April 2008 Archives

I'll leave the good stuff to Ars Technica, but Howard Berman's bouncing baby copyright bill is one step closer to becoming law, sailing through the Judiciary Committee.

The bill would create a new position for a federal copyright enforcement czar, establish a new copyright enforcement division within the Department of Justice, and would also permit law enforcement agents to seize property from perpetrators of copyright infringement. 

The good people at the NYT have given me more reason to get excited about next month's NCTA Cable Show in New Orleans: Watching the speculation, rumour and intrigue behind who might try and take over Time Warner's cable systems, which are about to become sort of "up for grabs" as they get spun off.

Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief executive of Time Warner Inc., continued to trim what has for years been the world's largest media company by announcing Wednesday that it would completely spin off its cable company.

The news -- which was not unexpected and follows an earlier transaction in which a portion of the cable unit was spun off into a separate public company -- came as Time Warner reported quarterly earnings that were largely in line with Wall Street's expectations.

This is going to be fun to watch for a number of reasons. Last time there was a major group of systems up for sale was when AT&T sold off their Cable systems, leading to a "friendly" competition between Cox Communications, and the eventual winner Comcast. That victory gave Comcast a huge market advantage in the number of subscribers, but Comcast, which has a reputation for fighting like Rocky, the unofficial mascot of its' home city of Philadelpha, may not be able to benefit from going after TIme Warner without helping Cox, their old Atlanta-based foes. 

Why? When Reagan signed the 1984 Cable Act, it included the "70/70" rule, which said that if 70% of households that could subscribe to Cable Television (then a much more expensive "luxury" service) did so, the FCC could re-regulate the industry, including institute pricing and ownership regulations. 



In this space, when we write about  Silicon Valley and its' relationship with the federal government, it's usually something nasty or hot-button, like net neutrality, energy, patent reform, intellectual property, or copyright. When people bring up environmental issues with the technology sector, usually it's the air pollution from all the cars, or whether or not Apple uses too much packaging, or what materials go into hardware and whether or not it should be illegal to throw away that old computer in a landfill. 

Today however, Congress (both chambers) passed the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 which, among its many, many provisions, earmarks and programs of varying validity, sanity, and importance, includes funds covering 25% of the cost to construct facilities to recycle water across the state, with two in the Bay Area to receive approximately $15 million of that federal dough. The facilities fall into two types: one that will clean up water so it can be used for irrigation of crops and watering the Redwoods, and another that doesn't clean so much but makes the water usable for industrial parks, manufacturing, etc

President Bush is expected to sign the bill, which was supported by a multitude of environmental  and government groups like the Santa Clara Valley Water District, and it's a good bill for him to sign. Water recycling, according to the Bay Area Clean Water Agencies, is a way to prevent droughts from depleting the potable water supply (aka the stuff you drink) because the water that doesn't need to be so clean because instead of quenching your thirst it's greening up your golf course.

What does this have to do with technology policy? Consider the following:




Capitol Valley interactive at kyte.tv/capitolvalleyinteractive
Capitol Valley content from Alex and Andrew at kyte.tv/capitolvalleymedia

Don't forget to check out the rest of the media center, with links to the Kyte.tv channels, our flickr pools, the dop.io drop and any other cool stuff we might add later.
For years, people have wondered if Microsoft has built in backdoors for law enforcement. China created their own Linux distribution for government use. There have been instances of police using off the shelf monitoring tools for investigations, installing them in court-sanctioned "black bag jobs."

Now, the good folks at Ars Technica reveal that Microsoft proudly crowing over their latest achievement, a (built-in) back door into Windows and the tools to open it!

 Microsoft revealed its development of a digital forensic analysis toolkit at a security conference yesterday as part of a wider discussion of how technology can be used to fight crime. The Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, or COFEE for short, is a USB thumb drive that contains software capable of executing approximately 150 separate commands. Once plugged in, COFEE can be ordered to decrypt system passwords, display a history of internet activity, and search the system for evidence.


That loud anguished crying sound you heard is a million IT managers' heads exploding. Why? This thing has been available "to law enforcement" since last June.

Here's a question, what company in their right mind that has any requirement for confidentiality would buy software from a software company that sells decryption and password cracking tools for its' own operating system? Isn't that almost advertising how poor your software's built-in security is? Security extends beyond malware protection. It also means that if you build doors and install locks, you should install a good lock. In this case, you're being sold a foam core with a skeleton key.

