Exploring the impact of broadband and technology on our lives, our businesses, and our communities.
Crooks using location information to rob homes
All these location-aware devices we have now with GPS capabilities are turning out to be a boon for crooks. Here is how it works: people go on vacation, take pictures with their location-aware iPhone or Android phone, and upload the picture to Facebook with the exact location conveniently added in. Crooks browse Facebook pages, find someone on vacation a long way from home, and then head over to your house for a leisurely romp through your belongings.
Other problems with indiscriminate use of location-aware information? Law enforcement officials can use that information to build a case against you in a criminal trial--it's a form of self-incrimination that you voluntarily offer to law enforcement and to trial lawyers in civil proceedings.
Voluntarily giving up your location in real time has more benign but still problematic privacy issues, as it allows Web sites and the ad/search engines behind them to add to your dossier--they know everywhere you go, and thus build ever more sophisticated targeted marketing. It's not that the ads are so bad in and of themselves, but once that location information is collected, it can be sold and re-sold to other parties for years.
I wish the iPhone had an opt-in or opt-out preference; many iPhone apps constantly ask if they can use location information, and I have to constantly answer, "No." It's a pain in the neck, and none of their business.
Many free apps for Android and the iPhone are free because they collect lots of information about you; that information is sold to third parties, and that's what keeps the app "free." Sometimes it might be better just to pay a few dollars to preserve a few shreds of your privacy.
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Memory Lane: Old computer ads
This site has collected a set of old computer ads from the late seventies and early eighties. Some of the goodies include:
- A 20 Mhz 80386 PC that sells for a low, low, low $8,499.
- A modem the size of a toaster oven.
- A 15 meg (yes, meg, not gig) hard drive for $2,495 and a 10 meg hard drive for $3,495.
- An ad for the venerable Heathkit H8 with 4K of memory; a real bargain for $1244.50!
Good for a chuckle, and an indication of how far the computer business has come in 25 years. The $199 iPod Touch is more powerful than the multi-million dollar mainframes of the seventies.
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iPad, iOS powered devices doing very well, competitors struggle to keep up
In this report, Apple wants to increase iPad production to 3 million units/month. And in this report, the iOS-powered Apple products (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) have passed Linux to become the third most popular software platform for Internet browsing.
Meanwhile, Microsoft and its hardware partners are still trying to get a Windows 7 tablet out the door, and Cisco is flogging a tablet device powered by Android. Cisco's device is interesting because it is designed specifically for voice and videoconferencing. Expect to see these gadgets start to show up in Fortune 500 conference rooms, where they will never leave their docks.
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The death of TV: Part XXIII
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.
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Cloud computing: The bad and the ugly
What do the following things have in common?
- Minicomputers
- Relational databases
- Client-server computing
- Object-oriented programming
- Web 2.0
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.
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Broadband: "...facilitating economic exchange and the general welfare"
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.
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Apple promises iPhone 3G, 3GS fix
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.
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Uh-oh: SCADA virus found
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.
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Customer service: It's not that hard
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.
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Libraries: The Center for Sustainable Adoption
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.
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