Submitted by acohill on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 13:45
Apple has announced a new version of Apple TV. Apple has cut both the price and size of the device; it's now tiny compared to the old version, and costs only $99. The old version of the product was able to store movies and TV shows, but the new version only streams movies and TV, either from online sources or from content stored on a nearby Mac computer.
TV shows are going to typically rent for ninety-nine cents, and HD movies will go for $5. At a buck a TV show, a typical household could watch a lot of "must see" TV before you would spend more than the average $65/month cost of cable TV. And you can watch Netflix movies on demand for free if you are already a Netflix customer. The new device also retains the ability to stream and play music from a nearby iTunes music library; ditto with photos from a local iPhoto picture album. And Apple TV can be controlled with an iPhone or an iPod Touch. Apple has pretty much completed the transition to an all-digital, fully integrated music/TV/movies/pictures system.
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 09:47
What do the following things have in common?
All of the above were the latest and greatest IT buzzphrases that, over the past thirty years, were supposed to solve all the world's IT problems. Cloud computing, which by squinting only slightly, could be replaced with the word "mainframe," is the latest buzzphrase.
A good buzzphrase is meaningless, so that it can be used in a variety of conflicting and confusing ways, meaning different things to different vendors and organizations. And cloud computing is no exception. Two incidents this week highlight the fact that cloud computing is just as vulnerable to problems as every past IT buzzphrase.
In Virginia, the Department of Motor Vehicles has been unable to issue drivers licenses for almost a week because the systems that manage that have been down. Some years ago, the state outsourced DMV computer operations to a third party, which has been having some problems getting the computers back up. This situation is basically a "cloud" computing model, where a third party in a remote location provides a service to the DMV--the processing of drivers licenses. In this case, the DMV has outsourced a core function, which puts the organization at risk if there is a major failure, as accountability for the failure is diluted via a business contract--as opposed to calling the head of IT in for a dressing down.
A second incident was personal. I got a call from a well-known nationally recognized bank, which happens to hold our mortgage. They claimed that we had missed a payment, but oddly, could not tell us immediately what month we had missed. It took over an hour on the phone speaking to a total of six different people before we figured out the problem. What does that have to do with cloud computing?
We pay our mortgage using the bank's online payment system, which is basically a cloud computing application. What I found out is that it is riddled with design flaws and bugs. We had confirmation numbers for every payment in the past several months, but several of the people we talked to had no way of looking up those confirmation numbers--confirmation numbers generated by their own cloud computing application. Furthermore, they stubbornly insisted that in fact, we had never even logged in to make a payment recently, even though we had confirmation numbers! What this told me was that their system stinks; it lacks adequate logging of transactions, loses transactions, and that the bank's internal interface used by their staff is grossly inadequate to provide even minimal customer service. The idea that a major bank could provide a customer with a confirmation number for a large financial transaction and then later have NO RECORD of that transaction is appalling.
Is cloud computing bad? No. It's a tool, just like any other IT tool. But slapping the term "cloud computing" on a computer system does not make it invulnerable to problems, and does not mitigate problems caused by careless design, inadequate planning, and poor data management.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 08/23/2010 - 13:26
Pete Ashdown, writing in The Salt Lake Tribune, discusses the reasoning behind community-owned broadband, in the context of the Utopia project, one of the country's biggest community broadband efforts. Here is a key portion of the article:
These interests go against broad long-term goals that infrastructure serves — facilitating economic exchange and the general welfare. If every airline was required to build their own airport and every shipping company needed their own road, America would be on par with Somalia as an economic force.
Fiber optics technology has vast capacity that allows multiple service providers of Internet, television and telephone to provide service to homes and businesses. UTOPIA and other open fiber optic networks throughout the world have demonstrated that this model provides a level playing field for competition, which in turn drives down prices for the customer and motivates quality service.
If your home is connected with UTOPIA fiber, you can choose from a variety of providers. If you are connected with Qwest ADSL2, you can choose from Qwest. If you are connected with Comcast cable, you can choose from Comcast. If either of these two companies raises its rates unexpectedly or gives you lousy service, your options are slim to nil for switching.
