sorted by: recent | see :
popular
Content Tagged with Featured + technology
FCC Handcuffs U.S. Mobile
Written by Jim Courtney, an associate editor of Skype Journal.
Having been trained as an engineer, scientist and business person, I’m always amazed at how the U.S., the self-assumed leader of free enterprise and democracy, seems intent on stifling their own economy and innovation ecosystem through ongoing government support of special interests whose business models are challenged by technological innovation and breakthroughs.
This week brought just the latest example. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told an audience at the CTIA Wireless Convention in Las Vegas that he was dismissing a petition from Skype that would force operators to connect any lawful device to the telephone network provided it doesn’t do harm to the network. This in a world in which Japan, Korea and Europe are providing the infrastructure that has allowed open competition, that separates the pipes from the content — Stockholm is a prime example — and that clearly provides much lower cost and higher participation communications activity for both the consumer and the enterprise.
This decision demonstrates nothing less than a failure on the part of a U.S. government agency to comprehend the technology infrastructure available to enhance business processes, build effective hardware platforms and take advantage of today’s more cost-effective rapid software development tools. And it portends for a less competitive U.S.
As for the impact on Skype’s presence on mobile platforms, it’s negligible at best. There are significant wireless data infrastructure issues that need to be addressed before there can be true VoIP over wireless with a business model that’s acceptable to carriers. Several vendors, such as iSkoot, IM+ for Skype, Fring and Mobivox, have found ways to access Skype via any carrier; they may not always have the full feature set but often having voice and chat is sufficient.
iSkoot has started to develop some carrier partnerships as they have found a way to bring both market advantages and cost savings to carriers using lessons from a SS7-type algorithm. By building on this algorithm, they also provide a means to access Skype for those smartphone owners who are on carriers with whom iSkoot does not have a direct relationship. IM+ for Skype allows you to set up calls not only for your own mobile phone but also to have them sent to other phones, such as one at the office. Mobivox simply provides access to Skype contacts from any phone handset with the help of VoxGirl and her speech recognition capabilities.
Over 80 percent of Skype users are outside the U.S. When a broader U.S. public starts to realize that the communications offerings found in Europe and the Far East are far superior to what they’re being offered, a movement will arise demanding change. It just may take a few years.
By then, with the adoption and implementation of Wi-Fi in homes and offices and the spread of dual mode GSM/Wi-Fi phones, such as any WiFi-enabled Blackberry 8×20, there will be many ways to circumvent the carrier networks. Users will start to ask about applications that they can run over Wi-Fi networks, not carrier networks. Once there is broad user demand for more openness, the politicians will respond.
The Martin recommendation, however, will limit hardware innovation over the long term. It will limit innovation in services and applications and it will put the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage for both business and consumers. But will it also drive the carriers to invest in the infrastructure required to support and match the offerings, both services and applications, available in Europe and the Far East? Will it really encourage the carriers to really open up their systems through appropriate APIs and rewarding business relationships? Should the U.S. (and Canada) be striving harder to have an infrastructure based on the Stockholm model, whereby users have fiber to the end point — effectively built as a regulated utility providing the “pipe” — pay under $20 per month for unlimited very high-speed data (100 Mbps) and have their choice of service providers?
In the meantime, the best response for current users is to go into guerilla warfare mode:
- use iSkoot or IM+ for Skype to access your Skype and SkypeOut contacts from mobile devices such as Blackberry, Nokia and other smartphones
- encourage the implementation and use of readily authenticated Wi-Fi access points at your home, office and other frequently visited locations.
- use applications such as SlingPlayer for Mobile and Qik.com on devices where it is supported and cost effective for the end user.
- show the carriers they are losing significant business.
If a broader base of users than simply “in-the-know” technical geeks start to experience these applications and services, awareness of the issues raised by the Skype petition will be spread virally, and we all know that’s the most effective marketing available. Change can be driven, if enough are aware of the issues and are ready to speak their voice. And isn’t that the American way?
10 Ways the Internet (As We Know It) Will Die
We often think of the Internet as a platform for unfettered global communication, where information flows freely, innovators can launch new applications at will, and everyone can have a voice. But it’s unlikely that our children’s Internet will look anything like what we have now.
How might the Internet as we know it die? Here are 10 possibilities.
- Someone subverts the Domain Name Service. The Internet relies on DNS. But if someone broke — or worse, subverted — the fundamental way in which we find web sites, we wouldn’t trust URLs any more. Phishing would be easy. Own the DNS and you own the Internet.
- Zombie networks attack! Untold numbers of enslaved PCs are waiting to do the bidding of shadowy hackers. Matt Sergeant of MessageLabs puts the size of the Storm botnet at between five and 10 million machines (though others peg the size of the network at much less.) Today, bots fill our inboxes with spam. But in the past, they’ve been used to take out companies and countries and to blackmail sites. In the end, it’s an arms race in which only one side has to play by the rules.
