tingilinde

an anthropological look at youtube

From Kansas State U anthropologist Michael Wesch's talk at the Library of Congress. A nice introduction.

charged up at gm

A nice article on the GM Volt project via The Atlantic

Probably the hardest thing the company has done. It will be breathtaking if they pull it off. The best batteries are probably a bit under 0.25 MJ/kg. Gasoline is 46.9 MJ/kg ... it gives a sense of scale.

have you driven a ford lately?

One wonders if that statement will be possible five years from now.

Ford's Mark Fields, speaking at a the Plug-In Electric Vehicles 2008 conference, calls for government welfare for the car companies and environmental laws that are favorable to the same group. This is a company that did almost nothing for a decade other than turn basic pickup designs into SUVs with enormous profit margins.

Plug-in hybrids are a step in the right direction, but 4000 pound plus monsters are not going to offer the advantages many dream about. That pesky thing called physics gets in the way. The fact that gasoline has about 47 megajoules per kilogram and the best lithium-ion batteries are below 0.3 gives a sense of scale.

GM has a serious lead on Ford. There have been some government Li-ion battery programs, but they are spending serious money on the Volt as well as downsizing their fleet.

We really need to be thinking about what it takes to make safe vehicles that weigh less than 2000 pounds and figure out ways to cut the need for getting in a car in the first place.

iphone 2.0

I have an iphone and like it a lot - someone asked for comments on the second generation model.

The big thing is going to be the gps coupled with the ease of writing programs for the device. There are many phones with built-in gps, but few really take advantage of it. The old "air graffiti" gang (wayzen, steve, nancy, jessica...) will remember all of the work from the 1999-2001 era. All of that will happen - this device really legitimizes the space.

consumer pain, commuting and gas

IBM has found people don't like commuting. Nothing new, but there are working on issues of congestion charging, route planning and the like -- all relevant when your infrastructures changes slowly compared to user demands.

People's sensitivity to price probably depends more on rate than the actual price. $2.50 gas was going to bring major changes, and then $3.00 gas. We may be testing IBM's $4.50 number soon, but I don't think you will see a flight to bikes or otherwise radically changing their commuting habits.

tv and fertility rates in developing countries

People rarely talk about lowering fertility rates as a mechanism to limit global warming, but it can be a huge driver..

so perhaps care needs to be given to designing tv programs (pdf)

Soap Operas and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil*

Eliana La Ferrara Bocconi University and IGIER
Alberto Chong Inter-American Development Bank
Suzanne Duryea Inter-American Development Bank

This version: March 2008

Abstract
What are the effects of television, and of role models portrayed in TV programs, on individual behavior? We focus on fertility choices in Brazil, a country where soap operas (novelas) portray families that are much smaller than in reality. We exploit differences in the timing of entry into different markets of Rede Globo, the network that has an effective monopoly on novelas production in this country. Using Census data for the period 1970-1991, we find that women living in areas covered by the Globo signal have significantly lower fertility. The effect is strongest for women of lower socioeconomic status and for women in the central and late phases of their fertility cycle, consistent with stopping behavior. The result is robust to placebo treatments and does not appear to be driven by selection in Globo entry. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that novelas, and not just television, affected individual choices. First, people living in areas covered by the signal were more likely to name their children after novela characters. Second, entry of a network that relied on imported shows did not have a significant impact on fertility.

(a tip of the hat to Sara)

how not to do ux and design

LG has a competition to design the interface for the a touchscreen cellphone.

Ahem - design and user experience are way deeper than this sort of thing. Treating UX as a wrapper put on top of a product - essentially an afterthought - is why so much stuff just doesn't work play with humans.

f2c 08

David's Freedom to Connect 2008 is underway. You can find a quicktime stream on the page.

I'm upset that I couldn't attend this year - whether you agree with him or not, this is simply the best conference out there on the overlap of networks, society and technology. I've had amazing discussions with people in and out of my own echo chamber and have made some wonderful friends. He also has live music at all of his doings.

What is very interesting this year is the sponsorships by Google and Verizon.

next year ...

Here is his opening statement.
sigh

the point x prize

Reading through the automotive x prize, it becomes clear the largest challenges are not purely technical. Some nice demonstrations will result, but moving to wide spread acceptance, manufacture and support is non-trivial. It will be $10 million well spent, but I doubt it will change the world.