I would expect a surge in Apple enterprise sales. In their zeal to be helpful and combat computer crime, this may be a shocking case of corporate suicide. They thought people were reluctant to buy Vista now? They'll be shipping XP for a very, very long time, I believe.
CNN.com had an article today that, while in no way dispensing any new information, is something that could be pretty useful for people who a) are brand new to social networking sites or b) have kids who are on or want to be on one.

"I don't want to have to worry about all the different online scandals and problems," says Brown, an education major at St. Joseph College in Connecticut. She'd like to control her personal information and keep it out of the hands of identity thieves or snooping future employers. "It's just common sense."

It sounds like her info is locked down and airtight. But is it?

Turns out, even the privacy-conscious Sarah Browns of the world freely hand over personal information to perfect strangers. They do so every time they download and install what's known as an "application," one of thousands of mini-programs on a growing number of social networking sites that are designed by third-party developers for anything from games and sports teams to trivia quizzes and virtual gifts.


The rest of the article is here, and if you fall into either of the categories I mentioned, you should totally check it out.

I feel the need, again, to make the point that nothing is free.  Not entirely.  If you want the neat applications and you don't want to pay for them they need to be supported by ads.  The ads are more effective and therefor more profitable if they are targeted based upon assumed interests and patterns of behavior.

So should you be careful?  Sure.  Should you whine and moan because your online activity is being tracked?  No, you should just stay away from sites and applications that do the tracking.
So much for the idea that Silicon Valley doesn't understand the Legislative or Regulatory process, turns out that some don't even get the Judicial system either.

Hans Reiser, the author of the pioneering Linux filesystem known as ReiserFS was found guilty of First Degree Murder yesterday by an Alameda County, California jury, specifically the alleged murder of his Russian-born wife, Nina.

I began my forays into the tech community as a 13 year old Linux geek, so it's disheartening to see someone as important to the F/OSS movement such as Reiser meet such an end, but even more so when I see the weakness of the prosecution's case, and the Roger Clemens style idiocy that Reiser showed by actually taking the stand in his own defense, and proving once again that trade groups should include basic civil rights and civics lessons in seminars for tech entrepreneurs.

I have no idea if Hans Reiser killed his wife. Her body hasn't been found. The State couldn't actually prove that she was dead, much less that he caused her death. As Wired News notes:

In a murder case with no body, no crime scene, no reliable eyewitness and virtually no physical evidence, the prosecution began the trial last November with a daunting task ahead. By the time prosecutor Paul Hora rested his case February 14, he had called some 60 witnesses, but presented mostly circumstantial evidence demonstrating animus between Reiser and his wife, and suspicious behavior by the defendant following Nina's disappearance in September, 2006.

The turning point in the trial came when Reiser took the stand in his own defense March 3.

In his 11 days of testimony, Reiser offered lengthy and verbose explanations for every piece of circumstantial evidence. But Reiser's version of events often drew disbelieving head shakes from jurors -- and occasional smirks from the trial judge.


Reiser's case, at least to this writer's, is in one way a microcosm of the landmark Federal Antitrust case against Microsoft. Gates squirming under the camera lights at deposition,  Reiser offering detailed, geeky explanations for every bit of circumstantial, even silly pieces of "evidence" brought in front of him. He just didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. The state presented a weak case. No body, no scene, nothing. Some detectives following Reiser while he tried to avoid unmarked cars following him (I'd probably get creeped out by that, too). It looked like the prosecution hadn't really proved anything at all, until Reiser made a classic Valley mistake, commonly made in Washington hearing rooms, but found just as often in courtrooms across the land: he took the stand in his own defense:

As the prosecutor rested his case, it seemed far from clear that the circumstantial evidence would be enough for the jury of seven men and five women to find Reiser guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Throughout his cross examination of the prosecution witnesses, defense attorney William DuBois aptly painted a picture of Reiser as a misunderstood computer nerd, so inattentive to social cues, and so slavishly devoted to logic, that his innocent behavior could be easily misinterpreted as evidence of guilt.

From his seat at the defense table, Reiser seemed to offer supporting evidence for that so-called "geek defense" in the form of his own actions, frequently quarreling with his attorney, and interrupting DuBois' cross-examination...Reiser couldn't explain why, following his wife's disappearance, he suddenly drove through the Sierra Nevada mountain range to Reno, to sample casino buffets. And he admitted taking evasive maneuvers while walking and driving to determine if he was being followed by the police, something he attributed to his innate distrust of authority, amplified by the books he read when authorities began investigating him.

He bought those books about murder investigations, he said, because he wanted to know how police behaved. "I was under investigation by the police," he said. Reading up on their techniques was only logical, he testified.