Utopia and other open access projects like (e.g. nDanville, The Wired Road, Palm Coast FiberNET, and others) are driving down the cost of telecom for residents, businesses, and institutions in their service areas, and service providers--especially smaller ones--are signing up to offer services. Some pundits insist that the open access model is "unproven," but their recommendation is to stick with what has NOT worked--the traditional retail triple play model. Community-owned retail triple play creates a one time decrease in telecom costs but lacks the choice and competition among providers that provides steady decreases in the cost of services and a steady increase in the kind and type of services that go far beyond the triple play of voice, TV, and Internet.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 08/20/2010 - 12:40
For older iPhone users like me (I have an iPhone 3G), the recent software upgrade (iOS 4) has been a disaster. The upgraded operating system brought only a few useful features to the older 3G and 3GS phones, and along with the minor upgrades, severe performance degradation. Frankly, it's just awful. The biggest thing is a major slowdown across the board for all apps, to the point that I use the iPhone less than I used to because it is painful.
But perhaps there is hope. An iPhone user reports getting a short reply back from Steve Jobs that promises an fix "soon." I can't wait.
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 08/18/2010 - 13:31
DefenseTech reports that a virus has been found in some SCADA systems. SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) is the software used for managing electric power grids, water and sewer systems, and other utilities. So far, the infections have been found in utility departments in the Far East, where the SCADA computers are older and not well maintained. What is worrisome is that someone, or some organization, is targeting SCADA systems. There is a reason why the U.S. military is beefing up spending on cyberwar and cybersecurity; the risk to the U.S. economy if there was a widespread failure of utility systems because of a concerted virus attack would be enormous.
Submitted by acohill on Tue, 08/17/2010 - 13:49
I just tried to get the local Best Buy store on the phone to see if they have a particular model of printer in stock. After pressing '3' for a 'sales associate,' I let the phone ring twenty times--twice! No answer.
Best Buy: No answer, no customer. No customer, no sale.
Submitted by acohill on Sun, 08/15/2010 - 11:49
Libraries have a bright future, particularly in small and medium–sized communities. As the Knowledge Economy continues to change the way business is conducted, both locally and globally, libraries can play an essential economic development role as well as enhance community and civic life. Indeed, by changing and adapting their role and mission slightly, libraries could enter a “Golden Age,” where the venerable institution plays a more central role in the community, with a commensurate increase in funding.
The traditional role of libraries is not going away. We still need access to books, but just as important, we need access to online resources as well. For more than a decade, libraries have provided free public access to the Internet, often at much higher speeds than are typically available from homes and some businesses. Even though access to the Internet is much more common than it was ten years ago, many libraries are expanding the number of Internet workstations because of steady demand for access. Just as libraries treat books as a shared resource that lowers the cost of access, libraries can subscribe to specialized commercial databases like Lexis/Nexis, legal databases, commercial databases, and other kinds of specialized information. The access to those specialized resources is then available to everyone in the community. Libraries can also share access to specialized local information as well, like GIS databases maintained by local governments. Citizens usually cannot afford the specialized software needed to make full use of such information, but a GIS workstation in the library makes that available to all.
As the cost of travel continues to increase, videoconferencing will play an increasingly important role as a way to participate in meetings without the expense of travel. The library can provision a conference room for video meetings; the space would be available to local leaders, citizens, and to business people. Business use of the facility would be based on payment of a modest fee, creating a new revenue stream for the library that would help offset the cost of support and maintenance.
Libraries have an important economic development role to play. Small businesses and entrepreneurial start–ups continue to create a large majority of jobs, and these smaller companies can benefit greatly from library–provided services, including reference desk services, access to online databases, use of “business quality” meeting rooms at the library for client meetings, and use of the videoconference equipment for business and client meetings. Some of these services, like meeting rooms and videoconference facilities, can be provided to businesses for a fee, creating new streams of revenue to support the expanded library mission.
Opportunities abound for libraries. The question is, "Will they adapt and change to take on new and important roles that will help promote improved use and adoption of broadband?"