So an immodest proposal

The problem of city and some suburban transit has been partly solved in the form of human powered vehicles (bicycles). The technical details are largely solved as bicycles are very efficient. Engineers can still have fun working on electric assist bicycles, and these tasks can be done well by undergraduates.

What is difficult is solving the social and infrastructure problems. This is where the passion of youth can win. Take $10 million and divide it in to about 90 $10,000 grants. Teams can be of any size, but everyone has to be younger than 25 with the exception of two mentors. The task is to create transportation models that work for their geographic regions. Extra points for ideas that are replicable . The top ten teams each get $100,000 for their efforts. Management and scoring is cheap - there are many experts who would donate their time for something like this.

Even slight changes in acceptance of human powered commuting in the US would be worthwhile. A nice target would be to decrease miles driven by five percent.

Make it fun, make it cheap, make it sexy

I doubt that people of my vintage can figure that out, but someone who is 22 just might....

the automotive x prize

It is now official - there is an automotive x prize.

This is an extremely difficult problem - not only do you have to come up with a good design, but you need to have your manufacturing ducks in a row and be able to change the habits of millions of people. I suspect some innovation, but obvious things that can be done now (like much lighter cars) are not popular with consumers.

Some of the specs are curious. They have fairly good explanations and they have put a fair amount of thought into making the competition fuel agnostic, but a target of 200 grams of carbon dioxide per mile (love those mixed units) from "well to wheels" isn't aggressive enough. It may be necessary if you consider one of their other requirements - namely that the vehicle can travel at 100 miles per hour.

But the competition will be fun and perhaps some imaginations will be sparked.

What we really need is a carbon tax that accounts for the costs associated with putting carbon dioxide in the air. That, and encouraging human powered traffic wherever possible, would have a much greater impact. But it isn't likely in countries like the US.

the sony brand

you have to love this company

Do these guys even care about their brand?

voting machine problems in new jersey

From Ed Felton's blog

Not agreeing with yourself strikes me as a serious problem.

looking into the sausage making process

Ed Felton confirmed that the state of New Jersey has asked him to look at the Sequoia voting machine.

Sequoia doesn't seem amused, so one wonders what they have to hide. Since the accuracy and security of voting is core to our democracy, it seems reasonable to allow groups (more than one!) to examine the processes at the deepest level. Any company that refuses should be excluded from participation in bids.

Our district uses Sequoia machines - I have an interest in this one.

uncle sam and your email - even wireless email and sms

An interesting piece in on c|net. The pdf from the security consultant is very interesting.

I'm guessing more than one wireless carrier is involved and that considerable monies and favors (specturm:-) are involved.

In any event hearings are necessary to expose what is going on when your democracy is at risk

human lobotomy remix

The excellent piece by the Four Eyed Monsters has been remixed

(thanks for the link David)

david reed's fcc hearing comments

excellent (pdf)

thanks for the link David

snip

Neither Deep Packet Inspection nor RST Injection are acceptable behavior by
Autonomous Systems in the Internet, for a simple reason: they each violate the
expectation that the contents of the envelopes are untouched inside and between
Autonomous Systems. The only recorded IETF discussion I am aware of that discusses
RST Injection is a paper by a respected Internet expert, Sally Floyd, which strongly
rejects the notion that using RST's for congestion control is a good design.

Comcast used these non-standard mechanisms in an unexpected way, potentially
disrupting systems and applications that are designed assuming the expected behavior of
the Internet.

A proper provider of Internet Access must use standard mechanisms. If it deems those
insufficient, it is expected to bring its problems, and data that justify its needs, to the
IETF, along with proposed solutions. They would then be discussed, and improvements
to the standard collectively defined. This would be done openly, and without deceiving
their users who expect to run standard Internet applications.

When Comcast or any Internet Access Provider claims to offer Internet Access, they
implicitly agree to participate according to the standard practices of the Internet as a
whole. Otherwise, all they may claim to offer their customers is “selective access to part
of the Internet's capabilities”.

To sum up the problem, a franchise comes with responsibilities to meet the expectations
associated with that franchise.

seat warmers

Comcast buys a bit of love for a FCC hearing.

the presidential science debate

I've been skeptical of a science debate among the presidential candidates even though I signed the petition a month ago. In theory it is a great idea. A basic knowledge of science and technology issues is of fundamental importance but I doubt any of the candidates is up to the task.