"I have a compulsive tendency to say things that I know are true that people don't want to be true," Reiser said at one point.

As testimony wrapped up April 14, Reiser offered his assessment of the proceedings in front of the jury. "This whole thing is silly," he said from the stand.

"What do you mean, the 'whole thing'?" DuBois asked.

"The whole case."


Does anyone recall Gates on the video 10 years ago? He got a lucky break when the judge involved had to recuse himself. No such luck for Hans, who will spent at least the next 25 years in prison, where perhaps he can design a better system for tracking inmates or a database for record keeping. 

This is really, really sad. Not just because someone might be dead, but because we value people for their uncanny understanding of things we cannot comprehend and gladly accept their products, but castigate them when they can't conform to our expectations, which they cannot comprehend. 

I can sit in Hans' shoes and understand the A->B->C paths he took that made him look guilty. I can understand how a jury might have thought he was pulling their legs, this awkward, arrogant programmer who even bought David Simon's book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (on which an NBC show (one of the best "cop shows" ever), as well as HBO's The WIre were largely based.) to learn about police tactics once he became a suspect. To him, it all is natural and logical. To a jury, emotional. His best bet would have been to keep his mouth shut.

So, another tech pioneer is brought down by a lack of understand of government. Not quite the usual fare for this space, but it's so unusual that I'd be amiss if I didn't report it here.

I saw this at mocoNews.net and was blown away.  It's the kind of simple, common sense stuff that gets so easily lost in the bureaucracy and over analyzing of a big corporation.

Guy Talmi is a Senior Marketing Director at Pontis, an Israel-based company that works with wireless and cable operators to help determine the most relevant marketing approaches based on a user's profile, preferences and behavior. Talmi has compiled a list of the top 10 most common marketing mistakes he sees made by the operator.

Here I'll just list the actual top 10, but you can click here to see the explanation of each over at mocoNews.

1.  Operators fail to target the right products to the right customers
2.  Free trial offers fail because of poor follow-up
3.  Introductory offers for new customers alienate existing customers
4.  Non-targeted offers look like spam
5.  Operators address churn too late
6.  Marketing campaigns may fail if not tested before launch
7.  Operators use the wrong medium to market to users
8.  Value the customer
9.  Operators miss marketing opportunities
10.  Success breeds success - if you can recognize it

When you get into the explanations it makes even more sense.
What he says in his summary, praising online retailers like Amazon for marketing based on past searches and purchases, is something that has been a little controversial.

There's growing concern among (mostly older) web surfers and purchasers that companies are keeping too much information about them.  I tend to shoot down these concerns, more vocally when referring to sites that are trying to monetize a free service, because there is a reason behind targeted advertising.  I think that Talmi would agree with me that targeted advertising and marketing, regardless of industry, can help companies save money and hopefully pass those savings onto their customers in the form of more competitively priced goods and services.


First, here's a little bit of the story that ran at CNN.com today

James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone.

...

Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested April 10.

On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.

The message only had one word. "Arrested."


After that one-word message was sent out James' followers started Tweeting and blogging about their friend's precarious situation.  One friend even got on the ball and hired a lawyer on James' behalf.  James was freed.



Less than 24 hours after he was arrested.



This is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be given the spotlight, and I'm super excited about seeing it on CNN.com.  It's the sort of thing that can further help to spread awareness of how Twitter can function as more than just a fun tool or even a professional one, both of which are hats it wears quite well.



The only failing I see is that it can only benefit Twitter.  If, as we rant about ad nauseum,  this good press could have benefited the entire social networking/blogging community.  We're always saying that Web 2.0 (And I'm caught playing Buzzword Bingo) companies, and those that are involved in social networking especially, should and need to form an industry organization to keep themselves safe from potential regulation hell.



Let's face it - Like it or not, a negative story will wash over an entire medium like wildfire.  Did Janet Jackson's nipple focus the ire of over-reacting, zero-responsibility, whack-job, non-parents on CBS and the NFL?  I think that we all know what the answer is there. As I've said about on-topic examples and as was discussed in our interview with Dr. Patrick Moore, it's true that forming an industry organization means working with your competitors.  But it's working with your competitors so that you can be allowed to compete and to keep your own set of rules.



I won't go into much more detail, because I'd basically be reposting old info (more than I have already).



I'll close by giving big ups to Twitter, of which Andrew and I are big old fanboys.  This kind of story is what can help to elevate a technology from "fun" to "professional" to that next level where it can be used for very serious situations.  The same way that text messages and mobile phones in general have, the latter over the past decade and the former over the past 4-5 years.



