Exploring the impact of broadband and technology on our lives, our businesses, and our communities.

Ring tones sell slowly in the US

A New York Times article (registration required) talks about the growth in the worldwide market for ringtones (alternate ring sounds for mobile phones).

Most new cellphones have the ability to download alternate ringtones, which typically sell for $2-3 each. I've never understood the appeal of them--it's a phone, for crying out loud--all I want to know is that it is ringing. I don't need a long, noisy dirge to let me know that.

Nonetheless, I'm clearly a curmudgeon when it comes to this particular little piece of IT gadgetry. Worldwide, ringtones are now a $3 billion dollar market, and growing fast as more phones are bought with this capability. In a small bit of good news, perhaps Americans are a bit more sane than the rest of the world when it comes to this stuff, as the U.S. market for ringtones lags behind Europe and Asia.

The ringtone industry is in a major lather right now because the newest cellphones have polyphonic capability (meaning they can play snippets of real songs, rather than a tinny melody of the song). The music industry is gearing up to license huge chunks of their music archives as ringtones, including some downright foul and/or insulting recordings.

There is a larger issue behind all this. Who could have predicted even three years ago that a major, multi-billion dollar market would have emerged around ringtones? As dumb as they may be, the ringtone industry is creating jobs and revenue streams across whole industries.

It's creative destruction at work. Yes, some of our factory and low level office jobs are being outsourced to low wage countries. But whole new industries are replacing them. Would you rather work in the music industry as a ringtone and license manager or work in a satellite TV call center making cold calls? Which kind of job would be better for your region?

Trying to preserve the jobs and economic development strategies of the past is an exercise in futility. Communities need to be looking ahead, and planning in a futures context, instead of the context of what worked well in 1970.

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Are your computers secure?

If you use Windows, here is some scary information for you. Wired reports on a study that shows an unprotected Windows computer becomes infected with some kind of malignant virus or malware just 20 minutes after being connected to a broadband connection (e.g. cable modem or DSL).

Wired wryly notes that that is not even enough time to download a typical set of patches from Microsoft.

I get asked all the time why I use Macs. One answer (I have several reasons why) is that I have not had a virus on any Mac I've used since 1993. Yes, there are fewer viruses written for Macs, and that plays some part, but the Unix operating system is both more resistant to infection and has much stronger controls than Windows. And out of the box, the default settings on a Mac are designed to make the machine very resistant to attack.

I still get asked all the time about compatibility. It's never been a problem for me. Microsoft Office on the Mac is virtually identical to the Windows version, and I open, read, and edit Office documents created on Windows on a daily basis. Bottom line--I get more work done with less effort and less cost.

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Moving and technology state of the art

Design Nine outgrew our old office space, and over the past week we moved into new, larger quarters--we're still in Blacksburg, Virginia, though.

I had to completely disassemble my desktop computer, something I have not had to do in over two years, when this machine was brand new. I ended up with a box of some 30+ cables for a computer and office phone, which on the face of it seems absurd for an otherwise entirely straightforward desktop machine used primarily for email and writing. In part, much of the problem has been the extraordinary success of the USB protocol as a peripheral connectivity solution.

In the "old" days, about three years ago, you typically had a couple of serial ports and two or three SCSI devices. You had a limited number of peripherals you could have hooked up at one time, and your ambitions for connected gagdets was low.

With the advent of USB, you could stick a hub on and fill it with as many things as you liked, and they would all actually work very well (most of the time). I have a seven port USB hub, and six ports are in use. Combine those USB cables with phone cables, Firewire cables, and power cables for all the devices, and you end up with a mess. It is incredibly ugly, difficult if not impossible to keep neat, and amazing that it works at all.

Firewire, in theory, should solve many of these problems. Firewire devices can be daisy-chained, so you don't have the multiple cable problem of USB, and Firewire is capable of providing more power than USB, so you can actually eliminate the AC/DC voltage converters entirely. Apple's iPod is a perfect example of this. You connect the iPod to your laptop or desktop with a single, thin Firewire cable that recharges the battery and transfers data several times faster than USB.

But Firewire has yet to reach its potential. Many PCs still do not come with Firewire (it's standard on all Macs), and even on the Mac, it does not always work as expected. My Firewire video camera (no power cable, thank you) does not get along with my Firewire hard drive (big AC power cable), and I have to unplug the camera when I back up files to the external Firewire hard drive.

But I did finally decide I can put my "old" 250 meg Zip drive in a drawer for emergency use. It had been sitting on my desk gathering dust, and the move made me realize I have not used it in well over a year. File exchange with others is now done via attachments and email....like the cable snarls, another special kind of hell the IT industry has refused to address.

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Money protected by bad passwords

Millions of people now have Paypal accounts, online access to bank accounts, and other online access to financial transactions, typically protected only by the passwords they pick themselves.

If you are still using your dog's name or some other simple four or five letter word for your password, you may want to read this short article on the various ways bad people are using to steal passwords.

The best passwords are at least eight characters long, and consist of an apparently random string of mixed case characters and at least one digit. My bank also requires a special character (like an ampersand or a dollar sign).

If you pick four or five good passwords and use them consistently, you can protect yourself and still not go crazy trying to remember them. For example, use one or two passwords on all your insecure sites (e.g. news sites, etc.) and don't ever mix the passwords you use for financial sites.

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We're not reading...