I would love to see a few basic questions to show if they are operating on the 10^th grade level. Can they describe, in a few sentences, the difference between energy and power? Given the mounting evidence that biofuels like ethanol are a crock, what would they do to change current directions ... etc?

But maybe, maybe something will happen. Invitations have been issued ... if it happens, let's hope that Huckabee is still running.

no net

Several of us have been curious about the recent Internet cable breaks ... odd that Iran has 100% loss...

Chance is certainly possible, but if there is a fourth ...

wireless net(s)

Many people in a small area force things

physical packet censorship needed? -)

as in videotapes

cute

corporate suicide?

Tim Wu on AT&T's filtering proposal (via Slate)

You can't selectively move away from Common Carriage - this would be an enormous legal risk.

lots of good quotes.

Wu is often on-target

___

One can imagine many reasons for this (something which hasn't been implemented - let's hope they aren't that stupid), but I suspect the "management of an artificially constrained resource" mentality combined with a desire to be AOL c.1999 figure big into the equation...

upgrade vista to xp?

I'm not sure of the methodology here, but it seems to support the folklore of consumer Vista frustrations ...

50-ish utopia - ah visionaries

actually some of us would claim dystopia

Greg notes a view of automobileworld^TM

have to love those punch cards

Somehow I think people like the Danes are closer to a better future - imagine ... healthy transportation (I know -- totally flawed -- bikes don't have a dozen cup holders)

on the success of apple stores

From the NY Times...

Sure there are stories of people having problems, but on whole the concept of the store - as a place to learn, play and even hang out - is one that works. I've seen more than a few people working on serious video projects with help from staffers - people who would not be able to afford the machines and high end video editing software. I've seen the same non-customers teach things and make recommendations to real customers. The amount of customer to customer interaction is higher than I've seen in any store.

The description of the Sony flagship as a mausoleum is too kind. At least the staff in a mausoleum is respectful of visitors.

And think about places like the big consumer electronic stores ...

laughable...

science and the presidential debates

Several people have been pointing to an effort to have the Presidential Candidates debate on science policy.

As you watched the scores of U.S. Presidential debates, did you ever wonder why there has been no debate devoted to policy surrounding what may be the most important social issue of our time: Science and Technology?

We did and we want to make sure it happens.

Science Debate 2008 is a grassroots initiative spearheaded by a growing number of scientists and other concerned citizens. The signatories to our "Call for a Presidential Debate on Science & Technology" include Nobel laureates and other leading scientists, presidents of universities, congresspersons of both major political parties, business leaders, religious leaders, former presidential science advisors, the editors of America's major science journals, writers, and the current and several past presidents of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among many others.

We have noticed that science and technology lie at the center of a very large number of the policy issues facing our nation and the world - issues that profoundly affect our national and economic security as science and technology continue to transform our lives. No matter one's political stripe, these issues pose important pragmatic policy challenges.

We believe these scientific and technological policy challenges can bring out the best in the entrepreneurial American spirit. America can be a leader in finding cures for our worst diseases, inventing the best alternative energy sources, and graduating the most scientifically literate children in the world - or we can concede these economic and humanitarian benefits to other countries.

We believe a debate on these issues would be the ideal opportunity for America and the candidates to explore our national priorities on the issues, and it is hard to imagine any candidate not wishing to be involved in such an occasion.

It won't happen

• the idea is too good

• the candidates don't know very much and tutoring them to the point where they wouldn't appear foolish would take too long

• the idea is too good

• much of the public is scientifically illiterate and doesn't care

• the idea is too good

google and green

View Larger Map

Google maps now has a take public transit option where appropriate. It works in the Bay Area, but not in Manhattan yet...

(thanks Larry)

tweaking maps

an excellent addition to Google maps - unless, of course, that Google is using this to associate physical addresses with Google accounts (you must sign in to use the feature)

the quality tech press

I've been catching up on some news and saw a slew of articles claiming the CEO of AT&T was being nasty to Apple by pre-announcing a 3G iPhone. This apparently will make people hold off on buying iPhones and dramatically drop Apple's value (according to the tech press)...

One slight problem with that. In September a guy named Steve Jobs pre-announced just such a device ...

verizon wireless to open its network

David and others have been pointing to this press release.

We have to see the details, but a pretty amazing change if true - the cynic in me thinks this may be PR prior to the 700 MHz auction (wink, wink, nudge, nudge Chairman Martin) .. but who knows.

