. We like up-to-date features too.