Twitter, great job!  Social Networking/Web 2.0 execs - Celebrate the good but team up and protect yourselves from the bad.

My hometown paper, The Washington Post, has a (for once) terrific and thoughtful article on the public policy and employment law implications of social networks: that which you have done in the past but recorded for your own memory, can now be easily used against you.

Quoth the Post:

It's almost like Googling someone: Log on to Facebook. Join the Washington, D.C., network. Search the Web site for your favorite school system. And then watch the public profiles of 20-something teachers unfurl like gift wrap on the screen, revealing a sense of humor that can be overtly sarcastic or unintentionally unprofessional -- or both.

One Montgomery County special education teacher displayed a poster that depicts talking sperm and invokes a slang term for oral sex. One woman who identified herself as a Prince William Countykindergarten teacher posted a satiric shampoo commercial with a half-naked man having an orgasm in the shower. A D.C. public schools educator offered this tip on her page: "Teaching in DCPS -- Lesson #1: Don't smoke crack while pregnant."


Sarcastic? Yeah. Unprofessional? I'm not so sure. I think the danger begins when you identify yourself by your employer. While we were all proud to post that first job on Facebook, many of us neglected to take down photos or change profiles. And then they caught on. I saw an old employer's H.R. director on Facebook. As much as I considered her a friend, there were parts of my life I wasn't comfortable sharing. So, I blocked her. I also went through the trouble of blocking the network of another employer from viewing this sight. Hindsight being 20/20, many of them have written to me since unblocking it in complementary terms, but I did out of an abundance of caution, not to mention never making a single reference to where I worked or what I did for living. I live a very public life (or as my friend Andy Beal says, a Radically Transparent lifestyle - BUY HIS BOOK!).

While many of those interviewed for the article took the reasonable (and rational) view that work and personal lives are separate,

I know that employers will look at that page, and I need to be more careful," said Webster, adding that other Prince William teachers have warned her about her page. "At the same time, my work and social lives are completely separate. I just feel they shouldn't take it seriously. I am young. I just turned 22."

many school systems are wrestling with the problem, as teachers are in a way, public figures, and certainly role models. To the credit of some systems, they aren't reacting in a knee-jerk fashion. Pulled on one hand by the need to maintain reputations, but on another by the need to recruit quality teachers who are enthusiastic about their jobs (anecdotal evidence shows young adults with healthy personal lives have better interpersonal and workplace skills) they are walking a fine tightrope, and to some, it may come down to a Justice Potter Stewart-style "I know it when I see it" mentality which some smart employment lawyers are going to have to codify.

One thing does bother me, though. Look at this quote. The first part seems totally reasonable, but read the second sentence:

Local school officials say they have no policies concerning social networking pages or blogs kept by teachers. But they said that online improprieties would fall under general guidelines requiring proper behavior in and outside school and that sketchy Web sites would be handled case by case.

"I hate to think of what's out there. . . . There's so much out there that it's hard to know what's there," said Ken Blackstone, a Prince William schools spokesman. "But as public employees, we all understand the importance of living a public life above reproach."


Above Reproach? Get thy recruiter to a nunnery, Mr. Blackstone! Here is the sad truth, you will find eager young men and women who want to be teachers. Inspired by one of their own, or driven by a calling or desire to help or do good, they apply for underpaid, overworked positions which are afforded little respect by parents or the institutions which they serve. 

How can you expect a 22 year old graduate to have lived his whole life "above reproach" when at 19, he probably had no clue where he would be 2 years later, much less 2 hours after his time on the beach with his friends. 

I fear that our employment laws have gaping hole when it comes to "at-will" employment a blogs, profile pages, and personal expression outside the workplace that in some cases, begins years before a young adult enters the work force.

I once suggested to a friendly supervisor of mine that Mr. Beal's book be required reading for HR departments, PR departments, and all new hires of this "Facebook Generation" (I hate that term but I'll use it anyway". 

This "Transparent" generation is going to have to learn to transition their online lives in the same way we wouldn't show a perfect stranger our entire photo album, but workplaces and governments are going to have to develop guidelines on what is acceptable and what is not, and is it better in the hiring process to use the "clean up your profile" speech as a tool for weeding out perceived miscreants, or could it be used to dig deeper to find people who are outgoing, social, energetic and enthusiastic about their schools, their social lives, and eventually their jobs?

