March 2008 Archives

Much ado is being made of this Times Online article which talks about the CIA buying Google's search technology and using Wikis to sort and share information on potential suspects.

From a tech policy standpoint, all I have to say is: big f-ing deal! so what?

Google sells a product. A damn good product. Wikis are useful for collaborating on sharing information. Thousands of us use them every day. Millions for Google. 

If the Federal Government wants to have better tools to process the massive volumes of information, what's to stop them from using the best vendor out there? We should be proud that the best technology is still American, and those free-market junkies should be doing backflips that the "market" produced something so superior it is better than anything that the American intelligence community can come up with.

From the TImes article:

Google has been recruited by US intelligence agencies to help them better process and share information they gather about suspects.

Agencies such as the National Security Agency have bought servers on which Google-supplied search technology is used to process information gathered by networks of spies around the world.

Google is also providing the search features for a Wikipedia-style site, called Intellipedia, on which agents post information about their targets that can be accessed and appended by colleagues, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The contracts are just a number that have been entered into by Google's 'federal government sales team', that aims to expand the company's reach beyond its core consumer and enterprise operations.


Why can't people just be glad that we're still buying American? This is not a big deal. Chill out and save your energy for making tinfoil hats. Please.
I'll admit it. Arrington and I don't agree on everything. I'm probably a blip on his radar.


Why? I'm sick of one company leveraging people's willingness to share information with their friends for profit for lack of a business model to satisfy hungry VCs.

Facebook once had a product. Now they're sacrificing privacy and user respect to give their Chinese investors a ROI. They're even going into CHina despite MarkZ's assertions they wanted to do it the right way w/o becoming another Jerry Yang. 

When people trust you with their information, they expect them to not exploit your likeness, especially if you are public figure.

I don't care if this was meant as a joke. It's a serious matter that has failed to be addressed in today's economy and Web 2.0 (god I hate that term) world.




London's Times Online reports on a creepy Facebook app called SNIFF, which tracks your location upon request of...anyone, once you opt-in. 


Husbands who are not where they are supposed to be could soon be in danger of being "sniffed" out by a mobile phone service that gives suspicious partners an electronic map showing the location of their spouse.

The Social Network Integrated Friend Finder (Sniff) is a new application, accessed via Facebook or mobile phone, which could bring an end to frantic "Where r u?" text messages.

The service, popular in Scandinavia, promises to provide users with a detailed map of their friends' locations, any time and anywhere. However, there are fears that Sniff could be abused by employers to remove the last vestiges of privacy from staff.

Useful Networks, the American company behind Sniff, promised that only consumers who gave their permission could be electronically tracked by the service, which operates across all mobile carriers. The company plans to charge users about 75p for each location "sniff", with the results for mobile customers sent by return SMS. But "sniffing" could become addictive.

Let's contrast this to Loopt, shall we? Loopt allows you to turn the service off and even spoof your location. This is totally the opposite. Once you're in, you're in. Oh, yeah. They're going to charge you per use! 

It will be the first Facebook application to apply premium charges to customers' mobile bills. The heaviest users in Sweden are wireless-connected members of the social networking site, who have integrated the application into their personal profile page.


If there was a wrong way to do this, SNIFF has found it. It...stinks. 

Later on, I'll get to the CIA/NSA's enlistment of Google to outsource their spying efforts. Don't be evil? Yeah, right?
No, it's not an endorsement. Trust me, folks. On the other hand,  David All, GOP New Media guru has pointed me towards an article in the The Washington Times, a publication which I normal ignore but for some reason has a really good take on how Senator McCain doesn't just dismiss bloggers as "bloggers," as in HRC's "The Blogs were going crazy" video.

Although David and I don't agree eye-to-eye on many things (while I'm issue-oriented towards tech, he's very much a total political animal on the GOP side and I respect that) he makes a very important point about the changing nature of media that technology allows for:

"It gave him a microphone when others had already left the building," said David All, one of the Republicans' Web pioneers who runs Slate Card.com and who said Mr. McCain has benefited from Mr. Hynes' ties to bloggers. "That very much symbolizes the role of bloggers: We don't have editors to report to, and there isn't a big meeting with editors every morning. What that comes down to is personal relationships."

Can someone enlighten to me when reporting news ceased to be about personal relationships? If anything, the rise of social media, blogs (god I hate that term) and independent journalism has boosted the necessity of maintaining relationships and *gasp* networking, not just telling someone who you write for and hoping they'll think you're important. These days, everyone is important and you can't afford to give people who want to talk to you the brush-off.

Sure, I could be described as a "liberal blogger" although I prefer to focus on issues and not ideology (remember when I supported Utah's plan for opt-in 'net censorship?) and politicians relationship with the tech industry/new media and the other way around.

David has hit it right on the head. I'll sit down with you and hit "record" and I'll put your words out there for all to hear. Not just one "macaca" moment to be re-played over and over again, but I'll put the whole thing out there. I explain how I do things before I interview people. How do you think I get people to talk to me? They trust me, whether they agree with me or not (The CTO of the MPAA who I questioned earlier in the day thursday sat down for 25 minutes with me to talk because I let him know that I wanted his side totally on the record, not some sound bite) and in turn I give them the respect of reporting their words, not spinning them, not editing them to death, just being honest.

Honestly is the best policy, and that's how you maintain a relationship, and a legacy.

Thanks for the tip off, David.

I saw over at the Reuters that Sony Pictures is going to have its own channel (called PIX) on AT&T's MediaFLO when it launches in May.  According to Sony, it will feature a number of films at launch, including Ghostbusters.

 

While I admit that MediFLO is cool (it allows you to watch TV on your mobile phone) I've never thought about using it for an extended period of time.  I had MobiTV on my Treo 650 back "in the day" but don't think that I was ever in front of it for more than 20 minutes.  Total.  Between the small screen size and lack of opportunity to watch, I never really saw it as a must-have feature.  Ok, so I can watch a little TV if I have some down time or if I'm riding a bus.  Awesome, but I don't have the kind of time throughout my day to watch an entire episode of Friends, much less a whole movie.  Most people do their TV watching at home, and I'd be hard-pressed to find someone who would use their phone as opposed to their TV.  I mean, maybe if you don't want to miss your favorite contestant on "Idol" when nature calls...

 

Eric Berger, the VP of Mobile Entertainment at Sony Pictures Television had this to say

 

"We recognize that people are on the go with their mobile phone and coming and going," he said. "This isn't for people looking to view a movie for the first time. It's OK to miss the beginning."

 

Miss the beginning, the end and probably most of the middle too?  PIX seems really cool on paper but it feels more like AT&T is just looking for something to differentiate its MediFLO from VZW's, which has been around for over a year as opposed to looking for a really innovative new feature.  I just don't see a lot of people being too thrilled about being able to watch 3 minutes of a movie on their mobile when they have some downtime.  Not even if it's Ghostbusters.

 

 

Full article at Reuters.

Shel Israel, who has a far larger of number of Twitter followers, friends, etc, than I do, has a rather straightforward Twitter following policy which he has posted on his blog, Global Neighbourhoods.

Shel has a pretty simple request: he wants to know who the heck you are.

  • If I do not know who you are, or what you look like, or where you are coming from I will not follow you.
  • With very few exceptions, I will not follow brands, candidates, causes or company names. I wish to talk with humans, not brand icons, neither surveys nor bots. If you are a real person & you are passionate about your work, then I embrace you. If you are a Direct Marketer using Twitter to push you brand into my forehead, I will block you.
  • Even if you are a real person, I may not follow you. I need to see that you are talking either about topics or people I care about.
  • If you disagree with me, do it under your own name and I will respect you. If you personally insult me, I will block you. If you are consistently unpleasant or just boring, I will unfollow or block you.
  • With extremely rare exception, I will not follow anonymous Tweeters.

I'll give him props. This is possibly the most brilliant articulation of a philosophy which, as a longtime Internet user, I have adhered to for as long as I have been online (which has been almost half of my life). Despite the warnings from doomsayers to "never give out personal information online," I have always posted under either my real name, my initials (see my Twitter username), or with some kind of link back to my real identity (Andrew Feinberg), location (whether it has been Washington, DC, Madison, WI or Philadelphia, PA) and other information allowing people to know who is behind whatever is being written. 

This has two effects (to begin with):

  1. When I write or participate in an online community, I know that my words can be linked back to me. This is not self-censorship, but self-respect. I have enough respect for my name (or as Gary Vaynerchuk would say, my legacy) that I am willing to stand by my words and opinions. One of my main questions for social networking privacy or PR reps is how to deal with the "audit trail" you leave behind as you participate on communities or discussions. I think the middle ground that I can agree with many of them on is that honesty is the best policy, and that anonymity should be used when needed. The default should be to stand by your name.
  2. I am easy to find and I have a reputation to protect. I make it a point to respect people because I never know when someone will want something from me, want to help me, or want me to help them. By putting my name and identity on the line, I allow myself to be more helpful since if someone likes what I do, they can ask me to help them. Case in point: last week, the guys at Mashable wanted some help covering TPS. Although it didn't work out in the end, they were able to get a hold of me because my identity is no secret.

So, if you are going to participate, stand behind your words. Political Candidates have "stand by their ads." Don't you think that Shel has a good policy, and you should "stand by your words?"

I can sympathize with parents and protection advocates who caution against sharing too much. I agree wholeheartedly. On the other hand, there is a point where you can share too little, and I think the conversation needs to move towards the center of that debate.

There's actually much more I want to say about this and inject a policy debate into it, but I want to wait until I finish Adam Theirer's report on internet safety. Being on the "education" side of that debate, I think there is a generation gap on how anonymity and pseudonymity is viewed that must be addressed before we take draconian measures or go off the deep end. I know I keep saying this, but there's more to come. There needs to be, since identity is at the heart of so many privacy issues. 

I'm Andrew Feinberg, and I approve this message.
London's Sunday Independent reports that a yet another mobile phone study has found that using one of those helpful little gadgets will kill more people than smoking or asbestos.

Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation.

The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks.

It draws on growing evidence - exclusively reported in the IoS in October - that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long.


I guess if they're right, the answer to "where you at" will be "in the hospital, fool!"

But seriously. If I stop using my phone, can I smoke or drink more? We can't all live forever, and I think it might be harder to give up mobile services than nicotine. I don't just crave my phone, I love it. It keeps me connected. So, to express how I feel about my BlackBerry...


...is Rick Astley


Hey, Verizon! Where you at?

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Yesterday, Verizon Wireless (which I'll be referring to as VZW, as per usual) announced that it will begin offering Loopt service to its customers for $4 per month.  This is a huge, huge, huge announcement for Loopt because this is only the second distinct carrier to offer their product.  Loopt was originally (and is still predominantly) offered by Boost mobile.  Yes, it is now available to Sprint's CDMA users, but Boost is the iDEN prepaid network which is owned by Sprint.  Also, VZW has a lot more subscribers than Sprint and Boost combined (Sprint is at about 53.8 million subscribers, Boost about 4 million and VZW at about 65.7 million).

For anyone who doesn't know what Loopt is (if this is you I should probably also say "Welcome to Capitol Valley!"), it is a location-based service (LBS) that allows you to use your mobile phone to share your location with your friends.  I'm pretty sure you've seen the ads with the very round people asking each other "Where you at?"  That's Loopt.  Some other guy wrote about them too.

Some people bring up the privacy issue, but Loopt is 100% opt in.  It can be purchased directly from your handset, but it (and most services that you can subscribe to via the handset) would be almost impossible to sign up by accident.  It's a really cool service that's been really well marketed and implemented.  Also, Andrew interviewed their chief privacy officer, Brian Knapp.  The fact that they have a chief privacy officer and that they send him apparently everywhere shows an amazing self-awareness of the fact that a lot of people could look at them as a privacy cluster-fudge.

That self-awareness coupled with a great product is why Loopt is now offered by both major CDMA carriers and available to over 100 million subscribers.

Not too shabby for a three-year-old.





Here is VZW's press release.

Here's "some other guy"'s article.  Actually, it's CongressDaily's Andrew Noyes.

And here is our Andrew's interview with Brian Knapp.
Wired News has picked up on something disturbing: "Griefers" on the Epilepsy Foundation's message boards intentionally posting links to animated gifs, videos and javascript designed to trigger seizures.

Internet griefers descended on an epilepsy support message board last weekend and used JavaScript code and flashing computer animation to trigger migraine headaches and seizures in some users.

The nonprofit Epilepsy Foundation, which runs the forum, briefly closed the site Sunday to purge the offending messages and to boost security.

"We are seeing people affected," says Ken Lowenberg, senior director of web and print publishing at the Epilepsy Foundation. "It's fortunately only a handful. It's possible that people are just not reporting yet -- people affected by it may not be coming back to the forum so fast."

The incident, possibly the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on the victims, began Saturday, March 22, when attackers used a script to post hundreds of messages embedded with flashing animated gifs.


This may be a first, a 'net based attack which inflicts physical harm. Sadly, the story is a few days late in breaking. I'd love to have seen this brought up in the child protection panel, I can easily see things like this being a "new direction" for cyberbullying and whatnot. Seriously.

So, I guess the question is does this meet the legal definition for assault?

Slow day...

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...because I'm still getting over my jet lag. We've got some stuff ready to go into the tubes though.

First off, another shout-out to Adam Thierer who has a great review of Jonathan Zittrain's new book over at Tech Liberation Front.

He does a great job of "calling out" Professor Z on something that I was thinking but having trouble wording.

So, my question to Jonathan is--to quote the great philosopher Rodney King--Why can't we all just get along? Isn't a sign of progress that we now have different models that appeal to different types of users? After all, those supposedly "sterile" applications like the iPhone and Tivo are loved by millions. Even calling them "sterile" seems a bit silly to me. After all, those devices have "fostered innovation and disruption" just like PCs and the Net have, just in a different way. Regardless, does Jonathan think all those people would really be better off if they were forced to fend for themselves with completely open iPhones and TiVos? Should the iPhone be shipped to market with no apps loaded on the main screen, forcing everyone to get them for on their own? Should TiVos have no interactive menus out-of-the-box, forcing you to go online and find some homebrew that someone whipped up to give you an open source guide in all its blocky ugliness?

Adam also recently finished penning a report on protecting kids online, and given his participation in a great panel the other day, I'm working on reviewing his book. 

More to come...

BlackBerry 9000 Series

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It was brought up on the podcast last night, so I thought I'd mention it.  There are a lot of rumors floating around about the BlackBerry 9000 series coming out later this year.  A lot of people seem to think that it'll be a touch-screen iPhone killer, but if RIM wanted a touch-screen device they'd probably have one by now.

 

I'm not much for speculation on the subject, but here's my wish list for the 9000 series -

 

  • Bigger Keys, Please -  Some of the rumors (the ones that still include a keyboard) do show us a BlackBerry with larger keys than the current 8000 series.
  • More Resistance from the Pearl - I'd like it if the pearl (the little scroll-ball that was introduced on the 8100) weren't quite so easy to roll.  Too often when I'm trying to click on something with it I end up clicking on something next to it, below it, above it...
  • Streaming Video - Whether it's YouTube or Hulu, I'd love to be able to pull it up on my BB when I'm not in front of the computer.
  • Easier Memory Card Access - The Curve and Pearl series have the memory card slot externally for easy access and hot swapping (sounds dirty).  The 8800 series (I have an 8830 and Andrew has an 8800) have it under the battery cover.  On the 8830 you can access it with the battery intact, so it's just annoying that I have to semi-dismantle the phone to change memory cards.  If Andrew wants to?  That battery's coming out.
  • Camera - Aside from being fun, cameras can be used for business applications.  For instance, some Samsung phones have a business card scanner.  The camera will actually pick out the contact info and add it to your addressbook.  That'd be super cool on a BlackBerry. 
  • More Screen - I'd like a little more size to the screen even at the expense of a larger overall size for the unit.  If the new BB were thinner it would be very easy to deal with a little extra height and/or width.

 

I think those could all very possibly be features of the next series of BlackBerry.

 

Now, who has an extra $600 that's weighing them down?

Hmmm...

According to a Media Bureau release published today, the FCC has set a due date of April 10th for the first set of reports on DTV Transition consumer education efforts.

On March 24, 2008, the Order was published in the Federal Register. On March 27, 2008, the Commission received OMB approval for enforcement of the rules. On March 31, 2008 the Federal Register is scheduled to publish notice of that approval. Thus, the effective date for the Order and rules will be March 31, 2008. The first quarterly consumer education reports must be filed no later than April 10, 2008.

 

 


Oddly enough, I haven't seen an FCC response to the CBA lawsuit we wrote about yesterday. Well, there's always Monday... 

Back safely ensconced in the Eastern Time Zone, I can finally say a few things and "exhale."

 

    1. Do not Red-Eye if you can help it. If you must, follow Andrew Noyes' lead and take VirginAmerica. I know I'm going to check it out.
    2. Conferences are much more fun to cover when they are focused. I enjoyed the networking and atmosphere at SXSW in general, but in terms of things to write about, the guys at Tech Policy Summit put on a great event. Pretty much every issue that I care about and I try to bring to you, the loyal and stalwart readers, was touched on in some way. I can't wait for next year's. Not only is it in the Bay Area and closer to many of the players, it means I can crash on Alex's floor.
    3. So far the great wireless experiment has been great. All those photos you can see on Flickr have been uploaded without the use of a single cable, in almost real time. The Eye-Fi isn't without problems, but my set-up has allowed for some cool things. I'll do a better write-up on it this weekend since several people asked about it.

 

A few shout-outs. Natalie Fonseca and Marc Licciardi at TPS arranged my getting there and helped me out while I was covering their great event, along with Cathy Rought from Dittus Communications, who was invaluable in putting me in touch with some great people to talk to. Mozelle Thompson and Alec Ross were great sports about getting back-to-back questioning in panels, and Jon Taplin was his usual fantastic self.

Special thanks go to my interview subjects, including Jim Williams, Brian Knapp, Prith Banerjee and Gary Fazzino, as well as the incredible Craig Newmark.

Andrew Noyes gave some good placement to our photo coverage at Tech Daily Dose, and Adam Theirer was so impressed with our coverage he didn't even bother to do any blogging himself.  Plus, he had possibly the best, brightest green sport jacket I've ever seen yesterday. We have proof!

If I missed you, yell at me appropriately. Back to work.

Best Of - Day 2, Up On Kyte

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Here's the "Best Of" Andrew's photo coverage of Day 2 of the Tech Policy Summit.

Podcast Tonight!

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Tonight we'll recap Day 2 of the Tech Policy Summit over at Blog Talk Radio.

So head on over to www.blogtalkradio.com/Capitol-Valley  at 9pm Pacific/ 12am Eastern and listen live.

Even better idea?  Call us at 347-945-5989 and let us know what's up.

Charles Cooper looks at Facebook's latest round of venture funding and asks if MarkZ and friends should look behind them...

But there's an interesting discussion around a Twitter versus Facebook faceoff looming. In a video post making the rounds, Gary Vaynerchuk riffs about the quickness of Twitter becoming a factor--at least among the early adopter crowd.

"The instant gratification. The world is moving so quickly. That the fact that we can get that response so quickly. Look AOL Instant Messenger--still around and strong, right? So is Twitter taking a lot from Facebook?"


