American Government Spending $7.2 Billion On Broadband Stimulus
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program and the Broadband Initiatives Program will be together paying a total of $7.2 billion to fund private efforts for delivering broadband to “unserved” or “underserved” areas. Unserved refers to areas where at least nine out of ten households don’t have what the government is calling the minimum requirements for broadband, and underserved refers to places where half of households do not have service of at least 3 Mbps down, or places where less than two-fifths of households do not subscribe to broadband.
We at TG are happy to see that to be eligible to receive funds, you must promise to abide by the FCC’s Internet Policy Statement, which means consumers are free to use whatever device they want to get online, and that providers can’t throttle bandwidth (so none of those application-crippling shenanigans allowed). Providers will have to deal with illegal online content (which is presumably the new PC term for child porn), but the other parts of the IPS suggest that violating net neutrality is not an acceptable way of doing this.
The only problematic part is the definition of broadband, which is at least 768 kbps down and 200 kbps up, which is a step above the old definition of 200 kbps down, but is still nothing given the high-bandwidth activities we have these days. That said, the government necessarily needed a lower standard definition for broadband. If, for example, a 3 Mbps downstream connection had been required, that would have meant that the infrastructure would go towards helping a smaller number of people, albeit with better connections than they are getting under this scheme.
So this effort, considering that parts of America still have no broadband, are a start, and a good one at that as it focuses on laying the initial infrastructure for the areas that still have dial-up if anything. The fast-talkin’ city folk may still be complaining about how Comcast is the only provider which has even made a pledge about rolling out IPv6 support, but at this point, it’s mission-critical that we get everyone online. If people do not want to use the internet, that is there choice, but they need to be in a position where they can actually choose.
(Original story via Ars Technica)
iPhone False Data Roaming Warnings Popping Up
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
So far I haven’t seen too many people having this problem, but I figured I should pass this along for anyone who may not know better. iPhones seem to be popping up warnings sporadically warning users that they have to enable data roaming while within non-roaming zones. For example, I’m from the continental US, and in Chicago I got a pop-up warning me that I need to turn on data roaming. Only I don’t. Because I’m well within my bounds of normal coverage. So know that if you see this warning, odds are it’s just a false alarm. Unless, of course, AT&T has just decided to screw over iPhone users really hard. But that seems low, even for a US mobile provider.
Update: Apparently this has been a bug since iPhone 1.0. Seems like an odd thing to keep around, though I’d imagine this is just a function of AT&T’s network.
(This new information from @lousansano).
PSP Was Always Intended to Be Sans-UMD – Smells Fishy
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
Image via CNET
Naoya Matsui, head of the Sony’s product planning division, said in an interview that Sony had “planned to release a PSP model without a UMD drive since the vey beginning.” Mr. Matsui added that the only reason the UMD was ever created was because back in 2005, the infrastructure for digital media was not on part with the physical persuasion. So thanks to how far the internet has come in four years, we now have the PSP Go (or at least that seems to be the thinking behind this). While that last part has merit, it all sounds like prepared marketing talk.
You don’t call something a “Universal Media Disk” if you intend to phase it out from the start! Sony wanted to UMD to be a standard for portable, and for more than just games. But they miscalculated. As Yahtzee put it, no one wanted to pay for Full Metal Jacket again just to watch it in “teeny weeny eye-strain-o-vision.” The Sony fanboys will certainly disagree, but this does not ring with the sound of truth.
iPhone SMS Has Security Hole, And Apple Knows About It
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
Security researcher Charlie Miller revealed at the SyScan conference that the iPhone has some serious security issues in how it handles text messaging. Remember how all the text entered in Android ran as if it were in the command line? Well, it’s something like that, except the SMS system in the iPhone OS handles information in such a way that it “allows an attacker to run software code on the phone that is sent by SMS over a mobile operator’s network.” Fortunately, Miller has handed the data over to Apple, so a fix should be coming along in iPhone OS 3.1 that patches this (or so we hope).
Given the massive number of iPhones out there, this security risk is sort of scary. Mobile phone exploits are generally few and far between because there are so many phone operating systems. But with the iPhone, a whole bunch of users have converged onto the same platform. So for the leet haxors of the world who want to harm as many people as possible, harming a whole mess of iPhone users is a very attractive prospect.
“Innocents Accused of Net Piracy” – What Else Is New
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
When I woke up this morning, what did I see? A really naive sounding story from the BBC. So as we in the US know all too well, time and time again, the guys who claim that they’re going after fileshaing and internet piracy get their facts wrong and end up suing innocent people, wasting their time and money. For example, do you think an elderly immigrant who barely speaks English is a filesharer? Probably not. So it’s mind-boggling to me that a headline out of a recent BBC story is “Innocents Accused of Net Piracy.” Sure the story has the prerequisite massive fail in it: some 20 people are accused of sharing a video game called “Dream Pinball,” a game which none of them have ever heard of. But really? Is this news?
Monitoring software gets stuff wrong all the time. In this case, it was the folks at Logistep whose software started aiming and firing at non-targets, but this stuff happens all the time. MediaDefender, the RIAA’s lapdog for monitoring stuff, is infamous for DDoSing the completely legitimate website Revision3 last year over what they perceived as piracy. This is a business that presumably lost a good deal of money because MediaDefender took it upon themselves to dole out punishment. It’s amazing that no one from MD has gone to jail over this – if some organization hired bouncers to not let anyone into your store for a day, it seems like that would be in violation of some law.
Maybe Britain is better about actually accusing the bad guys, but I suspect they’re not. Our neighbors across the pond are certainly more openly concerned with growing pains in the digital age (they amount of press the Digital Britain report got tells us that), but it seems probable that in every country with copyright laws, there are people taking the fall for infringement they did not commit.
