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There is a new feed address!
Posted on: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 15:44:20 -0400 by: Webmaster
Please update your reader to make sure you have the latest blog entries from Gordon Snyder at the National Center for Telecommunications Technologies.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:26:25 -0500 by: G. Snyder
Last summer Mike Q let me borrow a MacBook Pro (one of the new Intel processor based computers) and I fell in love with it. After I gave it back to Mike I decided I’d purchase one for myself and received my new computer last week. I went with a smaller 13.3 inch screen and am very impressed so far.
As a lifelong PC user I thought I’d list some of the first things I did with the Mac and maybe every few weeks give an update of my progress. Beyond what came pre-installed here’s a list of what I currently have installed in the order I installed them:
Firefox Browser
Second Life Application
Skype Client
Audacity for audio recording and editing
Final Cut Express for video editing
Samson CO1U microphone SoftPre applet software
Parallels for Windows Virtual Machine
Flip4Mac that allows WMV files to play in QuickTime
The thing that sold me on the Apple was the Garageband application. GarageBand comes with the Apple iLife suite along with iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iTunes, and iWeb. It is really designed for musicians but I find it perfect for the simple podcast recording and editing Mike and I do. I’m especially interested in the ability to create enhanced podcasts for my students. Enhanced podcasts allow you to record audio and then drop in images (Powerpoint slides, pictures, etc) along the timeline.
Students can then watch and listen to the enhanced podcasts using iTunes or, if they have a color screen iPod (nano or video iPod) they can listen and watch there too. You can get more information on Garageband at: http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/
Posted on: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:42:44 -0500 by: G. Snyder
Last week we held our NCTT Winter Conference hosted this year by The Institute for Convergence of Optical and Network Systems (ICONS: http://www.ccsf.edu/Resources/ICONS/about.htm) at the NCTT Regional Partner City College of San Francisco. ICONS is an NSF funded program to develop technician training in advanced fiber optic and converged network technologies, which are at the leading edge of communications technology trends.
Department Chair Carmen Lamha, ICONS Principal Investigator Pierre Thiry, Co-Principal Investigator Tim Ryan, Consultant James Jones and CCSF administrators, faculty and staff were wonderful hosts. We had a large number of attendees and a packed agenda full of technical sessions - I can honestly say our conferences continue to get better and better – this one was incredible!
Thanks to everyone that attended and helped out and participated in any way! Be sure to mark your calendars for our Summer Conference in Massachusetts, July 10-12.
I have become somewhat attached to my Second Life (SL) persona and get on when I can. Like many though I have got to be careful because SL residents have been know to become somewhat addicted!
SL is an MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role-playing game) similar to World of Warcraft, Everquest, RuneScape and many others your students and children may be playing. Mike and I did an interesting podcast on MMORPGs titled Flat World Strategies: Online Games People Playthat you can find and listen to at www.nctt.org/podcast
According to Wikipedia:
Second Life (abbreviated SL) is an online virtual world provided by Linden Lab which came to international attention in late 2006 and early 2007. Through a client program, subscription-based users interact with other users through avatars, providing an advanced social network service.
While SL is referred to as a game, it, in general, does not have points, scores, winners or losers, levels, an end-strategy, or most of the other characteristics of games. Users, who are often called "Residents" amongst themselves, explore, meet other users, participate in individual and group activities or "events", buy items, virtual property and services from one another. Long-term users learn new skills and mature socially, climbing a virtual hierarchy.
Most major corporations either have a presence on second life or are in the process of setting one up. This past week a couple of interesting announcements came out. The first is a relationship Sears has setup with IBM. Here is a quote from a Mark Wallace blog (http://www.3pointd.com/20070108/ibm-brings-sears-to-second-life-at-ces/):
IBM, which recently set up a business group to explore possibilities in virtual worlds — and earmarked millions of dollars for the effort — is now bringing mega-retailer Sears to the virtual world of Second Life in a project to be announced 8 January, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
In addition Cisco (which has had a space on SL for a while) announced the Cisco Second Home Project. John Chambers, CEO and Chairman of Cisco delivered the keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show yesterday and his speech focused on the “connected home.” If you could not make the CES reception yesterday in Las Vegas, Cisco held a virtual reception on the SL Cisco Island. You can take a look at what Cisco is doing here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cisco%20Island/87/129/29/?title=The%20Connected%20Home
Technology Review also posted an interesting article titled “A Second Life for Big Business” on January 5, 2007. This article is linked here: http://www.technologyreview.com/BizTech/18016/
This article discusses several business relationships including the SL virtual store IBM has setup for Circuit City and the SL online space Cisco has setup for experts to answer customer questions regarding products and also provide technical support.
Big corporations are jumping on board along with many academic institutions. Take a look if you have not had a chance and say hello if you want – my SL name is Gordo Book!
Posted on: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 10:10:47 -0500 by: G. Snyder
Today is December 30, the last Saturday morning of the year – I was planning on sitting here writing about the $86 billion dollar AT&T/Bell South merger and just had one of those light-bulb moments – it is the end of 2006 and just about the beginning of 2007! I thought it would be good to take a look back at 2006 in the form of a random list – these are the first 25 that come off the top of my head:
YouTube, Skype Out, FTTP, mySpace, Google Docs (formerly Writely) and Spreadsheets, Digg, Delicious, 802.11n, MacBook Pro, Ruby on Rails, Blackjack, RSS, Aggregators, Mashups, MMORPGs, WiMAX, IPTV, FiOS, Chocolate, FTTN, HDTV, Vista, Bootcamp, Web 2.0, AJAX, Ubuntu.....
Are many things missing – of course –I bet we could put our heads together and easily come up with hundreds more. How many of these did we know about 1 year ago? How many even existed a year ago? What will be next in 2007? How many new things will we be able to list 1 year from now?
Many of us have been around long enough to have experienced the PC revolution of the 1980s and the privatization and build-out of the Internet in the 1990s. As we approach ubiquitous broadband with the potential for Gbps connections – what next? What kind of applications can we expect and how far will they be pushed out? As educators how are our classrooms changing? What is the best way to teach our students? How do our students learn? Do they learn differently than you and I? How will people “work” 1 year, 5 years, 10 years from now?
We live with the day to day realities and are all struggling trying to keep up so it is easy not to step back and take a broad look at what is going on. We will look back at this time as a historical period of massive change in the world of education, work and just everything else that is touched by technology (what is not?).
It is all just starting all over again - Happy New Year!
Posted on: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 09:32:38 -0500 by: G. Snyder
On Wednesday, December 20, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3-2 to open up cable competition in the pay-TV market. According to the FCC, the increased competition could drive pay-TV rates (which have gone up 90% since 1994) down significantly.
Also, according to the news release on the FCC website:
To eliminate the unreasonable barriers to entry into the cable market, and to encourage investment in broadband facilities, the Commission:
Found that franchising negotiations that extend beyond certain time frames amount to an unreasonable refusal to award a competitive franchise within the meaning of Section 621(a)(1);
Found that requiring an applicant to agree to unreasonable build-out requirements constitutes an unreasonable refusal to award a competitive franchise; Found that, unless certain specified costs, fees, and other compensation required by local franchising authorities are counted toward the statutory five percent cap on franchise fees, demanding them could result in an unreasonable refusal to award a competitive franchise; Found that it would be an unreasonable refusal to award a competitive franchise if the local franchising authority denied an application based on a new entrants refusal to undertake certain unreasonable obligations relating to public, educational, and governmental (PEG) and institutional networks (I-Nets); and Preempted local laws, regulations, and requirements, including local level-playing-field provisions, to the extent they impose greater restrictions on market entry than the rules adopted herein. The Commission concluded that although the record allows it to determine generally what constitutes an “unreasonable refusal to award an additional competitive franchise” at the local level, the Commission does not have sufficient information to make such determinations with respect to franchising decisions made at the state level or in compliance with state statutory directives, such as statewide franchising decisions. As a result, the Order addresses only decisions made by county- or municipal-level franchising authorities.
Here is a translation of the key points with some added detail:
Localities would have 90 days to approve or not approve video franchise licenses unless there are unusual circumstances. Localities would be bared from making unreasonable requests in exchange for a granted license Localities cannot charge annual license fees greater than 5% of total gross revenue
It is not a done deal yet and has the potential to get nasty. According to Marketwatch, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association President Kyle McSlarrow said on Wednesday:
There are some serious questions about whether the commission overstepped its authority.
Also according to Marketwatch:
Verizon and AT&T Inc. stand to benefit most from the decision. They are spending billions of dollars to build fiber networks that can deliver pay-TV service and the fastest Internet connections in the country. The carriers have gotten into the video market to counter the cable industry move into the phone business.
It is almost certain that this rulling will get challenged in court and this will be one of many interesting things to watch in 2007!
Based on some testing supported by Network World and performed by Veriwave and Aruba Networks, the transmission protocol used by 802.11 networks (a, b, g and n) is susceptible to unavoidable packet loss.
In the past it has been thought the protocol was solid with the ability to identify any corrupt packets and request retransmission. The protocol uses a 32-bit cyclic redundancy check for each packet and problems come with something called the Physical Layer Convergence Procedure (PLCP) header which only uses a one bit parity check.
Included in the PLCP is information on the size of the packet and the transmission bit rate. If the header gets scrambled by a bit combination that causes the single parity bit to flip flop back and forth, the parity bit will be set correctly even though the header information is corrupt. As a result, the receiving device may get confused on the packet size and connection speed, ending up either waiting a longer or shorter period of time based on incorrect packet size or connection speed information.
According to Veriwave chief technology officer Tom Alexander as told to Unstrung when interviewed on the error rate:
…..it is extremely small, around .001 percent, but it is never zero. That is not what the protocol says, the loss should be zero.