As a Twitter user and a supporter of all things Al3x I can't help but be pulling for 'em.

Go Twitter, Go.
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Left to Right: 
Andrew Keen, Author of Cult of the Amateur
Gregg Spiridellis, JibJab CEO
Jonathan Taplin, USC

There is some discussion of a "Copyright tax" to allow more free trade of content and compensate copyright holders.

I've missed a whole bunch of this, but I walked in to hear Jonathan Taplin talk about the DMCA as the "Lawyer's Preservation Act." 

Keen thinks there would be a massive user rebellion over the tax. Spiradellis thinks that content is a communications tool, and that they won't pay for "linear content" like TV shows but they will pay for things like e-cards. 

Keen: Most blogs suck, the vast majority of content is awful. We have less time and more things to do.

Taplin says that the current content model is monetizing based on directed and CPM, and that may work and may not work. 

I'm sorry, but I can't keep up. That's it for TPS 2008. I'll be in DC in the morning, possibly a podcast with Alex tonight.
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Even Andrew Noyes has checked out. I'm hanging in there.

"Leading the Way in Broadband Innovation: What Should the US Strategy Be?"

Left to Right:

Ambassador Richard Russell, President's office on Science and Technology Policy
Milo Medin - CTO, M2Z Networks
Susan Crawford, Visiting Professor, Yale Law School
Joe Waz, VP of External Affairs and Public Policy, Comcast

Quick hit and run liveblogging:

Crawford - Broadband is not Internet Access. We've failed to have an industrial policy pushing access, we have no competition, and that "Shamu and Godzilla" are battling with bundles. Internet Access is a utility like electricity, sewers, etc.

Waz - Cable is a historical accident: CATV was originally built to bring TV signals to people who couldn't get it. He thinks wireless will lead to competition, and that we're gonna have multiple wireline providers "trying to beat the tar out of each other." Docsis 3.0 is being spurred by Verizon FiOS. Bundles are pushing adoption (cites Triple Play). 

Moderator Wildstrom asks if there is a contradiction between the idea of competition and the idea of Internet as a monopoly. Punts to Crawford, who believes that this is a natural monopoly, and that 700mhz as a "third pipe" is a pipe dream (my words, not hers). She believes whoever provides access should be considered a utility. Calls Comcast a bandwidth hog for using their bandwidth for TV.

Medin calls her idea "a travesty." 

Russell also disagrees. Two ways to look at problem: a) one heavily regulated carrier or b) multiple providers and have marketplace competing at multiple levels in different ways. Right now? We have the worst of both worlds in competition between cable and telcos, but not alot. All networks, except FiOS are retrofitted to carry the Internet. Hard to hit a Gigabit with Wireless, but some people would rather have ubiquity than higher speeds (like me!). 

Russell wants a 4th and 5th pipe somehow, and believes that would drive prices down dramatically. 

Crawford says by a utility, she means non-discrimination.

Waz responds to the "bandwidth hog" comment by saying that must-carry is a bandwidth hog. DOCSIS 3.0 will allow more channel bonding. Crawford agrees, but as an Internet provider, TV is still a bandwidth hog (she says). 

Wildstrom: Do we need Universal Service for Broadband?

Russell: Universal Service is good, but can be cautionary tale because it could deter new market entrants who aren't getting subsidy. 

Wildstrom: No excuse for huge POTS Universal Service fund.

Medin agrees, and says that we should target infrastructure by geographic need. 

Crawford has hope for White Spaces, despite her skepticism on wireless. 

Russell: Hybrid systems could be a solution for rural areas. The developing world is going wireless. Poorest slums in Kenya are filled with mobile phones, it's the first thing people buy.

Waz: Why are we talking about Net Neutrality instead of fixing "digital divide?" Net Neutrality and FCC involvement is irrelevant. He wants the "fine minds of Palo Alto" on rural access.

Crawford: Why not make rural access open? Why can't we have both?

Medin: Traffic shaping dates back to NSFNet, not new at all. Question w/ management is "what is the goal?"

Crawford is wary of the network operators having too much control...refers to common carrier system. Medin thinks that's crap. His solution to Net Neutrality is to have more networks! "Competition can discipline the system..." Notes that FCC grants tons of waivers to licensees who don't build out. 

Russell: what we want to avoid is anticompetitive behavior, and the FCC is doing a good job of being "the cop on the beat..."

Wildstrom: Authors of '96 Telecommunications Act thought they were creating competion. Why did that fail? Was it killed by anticompetitive behavior?

Waz: You don't expect someone to share something they built that would result in their own demise...put a ten year freeze on voice over cable. Government needs to "clear the way"

Crawford agrees that the protracted litigation around '96 Act killed it, but the separation between the content and the provider was a good idea. 

Medin: '96 Act was a compromise, engineers don't like compromise. Compromising on engineering leads "crap for policy...cutting the baby in half." 

Russell: Remember the '96 Act took 10 years to write, should have been called the '86 Act. Had way too much to do with Long Distance and wrongly believed that competition could exist by everyone sharing the same 80 year old copper wire. 

Crawford: The '96 hardly mentions the 'net except for the defunct CDA. 

Russell asks Crawford if because of uncertainty on FCC's interpretation of Title I of '96 Act, people aren't writing code. Crawford segues into a Net Neutrality argument, but Medin cuts her off and notes that lots of business are getting funded that depend on networks, and if someone does something egregious, it'll get dealt with by competition. Medin is still arguing for more pipes..."if you don't like Comcast, jump on FiOS." 

That's it for this panel...one more to go, let's see if I can survive.


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This morning, Jim was on a panel that featured some heated discussions on things like bandwidth consumption by P2P, the role of government in reducing piracy, etc. 

Since he ended up on the receiving end of one of my more pointed questions, he approached me after the panel and wanted to sit down and set the record straight. I never turn down the opportunity for a good talk, and Jim was quite happy to discuss a wide range of issues, as well as clarify things he thought I was off the mark on. 

Here's the audio.


Thanks, Jim. Anytime. 
DSC_0314.JPG Talking with Declan McCullough, Ashwin Navin scored a few cool points.

He noted that many companies are using BT distribution to distribute legitimate content, and at Declan's prodding, takes issue with the earlier claim that most P2P traffic is pirated.

For the company itself, it's still small. 55 employees, no Washington lobbyists. They want to sell their technology to companies who want to make P2P a higher margin part of their business.

Navin believes that P2P will be adopted by people who need to save money on distributing video, and they're still "working through" the cloud of illegality from Grokster, and that companies like Yahoo can use BT to distribute content.

What does Navin see the role of Congress being? He answers that if Ed Markey called him to ask help in writing a bill, he'd be the wrong guy. He goes back to the fact that they're about the technology. He's not going to hire lobbyists, but will allow Google, etc to work the Government Relations front.

When I asked him if it was irresponsible to allow others to "carry his water" by not hiring lobbyists and letting other companies do the heavy lifting if needed, Navin was actually rather honest in his self-assessment, saying that yes, it could be irresponsible or naive, but the gist of his argument was that he's going to let the product speak for itself, and that it's "breaking down barriers." For instance, kids in China knew who he was when he visited recently. I'm not sure how that fits in, but if he's brave enough to let the software do the talking and not take a proactive approach like say, loopt, (see my interview with Brian Knapp posted earlier) especially in spite of P2P's history, well, more power to him. 

Other questions were more technical in nature dealing with the recently settled Comcast issue, and one questioner pointed out the MPAA's idiotic statement that the Comcast settlement was a "step in combatting online piracy," and asked Navin how the agreement would fight privacy. He had no idea. 

Navin added that BT plans to work with ISPs, content providers, IETF, and pretty much everyone in the "spirit of openness." He envisions the network as being less asymmetric, and I think that's a pretty optimistic prediction. Other suggestions included hardware-based solutions for bandwidth issues and copyright problems like Akamai's software. 

When asked if ISPs could sit on BT streams and identify pirated content, Navin alluded to the fact that if an ISP and a copyright holder had a deal, it is technically feasible for an ISP to watch BT packets. 

Jonathan Taplin asked if he's exaggerated the ease that Cable companies could have a symmetrical network. Navin had no idea about the cost and ease (he cites Brian Roberts of Comcast saying it would be done) but emphasizes the importance of open dialogue with ISPs.

Navin did say that identifying infringing torrent content would be quite costly in response to a question from McCullough. What he sees, though, is that rights-holders will embrace content-recognition and P2P technology that will enable new business models, not just takedown notices. In Navin's future, piracy will disappear because the free flow of video we have now will be monetized to the point that it will become a non-issue.

Next, Declan brought up the idea of blanket licenses, and Navin was not adverse to a "Rhapsody-style" license that would not "criminalize the vast majority of people in the United States..."

Good job by both.
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Brian Knapp is Chief Privacy Officer for loopt, the "mobile social networking" company recently promoted by Sprint-Nextel and Boost Mobile using those adds with people wearing fat suits floating in swimming pools. Knapp describes loopt as "a mashup of google maps and twitter..." (a thousand web 2.0 marketers heads just exploded, but he's pretty spot on, actually).
 
 We took advantage of some downtime here at TPS to talk about his service, why it's cool, semantic games like "tracking" versus "location sharing", and, most importantly, how entreprenerus and innovators with potentially controversial technologies can get out in front of the doomsayers, horror stories and local news anchors. I'm very impressed by "where he's at" on how tech entrepreneurs can deal with Washington. Finally, a company that has the right idea. 

Reuters (in an article devoid of links to scary websites) broke the news that Comcast is working with BitTorrent to rework its network management policies to be more neutral.  While it will still reserve its right to curb a super user's bandwidth if it starts to decrease the usability of the service for others, it won't take in to account what that super user is using the bandwidth for.

 

Here's a snippet from Reuters

 

Comcast's announcement on Thursday drew a tepid response from Martin.

The FCC chairman said in a statement he was "pleased that Comcast has reversed course." But he questioned why the company was not moving more quickly to end the practice of blocking some applications.

"While it may take time to implement its preferred new traffic management technique, it is not at all obvious why Comcast couldn't stop its current practice of arbitrarily blocking its broadband customers from using certain applications," Martin said.

 

In April the FCC will have a meeting at Stanford University (home of Professor Lessig) to try and define exactly what in the heck constitutes "resonable network management."

 

Finally.

 

 

Here's Comcast's official press release.

Kara Swisher of AllThingsD.com is moderating a panel called "Personalization and Privacy: Deciding Who Does What with Customer Data"

Left to Right
Jules Polonetsky - SVP and Chief Privacy Officer, AOL
Joanne McNabb, Chief of the California  Office of Privacy Protection
Leslie Harris - President and CEO, Center for Democracy and Technology

Polonetsky opens up by alluding to his years in politics, and says straight out that privacy isn't a prime target of employees, not a management issue. 

Kara notes that people now post information that "used to make stalkers put in effort" (laugh line) and Leslie Harris of CDT responds that the idea that "people/this generation don't care about privacy" is a myth, and that the more people learn, the more they worry, even after they "opt-in." Her first example is Facebook and the "drunken college picture regret" phenomenon. 

Kara: "they have to justify their $15bil valuation...they'd have to get into the drug business..."

Ms McNabb notes that her office is an advisory and educational, not regulatory body. She starts by saying that there is a certain "lull" about the way people interact online, and that they assume they're talking to their friends. They may not realize it's "forever." Harris responds that this isn't transparent, because many of these issues are in privacy policies that consumers don't understand. Swisher asks for a suggestion on how to educate about these policies (which may not protect privacy at all) and Harris suggests a standard of prominent notices that meet "reasonable consumer expectations."

Polonetsky jumps in and says that people don't want to read this stuff, it's not compelling. He points to a study about the best way to communicate (mentions the Elevator Pitch) and they came up with (I am not kidding) A CARTOON PENGUIN!!!

Polonetsky's Penguin reads Anchovy News, and the cookie stays with the Penguin, and when he goes to The Penguin Times, a gigantic Anchovy ad pops up.

The discussion shifts to legislation, and Harris points out that the laws on the books are outdated (despite Polonetsky's protestations that they'd be boring) and that a uniform privacy law is needed.

Swisher asks if there should be a central "privacy control panel" to which McNabb asks "who'd run it?" Answer? SkyNet. 

Polonetsky goes back into AOL's development of the buddy list and how he made sure that people always had choices in sharing information with their friends despite concerns that it was a privacy issue. Harris agrees.

Swisher tells a story about how she had all the AOL execs on her buddy list, and when she was at WSJ and got a tip on the merger, she went online and IM'd them all:

"We know."

Her buddies all signed off.

Now the discussion is on DNA testing and databases turning it into a social network. The room is palpably creeped out. Harris notes that this isn't new, that health search engines collect data, too. I didn't think about that, but yeah...ouch. The talk is turning to PHRs and Harris (CDT) is saying that despite polls saying that people want access to their records, they're concerned about privacy, and health data is a big fat red flag for people. 

McNabb points out that there's an advisory board developing suggestions/regulations for PHR data standards, and that's happening in other places, too. McNabb sees the desire to regulate privacy is coming from the states, and Harris says that despite their inertia, the Federal government will take up a PHR privacy bill.

Kara is talking about Robert Scoble and data portability, and Facebook. She's telling his story about him wanting to screen-scrape his friend data, I jumped in and passed along the story about Mark Zuckerberg completely dodging Robert's question at the Facebook Developer's Garage at SXSW, and how Facebook denies the feature ever existing. 

Now Polonetsky is talking about "quick decisions" on who can use your data. Kara points out that there are several thousand Facebook developers who can access your data, and we don't know who they are. Polonetsky can't speak for Bebo, but he says a big issue is the ability to say "I want control of my data back" and that Facebook needs to incorporate this.

Kara asks about "doomsday scenarios"

Harris: We need to fix systems to people have control of data after they put it somewhere. Scariest situation is the Government coming for profile data.

McNabb is scared by the level of errors that are present and get propagated, and how organizations who rely on that data don't talk to each other and there isn't a way to fix it. There is no one place to go to fix it, lots of data warehouses have it, and people can be denied credit, airport boarding, housing, etc. Harris adds online health information. Now every insurer has it. Apparently this was in a Sandra Bullock movie.

Polonetsky was actually a victim of identity theft while he was the Consumer Affairs Commissioner of NYC, and it took him a whole year to get it cleared out. How can people who have to work all day get these kinds of things taken care of? He's less worried by online profiles than he is by how hard it is to fix this personal kind of theft.

Harris notes that as behavioral advertising markets expand, we're only at the beginning of the conversation and we need to get ahead of it. 

Swisher: What is the scariest company or business model?

Harris: Single Sign On and Federal Government
McNabb: Feds
Polonetsky: Advertisers who run ads with hidden code that dump spyware, and then sell you programs to remove it. He's bothered by amoral marketers.

Questioner brings up McNealy's "Get Over It" quote. McNabb asks him if he assumes all his conversations are private. 

Swisher laugh line: Google is going to become self-aware like SkyNet.

Another questioner notes that in the EU, privacy is a human right. Asks Polonetsky if AOL has different privacy rules by country, response is that they tend to act globally and generally just have certain features on or off by default. He says that EU is driving the debate. His example? IP addresses. Mentions Google, says this is a healthy debate and that it's good that companies are making tough decisions. 

Another questioner asks about the CDT's petition for a FTC "do not track" list. Harris explains it in detail that I can't keep up with, but would require a central list of "ad servers." She doesn't know if it'd work, but it's spurring voluntary changes.

Great panel.

Five days ago I posted in reaction to an article at CNN.com about, among other things, using your mobile phone as a modem.  I was upset that they didn't mention the potential for data overages or service interruptions.  They didn't even advise consulting your carrier before trying it.  I felt that the article, while well-meaning, was also a little misleading.  Not intentionally, but misleading still.

 

Skip ahead to today, when I was reading a really neat article about Benjamin Heckendorn.  He modifies video games, doing things like taking apart an Atari 2600 and refashioning it into a handheld unit.  Although not linked to, Heckendorn's personal site is given in the article.  As soon as I finished the article I decided to check out his site.  This is a pretty standard procedure for me.  If a website is mentioned in an article I'll usually check it out.  As soon as I tried to navigate to the site my virus monitoring software went crazy.  So crazy, in fact, that when I tried to close the warning window so I could kill the site the warning would repopulate in about...instantly.  Luckily, a reboot was all I needed and there was no harm done, except for our IT guy (at the day job, of course) probably thinking I'm a colossal douchebag.  What upset me so much is that it never should have happened.  I would have to imagine that Reuters has some sort of anti-virus software running.  I can't imagine that if the author had visited the site, at least on their work computer, that there wouldn't have been some sort of notification that a virus was detected.  It seems pretty clear to me that the author didn't visit the site before including it in their article, and that's terrible.  Even if, as the author, you couldn't care less about your readers being overwhelmed by a virus you should at least be visiting the sites you mention to see if they work.  Had the author done this, they (or the IT folks at Reuters) would have identified the site as harboring a virus and never have included it in the article.

 

I could go on and on, but I'd just be saying the same thing over and over with a decrease in coherency and an increase in profanity.

 

My bottom line is that, barring some sort of disclaimer, when you mention or link to a website your readers are going to assume that it's safe to visit.  There's a certain level of trust between an author and a reader and it is an astounding breach of that trust when an author's lack of follow-through endangers the reader.

 

Here is a link to the article, in which the virus-y site is mentioned.  The article, as far as I can tell is safe to view - I've never had any problems with the Retuers site.  it was only when I loaded the subject's personal page (mentioned on page 2 of the article) that I had problems.

 

IF YOU VISIT THE SUBJECT'S PERSONAL SITE, DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I WOULD ADVISE NOT VISITING IT AT ALL.

I feel bad because I still haven't written up the SXSW Child Protection panel, but here I am again at a great panel on the same subject.

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Moderated by CBS' Larry Magid (who wrote a book on Prodigy that I read when I was 7 years old and using my parents computer), this one features (Left to Right in the above picture) Rachel O'Connell of Bebo, Hemanshu Nigam, Chief Security Officer of MySpace, Joan Irvine, CEO of the Association of Sites Advocating the Protection of Children, and Adam Theirer, Senior Fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation (and one of our loyal, awesome CV readers).

One of the first topic to come up was how many child protection issues come up across borders in Web 2.0. Ms. O'Connell pointed out that the distinction between the online and offline world has blurred significantly in social media, and we need to stay up to speed on how young people use these technologies and make sure they are used in a positive way. She wants to mitigate risk, instead of taking the attitude that risks can be eliminated. Very smart.

One concern she brought up (keep in mind she's from the UK) is cyber-bullying and social exploitation using offline information, and used a triangle metaphor for securing information:

Location - What are the laws and social circumstances?
Users - emotional and mental health support for some
Mitigation of Misuse - get the message across to ill-doers that they are not anonymous. 

Magid segued into while Web 1.0 was about protecting kids from bad adults, Web 2.0 has young people as the bad guys. Examples - Cyber Bullying, "Child created child pornography," etc. How do we deal with this?

Nigam (MySpace) said that "we don't want to compete on safety" and are working with everyone. He said that users need to be educated, and in a way that matters to them. Also, they want to educate non-users (parents). Right now, MySpace is running a campaign to get parents to talk to kids about online safety. It drives traffic to experts on these issues, such as their MySpace Safety website, which educates about things like what to post and what not to post (and that it's forever), Cyber bullying, etc.