Note: This article has been cross-posted at Broadband for America.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 08/13/2010 - 17:06
In this article that speculates about an Apple TV upgrade, there is an interesting tidbit that validates what I and others have been saying for a long time: HD content chews up bandwidth:
"...In turn, consumers would see a similar increase in streaming requirements. Xbox Live can stream 1080p video, but it requires 8-10meg broadband, which leaves an awful lot of people out in the cold. It has the option of downloading instead, but if you're out in the sticks on a 2meg stream you're looking at more than eight hours to download your film at 1080p. You'd best plan your Friday night viewing before leaving for work on Friday morning."
The discussion about the Apple TV is whether or not Apple will include the ability to show movies in HD 1080p format. The short answer is, "Not likely," because streaming 1080p movies and TV shows over the Internet requires a massive chunk of bandwidth--8-10 megabits. And that's REAL bandwidth, not the marketing happy-talk that always begins with "....up to..."
Notice that if you wanted to download that movie over your average 2 megabit connection, it would take more than 8 hours! And if you are on a cable modem connection with a few of your neighbors also trying to do the same, it would take a little longer, like never (ditto with a wireless connection).
The answer is simple: we need to switch to open fiber.
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 08/11/2010 - 09:28
Here is a short note from an entrepreneur and venture capitalist in Florida who really gets the importance of broadband. He lists four critical reasons why broadband is important.
Here is a question for community leaders and planners: Look at the four categories listed above and ask this question: "Do we want a large telephone or cable company making the decision about what kind of infrastructure is available in our community for business, health care, education, and the environment?"
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 08/11/2010 - 08:44
I went on a three day hike on the Appalachian Trail with one of my kids who is off to college in a few weeks. We had a glorious time hiking one of the most remote and isolated portions of the entire AT, which also happens to be one of the most scenic (right here in southwest Virginia). I had no laptop with me, no broadband access, and cellphone coverage so sketchy that we only managed a couple of quick text messages to the wife assuring her we had not fallen off a mountain.
For three days, I was off the grid, and it was wonderful. And nothing bad happened because I was not checking email three times a day. I need to do that more often, and I predict that in the near future, more of us will be deliberately planning and arranging "off the grid" broadband-free vacations. In past years, our beach trips have slowly become something less and less appealing to me because I seem to have to spend a couple of hours every day working. People call and say, "I know you are on vacation, but...." It's the "but..." that I have learned to dread. "...but could you just take a quick look at this document I just emailed?"
It was not that long ago that we measured response time to memos and reports in days and weeks, and now we measure it in hours. Just recently, I had someone call me up at 11 AM, quite upset, that I had not responded to an email they sent at 9 AM. On that particular day, I was out in the field and had had neither the time nor a broadband connection. But somehow we have come to assume 24/7/365 instant access to the 'net.
It's not healthy, and we should all take a deep breath and smell the flowers along a trail through the woods more often....without our cellphones and laptops.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 08/06/2010 - 15:43
WiMax, which was going to solve everyone's broadband problems three years ago, may already be dead, without ever really being deployed in any meaningful way. This short article suggests that Clearwire is thinking seriously about switching from WiMax to LTE for its primary wireless deployment technology.
LTE (Long Term Evolution) is, depending a couple of different variants, a 3G or 4G cellular wireless technology that has much higher bandwidth than current 3G cellular wireless systems. As is usual, the makers of LTE equipment are touting very high (read: exaggerated) upload and download speeds that are always predicated with the handy phrase "up to..." But like all wireless technologies, you have to share that bandwidth with everyone else using the same tower/access point, so your mileage will vary greatly. A convenient rule of thumb for evaluating actual wireless bandwidth is to take the maximum "up to" number and divide by ten. The result is more likely what most users will see in practice.
