Verizon Wireless subscribers who have held onto their $30 a month unlimited data plans will soon be forced to upgrade to a new tiered offering the company plans to launch this summer, according to the website Fierce Wireless.

Speaking at the J.P Morgan Technology Media and Telecom conference, Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo told investors that the company's 3G unlimited data plans that customers were allowed to hang onto last year when Verizon switched to a tiered offering will soon go away entirely. Instead, the company will migrate its existing and new 4G LTE customers to a new "data-share plan."

The company has yet to announce the details of this new plan, but it has said previously that the data-share plan will be introduced in midsummer. The plan will allow people on the same family plan to share buckets of data each month, much like they share voice minutes and text messaging. It will also allow individuals to share data across different 4G LTE devices.

Verizon eliminated its unlimited data plan for smartphone users last July, about a year after AT&T had done the same thing. Like AT&T had done previously, Verizon told its existing unlimited data plan customers that they could keep their unlimited data plans even after their contracts expired. And Verizon has allowed its 3G wireless subscribers to upgrade to 4G LTE devices, while keeping their unlimited data plans.

But the company was always careful to say that it could change this policy in the future. And now it looks like that day has finally come. The way it will likely work is that as 3G unlimited contracts expire, Verizon will push subscribers to upgrade their devices to smartphones on company's 4G LTE network. These customers will then have to sign up for the data share plans.

"Everyone will be on data share," Shammo said, according to Fierce Wireless. "When they migrate off 3G they will have to go to data share. That is beneficial to us."

Verizon hasn't yet announced pricing details of the new share plans. Shammo said that he believes this new plan will make it easier for families and small businesses to connect multiple devices, Fierce reported. This new plan is meant to encourage people to buy multiple connected devices and to use them on the 4G LTE network, without signing up for an additional data plan.

As this change happens and people connect additional devices to their accounts, Shammo said that the industry will have to change how they account for the revenue. Instead of looking at average revenue per user, he said that the industry should look at average revenue per account.

News of the end of the unlimited data plan is sure to upset some consumers who have held onto their existing accounts specifically for the unlimited benefit.

AT&T also offers this benefit to long-time smartphone customers. But the company has struggled to keep up with the demands of some of these users. In an effort to ensure that "grandfathered" unlimited users don't hog the network, the company began slowing down a proportion of these heavy users. The move outraged many customers. One man sued AT&T in small claims court and won. AT&T has since changed its policy and now only slows down or throttles users if they exceed 3GB of data per month.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile USA and Sprint Nextel still offer unlimited data plans. T-Mobile also slows down users if they consume too much data each month. But Sprint claims that is the only major wireless carrier in the U.S. to still offer unfettered unlimited data. Some people question how long the carrier will be able to offer such a plan given the steep rise in usage.

A Verizon spokeswoman declined to comment on the news.

For the most part, keyboards just aren't very exciting. They sit there and go clickety-clack. What if you want a keyboard that goes squish-squash or splish-splash? Then you turn to the MaKey MaKey Invention Kit.

MaKey MaKey is a kit that turns just about any object into a touchpad. It consists of a circuit board and a set of alligator clips.

Clip those clips onto fruit, people, or pieces of bread. Even pencil markings can work. Open up a Web site or a program, plug the board into your computer's USB port, and you're good to go.

This means that absurd notions like banana pianos, alphabet soup keyboards, and beach ball game controllers can come to life. The only limit is your imagination, what you can fit the alligator clips onto, and a little bit of electrical conduction.

MaKey MaKey works with most recent operating systems. Your computer just sees it as a regular input device, like a keyboard or mouse.

The invention kit is already making a splash on Kickstarter, having topped its $25,000 funding goal with 28 days left to go. The best part of all of this is that a full MaKey MaKey kit will only put you back $35. Banana piano, here I come!

Dear Ross Levinsohn,

Congratulations on being named Yahoo's new interim CEO. We all wish it had come under better circumstances, but now it's your job to stabilize Yahoo and turn the company around. You have a difficult road ahead, but I hope you have better luck than your predecessors.

I know you have a lot of work to do in order to clean up the mess Yahoo is in. There is no way the company can recover, though, if you don't deal with the albatross around Yahoo's neck. I propose that you make one of your first acts as CEO to end Yahoo's patent lawsuit against Facebook as quickly as possible.

In March, Scott Thompson, your predecessor, decided to sue Facebook for patent infringement on the eve of its monster IPO. It's not a new strategy -- Yahoo did the same thing to Google before its 2004 IPO and made millions. It was logical to conclude that Yahoo could achieve a similar result with Facebook.

However, the lawsuit turned Thompson into one of the most hated executives in Silicon Valley. The move was seen as a way to stifle innovation, and Silicon Valley's elite quickly turned him into a villain. Without any support in the broader tech community, there was really no way he could survive his resume controversy.

Your predecessor also underestimated Facebook's willingness to fight back. The social network quickly acquired more than a thousand patents to use as nuclear deterrents. Facebook isn't going down without a fight. It's a fight that will only damage Yahoo's reputation further.

Will Yahoo eventually prevail if it keeps pushing on the Facebook lawsuit? Most likely -- but at what cost? Company morale is in the gutter, and Yahoo is no longer focusing on the fundamental issues that threaten to destroy the company. Winning the Facebook lawsuit will not turn the company around.

So how does Yahoo stop losing key employees, rally the troops, regain lost allies and start fixing its fundamental issues? Simple: it needs to find a way to end the Facebook lawsuit quickly. You, Mr. Levinsohn, need to find a way to end the madness your predecessor set into motion.

I don't care how you do it. I don't care if you negotiate a settlement with Facebook or just drop the lawsuit entirely. The only thing that matters now is ending the lawsuit as quickly and quietly as possible. Until that lawsuit is resolved, Yahoo will not be able to move on.

Many people within Yahoo will disagree with the decision to end the Facebook lawsuit now. However, Yahoo needs bold leadership more than ever if it is to survive. Dropping the lawsuit won't instantly fix Yahoo's problem, but it will help stop things from getting worse.

How would dropping the lawsuit help? The technology press, which has been heavily critical of Yahoo's lawsuit against Facebook, would ease up on Yahoo, giving it room to breath. Yahoo's relationships in Silicon Valley would become less strained, opening up the door to more beneficial partnerships. And employee retention, which has become a major issue for Yahoo in recent weeks, would improve (there's a reason why Yammer's CEO recently offered $25k bounties for Yahoo engineers.)

At the very least, Yahoos would again feel like they work for a technology company, not a patent troll. Being proud of the company you work for matters.

Dropping the Yahoo lawsuit can only help the company move on from your predecessor's mistakes. It's up to you, Mr. Levinsohn, to end the Facebook patent lawsuit in order to save Yahoo from annihilation. Please make it one of your first acts as CEO.