"Education has to be relevant to the users you are trying to reach" -- Hemanshu Nigam

Adam Thierer pointed out that a vast majority of "solication" is "teen-on-teen" and that we shouldn't be so shocked. Adam suggests developing methods for intervention when it escalates from what used to be in the hallway to being full-fledged bullying and harassment. 

Magid revisited the idea of Government regulation, and asked the panel what the role of Government should be in protecting children. 

Ms. O'Connell (Bebo) pointed out that Gordon Brown (PM of Great Britain) has commissioned a psychologist to figure out what the real risks are, if the media is exaggerating the risks, and  finding out if there is even a need of intervention. Her report came back (possibly today) and said that many of the doomsday scenarios are propagated by media, and that private industry's solutions are working. The role of the government should be to monitor and to possibly set standards for educating certain professionals, like teachers. 

"If we are to educate young people...the department of education has a duty of care to...educate teachers...there is a positive role for government..."

Magid again plays devils advocate and asks what the response is to the constant calls for more regulation. Mr. Nigam hits back and says that the most important role the Government can play is to enforce the laws that already exist. Some money quotes/excerpts:

"A crime is a crime is a crime...enforce the laws against the criminals."

"It is easy...to create fear...it is a much more honourable task to inspire dialogue..."

He points out that one law that is needed is mandatory online education, and that only two states have mandatory online education laws. 

When Mr. Nigam was questioned by a father about an incident when a "friend" copied his daughter's information and gave it to a predator after his daughter had taken her site down. He claims the FBI believes he should be suing MySpace, and asked what MySpace is doing to prevent this kind of "mirroring" or "identify theft." Nigam noted that MySpace has options to prevent some copying and privacy settings, and that the legal responsibility probably lies with the third party. He also (correctly) stressed that this another example of a need for education.  Nigam is totally on top of this. "If someone calls you and tries to kill you, you call the police, not sue the phone company."

Magid wrapped things up by pointing out that there is information that maybe he wouldn't put online himself, and education is definitely a solution. 

Great panel. Hopefully more from some of the panelists later.


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Another artfully moderated Steve Wildstrom panel.

L-R: Jim Davis (CIO, UCLA), Zahavah Levine (Chief Counsel, Youtube), Vance Ikezoye (CEO, Audible Magic), Jim Williams (SVP/CTO, MPAA)

This panel on the DMCA looked to be an angry one, but turned out to be pretty civil. 

Interesting fact, YouTube has proprietary technology for identifying copyrighted works. 

Everyone seemed to agree that on the whole, the DMCA has been good, but the trend towards "pre-litigation litgation" has been frustrating, but irrelevant from a consumer standpoint. Interestingly, it has pulled Universities (as ISPs) into the middle, but allowed them to influence a new aspect of education on copyrights and IP. 

Wildstrom brought up the anti-circumvention rules, and noted that as a consumer, if he buys a DVD, he wants to watch it how he wants to (not reproduce it), and mentioned the common law right of first sale. If he wants to watch a DVD on his MacBook Air without an optical drive, how can he do that without breaking the DMCA? 

Jim Williams from the MPAA said that the problem wasn't DRM or DMCA, but the lack of foresight on the part of those who created the DVD standard over ten years ago. He pointed out that Blu-Ray's encryption (AACS) lets you make "managed copies" and should fix this problem. 

DMCA is ten years old. Wildstrom asked what the panel would change in copyright law.

Levine (YouTube) would allow for easier grants of blanket licenses on a mass scale due to the structure of the music rights in the U.S. You need recording rights, the composition rights which is almost impossible and the way the publishing industry developed (performing versus reproducing versus distributing). She noted that a webcaster needs a license for the streamed copy, publishing rights, and a performance license for the streaming. There is also no database of who owns what music.  In contrast, Radio broadcasters have compulsory licenses for mechanical royalties, and zero performance royalties. Levine thinks compulsory licenses would be a good idea, and let more musicians get paid. 

Williams (MPAA) said they don't want any more compulsory licenses and want to roll back a few by systems by which people can do business depending on the content. He'd also like to see more legal incentive for ISPs to do more about "massive, large-scale infringement" and seemed to call out Jim Davis from UCLA, asking how much of his network was used for P2P sharing. He also claimed that if you filter out copyrighted works, almost all P2P network traffic disappears, and the internet is "clogged with stolen goods....with free riders that are hogging bandwidth and taking it away from legitimate consumers." He also appeared to criticize Richard Lynch from Verizon for screening out Child Porn but not policing P2P traffic for infringing content, and called for ISPs to "unclog the internet." When I challenged him on this comparison, he backed up and said that there were good uses for P2P, and efforts should be made to stop the illegal uses. I'm not sure that I was entirely fair because the issue is one that got me rather annoyed, and my question may have been a bit too pointed (I quoted Joseph Welch. Maybe that was a bit over the line.) Mr Williams later asked if we could speak later on the subject, and I agreed because I want to be fair, so we should have an interview with him up soon. He was very eager to get his message across, and I suspect that we'll have a much more productive conversation outside of a "sound-byte" environment.

Wildstrom noted that many TV shows can't get onto DVD because of problems with music rights (I want the Wonder Years! Now!). This is a problem, and he noted that only a tiny fraction of movies are available because of this. He said that "less would get stolen if more were available legally." Applause line. 

With regard to the TV Music problem, after Wildstrom pointed out that rights to a ton of music from the 60's is still in litigation, Vance Ikezoye from Audible Magic chimed in and said that there are efforts in place to develop technology to create and maintain a database of rights ownership, since records of publishing rights are scattered to the winds.

Jim Davis added that a reason that many Universities don't block content is because they can educate rather than enforce, and that a lot of P2P content is both legal and useful. Ms. Levine pointed out that after they remove videos they get lots of angry users who don't understand copyright law, and that citizens aren't being trained in copyright law in a social media age. With their filtering technology, they don't use it to just block videos blindly, because they need to collaborate with content owners to find out who owns what and what rights the owners will give users. Many users of their identification technology let them monetize their content, not blocking it. Very cool, and very Web 2.0
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I arrived late to this talk because I was finishing out an interview, but as I walked in Mr. Lynch is noting (correctly) that Verizon's mission is to be "at the forefront of customer demand." This, he says, is the reason behind Verizon's Open Access initiative. 

He says that customers want the devices they are going to want, and that the focus is going to be on building the best network possible for those devices, and simply certifying that the device will be compatible on a minimal level. 

Lynch said that the requirements are not so different from the model they use to certify devices sold in stores, but without subsidies. The subsidies will not go away, and the consumer will be able to choose. On the other hand, Verizon and their subsidized phones will continue to provide another level of user experience.

When asked by interviewer Steven Wildstrom if this was genuine, or just getting in front of the FCC, he said that while people are cynical and those minds can't be changed, Verizon's ODI initiative has been on the drawing board for over a year, in response to customer demand.

When asked about P2P and Comcast, he said that they recognized that P2P providers and customers can either fight with ISPs, or live together in a productive way. He announced that a large problem is how large a resource simply finding the files is. Lynch said that if he can work with P2P providers to develop search algorithms that work better with networks, both can improve effectiveness and speed...in trials, this concept has increased performance by 60% and it's in the works. 

In response to a question, Lynch noted that bring-your-own-phone users would not need contracts. 

Moving over to FiOS, Wildstrom asked how it was ging and when it would go rural. Lynch noted that it would be reaching 60% of Verizon households, and that they can project getting it out to more than 60%, but want to hit that customer base over time in order to provide quality service.

He noted that FiOS is "future-proof" because it's a passive fiber service and that they can increase the capacity by improving the electronics, and they'd be able to keep ramping it up as technology improves. Also, he pointed out that FiOS is symmetrical, and that the bottleneck is in terms of their inter-office connectivity, not to the home.

Also, he announced that Verizon would be moving to IPTV for FiOS-TV distribution.

In response to a question about the role of ISPs in combatting botnets, he replied that it's a matter of network control and management. They aren't doing alot and letting the end links to protect themselves. 

He also noted that the only thing that Verizon blocks at the network level is Child Pornography. No complaints here.
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We've taken a break from discussing spectrum and stuff and moved on to good things the Internet is used for. Up there, we've got Craig Newmark of Craigslist. 

Newmark opened by talking about all the good things on Craigslist and people in general, and that the percentage of "bad people" out there is very small and disproportionate to the press they get. "People are ok." 

Newmark really didn't talk much about Craigslist, and preferred to mention that most of his work is with "customer service" and that he wants to speak up on behalf of people that are doing good things, such as the Sunlight foundation. He pointed out that last night he thanked Howard Berman for his support of the new GI bill. 

When asked why he doesn't run Craigislist, he said "frankly, as a manager, I suck...it's important in many aspects of out lives to get out of the way..."

He considers all the attention he gets to be a bit surreal, but is considerably humble and low-key. I note that his business card says "Customer Service Representative and Founder." That's it. 

When asked if he had to pick his top two internet issues, here is what he said:

First off, he mentioned the Sunlight Foundation and Larry Lessig and their efforts to change Congress, but also took the time to defend lobbyists, who for the most part are just trying to do their job for their clients, as opposed to those who give the industry a bad name via astroturfing and whatnot, and called for more transparency. He doesn't want to tar the entire Lobbying industry. When asked where he puts telecom lobbyists, he talked about his efforts to deal with them on abuse support issues for customer service, and that alot of these companies are "trying to do the right thing" and that the "big problem...is the lobbyists who have dine astroturf work have confused the discussion and pissed off a lot of people...and it's hard to discuss the issues in a way that can solve problems." 

On Net Neutrality, Newmark realized that both sides know they need to do things differently, and that if people on both sides sit down and talk "without people who try to set up arguments" than things could get done. His pet issue is the handling of abusers by ISPs and "how they deal with bad guys." Newmark says that many telecoms and corporations have understaffed abuse departments, that they know it, and want to do more to protect people and help the good guy.

When asked why he just doesn't walk into the CEO's office, he said that he's still trying to learn corporate culture, and by dealing with the workers, he learns things that are more important. 

He doesn't have a personal assistant, but has a travel agent. Wow, this guy is humble, and great. (I'm hoping he'll give me a few minutes later today).

If he wasn't doing craiglist, he has no idea what he would do, but he believes the company would do just fine. He'd simply spend his time on his other personal efforts. 

When asked what the role for government regulation of the 'net, he said that the goal should be to "maintain a level playing field..." 

He pointed out that despite his libertarian leanings, there are areas (like roads and health care) that Government should play a role, especially when companies make profits using public resources (i.e. airwaves). He noted is that the telecoms realize they are using the public airwaves, and know they need to do right by the public. Newmark is "all for them making a profit in a non-abusive manner." 

When talking about corporate culture, he cited Scott Adams as one of the most important corporate psychologists of our time. Genius. 

Also, Newmark noted that despite eBay's ownership of a stake in Craigslist, the two companies don't interact much and they get along. With regard to his effect on newspaper classified revenues, the myth that Craigslist is killing them is just that, a myth, says Newmark. In a tip of the hat to my favorite TV show, ever, he pointed to David Simon's portrayal of newspaper life on The Wire as accurate.

Craigslist, to him, is about "doing what's right" and while that may be boring, looks to be doing quite well doing right and helping to do right.

One thing that really strikes me as great about Newmark is that he's so damn optimistic about people. When asked if he's naive, he said that his exposure to "the bad stuff' has made him aware of more of the good stuff and made him more optimistic about the vast majority in people. 

"I wouldn't give my troubles to a monkey on a rock."


Bonus Round! Craig was nice enough to talk to me for a few minutes, and here he is...
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(panel L-R: Calabrese, Knapp, Brandon, Wilkie with moderator Chong at podium)

Former FCC Commissioner and California Public Utilities Commissioner Rachelle Chong moderated a panel on the future of Wireless, but started by asking for comments on the Comcast-Vuze settlement.

Caroyn Brandon of CTIA started off by nothing that the market will figure out problems and the settlement is "fantastic."

Michael Calabrese of the Wireless Future Program pointed out that protocol-agnostic management is a good thing, and was quite happy to hear that Comcast will be working with the IETF, but it remains to be seen "whether it will go far enough."

Brandon asked him what that meant, to which he replied a "common sense non-discrimination principle."

Brian Knapp from Loopt noted that collaborative efforts were the only solution. Of course, Chong correctly noted that the "devil is in the details." There's a meeting next month at Stanford, we'll see if it happens.

With regard to wireless open access, Chong asked of the panel agreed with McD's assertion that Open Access discouraged bidders.

Calabrese immediately disagreed, noting that his organization asked for wholesale access, not the "wireless carterphone" and that wholesale would have helped those smaller providers. (note, Google originally wanted wholesale, not Carterphone-style regs). Calebrese said that Verizon or AT&T would have won regardless, and that Open Access was a "nice regulatory nudge" as noted by Verizon's "preemptive strike." 

Ms. Brandon jumped back in on open access and said that it defeated the FCC's own objectives, and that the market demonstrated that the requirements were irrelevant. 

Chong asked Mr. Knapp about loopt, where they allow people to "share their location." and what difficulties they had getting adopted by carriers, and if they expected regulatory problems. He responded that he didn't want to have all six carriers rolling out at once, and that they are still very much a "start-up." They're on Sprint-Nextel and Boost, and their cooperative partnership has been beneficial, regardless of Open Access because it allows them to hold each other to high standards. 

Next question from Chong: does Wireless have enough spectrum? She brings up White Spaces, and that Sprint and AT&T wanted White Spaces licensed, while others want them to be left open on an unlicensed basis. What is better? Unlicensed, or auctions?

Simon Wilkie responded to the previous question that he isn't allowed to express his opinion on it. On White Spaces, he thinks we should "Split the Baby" and that in response to NAB opposition, we should make use of it. He also noted that licensing it would lead to less use based on economic principles, and pointed to the 700mhz auction as an example. It would be a bad idea to allocate all that spectrum to one provider, especially considering how useful it is. 

Calabrese agreed, saying that "the greatest innovation and consumer welfare results from diversity in technology and business models" and that he believes that a mixture of licensed and unlicensed spectrum will lead to the best space for innovation. He says that we need good spectrum available for multiple uses. 

Chong moved onto municipal Wi-Fi, noting that Earthlink has killed its' municipal Wi-Fi operations, but Comcast might invest in that sector. She asks if the movement will survive. 

Brandon (CTIA) jumped in quickly and noted that the problem is not technological, but a failure in business models. 

Another question concerned "all you can eat programs" and whether they would take over for voice and replace "minute" charges and many wired services. The panel seemed to agree that this would be a positive movement. On the other hand, Wilkie asked if wireline services could respond and innovate and converge more. 

One question from the audience was on mobile advertising, and was is the "holy grail" in that regard. Brandon said that many advertisers want mobile eyeballs, and advertisers' frustration is with purposing the ads to be consistent across platforms, and what is the right revenue model? She noted that it's important that customers not pay for ads.

Knapp said that ads could be a fantastic development allowing for lower cost service. He expressed sympathy for Facebook's Beacon, and noted that advertising to phones are coming, but they have to be provided as part of a service and that user experience with the ads is key. He's very excited about the potential for mobile advertising. 

When a Tony Wasserman from CMU described the U.S. as a "third world country" wirelessly w/r/t location based services, Loopt's Knapp replied that location based services were coming. Brandon blamed the problem on the FCC's E911 rules. Simon Wilkie noted that much of the 3G spectrum is still tied up in Government users who won't say when they're giving up the spectrum they've been required to have vacated for years.

Robert Pepper from Cisco jumped in to quickly note that despite the lack of a D block auction success, there is a large block reserved for public safety.

Larry Magid asked why people should trust companies to make agreements vis-a-vis Comcast-Vuze, and Brandon noted that FCC should be a last resort, and there are not just two companies involved, that there would be a whole consortium. Calabrese pointed out that the complaint is still before the FCC, and that they still may act.




Robert McDowell

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"We are privileged to live in the most exciting time ever in the history of communications..."

1/2 of the worlds population has a mobile phone. 3.3 billion phones, 6.6 billion people. Many of those phones have more computing power than an Apollo spacecraft. WIth Moore's law and better spectrum use (which doubles every 2.5 years), we can improve.

Internet usage increases...Yahoo! uses more bandwidth than the entire 'net did alone a few years ago. CBS' March Madness site has grown 109% since last year.

McDowell presumes that no one can keep track of the chaos in the marketplace...especially not 5 unelected bureaucrats.

"Regulation should be saved for market failure..."

McDowell presented the WGA strike as an example of how the New Media market has become ubiquitous, citing how they shut down television over royalties from online downloads, and that the market has provided "a la carte" programming through sides like Hulu.

He sees this trend moving to mobile, also. 

Regarding an a la carte mandate, McDowell believes that consumers would pay more and get less, and that according to one analyst, ESPN could cost $25/month under a la carte.

Why was this a question? Why didn't it happen?

First, he believes a la carte violates the first amendment. Also, consumers need big pipes of content is to be ubiquitous, because 5% of users consume 90% of bandwidth. This isn't just an American problem. 1% of Japanese users consume 50% of broadband. McDowell observed that pirated content is a big part of that bandwidth. (he referred to the Comcast-Bittorrent settlement announced today.)

(more on that later)

McDowell said he's not convinced that the BitTorrent matter is moot, but that Net Neutrality advocates should "be careful what they wish for" 

He asked if now is the time to "discard the Wiki model" of the Internet that has led to its' success? He believes that success has come through market forces. He speculates that if government had regulated broadband, we'd be using ISDN.

With regard to content provider and broadband disclosure, he believes that the private sector should take the lead, and cites the Comcast settlement as an example.

McDowell thinks that the best way to help is competition. Example? 700mhz auction. While he said the goal was to bring "new blood" into the market (Verizon? AT&T? nice job.) he feels that the Open Access requirement hampered the bidding and kept more companies out because it's a "government mandate." 

McDowell wonders if the Open Access requirement pushed small companies out, and points out the C block and B block prices per population in a DMA were very different. 

His concern was that it traded smaller and rural providers for the "speculative gains" of an open access network. He also says open access was coming anyway, pointing to T-Mobile's Wi-FI/GSM phones, and Android. What he's ignoring is that without Open Access, providers could just ban them. Also, was Verizon going to do "any app, any device" before the Open Access requirement? That's a chicken and egg scenario.

He says that the Open Access was to bring in a new party, and it never happened. However, with spectral efficiency doubling, he thinks a future FCC will allow entrepreneurs to enter the wireless broadband market. Example: TV White Spaces. He thinks we should let "science and science alone" resolve the issue. McDowell is very, very optimistic about White Spaces. Good.

"We are living in a market-driven, on-demand world..."

"We should resist the temptation to think government can outsmart a market...and be mindful of the law of unintended consequences."

When asked if given authority for 3 changes he'd make, he said that he believes the FCC is "well functioning." One change he would make is with regard to the sunshine in government act, and he would allow more than 2 Commissioners to meet with each other to discuss issues. He believes the requirement breaks down collegiality and information flow, and that their advisors can meet, but the Commissioners cannot. He'd also like private parties to speak to each other more before asking the FCC to intervene. Not bad.