_____

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 27, 2007

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Nancy Stark
908.559.7520
Nancy.Stark@verizonwireless.com

Jim Gerace
908.559.7508
James.Gerace@verizonwireless.com

VERIZON WIRELESS TO INTRODUCE ‘ANY APPS, ANY DEVICE’ OPTION FOR CUSTOMERS IN 2008

New Open Development Initiative Will Accelerate Innovation And Growth

BASKING RIDGE, NJ – Verizon Wireless today announced that it will provide customers the option to use, on its nationwide wireless network, wireless devices, software and applications not offered by the company. Verizon Wireless plans to have this new choice available to customers throughout the country by the end of 2008.

CEO Lowell McAdam will discuss more details in a Webcast media conference at 10 a.m. ET today at www.vzw-webcast.com/112707.

In early 2008, the company will publish the technical standards the development community will need to design products to interface with the Verizon Wireless network. Any device that meets the minimum technical standard will be activated on the network. Devices will be tested and approved in a $20 million state-of-the-art testing lab which received an additional investment this year to gear up for the anticipated new demand. Any application the customer chooses will be allowed on these devices.

This new option goes beyond just a change in the design, delivery, purchase and provisioning of wireless devices and applications.

“This is a transformation point in the 20-year history of mass market wireless devices – one which we believe will set the table for the next level of innovation and growth,” said Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless president and CEO. “Verizon Wireless is not changing our successful retail model, but rather adding an additional retail option for customers looking for a different wireless experience.”

Verizon Wireless will continue to provide a full-service offering, from retail stores where customers can shop, to 24/7 customer service and technical support, to an easy-to use handset interface and optimized software applications.

While most Verizon Wireless customers prefer the convenience of full-service, the company is listening through today’s announcement to a small but growing number of customers who want another choice without full service.

Both full service and “bring-your-own” customers will have the advantage of using America’s most reliable network.

Following publication of technical standards, Verizon Wireless will host a conference to explain the standards and get input from the development community on how to achieve the company’s goals for network performance while making it easy for them to deliver devices.

Verizon Wireless has a track record of listening to customers and transforming entrenched industry practices based on those customer needs. The company parted with the industry last year when it introduced pro-rated early termination fees, and in 2004 when it refused to participate in a wireless directory when customers said they didn’t want one. Verizon Wireless also broke with “wireless tradition” when it supported local number portability because customers wanted the freedom to take their number if they switched service providers.

Such responsiveness to customers has earned Verizon Wireless’ the strongest brand reputation in the industry.

bike advocacy - from copenhagen

In the US adult biking is usually seen as recreational with increasingly garish clothing. To promote bicycling, and to get it to the point where bike paths that separate bikes from automobile and pedestrian (nods to Fernando) traffic exist, it is important to show that bikes can be utilitarian transportation. One of the most efficient forms of transportation it turns out.

Copenhagen girls on bikes promotes bikes as utilitarian devices and shoes that riders can be stylish - unlike their US counterparts.

Here is a link to many yummy statistics

kindling?

Several people have been telling me how cool Amazon's Kindle is ...

I can't buy it. There are so many reasons why Kindle isn't socially cool

Paper is an amazing technology and a difficult one to beat for reading, It lasts hundreds of years (on acid free paper), is relatively cheap, is often tactilely pleasurable, and is bound into an object that the owner feels they own. You can buy, sell, trade, barter and gift books. The intellectual property is considered part of the package and current law allows these transactions.

Many people have told me this is the iPod for publishing, but no one (to first order) has purchased an iPod so they could buy DRMed music. They buy them so they can play their current library of music - some CDs that will be ripped, some shared in a family, some shared among friends, some pirated and some (a relatively small amount) to be purchased online - some with DRM, some without. With the iPod even DRMed music can be written to a non-DRMed container that uses the universal codec (uncompressed CD) - something that will be supported for decades in all likelihood. Amazon doesn't let you print or archive in a transitional format. There is no guarantee that you will still be allowed to read your their book 5 years from now.

There are more insidious problems... I am reminded of a passage from 1984: (one that I have used many times in DRM arguments)

Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as necessary." (book 1, chapter 3)

Of less importance is the fact that their raw technology is surpassed by several others - but that is just a technical detail ... the social issues are more relevant.

