Exploring the impact of broadband and technology on our lives, our businesses, and our communities.
AT&T still in the consumer market
This article [link no longer available] suggests I was write a couple of months ago when I said that AT&T still planned to offer consumer dialtone, despite their announcement that they were getting out of the consumer local and long distance market.
I suggested that this masked a push by AT&T to become a major VoIP player. AT&T is helping consumers who don't yet have a broadband connection to get one, using CableLabs' Web-based tool. This is a shrewd move, and VoIP may yet save AT&T, which over the past twenty years has made a whole series of poor business moves.
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VoIP saves small businesses money
Om Malik points to a story in the Tri-City Herald about the benefits reaped by a local small business that is using VoIP. A local florist with stores in both Washington and Oregon estimates that he is saving $100/month by using VoIP instead of traditional long distance services.
Economic developers can help small businesses grow and add jobs by helping them understand the benefits of VoIP and how to pick a VoIP provider. With existing small businesses creating most jobs, one of the best job creation activities ED folks can engage in is saving existing businesses money on overhead like telephone service. The savings can be ploughed into business expansion. How does your region rate on helping existing businesses expand? What programs are in place to educate and train busy small businesspeople in new technologies?
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Tapping our phones: A waste of time?
The New York Times (registration required) has an article this morning on the FCC's decision to require VoIP service providers to implement phonetapping equipment. There will be public hearings before a final decision is made, but if the Federal government proceeds with this, it will burden the nascent industry with large costs and it will be mostly for naught.
Wiretapping a Voice over IP phone requires much more sophisticated equipment than the legacy phone system, and indeed, the term "wiretapping" hardly makes sense, since with VoIP you tap packets, not a physical wire connection. Those costs will be passed directly to consumers, increasing the cost of VoIP services and slowing the potential cost savings to consumers and businesses.
If VoIP tapping is implemented, bad guys won't use it. They will, instead, use any of a myriad of point to point voice conferencing software packages that are already in wide use. It's a little less convenient, but beyond the control of the government to stop. Outlaw such software (very unlikely), and bootleg software to do that will quickly become an illegal business opportunity.
Like so many businesses and governments, the FBI and other Federal agencies have failed to adapt to a changing environment. One can only hope that the public hearings bring this out and save us from the expense, waste, and lost business opportunities.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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