In response to questioning, McDowell does not believe that broadband providers are not inherently anticompetitive w/r/t network management. He's not sure that the FCC governing the Internet is not the right way to go. 

When challenged on the fact that the telecoms were going to open access and only embraced it after the ruling, he responded that the telecoms were not opposed to the "concept, only the mandate." He'd rather let the telecoms speak for themselves. 

Link Hoswing from Verizon got up and did say that Verizon had been looking at open access for more than a year because they saw it as a growth opportunity.

I'm going to try and get some time with the Commissioner later, but he seems quite reasonable. Very impressive.
Well, no live video, but we're about to get going. Leading off is FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell (R). On deck are some luminaries in Wireless like Loopt's Brian Knapp, Former FCC Commissioner Rachelle Chong, "The" Craig Newmark of Craigslist, Verizon's Richard Lynch, and more.

Of course, we'll have some live reports, and the ubiquitous Flickr feed.

You're free to link or use my photos if you provide attribution to Andrew Feinberg and Capitol Valley, and a link back to the site if you're feeling generous. I hope you enjoy it.

Oh yeah, first off we've got a video from Vivian Redding (EU/ICT). She's espousing the virtues of convergence and inter-European cooperation.

Interesting claim: convergence is defined by the choices that we make as industries, and the winners will be those who listen to their customers, and who innovate.

"Listen and Create...we therefore need to be open, flexible, and keep looking forward." 

She correctly notes that the regulations on technology need to gybe with each other, and allow for innovation. 

Proposed in EU:

Secures Consumer Rights
Better Regulation (simplify and give better tools for national regulators)
Secure the market by giving power to a central EU authority that doesn't diminish regulator's power.

Example w/ online content - make it possible to license online cntent across countries. Also, excited about the spectrum available as DTV ramps up there.

Good video, on to McDowell!

New Shows on Kyte

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Scroll through, because we have 3 new shows up -
Coverage of the Future of Wide-Area Public Broadband panle and CongressDaily's Andrew Noyes interviewing Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA).  Also, the "Best of" of Andrew' sphoto coverage of the Tech Policy Summit, Day One.

Another Podcast in the Can

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We just wrapped up our BlogTalkRadio podcast.  We went over a little of the goings on at the Tech Policy Summit.  This podcast was special because we were joined by Mark Hopkins of Mashable.com.  For those of you who aren't down with Mashable, it's a blog with a focus on all things Web 2.0.

As is the norm with our podcasts we had a wonderful road map of where we were going to take it and then went wildly off course.  The most notable and, I think, interesting topic that we talked about was the ability of blogs to target niche audiences as opposed to old media outlets like newspapers and magazines who need to appeal to a lowest common denominator.  I mean, when's the last time you picked up a magazine or newspaper and read every article?  While most blogs won't attain the sheer number of visitors that a major media outlet site might they tend to generate a higher quality of visitor.  They type of visitor who visits the site multiple times per day.  The type of visitor who has to has to has to take in all of your content.  That also got us talking about how good content is the key.

Another topic we talked about was focus.  How, for instance, ads on web sites aren't really as targeted as they'd have you believe.  Sure, an ad on Facebook will shove products that you should like because your friends bought them, but if you were really interested in that product you'd seek it out on your own.  How often have you seen an ad on a website and actually bought a product that, until seeing that ad, you weren't really aware of.  Another focus issue is the direction your site or company takes.  Look at Twitter vs Facebook - Twitter does one thing and does it really, really well.  Facebook seems to have something new going on every 10 minutes, most of which have an update or a fix coming out the next day.

Tonight's podcast is here.
For all of the Capitol Valley podcasts check out blogtalkradio.com/Capitol-Valley.

Alex and I are in the same time zone! You can listen here and even call in at (347) 945-5989!

Call in and chat!

(347) 945-5989 
We still haven't received our DTV Converter Box coupons yet, but at least one attorney is glad we haven't. Peter Tannwald of Fletcher, Heald & Hildredth, attorney for the Community Broadcasters Association, which represents "Class A" and Low Power TV broadcasters, is the lead counsel in a lawsuit filed this week against the FCC, which alleges that the converter boxes made available illegally prevent consumers from receiving Class A and Low Power stations, which aren't required to convert to Digital next February. 


In the filing, Tannenwald notes that most television stations in the U.S. are actually not going all Digital next year.


...the majority of stations providing over-the-air television service to the U.S. public 

are not "full-service" stations.  As noted above, of the 8,881 broadcast television licenses issued  and outstanding, only 1,759 are "full-service" stations subject to the mandatory DTV transition on February 17, 2009.  The remaining 7,122 television stations are Class A or LPTV or TV Translator stations for which a digital conversion deadline has yet to be established.  The vast majority of those thousands of lower-power, non-"full-service" stations will not be converting to  DTV operation in February 17, 2009, or anytime soon after that, and will continue to broadcast their programs in analog format. 



The CBA is basing its case on a 1962 law (the All-Channel Receiver Act of 1962, Public Law. Number 870529) that requires all devices that receive television signals to be able to receive all available channels. Even the FCC said in 2002 that all televisions on the market need to be able to receive both Analog and Digital. I know my TV (purchased last February) has both Analog and Digital tuners. It would make sense that the converter boxes still be allowed to recieve analog signals, since there will still be analog TV, and the law says that such a device needs to recieve all available channels, right?

 
It's also noteworthy that many LPTV stations serve predominantly Spanish-speaking and minority communities, and are owned by independent broadcasters. 

So, if the law says that devices need to receive all signals, and 7,122 out of the 8,881 TV signals that will be broadcast after February 17, 2009 will still be analog, you would think any of the the converter boxes that I can get with that coupon that I haven't received would still let me get that analog signal, just like the law says, right? Nope. Only SIX of them allow a so-called "pass-through," according to the Associated Press

Six of the converter boxes that have been approved for sale by the NTIA allow for an analog "pass-through" feature. According to the NTIA, they are the Philco TB150HH9, the Philco TB100HH9, the ECHOSTAR TR-40, the Magnavox TB-100MG9, the Digital Stream DX8700 and the Digital Stream DSP7700T.
I haven't seen any of them in stores, and neither has Mr. Tannenwald. I talked to him at his Washington home this evening by phone, and he explained to me the severity of the problem, how we got here, and what should be done about it.



Let's hope this gets resolved so viewers of those 7,122 stations can watch them next year. 
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Host Steve Wildstrom is introducing them, and I'm going to take pictures, but I will liveblog as I can. Here we go:

5:45pm: Noyes is introducing Congressman Berman...talks about his gift for creating bipartisan coalitions. Expert on pretty much everything. Here he is!

Andrew starts with Patent Reform. Berman is concerned about "business method" patents...the system is broken, and they're trying to fix it, along with Rich Boucher (D-VA)

Berman has brought up patent trolls and damages. He's obviously a BlackBerry addict. That's how they got the Damage Apportionment part of the bill...to reduce the financial incentive for trolls.

The bill also harmonizes our law with International Patent law. He thinks the bill has "kept faith" with the goals, and it's in the hands of the Senate now. He has faith in Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) to get it through. Hoping no conference. 

Four Senate Issues:

A) Damages
B) Post-Grant Review
C) Venue - no more Eastern Texas?
D) People who oppose B and C still want changes (doctrine of inequitable conduct, etc)

On Damages: the damages awarded must be related to the value of the component infringed, not withstanding willful infringement. They will not back down on this. 

Noyes: Can you handicap the Bill's chances? Is this must-pass for the 110th?

Berman: If it waits, it will wait for someone else because of Tom Lantos (D-CA)'s passing. He won't be the Judiciary Subcommittee Chairman next year. Pelosi wants is done. Reid wants it done. Republicans want it done. The problems will be worked out, because everyone believes there must be reform. "We can sort through these issues."

Now on to the PRO-IP Act. Noyes notes the damages provision was stripped out. Berman maintains that damages were enhanced in other areas, and the bill will move ahead. Bush Administration needs to get more focused on the value of IP in terms of the economy.

"Digital and Hard Copy Piracy of Copyrighted Works is a Very Serious Problem..."

Berman wants the USDOJ more engaged on enforcing IP and Anti-Piracy/Anti-Counterfeiting. Supporting coalition includes unions, various companies, law enforcement, etc. He wants the White House to coordinate enforcement.

Noyes asks if the current group is not meeting expectations. Berman isn't dismissive, but believes the priority should be higher because IP is "essential to our own economic future."

Berman believes it will pass this Congress.

Berman also considers Orphan Works an issue, and will could roll the bill into either the Patent or IP bill.

Noyes asked who will Chair the Subcommittee next year. Berman isn't going to endorse anyone just yet. He's excited about Chairing Foreign Affairs, and notes that there are still IP issues under that Committee and provides him with a whole new arsenal. "We can use force!"

When I asked Congressman Berman if he had advice for start-ups looking to avoid regulation or excessive scrutiny, he said that there can be a "sweet spot" for new technology, and as long as people do "what is right" and don't try and blatantly make money off of other people's IP wthout recompense, there would be room for people to innovate.


Pictures on Flickr.

I walked into this panel expecting a redux of a Politics Online keynote. Instead, some interesting insights from this panel:

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The gist of the discussion (more later when I'm not pressed for time) was that the solution will not be 700mhz or White Spaces, and that we need to put more research and effort into developing new ideas and solutions to deploy more network in more places. 

Like I said, more later. Next, expect a write-up and live Flickr photos of Andrew Noyes' conversation with Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA)

Another great panel I got to late (since I was at the last one). 

Left to Right (picture to come)

Mozelle Thompson (host)
John Thomaszewski, VP Policy/Compliance, TRUSTe
Shawn Broderick, CEO, TrustPlus
J.R. Reagan, VP and Managing Director, Bearing Point

I walked in as Facebook came up, and the topic was liability for third party use of information you post, including a lawsuit where someone sued for using someone's likeness off of Facebook w/o permission. (Full Disclosure: Thompson is a consultant for Facebook). I'd note that Facebook's TOS lets them use your picture to promote them.

Of course, the discussion led to generational differences in sharing of information, my favorite topic, aka "audit trails." I asked the Panel the question that I've been asking for weeks now, in that whether or not these online "life audit trails" will be a problem and how to deal with them.

Also, who owns the data?

Both Thompson and Thomaszewski (who w/ TRUSTe certifies Facebook's privacy practices) noted that the Terms of Service and Privacy Policies need to gybe, and that a generational shift is needed to get people totally comfortable with as it was put, "more truth, all the time."

Good answers. 

I like Facebook, I like the people. I'm getting more convinced on their earnestness on privacy. I still want to know about Data Portability, but the more I hear about their privacy concepts, the more I trust them. 

There are some good things happening. I may be a skeptic, but they're bringing me around.

News Flash - Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN-5) has joined Larry Lessig's Change Congress Project.

I'm in a fantastic panel on using Social Media for policy, both corporate communications and for public policy issues and transparency. Panelists (from R-L when I get the picture up, my setup is balking because I'm so deep in a metal building) are:

Ellen Miller - Exec. Director, The Sunlight Foundation
John Earnhardt - Senior Manager, Global Media Operations, Cisco Systems
JD Lasica - CEO, Ourmedia.org
David Kralik - IT Director, American Solutions

I walked in late, but just late enough to hear Ms. Miller talk about Congresspedia and other projects, including one that the Sunlight foundation is launching to allow Members of Congress to post their financial disclosures and other info online.

Earnhardt talked about Cisco's blog and how they've used it to get the word out about policy issues.

Kralik works for Newt Gingrich's project to create a "more positive dialogue" online, American Solutions, which is founded by former Speaker Gingrich (R-GA) is a project that wants to use technology to create bipartisan, open platforms that candidates can support and sign on to. It allows people to submit all kinds of polling data and firsthand accounts of how they are affected by public policy issues (e.g. health care). Another way is collecting real-time data and proposed solutions to other issues (wiki-style), such as making English the official language of the U.S. (87% support it, although that's been accused of being a Frank Luntz number.

Kralik made an interesting comparison to eBay in that American Solutions (a 527 group) posts their financial disclosures monthly, which goes far beyond the IRS requirements. 

Trivia item: Newt launched the project in Second Life, and they're active in that world as well, wanting to build a "virtual island" for legislators to meet. Kralick (and possibly Newt) believes virtual worlds allow for massive possibilities for transparency and open meetings.

Their goal is to get all 513,000 elected officials in the U.S. involved (number from 1992 Census data). 

Many people look at Newt as a kind of GOP boogeyman. In reality, he was a historian before he was a politician, and was always more of an "idea man" than a political animal. I like the idea. When i asked Kralik to clarify, in a nutshell, Gingrich wants a "multi-partisan or tri-partisan (incl independents) effort to have ordinary people submit policy proposals and solutions have "the cream rise to the top" (my words, not his). Very, very cool.

The moderator (Lasica) wanted to know if there were precautions to prevent vandalism and astroturfing. While Kralik noted that American Solutions allows for "wild west style" Wikis, Miller pointed out that Congresspedia has two full-time editors. All agreed that the "fear" of websites being trashed has not been validated.

Miller pointed out that when they made transparency information a game "guess who employs their own spouse" people got alot more "into it." Very cool. It lets people play investigative reporter, as moderator Lasica put it.

Onto the next panel!


The Community Broadcasters Association has filed a lawsuit asking the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to halt distribution of boxes that don't allow consumers to receive low power TV signals, which do not have to switch to DTV next February.

More when I can get a hold of the court documents.

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This panel (a good one) is about how much tech policy will influence the next President. Panelists include:

Tony Perkins - AlwaysOn
Andrew Rasiej, Personal Democracy Forum
Alec Ross, former editor of Red Herring.
Rick White, former Congressman and now of the Wood Bay Group


Rick White noted that tech policy does not drive public policy. 

The Red Herring rep noted that then Governor Bush said that 1/3rd of startups in the Valley are started by immigrants, and that President Bush was in favor of immigration helping to foster innovation. #1 Tech Issue is Innovation and that McCain and Bush have been unfairly attacked, but better policy is necessary for a "tech president."

Another interesting note: Broadband is classified as an "entertainment service" and therefore cannot be brought into public housing using public funds, and that there has not been any ear in the White House to fix this. The three remaining '08 candidates understand that Broadband policy is quite important for our economic future.

Andrew Rasiej from PDF asked if we'd solved the digital divide. He noted that the definition of "wired" has changed, and that 10 years ago a business card w/o an email address would not be unusual. He also noted that the "digital divide" goes beyond simply connecting people, it means empowering people to use it. 

Rick White asked if the money would be better spent on school lunches. Interesting for a panel on Tech Policy. 

The moderator, Sarah Lai Stirland asked what the role of Lobbyists would be for a "Tech President" and noted that Sen. McCain and Clinton have massive amounts of telecom lobbyists on their campaigns. While acknowledging their legitimate role, she asked about the proper role.

Alec Ross would (rightly) not say anything that damns them (lobbyists), saying that they do play an important role. The question for him is "what is the balance?" and called for transparency in communication between legislators, regulators, and lobbyists. He noted that Senator McCain had sent letters on behalf of Paxon Communications (now ION Media Networks) to all five FCC Commissioners regarding the DTV Transition, and wondered if those letters could be made automatically public (since right now they are available, but only after a FOIA request).  Congressman White noted that he didn't see a reason why these types of communications between public officials should be public.

I challenged him on this and got no valid answer, especially when I pointed out that McCain was acting on behalf of a donor, not a constituent (ION does not operate any Arizona stations) and that the delay in the DTV transition has harmed the ability of first responders to have interoperable communications. 


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I've missed too much of the Trade and Protectionism panel to do a good write-up (although I've got a few good photos on Flickr), but my time away from that panel was well spent.

I sat down with Prith Banerjee (a panelist this morning) and Gary Fazzino, VP of Government Affairs at H-P, to talk about the role of Government in "incubating" new innovations with the help of academia and the private sector, as well as how new technology and entrepreneurs can avoid the pitfalls of bad PR that leads to bad legislation.

You can listen to it here:




H-P is often derided as a dinosaur, but these guys absolutely get it. I hope I'll have the opportunity to chat with them again.
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This is a straight-up keynote speech. He's going to talk about what the threats to both IP and Innovation are.

Big point - mislabeling of IP as an legal asset as opposed to a business asset. 

We need to protect both the rights of businesses and individuals, but also figure out what the risks are to the legal community.

USPTO has some initiatives to help:

1) Accelerated examination - hiring 1,200 engineers a year but still not keeping up with the backlog. Can guarantee review within 12 months if applicants meet certain conditions to make the patent easy to review. One case had an approval within 17 days.

Despite pressure to focus on the "important applications," USPTO has to look at each individual one. That's their job, that's the law.

Also, despite working in a global world, patents are not global. It's country to country. USPTO is the best in the world (his words, not mine) and protection isn't as strong or institutions aren't as good in many countries. A "worldwide patent" is a long, long way off, and for good reason. Countries are not ready to give a sovereign grant of a property right away to another country. Remember, USPTO's function is in the Constitution, people. 

We do have reciprocal "patent highways" with other countries, ie Japan. 3-4 years knocked down to a few months because Japanese examiners trust U.S. examiners. We can streamline our systems by establishing trust, and we're expanding it to Canada, UK, EU, Korea, etc. 

Also working on bringing "large players" into "best practices for IP." Notes that China is a bigger player in patent applications now, and has 3rd largest patent office. Korea has 4th largest. We need to bring China and Korea "into the fold." We want to expand even further. 

Can we have a guaranteed time frame in those 5 economies? We can try. One process, high-quality examination by trusted examiners. We're also working with WIPO to make a local process more global and cost effective. 

Biggest threat is bad ideas getting into USPTO. Approval rate is around 62%, it's declined from a 72% high to 43% because they're throwing out more junk patents. 

Notes the standard is "new, useful, and non-obvious." Executives want patents because Wall Street loves more patent applications. USPTO is not so into that, especially if the applications aren't patentable. 

Standards organizations are also wondering how many patents they have to deal with. It's becoming a problem, and not promoting innovation. 

One solution: raise the price? We have to subsidize innovation, but do it the right way. Price is $1k, costs $4k. Subsidized by "maintenance fees" paid by patent holders. Less than 50% of patents are approved. So, it's easy to apply for a poor quality patent. Patent reform bill would require further due diligence. They need to justify "why does this need a patent?" 

I asked about the Sessions Amendment to the Patent Reform legislation, regarding the "Check 21" patent. Dudas made it clear that the Bush Administration opposes the amendment despite its' benefit to the banking industry (shocking, I know) because they really do want the Patent system to remain technology-neutral and not favor any kind of technology or industry.


Kyte Channel Updates

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Here's some awesome photo coverage of the Tech Policy Summit in Los Angeles.  As always, Andrew's talent with the camera is mind-blowing.

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Paul Jacobs is talking, I'm a bit late, but I've stumbled into a discussion on patent reform.

As we know, Qualcomm holds lots of patents (which they've licensed!!) but they also get sued alot. The other day they got slammed in the Eastern District of Texas (no surprise there) and are having problems with their WCDMA chips. He does think, however, that the current patent reform legislation might go too far (incl the post-grant review and the apportionment issues) and might hurt innovation. There is a middle ground.