It may be that Amazon is trying to lock publishers into deals -- this may make sense and represents a different issue.

failing on a grand scale

The tragedy of the Future Imagery project in a NY Times article

Technical failures can be spectacular .. well worth the read (and thanks to everyone who pointed to this)

cost of ownership

Salon has a piece on the price of Macs vs Windows PCs... mostly initial price and resale value.

My experience has been that all platforms have issues, but the support costs associated with Macs are lower than Windows boxes. Particularly if you value your time at minimum wage or higher A friend just went through a full weekend of driver hell after installing Vista on his one year old Sony laptop. Most of his weekend was ruined. As he uses the machine in his consulting business, he gave up at 6pm last Sunday and tried to reintall XP. When I spoke to him on Monday he wasn't able to get XP smoothly working in his environment and couldn't use his inkjet or his wireless network (but regular ethernet works). He can't use the family machine because his kids have completely screwed it up. Oh -- this guy has a Ph.D in electrical engineering from CMU.

curious iphone observations

I've noticed that whenever I pull out the iPhone to show someone a photo or video, they react "Oh - that's one of the iPhones!" and then spend a few minutes playing with it. It surprises me that this response is not decreasing with time - if anything it is getting stronger.

When you push, you get the sense people are enormously frustrated with their phones and their service. This is seen as attacking one of those and, to many, that may be an improvement.

I think there is a large pent up demand that may be met as current contracts expire. There are times when I feel that using the device in public makes me part of the marketing arm of Apple.

solar powered homes

PBS's News Hour did a special on the Solar Decathlon - the goal is the "best" solar powered house.

lots of neat stuff and things to think about the next time you think about a house.

ipod birthday

Today happens to be the sixth birthday of the iPod.

It turns out I have some experience in that area and had worked on portable players and social music schemes for a few years earlier (we used AAC, like Apple ultimately did). There were huge questions at the time, many companies were making large bets that collapsed largely due to greed and staggering social cluelessness.

When the iPod was announced most of the business experts scoffed. I was first in line to pick one up when they finally were available for purchase - several of the people who were working on similar projects from the technical and social ends were also buying them that day. It was clear to all of us that this was the first "good enough" player and was a signal to us to buy Apple stock (another move that I was told was clueless).

I still have the day one player and some of the Apple stock. Both are doing very well

Here is a youtube video of the Jobs announcement

more on comcast packet filtering

From the EFF (thanks for the link David)

I would love to know how the free market will solve this problem. The only real solution is to prevent the carriers from offering services and allowing for real competition (rather than the pseudomonopoly and duopoly that exist now).

It must suck to require legitimate services like Notes and to see them blocked

If you have Comcast and have a choice, it may make sense to vote with your feet.

snip

Yesterday, we posted about some experiments showing that Comcast is forging packets in order to interfere with its customers' use of BitTorrent. There have been reports of strange things happening with other protocols, and we've been running some tests on two other file transfers protocols in particular — HTTP (which is used by the World Wide Web) and Gnutella. Comcast has also been strenuous in telling us, "we don't target BitTorrent". Perhaps not. Perhaps what they're doing is even worse.

In the limited tests we ran, we didn't see any interference with HTTP traffic. Comcast's network seems to behave correctly when you run a private web server and share a few of your photos or videos over it (we tested files up to about 25MB).

But when you try to run a Gnutella P2P node on your machine, things start getting strange. Gnutella operates in two stages: first of all, your node starts a conversation with other nodes on the network. Once that conversation is happening, nodes can say things to each other to organise searches for and downloads of files. We saw forged TCP reset packets that stop some of the nodes from being able to converse with each other in the first place.

Forged reset packets are normally the kind of thing that would only be present if a hacker was attacking your computer, but in this case, it's the ISP you pay money to each month that is sending them.

Strangely, the packet forgery only occurs when a non-Comcast node is trying to start a conversation with a Comcast customer's Gnutella node. If the Comcast customer starts the conversation, there is no Reset packet. This means that Comcast customers will not see Gnutella fail entirely — the network just doesn't work properly.

It isn't just BitTorrent and Gnutella that are affected. Kevin Kanarski has reported that Lotus Notes (a suite of software that many businesses use for email, calendaring and file sharing) is also being interfered with. We haven't tested this ourselves yet, but Kanarski's packet traces look a lot like the ones we've collected with BitTorrent and Gnutella.

