Time Warner Cable began mailing notices to local Road Runner internet customers last month, alerting them to a new leasing fee for the Time Warner Cable modems they are currently using.

The monthly fee to lease the modem will be $3.95. You can opt out of the leasing program by buying and installing your own modem, and returning Time Warner Cable's modem to them.

The changes are staggered according to billing cycles. My notice arrived yesterday (November 8) and said the charges begin in November.

Other internet providers charge fees for using their equipment. AT&T U-verse charges $6 per month (or a one time $100 fee) and gives no option to buy your own. CenutryLink has similar fees.

 Time Warner Cable has a similar policy for leasing routers for Wifi service.

N.C. State basketball coach Mark Gottfried is taking a break from recruting future superstars to sign autographs at the Time Warner Cable booth at the N.C. State Fair on Sunday.

Gottfried will be there from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30.

The Time Warner Cable booth is next to Dorton Arena on the Jim Graham Building side.

Staff photo by Ethan Hyman

If there's any place you can learn and have fun at the same time, it's gotta be the N.C. State Fair.

So once you've learned everything you need to know about the North Carolina's booming agricultural economy, bring the kids over to the Time Warner Cable booth for hands-on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) demonstrations.

There's even an iPod Touch giveaway on Saturday.

The STEM activities at the fair are part of the company's "Connect a Million Minds" philanthropic initative, which seeks to engage and educate students with fun, interactive activities.

The demonstrations, spread out over five days of the fair, begin tomorrow (October 12). Full schedule listed below. The TWC booth is near Dorton Arena and Gate 2.

How can you watch the 2012 Summer Olympic games? Pretty much any way you want.

Much of the action will be available on good ole over-the-air NBC, but if you're really into the Olympic games, you've never needed a cable or satellite subscription quite so much. NBCUniversal is putting all of their muscle into the summer games, offering multiplatform coverage through collaborations with cable and satellite providers (meaning you'll also need those subscriptions to watch online). This way, NBC can deliver content over multiple television channels (both live and on-demand) as well as live streaming on NBC's Olympics website, on mobile devices and tablets.

The cable channels NBCUniversal brings to the table are NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus), MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo and Telemundo. In addition, there are two HD specialty channels featuring non-stop basketball and soccer, the NBCOlympics.com website, and NBC Olympics Live Extra apps for mobile phones and tablets.

Some UNC-Chapel Hill students and a group of middle schoolers from across Chapel Hill and Carrboro will explore the wonders of science in a nationally broadcast episode of "It Ain't Rocket Science," a series about science, technology, engineering and math produced by Time Warner Cable.

The installment, which airs on Saturday, features the UNC students guiding the youngsters through Morehead Planetarium, and showing the kids that science is cool by conducting different experiments. Together, the students test water pressure by building bottle rockets, create simulated volcanoes, and use programming software to design miniature golf courses.

As of today, Triangle area Time Warner Cable digital cable customers should notice some changes when they sit down to watch their favorite shows -- an upgraded on-screen viewing guide.

The upgrade took place automatically overnight last night.

Time Warner Cable says the upgrade will make it easier for customers to search for On Demand content or use digital TV features like Start Over, which lets you start a program over at the beginning, and Look Back, which lets you go back three days to watch a program you missed but didn't record.

Other upgrades: The "A" button on the remote now brings up "Find Channels," which lets you find channels by category (sports, news, movies, etc); the "B" button still calls up the search function, but TWC says the search screen is now more intuitive.

For more information about the new guide, visit the Time Warner Cable site.

News 14 Carolina, the local cable news network available to Time Warner Cable customers, will launch a live, half-hour political issues show tonight, hosted by Tim Boyum.

"Capital Tonight" will air Monday-Friday at 7 p.m. on News 14. Episodes will also be available through Carolina On Demand (channels 199 and 1047) and on the station's website.

The nightly program will feature interviews with local, state and federal newsmakers and elected officials about a range of political issues.

Tonight's inaugural episode features an interview with Governor Bev Perdue.

Also this week, House Speaker Thom Tillis is on Tuesday's show; Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger is on Wednesday; Republican activist/fundraiser Art Pope is on Thursday; and principal deputy press secretary Josh Earnest is on Friday.

"Capital Tonight" will also use reports from other newsrooms in their network, including Charlotte, Greensboro, Fayetteville, Wilmington and Washington, D.C.

Boyum is a full-time correspondent who has covered the North Carolina state legislature for News 14 for the past 10 years. Reporter Loretta Boniti will also contribute to the program.

A previous version of the show called"Political Connections" aired once a week.

News 14 airs on channel 14, 114, 414, and 1114 on Time Warner Cable.

Time Warner Cable and News 14 Carolina will telecast all eight NCHSAA state championship basketball games live Saturday, March 10.

That includes the Millbrook girls game against West Forsyth, which is scheduled to start at 5 p.m.

All of the games will also be streamed live over news14.com. Beginning early next week, the games will be available on Carolina On Demand, digital channels 1047 and 199.

The full Saturday schedule is listed below.

If you're having trouble finding some of your favorite Time Warner Cable On Demand shows, it's because the HD Showcase On Demand channel has disappeared and the content redistributed to other On Demand channels.

So while you may not see "HD Showcase" in your menu, you can still get the same shows on demand in other locations.

TWC has advertised the changes on Channel 100 and in crawls on the Weather Channel.

Here's the full list of where the Showcase On Demand content has gone:

Exciting news (for me, anyway): Time Warner Cable intoduced its iPhone app today.

The app is essentially the same as the TWC app that has already been available for the iPad, it's just that now it works on the phone.

Just install the app -- TWC TV -- from the App Store, and if you've already created an online TWC account (to pay bills or access online content or DVR management), sign in and you're ready to go.

I just took it for a spin and it works pretty well. It certainly looks nice. As with the iPad app, you have to be at home on your home network to watch live television content. But you can look at a television guide and manage the programs on your DVR, including setting new programs to record, from anywhere.