Interviewer (Steve Wildstrom - Business Week) is alluding to patent trolls and how long these cases take. Jacobs does a good job of taking it apart that by noting that the judges might not be as sophisticated as they need to be.

Moving on, Qualcomm is moving into broadcast TV via their MediaFlow subsidiary, broadcast to mobile phones using regular DTV technology. 

Jacobs isn't pleased at how fast it's moving (Verizon is the only taker) and wants more advertising, and he thinks they need to build the network out more. They're working on it, and the FCC has been quite nice about it. He's surprised that people use the service so often, and then the peaks of usage are. 

Note - the Killer App for mobile access on PDAs was when he used his 1x PDA to find the best Sushi restaurant in Maui.

Next topic - Verizon's developer conference for Open Access. Wildstrom notes that Verizon is amenable to multiple device contracts. How will that change the game?

A: This will enable multiple distribution channels and content providers. Talks about a built-in modem for laptops that will use multiple technologies. Compares to Amazon Kindle. In the voice world, there is a prepaid Skype Wi-Fi/3G phone in the UK. Why don't we have that? As long as you top off your prepaid card, you can make free Skype calls. Voice is becoming a smaller and smaller part of network costs, and Skype is a weapon against churn. He expects more of this.

Q: There is a surplus of wireless spectrum (really?) in the U.S. Are we using it as well as we should? Can we fix this w/ better technology?

A: This requires rebuilding the OTA networks and how they connect to the POTS network. The bottleneck is the old-line phone companies and landline owners. The wires are a huge fixed costs. Alludes to the massive amount of spectrum offered, the Google White Space proposals, etc. 

(ed. note: Steve Wildstrom is not Sara Lacy. Good questions. Very good questions)

Jacobs wants more use of White Spaces. Good for him. Big picture - voice is no longer the killer app.

Q: What's Qualcomm's take on Immigration policy?

A: Jacobs is frightened that we train people, make them leave, and then send Venture Capital money back to where the talent is. This is scary. We need many, many more H1-B Visas (the 80k approved as of April 1 will be all gone that day). 60% of new Engineering grads are foreign born. Why can't we keep them? It's scary. Qualcomm has 400 applications for H1-B visas, and figures they will get half. Wants DHS to extend the "optional practical training" period to give them more time to retain people. This isn't taking jobs from Americans. There aren't enough people to fill the jobs! We need more smart people, and we should take who we can get!

Q: Do policymakers get that we can bring the workers to jobs, or send jobs to the workers?

A: It's become too politicized. People get it, but it's too emotional and tied to other immigration issues. We need to step back a bit.

Question from Andrew Noyes from CongressDaily: What is the ideal patent reform bill?

A: Long answer...here it comes - 

1. Don't change the burden of proof for post-grant review.
2. Don't change the apportionment standard - charge on the overall value of the product. It would also allow courts to disregard the history of the market. 

Next question: re iPhone SDK
A: The question of third party apps will be an interesting issue both for network operators and handset manufacturers. Apple might have right idea. We're going to need a balance between openness and security.

I asked a question re iPhone and Open Systems, referencing Zittrain's book. Jacobs gave a great answer in saying that he sees a wide range of possibilities for both open and closed systems, and that the market will decide what consumers want in terms of openness versus security.


More later...need to take a breath.

Here's the scoop from Reuters

...

Verizon said consumers should be able to switch from cable as easily as they can change phone companies. Phone companies accept cancellations from rival providers, but many cable companies require consumers to submit disconnection orders themselves.

"The process to switch video providers is more cumbersome for consumers," Verizon said in a petition to the FCC.

...

 

Is it really that big a deal that a customer would need to call their cable provider to cancel their service as opposed to the cancellation being processed by Verizon?  I understand that it would eliminate a step for the customer, and that's great, but I just don't see it as that big a deal.

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7:32 - Prith Banerjee (HP Labs) feels that they have sharpened their focus to transform innovation at a large IT organization and bring it to market. 

3 points:

How to accelerate innovation
Smart Policies / Collaboration
How to get innovation to market.

Banerjee notes that this takes places on a 6 month time period, they've focused to 20 or 30(!) areas where they will focus resources. 

2nd, they've enacted policies to foster collaboration across groups, called "open innovation." This can include private sector, academia, government, etc. Collaboration is key.

3, nothing can get done w/o smart policy. Role for private sector - need to solve problems and anticipate customers' needs and invest in R&D for exciting products. Role for public sector - need an "innovation stimulus package" (e.g. R&D tax credit). Patent reform - less litigation.

Also, this is BIG, the U.S. Government needs to raise more funds for R&D - DARPA style.

Kali - "Ivory Tower" image of academia is not the reality. Students are solving real world problems. Dealing with larger world issues using technology. Faculty and students are motivated. What flows from this is increasing recognition that real-world problems transcend disciplinary boundaries. example - biologists want to know how geckos walk up walls, scientists want to design robotic geckos (GEICO BEWARE!!!)

Third, University-Industry collaboration is increasing, both between U's and public and private sectors. Semiconductor industry is relying on universities to find the "next transistor." 

Innovation is becoming student led. Berkeley has a program that sends grants directly to students. Google, anyone? He's got a good point for giving students autotomy early in their careers.

Kali's policy recommendations - help out the research universities - RESTORE DARPA!!! Need more high risk, short-term research, programs that give matching funds for university-industry collaboration. Staple green cards to science and engineering graduates. 

Some agencies have no capacity for research. K-12 education has ZERO research and development budget for new learning technologies. Potato chip companies put more R&D into their products than education. 

Mitchell - There is a link between innovation and economic growth. Very clear indicators (references Kali) about opportunities versus problems. Again emphasizes need for more links between academia and industry, not only in economic hubs, but everywhere. 

Many "star scientists" are immigrants who need H1B Visas and can't just go into academia. Need immigration policy to match tech policy and avoid "brain drain" to India and China. 

Here's a big one - huge decrease in funding for state universities from state governments...has increased push from universities to ask for more licensing fees for technologies (WISCell anyone?) Someone look up the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. 

Good news! We are seeing pushback in the "life science" and "computer science" patent areas. Perhaps the CAFC review of the "process patent" concept will reverse this. Education re patent practices is starting to pay off, though. Kaufmann foundation works to understand the link between growth and innovation, and it's working. Now we need to move it to the heartland (UIUC, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc). Ugh, she said "The World is Flat." Oh, well.

Thompson - Most Americans don't know what innovation is, don't know if Government is providing adequate support, if there is support for companies to invest in innovation, if it's good and how we construct it so it appears in your classroom, on television, or your workplace. Not only are we the innovators, we are the market for innovation. Where we stand w/r/t other countries is that they have made it a national priority to use innovation as a way to move forward. We have a vested interest in investing in our future and holding onto what we have, but not many realize that they are one and the same. That's the challenge.

8am - Moderator asks about collaborative innovation between companies, and that openness is important. Good call.

All panelists agree that the Government needs to take a role in pushing for more collaboration between all innovation sectors. I'm thinking back to Jonathan Taplin (USC's) "What about DARPA?" comment from the Politics Online conference a few weeks back. He's on a panel this afternoon. 
...it's the 2008 Tech Policy Summit. We're opening with a roundtable discussion on "Accelerating Innovation: How Enhanced COllaboration and Smart Policy Fuel Economic Growth."

Panelists include Prith Banerjee (SVP of R&D at HP Labs, who we will talk to later)
Thomas Kalil, UC Berkeley
Lesa Michell, Kauffman Foundation
Mozelle Thompson - former FTC Commissioner
etc and so forth.

Live photos will be available on Flickr with photosets as we go along.

Here we go!

7:30am Steve Wildstrom notes that Qualcomm and Verizon speakers are still under an FCC "gag order" enjoining them from talking about the 700mhz auction. Too bad. 

Here comes the first panel!
As I've mentioned before Robert Scoble had his Facebook account deleted a while back for trying to export his contacts to Outlook. When he asked CEO Mark Zuckerberg about it, he got a non-answer about spam. 

Never mind that the export feature had been REMOVED from Facebook without explanation, they won't even talk about it now. I have an email exchange from their corporate communications department as well as their support people where they flat out deny or refuse to talk about it.

It's late and I'm tired, but expect to see more.

Meanwhile, play with this. Send us stuff, pictures, links, whatever at http://drop.io/capitolvalley

This is a service that I'm going to be talking about alot. They get privacy. You'll understand.

Also, I've finished Zittrain's book. Look for an all-encompassing article on privacy, portability and closed systems ASAP. Right now I have Tech Policy Summit issues to deal with (with Alex's help) but we have lots in the pipeline for you.

Hope you're enjoying the site.

Of course, the big news today (besides my going-going back-back to cali-cali tonight) was the reaction to the Justice Department's antitrust green light on the XM-Sirius merger.

On the surface, this could be cited as another example of runaway government capitulation towards big business interests and media consolidation, like the FCC's recent revision of the newspaper-TV cross-ownership rules, which significantly tipped the scales towards less consumer choice and more commoditization of media.

One could easily say this about XM-Sirius. In fact, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) issued a rather...pointed statement which highlights his anger at "this administration's blatant disregard for the public interest" in the media ownership realm."

Dorgan went on to further criticize (rightly) the trend of consolidation in media, and brings up the original conditions of the licenses the FCC issued more than ten years ago:

"There seems to be no limit to the mergers this administration will approve. These two companies were issued licenses a decade ago to provide competing national satellite radio service. Their license approval included a clause that prohibits them from merging into one company...Now the Justice Department has decided the contract they signed can't stand in the way of consolidation. That doesn't make any sense to me."

Well, Senator, it should make sense if you realize that the DOJ's antitrust division reviews tons of mergers and approves or denies them based on their potential to harm the market and not the conditions of their FCC license terms. That part is up to the FCC, which, because it has the combined powers of all three branches of government, can do whatever it pleases, until a court tells it to stop.

When you said that the licenses were issued a decade ago, did you notice that the licenses were issued a decade ago? I realize that's a long time, even longer than a Senator's term in office, but did it ever occur to you that the competitive landscape might have changed, and that there might not be much of a competitive market for two companies that offer pretty much the same product and have hugely expensive operating costs, since you know, keeping satellites in space takes lots of money. Remember Iridium, the Sat-Phone company that the government had to be bailed out to keep their network running so government agencies could use them?

You might also remember when EchoStar and DirecTV tried to merge? It was denied, and those two companies are still lobbing pebbles at Comcast, when (hindsight is 20/20) a combined DBS provider could be offering twice the HD channels at less cost than cable. Instead, they're still competing with each other at pretty much the same price, but not causing any shake-ups in the Cable market. Too bad that merger was denied, huh? Great for Cable, bad for us.

It's pretty clear-cut, Senator. We don't need two Satellite radio companies. We do need more choices in media, though. How about you stick to focusing on why so many terrestrial radio stations have the same owner, serve up the same canned music and news (ever hear of Jack FM?) and well, pretty much suck? At least Satellite Radio plays new music and pushes the envelope. I can hear Bellman Barker or Bob Mould on XM. I might catch the latter on NPR once every few years. Commercial radio? No way. They're too busy playing the latest crap that people won't even pay for.

On the other hand, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) has one helluva clue. From CongressDaily's Andrew Noyes:

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., said he was pleased that DOJ determined the merger does not pose significant competition concerns. He believes the new company will bring numerous benefits to consumers, including the elimination of duplicative programming, which will free up spectrum.

Boucher also lauded the companies' intention to offer multiple post-merger subscription packages. "This unprecedented approach will provide subscribers with more choices and lower prices and will pave the way for a form of content acquisition based on the individual programming preferences of listeners," he said.

 

So, a company that will offer better programming, with more choices at lower prices. Very anticompetitive...if you're Clear Channel.

...not really, but the headline pulled you in, didn't it?

 

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet (Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), Chairman) does however, have a hearing scheduled for next Tuesday, April 1 (I am not making this up) entitled "Online Virtual Worlds:  Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium".

We're still waiting on that report from Dan Miller, Senior Economist for the Joint Economic Committee's Republican Staff (and avid gamer) on taxation of virtual worlds. Miller has previously said that existing tax code could in theory enable the IRS to levy taxes on virtual earnings, although an October 2006 press release from the JEC says that this is extremely unlikely.

The hearing is scheduled to be in 2123 Rayburn HOB, which means it will be webcast (and possibly live-blogged). No word yet on whether or not simultaneous hearings will take place in other realms, or if the witness list includes avatars, bots, or unicorns.


 

More on "White Space" Access

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Google, along with several other technology companies (including Microsoft, HP, Dell and Intel) want to have access to the "White Space" between channels on the soon-to-be-vacated 700MHz spectrum.  If the access is granted it could allow for a slough of wireless broadband devices that could access the Web at speeds never-before-seen on a mobile device.

 

Opening up access to this swath of spectrum is mainly opposed by users of the non-white space (or the actual channels) who are afraid that White Space devices would interfere with their devices.  The FCC is currently testing devices to see if they can operate safely.

 

The opening up of White Spaces doesn't really excite me as far as its use for handheld devices.  I mean, do you really want to carry your mobile phone and a separate device for on-the-go internet access?  Sure, some people do, but they're the minority.  How many people do you know who ran out to by a Sony mylo?  I'm more excited to see White Spaces used for other purposes.  For instance, a new breed of laptop aircards.  Heck, even a new breed of laptops that would replace their Wi-Fi technology with White Space.  Another possible application would be to use White Spaces for home alarm systems, many of which were rendered useless when analog cell networks were shut down.

 

So am I looking forward to buying a White Space PDA to surf the web with?  Not at all.  Am I looking forward to seeing White Spaces used for other consumer purposes?  You bet.

 

Details at Reuters.

Mike Arrington at TechCrunch doesn't think so.

He reports on a leaked "Preferred Application Program" that would "reward" applications that people use instead of ignoring invitations from. Actually this isn't a bad idea, as long as it isn't "pay-to-play" like the buggy-as-hell CBS March Madness app.

Clearly Facebook is a little tired of beating questionable developer tacticts away with a stick. So now they will try the carrot approach as well - by rewarding developers who play by the rules and build useful, popular applications. The new program is being called the Preferred Application Program.

This isn't related to the recent CBS/March Madness issue where Facebook allowed a (paying) partner to play by different rules than the others. From what we've heard, Facebook is not going to be asking developers who are chosen to participate to pay in any way for this privilege. Classification as "preferred" will be merit based...although so far no one seems to know what the requirements will be.

Nor do they seem to know exactly how Facebook will reward these developers. One way is to have different rules, like allowing application users to invite more than the normal number of friends per day. That would be very attractive to developers, but the recent backlash over the CBS incident shows that the rank and file won't stand for that.

But there are an almost unlimited number of other ways that Facebook can promote preferred developers. Preferred apps can show up higher in search, for example. And Facebook can give them a badge or other sign of endorsement that they can add to their application pages. A more subtle, but possibly more powerful benefit, may be to change the rules on how and when user activities through these applications can show up in the News Feed. Finally, new Facebook users could be presented with a set of default third party applications to add when they create an account, perhaps tailored to their stated interests.

Facebook hasn't yet responded to a request for comment on the new program. From what we hear this is still in the planning stages and at least a month or so from being launched.

If they get this one right, I'll be the first to admit it and give MarkZ and company some props.

Still waiting on the data export question, though. Anyone?
Yes, that magazine has noticed what I've been pointing out for a while, that your data on Facebook is theirs for the purpose of selling it to third parties, and they don't want you to have it back. 

I've repeatedly contacted them about the "where did the CSV export feature go?" issue and gotten silence, but now even The Economist has noticed that they keep you on the site to keep you looking at the data, and the ads.

The opening of social networks may now accelerate thanks to that older next big thing, web-mail. As a technology, mail has come to seem rather old-fashioned. But Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and other firms are now discovering that they may already have the ideal infrastructure for social networking in the form of the address books, in-boxes and calendars of their users. "E-mail in the wider sense is the most important social network," says David Ascher, who managesThunderbird, a cutting-edge open-source e-mail application, for the Mozilla Foundation, which also oversees the popular Firefox web browser.

That is because the extended in-box contains invaluable and dynamically updated information about human connections. On Facebook, a social graph notoriously deteriorates after the initial thrill of finding old friends from school wears off. By contrast, an e-mail account has access to the entire address book and can infer information from the frequency and intensity of contact as it occurs. Joe gets e-mails from Jack and Jane, but opens only Jane's; Joe has Jane in his calendar tomorrow, and is instant-messaging with her right now; Joe tagged Jack "work only" in his address book. Perhaps Joe's party photos should be visible to Jane, but not Jack.

This kind of social intelligence can be applied across many services on the open web. Better yet, if there is no pressure to make a business out of it, it can remain intimate and discreet. Facebook has an economic incentive to publish ever more data about its users, says Mr Ascher, whereas Thunderbird, which is an open-source project, can let users minimise what they share. Social networking may end up being everywhere, and yet nowhere.

I'm going to give them another chance to tell me what happened to their "export contacts" feature and just come clean. Then I'm going to start talking about something I'm going to start using in the daily content here. It's a really cool technology.

It's going to let you interact with us in more ways than comments. It does everything Facebook does, but with more privacy and respect for the user. It's really, really cool and I'm a big believer in it. 

Wait.
It's been less than a week since the 700mhz auction winners were revealed, but already Google is making its' next move, and treading close to territory that Microsoft has stepped in before and failed: that of so-called White Spaces, the signal "between" the new DTV channels. 

Such spectrum could be used for "super wi-fi" if it was made to not interfere with TV. So far, tests conducted by Microsoft have been embarrassing failures.


The focus of Google's latest lobbying effort is the so-called "white spaces" portion of the TV spectrum, the unused slivers that lie between regulated TV signals. A coalition of US technology companies, including Google, has argued for some time that those pieces of spectrum could be assembled to support a new high-speed wireless service.

Technical challenges have hindered that effort and reinforced claims by US broadcasters that a new service would interfere with the surrounding TV signals.

Most embarrassingly, a Microsoft device failed FCC tests last year, although the software company said later that part of the machine had been broken and a repaired version had operated adequately.

Google proposed Monday what Mr Whitt called a "belt and suspenders" approach to the technology. Along with the controversial "spectrum sensing" approach used by Microsoft and others, which tries to identify which parts of the spectrum are in use to avoid interference, it backed a Motorola plan that would prevent a device from transmitting on a particular wave length until it had received a specific "all clear" signal from a local transmitter.

Google also went further in suggesting that parts of the spectrum should be off-limits entirely.

Could the two giants get along on this issue? We'll see...

XM-Sirius is APPROVED.

Quoth the NYT:

The merger was approved without conditions despite opposition from consumer groups and an intense lobbying campaign by the land-based radio industry.

The combination still requires approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which prohibited a merger when it granted satellite radio operating licenses in 1997.

The Justice Department, in a lengthy statement explaining its decision, said the two companies compete not just with each other but also with other forms of radio and entertainment. Customers must buy equipment that is exclusive to either XM or Sirius, and subscribers rarely switch providers.

"People just don't do that," an assistant attorney general, Thomas O. Barnett, said in a conference call with reporters.