For many common applications including web surfing, errors like this have little effect on the user experience. However, as more and more of us use wireless WiFi devices for voice communications, these kinds of errors could become more apparent.
According toAruba architect Partha Narasimhan as told to Wi-Fi Planet:
The delays and missing data will be obvious in voice applications...
In addition, VeriWave points out:
…. a problem that occurs during a secure hand-off using Extensible Authentication Protocol(EAP), could provoke a system reset and a 30 second break.
EAP is a universal authentication framework commonly used by Wi-Fi networks. Narasimhan from Aruba goes on to say:
Existing Wi-Fi standards are too entrenched to be changed but changes could and should be made to 802.11n. 802.11n will support a huge variation in speeds, which makes this kind of error more likely, and already has some extra protection built in. It will need to be examined very carefully.
We see lots of draft 802.11n devices being sold with the increased performance over a, b and g attractive. Many are also looking at 802.11n as a way to deliver HDTV bandwidth - imagine 30 second delays during the Super Bowl!
It would be interesting to try and capture these kinds of errors in a lab environment.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 15:39:03 -0500 by: G. Snyder
Microsoft started testing a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) server yesterday. The VoIP service, called Microsoft Office
Communications Server 2007, is being fast tracked by the company with release projected for the second quarter (April-June) 2007.
Ahead of this product release, Microsoft has announced they will release the product to 2500 businesses for testing.
Microsoft VoIP service users will be able to place calls from within Office applications. Accoring to Reuters: The new voice server will allow users to instantly call anyone from within Office applications by clicking on a person's name
and initiating a call.
This past June (2006) Microsoft announced what they are calling a unified communications approach that, according to
Microsoft: ... will break down today’s silos of e-mail, instant messaging, mobile and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) telephony, and
audio-, video- and webconferencing.
... through software, Microsoft and its partners will put people at the center of communications through a single identity across
all modes and integrate communication into people’s everyday work processes, including the widely used Microsoft® Office system
and third-party software applications.
Most other companies are in this market in one form or another with companies like Cisco and IBM having a pretty good head
start on Microsoft.
The 2006 National Survey of Information Technology in US Higher Education
Posted on: Tue, 05 Dec 2006 09:04:29 -0500 by: G. Snyder
The Campus Computing Project (www.campuscomputing.net) has released “The 2006 National Survey of Information Technology in US Higher Education”
Highlights of the report include the fact that wireless networks are now available in half of US college classrooms and IT security incidents on college campuses have decline the past year. Here’s some detail from the report:
-Wireless networks now reach fully half (51.2 percent) of college classrooms compared to just over two-fifths (42.7 percent) in 2005 and a third (31.1 percent) in 2004,
-More than two-thirds (68.8 percent) of campuses participating in the annual survey have a strategic plan for deploying wireless as of fall 2006, up from 64.0 percent in 2005 and 53.3 percent in 2004,
-By sector, the proportion of classrooms with wireless access ranges from a third (31.7 percent) in community colleges (up from 26.8 in 2005) to almost two-fifths (58.0 percent) in private research universities (compared to 52.8 percent in 2005 and 47.4 percent in 2004),
-Fully three-fifths (60.5 percent) of colleges and universities increased their campus IT budgets for wireless for the current academic year.
With regards to security and on the good side:
-The percentage of colleges and universities experiencing various security incidents and threats - stolen computers with confidential data, hack attacks on the campus network, and major spyware and virus infestations - declined this past year,
-The percentage reporting identity management events was up slightly (20.5 percent in 2006, vs. 19.7 percent in 2005).
-Similarly, virus and spyware infestations dropped dramatically this past year. One example: almost half (46.1 percent) of public universities reported major computer virus problems in the 2005 survey, compared to a fourth (24.7 percent) in 2006.
On the negative side with regards to security:
-One-tenth (11.3 percent ) of the institutions participating in the 2006 survey report security issues linked to “the exposure of sensitive data on a computer server not managed by central IT services.”
-The problem of exposed data in distributed computing environments was highest in public universities (34.2 percent), followed by private universites (23.5 percent), and public four-year colleges (15.7 percent).
-One-tenth (9.9 percent) of institutions report a security incident this past year linked to social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace.
-Security incidents involving social networking sites ranged from 7.5 percent in community college to 13.7 percent at private research universities.percent in community college to 13.7 percent at private research universities.
In addition:
-IT disaster planning continues to pose a major challenge for many colleges and universities. Just over half (55.7 percent) of institutions report a strategic plan for IT disaster recovery, essentially unchanged from 2004 (55.5 percent) or even 2002 (53.0 percent).
-Over half (53.9 percent, compared to 51.9 percent in 2004) agree “Open Source will play an increasingly important role in our campus IT strategy.” However, less than a third of the survey respondents (28.2 percent, compared to 28.9 percent in 2004) agree that Open Source currently “offers a viable alternative” for key campus or administrative/ERP applications, such as student information systems, campus finance systems, portals, or personnel/human resource software.
Copies of the full 2006 Campus Computing Report will be available on December 10th. And will cost $39 including shipping – a great deal! You can order the report on the Campus Computing website.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 19:53:40 -0500 by: G. Snyder
For a period of time now many countries including China (I think we’ve all heard the term Great Firewall of China), Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran have been blocking certain websites. Censored sites vary from country to country but commonly includes different kinds of news services, human rights groups, etc.
On December 1, 2006 the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto will release psiphon software. Developed with funidng from the Open Society Institute, psiphon providers will be able to install and administer a psiphon server in an open access country, and psiphon users will be able to access and login to these servers from countries that block different types of Web traffic. According to Reuters:
Canadian university researchers have developed software that will let users hop over governments' Internet firewalls, raising the prospect of unfettered Internet access in countries that have long tried to control how residents use the Web.
The download will be free at: http://psiphon.civisec.org along with the user guide. The source code will also be available and may make for some interesting classroom material. [Both the user guide and source code links are currently labeled with “Coming soon….” on the website.]
The user will not have to download and install any software and technically content will still be able to be blocked but it will be extremely difficult using current firewall technology. According to the site FAQ:
With publicly accessible circumvention systems one must assume that the censors can also discover and subsequently block access to these systems. The difference with psiphon - a personal system - is that the web address is only sent to a few, trusted, people. In that way, the censors cannot easily find and block the location of the psiphon server.
In addition:
Future releases of psiphon will contain functionality that allows for optional redundancy. In the same way that psiphon providers and users extend their network based on social relations of trust, psiphon providers in a social network can arrange peering agreements to act as a backup psiphon server for each other's users.
Mike and I discuss social web tools and networks often on our podcasts, often talking about how applications like digg and del.icio.us make us more efficient doing our work. It’s exciting to see an application like psiphon come along that moves these applications to an even higher level.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 20:31:55 -0500 by: G. Snyder
I’ve blogged and written in the past about the MIT $100 PC project and the broadband divide – it looks like things are now coming closer to reality. ARS Technica has reported that Quanta, a Chinese manufacturing company has put together the first 200 prototype XO-1 units and these prototypes have met most technical and design expectations.
According to Redhat Developer Christopher Blizzard:
The first 200 test systems "are very close to the final hardware builds of the machine. The only differences are that they include an FPGA-based flash controller, which will run at about half the speed of final chip, and that part of the new touchpad functionality is disabled." The touchpad functionality limitations, which affect "the stylus part of the touchpad," are the result of "last minute unresolved electrical problems."
ARS says mass production will start in the second quarter of 2007 with an estimated 5 million to 10 million units produced for distribution in countries that have confirmed orders, including Argentina, Brazil, Libya, and Nigeria. According to ARS the specs are as follows:
The OLPC laptop features a 2.6.19 Linux kernel, and an integrated user environment called Sugar that includes a web browser, a chat system, a simple word processor, and other basic software components. Additional applications will be available for download from an official Internet repository.
The OLPC software is in "freeze" status, which means that ongoing development will primarily consist of critical bug fixes rather than implementation of new features.
Exciting news with great potential, not only for students in foreign countries but also for students here in the United States.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Nov 2006 20:23:28 -0500 by: G. Snyder
On November 6, 2006, BroadLogic Network Technologies, a San Jose chip manufacturer, announced The World’s First Massively Parallel, Multi-Channel Video Processor, a terapixel-speed video processing chip that will allow cable providers to recover bandwidth that can then be used to deliver more high definition channels, video on demand and high bandwidth data services without major network upgrades.
According to Broadlogic:
The BL80000 TeraPIX chip is capable of decoding dozens of digital video streams and generating a full analog and digital service tier, including an 80-plus analog channel lineup, that any number of cable-ready devices (TVs, DVRs, PCs with tuner cards, etc.) can view, plus up to 160SD or 50HD programs.
The TeraPIX processor powers a new type of Residential Gateway, installed outside or just inside a residence, which allows the network to be all-digital, while subscribers continue to receive the cable-ready analog video, digital video, high speed data and voice services they crave. Conventional set-top boxes output one channel at a time and thus feed only one TV. Cable MSOs can use this technology to take their networks “All Digital,” thus tripling their digital capacity at a time when rising content and competitive requirements demand it.
Traditional cable delivery systems work by allocating 6MHz of analog bandwidth for each channel. Most cable providers offer approximately 80 channels that consume (6 MHz/channel × 80 channels) 480 MHz of bandwidth. Typical cable networks provide only 750 MHz of bandwidth and with 480 MHz used for video, there is not much left for other services.
Let’s think about this a little bit more - one channel consumes 6 MHz of bandwidth but it takes 480 MHz of bandwidth to deliver that single channel to your TV while "wasting" (- 480 MHz - 6 Mhz) 474 MHz of bandwidth. Not very efficient even if you have a few TV’s going in your house watching different channels at the same time.
