Recently in Technology Category

So a few months ago, I talked to Robert Scoble about why today's Web 2.0 world doesn't "get" Washington. 463's Sean Garrett totally nailed it in a blog post a few months ago, too, right around when I went into Radio Silence (more on that below). Robert said he wanted to learn more about the issue, and we talked more about it at SXSW. He said he wanted to come check this place out for himself, and I was happy to oblige

...but it's a start.

Newt Gingrich's American Solutions blog has an article on the Employee Free Choice Act which would overhaul the current process that workers use to choose whether or not to unionize.

Right now, the National Labor Relations Board handles unionization elections, which take place under a secret ballot. The Employee Free Choice Act, a political hot button this Congress, would change to a "card signing" system where instead of a formal vote, if enough workers simply sign cards saying "I want a union," than *poof* there is a Union.

This reminds me of the complaints about the Caucus system, where supporters of one candidate complain of intimidation and some outright believe that it is against the principle of a secret ballot.

First I'll give my opinion, then offer a suggestion to both that could even help make General Elections more open and transparent, while keeping the secret ballot.

Time just picked up on the laser graffiti movement.  The guys at Graffiti Research Lab (GRL) have devised a totally awesome system by which they use a laser to tag, well, just about anything they want.  The graffiti is non-permanent and doesn't damage the surface being tagged.

 

Back in early January Bre Pettis (still making Weekend Project videos for Make Magazine at the time) talked to and got a demo from GRL Vienna crew.

Very cool, guys.

 

Link to the article at Time.

Link to Bre Pettis' blog post about GRL Vienna.

Grant Gross at InfoWorld has said what I've been telling people for months: Google gamed the 700mhz auction system and won.

San Francisco - Three lawmakers complained Tuesday that Google "maneuvered" its way into an open wireless network without having to come up with a winning bid in the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's (FCC's) recently completed 700MHz spectrum auction.

Some lawmakers aren't too happy about that. In particular, Reps. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) and John Shimkus (R-IL) "suggested Google out-maneuvered the FCC when the agency required the winner of about a third of the spectrum that was auctioned to operate under open-access rules."

Um, guys? Let me tell you a secret.

Remember the last round of auctions after the 1996 Telecommunications Act? They were a disaster. Ensuing litigation from licensees who couldn't afford to both build out their networks and pay the FCC held up the deployment of PCS services for years. Does anyone remember NextWave? I suggest all of you, yes, every single one of you, go to Amazon and buy "A Tough Act to Follow?" by former FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth.

Furchtgott-Roth, who incidentally, is an economist who used current FCC Chairman Kevin Martin (aka K-Mart) as a legal adviser during his tenure on the Commission, tells the NextWave story in great detail.

Now, let me tell you about Europe. Over there, GSM is the standard, because governments subsidized the built-out of wireless networks. So, instead of a patchwork of country-to-country incompatibility, they agreed on GSM and use it, with great success. Unfortunately, if someone tried that here, they'd be shouted down as communists before the idea got off the ground.

Enter Google. Their proposal for a reserve price and open access was supported by Chairman "K-Mart," who probably has nightmares about NextWave when he thinks of auctions. Why?

Easy. "K-Mart" can't order or ask for a subsidized network, but the FCC can order a reserve price, open access, and a build-out requirement.

What's the result? The 700mhz auction suddenly becomes a de facto low bid contract. Google hit the reserve, and the rest of the players simply bid enough to win, hoping the other would lose, because either way, the network would be open to everyone. The FCC won because they got their open network, allowing for more competition ("K-Mart" likes competition) and Google won because they can develop their Android phones and be assured that they will have a network to operate on.

This wasn't an auction. It might have started as one, but it finished as a low-bid RFP...and that's a good thing for all of us.

So I was looking at the Reuters this morning and saw an article that kind of annoyed me.  Not because of the reporting (top-notch) but because the article highlighted a lack of personal responsibility and a certain sense of entitlement that really bugs me.