The government also appeared to endorse the argument of the companies that they compete with other forms of audio entertainment, including "high-definition" radio, Internet-based radio stations and even devices like Apple's iPod

Good for USDOJ for rejecting the idiotic arguments of the National Association of Broadcasters. If anyone remembers, they claimed that Satellite Radio was a totally different animal from the nationally-syndicated, homogenized terrestrial radio behemoths and that XM and Sirius competed with each other, but not against AM and FM. 

Let's hope the FCC finds brains and lets the license transfer happen.

Truemors reports (thanks to Guy Kawasaki) on some patents that Apple has applied for, namely transparent touch screens

 

Rumors of Apple's tablet-type notebook have circulated for a while, sparking interest, debate and discussion in Mac circles, but recent patent applications take the tablet idea in a different direction. Avoiding the whole twisting screen concept used in other previous tablet notebook products, Apple instead implements a transparent touch display in place of keyboard (or a customized interface for different applications) when open. When "closed," the computer lays like a flat tablet without the weight or bulk of a hidden keyboard. Needless to day, the MacBook Touch could make the MacBook Air look bulky.

Scaredy-Bot Takes Home the Gold

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At a robotics conference in Amsterdam technical universities from around the world unveiled, wait for it, wait for it, robots that reach new levels of human/robot interaction.  The robots were built using Lego robotics parts and run software from National Instruments.  The first place winner was the Phobot, built by students at the University of Amsterdam.

Here's a little more about the little Phobot from the Washington Post

When first exposed to a fear-inspiring object - in this case, a menacing larger robot - the Phobot retreats and then spins in circles. It overcomes its "fear" by getting comfortable with small robots and working its way up to large ones - mimicking the psychological principle of "graded exposure."

The idea is that the robot could help people, probably children, to overcome their fears by having a robo-buddy going through it with them.  Personally, I like the idea of seeing a robot run away in fear of something seemingly inane.  Like pickles.

The second place robot was the Korean Pot Bot, a little robot who lets you know when your potted plants need water and where you can find the best light for them.  I know what you were thinking - Amsterdam, Pot Bot...sorry to let you down.

While cowardly robots are all well and good, I'm still waiting for my R2-D2.  I mean, who wouldn't want a sassy little robot who can fly a spaceship, do repairs, unlock doors and serve drinks?

The Washington Post reports today that a laptop containing "sensitive medical information" on more than 2,500 patients in a NIH study was stolen last month, potentially exposing seven years worth of data, including names, diagnoses and heart scans to...people who would want to bore themselves to death reading that kind of thing.

What is more interesting is that the Post reports that the data on the laptop was not encrypted, a clear violation of Government security policies. And to think I was worried about Google Health. 

Here's a question. Why is this data, which is supposed to be encrypted and kept under the highest confidentiality and security, kept on a laptop computer which any bloke could simply walk away with? I don't know about you, but if I wanted to keep data secure, I'd keep it on an encrypted external hard disk, which I'd disconnect and keep under lock and key when not in use, with the keys on a separate flash drive under separate lock and key.

It's great that the Government requires patient data to be encrypted, but that doesn't do me much good if the machine it is encrypted on is readily accessable, and the keys aren't secured somewhere else.

At least they're learning...

Nabel, in her statement, said that since the NIH incident, "we are ensuring" that all the institute's laptop computers are encrypted and that staff members will be required to take regular computer security training. She also said "patient names, other identifying information, or identifiable medical information" will no longer be stored on laptop computers

I'm sure everyone has heard that R.E.M. is letting people get to the premiere of their new album, Accelerate via the iLike Facebook Application. 

Of course, this is an attempt to keep casual downloaders from not paying for the album by allowing them to stream it (but not keep it) prior to its' April 1 release date. Streaming, of course, was popularized by Internet Radio stations, both webcasts of indie stations, and sites like Pandora and Last.Fm.

Now, the IFPI and RIAA fought tooth and nail with the U.S. Copyright Office to have royalties for streaming media raised to the point where if they are allowed to stay at current levels, internet radio stations like Pandora and Last.fm (which introduce people to new music based on their tastes) as well as independent webcast stations could die off based on the sheer absurdity of the rates, while terrestrial radio, the "old guard" of the Payola generation, pays next to nothing for broadcasting that same music over the public airwaves. 

A justification for this is that you can create a perfect digital copy from a streamed song, while you can only make an analogue audio tape, with no metadata off the radio. 

BBC2 had a short segment this morning on R.E.M. and iLike, here is a rough, rough transcript via TVEyes:


...digital opened up many new ways the record companies can take their music to fans and this is one example. this is through a service called iLike and music is a social thing, people define themselves by it and it is one of the things you talk about with your friends and sharing it is a great way to do it. this is a way of sharing music legally with other friends and you can post it on your blog or Facebook and do other things with it... 
...this is a new model for record companies to take music out there. can they make money out of it? this is a licenceed legal service and what the music business is trying to do against a backdrop of most music being available for free illegally, the record companies are trying to licence as many new services as possible to give music fans an option, because that's what we want. we want more ways for music fans to get their music. that's what the record companies would like. that's the message they would like to send out. nobody really knows. once it is available, it is available and you are trying to convince people to pay for it...a lot of artists realise you don't need a record label, you can say ""i can make it available myself."" 
very few artists can do this. rem have done this through their record company. record companies and artists can do these things and use the new digital services. what does it mean for music? do you think it is good for a band that doesn't have a label, can go out and get people listening to their music?

I see some sad double-talk here. On one hand, the labels wants to allow streaming over the 'net when they see fit, but when 'Net Radio took off, they rushed to extract every dollar out of it because they saw it compromising their existing distribution networks. Not illegally, but in the sense that in that world, they lack their traditional influence in what gets pushed to the top of the DJ's "record stack." So, with the help of the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office, they want to replace 'net radio, especially independent stations and services like Last.Fm and Pandora (which actually drive record sales by pushing new music to consumers based on their tastes) out of business, because it imperils their vertical model of middle-manning that has been in place for the past fifty years. 

On the other hand, when streaming is done through iLike and the label can tell the consumer that they're going to hear, what is hot, and what they should be streaming (and later buying) instead of offering choice, everything is great. Note that iLike doesn't get hit by those royalty rates. 

Also, don't overlook Facebook's role. They see themselves as a great content gatekeeper here. Notice how they partner with the mainstream (ABC with Politics, iLike/R.E.M./Warner Brothers with Music) in order to get themselves a patina of respectability with "old media?" Just like Jonathan Zittrain (more as I read his book and can talk more about it) I see Facebook becoming more and more an old-fashioned service in the model of CompuServe, Prodigy or AOL where they become the content service. Forgot Sara Lacy's flirty talk of a "Facebook record label." Facebook doesn't need to be the label, they just need to be the label's pet streaming platform, maybe they can build a non-iTunes MP3 download service onto a Facebook app. They also get to be the pet advertising platform for Amazon's CD sales, and Hot Topic merchandise sales. 

Facebook is becoming less and less of a tool for me to keep up with my friends and more of a rolodex with a built-in advertising platform. I used to be able to export my data to Outlook, but now they disabled that and denied the feature ever existed. Instead of value-added features, they provide vendor lock-in. I can only see my data when I choose to see their ads, and they can use my data, my "social graph" however they want. 

Forget all those "privacy controls" from last week. They mean nothing. What matters is that no matter who you allow to view parts of your "profile," Facebook still owns the data and is using it to let advertisers profile and target you, all while they become a modern day gatekeeper for all types of media. They're propping up the old guard in the hopes that it will give them a revenue stream as the next big things get killed off by royalties.

I will also be investigating the case of the missing "Export" button this week before Tech Policy Summit, and you can be sure I will be asking around about Data Portability.

Happy Easter Monday!

Podcast Reminder

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Just a reminder, we have a lot to talk about tomorrow, Monday March 24th at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. 

We have an absolute ton of stuff to talk about.  Everything from customer service experiences to Kyte.tv to the 700MHz auction and VZW's voluntary Open Network initiative for its current CDMA operation.  I'm sure there's plenty more that I just can't remember right now too.

Don't forget that we'll be podcasting through Blog Talk Radio, so you can call in and talk to us live, on the air (so to speak).  The number is (347) 945-5989.

So tomorrow, 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific we'll be podcasting live and waiting for your calls.
...if your job title is something like:

  1. Social Media Consultant
  2. Social Media Manager
  3. Online Talent Manager

Rubel makes the point that alot of these jobs are simply extensions of existing professions in advertising and public relations. I tend to agree. In fact, I see these "online niche" positions migrating to a bigger role in the public space. 

I'm not sure if it was Dr. Adam Conner, PhD (D-Facebook) or Patrick Ruffini that said (at SXSW) that tomorrow's political campaigns will be run by people who know online media, not just pollsters, but I think they're right. What is now a niche profession will become part of mainstream media, and expertise in "new media" will just become part of learning how to market in general, be it a candidate, a product, or a band.

So, if you've made your career path trying to find the next "big thing" in social networking, maybe you should broaden the resume a bit. Knowing new technology is good, but make sure you're grounded in solid skills.

Next, Steve says he's going to talk about careers that will stay relevant. I'd like to see what he thinks.

It's Larry Lessig's Change Congress badge. I support his overall effort, and three of the four specific points of his campaign, except one.

I believe that lobbyists and PACs are important to American politics. I believe that lobbyists and PACs can do good for the small interests as well as large. 

Why? They are force multipliers. PACs allow people to pool money to support candidates. Lobbyists allow groups to hire trained professionals to help them get their causes heard before Congress. Just like everyone needs a lawyer before a court, I believe that people exercising their right to petition for a redress of grievances can use professional help. Lobbyist and PAC are not dirty words.

What we need are more lobbyists that use their skills to represent causes that we believe in. One of my dreams is a trade association for interactive media, Web 2.0, and social media professionals. This may include lobbyists and a PAC. Why? All lobbyists and PACs are, at the very core, are professionals and tools that allow people whose voices might not be heard to make themselves more effective. 

You wouldn't hire a plumber to fix your car. Why wouldn't you hire a lobbyist to at least help you understand Congress? While I have nothing but awe for Professor Lessig's legal scholarship, the earnestness of his efforts and optimism for his cause, I still believe that right now there are many new companies, and even whole industries still in their infancy that need to stop trying to kill each other and stand together, both politically and financially as one to represent their common interest. Call it a "Social Software Industry Association" or whatever might sound better, but as it stands, we are at the crossroads in a new era of technology where government can make or break us. 

Professor Lessig's ideas make sense, which is why Alex and I support him, but for now I'd just as soon as hedge my bets and make sure we a) learn and b) teach the system in place now, as well as work to change it. That's why I'm helping Robert Scoble come to Washington. That's why we're teaming up with George Washington University's Institute for Politics and Democracy on the Internet to educate "Web 2.0" entrepreneurs about how Washington works, who the players are, and how to get the right message out about the good that new technology can do. 

There are many things that aren't being talked about now. For instance, while I tear through Professor Zittrain's new book, I see in it, and in the common culture, no distinction between privacy and security. Security is something you have to ensure for yourself, like locking a door. Privacy is a matter of choice, both in what data about yourself you share, how you share it, where you choose to share it and under what terms. The two are not the same. Some people get this, others don't. 

The internet can have security and privacy, but we need to better define the terms, so people know what they are getting into. 

I agree with Larry Lessig that we need to change Congress, but I also think we need to change first. 

I hope Lessig succeeds, and I pledge to do everything I can to help him. I'll quit my job. I'll do whatever it takes. But I think on this one point we can find common ground. We can eliminate  much of the unseemly financial influence from the game. We can eliminate undue influence of overly-influential lobbyists and PACs where they become problematic. But, until they can be eliminated, why don't we take the tools that are used against us on a regular basis and turn them on those who would do us harm? I'm ready to fight both these wars. That's why Alex and I started this conversation, and I hope that one day we can say that we helped to change it.

Happy Easter.
Rod Adams, of the Atomic Insights Blog, wrote us a nice letter about our piece on Dr. Patrick Moore from earlier this week. On the other hand, I am not sure that despite proclaiming himself an expert on the issue, he is fully aware of the history of Nuclear Power, and perhaps he didn't even listen to the entire interview. Here is an excerpt:

(note, these are  not our words. These are those of Mr. Adams, which I repost as a courtesy for a reader who obviously took time to write in and I appreciate it. Whether or not I'm 100% in agreement? I'm not so sure. Some parts look more conspiracy theory than solid fact to me, but it's his right to say it, and I appreciate reader response at this point. If you take the time to write, Alex and I will take the time to read, and even re-post some of it. We may think some of this is...questionable, but like it or not, we'll let him have his piece. here it is.)

...As you pointed out, MySpace, Facebook and other interactive media
 efforts get bombarded by mainstream media with stories about their
 potentially negative impact on the young. Of course those same media
 properties air programs that portray hundreds of murders and other
 violent acts every week while trying to attract the same eyeballs that
 are moving to more interactive, arguably more educational uses of
 their time in the online world. In other words, FUD happens.
 
  From a human security point of view, the battle against nuclear power
 was probably the worst example of all. The visible Luddites in that
 case hid behind the mantle of selfless Environmentalism, but the real
 power probably came from the richest enterprise the world has ever
 known. Though there is a lot of money in Silicon Valley, the total
 revenues of all technology companies combined pale when compared to
 Exxon-Mobil. Last year, that single company sold more than $340
 BILLION worth of product and banked more than $40 BILLION in net
 profit. That company, however famous, only has a 2-3% share of the oil
 market, which itself is only about 1/3 of the total energy market.
 
 Take a look at the people who control energy wealth in Texas, Saudi
 Arabia, Russia, Dubai, Iraq, and Iran (not an exhaustive list) and
 compare the way that they live with the way that most energy consumers
 in the world live. They have tremendous motives for loosely organizing
 to fight against the only real source of power that can help displace
 our collective addiction to fossil fuel. In his talk with you, Patrick
 Moore mentioned the forward looking master plan of Exxon-Mobil and
 Shell International for new energy sources in the US, but please
 understand that the energy business has had long term master planning
 in place for many decades - there are plenty of books on the subject...

First off, I'm skeptical that Big Oil funded Greenpeace or the Environmental movement, nor did the Saudis or the OPEC countries. As Dr. Moore himself said, much of the criticism of Nuclear Power came from fear of Nuclear Weapons, and the response to Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents. Keep in mind these happened during massive expansions of nuclear testing, and there was an overall climate of fear of all things atomic. Sometimes things are simply what they seem. While I admire your enthusiasm, sometimes the simplest explanation is the most explainable and works best. Occam's Razor, anyone? 

Also, if Russia and Iran are so anti-nuclear power, why would they want it? Cheney would have us believe that Iran wants a bomb, but in reality, more Nuclear energy in Iran means less oil burned for their power grid, which means more to sell to us. Supply and Demand, my friend.

Further, the "master plan" involves Liquid Natural Gas because it's cleaner than Coal, and there is still popular resistance to Nuclear energy. Dr. Moore wants to change the debate and make people realize that Gas is still from overseas. The same with Coal. It's domestic, but dirty. Dr. Moore is correct in his observation that properly implemented, Nuclear energy can cut our dependance on foreign fuels, cut our burning of domestic coal ("clean coal" and "capture and store" are red herrings) and provide almost unlimited power at very, very cheap rates once the initial cash investment in building the plant is done. The major expense in Nuclear is building the plant, not fuel. Fuel can be recycled until it is almost useless, you drop it into a rock for 300some years, and it's nothing more than a lump. There is no conspiracy, only logic. Occam's razor. 

I am happy to print your rebuttal to the Moore piece, but keep in mind that it doesn't make you look like you have examined the entire issue. Still, I appreciate the reader feedback. 

Please write in, but I'd appreciate a bit more research and less shrill propaganda before you do. Dr. Moore and I had a civil conversation. I expect the same with each one of you. If you write to me or Alex, expect your words to be fact-checked and analyzed. We believe in things, but we don't share conspiracy theories or your zeal to blame unseen "large forces" for things that are rather simple. 

Thank you for your comments. Happy Easter, Go Badgers!
Tomorrow! Live! Via Blog Talk Radio! 

Oh, yes. Alex and I will be talking about all kinds of things: the 700mhz auction, open access, net neutrality, the upcoming Tech Policy Summit, Larry Lessig's "Change Congress," the NCAA tournament, how cool the Badgers are, and Michigan Athletics scandal that I've been writing about. We'd also like to talk to you! Feel free to call in, (347) 945-5989 at 11pm EST, 8pm PST this Monday, March 24th. 

Talk to us!

(347) 945-5989
Readers know I'm not a total fan of big-money collegiate athletics. That's not entirely true. I bleed Cardinal Red (the shade of "Red" associated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison) and love and support student-athletes everywhere. What I despise are the coaches, administrators, and officials who turn them into a money making machine and steer those kids who may be first-generation college students, towards easy classes and "bird" majors to keep them eligible to play football and basketball, which rake in huge sums of money, while promising a future of leaving early to turn pro with no safety net, and no compensation for the millions the Universities receive from marketing the students' images, likeness, and televising their efforts on games 

This is especially prevalent in Football, where huge rosters and simple number-crunching mean precious few of these kids will play professionally, yet are asked to train like pros, give up classes and majors they care about, and steered towards loosely regarded "directed study" classes where they can do nothing but keep their minimum GPA and credit requirements. I directed much vitriol this week towards Michigan (generally considered an Academic bastion) and their "General Studies" degree where a vast majority of recipients are athletes. The Ann Arbor News deserves great credit for exposing this fraud which has been perpetuated in plain sight before us while UM is held up as an example of "a tough school with great student-athletes." 

In day 4 of their 4 day series, the News tackles the system of academic advisors and the level of control they maintain on pushing athletes into keeping kids eligible with little regard for their academic goals post-college.



This building is the Ross Academic Center, which is where athletes can come to receive access to tutors, advisors, and get a quiet place to study and work in between practice sessions. This is and of itself is actually a good thing. My alma mater, Wisconsin, has a similar building located under the Football indoor practice field, and the academic advising staff was always both realistic and professional. I found that they were quite supportive of athletes (even in Football and Basketball) taking tough classes and worked with Professors to make sure that these student-athletes could get their work done and still perform in their chosen sport. I have nothing but fond memories of my academic adviser, Chris Butler, who was instrumental in helping me find a course of study that I not only enjoyed (History and History of Science) but has continued to affect my career path as I prepare to attend law school and influence my current and future employment, as well as the writing you read here today. Through Ms. Butler, I worked with some fantastic and absolutely brilliant faculty, and I have nothing but great things to say about Wisconsin and their program.

But back to Michigan, which as a Badger I always enjoy taking a dig at. In this case, it's well deserved. To quote the Ann Arbor News:

When the University of Michigan dedicated its new academic center for athletes in 2006, the building's namesake reinforced expectations for the university's athletes.

"I am very pleased to help provide a top-notch learning environment in a new facility where these student-athletes and others can study and receive academic support," said Stephen Ross, a New York real estate developer and Michigan graduate. "The 'leaders and best' not only refers to the athletes on the sports field, but also to the students in the classroom."

But three former employees of the athletic department's Academic Success Program, now housed in the Stephen M. Ross Academic Center, said that academics often take a back seat to sports.