When an ISP starts arbitrarily zapping some of the protocols that its customers use, they instantly endanger the cascade of innovation that the Internet has enabled. Before this kind of traffic jamming, anybody — huge businesses, small start-ups, college students and children in their bedrooms — could build new, innovative protocols on top of the Internet's TCP/IP platform.

If this type of conduct is allowed to continue, many innovators will have to get active assistance from an ISP in order to have their protocols allowed through the ISP's web of spoofing and forgery. Technologies like BitTorrent and Joost, which are used to distribute licensed movies and are in direct competition with Comcast's cable TV services, will be at Comcast's mercy.

It should also be remembered that in many parts of the United States, Comcast is a duopoly or even a monopoly provider of broadband Internet access. Competition might offer some protection against packet-forging ISPs, but under current market conditions, we can't depend on it.

eff on comcast

I've been involved in discussions with about a dozen people on the Comcast p2p interference reports.

The EFF has one of the best summaries

grim stuff. It is too bad most people lack a viable option. If you are a Comcast user and have an option, perhaps you need to change ISPs and also take your cable TV business elsewhere.

gop and climate change

The Times has a piece on the rift between GOP Presidential candidates on climate change.

Some of the positions are consistent with the core hostility to science that has emerged in the party, but it always amuses me that so much hope is pinning on technology in some quarters -- perhaps because they don't grok science ...

Not that the Democrats are much better - but the fundamental hostility to science is less.

penn and teller on the fcc

short, but excellent!

(thanks for the link Dewayne)

10 mbps == dialup?

Although many parts of the world have horrible Internet access, the US is clearly not a leader. Esme comments on the poor value of Verizon's FiOS service and notes that 10 mbps symmetrical is being phased out in Hong Kong as too slow...

blogging from a mobile

Greg mentions Utterz - a new tool for blogging content you can send from a mobile device. There are some interesting social issues here (particularly the issue of audience scale), but some of you might find it fun.

I'm a bit old fashioned and am not a fan of amateur video and audio... but there are many groups where this may rule.

ev segment heating up

The VentureOne still seems to be alive - a electric (or hybrid) vehicle that may even be sexy.

I suspect most of these small companies will go away, but this is cute. (check out the video of the dutch Carver ... the mostly mature design this is based on)

snip

Venture Vehicles plans to initially offer two propulsion packages for the VentureOne: the hybrid E50 and Q100, and all-electric Venture EV model. Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Prices (MSRP) will range from $18,000 for the E50, to $23,000 for the all-electric EV model – with a wide range of accessories available for each.

All three classes will incorporate the patented Dynamic Vehicle Control system, or DVC™, developed by Carver Engineering, which allows the vehicle to tilt up to 45° side-to-side at a rate of 85° per second. All three will also feature ventilated disc brakes and measure 3.5 meters in overall length.

The vehicles’ propulsion system is of a series hybrid design. The system consists of a small internal combustion engine connected to a 15 – 20 kW generator, two in-wheel 25 kW electric motors, a four gallon fuel tank, and a 3 kWh Li-Ion battery pack. The system is able to take energy normally lost as heat due to braking and return it to the battery, increasing overall system efficiency.

All three models will exceed 100mpg, with speeds of over 100 mph, and 0-60 in 6 seconds or less – a major breakthrough in the automotive industry.

google coupon search

hmmm - things I didn't know about

(thanks for the link Bart)

er ... whoops...

of course this can't happen...

there have been several broken arrows over the years...

a paywall comes down

At least part of the NY Times paywall comes down

A few weeks ago I ran into a musician who is working out how to make a living in the post CD world - he said he is now very happy that the music distribution structure was disrupted.

goophones

This piece in PCWorld is among the most clueless things I have ever seen in something that calls itself a tech rag. Those of you who are technical will be groaning.

The 700 MHz auction is very serious - it is too bad this isn't reporting. I'm going to bet the author doesn't know the difference between a dB and a dBm. I almost expect the author believes 700 MHz is somehow magic - perhaps able to penetrate Mount Doom in Mordor - or even Cheney's lair (or are they the same?).

The radio cluelessness is only the start, but maybe anyone who writes about radio should post their call sign

sigh

w7kel (now defunct)

oh - a tip of the hat to Ross for spotting this "gem"

mobloging from the iphone

why not?

This isn't the best way in the world to blog, but I'm mobile - walking to the store, listening to music, and downloading email at the same time.