One way around this problem is to deliver all 80 or so channels in digital format – it works but requires every attached TV in the house to be connected through a set-top box with each box having it’s own remote controller – we have 6 connected TV’s in my home now so 6 boxes plus 6 more controllers - expensive and we have enough time keeping track of a single remote.
It sounds like the Broadlogic chip may be a much more cost effective solution - here's more according to them:
The BroadLogic TeraPIX video processor works by decoding bandwidth-conserving digital video signals delivered by a cable operator, and generating 80-plus high-quality channels of television. Cable operators get their extra bandwidth, and consumers get the channel lineups they’re used to without having to get more set-tops, run more coax, or lose more remotes.
The TeraPIX processor enables solutions that support virtually all existing analog and digital consumer devices. For example, if a subscriber has a DVR set-top from their cable operator, the digital signals are passed through TeraPIX to the DVR.
The price of an individual chip is around $300 when purchased in bulk (1000 or greater numbers) and cable companies are saying this could be a cost effective way to increase network bandwidth.
The technology is moving at such an incredible pace and it is easy to see more bandwidth and more applications and – from an academic perspective – the ability to provide more and more quality IP delivered content to our students at a distance. Very exciting stuff and… what’s next??
Posted on: Wed, 08 Nov 2006 15:59:12 -0500 by: G. Snyder
Yesterday I had an excellent visit with the Borough of Manhattan Community College Video Arts and Technology Program (http://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/speech/VAT/VAT.html ) faculty and administrators. BMCC has an NSF project grant titled "Creatiing Career Pathways for Women and Minorities in Digital Video Technology" – an exciting project with an HDTV focus. We’re looking forward to lots of good results from the VAT group at BMCC.
Instead of driving I took the AMTRAK train down to New York City from Springfield, MA. I had my notebook computer with me and on the way home, as I was doing some work, I decided to let NetStumbler ( http://netstumbler.com/ ) run in the background. NetStumbler is a Windows application that allows you to detect 802.11b, 802.11a and 802.11g Wireless Local Area Network Access Points (WLAN AP’s). In addition to Netstumbler, there is MacStumbler for Macintosh computers, and Kismet for machines running Linux.
Many people use Netstumbler for wardriving that involves driving a car around with a wireless enabled laptop or PDA and logging wireless Wi-Fi networks. According to the Netstumbler website wardriving was first started in the San Francisco area by the Bay Area Wireless Users Group (BAWUG) and is similar to using a scanner for radio. Many wardrivers will use GPS devices to find the exact location of the network found and log it on a website. In fact, if you have a GPS device attached to your computer Netstumbler will automatically log the latitude and longitude settings for future reference. There are several active databases on the web that maintain lists of open hotspots – one of them is maintained and accessed via the Netstumbler site.
In the train I started up Netstumbler on my PC at the New Rochelle, NY stop and just let it run until I got to Springfield, MA with some interesting results. Netstumbler logs, among other things, the access point MAC address, SSID and whether or not the AP is running any kind of encryption. An un-encryped access point is one that is wide open for access. Between New Rochelle and Springfield I logged 1441 access points, many unencryped and wide open for public access. SSID’s were sometimes very descriptive and I found open access points from at least one large insurance company, one law firm and the 36th floor conference room of an unknown company. I also got a kick out of some of the creative SSID names people are using.
Hundreds of the access points still had the Vendor SSID with linksys, NETGEAR and default [note: SSID default is commonly used by no-name routers sold by the big box retailers] popping up on my screen as we rocked along the tracks at 60 mph. Hundreds were setup for open access – I could not actually log in to any because we were moving to fast but I’m convinced I could walk the tracks (something I used to do a lot as a kid since we had tracks behind our house) from New Rochelle to Springfield and maintain free wireless access by piggy-backing on these networks – of course I would need a lot of extra batteries.
I don’t want to get into a debate on what’s legal and what is not – my concern is seeing so many open access points with many likely connected directly into corporate networks. I thought we had this security problem licked but it appears many are still buying these things and just plugging them in.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Nov 2006 20:51:52 -0500 by: G. Snyder
According to Information
Week, the Programmers Guild, an American non-profit corporation that
advocates against corporate outsourcing, the H1-B visa program and related
topics ( source:
www.wikipedia.com
), believes more Americans would pursue technology careers if those students
got their college educations for free.
Information Week
says:
The Guild will soon
announce a proposal advocating the U.S. government provide
"100% subsidies" of tuition and expenses for American students enrolled in
degree programs in computer science, engineering and other fields where there
are U.S. skill shortages. One source of funding could come from raising fees
that U.S. companies pay to hire foreign H-1B visa holders up to $5,000 per
worker, per year.
U.S.
employers currently pay a one-time government fee of $1,500 per H-1B worker
with fees higher if the employer wants expedited processing or if legal fees
or visa renewals are included.
Kim Berry, president of the Programmers
Guild, is quoted in the article saying:
Even if the government
fees were to be raised annually to $5,000 per H-1B worker, that's still a
bargain. Many of those workers are being underpaid by $10,000 to $20,000, or
more a year.
By increasing H-1B
fees for the roughly 500,000 H-1B workers … are currently in the U.S….the
government could afford to pay tuition costs averaging $20,000 per year for
125,000 American students.
Lynn Shotwell, executive director of the
American Council on International Personnel fired back in an email to
Information Week saying:
Since the inception of
the H-1B program, U.S. employers have paid over $1 billion in H-1B training
and scholarship fees that have funded more than 40,000 scholarships for U.S.
students in math and science, and funded hands-on science programs for 75,000
middle and high school students and 3,000 teachers.
Lynn goes on to say:
Until enough American
students take an interest in studying math, science and engineering, we cannot
afford to close the door to qualified, highly educate foreign workers by
raising H-1B fees even further.
Posted on: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 13:17:55 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Microsoft has made a major commitment to its Windows Mobile 5.0 based Smartphone products. Current products run, among other things, Microsoft Outlook Mobile and Office Mobile software, Voice over IP applications, persistent storage, on-device password enforcement, and remote swipe capabilities.
According to Peter Knook, head of Microsoft's Mobile and Embedded Devices division as quoted by Reuters:
“The number of devices operating on Windows Mobile doubled to 6 million last year…. we want to make 100 percent again this year and to grow further at this rate in coming years."
Major competitors to Microsoft in this market include Research In Motion, makers of the Blackberry which also has approximately 6 million users and British software developer Symbian which also owns handset manufacturer Nokia. According to Reuters, RIM's co-Chief Executive Mike Lazaridis said that RIM also intends to keep doubling its number of users each year.
Rumor has it Microsoft is working to integrate it’s Windows Mobile Smartphones to their Xbox gaming platform, allowing users to play Xbox games on their handhelds - an interesting concept and something other developers like RIM and Symbian may have difficulty doing.
Popular Windows Mobile powered devices include the Motorola Q sold by Verizon Wireless, the T-Mobile Dash, the Cingular 2125 and the Motorola i930 sold by Sprint. In addition,thePalm Treo 700w smartphone sold by Verizon Wireless, the Palm Treo 700wx smartphone sold by Sprint and the Palm Treo 750V smartphone sold by European provider Vodafone all run Windows Mobile.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Oct 2006 18:36:25 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Lately I’ve become pretty attached to Writely, the online word processor recently purchased by Google. It’s what I’m using now to type this blog and collaborate with colleagues on presentations and other kinds of content. Recently Mike Qaissaunee (in New Jersey), VinceDiNoto (in Kentucky) and I (in Massachusetts) collaborated on a session description for an upcoming NSF conference. We used Writely to share and edit the session proposal and it was extremely effective. Passing around documents by email can get confusing for me – especially when there are more than two people involved. I have a hard time keeping track of which version is the latest and have to be very careful I’m always working on th latest cut. With Writely we all worked on the same document – in fact we could all be accessing and editing the same document at the same time.
Combine Writely with other Google products like Google Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, Google Talk and Gmail and you have a pretty formidable combination. The only disadvantage at this time is you have to be online to use. Broadband connections are not required but, as far as most are concerned necessary for a favorable user experience.
What does this mean? Let’s use a Writely example: Say you are in an airport with WiFi access and want to do some work. You have documents on Writely and can sit there in the terminal with your broadband connection and edit away. What happens when you get on the plane? No network access means no Writely. Of course you can still do your work if, while connected to the network, you’ve saved the documents locally on your hard drive and have a word processor installed.
Well, being connected will soon not be necessary to use online products like these. In early 2007 Firefox, Microsoft, Mozilla and Apple will be releasing next generation web browsers that can be used offline. This means users will be able to take these applications that require a broadband connection offline. So with the airport scenario you would simply save your Writely content local using your web browser. When you get on the plane and get to 10,000 feet, you start your laptop, launch your browser and continue using Writely without a network connection.
Think about it – device (of course you’ll be able to access using your smartphone), processor, hard drive, platform, etc independent with no word processor or spreadsheet or calendar or email software installed on your computer. And it's all free!
Posted on: Sun, 24 Sep 2006 20:20:06 -0400 by: G. snyder
Jajah, started by Roman Scharf and Daniel Mattes in 2004, is offering an interesting service that may challenge Skype and other similar products. Jajah provides a paid service that allows calls to be routed landline/cell to landline/cell in many parts of the world without long distance fees. Here’s how it works: Let’s say I’m a Jajah customer and I want to call my brother who is living in London. I log into my Jajah account at jajah.com, enter my brother’s landline or cell number and my landline or cell number. Jajah makes the connection and rings my phone and then my brothers phone over connections that are local to each of us.
As you’ve probably figured out Jajah works by making only the last connection to each party over traditional phone lines, the middle connection is done over the Internet. The actual call does not have to get through things like corporate firewalls – a potential advantage over products like Skype, even though Skype has done an extremely good job figuring how to route past firewalls.
