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" Welcome to PM/AM, Popular Mechanics&amp;#039; morning briefing on the top science and tech stories for today.  Net neutrality is a volatile subject with big tech firms in favor and internet service providers against. This puts Google Fiber, which is a limited but growing business, in an interesting position\u2014it puts Google in both categories. Although Google Fiber rests at the intersection of ISP and content provider. Google has openly voiced its opinion in favor of net neutrality, even signing a letter, along with 100 other companies earlier this month. The letter, addressed to Federal Communications Chairman Tom Wheeler, detailed the collective consensus that the proposed net neutrality rules were &amp;quot;a grave threat&amp;quot; to the internet. In an effort of transparency, Google laid bare its own ISP philosophy with Google Fiber in a blog post on Wednesday. Explaining how Google Fiber minimizes buffering, the post reads &amp;quot;We also partner with content providers (like YouTube, Netflix, and Akamai) to make the rest of your video&amp;#039;s journey shorter and faster. (This doesn&amp;#039;t involve any deals to prioritize their video &amp;#039;packets&amp;#039; over others or otherwise discriminate among Internet traffic \u2014 we don&amp;#039;t do that.)&amp;quot; The post also clarifies the company&amp;#039;s stance on charging for peering, or allowing content providers to connect directly to ISP&amp;#039;s networks, and also lets companies like Netflix to house their own servers in Fiber facilities. With a degree of flippancy, Google considers these gratis measures as a no-brainer. &amp;quot;But we also don&amp;#039;t charge because it&amp;#039;s really a win-win-win situation. It&amp;#039;s good for content providers because they can deliver really high-quality streaming video to their customers.... It&amp;#039;s good for us because it saves us money (it&amp;#039;s easier to transport video traffic from a local server than it is to transport it thousands of miles). But most importantly, we do this because it gives Fiber users the fastest, most direct route to their content.&amp;quot; Now, Google falls short of having a sterling reputation as a do-gooder, but with an ISP that provides a free base-level internet along with free services for consumers and content providers, Verizon and Comcast&amp;#039;s draconian views of the internet business model could have an expiration date. Read This Samsung joins the virtual reality race as it plans a headset for its smartphones and tablets. [via Engadget] Turns out it is possible to time travel through a wormhole. You just need to be a photon. [via LiveScience] Wonder why the Pontiff stays off Facebook? Turns out it&amp;#039;s all about the comments. [via Quartz] Watch This      This week on Decoded, we talk Google&amp;#039;s rumored acquisition of Twitch, the rising trend of &amp;quot;prime&amp;quot; smartphones, and Microsoft&amp;#039;s new Surface Pro 3. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a10559/pmam-google-fiber-and-net-neutrality-16817923/>