In other words, is it not so far-fetched that the 22 year old chugging coronas on the beach will put the same energy, commitment, and enough pride to advertise how much she loves her work into a job she cares about, with an employer who understands the transition into adulthood and the new responsibilities that come with it?

At the risk of rambling, if I was a Human Resources recruiter cruising Facebook and could choose between someone with a sanitized, vanilla profile (A), and someone who was an active member of the community, debauchery and all (B), I'd probably bring them both in for a second round.

To (A): It's obvious you cleaned this up knowing we'd be looking. What do you have to hide?

To (B): I think there are some things here that need to be more carefully placed if you're going to be associated with this employer, but can you tell me a story about something on here take gives me a better impression of you?

I may be crazy, but barring something out of this world stupid, I am going to hire B, as long as he can tell me a story that gives me more insight into who he is, how he relates to his friends, and if he'd bring the energy it took to take that 9 foot beer bong to teaching math. 

A wise person once told me, "get passionate people and get passionate results." You're never going to find perfect people. If you do, they're probably either 1) boring or 2) liars and don't merit a second look either way. If they're transparent and honest, and that transparency shows something, an energy, enthusiasm, or joie de vivre that can, with proper guidance and mentoring translate into the workplace, by all means, give them a chance. Knowing more about them make syou a better supervisor, makes them trust you more, and allows them to walk into their workplace without fear, and instead bring the same confidence they showed on a Mexican beach to an American classroom.

But make sure they clean up their public profile, just in case.


While I won't make any jokes about Cher or trees, or skiing, I will give a hat tip to That Other Andrew(tm) for pointing out the reintroduction of bills governing "Orphan Works" under copyright law.

For those who are unaware, it's illegal to use a copyrighted photo, image, piece of music, film, or written work without the permission of the copyright holder  or successors, including heirs. When people die, the implied copyrights of their family photographs (implied copyright means that anything you create, you own the copyright too, at least since the Copyright Act of 1976) is probably not something given much attention to in their wills.

Anyway, under current law, if you can't find the holder or heir, you can't get permission to use anything, and you can't use it. The bills, introduced last week by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) (Andrew interviewed Rep. Berman last month at Tech Policy Summit) would create a "safe-harbor" for those who make a good-faith effort to track down owners of this stuff, and if someone pops up later would entitle them to collect something without the hassle of litigation or liability.

Doesn't this seem a bit silly? Well, it is. Who can we thank for this? 

Bono. Not the guy with the glasses, the one who was married to Cher.



As Alex reported in the Weekly Mobile News Roundup, NextWave Wireless, Inc. (yes, THAT NextWave) is planning on selling off their 2.5GHz PCS spectrum licenses.


Excuse me while I take the next 10 minutes to roll on the ground laughing hysterically.

OK, I'm back now.

For those of you who don't know, NextWave is the company that won a bunch of 2.5GHz PCS licenses back in the 1990s after the 1996 Telecommunications Act required the FCC to auction off that spectrum for advanced digital wireless services...sort of like what Europe had been using for years. 

So, NextWave won a bunch of licenses, and had to build out their network. Only, the FCC needed them to pay up. But, they couldn't do both. So, the FCC let them make installment payments on the licenses, making the FCC a de facto lender. When they couldn't pay the FCC (because they were trying to build out their network, otherwise they'd lose their licenses,) they filed for bankruptcy to protect their licenses, since the FCC, was, in effect a creditor. 

Meanwhile, the FCC tried to re-auction the NextWave disputed licenses, which created an entire new set of problems for the agency (one which they fixed in the 700MHz auctions that were just completed).

To make a long story short, the Courts agreed with NextWave, but the FCC continued to battle for years and years, with each decision they had to make in any license transfer proceeding dictated by how it fit with their position in the NextWave litigation. Eventually, the FCC kept appealing until the Supreme Court told it that NextWave could keep the licenses, many of which ended up in the hands of what are now AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile anyway.

So, the circle is complete. The 700MHz auction is completed, with open access and (hopefully) none of the idiotic litigation that followed the last round of auctions, and NextWave is selling off their spectrum, because well, it just isn't that important anymore, and they make lots of Wi-Max hardware now.

For a fantastic take on the NextWave saga and why it was so ridiculous, read former FCC Commissioner (and economist) Harold Furchtgott-Roth's book (I should carry a copy with me everywhere I go) . It's called "A Tough Act to Follow?" and while it doesn't have the Beatles-referencing title of former Chairman Reed Hundt's "You Say You Want Revolution" it is a wonderful history of how the FCC can do something so horribly wrong, even with the best of intentions. Actually, you should read both their books, but Mr. Furchtgott-Roth's has much more about NextWave and is smaller. Plus, out of the two, he's the only one I've met and he's actually a pretty nice guy. Actually, all of the FCC Commissioners I've met are pretty affable people, and that includes three of the five current ones and two former. 