To achieve that goal, Academic Success Program employees appear to have found an unofficial path through the university, one that isn't written on any Web site or manual, but is evident in statistics, transcripts, interviews with athletes, faculty and in a 2007 audit conducted by the university.

That path has included:

? Encouraging athletes to pursue a bachelor in general studies degree, on the grounds that other majors are too inflexible and will interfere with sports.

? Telling athletes which classes to take, which has resulted in clusters of athletes taking many of the same psychology, Ojibwe - a Native American language - classical civilization and education courses. Many of these choices are "non-traditional" or non-classroom courses, such as independent study, directed readings, practicums or mentoring.

? Recommending athletes take the minimum number of credits required to stay eligible for sports, a practice that runs contrary to the Academic Success Program's stated principles.

? Using athletes' passwords and log-ins to enroll in classes or make changes in schedules, a violation of university policy.


Let's compare to my alma mater (by the way, the Badgers Basketball team has now reached the Sweet Sixteen, baby!) where I saw athletes in various sports enrolled in pre-law, pre-med, education (one of the toughest non-science schools to get into), engineering, and all kinds of programs, including kinesiology, which at Wisconsin is considered a path to Medical School. 

My former team at Wisconsin included several medical school graduates and current med students, at least one who spent a year at Oxford as a graduate student and one who received a Masters' degree there while rowing in the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, and many who were regularly all Big Ten student-athletes based on their GPA. This wasn't just my sport. I saw football players, basketball players, hockey players, swimmers, and those of all sports sitting in the Fetzer center (the Wisconsin equivalent of the "Ross Center") studying, using tutors and burying themselves in books. 

I never saw a advisor use a students' password to change a class. I was never encouraged to take the minimum number of credits. In fact, when I did (because I had the luxury of many AP credits to cushion me) I was repeatedly asked if I knew if I was on track to graduate in four years (which I was) and that I had to certify that I had a "graduation plan." If I hadn't, I would have not been eligible entering my third year. 

Now, what would have happened had I been at another Big Ten school? Joe Paterno, the legendary coach at Penn State, is known for his coaching acumen as well as his graduation rate, which looms above the national average, embarrassing his peers in all respects, especially since JoePa, as he is known, is not only a football coach, but a tenured professor at PSU. To JoePa, athletics is only a part of an academic experience, and he'll be damned before he sees a player put the court-work before the coursework. For all his faults, Bob Knight (formerly Indiana, and of Texas Tech) was the same way. People used to get on JoePa and Knight for having losing teams, but you know what? Their players graduated. 


As part of a seven-month investigation into athletics and academics at Michigan, The News spoke with Academic Success Program co-director Shari Acho about these issues, as well as the program's mission, challenges and policies.

Acho said Academic Success Program staff do not direct students to majors or classes.

"No, not at all," said Acho, the program's co-director since 2002. "Each individual student will sit down and decide what their interests are and what works for them, and follow the right channels to do that."

Athletic director Bill Martin, who declined to be interviewed, told a university publication in spring 2005 that he wants academics to be the department's foremost focus.

In speaking with 87 current and former athletes, athletic staff, administrators and faculty on academics and athletics at Michigan, The News encountered cynicism about whether that goal can be met.

"Michigan, or any big-time program, they try to say that, and I think they do believe it," said Steve King, a former Michigan football player who later worked in the Academic Success Program. "But at the same time, too, as long as it doesn't interfere with the ultimate objective, which is to win football games, or to win in their sport."

Daniel Horton, who played basketball at Michigan from 2002 to 2006, was more blunt, laughing at the suggestion that academics came ahead of sports.

"There are consequences immediately if you don't show up for practice," Horton said. "The next day, you have to run or aren't going to play or something like that. There's no immediate consequences for not doing your homework or not studying that night.
"It's a farce for the NCAA to say that academics should come first. It's good in theory. ... But it's not really like that, not just at Michigan, anywhere."


Not true. At Wisconsin, we had people in tough majors. It was simply understood that the class came first. If we were out at 5:30am and a player had to make an 8:30am exam, we were done by 8. Coaches understood that. From Pat Richter, who was the AD at the time, and now under Barry Alvarez, I believe they care enough about making sure that student-athletes get a real, Wisconsin education. 

Even other schools can make it happen. Observe the number of Ivy League players in the NFL, such as Matt Birk, Ryan Fitzpatrick, or my Wisconsin Teammates Beau Hoopman and Paul Daniels. Beau is an Olympic Gold Medalist and Paul has a Masters' Degree from Oxford. Both are candidates for the 2008 Olympics. Neither of them could have ever been accused of skimping on classes, and I doubt anyone at the Wisconsin Athletic Department ever encouraged them to. Even those on the Basketball team, currently known as one of the best in the U.S. is not filled with academic punch lines like many of Michigan or MSU's teams in the 1990s. Indeed, Bo Ryan recruits students he can coach. His system requires students who can study both their own subject as well as basketball. It's a double major, and it pays off. Plus, for those who don't turn pro, they graduate. 

Later today I'll tackle the New York Times article dealing with the MLB and NFL players' unions' failure to look out for their veterans while protecting their stars from anti-drug investigations. Why public policy? NCAA gets tax exempt status. NFL and MLB get antitrust exemptions. Congress should (yes, they should) examine how a group of rich owners and universities can exploit such young talented people and reap the benefits. 

More on this later, plus my finally un-archived SXSW interview on Cyber Safety, and prep for the Tech Policy Summit.

Go Badgers!
I start law school this August, in the evenings. If I can end up as 1/10th the lawyer, or 1/100th the person this man is, it will be worth it.

Lawrence Lessig wants to change Congress. Here is his first major speech on the subject. 

I saw an article at CNN.com/technology that got me a little...well, a little annoyed.  One of the "tips," the first one, worried me a little.

Here's the tip:

Boost your browsing

If your mobile Web browsing experience leaves something to be desired, you're not alone. Unless you own an Apple iPhone, which many experts say offers more user-friendly Internet capability, small screens coupled with tiny keyboards can make Web surfing frustrating.

But if you have a laptop and a phone, you may be able to use them together to the best advantage, says Chris Silva, analyst for Forrester Research, a technology and market research firm.

Tethering -- or plugging in -- your laptop to your mobile device will allow your computer to use the phone's connection for the Internet.

It's a tool that often gets overlooked, Silva says, but it can connect you at speeds comparable to a DSL or cable modem line.



First off, they didn't mention that if you connect to the EDGE network (most GSM phones) or the 1xRTT network (some CDMA phones) that the speed won't really be anywhere near DSL or cable.



The other thing that they didn't mention is that with exception of a Blackberry data plan (which includes tethering at no extra charge) you usually need a phone-as-modem plan for your device to use it in the manner described in the tip.  Sometimes the carrier will suspend your internet access if they see a spike in usage indicative of modem usage.  If you have pay-as-you go data access using your phone as a modem would be a spectacular way to find an amazingly high bill in your mailbox at the end of the month.



Now I'm all about tips for better use of your mobile phone, but for those of you giving the tips, please don't leave out the details.  Or at least mention that the user should probably contact their carrier before trying certain things.  Especially things that could cost someone a bunch of money.

I'm making my way through Professor Zittrain's book as carefully as I can, and the more I read the more I get how dialed in he is to what is happening to the state of the 'Net these days and how we're so blinded by these "gee-whiz" technologies to see what is happening to our world.

During the first chapter he notes that one of the first mechanical computers, was built by Herman Hollerith for tabulating the Census, but leased to the Census Bureau, and that support was sold to them for a profit. They couldn't reprogram the machine, it did what the owner told it, and the owner took orders from the customer but had the final choice as to whether or not to implement a feature.

Hollerith's company became IBM. We know the rest.

Of course, with the CBS-Facebook March Madness debacle, you can't help but wonder why we have such short memories. Then again, we are in another bubble, aren't we?

More as I keep reading...
No sooner than do I note that both Larry Lessig and Jonathan Zittrain take pretty huge swipes at Facebook's closed architecture, API, and lack of data portability (something I'm working on a post about) that I notice that TechCrunch has blown up over the Weapons Grade Fail of their CBS branded March Madness app.

I didn't fill out a Facebook bracket this year. I used the old fashioned kind. You know, paper? Remember that? 

Now, I'm more concerned with the fact that they let CBS Sports spam you more than any other apps (and didn't kick them off like Robert Scoble) and that they're taking money over providing a good user experience (monetize versus a product, something I'm working on too).

Tech policymakers  and VCs are more similar that you'd think. One of them will ask "how can I turn this issue into votes?" or "how can I use this to fundraise?" and the other will ask "how can I make money off this?"

Monetization always comes at the cost of product development. As readership has grown people have asked me "why no ads?" Ads would annoy you, and take away from the experience. I'd rather keep myself out of the ad-based loop until I can find someone who thinks we're worth helping out. That may never happen, and this may continue to be a money pit. That being said, I hope that the people out there who read this (and I know there are quite a bit of you, thank you for that) come back because we have something that other people don't.

If you like what you see, want to see something more, or see something we should have, please, please, please let us know.

More on Facebook, privacy, and security later on. You'll be glad you waited.

I swear, I'll chill on the music for a while.

I first met Aaron Estes, guitarist and songwriter for Bellman Barker (then known as The Think, later the Run In) in the summer of 2004 when I lived in Tenleytown and coached some rowing. Long story short, I stay in touch w/ Aaron. Roommate? Not so much.

His original bassist ditched him and was replaced by one Tom Collier, who turned out to be an acquaintance of a HS friend of mine at Yale. Small world. 

Le Loup contains two high school compatriots, Dan Ryan (former rowing teammate) on Bass, and Rob Sahm, who had his own cheering section tonight.

Both bands blow me away for different reasons. Bellman, for the sheer energy they've put into crafting songs I've been hearing evolve since they were just Aaron and Greg in our living room. Le Loup drives me onto another dimension. Forget Arcade Fire. These guys take it a step further. I'm serious.

Needless to say, I had a great time. More of a write-up when I'm awake. Photos are on the Flickr stream...


I hope you enjoy the photos.
Those of you who have met me at conferences or events have probably noticed the Timbuk2 messenger bag over my shoulder. It's been a staple of my school, work, and other travels since 1999. 

This morning I woke up and decided that my love affair with the messenger bag is over.

Why? I simply could not stand up straight. 

The bag puts alot of stress on one shoulder and an uneven stress on the spine. Consider, for Politics Online and SXSW, I have been carrying:

  • One laptop, with power cord
  • One Nikon dSLR, with two lenses and USB cable
  • One Pocket Access Point with Sprint Aircard
  • Conference guide
  • Misc swag I get handed
  • Keys
  • etc

I'm not sure what this weighs out to, but it's a good chunk. And after a few weeks of this, I simply could not stand up or sit up this morning. 

It's been suggested I purchase an eeePC. Does anyone see that as viable?

It's time for a real backpack. Messenger bag, I love you, but my back doesn't. In other words, I'm getting too old to care about looking "with it."

Any suggestions? 

Ok, by this point we all know that Verizon and AT&T wont the lions's share of the 700 megahertz auction.  AT&T actually dominated regional and local licenses while VZW scored the big fat national license.

 

What I think it funny is the number of people who say that Google lost the auction.  Did it not occur to these people that Google never wanted to win?  Well, at least not in the traditional sense.

 

Eric Auchard, from Reuters, seems to agree with what we (especially Andrew)  have been saying for quite some time, which is that Google didn't want the license for themselves.  There was all sorts of talk and rumors about Google rolling out its own wireless network but it doesn't make sense.  Auchard points out that Google's current profit margins blow wireless carriers out of the water.  Aside from jumping into that arena there's the fact that they would have to spend billions upon billion upon billions of dollars to not just build the network, which Verizon will now need to, but to basically start a new wireless carrier.  Who in their right mind would really want to do that?

 

Google did exactly what they set out to do:  they ensured that the C Block of the spectrum (the block won by VZW) would be an open access network.  Google will now have much more capability to get its content, products and advertising to mobile customers.

 

Now, because Verizon is going to be tasked with building and maintaining the network and hardware manufacturers will build and sell the actual handsets...Google is going to gain an incredible foothold in the mobile browsing marketplace with an absolutely minimum investment.

 

Love Google or hate 'em, it was a brilliant (and ballsy) move.

 

Also, as we posted yesterday, Verizon Wireless' current Open Network initiative seems to almost be an open access test run on its current network.  It gives them a great way to work out the kinks of how to handle open access on their own terms before the C Block network launches.

In Australia, an 81-year-old Englishman killed himself.  Sort of.

Details from Times Online

An elderly man has killed himself by programming a robot to shoot him in the head after building the machine from plans downloaded from the internet.

Francis Tovey, 81, who lived alone in Burleigh Heads on the Australian Gold Coast, was found dead in his driveway.

...

Notes left by Mr Tovey -- who was born in England -- revealed that he had scoured the internet for plans before constructing his complex machine, which involved a jigsaw power tool and was connected to a .22 semi-automatic pistol loaded with four bullets. It could fire multiple shots once triggered remotely.



For now, they're content to kill us when we ask them to.  When they start killing us because they want to, make sure you're insured so that your passing isn't a burden to your loved ones.




I promise I will improve this when I get a few spare moments, but before I hop on the subway I wanted to summarize the "big picture" for you.

I've written in this space before that the Internet was built on open standards with a measure of trust involved. While it was flourishing in academia, many of us got our start on CompuServe and AOL, closed platforms where the content provider was the delivery service.

After an increase in computers on the free and open Internet, we are seeing a a resurgence of the closed platforms. Some, like Steve Jobs, argue that this is because consumers want the assurance that their "appliances" are safe. There is a dark side to this safety, however. However fantastic these closed platforms may be, whether they are Facebook or the iPhone, whoever owns them can make up the rules as they go along, and we may find ourselves under the thumb of another Ma Bell pre carterphone. 

Today we saw that Verizon has won the 700mhz auction, and is committed to opening their network. That's a good thing. However, the true question will be how open the handset manufacturers are to allowing third party applications, and therefore third party, uncontrollable content, to run on their phones.

Lessig talked more about privacy and security. More when I can get through my notes and look at Zittrain's book. We have alot to discuss.

Here's the Kyte Show with photo excerpts from the Future of the Internet event.

 


Here is the breakdown of what's going on at the Google DC event that we just posted on.

A detailed summary/wrap up will be posted later on this evening.

For now...enjoy.

 

5:24pm 

Lessig:

There is a plan for an iPatriot act:

Give gov't authority to examine all data at all times. Privacy is a zero sum game.

What will the future look like:

A) protect privacy and security
B) let the government do it.

Answer? Prepare.

If privacy is like copyright, recognize that both are out of control.

No. You can protect copyright (and privacy) in other ways without destroying the internet.

Privacy fighters need to find the same thing: alternative theory of privacy.

Can privacy nuts live without the blocking gathering of data?

"Tracable anonynymity"

System is insufficienty secure...need to make it it more trustworthy...

Government must be accountable if we give up some "rights."

 

5:17pm

Lessig talks about Zittrain saying the piracy and copyright have the same problem: data out of control.

Tech used to help control privacy and copyright because breaking both used to be expensive. Responses are public and private:

Privacy) for privacy self protection for copyright DRM.

Public) copyright - massive legislation, privacy not so much...

 

5:05pm

More good people can beat a few bad people...still Zittrain.

 

5:00pm

Closed platform era: iPhone and Facebook platform...

 

4:55pm

Tech makers can change stuff you own:

Example - TiVo v EchoStar, echostar had to disable their DVR...why can manufacturers have a window after sale?

Example - OnStar sued against making their in-car mics spy on people. Also, normal mobile phones...available without warrants.

California wanted remote control thermostats for climate control by government..

 

4:51pm

Zittrain sees the end of the "generative" technologies...

Instead, "information appliances" like mobile phones, no third party code...

IPod, iPhone, Kindle, etc. Steve Jobs says consumers want lockdown.

 

4:44pm

Zittrain talks about botnets and trust..."Made for TV after school special"

 

4:40pm

1) From generative back to sterile: blogs

Starts as silly - cats that look like hitler...

Gets serious - josh marshall at talking points memo, people in myanmar and kenya etc

 

4:37pm

"Hourglass Architecture" for both the Internet and the PC

 

4:33pm

Still Zittrain: talking about CompuServe - network AND content provider.

That changed when the internet became commercial...

 

4:29pm

Apple II killer app: visicalc.

 

4:26pm

Zittrain:

In north korea, radios can only be tuned to 3 stations. South Koreans want to send them solar powered radios.

Part 0: in 1880, Herman Hollereth invented punch cards for the census bureau. Cut the time for Census to 2.5 years. Rented them to the US Government. Became IBM.

IBM machine could do anything, but you needed to go to IBM to get it programmed. "Sterile technology"

 

4:20pm

Vint Cerf: intended to be an open system, allowing anyone who wanted acceess to get to it. It is important that it stay that wat because the economic success has allowed new experiments "without permission."

That openness has made it an interesting environment, despite potential for abuse.

Internet does not see international boundaries.

Cerf sees 3 ways to prevent abuse;

A) technical, doesn't aleways work.
B) detect and respond, difficult to trace source, but next natural step.
C) education - like gravity...en mass very powerful.

Because the 'net is global in scope, means of mitigation requirew common agreements of values despite cultural norms and business practice. Need to go after abusers on an international scale (treaties, etc).

Compares to the "law of the sea" in the long run...

Here's a little of what Vint Cerf had to say at Google's Washington office in an ongoing talk about Net Nutrality and the Future of the Internet.

 

The Internet is intended to be an open system, allowing anyone who wanted acceess to get to it. It is important that it stay that wat because the economic success has allowed new experiments "without permission."

 

That openness has made it an interesting environment, despite potential for abuse.

Here are 3 ways that Cerf thinks we can fight back against abuse on and of the internet

 

A) Technical - doesn't always work.
B) Detect and Respond - difficult to trace source, but next natural step.
C) Education - like gravity...en mass very powerful.

 

Because of the international nature of the Internet, Cerf believes that rules and regulations need to be agreed upon at an international level, perhaps even by way of treaty.

 

More updates from the Future of the Internet event as they become available.

Kyte.tv

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Here's the Capitol valley kyte.tv channel.

As we have new pictures and video content we'll post the "best of" to the kyte channel.  Also, photo content will be religiously uploaded to flickr as well. 

 



Verizon has won the FCC auction for the 700Mhz spectrum.

Because Google helped get the bidding high enough the spectrum will be open access.  The revelation that VZW won the auction makes their recent action to push forward with their Open Network initiative seem a lot more relevant.

 

Not only does it give them various advantages (as covered in our previous post on the subject) but it now allows them to test the waters of open access while they work out the details of and build out their 700Mhz network.

 

They can work out the kinks on their current network, where the open access is allowed at their discretion so that they can have a smooth system for device certification and rollout of standards when they roll out the new network, which will be open access by virtue of the auction terms.

 

Very smooth move, VZW

Has anyone else noticed Tom Friedman's absence from The New York Times recently? He's been on "book leave" it seems.

I hope he's writing a new book this time. I don't think I can stomach another "new and updated" edition of The World is Flat, his ubiquitous paen to globalization which for some reason makes people believe he is really, really smart, and by repeating some of his inane book or dropping his or the book's name often enough, they are, by extension, just as smart.