There are other advantages (taken from www.jajah.com ):
-Users do not have to download or install any software.
-Users do not need a headset
-Users don't need a broadband connection
-Users are using your existing phone (landline or mobile) and so is the person you are calling
-Users are not stuck to your computer
-Users can call others for free - no matter if they are online or not
In addition we’re starting to see Jajah plug-ins and extensions for various products including ( from www.wikipedia.com ):
-An Outlook Plugin that allows users to click-to-call phone numbers in their Outlook address book.
-A Firefox Extension that creates links to every phone number on a website and can be clicked directly to initiate a call. A pop-up window opens, and you can establish the call with Jajah. You can also enter a number in the toolbar to establish a call.
-A Mac OS X Address Book Plugin: Allwos to right click (ctrl+click) a number in your Mac address book to open a Jajah window.
-A Plaxo Outlook Toolbar that allows click-to-call phone numbers in your Outlook address book and offers all the Plaxo features.
The company recently started offering free phone-to-phone calls between Jajah members in North and South America. Rates on calls to between other parts of the world are very low – see: http://www.jajah.com/info/rates/
Rumor has it the company will soon be releasing a mobile phone version of Jajah that will allow users to bypass computer use completely. Youtube has a short two minute video Jajah posted here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkU-sq43atU
Posted on: Sun, 24 Sep 2006 13:16:33 -0400 by: Guest Blogger: Mike Qaissaunee
Death by Powerpoint
Many people have very strong - mostly negative - opinions about Powerpoint. The phrase "death by Powerpoint" has been used (we say over-used) to describe the painful experience of sitting through a bad Powerpoint presentation. Let's begin with some thoughts from Edward R. Tufte - professor emeritus of political science, computer science and statistics, and graphic design at Yale. In a September 2003 Wired Magazine article "PowerPoint is Evil" Tufte illustrates his thesis with a really creative metaphor:
Imagine a widely used and expensive prescription drug that promised to make us beautiful but didn't. Instead the drug had frequent, serious side effects: It induced stupidity, turned everyone into bores, wasted time, and degraded the quality and credibility of communication. These side effects would rightly lead to a worldwide product recall.
Slideware may help speakers outline their talks, but convenience for the speaker can be punishing to both content and audience. The standard PowerPoint presentation elevates format over content, betraying an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.
One can sum up the sentiment by borrowing and adapting a phrase from Security Consultant and blogger Steve Riley - Powerpoint is "... the place where knowledge goes to die."
While we don't disagree with Tufte and other critics that the use of Powerpoint is part of an ever-present misconception that technology fixes things or makes things better, we're not here to pile on - instead we'd like to offer some ideas to make Powerpoint more effective in your classroom. While technology can and has provided some great benefits to society, it's not a panacea - you can't just throw Powerpoint into the classroom and turn a poor lecturer into a good lecturer or a good lecturer into a great lecturer. Tufte gets it right when he says:
Presentations largely stand or fall on the quality, relevance, and integrity of the content. If your numbers are boring, then you've got the wrong numbers. If your words or images are not on point, making them dance in color won't make them relevant. Audience boredom is usually a content failure, not a decoration failure.
There's no better way to learn how to do something than by watching and learning from people who are great at what they do, so we'd like to share with you today some interesting and innovative PowerPoint presentations that hopefully will inspire you to look at Powerpoint and technology in new and different ways. The first is the 2005 Open Source Convention keynote Identity 2.0 from Sxip Identity founder and CEO Dick Hardt. What's interesting and unique about this presentation is the style. In a presentation that lasts only 15 minutes, Hardt uses hundreds of slides - many with just a single word or image. At the end of the presentation, Hardt credits Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the Center for Internet and Society, for inspiration for the style. That said, here is example number two - Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture presentation from the 2002 Open Source Convention. What I think we can learn from Lessig (considered master of the simple slide show) and Hardt is to break free from the constraints of Powerpoint - the titles and the bullet lists and the charts.
The final example is Guy Kawasaki'sArt of the Start speech at TiECon 2006 - the annual meeting of The Indus Entrepreneur organization. Kawasaki gives a great presentation about innovation and business evangelism, speaking plainly and peppering the presentation with humor. Some of the key points Kawasaki makes are:
abandon the traditional business paradigm of Mission Statements in favor of shorter more meaningful 3-4 word Mantras; and
adopt the 10/20/30 rule for presentations - no more than 10 content slides (Kawasaki favors top ten lists); no longer than 20 minutes (his presentation is nearly 40-minutes); and use nothing smaller than 30 point font.
The Mission versus Mantra discussion is great - it really parallels the Lessig/Hardt approach of simple is better. The 10/20/30 rule is interesting as well. While it may not work or be right for everyone, it does accomplish a few things - the 10 gets you and your audience to focus on 10 key points you'd like to get across; the 20 keeps the presentation short and digestible; and the 30 ensures that you HAVE to know what you're talking about - you can't read it off the slide, because it's not there.
We encourage you to watch and re-watch these videos and to try out some of what you see. Take one of your lectures and try the 10/20/30 rule or "simplify" it like Lesig and Hardt or come up with your own unique style. The key is to focus on the content and the learning and not get seduced by the technology, the animations, or the bullet lists. So, open up your mind, set aside your preconceptions; don't view Powerpoint as a crutch or as a substitute for your lecture, but instead as a spark that can ignite and excite an audience. And lastly, don't ignore Tufte's most important rule of speaking: Respect your audience.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 08:45:51 -0400 by: G. Snyder
The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been holding auctions since 1994 for electromagnetic spectrum licenses. These auctions are open to any eligible company or individual that submits an application and upfront payment, and is found to be a qualified bidder by the Commission. The auctions are conducted electronically and are accessible over the Internet. This means anyone with access to a computer with a web browser can follow the progress of an auction and view the results of each round.
There has recently been considerable activity in the wireless services area with T-Mobile USA, in the last 136 rounds, provisionally spending $4.2 billion and winning 119 licenses in major metropolitan markets. T-Mobile is listed as the number. 4 U.S. wireless carrier and owned by Deutsche Telekom AG. Overall the auction has grossed around $13.9 billion which is on target with the $8 billion to $15 billion analysts had projected.
T-Mobile’s spending spree was not unexpected with the company lagging behind the other top 3 wireless carriers in the United States (Verizon, Cingular and Sprint/NEXTEL).
Posted on: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 10:17:15 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Just like in the early 1980's Clearwire's Craig O. McCaw has been buying up licensed radio spectrum. You may not have heard of Craig but in the early 80's he recognized local cell permits being sold by the the FCC were greatly undervalued and he started bidding cellular phone licenses. He did his buying under the radar screen of the telcos and, by the time they recognized what he was doing it was basically too late – Craig had already purchased and owned licenses in most of the major markets.
Of course he had the money - in 1986 Craig and his brothers sold a cable television business their father had left them for $755 million and concentrated on building a national cellular phone network. The story continues - MCI Communications sold its cellular and paging operations to Craig in 1986 for $122 million and their company went public with the brothers holding around 40% of the company. His last big acquisition in the cell market was the $3.5 billion deal for LIN Broadcasting where he outbid Bell South. With the LIN acquisition Craig and his brothers had almost complete control of the 1989 U. S. cell market.
McCaw brothers sold the company to AT&T in 1994 for $11.5 billion and a lot of people figured they would just ride off into the sunset – not the case!
Fast forward to today - Clearwire, under Craig's direction, has quitely purchased enough licensed radio spectrumto build a national WiMAX network. Craig has also attracted some major investors with Motorola and Intel giving him close to $900 million in July. Rumor has it that, with Clearwire's potential network, within 3 years the company will be able to offer nationwide WiMAX service for around $25 per month which is significantly less that people are currently paying for other providers nationwide lower bandwidth data services.
Clearwire is not without competition. According to WiMAXTrends.com:
On August 8 Sprint Nextel President and CEO Gary Forsee announced that Sprint will adopt WiMAX as it technology choice for its next generation "4G" network. Mr. Forsee announced that its current EV-DO network will complement a mobile WiMAX network. The mobile WiMAX network will be utilized with a full range of WiMAX-embedded devices.
The products are coming and the providers are committed to build the network. This makes tme think seriously about the Muni WiFi initiatives we are seeing springing up in most U.S. cities. Will they survive? If I'm a business person on the road do I take my chances on Muni WiFi or do I just pay Clearwire $25 per month for guranteed access?
References:
A Wake Up Call from Craig McCaw, Business Week Magazine, July 24, 2006
Google, Gdrive, and Platypus: infinite storage, bandwidth and CPU power
Posted on: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 13:41:23 -0400 by: M. Qaissaunee - Guest Blogger
Google, Gdrive, and Platypus: infinite storage, bandwidth, and CPU power
Since the launch of Gmail and the (at the time) unheard of storage space of 2 gigabytes, a number of developers have created tools to allow users to use their Gmail accounts for file storage. Examples include the GMail Drive shell extension, an add-on for the Firefox browser - Gmail Space, and even an equivalent for Mac OS X. Each of these add-ons/applications allows users to seamlessly email files to their Gmail accounts, while appearing to the native OS as another drive. Likewise, there's been a lot of buzz about Google's launch of Google Spreadsheets , and their acquistion and integration of Upstartle and their online wordprocessor Writely.
Now there's an increasing amount of chatter about something called GDrive or GDS or Lighthouse or even Platypus. Much of the speculation is that this new product/project will bring together Google Spreadsheet, Writely and infinite online storage. Interestingly, although this is all still speculation, many of the clues come directly fom Google. Consider, for instance, Greg Linden's blog. Via Paul Kedrosky (Google ppt) Greg links to 94-slide powerpoint presentation from Google's March 2nd Analyst Day. The presentation itself it interesting to look at, but the fodder for this discussion comes from the presenter notes.