- Massive physical infrastructure failure. If an accident involving a couple of cables in the Mediterranean can make the Internet unusable for hundreds of millions, imagine what an intentional attack could do.
- Death by a thousand fragments: Ever since Usenet, people have been grouping together with those who think like them. In his book “The Big Switch,” Nicholas Carr cites one study that claimed more than 90 percent of the links originating within either the conservative or liberal community stay within that community. Some link referral tools can even be configured to keep visitors on sites with the same world view. The end result? Islands of like-minded people, increasingly sure there is only one right answer and that they’re in sole possession of it. And an end to the dreams of a global community envisioned by the Internet’s creators.
- A really good virus breaks the routers. The Internet’s self-healing mechanisms rely on the Border Gateway Protocol, or BGP. But what if someone gets inside the routers? In a 2006 NANOG presentation, Cisco looked at claims of vulnerability and concluded that “the most damaging attacks are caused by the deliberate misconfiguration of a trusted router.” Corrupt BGP, and you not only stop the Internet from forwarding traffic, you interfere with our ability to get to the routers and fix them.
- Updates break how updates work. Most software these days is designed to patch itself and remain current. But sometimes the process of automated upgrades triggers its own problems. On Aug. 16, 2007, Skype went down in what the company claimed was a side effect of a massive automatic update to Windows. It’s only a matter of time before an update makes a fundamental piece of software, like a networking stack, unable to update itself, cutting off millions and requiring manual intervention.
- The Net stops being neutral. If the carriers start to charge us for access to sites the way cable companies charge for premium television, pretty soon you’ll have a “Google fee” on your monthly bill. This already happens with many mobile phones that feature the services of Facebook and YouTube. It’s perhaps the most insidious death, because it would signal the end of innovation — no one would be able to launch the next Skype, Twitter or YouTube without the tacit approval of carriers.
- The lawyers get involved. The Internet has been an experiment in free speech. That may be coming to an end. Unable to go after the sites themselves, lawyers go after the hosters and registrars. That’s how Swiss banking group Julius Baer took whistleblower Wikileaks off the air. And once there’s precedent, others are sure to follow. The recording industry is already wondering if it can go after carriers for enabling copyright infringement. This is the irony of Net Neutrality: When telcos start treating different bytes differently, they aren’t “common carriers” and may be liable for what they transmit, including illegal content. So they’ll comply.
- Walled gardens: Many countries already restrict how the Internet is used. China’s firewall — which includes 30,000 people tasked with finding improper users — is a good example. But the Internet is a tool for social change and revolution that could threaten any government. Imagine, for example, a U.S. Congress that outlaws online pornography and blocks known adult sites (which accounted for 18.8 percent of all web visits in 2004, according to Hitwise, although the U.S. government says that figure is actually a mere 1 percent.) Instead of a global Internet, we’d have a return to localized standards of decency imposed by legislators. It’d be like “Dirty Dancing” all over again.
- Humans take themselves out: As Discover Magazine pointed out years ago, we’ve got plenty of ways to do ourselves in, from nukes to plagues to sucking ourselves into a black hole of our own making. And what’s an Internet without users?
The Internet has already morphed from its initial aspirations of open academia to a commercial platform controlled by corporations and carriers. In many ways, the time between the start of ARPAnet in 1969 and the end of Netscape this past February is just a brief period in history that the Facebook generation won’t miss.
Here Comes Trouble: A Social Directory
The declining relevance of telephone directories erased 95 percent of publisher RH Donnelley’s market capitalization over the last 12 months. Although Google’s free 1-800-GOOG-411 service may attract some share of the directory assistance business, the crux of the problem lies with the diminished standing of wired telephones in an increasingly crowded communications landscape. The demise of paper directories does not, however, mean there exists a clear alternative to accommodate the growing list of communication coordinates most people juggle. A “social directory” created by merging the telephone directory with the social networking model may provide a way forward.
Given the open-ended nature of the information that gets indexed, search engines remain poorly suited to the task of finding contact information. Success depends on a cleverly structured query; search engines do not, after all, distinguish contact information from other types of information. But while a directory with a relatively finite and narrow data set (e.g. contact information) would greatly increase the probability of success, the process of creating directories still awaits an Internet upgrade.
The standard model for directories fails with respect to mobile phones, email addresses and instant messaging screen names. Posting the Yellow Pages online retains the same city and state search limitations of the paper directories, and the infrequent publishing cycle of directories becomes unworkable at the current pace with which communication coordinates get added and subtracted. Further, the growth in communication options makes it impractical to rely on a single service provider directory. What makes much more sense in our Internet-heavy world is a user-generated directory in which individuals own and update their own listing.