At this point I like the keyboard more than that on the PDAs and smartphones I've used, but recognize people have vastly differing tastes. I would buy the Apple BT aluminum keyboard tomorrow if it worked with the phone... (hint)

The worst part of the experience is the Edge network - performace is often worse than 28.8kbaud dialup 15 years ago. If you need Net, wait or go elsewhere.

what has the world come to?

After many years I finally broke down and got a mobile phone.

The luxury of being unreachable is now gone

the justice department against net neutrality?

fees for priority traffic...?

disturbing

(thanks for the link Dewayne)

Increasingly I'm becoming convinced the only solution is to separate bit carriage from services ... the carriers should *only* be allowed to carry bits and compete with each other on that basis alone. It is bizarre, reading about the history of common carriage law, to see what we have come to ...

design panaceas

Greg points out this interesting piece on design and the third world

society and technology are hard enough. Society chasms are even more difficult and sprinkling tech won't solve things.

network neutrality in the ijoc

Steve notes a section on network neutrality in the International Journal of Communication.

I haven't reviewed it yet, but anyone interested in the game should probably have a look.

at&t vs trees

Steve points out a truly clueless customer experience ... AT&T billing and the Apple iPhone.

The troubling thing about this is that each bit of data is monitored.

cringely on broadband

I rarely agree with Cringely, but he is somewhat understated here.

The country really needs to decide if connectivity is an infrastructure (I would argue it is) and how to advance it. At this point we have an unholy mixture of connection and content and signs point to a greater mixing as walled gardens become more common.

Solutions are difficult but probably include a few key points: (a) connectivity providers should not be allowed to offer and regulate content, (b) bits are bits, and (c) real competition is needed - rather than the lame monopolies and duopolies most Americans have.

The US is emerging as a real player for the title of worst crumbling infrastructure... everything from roads, to the electric grid, to real Internet connectivity... At some point this is wrong for the economy (although it may be optimal for certain interest groups)

the mixing of legal and source code

When devices are used to arrest, who owns and studies the source code?

snip

An attorney for a Minnesota man accused of drunken driving says he doesn't think the manufacturer of a breathalyzer will meet a court-imposed deadline of August 17 to turn over its source code.

If that happens, his client could go free.

voting machines

Ed Felton comments briefly on the source code analysis of three e-voting machines by the state of California.

not pretty

He ends with this:

As far as I can tell, major news outlets haven’t taken much notice of these reports. That in itself may be the most eloquent commentary on the state of e-voting: reports of huge security holes in e-voting systems are barely even newsworthy any more.

on the fcc's bad decision

Lauren Weinstein on the recently FCC 700 MHz decision.

excerpt

But the phone companies -- now, that's where the lobbying expertise
really is -- more than a century's worth. The general impression is
that they're kinda disappointed that the FCC ruling provides for any
open access at all, but "well, golly gee whiz we can live with it I
guess." You can almost see them slowly dragging the toe of one
tennis shoe in the dirt while looking downward, like a kid who
pretends to hesitantly agree to something while actually being
thrilled.

Because the telcos are in the winning cat seat yet again.

The "open access" provisions for one section of the new spectrum do
not actually represent the kind of sea change that many people seem
to expect. In fact, it is already possible to use a vast array of
devices not "officially" sanctioned by the telcos on the wireless
networks (particularly easily with GSM) so long as they meet the
necessary frequency band and subscriber authentication requirements.
Such requirements will still be present. The key factor limiting
the device selection for most subscribers isn't the actual range of
available devices, but the devices that the telcos have chosen to
subsidize at reduced or zero cost. That list becomes the de facto
set of devices to choose from for most people. That's unlikely to
change much either.

But even now, you can go out and buy pretty much any compatible
GSM phone and use it with, for example, Cingular/AT&T, as long
as you use standard SIM identity cards. And many of the advanced
devices already allow for vast ranges of third party software (both
commercial and free), as does the device I use right now.

The new rules also specify that this spectrum segment will allow any
compatible applications, but again, in reality that's much the way
it is now in many cases. I can run virtually any TCP or UDP
application on my phone, from ping to Skype (if I had any reason to
run Skype, which I don't). But wait a minute, don't wireless terms
of service often include a prohibition against at least some sorts
of streaming applications? Sometimes they do, but these are rarely
enforced, and even then only typically against users of relatively
massive amounts of data. The telcos have -- and will continue to
have -- other ways to control them via pricing tiers, even when it
comes to so-called "unlimited" data plans -- which virtually always
actually have some sort of limit that you won't find out about until
you hit it.