Here are some highlights:
Slide 31 - a "no constraints" product development philosophy - initially ignore "CPU power, storage, bandwidth, and monetization."
Slide 20 - "get all the worlds information, not just some."
And the most compelling - Slide 19
online "experience should really be instantaneous"
"house all user files, including: emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc)"
"the online copy of your data will become your Golden Copy and your local-machine copy serves more like a cache"
"transparent personalization" - use user "data to transparently optimize the user's experience ... implicitly."
Here are the presenter notes for slide 19 of the presentation:
Purpose of this slide: In a world with infinite storage, bandwidth, and CPU power, here's what we could do with consumer products…
Theme 1: Speed Seems simple, but should not be overlooked because impact is huge. Users don't realize how slow things are until they get something faster. Users assume it takes time for a webpage to load, but the experience should really be instantaneous. Gmail started to do this for webmail, but that's just a small first step. Infinite bandwidth will make this a reality for all applications.
Theme 2: Store 100% of User Data With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including: emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc). We already have efforts in this direction in terms of GDrive, GDS, Lighthouse, but all of them face bandwidth and storage constraints today. For example: Firefox team is working on server side stored state but they want to store only URLs rather than complete web pages for storage reasons. This theme will help us make the client less important (thin client, thick server model) which suits our strength vis-a-vis Microsoft and is also of great value to the user. As we move toward the "Store 100%" reality, the online copy of your data will become your Golden Copy and your local-machine copy serves more like a cache. An important implication of this theme is that we can make your online copy more secure than it would be on your own machine. Another important implication of this theme is that storing 100% of a user's data makes each piece of data more valuable because it can be access across applications. For example: a user's Orkut profile has more value when it's accessible from Gmail (as addressbook), Lighthouse (as access list), etc.
Theme 3: Transparent Personalization The more data, access, and processing Google can handle for the user, the greater our ability to use that data to transparently optimize the user's experience. Google Desktop w/ RSS Feeds is a good first example: the user should not have to tell us which RSS feeds they want to subscribe to. We should be able to determine this implicitly.
Other potential examples: User should not have to specify the "From" address in Google Maps; user should not have to specify which currency they want to see Froogle prices in; user should not have to manually enter their buddy list into Google Talk.
What does Linden make of all this?
These notes clearly state efforts have been put towards "infinite storage" in terms of GDrive.
The GDrive service will provide anyone (who trusts Google with their data) a universally accessible network share that spans across computers, operating systems and even devices. Users will no longer require third party applications to emulate this behaviour by abusing Gmail storage.
In a Windows environment, most users know how to use the typical C: in "My Computer". Network drives work exactly the same but are given a different letter and the files within are not stored on the computer. If my suspicions are correct and GDrive is simply a network share, most applications could take advantage of this service without modification.
More evidence comes from Garett Rogers, who references a post by Corsin Camichel showing a page hosted on Google's server. The screenshot (shown below) clearly indicates that GDrive and Platypus are one and the same. The image also seems to indicate that there is (or will be) client software for Windows, Mac and Linux.
The image is a bit fuzzy, so here is the text of the bullets:
Backup. If you lose your computer, grab a new one and reinstall Platypus. Your files will be on your new machine in minutes.
Sync. Keep all your machines synchronized, even if they run different operating systems.
VPN-less acecss. Not at a Google computer? View your files on the web at http://troutboard.com/p
Collaborate. Create shared spaces to which multiple Googlers can write
Disconnected access. On the plane? VPN broken? All your files are still accessible.
Lastly, Garett Rogers , through some online detective work has found the domain names gbrowser.com and gdrive.com registered to a company in Mountain View, California.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Aug 2006 14:07:13 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Vonage has recently come out with what the company is calling a “V-Phone”. This V-Phone is a USB thumb/jump/portable/etc drive that comes installed and configured with Vonage Talk software (including a Vonage phone number), an earpiece, microphone and 250 MB of useable storage for user files.
Using the V-Phone you can plug in to any USB capable broadband connected computer, connect your microhone/headset and start making and receiving calls. The current version only works with Windows based PC’s – an Apple version is not available.
The current device sells for $39.95 and comes with a few different monthly service plan options:
- for $14.95 per month users get 500 minutes of local and long distance calling anywhere in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. The charge is 3.9 cents per minute after the first 500 monthly minutes.
- For $24.99 per month users get unlimited local and long distance calling anywhere in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico along with free calls to select European countries. A similar business plan lists for $34.99 per month.
911 service is always a concern when using broadband connected services. Vonage’s solution requires subscribers to register their location. According to the Vonage website:
You must register with Vonage the physical location where you will utilize Vonage phone service (Service) for each phone line. Also note that if you move your device to another location, you must register your new location – it's easy – just log into the features section of your web account and follow the instructions. If you do not register your new location, any 911 call you make may be sent to an emergency center near your old location. You will register your initial location of use when you subscribe to the Service. This process can take several hours, and you will receive a confirmation email once 911 Dialing has been activated for your initial location or for a newly registered location. Regardless of what address you register for a WiFi or SoftPhone, emergency calls you make from these devices will be routed to the Vonage national emergency response center.
Remember that our 911 Dialing service will not function in the event of a broadband or power outage or if your broadband, ISP or Vonage phone service is terminated.
The discussion forum traffic on this device has been interesting to watch and is linked below.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 14:36:14 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Yesterday Charlie Paglee claimed on the VoIPWiki Blog that a Chinese business has reverse engineered Skype's communications protocol. Rumor has it the un-named Chinese company will produce a Skype compatible soft phone and will go public with it by the end of this month.
Most of us have a basic understanding of Skype and many of us are using it now to make calls over broadband connections. It's actually quite complex. According to one of the original Skype architects Niklas Zennstrom quoted at The Register:
… each Skype client is always connected to a SuperNode (any Skype client can become a SuperNode, the SuperNode is acting as a hub). SuperNodes are always on routable open IP addresses. When a call is set up the established TCP connection with the SuperNode is used to signal that a call is coming. Dependent on the firewall status of the client the data stream is set up either as UDP (if firewall allows) or in worse case as outgoing TCP which is almost always allowed. If both clients are only allowed to do outgoing TCP, calls are routed through another peer.
According to Paglee, the Chinese Skype compatible softphone will not support this SuperNode technology. Big deal right? Well, it is (!) because in effect, by using Skype, you are potentially allowing your computer to be "hijacked" (Paglee's word, not mine). Many potential and current Skype users are concerned about Skype using their computers as relay stations and this rumored product would, in effect, eliminate that relay function.
A Skype compatible application would definitely convert many current Skype users and attract new users if it does not install and run the SuperNode application. If the rumor is true it will be interesting to see whether the company publishes the Skype protocols because, if they do, it would allow other developers to create similar applications.
Let's think about this a little bit – Skype is very popular – especially with international users. The company has been aggressively marketing and adding customers, currently offering free SkypeOut (Broadband Skype to landline and cell numbers) to North American users. Netgear is shipping thier first Skype WiFi phone tomorrow (July 15, 2006) with these being potential cell phone killers for users in areas with public WiFi access. What will happen if current Skype users decide to stop using the Skype product that installs and uses SuperNode technology? The Skype network could rapidly (voice/call quality and connectivity) collapse if users opt out of the Skype product and move to the Skype compatible product.
eBay has been building Skype subscribers (eBay purchased Skype last year for $2.6B) with many predicting the company has plans to eventually start advertising. There's another future reason (if eBay decides to start advertising on Skype) to move to the Skype-compatible product – no advertisements!
Posted on: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 12:51:05 -0400 by: G. Snyder
FON ( http://www.fon.com/), a Spanish startup that is building an international WiFi community, is selling and organizing WiFi access to anyone who wishes to join and connect to the Internet. According to their website:
It all started as a simple idea: enjoy WiFi technology everywhere across a WiFi infrastructure built by same members of the FON Community. Joining us is just as easy. All you need is to register for free, have broadband connection and to download our software onto your router. This converts your router into a FON Social Router. If you do not have a router that is compatible with FON’s software, you can purchase one of our subsidized FON Social Routers at our online store.
FON launched early this year and has been successful in raising almost $22 million from companies like eBay (includes Skype) and Google. Let’s look at the way FON works - here’s more from their website:
FONeros are registered users who share their WiFi connection in exchange for something of value. They are either Linuses or Bills. FONeros’ access points are called Hotspots, and each one of these Hotspots makes up the FON Community. Everyone else who wishes to access the FON Community and who is not a FONero is an Alien.
Linuses share their WiFi connection in exchange for free access to all other WiFi Hotspots within the FON Community. On the other hand, Bills share their WiFi connections in exchange for getting the 50% of the net revenues from those who purchase daily access FON passes to the FON Community through the Bill’s FON Hotspot.
Aliens using laptop computers or similar devices are permitted to access any FON Hotspot by purchasing daily FON passes. The standard rate for these FON passes is currently €3 for a 24 hour connection period. FON passes are similar to pre-paid cards. Aliens pre-purchase these FON passes and then use them to connect to the Internet freely.
And more:
A FON Social Router is a WiFi router (a hardware device that allows you to connect to the Internet without using cables), but it also lets you interact with other FONeros. When you register your FON Social Router with your username, our system recognizes that you share your WiFi connection. Then, you appear on the FON Maps. Each time you detect a FON WiFi signal (yours or that of any other FONero) and you connect to that signal, you will find an FON Access Portal. Introduce your username and password, and you will access your User Zone. Here you will find useful information on where and when you connect, and you will be able to personalize the messages that you want to appear on your own FON Access Portal. You will also be able to see who is connecting to your WiFi. If you are a Bill, you can see how much money you have earned.
