Technology Futures

FiOS is Verizon's fiber offering, which they are now rolling out in limited areas. According to this article from someone who signed up for FiOS TV and then dropped it, there may be some real limitations (note: scroll down the page a bit to the "FiOS TV" title).

A school system in British Columbia has cut technology costs, created new support positions to work directly with teachers, and has dramatically reduced technical problems with their classroom and teacher computers. How did they do it?

They dropped licensed software, and over several years, moved to Free and Open Source (FOSS) alternatives.

In the biggest change to personal computers since the arrival of an affordable 5 1/4" hard drive about 25 years ago, solid state "hard drives" will be appearing soon in laptops. The solid state storage devices have no moving parts, use much less energy, weigh less, are faster, and are more durable.

An Emtelle press release notes that the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) has released a worldwide standard for microduct and blown fiber, including a standard for testing.

This is important because it will improve the ability to deploy products from different manufacturers in the same network and improve overall reliability of blown fiber and microduct products.

At least part of the reason that health care costs so much is due to arcane software and poor information systems design. I had to have a routine blood test this morning, and went to the hospital to do it so I could take care of it early in the day.

In an astonishingly candid remark, the outgoing head of AT&T, Ed Whitacre,
remarked, when asked about network neutrality, "Well, frankly, we say to hell with that. We’re gonna put up some toll booths and start charging admission."

I have long wished there was some easy way to watch YouTube on TV at home. I just don't have time to waste at work looking at clips people send me, and I rarely feel like spending more time in front of the computer in the evenings. But there is a lot of interesting stuff on YouTube, ranging from current political clips and commentary to how-to videos and of course, some pretty funny stuff. And no annoying commercials (yet).

The Public Knowledge folks have published their recommendations for how the FCC should handle the impending auction of 700 Mhz radio spectrum for broadband use. This frequency range, down around the broadcast TV spectrum, can carry a broadband data signal many miles and could be a boon for underserved areas waiting for community fiber efforts to build out fiber.

A new kind of fuel cell has been developed by a New England firm that does not need hydrogen. It will run on propane, natural gas, diesel fuel, and bio-diesel. Using these more common fuels means the fuel cell does produce some CO2, but only about half as much as a more conventional generator. This appears to be more than early marketing of a design concept, as the company (Acumentrics Corporation) says it already has thirty systems working and deployed.

The electric utility that provides the power for the Oslo, Norway region (Norway's biggest city) has chosen an open services network architecture. The electric utility will build a single digital road system and let multiple service providers use it to deliver a wide variety of broadband services that will go far beyond the old Manufacturing Economy "triple play" model.

This article discusses what I have been saying for a long time: Video is finally turning broadband into a business. For reasons that are really no one's fault, the broadband business is upside down. If you are in the business of selling Internet access--dial up, wireless, DSL, cable, fiber, satellite--you make the most money if your customers never use your product. You make the least money if your customers sit in front of their computers all day long fooling around on YouTube and Joost.

This short article on emerging deals between Virgin Galatic and Robert Bigelow's space hotel venture show that the Space Economy continues to quietly roll along. Even more interesting is the recent deal between Virgin Galactic and NASA to share development on various space gear like heat shields, space suits, and rocket motors.

The New York Times (registration required, links disappear) has an article about the plunging fortunes of the music industry. Sales of CDs have fallen more than 20% in the past year. While the article does acknowledge that a lack of good music may have something to do with it, no mention is made of the possible effect price also has on buying decisions. Most new CDs cost $18 and up.

Compared to other major industrialized countries, the U.S. "enjoys" some of the world's slowest broadband. Even worse, when you factor in price, we pay more and get less than countries like Japan, South Korea, France, Canada, and Sweden. Over the past decade, the U.S. has gone from being the world leader in broadband to 16th in the world.

Anyone who worries about government snooping has not been paying much attention to Google and it's long term goal of "total information" about every single person on the planet. The Google founders are becoming wierdly creepy with their happy talk discussions of wanting to tell people "what job to take" and "what to do tomorrow."

Energy is powering the Knowledge Economy. That may seem like a statement of the obvious, but broadband by itself is not a complete economic development strategy. Increasingly, it is the combination of affordable, high performance broadband AND reliable, resilient electric power that makes a region attractive to business.

There is an AP article circulating this morning about failing muni WiFi projects (not yet on the Web). This is something I have been predicting for a long time, based on the past performance of early WiFi efforts.

Here is a short list of problems with municipal WiFi-only efforts:

Digital Rights Management (DRM) may be on its way out. Amazon has announced it intends to get into the music business and will offer only digital tunes that do not have DRM, which limits what buyers can do with the music.

The Web has been a good place to do product research for the past four or five years, but a couple of recent experiences trying to check on a couple of consumer products has me wondering. What I noticed is that the first couple of pages of Google search results were almost all link farms and link aggregators, meaning there was not really any content on any of the pages, but just links to other pages, and most of them also turned out to be just lists of links.

I wrote recently about Hughes Satellite's new pricing options that make it very attractive in rural areas where landline broadband may not be available. Hughes is also working on new technology that will provide much better quality of service for satellite broadband and will improve some of the latency (delay) issues that have been an issue in the past.