Exploring the impact of broadband and technology on our lives, our businesses, and our communities.
Firefox users see fewer ads
A Cnet article details a surprising study that shows Firefox users see four times FEWER ads than Internet Explorer users.
Firefox is the free Web browser that is increasingly popular with Windows users because it is faster and has fewer security problems than IE. It also apparently does a much better job of blocking pop-up ads, which may account for some of the differences between the two groups.
I had to spend a couple of days working on a Windows machine last week, using IE, and I was shocked at the number of pop-ups--it was actually difficult to get work done at times. I've been rather spoiled, I decided, from Safari, Apple's browser, and Firefox. Both do a pretty good job at blocking pop-up ads; so well, apparently, that I had begun to take it for granted.
Firefox is free, and can be downloaded and installed easily.
Technology News:
BellSouth eyes video
According to a CNet article, BellSouth plans to provide higher capacity broadband to most of its customer base in the next five years.
Video is driving the plans. The cable companies have not only captured about 75% of the broadband market, compared to the phone companies' paltry 15%, but the cable companies can offer the fabled triple play--voice, data, and video.
The phone companies are terrified. VoIP is sapping traditional landline customers all over the country, and most of those VoIP users are getting that service over cable broadband, not DSL broadband. So the telephone companies want to offer the same thing--voice, data, and video--but their weak point is the 100 year old design of the telephone infrastructure. Most phone users in this country are still getting their dial tone the way Alexander Graham Bell designed it, but those copper cables won't haul video all the way from phone company video head ends. So BellSouth has decided to go with fiber to the node (i.e. fiber to the neighborhood), and deliver the first mile (last mile) connection over copper.
This may sound like great news, but most communities are still stuck with the same two monopoly service providers they had twenty years ago; that's not choice, and two oligarchies aren't likely to drive prices down. Continuing to overbuild private networks does not level the playing field and will not attract real competition.
Technology News:
Pillcam an easier pill to swallow
The USA Today had a story yesterday (page 11D) about the PillCam, a screening device that you swallow. While it travels through your body, it sends video and still images back to the doctor. The "pill," which is not much bigger than an oversize vitamin capsule, is much easier to take (literally) than an endoscopy, which requires sedation and the insertion of a tube down the throat.
It gets patients in and out of the doctor's office more quickly and with less risk. An endoscopy might still be required as a followup if the doctor decides a tissue sample is needed.
I have a great idea for a reality TV show. It's a bit like Fear Factor, where the contestants have to eat bugs, but they also have to swallow the PillCam, so we can see in real time what the little critters do once in your, um, stomach...8^).
Have a great weekend.
Technology News:
Ukraine and the Internet
It's not being covered much in the news, but you can be sure that the demonstrations against the stolen election in Ukraine is being organized in large part via the Internet.
Over the long term (fifty years from now), the real impact of the Internet, looking back, may be the changes it has brought to politics and nations. Short of cutting off Internet access entirely, it is no longer possible for dictators, despots, and thugs to keep people from learning what is going on in the rest of the world. Nor can they keep their own people from passing the truth from one to another. If the only thing the Internet does is help spread freedom and democracy, that's enough.
Technology News:
Windows machines are easy to hijack
A story in USA Today details how easily a Windows machine connected to the Internet (e.g. via DSL or cable modem) can be hijacked. Macintosh and Linux machines were also tested, but it was found that the numerous security holes in Windows made it more difficult to keep the machine secure.
Properly configured firewalls were considered essential, and on any of the machines running firewalls, there were no compromises. The Windows machines that were not running firewalls were broached "within minutes," with over three hundred attacks per hour noted on all the machines.
Technology News:
The Internet as retailer
It is being widely reported that Internet shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend jumped dramatically, especially on Thanksgiving Day. Apparently, while everyone was waiting for the turkey to cook, twice as many people as last year went online to do a little shopping. Friday also saw a big increase (about 50% more).
The big loser was Walmart, which did not see the big increases expected. Other stores, like Target, apparently did better. There are all sorts of theories explaining various aspects of the holiday shopping--that Target offers a nicer shopping environment and better quality, that Walmart shoppers bought from Walmart.com instead of going to the store, and so on. All the explanations probably have some truth to them.
I'm more interested in the implications for smaller and rural communities. One interesting fact is that half of broadband users were apparently shopping online, by one estimate. That's a big number, and I think the reason is that you really need (and want) broadband for online shopping. Browsing an online catalog by dialup is painful. You might as well get in the car and drive to the shopping center.