It's a shame that such friendly people get such a bad reputation. 

(Hey! FCC Commissioners! I'll plug YOUR books too! I actually read this stuff!)

wow, I'm boring.

Weekly Mobile News Roundup

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So here it is, a day late, but in no way short.  It's the Weekly Mobile News Roundup.  Let's jump right in, starting with the price-per-share (PPS) at last trade on Friday, 4/25 for the Big 4, posted highest-to-lowest with the amount of change over last Friday.

AT&T - $38.58 + $1.07
Verizon - $37.04 + $1.01
Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) - $17.90  -$0.05
Sprint - $7.91 + $1.24

As usual, AT&T and Verizon are pretty much tied for first place, with only $1.54 separating their PPS.  What's interesting is that Sprint gets the fancy highlight action with their leading $1.24/share gain over Friday 4/18.

Quotes from Yahoo! Finance.


More after the jump...
(this was originally dated 4/10 but I think it deserves another look at how a big, often maligned corporation is doing something right. Hopefully Frank and I will talk again soon.)


Last weekend, Michael Arrington at TechCrunch had some trouble with his cable just as a New York Times article featuring him hit the front page. So, after a ton of frustration, he Twittered about it. What he didn't expect was that his "tweet" would lead to a phone call, and a resolution. He wrote about it here.

Recently, regulars on Twitter have noticed a strange presence, a user by the name of @comcastcares. I assumed it was a joke. What's shocking is that Comcast, the big bad cable company, takes their customer relations very seriously, and has been monitoring blogs, tweets, and whatnot for months now, and trying to find the people on the other end, and reach out to them.

I decided I wanted to get to the bottom of this, so I sent a direct message to @comcastcares and asked if we could talk. I called a phone number and got Frank Eliason, who is part of their "National Customer Service Outreach," an effort which is new enough that he doesn't have a "proper" title yet.

Frank and I talk for a good bit about how this got started, where it's going, and how Comcast is actually leading the way in using social media to improve their customer service.



I never thought I'd be saying this, but if more companies did things like the cable company, maybe the world would become a better place to do business.
Image Credit: The New York Times

The Gray Lady's Brad Stone has a 3 pager in today's paper on everyone's favorite new holy war: RIM versus Apple. It comes complete with a cute historical reference to RIM's headquarters:

STEVE JOBSApple's chief executive and field general, has Napoleonic dreams of global conquest for his 10-month-old wonder gadget, the iPhone. So it may be fitting that he's encountering his most serious resistance in a city called Waterloo.  That is where, 70 miles west of Toronto in Ontario, 19 nondescript, low-rise office buildings comprise the headquarters of Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry.

Well, I, for one, have welcomed our Canadian overlords, having ditched my iPhone for a BlackBerry after 3 and a half months of swerving, sweating, and getting annoyed at the coolness of Apple's $400 screen.

In fact, at SxSW this past March I noticed that while the great uniter was Twitter, the great divide of the thousands of temporary Austinites wasn't Hillary versus Barack (Barack), or Mac versus PC (Mac), but iPhone versus BlackBerry. My verdict in March (and since then) is no clear winner.

The Times has delved into the sales statistics and constant rumours that fly about the next versions of each device, who uses what, and how, and most importantly, how many are being bought?

My biggest beef with iPhone was actually twofold: the lack of email and calendar syncing, and the battery life. One of them might be solved. The other? Let's think about it.

In March, Mr. Jobs announced that Apple would take the rare step of licensingMicrosoft's corporate e-mail technology, to allow iPhones to connect directly to business computers -- a dagger aimed at the heart of R.I.M.'s strength in the corporate market. In Apple's quarterly conference call last week, Apple executives said that one-third of Fortune 500 companies were interested in giving iPhones to their employees.

I'll go out on a limb here and actually praise Microsoft for delivering a great product, Exchange, and RIM for leveraging it for the on the go email user (sadly, most of my mobile use is email, Instant Message or an even cooler feature, RIM's peer-to-peer BlackBerry Messenger follow, but I use email more than anything). Also, the calendar. Ah, the calendar. I can add an appointment and invite a friend and it hits their calendar and mine, I can edit it on my Mac and it hits the phone in the same way. Yes, ActiveSync does that but at what cost?