It’s a lot safer than leaving an access point open because only registered users can access any FON network.
Let’s think a little bit now about what this means to the current major ISPs (telco and cable providers) and also cell service providers. If I pay for broadband at my home and I join FON and become a Fonero by sharing wireless access to my connection I, in turn, get access via other Foneros. Perhaps there’s a Fonero within range of my vacation condominium and I don’t need to purchase broadband service for that location – you can see this can and will affect ISP revenue streams if it takes off.
Now let’s consider cell phone service – this is where I think applications like FON could potentially have the most impact. You can purchase WiFi Skype enabled phones – Netgear has an example here: http://tools.netgear.com/skype/
These currently can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com for $249.70 with release on July 15, 2006. So let’s say I purchase one of these WiFi Skype phones for a one time fee and get access via WiFi. Will I need my cell phone and it’s monthly bill any more? Perhaps I still want to keep a cell phone handy for times when I am out of WiFi range – in that case I may end up selecting a lower cost monthly plan or I may opt for
an off-the-shelf, pay-as-you-go, cellular service like TracFone ( http://www.tracfone.com).
How will the major ISP’s and cell providers react? Here’s a quote from an article Tom Taulli wrote for the Motley Fool:
Craig Settles, an expert on Wi-Fi and author of the book Fighting the Good Fight for Municipal Wireless, told me, "If FON starts picking up steam, I think you'll see the larger ISPs band together and, similar to the recording industry, sue the blazes out of FON. There will undoubtedly be bad press in the short term for the ISPs, particularly as community groups wrap the argument in terms of digital inclusion. [But] whether FON is in the clear or not, that $21 million pot of [venture capital] money starts to get a little shallow if you have to fight legal battles on multiple fronts."
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 09:48:25 -0400 by: G. Snyder
The June 12, 2006 Business Week has an interesting article written by Bruce Einhorn on low cost computers for emerging markets in developing countries. The term being tossed around by the major manufacturers is “the next billion” and refers to the approximate number of low cost computers that will be sold in the next decade in coutries like China, Barzil and Egypt. Intel Manager Mark J. Bekford is quoted in the article saying:
The next billion isn’t going to come by pushing the same things…… It requires new levels of affordability, access methods, ease of use, connectivity, and power.
I thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at the companies outlined in Einhorn’s Business Week article.
Intel
Intel has done extensive research in rural India the design of a product called the “Community PC”. According to Intel, the machine has been designed for extreme weather conditions (heat, dust, humidity) and unreliable power environments typical in this part of the world. The product is called “Jaagruti” which means “Awakening”
Here are some specs direct from Intel’s website:
Ruggedized chassis: The chassis has been designed to withstand dusty conditions, varying temperatures and high humidity. It has a removable dust filter and integrated air fan to regulate the temperature of the motherboard. The chassis is designed to keep the motherboard cool at temperatures as high as 45 degrees Celsius and the PC resistant to humidity levels of 70 to 85 RH (Relative Humidity).
CPSU: The PC is equipped with a Customized Power Supply Unit which is comprised of an Integrated Power Supply and the UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) unit, which allow the PC to maintain continuous load power in the event of a power outage.
Low power consumption: The total power consumption of all peripherals is less than 100 watts and the computers can run off car batteries.
Access Control:The platform comes installed with a certificate-based access, allowing banks to verify the validity of installment payments against the purchase of the PCs.
Intel’s concept is the spread of rural Internet “kiosks” based on these Intel-powered Community PC’s with these kiosks accelerating access to the benefits of information and communications technologies (ICT) in villages across India.
In addition, as part of Intel’s "Eduwise" program, the company will start selling a $400 notebook computer designed for students.
AMD
AMD has an agreement with HCL, a partner in India, to sell PC’s for approximately $200. These PC’s are currently coming with 1600 MHz processors and, like the Intel machines, they are designed for ease of use, affordability, internet readiness, low-power usage, wireless capability, security, ruggedization, and dust-resistance. They run Windows XP Starter Edition.
AMD is also selling the $200 Personal Internet Communicator (PIC), an affordable consumer device that can be used for things like email, web browsing and word processing. The PIC has an AMD Geode GX processor , Integrated DDR memory , an Audio controller with Stereo headphone & /microphone jacks, 4 USB ports, a 10GB 3.5" internal hard disk, an Internal 56K v.92 modem and VGA and modem ports.
It is basically a grey 5.5" wide x 8.5" deep x 2.5" high box with accent colors that weighs 3 lbs. You hook up your own monitor, keyboard, network adapters, mouse, etc to it.
These machines run Windows CE 5 and comes with Internet Explorer, E-mail. Macromedia Flash Player 6, Windows Media Player , Presentation viewer for PowerPoint , Windows Messenger chat, Microsoft Windows CE 2D Game Pack, a Spreadsheet and Full Function Word Processor – Compatible with Microsoft Excel/Microsoft Word, an Image viewer and a Zip/Unzip compression utility.
Microsoft
On May 21, 2006 Microsoft announced their pay-as-you-go personal computing offerings powered by Microsoft® FlexGo™ technology. According to Microsoft:
Customers get a full featured Windows-enabled PC with low entry costs that they can access using prepaid cards or through a monthly subscriptions.
The company recently completed a successful year-long market trial of pay-as-you-go offerings in Brazil with leading national retailer Magazine Luiza. Partners including Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), HSBC Bank Brasil S.A., Infineon Technologies AG, Intel Corporation, Lenovo, Phoenix Technologies Ltd., Transmeta Corp. and more, will join Microsoft for the next round of pay-as-you-go and subscription trials in Brazil, China, Hungary, India, Mexico, Russia, Slovenia and Vietnam. Together with the International Finance Corp. (the private-sector investment arm of the World Bank Group),
There are two basic components to Microsoft’s FlexGo. First, there are specially-built PCs powered by Microsoft FlexGo technology that enable pay-as-you-go computing. Second, Microsoft FlexGo includes a provisioning server system that enables payment systems to add usage time to each PC with unique provisioning data.
VIA
VIA, a Taiwanese chip manufacturing company you may not be familiar with has launched the VIA pc-1 initiative. This initiative is directed towards African countries with the company building PC’s that are sand resistant and can run off car batteries or solar cells. VIA had a notebook prototype on display at Computex last week with the following listed specifications: VIA’s 1.5GHz C7-m processor, VN800 digital media processor, VIA VT8237R+ south bridge, DDR2 memory (up to 1 Gig) and VIA’s UniChrome Pro IGP VGA chipset.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 19:43:15 -0400 by: G. Snyder
On Thursday the U.S. House of Representatives voted 269-152 against the net neutrality amendment, a bill sponsored by Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey. A yes vote would have required broadband providers (Telco's, Cable Companies, etc) to offer the same service speeds to competitors that they provide to partners. The telcos and cable companies in particular lobbied heavily inside the beltway and it appears to have paid off. This was not without some push back - according to CIO.COM at the last minute several technology and service companies sent a letter to House members asking for net neutrality support. Among those companies signing that letter were Microsoft and eBay and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers – a large and influential venture capital firm.
Google also posted "A Note to Google Users on Net Neutrality:" at http://www.google.com/help/netneutrality.html As I write this the link is still active. On the page Google has a short note from Eric Schmidt and the opportunity to sign a petition in support of the bill. In addition on February 7, 2006 Vinton Cerf from Google had posted a prepared statement to the
U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Hearing on “Network Neutrality." Cerf's statement is linked here: http://commerce.senate.gov/pdf/cerf-020706.pdf
There are two sides of the neutrality argument with some believing the Internet will become a network of the have's and have not's with high speed delivery available only to those companies willing to pay ISP's. Companies that are not willing or cannot afford to pay the extra fees will end up having their services delivered over slower connections.
Here's a CIO.COM quote from Gigi Sohn, president of consumer rights group Public Knowledge:
It is a shame that the House turned its back on the open essence of the Internet. Instead, the House ... voted to allow the telephone and cable companies to discriminate by controlling the content that will flow over the network.
CIO.COM also quotes John Doerr, a partner in Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers:
Without net neutrality, small companies that can’t afford to pay extra broadband fees won’t be able to compete for customers….. The telephone and cable giants want to be able to add a surcharge.... We have to work hard to make sure there’s not that discrimination.
On the other side the large ISPs (primarility the telco's and cable companies) are saying they need to figure out ways to generate revenue to continue building out high speed networks and charging big companies like Google and eBay makes sense.
Right after the net neutrality bill was voted down, the House passed an underlying bill (the vote was 321-101 and bill was sponsored by Texas Republican Joe Barton) that focuses on a couple of things. The first focus is speeding up the implementation of IP based television services. The bill removes the local franchising agreements required by the telco's to offer TV services and basically creates a national franchise agreement roadmap for providers.
Historically the cable companies (TV) have been subject to Federal and local regulation with local approval required for TV service delivery. In turn the telco's (Voice) have been subject to Federal and State Regulation. The telco's have taken different approach as they begin to offer TV services. SBC (now AT&T) has always argued that since its service is based on internet technologies it will not require local franchise agreements. COO Randall Stephenson has come right out and said "If we have to get 2,000 franchise agreements, this will not get built in three years."
As we have discussed in the past, Verizon, with it's FiOS IPTV service, shares SBC/AT&T's view buthas still pursued local franchises with successes in states like Texas laying the groundwork for the House bill.
The bill still has to move through the Senate. TechNewsWorld,com quoted Peter Davidson, Verizon senior vice president for federal government relations:
We urge the Senate to act soon because every year reform is delayed costs Americans more than US $8 billion in their cable bills.
This bill also requires providers offering Voiceover IP (VoIP) to provide enhanced 911 emergency dialing service and clears the way for municipal governments to also offer broadband data and video services. Verizon and other broadband carriers have opposed municipal broadband services and it looks like these carriers may have to compromise.