Will LTE be an improvement? Very likely. But it means replacing your current wireless device with a new one, among other problems. Mobile phone manufacturers like these changes in technology, as it forces millions of people to buy new phones. But companies like AT&T are not even done building out adequate 3G networks using the "old" 3G technologies. The transition will be slow. And we will still all want fiber. Nobody is going to be delivering HD movies on demand over an LTE wireless network, no matter what the vendors claim the "up to" bandwidth is.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 08/06/2010 - 09:08
Here is an article that alleges that Boulder, Colorado's SmartGridCity project is in deep trouble. The article has a long laundry list of problems, but what jumped out at me is the list of so-called "partners." If you look at the SmartGridCity Partners page, you can see the root problem of this project is too many cooks. Just the administrative overhead of supporting this list of high priced consulting firms would sink any project. And the descriptions that accompany each partner reads like one of those buzz-phrase generators you find online. Here are a sampling of the buzz phrases:
So you have at least seven companies with seven proprietary and very likely incompatible technology "solutions" that are going to use taxpayer dollars to try to do a mash up of their stuff that will somehow save money. These kinds of efforts never work, in part because if you start with seven complex technologies, it is impossible to make them less complex by combining them. Fifty years of software development studies have shown this over and over again. It's not that different than Fred Brooks' mythical man month treatise, in which he showed that adding more workers to a software project already late just makes it later--in large part because adding more workers makes the development process more complex. The same principle is likely at work here. Adding more complex power management software to an already complex design makes it even more complex and, as study after study has shown, more error prone.
Here at Design Nine, we call ourselves "broadband architects" or "information architects." We work the way the traditional architect works--we do a clean, coherent high level design for our clients first, develop the financing and funding strategies needed to show the client how it will pay for itself, and then and only then do we go out to vendors.
My guess is that Smart Grid City ended up with seven or more "design" firms all trying to gain an advantage for their own stuff, and Boulder ended up with a mess. It's as if you wanted a house built, and instead of having an architect produce the design and supervise the construction, you told the plumber, the carpenters, the electrician, and the drywall guys to get together and come up with something. It's called "design by committee," and it is never pretty.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 08/06/2010 - 08:49
The U.S. Departments of Commerce and Agriculture have announced a schedule for the disbursement of remaining broadband stimulus funds. Commerce expects to release a round of awards in mid-August, and USDA and Commerce will announce additional awards in September, with all funds awarded by the Congressional deadline of September 30th. For communities that have put broadband plans on hold, the uncertainty will soon be over.
Submitted by acohill on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 08:17
A common theme, when discussing the financing of broadband, is to claim that the open access business model "has not been proven." True open access has only been around in the U.S. for about three years, and the opponents of open access are creating a double standard. Apparently, to "prove" open access works, communities that take that route have to be in the black within a year or two, and really, it would be better, apparently, if they were in the black on day one.
What's the double standard? The double standard is that private sector telecom companies take years to get into the black, and routinely run up billions in debt that won't be paid back for a long period of time. That's apparently okay--communities will be held to a higher standard, though.
There is a second, very sly argument running alongside the "prove it works" argument. It is this: "Open access is bad because it has not been proven." Okay...let's accept that premise for a moment and now let us ask the question that no one asks..."What business model should be used instead?" The business model that open access opponents want to use is the tired old monopoly triple play, which has, over the past fifteen years, failed utterly to get "big" broadband to U.S. residents and businesses.
So the open access opponents want everyone to use a "proven" approach: triple play, which has been proven not to work. Sly, no?
Open access projects like Utopia, nDanville, The Wired Road, and Palm Coast FiberNET are thriving--in those communities, increased competition has brought lower prices for telecom services, and the efforts are generating enough funds that all those communities continue to expand their networks to more customers.
Submitted by acohill on Tue, 08/03/2010 - 09:58
Via an Akamai report (registration is required to get the report), Latvia has moved up to fifth place in the average bandwidth rankings worldwide. The U.S. is down at number 22, with a net negative drop of about 1% in bandwidth over the last quarter and 2.5% drop in bandwidth over the past year. According to Akamai, the average broadband connection in the U.S. is about 3.8 megabits/second, which would reflect the fact that the cable companies dominate the broadband marketplace in the U.S.