Court Rules Sites Are Not Liable for Users Abusing Each Other
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
It escalates from this (courtesy of xkcd.com)
A California appeals court ruled earlier this week that Myspace is not liable in the death of Megan Meier, a girl who committed suicide after being abused by another user of the Myspace site, and for a lot of other minors whose parents sued Myspace for not having account privacy features which could have provided some sort of protection. But this ruling is a very fortunate one, as one to the contrary would have been devastating for any sort of online interaction.
As nasty as people can get to each other online, it would be a pretty massive blow against happenings all over the web if sites had to babysit their users. The obvious problem is that a lot of stuff happens online. Going to one’s own Facebook page often reveals far more person than one user can keep track of, and that’s an infinitesimal amount of what occurs on just Facebook alone in a given day. Now imagine if Facebook was legally required to have a room full of people making sure no one abused anyone. Not only would the internet become non-neutral, but any sites’ trying to police themselves would be in vain.
As we’ve seen time and time again, something always slips through the cracks, whether it’s in something centralized like the App Store or otherwise. It would have been pretty dumb for a court to force websites to do something impossible, and nonsensical at that. As an EFF member aptly put it, “the idea is, you hold the speaker responsible not the soapbox.“
Microsoft Is On Twitter – What’s It For?
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
It looks like not only is there finally an @microsoft Twitter account, but it’s actually being maintained by the Redmond company, rather than some impostor. According to Techcrunch, the account is “being run by its corporate communications team, consisting of four people.” With that in mind, we’re a little confused as to what Microsoft intends to use Twitter for. The three tweets on the account at the time of posting are one about Bing’s now showing results from Twitter, one about the Kodu game maker for the Xbox market place, and a link to a USA today article about how Bing is better than Google.
What’s apparent from all this is that Microsoft has yet to really ground what it is they’ll be using Twitter for. It already has an @bing account for the search engine, which seems a tad incomprehensible (whoever is running it seems to spend a lot of time replying to messages). While it’s hard to judge from three messages, @microsoft seems to be a good account to follow if you want breaking news on articles praising Microsoft. The lack of consistency between the materials covered by its tweets suggests that Microsoft does not have a real plan for the account, but rather just figures that every company needs to own its name on Twitter. But who knows? Maybe they’ll have contests for free MS Office licenses. That sounds like Microsoft, right?
Dell Forced to Sell 19-Inch LCD Monitors for $15 in Taiwan
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
Dell had a pricing error on its Taiwanese site a while back which listed a 19-inch LCD monitor for around $15 insted of the intended $147. Around 26,000 people ordered the monitor. Instead of being allowed to apologize for the mixup, Taiwan’s Consumer Protection Comission is instead forcing Dell to sell the monitors to each of the 26,000 people for the listed $15. If Dell doesn’t comply, the Taiwanese government will consider legal action against the OEM.
Of course, Dell does not want to sell for this price. It sent out its apology letters, saying that it would offer what it considers a reasonable discount. So now Dell is in talks with the government of Taiwan to not have to lose all that money on monitors.
As nice as this sounds from the perspective of someone who buys electronics, Dell really shouldn’t be forced to sell its monitors at such a low price. Imagine if you were running a garage sale and you accidentally priced something at a $1 instead of the intended $100. Should you be legally required to make that sale?
(Original story via PC World)
Monopoloy! – O2 To Carry Both the Pre and the iPhone
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
If you’re in the UK and want an iPhone or a Pre, you now only have one provider. O2 just won an exclusive deal with Palm to be the only carrier of the Pre. As O2 is already the exclusive provider for the iPhone across the pond, that means a Brit out for one of these two phones is roped into one provider. And that kind of sucks.
Monopolies are bad as they encourage laziness. In the US, you can only get an iPhone on AT&T, which is known for its poor coverage. Yet the desirability of the handset ropes people into two year contracts with a provider that has no impetus to improve its service. That’s why the FCC is investigating phone exclusivity in the US.
The alternative would be if every handset were available from every provider. If that were the case, users would go to the provider which gave the best coverage and the best deal in a certain area. But unfortunately for now, we live with some pretty limited consumer choice.
Legal Version of Pirate Bay to Pay Users For Filesharing
Posted by Michael Klurfeld | Filed under Michael
It seems that GGF wants to pay you for filesharing
Hans Pandeya of Global Gaming Factory (GGF), the folks buying The Pirate Bay, said in an interview that GGF plans to utilize the network of filesharers for bandwidth. According to Mr. Pandeya, “the only way to make something more attractive than free,” no doubt in reference to illegal filesharing, is “to pay users to share files.” Rather than hosting files from a centralized hub, GGF’s plan is to use the network of users exchanging data with one another to minimize the amount of bandwidth that an ISP needs to pump to one location. Money will still go to the copyright holders, but “users who share that song” will receive “a payment for putting that file on the P2P network.”
The plan that Mr. Pandeya is describing seems a bit odd as his interview impliees that GGF has no plans of charging people for using The Pirate Bay. Instead, he seems to suggest that the money to be made is from relieving the burden on ISPs – they pay GGF to reduce load and put files on a torrent tracker, and that money is split between copyight holders and the users who share it. In this model, we assume that either the best uploaders are the only ones who get paid, or the amounts of capital are so nominal that users will only ever see real money after doing a lot of uploading.
It would make a lot more sense if the GGF version of The Pirate Bay had a monthly fee associated with it, but the best sharers received payment that could make them a net profit. Hopefully Mr. Pandeya will reveal more details of how this scheme will work in the time it will take GGF to complete its acquistion of The Pirate Bay in August.