In Friedman's flat world, we are more efficient and productive through use of offshoring, just-in-time production and being able to recieve services 24/7 via a networked world. Sounds great, right?

In his opening chapters, he talks about his visit to the Dell factory and how he saw his laptop being built. Well, what about the time my brother spent $1,000 on a new Dell laptop and got an empty box? Sealed, delivered, and empty. When he called Dell, they simply sent him another machine, because it's apparently normal for some machines to disappear in transit. Some never make it into the box. Some are stolen. Who knows? They don't care. Meanwhile, they take no measures to disguise that their 24/7 support is based mostly in India. Actually, this isn't a bad thing. The amount of competition for these jobs and the fact that it's an english-speaking nation makes India a perfect economic partner for keeping operations running 24/7.

Now, I've got no problem with offshoring. In a conversation with Alex the other day, I noted that an Indian Institute of Technology graduate in a call center could possibly be more qualified to do either of our jobs than we are. It's pretty incredible the calibre of people they can choose from over there.

On the other hand, what happens when offshoring to cut costs leads to bad experiences?

On Monday, I decided to cut my DSL and go with Sprint EvDO broadband. It costs around the same and I don't have to pay for hotspot usage at airports and other public places. So, Monday evening I called Sprint's new activation line. I requested the "web special" pricing and a certain piece of equipment, etc etc. Now, this call center was in Buenos Aries. While I've dealt with Dell's support before with no problem, the Sprint reps obviously were having a hard time. Having worked at helpdesks and call centers, I know when I'm being read a script.

I also can tell when I'm dealing with someone who is having a hard time communicating. Quite simply, these guys were not up to the job of communicating in English and getting everything 100% accurate. So, after two disconnects and a 20 minute hold, I finally got the account open...except where I had been promised overnight shipping, the rep put in for the standard 3-5 day. Useless.

I quickly called back and was bounced around and around until I got to a supervisor, who was barely any better. They dispatched a 2nd order and canceled the first. However, yesterday, i found out that they sent the order to the wrong address. I repeated that address maybe 8 or 9 times. The Sprint rep simply didn't understand what I was saying.

Meanwhile, UPS dropped the ball, too. Their driver didn't unload the package, either, and despite 4 phone calls, I never recieved a call back about my package's location. So, around 5:30pm I walked the 3 blocks to the 18th Street Sprint Store.

25 minutes later, thanks to a helpful rep, I was up and running. Despite the call center's protestations that the store wouldn't honor the web price, they were happy to do it. Very nice people. I plan on going back.

What does this have to do with tech policy? Well, a large amount of our infrastructure is supported by people in other countries. When so much of our security depends on our ability to communicate with one another, shouldn't we trust the administration of those systems to people who are best equipped, not just the lowest priced?

A flat world still has corners you can hit your head on.

Oh, special event coverage after my doc's appointment today. Live, with photos.

Anyone watching tonight's Daily Show catch John Hodgman pulling out an iPhone at the end of his appearance?

Ha.

Fast.

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FYI, the Sprint Store is way better than dealing with anyone on the phone. 20 minutes, in and out. Web price. Done.



Verizon Wireless released some more information about it's "Any Device, Any App" or "Open Network" initiative.

 

Verizon (often abbreviated as VZW) announced earlier this year that it would allow outside manufacturers to make wireless devices for activation on their network.  The device will need to adhere to certain network specifications which VZW will provide.  I'm using the word "device" instead of "phone" because it doesn't have to be a phone.  It could be an mp3 player similar to the iPod Touch.  Just instead of using WiFi to go online to surf or buy songs you'd connect over VZW's network.  Another possibility would be a GPS tracking device that would use the internet connection to report data to a website or a monitoring device. 

 

As far as phones are concerned, what may be most appealing is that the devices can be activated, online through VZW, without a contract

 

Here's a little more from Reuter's Sinead Carew

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 U.S. mobile service, plans to support a "few hundred thousand" devices linked to outsiders this year through its open network initiative, Chief Executive Lowell McAdam said on Wednesday.

...

Under the new project, device makers could sell their products independently of Verizon Wireless, with the option of having the phone company bill customers at the same rates as Verizon Wireless charges its direct customers.

But unlike most Verizon Wireless customers, who commit to a contract for a year or two in exchange for a discount on the price of the phone, the customers of these third party devices would not sign a contract or receive a device discount from Verizon Wireless.

 

The Open Network initiative is an amazingly smart move. VZW is giving its customers (and potential customers) an almost limitless device catalog without increasing their own costs.  They don't have to worry about over-buying the next big handset only to have it flop.  They don't have to spend time educating their sales reps about the new phones because the manufacturer/distributor will be responsible for that.

 

I know there are probably some people thinking that Verizon will lose money by not selling as many phones.  The thing is that most of the phones sold directly by a carrier are sold at a heavy discount in exchange for signing a contract.  The carrier isn't making their money off of the handset, but off of the service.  Open Network device or not, you're still buying the service, the money maker, from VZW.

 

Because the Open Network devices can be activated sans contract with a rate plan identical to what a contracted customer would have, it's a move that takes a huge leap into the territory outlined by the Wireless Consumer Protection bill that's currently in draft status.  Verizon's customers will still have the option to get a phone with a contract at a discount or get a full-price Open Network device and go contract-free. 

 

I've mentioned it before, but I really think that customers will be a lot more comfortable with signing a contract to extend or start service if they know that the contract was a choice instead of the only choice.

 

A few months back, Sprint also announced that it would allow non-Sprint CDMA devices to be activated on their network, but a timeline and details do not exist yet.

 

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has a fantastic rant up about the influx of VC to "blog networks" and the recent (well, 2 years recent) tendency of bloggers to be looking for the VC infusion smoothie or to get in on the big networks.

This comes at a time when people ask me "how do you plan on making money with this thing?" and "where are the ads?" They assume I want to get into an ad network or get someone to invest in my writing looking for a return, they assume that is the way I see a payoff for my efforts.

They're wrong. On the other hand, Michael has it right:

So what's the point of this rant? Well, all this money flowing into the blogosphere is disrupting the complicated and emotional, but also stable way things are done. Bloggers with money and employees and health care programs and boards of directors and shareholders have to play politics with a whole new group of people, splitting them away from what they do best - Fighting the Blog War. Their behavior can become erratic as they have to decide to tone down their writing to get a certain type of sponsor on board, which in turn lets them make payroll. Investors want to see growth, so more and more blogs are launched, but perhaps without the right talent to grow it into a long term business.

In short, I believe the money is being, for the most part, wasted.

If a VC hands you a check, their intention is not to hang around for 20 years while you build a nice lifestyle business for yourself. What they want to see is an exit, preferably a 10x or higher exit, within 3-4 years. But something tells me that few of these networks are going to be able to grow quite as easily as they think and reach those liquidity events. The talent is, increasingly, locked up. Even when new talent is discovered or trained, every niche has serious heavyweights already there with page views and advertising dollars to back them up for a long fight.

I'm just going to print out his post and carry a laminated copy with me to show people next time I get asked "the question" and keep the URL handy to forward and pass around.

His (quite timely) point is that there are things that are worth investing in over the long term, by putting in time to develop relationships, content, style, etc, and then there are the "bubble" investments, where some believe that throwing Other People's Money and advertising around is the solution.

Last week I sat in on a panel where Robert Scoble  (correctly) pointed out that he doesn't run ads (except for his book) because the truth is, good content is king. Arrington takes this a step further and explains why he's been shying away from Other People's Money:

What I'd like to see, and even be a part of, is the blogger equivalent to the 1992 U.S. Mens Basketball Dream Team. That team could take CNET apart in a year, hire the best of the survivors there, and then move on to bigger prey.

Just the thought of being a part of something like that has held us back from raising any outside capital at all. I believe we have the beginning of a team that can play a role in this new Dream Team.

He's so right I can't even begin to get at it. I've been trying to explain it to friends, to family, to people I meet at conferences, and this guy just nails it.

I'd be happy to be the last guy off the bench on that Dream Team, because the content would blow the current "A-List" paid networks out of the water.

Content is king. Bubbles burst.

Well said, Michael.

...by which I mean I'm ditching the DSL. I have a Sprint EvDO Rev A USB modem and a Personal HotSpot router on the way...which mean, I can carry my broadband wherever I go. Wireless. Cordless. I can give you live photostreams or even (good god!) streaming video if I decide to go that way. Maybe some audio. 

Why? I am sick of Wi-Fi. It's clogged, costs too much, and I'm not home enough to justify paying for broadband that I don't use as much as I could use that same cash to take it with me.

The experiment is whether or not I really need the cord. My partner-in-crime here, Alex, has gone a few months living the cordless life. When I was in the Bay Area last month, I noticed how fast his connections were. Mine? Even the in-room WiFi was slow. 

Last week in Austin, I didn't want to pay $10 to get 2 hours of internet while I waited for my flight. I'm sick of airports with pay WiFi. I'll bring my own, just like I bring my own lunch. 

Time for a change. 
It's done. As of 5:14 PM, the 700mhz auction is over.

The winners have not been named, but I can guess that they are the big boys, AT&T and Verizon. We won't have any NextWaves this time.

The winners will have to pay up and build out, as soon as the TV networks give up their licenses (check the countdown).

This should be fun.

Unlike yesterday, TechCrunch has a good summary of Facebook's announcement of new privacy features, which took place at their headquarters today. Also, Facebook is launching an internal chat function, which is in-browser and useless because it doesn't allow third party development or API access. Walled garden blah blah.

What I want to mention is the privacy controls. Basically, what Facebook has done is allowed you to whitelist different people for different kinds of data, so your work friends can't see your drunk college spring break photos. You can also be someone's "friend" and decide what info to give them, etc etc. Your ex can be your friend but he can't have your new address. Stuff like that.

Facebook's Chief Privacy Officer (wtf kind of title is that, anyway?) Chris Kelly took a few questions, and noted that by using Facebook you consent to letting them possibly use your profile and image to promote the site. I assume it's in the TOS.

This brings us back to the 300lb Facebook Gorilla in the room: who owns your data?

Robert Scoble tried to find out a few months ago and famously found himself kicked off Facebook. When he asked founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg about it last week, he got a weak non-answer about preventing spam and an "appeals process" which, since he is Robert Scoble, was unneccessary.

Some background: Robert wanted to put his Facebook contacts into his Outlook address book. Facebook allows you to import your contacts to make them your "friends" using the ubiquitous CSV format, but does not allow you to spit that same data back out.

See, that's funny, because when I joined Facebook in 2004, that was an easy thing to do. I even exported my friends into my Apple address book. I know because an archived version still has some that didn't list their phone numbers, just their "@wisc.edu" email addresses.

Sometime in 2005, that feature disappeared, and has been gone ever since.

I asked Mark Zuckerberg a question at the Developers' Garage event, but not that one. I'll be asking around though, because when I emailed Facebook support, they pretended the feature never existed.

Who owns the data? We'll find out.

AT&T has launched a new website to act as a one-stop-shop for customers, developers and media groups who need information about the company or its services.

 

The site is www.att.com/choice .  There are areas where developers can learn about system and network requirements and reporters can get corporate info as well as access to phone pictures and logos.

 

What I think is really impressive is the amount of information available to customers.  Some of it is a little advertise-y, but that's to be expected.  Even so, the site has a feeling that says "help" more than "sell."

 

My only gripes are that the layout still appears to need some tweaking (it is brand new) and it's very Flash-heavy, so it may load a wee bit on the slow side.

 

Most companies are trying to push customers to their website for assistance because it's cheaper than having you talk to a person.  AT&T's Choice website seems to adhere to a philosophy of "Hey, if we're going to send them to the web for information, let's make it super easy and super useful."

 

That thinking is super rare and super refreshing.

Quickie - Punched!

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Ok, so this is total nonsense, but I think it fits into the "whatever else the editors think will make you laugh, cry, or think during the work day" part of the mission statement here...

 

 

Believe in Your Dreams

We all know about roaming fees.  They're terrible.  For anyone who has never dealt with roaming, here's a brief rundown.

When you're in an area that is not covered by your mobile phone carrier you can generally "roam" onto another carrier's network.  Roaming is made possible because of agreements that carriers have with each other to connect calls for each others' customers.  Sometimes one carrier pays the other a fee for this.  Sometimes they reach no fee agreements.  Sort of a "We'll let your customers roam over here if you let our customers roam over there" deal.

 

Currently Sprint (who is a struggling number 3 in the Big 4*) is trying to expand into new areas controlled by AT&T.  The reason that the issue is going all the way to the FCC is that Sprint wants to do so for free.

 

Here are some of the details from the AP's Dibya Sarkar, courtesy of Yahoo! Finance

 

AT&T and rival Sprint Nextel are in a bitter dispute over fees to use one another's voice networks. The nation's largest phone company doesn't want Sprint expanding a no-fee deal to nearly half the country. So it's taken the fight from the states to the Federal Communications Commission.

If AT&T doesn't get its way, Sprint can go fee-free into 22 states and potentially cost its rival millions in annual revenue.

 

When AT&T was trying to get its merger with BellSouth approved they had to accept certain conditions from the FCC.  One such condition would allow Sprint to carry over roaming agreements reached in one state to another.  It is this provision that Sprint is trying to use in order to increase its roaming coverage (which it doesn't charge customers for, by the way) for free.

 

AT&T, by being the "Big Dog" of American mobile phone carriers, is catching heat from an unlikely cadre of Sprint allies.

 

"Our worst suspicions about AT&T have come true," said Sprint spokesman John Taylor. "They just said whatever they needed to say in order to win approval of their merger with BellSouth."

 

A lot of other major players seem to agree.  Metro PCS, Charter Communications and cable super-heavyweight Comcast all seem to be worried that AT&T is trying to back out of its agreement with the FCC.

 

Even Verizon is backing up Sprint.  Verizon is in a tough spot, though.  On the one hand, they don't want to make it easier for AT&T to get out of roaming agreements.  Verizon makes those agreements too, you know.  From that angle, it makes perfect sense for Verizon (number 2 in the Big 4) to support Sprint.

 

The conspiracy theorist in me thinks differently.  There were rumors floating around that Sprint's merger with Nextel was to avoid a Verizon buyout of Sprint.  The rumor was bolstered by Verizon trying to buy itself back from Vodafone (Verizon Wireless is a joint venture between Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group).  If Verizon sat back and let AT&T fight or even went as far as to support AT&T things would get more expensive for Sprint.  That, in turn, could weaken Sprint's already rock-bottom stock (last traded at $5.71/share as opposed to Verizon's $35.04/share) enough for Verizon to try a buy.  Verizon would then be the only major, national CDMA carrier and would also leap into an incredibly dominant 1st place in the Big 4, which I guess would become the Big 3.  Based on subscriber numbers, a merged Sprint/Verizon would need to lose about 50 million subscribers for AT&T to get back into 1st.  That would essentially mean that all but 3.8 million of Sprint's customers would have to go elsewhere post-merger.  Admittedly, customers more concerned with price may try and go to another carrier (Verizon isn't known for being cheap), but the customers who are sticklers for quality probably wouldn't mind being taken under the umbrella of the self-proclaimed most reliable network in the country.

 

If Sprint's "Simply Everything" plan doesn't help to retain and create customers and they don't make some serious changes to their customer support (perennially rated as the worst customer support in the country) a Verizon buyout could make the jump from possibility to reality.

 

*"The Big 4" refers to the 4 largest mobile phone carriers in the U.S. -

AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile

Remember when I wrote about WashingtonVC and Grassroots.org? I talked to one of their people today, Angela Siefer. She answered some questions, and I'm slightly less skeptical.

 

 


I'll follow up on this.

The Ann Arbor News continues its fantastic reporting today on the disgusting state of the University of Michigan's treatment of "student-athletes"  with a report on a major that only 3% of the thousands of undergraduates at UM take, but 49% of those taking are athletes.

Yes, I'm talking about "General Studies."

You may ask yourself, what the heck does that mean, anyway? You tell me. I have no idea. Someone who does know, is former UM president James Duderstadt, who wrote a book called "Intercollegiate Athletetics and the American University."

Duderstadt asks the question,

"Where else can athletes with weak academic skills be accommodated in a university with competitive academic admissions and rigorous academic programs? This, of course, is a question many leading universities face, from Michigan to Berkeley, and Duke to Stanford...

Since these soon become well known to coaches and academic advisors, student-athletes with weaker academic skills are steered toward these safe harbors. Since one can rarely find enough cupcake courses to comprise a true major, some universities have actually created degrees such as a Bachelor of General Studies to facilitate such a strategy."

He calls it like he sees it.

Something else the News has picked up on is Shari Acho, an "academic counselor" whose job seems to consist of keeping football players eligible without regard to their lives after Michigan football.

Acho remains in a Michigan football player's academic life from the time he officially visits campus as a recruit until he leaves the school. She discusses possible academic tracks with him, keeps on top of course enrollment, monitors class attendance, verifies progress toward a degree and serves as a counselor about school and, sometimes, personal matters.

But the precise part Acho plays in an athlete's decision to enroll in general studies seems to be subject to interpretation.

Acho said if a visiting football recruit is interested in LS&A - the largest of Michigan's schools and colleges - then she'll ask someone from LS&A to come and talk about general studies. In interviews, players said Acho encouraged them to pursue the degree.

"I don't think encouraged is the right word," Acho countered. "I think every student decides on whatever degree program they want to go into. And just as I said before, we'll ask the questions - what might you be interested in?"

"I wanted to do all of the film and video classes, but it was just that the times conflicted with football, and you know football's paying the bills."
- Pierre Woods, former Michigan linebacker.

Branch told The News he wanted to be a history teacher. Former Michigan wide receiver Steve Breaston - Branch's teammate with the Arizona Cardinals - said he wanted to major in English. New England Patriots linebacker Pierre Woods, another player on Michigan's 2004 team, said he wanted to be a film and video major.

All three ended up in the general studies program.

Acho said she can't explain why so many athletes congregate in general studies, other than to say that "the flexibility in the program has allowed them to create programs of study that really interest them."

She's either lying or just plain stupid.

Can anyone explain why the NCAA is tax exempt?

I'm pretty sure this is a joke...

 

...but these days you never know.

The NYT says it's getting there: 

Now, with 80 percent of passengers using these self-service options, the next step is electronic boarding passes, which essentially turn the hand-held devices and mobile phones of travelers into their boarding passes.

At least half a dozen airlines in the United States currently allow customers to check in using their mobile devices, including American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest and Alaska.

But so far, Continental is the only carrier in the United States to begin testing the electronic passes, allowing those travelers to pass through security and board the plane without handling a piece of paper. Their boarding pass is an image of an encrypted bar code displayed on the phone's screen, which can be scanned by gate agents and security personnel.'


Personally, I think this is great. There's privacy, and there's security. This violates neither. In fact, having my boarding pass on my secure, encrypted PDA sure beats having it on a piece of paper that can be stolen. 

I also like the idea that it can be wirelessly updated. I'm in the process of ditching all the wires in my life. I am dropping my DSL and getting a EvDO connection from Sprint on a trial/test basis. In theory, along with a router this should let me carry a wi-fi cloud with me and do live podcasting, audio, photostreams and all kin