It is worth noting that the FCC just set a new standard for the definition of "broadband," which is 4 megabits down and 1 megabit up. This reflects the continuing focus on broadband as an "entertainment" service (that's what some cable companies call it) rather than a business service. With more people and businesses trying to work out of the home, symmetric bandwidth has become essential to economic development. The continuing acceptance of a bigger pipe into homes and businesses and a much smaller pipe upstream reflects a lack of understanding about business and job needs for broadband services, which need the symmetric bandwidth.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 07/26/2010 - 09:37
The InterTubes are a a-flutter with articles about Wal-Mart's plans to use RFID smart tags on clothing. The little tags are readable via wireless handheld devices, and the new system will allow Wal-Mart to manage inventory better. Every article I have read, including this reasonably well-balanced one from USA Today, talks about "privacy concerns." But USA Today, near the end of the article, provides the necessary information to understand just how big the privacy threat is: not very big. The RFID tags will be removable, and will probably just be embedded in or attached to existing price/product tags. So when you take the item home, you cut off the product tags as you usually would, and Wal-Mart can no longer 'track' your item. And they could only track it if you went back in the store, and so on.
I have a lot of issues with privacy, especially with "free" Internet services that track what I do online. I'm planning a camping trip and have been using several search engines to find some camping items. And lo--almost every Web page I look at now seems to have ads from camping supply stores, meaning that the search engines have a dossier that is actively updated with the results of my searches. That I don't like at all, and no, I don't find it "convenient" that the search engines helpfully pepper me with targeted ads.
But the Wal-Mart tags? That I'm not at all worried about.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 07/23/2010 - 13:52
Via the Twitter feed BroadbandReport, a new study suggests that the U.S. ranks 23rd in the world in broadband deployment. Strategy Analytics, the company that developed the report, is using a new set of metrics that look at five different indices to come up with the ranking.
The U.S. will continue to rank low for years, as the market here is very different here than in the rest of the world. Most of other countries are much smaller, making the scale of the problem much smaller. South Korea, which ranks first in the study, is smaller than almost every state in the U.S. And most other countries take a government-heavy, top down approach to broadband, which works better in other places because there is really only federal government and local governments. Here in the U.S., we have a middle layer of government (states) that are largely autonomous. And I'm not arguing for a more extensive top-down approach in the U.S. Topography, geography, and local business conditions vary so widely in the U.S. that dictating a one size fits all approach is likely to have a lot of unintended consequences.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 07/23/2010 - 12:28
India has announced a $35 computer for students. The Linux-based machine is intended to give Indian students at all levels, starting in grade school, access to an affordable computer. I proposed a $100 computer twelve years ago--at that time, no one took it seriously, but I'm glad India thinks it's a good idea.
Submitted by acohill on Thu, 07/22/2010 - 10:20
I had a conversation earlier this week with a well-connected business person who is in the business of building data centers. The two top criteria his firm uses to identify communities in which to locate data centers is power and fiber. What he told me is that for the size of data center he typically builds (50,000 to 100,000 square feet) they are looking for power from two separate sub-stations, and that power from two separate grids is even better. Few communities get fed from two grids, but it is more likely to be able to get power to some industrial/commercial sites from two different sub-stations. Even though these data centers have backup generators on-site, the 15 to 30 megawatts these facility use make dual feeds desirable.
Power is something all communities have, and if extra capacity is needed, it can usually be added easily if the funds are available to support new transmission lines and/or new transformers. Note that the lead time on large power transformers is one year or more, so a strategy of "If someone wants extra power, we'll just build it," may not be leading with your best foot forward, as they may move your community off the short list in favor of communities that have already addressed power.
So that leaves fiber as a key discriminator in relocation decisions. Planning and building local fiber infrastructure can take six to 12 months at a minimum, so if you want to attract data centers, you want open access fiber assets already in place and ready to use.
Some data points: the massive Google data center in rural Washington state was placed there because fiber assets were already in place. The fact that cheap power was available was a secondary consideration. Danville, Virginia won a new, large data center recently because they had both fiber in place and reliable power. Fiber gives communities a competitive edge for business attraction.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 07/16/2010 - 14:27
Bing has grabbed almost 13% of the search engine market share in the past year, and the Microsoft search engine appears to steadily getting more users. There are two or three reasons, I think. In my own experience, Bing returns fewer and better results, with less link farm clutter. The interface is better, and Bing is willing to send you other search engines, which suggests a certain confidence in their own results and/or a focus on helping you complete your search rather than stick as many ads as possible in your face.
Recent upgrades to two popular browsers, FireFox and Safari, also allow you to set the default search engine to Bing instead of Google. This simple one time change for users makes it much easier to hit Bing every time when you do a search.
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