Remember, we're not talking about "free to use" spectrum -- you're
still going to have to be a subscriber of the spectrum owner
to use it, and pay the going rates.

Now hold on, even if all this is true, isn't the part in the new
rules where the spectrum owner promises not to slow or block
competitors' services a good thing to have in writing?

Yeah, it's very pretty. But, uh, aren't we talking by and large
about the same telecom firms who have spent the last couple of years
saying that they don't do such dastardly things anyway, and so
there's no need for network neutrality rules? Is it possible that
by specifically putting such rules in place only for this new section
of spectrum, that we might be handing these firms a form of carte
blanche for more draconian behavior in their other spectrum blocks
and non-wireless services? After all, they can easily point at the
new spectrum and say that if you want to be treated equally, you can
only do it over there. Wouldn't happen? It won't be an excuse to
avoid sorely needed, widely applicable network neutrality
legislation? Hmmm.

What would have really changed the rules of the game in a potentially
great way for consumers was a key part of the Google proposal that
didn't go through, that would have required wholesale reselling of
spectrum chunks. That could have opened the door to true
competition in terms of actual new players -- not just at Google
scales but in a variety of different sizes -- who could operate
their own networks, not just the shuffling of control among the
established telecom conglomerates that the auction decision appears
to codify.

Indeed - an extremely lame decision that will guarantee the continuation of walled gardens and minimize innovation.

The bottom line should have been maximizing benefit for the country as a whole - sadly the benefit was maximized for a relatively minor piece of the economy that happens to have a strong lobby. This isn't unusual, but seeing chances for innovative services at reasonable prices evaporate is frustrating.

more drm commentary

commentary from xkcd

bbc player and drm goodness

The new BBC iPlayer, which only works with Windows XP (forget Linux, OS X, Vista,...), not only highlights why DRM causes consumer problems, but early reviews suggest the player itself is pretty bad... (via red ferret)

summary

Sorry but this is not a great product. It’s restricted, slow, cumbersome and based on some very nasty technology. In fact if it wasn’t the BBC, it wouldn’t get the time of day anywhere else. It shares the same technology as the Sky Anytime player which is also a staggeringly unimpressive service and to be honest if this is the best that conventional television can do to compete with the new Internet television services, then they’re doomed, because good content will very soon start to migrate to the fast growing global services. And that’ll be game over for this type of stilted parochial technology.

fascinating stuff coming up...

As Fernando notes .. this has been a long time coming.

Potentially explosive stuff - the sort of stuff that can enable any number of things that would render the US a non-democracy.

reasoning with copyright part ccxxvi

David Battino's always excellent Digital Media Insider focuses on Lucas Gonze's novel approach to deal with cover songs on his blog.

Navigating copyright is extremely non-trivial, and this gives you a sense. Highly recommended and subscribe to the podcast!

olpc overview

I haven't been following the One Laptop per Child project and found the eWeek overview interesting.

Independent of how it will play out in the classroom, the machine is reasonably interesting.

outdated (and bad) interfaces

Bjarne asks why this fancy watch has knobs and buttons...

Indeed.

We all have to know the time, but the watch has dissolved into the mobile phone for many of us (particularly anyone under 30). Once watches were amazing gadgets or fine jewelry. The amazing gadget class is dead.

Why do you need a manual, good eyesight and reasonable dexterity to find the time, which is freely available on other objects in your pocket?

the 700 club

Harold has great commentary on the 700 MHz auctions -- particularly AT&T's bizarro (and frequent) mid-course changes. (check his earlier postings and, I suspect, postings to follow)

You have to love Google

I suspect, if you look at the full value of our spectrum (the American public's) that is being auctioned, the greater good for the consumer, business as a whole (not just the telcos) and the taxpayer is going Google's route. We will get miserablyawfulcellphonenetwork2.0 if we go the telco way. Walled garden monopolies suck.

it's a barbie world...

Going through the Scientific American blog, I came across this

Guess who just launched the fastest-growing virtual world ever?

A. Blizzard (World of Warcraft)

B. Linden Labs (Second Life)

C. Mattel (Hot Wheels, Barbie, etc.)

All right, so it's obviously C, otherwise why is this blogger jabbering at you, right?