Many people are uncomfortable with Web sites customizing content to people's personal profiles, according to a new survey.

"There's a creepy factor and a fear of the unknown that people don't want to deal with," said Michelle Warren, senior research analyst at Info-Tech Research Group in London, Ontario.

"The notion that there's a privacy issue in someone's email account hits a little too close to home for some," she added.

Nearly 60 percent of 2,513 people in the United States questioned in a Harris Interactive poll said they were uneasy when Web sites use information about personal online activity to tailor advertisements or content.

 

In a nutshell, the story related how a lot of people are uncomfortable with websites tracking their activity for the purposes of targeted advertising.  I understand that some people find it creepy, but it's nothing new. 

Microsoft announced its new Clearflow technology.  Clearflow will allow for web-based driving directions that can create a route designed to avoid traffic.  That's great.  That's fantastic.

 

Here's my problem - It's accessed through their live.com website.  If you select Maps and then Traffic, a map of the U.S. will pop up with icons over the 72 cities currently supported.  Very cool.  But where's the mobile support?

 

On my BlackBerry, which handles the web pretty darned well, I couldn't pull up the traffic options.  I tried it with my browser emulation set to BlackBerry, Pocket IE and even regular Microsoft IE and none of them would display the traffic options.  The first 2 displayed the incredibly neutered mobile version of the live.com site and the last one displayed a fuller, albeit format-challenged, site that still didn't have the traffic option.

 

I think that being able to see traffic on a map or have it factored in when you get a set of directions is great.  Needing to access it from a computer as opposed to a mobile device neuters it.  Sure, I can pull up my directions and print them out before I go, but that isn't the same.  Traffic changes far too quickly for that to be effective.

 

Here's your route, determined to be the fastest based on traffic...from 20 minutes ago when you were getting ready to leave the house.

 

See the problem?  I'm not out to bash MS or anything, but at the same time, I'm not going to get excited about Clearflow until there's mobile compatibility.  And I won't be really excited if the only compatibility is for Pocket IE and no other browsers. 

 

Unless MS wants to send me a free HTC Touch.  Then I'll get over it.  Totally.

 

Details at Reuters.

Just over a month ago, we put up a post wondering aloud if text messages could be used to help keep us safe.  To summarize, we all know that you can receive a text message from Twitter when your buddies post something and get notified if your favorite got booted from American Idol, but I wanted to know about the feasibility of being warned about natural disasters or other emergency situations.

 

We found that some carriers (most notably and for the longest time Sprint/Nextel) can send you a text message if there's an AMBER Alert in your area and we even found that some NBC affiliates (like mine here in the Bay Area and Andrew's in DC) can alert you to things like severe weather.

 

So, despite having to hunt for someone to provide the alerts, the answer to the question - Can text messages help keep us safe? - seemed to be "Yes."  According to CNN.com, the FCC agrees.

 

An FCC representative let them know that either today or tomorrow the FCC will announce plans for a nationwide SMS (fancy-pants industry term for Text message) system to relay information about natural disasters, AMBER Alerts, and even warning about possible terrorist attacks and other national security issues.  The last set of messages coming directly from Barack Obama.  Why Barack?  Because I'm personally willing him into the Oval Office.  But getting back to the story, the alerts regarding terrorism would come directly from the President.

 

AT&T pretty much said that they'd offer the alerts to their customers, but left themselves an out by saying that they'd need to review the details.  Sprint/Nextel offered a pretty resounding yes - remember that they're the guys (well, on the pre-merger Nextel side) who have had AMBER Alerts available for longer than any other carrier.

 

I said it before, but I think that this application of text messages is amazing.  A technology that started as a very niche, very "fun" service is now evolving into something that can enhance public safety to the point now that the Federal Government has taken notice. 

 

Is there anyone reading who would be interested in receiving messages like that?  Is there something else that you'd like to be notified of?  Don't be afraid to comment or email.