If the bill does move through the Senate competition will really heat up, accelerating IPTV deployment with a corresponding drop in IP video delivery prices.
You can listen to the podcast for this blog at
http://www.nctt.org/podcast and also find it, and dothers, on iTunes (search Snyder in the iTunes Music Store for the free download).
Posted on: Wed, 31 May 2006 12:18:13 -0400 by: G. Snyder
On Thursday the U. S. House Judiciary Committee approved H.R.5417 (Title: Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006). This bill was introduced by chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep James F. Sensenbrenner, Jr. [WI-Republican] on 5/18/2006. There are a total of 33 members on the committee (14 Democrats and 19 Republicans). All 14 Democrats voted for the bill along with 6 Republicans. 13 Republicans voted against it.
This bill has some significance because it requires broadband providers to follow strict net neutrality regulations and not operate their networks in a "discriminatory" way. On February 21 of this year I blogged "A Two-Tiered Internet?" which describes net neutrality.
According to news.com:
In an unusual twist, many members of the committee said they were voting for the legislation not because of strong concerns over Net neutrality--but instead because of a turf battle. They said they were worried that a competing proposal already approved by a different committee last month would diminish their own influence in the future.
The other bill, introduced by House Energy and Commerce Committee Head Rep. Joe Barton [TX Republican], is H.R.5252 and called the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement (COPE) Act. COPE allows the FCC "exclusive authority" to investigate Net neutrality violations and does not include strict Net neutrality mandates. News.com goes on:
Because the FCC is overseen by Barton's committee, that proposal would effectively cut off Judiciary Committee members from being able to hold hearings on Net neutrality antitrust violations, give speeches about corporate malfeasance and solicit campaign cash from affected companies--the lifeblood of modern Washington politics.
The question now is will the House leaders try to blend these two proposals together or will they allow both bills to go to the House floor for individual votes.
Posted on: Thu, 25 May 2006 13:28:09 -0400 by: G. Snyder
On May 4 Current Communications Group, LLC announced $130 million in equity investments from new and existing investors to accelerate the deployment of BPL-enabled “Smart Grid” electric utility networks and alternative broadband communication services.
In the Dallas/Fort Worth area, Current is planning to deploy the first Broadband over Power Line (BPL) enabled Smart Grid with TXU Electric Delivery, a subsidiary of TXU Corp. According to the Current Communications press release:
Building of the smart grid will create the nation’s most advanced electric distribution infrastructure serving more than two million homes and businesses including the Dallas-Forth Worth area. A range of “smart” equipment and applications – automated meters, 24/7 power quality monitoring and remote security cameras – will be installed on the electric distribution network to provide TXU Electric Delivery with real-time information about power consumption, availability and quality, while enhancing security monitoring.
In addition to enabling a Smart Grid, the same communications network will deliver superior consumer broadband service, including a range of services such as interactive gaming and emerging multimedia applications. High-performance Internet, voice, and video service will be available to residential and business subscribers simply by plugging into an ordinary electric outlet.
An interesting investment in an area of the country where Verizon initially rolled out FiOS last September. In a previous blog we discussed how, with the FiOS rollout, local cable MSOs cut prices by as much as 50 percent to compete with Verizon. With this new competition will prices continue to drop?
Posted on: Tue, 16 May 2006 12:06:28 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Mike and I have done some prior blogging and podcasting on VoIP services so this topic seems very relevant. Yesterday Skype announced American and Canadian customers can make free calls within the US and Canada to both landlines and mobile phones until the end of 2006. I’ve been a Skype user for about 8 months now so as soon as I got the news feed I jumped on my computer, launched Skype and tried to call my cell phone. It did not work yesterday but it is working very nicely today!
Skype comes free but without controversy. Salman A. Baset and Henning Schulzinne from the Columbia University Department of Computer Science have published an excellent paper titled An Analysis of the Skype Peer-to-Peer Internet Telephony Protocol
From the paper abstract:
Skype is a peer-to-peer VoIP client developed by KaZaa in 2003. Skype claims that it can work almost seamlessly across NATs and firewalls and has better voice quality than the MSN and Yahoo IM applications. It encrypts calls end-to-end, and stores user information in a decentralized fashion. Skype also supports instant messaging and conferencing.
This report analyzes key Skype functions such as login, NAT and firewall traversal, call establishment, media transfer, codecs, and conferencing under three different network setups. Analysis is performed by careful study of Skype network traffic.
There is a lot of good content in this paper and a group of my Verizon students used this and many other sources to create an excellent final class presentation on VoIP products last week.
Bureau of Labor Statistics 10 Hot Jobs for College-Educated Workers
Posted on: Mon, 08 May 2006 10:33:42 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Business 2.0 Magazine has an interesting article this month about careers and where people should be looking. Here’s a quote from the article:
If you're looking for a job that's here to stay, here's a counterintuitive piece of advice: Look into tech. It's one of several sectors on our list that is slated to see the sharpest job growth between now and 2014.
In the article they list the 10 fastest growing occupations for college-educated workers quoting the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Here’s the list:
Network systems and data communications analyst – 54.6% job growth through 2014
Physician assistant – 49.6% job growth through 2014
Computer software engineer, applications – 48.4% job growth through 2014
Computer software engineer, systems software – 43.0% job growth through 2014
Network and computer systems administrator – 38.4% job growth through 2014
Database administrator – 38.2% job growth through 2014
Physical therapist – 36.7% job growth through 2014
Medical scientist – 34.1% job growth through 2014
Occupational therapist – 33.6% job growth through 2014
College instructor – 32.2% job growth through 2014
Career opportunities continue to look good for our graduates despite all of the doom and gloom about outsourcing.
Posted on: Sun, 07 May 2006 11:15:36 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Today is my 1 year blogging anniversary!
Since it's been a whole year I'll digress a little bit and talk about something non-technical. So, shutting down..... that's what I did this weekend - actually went from Thursday evening at around 7 until just now (Sunday evening around 6:30). I spent the weekend trout fishing with my father, brother and 3 of my Dad's buddies. Something I used to do much more often than I have done recently.
As a kid opening day of trout season was like Christmas to my brothers, father and I. We'd get our fishing stuff (gear) prepped weeks in advance and go out in the dark with flashlights and coffee cans a couple of wet nights picking night crawlers for bait. The season would always start on the third Saturday in April so we would head out to a couple of cottages my grandfather owned near our "secret" pond on Friday night after my father and uncle and a few other buddies with kids would get out of work. We'd get there maybe 10 in the evening and the place would be cold. We'd get the propane heater going and light a fire in the fireplace. Hit the sack in our sleeping bags and up before daylight down to the pond. Of course my 2 brothers, cousins and usually at least a couple other kids would not sleep anticipating the excitement of the next day. We'd catch our limit of fish and then head back for fish cleaning and then a huge breakfast. Back to the pond for more, this time letting them go because we had already caught our daily limit.
Massachusetts no longer has an opening day for trout season (you can now fish for them year round) but this past weekend was just as great and yes, I did not sleep much Thursday night anticipating the next day. We all caught our trout limit and I ate a large amount of excellent food and had a lot of laughs and fun with a great bunch of guys. A little different now – instead of fishing from shore with leaky hip boots and night crawlers we trolled lures and flies in boats with electric motors and stayed in my parent's winterized (warm!) large and comfortable home. We even got to watch the Red Sox win a couple of games on satellite.
And,,,, if you are wondering…. yes, I did bring the computer and could have but did not. I actually think I went through a bit of an email withdrawal but after the first 12 hours or so it was pretty smooth sailing.
We all get tied up and tangled up in the pace of the work we do and many of us forget we need to take some time and shut off the electronic stuff for a while. So I'll reply to that email you sent me on Friday tomorrow!
Posted on: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 09:24:42 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Information Week has published a summary of a survey conducted by Foote Partners LLC. Foote has tracked the U.S. market value of 212 IT skills and certifications and then compared the pay of certified and noncertified IT workers. In the past having an IT certification typically meant higher pay and it still does today but to a lesser degree. Foote surveyed 52,000 IT professionals at 1,820 North American companies to collect this data. Here’s some interesting quotes from the Information Week article:
Over the last year, pay for non-certified IT skills grew nearly 70% more than pay for certifications, or 4.4% versus 2.6% respectively, according to the Foote survey, which tracked the market value of 212 IT skills and certifications.
Based on the salary analysis of 52,000 IT professionals at 1,820 North American companies, Foote found that premium pay for 103 non-certified skills in the first quarter of 2006 averaged about 7.1% of base salary for a single skill, up from 6.8% in the same quarter last year. Among the non-certified skill categories examined were networking, operating systems, database, and Web development.
While certified skills still garner a bigger average pay premium—or about 8.3% of base pay for a single skill—compared with non-certified skills, the pay gap appears to be closing.
Foote says this seems to indicate that some employers are beginning to more generously reward tech workers who have solid technical, industry, and business experience yet lack formal certification for their skill sets.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 11:24:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
This seems like a good follow up to Mike Q's excellent VoIP post last week. Art Reisman posted an interesting article at ExtremeVoIP.com a couple of days ago. Art is Chief Technical Officer at APConnections. APConnections makes NetEqualizer, a layer 7 bridge that adjusts network bandwidth and provides network administrators and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) with a very cost-effective Quality of Service (QoS) solution for congested networks. Essentially this product works as a packet shaper which can prioritize and also block specific types of traffic.
Here's a couple of quotes from the article:
I am often asked if we can come up with a solution to block (insert evil music here) "Skype" traffic. Skype and Vonage have become the scourge of ISP service providers who are looking to offer phone service for a fee bundled with their data services. The obvious conclusion for the owner of the data line is to just block these hobos altogether and be done with it.