The lack of a directory for mobile phone numbers traces to the fear of unwanted calls. A directory that supports authentication along the lines of social networks solves this problem. Keeping your number secret and employing Caller ID are poor substitutes for actually controlling who can call you. The social directory could implement an invite authentication process like any other social network. People already include some contact information in their social network profiles, but a purpose-built social directory could offer additional communication functionality.
The social directory represents a far more elegant solution than that of spamming friends with requests to update contact information through services like Plaxo. The social directory could make a social circle accessible via clickable links while hiding the actual contact information. Rather than giving out a telephone number or email address to a new acquaintance, users of a social directory would associate their listing with keywords (such as “plumber” or “dog lover”).
As the number of communication options increases, so does the burden of managing contact information, yet Internet-enabled directory options remain lacking. Google’s 60 percent share of Internet searches gives the company both gatekeeper status in the information Internet — not to mention a rich market capitalization. However, Google’s revenue represents less than a third of what the declining telephone directories generate in the U.S. alone. Riches await the infocom company that achieves gatekeeper status for the Internet’s communications applications.
Save Music — Disconnect the Internet!
Lunatic proposals involving governments regulating Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and then forcing them to disconnect users suspected of performing illegal downloads are gaining traction in the United Kingdom, France and Australia. When these ridiculous proposals first popped up, I publicly flamed the manager of my favorite band. Then I went to town on the proposed UK enforcement policy.
Yet after watching the U.S. government over the past weekend help orchestrate a bailout of Bear Stearns (and by extension, all of the financial markets, at least for a moment), it makes sense that these same governments must intervene to save the music industry. After all, if I believe the music industry, the Internet and ISPs enable illegal downloads and that has singularly led to the downfall of the music business. Given these apparent facts, I am doing a political flip-flop and will actively support proposals to have governments force ISPs to disconnect users suspected of downloading illegal content. I love listening to music and apparently there is no other way to save it.
To start, I would propose that governments immediately implement a “Three strikes, you’re out” policy for all users suspected of downloading illegal content. If you are suspected of doing illegal downloads your ISP will warn you twice and then disconnect your service. Your name will be placed on the global “No-Bits List” and you will forever be revoked from Internet access.
But let’s not stop there, because it’s possible that even if ISPs do implement this policy, they won’t act fast enough to disconnect the users that are destroying the music business. I therefore propose that all governments be required to actively monitor all ISPs within their borders. If the active monitoring shows that illegal downloads are occurring and an ISP is not acting fast enough to implement the three-strikes policy then the government should take more dramatic action, perhaps ensuring that the offending ISP’s IP address blocks are revoked and its domain names deleted from the global name servers. After all, if an ISP can’t help solve the problem then it should be put out of business.
If the policies that I propose above are implemented quickly and efficiently then I believe we can save the music business. We will have an Internet where ISPs control their users to prevent them from doing illegal downloads. If the ISPs cannot control their users then the ISP itself will be disconnect from the Internet. If we can disconnect enough users and ISPs then perhaps we can have an Internet that does not ruin the music business. Seriously, what else can be done to save music?
If you are reading the above and are shocked by my flip-flop, do not be alarmed. Of course the above policies are suggested with heavy sarcasm and I would never want nor expect governments to disconnect users or ISPs from the Internet. The shocking thing is that the music business actually believes governments will implement these policies. Using the power of government to prevent an economic meltdown I understand; using it to help save a business that has been overcharging consumers and mistreating artists while lining their pockets, I do not.
So, I will say this one more time — and I hope the music industry is listening. I agree that illegal downloads are hurting your business. I agree that they should be stopped — by law enforcement organizations — not the people who build Internet infrastructure. The Internet is an infrastructure that enables a myriad of services for all who use it; it was not built to enable theft and hurt the music business. Music industry executives need to revolutionize their businesses models to embrace, not reject, technology. Sticking your head in the sand and whining to governments about saving your business will only get you smacked in the rear end.
Which Mac Notebook Is For You? Take Our Poll
Apple has introduced new versions of it notebooks — Macbook & Macbook Pro — with a little more speed, more hard drive and memory, but the same price. Tell me you are as underwhelmed as me by this announcement. These speed bumps are business as usual in the PC business, thanks to Moore’s Law.
The new MBPs have a trackpad with Multi-Touch gesture support similar to that of the Macbook Air, but that’s all. I was hoping for a redesign of Macbook Pro. And the new notebooks use Intel Core Duo 2 Penryn processors, which makes me wonder: Will the new machines run cooler? (Frankly I will settle for cool enough for mobile computing.) And will they have better battery life, as suggested by Intel’s claims of energy efficiency?