I'm going to go even further out on a limb and talk about another SxSW experience. While on the town with a prominent blogger and friend, I heard curses at 4am as his iPhone's battery died. Meanwhile, my BlackBerry was still chugging along. At the SeaGate/HP Salt Lick adventure, there were skirmishes over the power outlets to charge iPhones.

Let's talk about another city with a large domed building: Washington, DC. The Capitol Complex is abuzz with the thumbings of  staffers, members (some in their 80's), lobbyists, and the occasional journalist. BlackBerry Service in the Capitol is a given. Senators, Congressmen, Staffers, etc love them. They're a badge of honor. And they work. 

My iPhone crashed, missed email messages, and was hard to answer or hear when I needed to hear. I had to constantly charge it or otherwise think about it. My BlackBerry, on the other hand, merely sits fearlessly on my belt, letting me know what's up. 

NYT says 1/3 of the Fortune 500 want to give out iPhones, but my experience tells me that at least 1/2 of those who need to have reliable email and scheduling with the occasional mobile web hit will give them back.

Steve, give me a keyboard and a removable battery, and we'll talk.
I'll admit that I'm probably the last guy who you'd expect to come out in favor of limiting a consumer's use of their own technology.  Well, I don't know that I am in favor of Skype not getting "Carterfoned" for use on U.S. mobile devices, but I certainly understand it.

Being able to have free, unlimited calling to other Skype-ers and dirt-cheap rates to other phones would rip the bottom out of the mobile phone industry.  Think about how many people would activate data-only plans or just get the cheapest rate plan to maintain an account with their carrier.  Either carriers would lose a ton of money or, more likely, we'd see the price of data-only plans soar to compensate for the loss in calling plan revenue. 

Also, keep in mind that one of the Big 4 is in pretty serious trouble.  I won't name names, but they've seen millions of customers and billions of dollars evaporate in the last 3 years, seen their stock plummet from a respectable low-$20's to about $6.50 and have been entirely unable to find their direction.  If Skype came in on mobiles we could see our Mystery Carrier shut down or get bought out.  We would lose 25% of the Big 4 national carriers and there would be an enormous number of jobs lost.

So if you're gearing up to scream about how stupid I am, I'm way ahead of you.  I get why people want Skype on their mobile and why they think they should be allowed to.  I understand it, I promise.  But at the same time, it's a really tricky situation that K-Mart (the FCC Chairman, not the retailer) is in the middle of.   Sometimes it's easy to say that  the Government  just likes to meddle or that they can't get their heads out of their asses, but this isn't one of those times.

Trying to find a balance between being pro-competition and (no exaggeration) protecting the future of an entire industry in this country - I'm not jealous.
At CTIA, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin ("K-Mart") announced his intent to deny Skype's petition for a declaratory ruling that would apply "Carterfone" rules to wireless networks, meaning the Big Four couldn't interfere with Skype software on iPhones or BlackBerries. Maybe this was a message to Skype, "stay off their lawn."

Skype didn't get the message. According to this press release, they're testing mass-market VoIP software in a number of countries.

Following recent moves to extend Skype? conversations to a wide variety of new mobile and wireless devices, Skype is taking another major step as it continues to merge its internet communications software with mobile phones. Today, the company released a beta version of Skype for your mobile, a mobile "thin" client that works on about 50 of the most popular Java-enabled mobile phones from Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.

The beta version of Skype for your mobile is available worldwide with a feature set that includes chat, group chat, presence (seeing when your contacts are online), and receiving calls from Skype users, and through SkypeIn.* Additional features, which include the making of Skype-to-Skype and SkypeOut calls from the mobile handsets, are initially supported in seven markets: Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.


 

Now, note that this doesn't include the US. Maybe because of K-Mart's intentions to let the Big Four block Skype traffic, maybe because they want to see how it goes elsewhere first. But no matter what, when that 700mhz phone market opens up, expect Skype to get huge. You'll be able to have a landline, mobile, and portable number on any device you can think of. Now that's competition.
That's right, I'm going to New Orleans next month for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association's Cable Show 2008. which takes places May 18th-21st.

While I am excited about their public policy track and plan on bringing you my usual super-caffeinated live-blogging, photos, and maybe even some live video (if some friends help me with some new toys for my one man show) what I'm most excited about is the NCTA's charity Battle of the Bands. Not just any bands, but bands made up of Cable Television Industry Execs.  