 

Full source article at CNN.com

Our Original post here

Yesterday, I had the honor of speaking with Ambassador Richard Russell, who headed the U.S. delegation to Geneve in October and November of 2007 for the World Radio Telecommuncations Conference. Every four years, the U.N. mandates that the members get together and decide where they're going to put "new stuff" and how handle other issues, such as talking to satellites (and robots, although in the interests of security we didn't talk about that. because remember, persons denying the existence of robots may be robots themselves.) and standardizing usage to minimize international interference and maximize compatibility. This results in a binding treaty that, surprisingly, we really do care about honoring.

Ambassador Russell gave me a look inside what went on, and while I don't have any sound bytes or podcasts for you, I hope this will shed some light on why things are the way they are, and what we have in store for the future.

Two major issues came up at the outset, which were

1) where to put the next generation "Wireless Broadband" and what specific technologies would be used.

2) How to protect the new Wi-Max standard from Satellite interference.

First off, I did ask about White Spaces and unlicensed spectrum. He pointed out that at the last WRC in 2003, the U.S. successfully pushed for the 802.11 standard to be adopted for Wi-Fi internationally in an unlicensed band, and that internationally, there is an understanding that unlicensed is an important category.

Next, I asked about FCC Chairman Martin's CTIA remarks (re Skype) and how Ambassador Russell felt in his role as deputy director of OSTP how he felt we as a nation could continue to innovate and create an environment with a diverse marketplace.

He responded that we want to make sure that new technologies "get a shot," and steered us back to the WRC proceedings, where the U.S. took a position in defining what the "IMT" (International Mobile Telecommunications) standard would be in governing what would be considered acceptable for using that term.

With regard to Wi-Max, Germany and China wanted to specifically exclude it, but we were able to roll Wi-Max into the standard, which pushed the WRC to expand the spectrum reserved for IMT to include the 700Mhz band.

This is a big deal. While we're going to have that 700Mhz area available at this time next year, many countries aren't transitioning to DTV so early (Mexico is waiting until 2020). On the other hand, many developing countries are going straight to DTV. This means that 700Mhz won't be encumbered already and it'll be internationally sanctioned (including across the Americas, China, Japan, Singapore and India) for mobile broadband. Europe, on the other hand, is going to reevaluate this in 2015. Big picture? 700Mhz (and Wi-Max) is here to stay for  information services.

What did I take away? America is still the leader on many technlogical issues, and if we're on the right track, the world will follow our lead.

In Japan, the average birthrate is 1.3 children per woman.  This is not enough to maintain their population.  Why is this important?  With fewer children to become workers in the future, Japan is looking at having a huge number of retirees and a huge void in their workforce.  So how, in a country that sees 40 percent of its population being over 65 in 2055, do you replenish the workforce without increasing baby output or brining in literally millions of immigrant workers?

 

Oh yeah, you know where we're going - Robots!

 

Takao Kobayashi, one of the researchers working on the "what do we do about our shrinking workforce" problem, talks about other, non-robotic means of combatting the problem, such as building more daycare centers so that more women can work as opposed to being stay-at-home moms and that some seniors are pushing retirement back until they're 65 (Pushing back to 65?  I totally live in the wrong country), but he doesn't see that as being enough to solve the problem.

 

So yes, they're looking to robots to fill the void, doing everything from bathing the elderly to monitoring their health.  From vaccuuming the carpet to watching their kids.  As cool as robots are, I don't know how I'd feel about having one watch my kid.  Maybe I'm just a dumb American, but I find something more than a little creepy about leaving my child with C-3PO.

 

And while it would be easy for me to say "Keep the robots out of here!" and throw to an Old Glory commercial, there's a legitimate reason for the U.S. not to embrace robotic workers - unemployment is up and the concensus is that America is in the middle of a recession.  Do we really need to be replacing human employees?

 

And when the metal ones come for you (and they will come for you), make sure your loved ones will be taken care of.

 

 

Details at Reuters.