For rural communities, affordable broadband and the willingness to shop online means people living in these towns and regions have much the same shopping alternatives available to them as people in the suburbs and big cities. But you have to have the affordable broadband.
It also means that small towns and communities may want to think differently about their approach to retail. In many of the towns and regions in which I work, there is much worry and discussion about the lack of retail. Maybe this is not the problem we think it is--if your residents have affordable broadband. It may be that money spent on retail initiatives might be better directed at quality of life issues that will attract entrepreneurs and businesspeople to the community, who know they can shop online, and instead want a Main Street that supports small businesspeople (lawyers, accountants, copy services, coffee shops, good restaurants, etc.). Finally, the change agent is affordable broadband. Instead of putting new street lamps on Main Street with the hope of reviving retail stores there, invest in a public broadband infrastructure that will bring broadband providers to town--thereby letting people shop online.
Technology News:
"The real estate is the hard part"
This New York Times article is worth a read, despite the ad you have to click through (and NYT registration is required). It's about companies that are beginning to deploy WiMax.
The article helps dispel some of the hype, like the frequently quoted "up to 30 miles" range, which is actually about half that most of the time.
On the first page of the article, one of the owners of the profiled company confirms something I have been saying for years, that "The real estate is the hard part of the business." If communities would make very modest investments in identifying where to put antennas, provide easy permitting to mount antennas on public facilities, procure tower sites, and put up towers, it would be easy to get private sector companies to come in and offer affordable wireless broadband.
But you can't have it both ways. Too many communities complain about the lack of affordable broadband, but don't want to spend any money to get it. In smaller markets (i.e. virtually all rural communities), it is naive to expect every wireless provider to come in and make substantial investments in site surveys, permits, buy or lease real estate, and invest in towers.
Make all those available easily as community infrastructure. By doing so, the community can dramatically lower the cost of market entry for private providers.
And just to be clear, none of those investments involve getting into the service side of the telecom business, if you live in a state where the legislature has prohibited that.
On the second page of the article is another bit of information that also includes something that I have been warning communities about for years: cable redundancy. The WiMax company has a major business vulnerability because a key location has no alternate cable route. Every community needs to have a technology master plan that has a section detailing plans for redundant routes in and out of key regional towns and communities.
Technology News:
Firefox Web browser a big hit
Numerous reports from various sources are all pointing the runaway success of FireFox, the Open Source Web browser for Windows and other platforms. It has doubled its marketshare in the past year, and the recent release of version 1.0 has caused a big spike in downloads of the free browser.
Firefox sports significant user interface enhancements like tabbed browsing, which does away with the nuisance of having multiple browser windows littering your desktop. It also sports popup blocking, RSS news feed integration, privacy and security tools, and built-in Google searching. Microsoft does not plan an upgrade of Internet Explorer until 2006.
Technology News:
Solar and hydrogen fuel cells will power the grid
The Energy Economy continues to heat up--literally--as practical Stirling engines, powered by light, are getting an injection of technology. The Stirling engine was invented two hundred years ago, but it was hard to control, so it was largely a novelty item.
Recent work at Sandia Labs in New Mexico has Stirling engines looking like a useful source of electric power, using sophisticated electronic controllers that manage the output of the engines. Stirling engines have only a few moving parts, and are heated by a reflective dish that looks like an oversized satellite antenna. Sandia is designing a 20,000 dish farm of Stirling engines that would generate 230,000 volts of power for an electric grid, at costs near the average of today's fossil fuel generators. Buried in the article is a nugget indicating that they plan to use hydrogen fuel cells to store power during the day and release it at night, when the Stirling engines are shut down.
Does your region have a strategy to participate in the Energy Economy? Have you done an inventory of your manufacturing companies and entrepreneurs to find out who might already be positioned to grb a piece of the energy business?
Technology News:
Carbon nanotube yarns
Researchers have made what is being called a major breakthrough--a new process that allows the production of yarns made from carbon nanotubes.
Carbon nanotubes have been around for a while, but it has been difficult to manufacture them in forms that make them useful. The ability to produce yarns will enable the production of fabric that can be used in clothing and in the design of other products. Carbon nanotubes are extremely strong while being much lighter than metals like steel and aluminum. One of the emerging markets where carbon nanotube products are likely to be important: space, including lightweight spacecraft and strong, durable spacesuits.
Technology News:
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