An article from the July 19th issue of Newsweek talks about recent studies that indicate young adults (between 18 and 34) are now reading less than any other group. Even worse, this used to be the group that read the most.

Even worse, instead of reading, this group has become largely "passive consumers of electronic entertainment." Video games, entertainment Web sites, and TV are taking the place of exercising our brains.

The study also notes that those that do read are also more likely to "active and engaged towards information and society." They are also more likely to "do volunteer work or attend plays or ball games."

So the young people that will have to take over the reins of society in the next ten to twenty years are not reading, are less involved in community activities, and are glued to some kind of electronic entertainment widget (TV, computer, picturephone, iPod, etc). It's not a pretty thought.

What kind of youth leadership training program do you have in your community? Do you have a young adult book club that gets young people out of the house and off the 'net to talk about good and great books? How is your community preparing the leaders of the future?

WiFi phone booths

Telstra, the Australian phone company, is putting WiFi hotspots in phone booths.

It's a good idea. The phone booths are underused, with so many cellphones now in use. The booths are already in public places where people tend to gather, and they have the one thing that often makes placing a hotspot costly--a wired connection. Telstra can use the existing cable to deliver a DSL line to the WiFi equipment in the booth, and the booth itself can be used to mount an antenna.

Cong. Boucher talks about the Induce Act

Congressman Rick Boucher (D, Virginia) represents southwest Virginia, including Blacksburg. Boucher is guest-hosting law professor Lawrence Lessig's blog this week, and there is a cogent and fascinating discussion of the Induce Act. The Induce Act would build on the already questionable DCMA law to make it more difficult (in theory) to pirate digital media.

The Induce Act has already created a firestorm of criticism for its overbroad attempt to stifle piracy by making it illegal to introduct any new technology or device that MIGHT be used for illegal sharing. In other words, as it has been pointed out, the iPod and indeed, all MP3 players would be illegal. Boucher is co-sponsor of a bill that would try to hold back the Induce tide.

VoIP spam--the next horror?

CNet writes about the next potential spam horror--voice mail spam sent to your Voice over IP telephone. VoIP phones have an IP address, just like your computer, and spammers will probably figure out a way to send spam right to your phone.

It's not something worth worrying about yet....as we get better at tightening up anti-spam laws and regulations, we may stop it before it gets started. As the CNet articles notes, it may be that it can be forestalled by adding language to the Do Not Call law.

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Concrete and indium

Indium sounds like one of those made up compounds, like Intel's "Itanium" or Volkswagen's "Turbonium." but indium is a little known metal that is essential to the manufacture of LCD panels. The Wall Street Journal reports on a potential shortage of the transparent, conductive metal. It's refined from the tailings of commodity metals like zinc and lead.

The problem is that only a few hundred tons mark the entire world production, and the price has been rising rapidly. Even with the price increases, so little is sold that it's hardly worth it to the big zinc and lead producers to bother refining it. So while supplies are adequate right now, the exploding demand for big screen TVs and LCD panels suggests shortages may develop.

Cement is also creating a slowdown in the world economy. Paradoxically, the global Knowledge Economy is suffering from the high prices created by, of all things, cement. It's a useful reminder that for all the hype, the IT business is not the major driver in the global economy. It's a driver, but not the primary one (if there even is one). Businesses around the country, even in rural areas, are feeling the effects of the cement shortage because of demand in China and Iraq....proof positive that we can't ignore the interconnected, increasingly complex world beyond the borders of our own county and community.

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The emerging telecom wars

USA Today (Monday) has a front page article (Business section) on AT&T and its decision to get out of the consumer market for local and long distance services. Opinions are mixed on the wisdom of this approach, but the company does not really have much choice. With the FCC decision to allow the regional Bells to charge whatever they like for wholesale access to their infrastructure, AT&T could no longer profitably offer local dial tone service.

As I've said before, I think that the FCC made the right decision. If the Bells are expected to compete with unregulated companies (e.g. the cable and WiFI firms), it does not make sense to hobble them by requiring them to sell their own network to competitors below market rates. It is no coincidence that since that ruling a few months ago that the regional Bells have begun to announce FTTP (Fiber To The Premises) projects--they finally know they can make money doing so.

Buried in the article is a one line reference to the "Cable-Phone Wars." One reason the phone companies have finally jumped on the fiber bandwagon is that the cable companies have captured a large part of the broadband customer base by investing early. DSL is now selling in most of the country for about $15 less than cable service because the phone companies have to do something to get customers back--like actually compete on price and service. Horror stories abound, but generally, the cable companies, which tend to have more local offices and real service people working for them, seem to be winning the service battle.

The phone companies, in a better late than never strategy, are winning the price war right now. This is all good for consumers, up to a point. Quality of Service (QoS) is still shaky for both cable and DSL. Both are copper-based legacy systems that were never designed to deliver high speed data to homes and small businesses. Fiber and wireless can deliver data much better, but can't always provide the content (e.g. cable TV) and/or some services (like dialtone)--yet.

It is going to be a war. Communities and businesses are particularly at risk if a single company "captures" the local marketplace before competition fully develops. As always, the way to avoid this is to make modest investments on a communitywide investment to keep the playing field level for small and medium-sized companies. Those investments will help network access and service providers compete effectively against the cable and phone companies. Those investments will also keep prices down--that's always a good thing that makes the community and region more attractive to businesses.

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