The 5th Revision- Scripps Networks
The 5th Revision
The 5th Revision is made up of:
  • Doug Klein on drums.
  • Jeza Kepler on vocals.
  • Spencer Corden on piano/keyboards.
  • Stewart Pack on bass.
  • Phil Fuson on guitar.
The Frontline - Charter Communications
Frontline
The Frontline is made up of:
  • Eric Ketzer on guitar/vocals.
  • Chris Logan on bass.
  • Brendan O'Neil on guitar/vocals.
  • Patrick Swan on trumpet/keyboard.
  • John Sykes III on drums.
  • Robert Little on vocals.
Full Mesh - Juniper Networks
Full Mesh
Full Mesh is made up of:
  • Robb Foster on vocals.
  • Richard Russman on guitar/vocals.
  • Eamon Loftus on guitar.
  • Brad Ryan on drums/vocals.
  • Bill Seeger on bass.
Links:   Full Mesh on MySpace
More Cowbell - Time Warner Cable
More Cowbell
More Cowbell is made up of:
  • Julie Simon on vocals.
  • Lyndel Navarro on guitar.
  • Bill Helms on guitar/vocals.
  • Howard Pfeffer on bass.
  • Scott Ramsdell on drums.
  • Kent Vermillion on cowbell/vocals.
  • Tom Richards on keyboard/vocals.
Links:   More Cowbell on MySpace
One Night in NOLA- Fox Cable Networks/TVN Entertainment.
One Night in NOLA
One Night in NOLA, a rock fusion band, is made up of:
  • Sean Riley on guitar.
  • Jim Riley on bass.
  • Nick Constantinides on guitar.
  • John Malkin on guitar.
  • Carlo Hume on drums.
Charter Communications Presents The Paul Allen Band
The Paul Allen Band
The Paul Allen Band is made up of:
  • Paul Allen
  • Terry Davison
  • Gary Thompson
  • Andrew Nelson
  • James Clark
Ralphie and the Streamers - Cisco
Ralphie and the Streamers
Ralphie and the Streamers are made up of:
  • Ralph Galione on vocals.
  • Pat Craig on guitar/vocals.
  • Jason Shreeram on bass/vocals.
  • Andrew Smith on drums.
  • Ken Orbach on guitar.
  • Ted Brown on guitar.
The Solutions - ARRIS
The Solutions
The Solutions are made up of:
  • Mike Caldwell on lead guitar.
  • Mike Dorff on rhythm guitar/lead vocals.
  • Tom Dutra on bass.
  • Tony Davis on drums/vocals.
  • Alex Swan on harp/vocals.
  • Vickie Marti on percussion/vocals.
TV Rejects- C-Span/CableFax/Broadband Gear Report/Retirement Living TV
TV Rejects
TV Rejects are made up of:
  • Mike Grebb (CableFax) on guitar.
  • Tim Hermes (Broadband Gear Report) on drums.
  • Tommy Bullough (Retirement Living TV) on bass.
  • Rob Kennedy (C-Span) on keyboards.
  • Seth Arenstein (CableFax) on trumpet.
Xpanded Bandwidth - Cox Communications
Xpanded Bandwidth
Xpanded Bandwidth is made up of:
  • Ginger Davis on drums/vocals.
  • Alfred Ellis on bass.
  • Bob Wilson on guitar.
  • Domingo Hipona on lead guitar.
  • Heidi Martell-Barnes on piano/vocals.
  • Stephen Wilson on keyboards.
  • Deniece Yarbrough on vocals.
  • Kenneth Brown on vocals.
  • Mike Rossenwasser on vocals.
Thankfully, it's the last night of the event, so I will rest up for it by giving you full coverage of the public policy events, the show floor, and anything else I see that's cool. If we're lucky, I'll be able to stream some live video, and you'll be able to contact me live on the floor with a new toy (to be announced) so I can see what you want to see. More as the show approaches, including my schedule. I can count on one thing, though: I will be hitting Cafe du Monde for a Diet Coke and some Beignets.

Yes, Washington, There is a Santa Claus. Traditionally, the Federal Communications Commission would announce their meeting agenda only days, sometimes 24-48 hours before a meeting.

But, thanks to the sometimes shocking decision-making of Chairman Kevin Martin (aka K-Mart) is going to give us THREE FRIGHTENING WEEKS to parse, discuss, ponder and perhaps ridicule what the FCC will talk about at their next meeting:


Washington, D.C. -Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin 

today announced that topics selected for open meeting agendas will now formallybe made public and posted on the Commission's website three weeks prior to the upcoming monthly meeting.  This step enhances the openness and transparencyof the Commission's processes and deliberations. 



Now and