While blocking most data traffic is easily accomplished, I must confess up front I have feigned a few efforts at blocking Skype only to retreat to fight another day after being soundly defeated.
He then goes on to give a basic tutorial on traffic blocking. He first reviews traditional concepts and methods of traffic blocking and then covers why blocking Skype traffic is completely different. His use of common scenarios and examples are excellent classroom material. Here's how he finishes:
To date all my common tricks for determining VOIP traffic on the Internet have been thwarted by the Skype designers. I have no idea if this result was a deliberate attempt to thwart detection or just an unintended side effect of their design.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:15:19 -0400 by: G. Snyder
There has been what many consider to be significant activity in the open source world. The biggest news this past week was Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison admitted in the Financial Times this week that Oracle is considering the purchase of Novell. Novell is the biggest distributor of Linux after Red Hat. According to the article and Ellis:
"I’d like to have a complete stack says Ellis."We’re missing an operating system. You could argue that it makes a lot of sense for us to look at distributing and supporting Linux".
Oracle has counted on Linux – an open source system whose code is open to anyone to view and adapt – to act as a counterweight to Microsoft’s Windows, which has expanded rapidly from desktop PCs into corporate IT systems.
Also in February Oracle acquired open source database software company Sleepycat Software.
And…. speaking of Red Hat, which is the largest Linux distributor, the company recently announced it will purchase JBoss, an open-source application server company for $350 million. Mike Q. discussed JBoss in our open source podcast. The company sells a popular suite of middleware called JEMS that includes a portal, messaging, a rules engine, and business process management and transaction capabilities.
Many have predicted these consolidation scenarios and it will be interesting to watch how it all shakes out.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 09:24:26 -0400 by: M. Qaissaunee - Guest Blogger
With increasing business and consumer adoption of internet telephony (more commonly called voice over internet protocol or VoIP) and recent revelations regarding the NSA’s domestic spying program, one begins to wonder - how secure are VoIP calls?
In the article, Why VOIP Needs Crypto, security consultant Bruce Schneider compares eavesdropping on traditional phone calls versus those made with VoIP. Tapping into traditional telephony requires access to:
another phone extension,
the physical phone line path (even outside the home),
the telephone switch (currently the preferred method for law enforcement), or
the main trunk lines (e.g. big-budget National Security Agency surveillance).
VoIP, however, is a whole different ballgame:
phone calls from your computer are fundamentally different from phone calls from your telephone. Internet telephony's threat model is much closer to the threat model for IP-networked computers than the threat model for telephony.
This similarity to networked computers and the growing awareness that:
Data packets can be intercepted in the corporate network, by the internet service provider and along the backbone. They can be eavesdropped on by the people or organizations that own those computers, and they can be eavesdropped on by anyone who has successfully hacked into those computers. They can be vacuumed up by nosy hackers, criminals, competitors and governments.
Unfortunately, the casual user doesn’t have that same awareness of this similarity. Schneier paints a pretty frightening picture, imagining criminals doing all the things they could never have done with the traditional telephone network:
eavesdropping on attorneys (blackmail clients),
eavesdropping on bankers (inside information),
stealing account information,
hijacking telephone calls,
committing identity theft, and
engaging in industrial espionage and stealing trade secrets.
This is why encryption for VOIP is so important. VOIP calls are vulnerable to a variety of threats that traditional telephone calls are not. Encryption is one of the essential security technologies for computer data, and it will go a long way toward securing VOIP.
Adds John Dabnor, President/CEO and founder of CityCom - wiretapping is a common occurrence and [sic] nothing is secure unless secured.
What’s the solution? Fortunately, the VoIP client Skype already has built-in encryption. Another potential solution (Zfone) comes from Philip Zimmerman, creator of the popular Pretty Good Privacy e-mail encryption application.
Zfone [is] available as a beta for Mac OS X and Linux only (a Windows version is in the works for April), the application handles encryption and decryption of VoIP calls without the need for a central server for authentication or storing keys.
If Zfone is running on both ends of a call, however, a key will be generated with each call and every packet encrypted and decrypted in real-time. A simple-looking GUI indicates whether or not the call is secure.
A very novel approach has been taken by the Open Source Private Branch Exchange (PBX) Asterisk. Asterisk is concerned enough with security that they have offered a series of financial incentives or “bounties” to the programming community to address security and encryption issues in their code.
Unfortunately, encryption of these transmissions is not a complete solution. Malware (Trojans and worms) is still a major threat. If a hacker has managed to gain access to a machine, the data AND voice traffic on that computer are susceptible to eavesdropping. In fact, a hacker could even hijack a VoIP system using it to make phone call. Fundamentally, this all comes back to user awareness and training and properly and vigilantly securing computers and operating systems.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 09:56:42 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Government Technology, an e.Republic state and local government magazine, has recently published a couple of opinions on Municipal (or Muni) Wi-Fi. Muni Wi-Fi can be loosely defined as free wireless Internet access provided by a municipality. There are currently a number of Muni Wi-Fi projects in the works in major cities across the United States.
The first opinion in Government Technology was published on March 18, 2006 by John M. Eger. Dr Eger is from San Diego State University where he is Executive Director of the International Center for Communications. He is also president of the World Foundation for Smart Communities. His article is titled “Freeing Cities From Telco and Cable Monopolies“. Here are a few quotes from his posting:
I believe broadband today is as important as waterways, railways and highways were in an earlier era. Unfortunately, this concern, indeed urgency, is not widely held. From a policy standpoint, clearly, at the federal, state and local level, we have lost our way, much to our peril.
Today, according to the ITU or the OECD in Paris, we're (the U.S.) either 13th or 15th, depending on how you interpret the report in deploying broadband communications. Smaller countries like Korea, Singapore or Japan, are leading the world by offering broadband [much faster] and at a fraction of the cost.
For the present, however, the cable and telcos have joined forces and are blocking what I consider to be the single largest user that must retool and reinvent itself for America to succeed, let alone survive, in the new global economy. I'm talking of course about the city.
On April 1, 2006 Walter White, vice president state and local government, for Verizon Communications replied with his opinion titled "Why Municipal Wi-Fi May Be a Bad Investment for Cities". Here are a few quotes from his posting:
….. we (Verizon) are highly skeptical about whether muni Wi-Fi is a good idea. From our perspective, taxpayers should ask hard questions about whether pouring money into muni Wi-Fi is a good use of scarce resources. There are several reasons it almost certainly is not.
The benefits of muni Wi-Fi above and beyond what's already in place simply don't live up to the enormous hype. Faster wireless connectivity is certainly good, but it's already available today from Verizon Wireless and other competitors.
….. it seems a particularly unwise time for muni Wi-Fi. Competition in broadband is intense and prices are dropping. Wireless carriers are rolling out hybrid Wi-Fi and cellular deployments which will spur private investment. So again, Verizon doesn't think all muni Wi-Fi should be illegal. But we do think it unwise.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:24:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
The American Consumer Institute ( www.theamericanconsumer.org) has published an interesting study titled Who Uses Information Technology Services? A Demographic Analysis of American Consumers.
According to the American Consumer Institute:
The Institute is an independent consumer organization committed to providing information, analysis, and policy research to the public for the betterment of American consumers. The Institute is primarily composed of volunteer public policy experts covering a wide range of issues.
This study involved a nation survey of 1,000 households and identifies how technology is used by different demographic groups. According to the study, there is some evidence that the digital divide is starting to close in the U.S.
The study quotes the following major findings:
Age appears to explain much of the variation in IT service use, whereby younger consumers use more cellular, text messaging, high-speed Internet, email, instant messaging, public Internet facilities and Internet-based telephony (VoIP). For instance, 20% of households with children report the youngest cell phone subscriber to be 12 years of age, and 10% of the youngest cell phone users are of elementary school age.
VoIP use is growing, and has been used in over 10% of households. VoIP services are more apt to be used in low-income households (22% of households earning less than $25,000), non-Caucasian and non-African American households (18% of Hispanic, Asian and other races), and younger households (18% aged 29 or under).
20% of those surveyed said they have used public Internet facilities in local schools, libraries and museums often or very often. These facilities are more likely used by lower-income, young and non-Caucasian households.
The majority of consumers (59%) would prefer to buy all of their telecommunications services from a single provider. This is particularly true in younger and non-Caucasian households.
The study goes on to quote:
…. the results of this study show that some gaps that once existed in the use of IT services have closed. Except for some disparity in rural broadband use, IT services are reaching the mass market and are widely available to American consumers across various demographic segments. The strong evidence that a wide cross-section of consumers are using IT services is very encouraging, since it demonstrates that the benefits of these new services are now reaching large and diverse segments of the American population.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 09:24:06 -0400 by: G Snyder
A couple of interesting things have happened in the WiFi world over the past few days. The first is the Miami Beach move to be the first major city in the state of Florida to offer free citywide Internet service.
On Wednesday night last week (March 8), the Miami Beach City Commission awarded an approximately 5 million dollar contract to IBM to install a municipal wireless network access points on street poles throughout the seven-square-mile city.
According to the Miami Herald, a handful of other South Florida cities, such as Hollywood, have free limited wi-fi networks and Broward County recently went online across a portion of Fort Lauderdale. Miami Beach will fund the project from its information and communication technology fund.
IBM will construct and maintain the system over the next six years and will also provide five computers to each of the city's six public schools. In addition residents will be able to buy computers at discounted prices from IBM. The system will also have a built-in security network and will be active across the city by this summer.
The Miami Beach proposal has not been well accepted by at least one of the Internet Service Providers.
The second item comes from Washington DC’s decision to ask companies to bid on providing wi-fi access to the city. DC currently plans to give the business to the company that reaches out the furthest to low-income residents, providing free Internet access and possibly free computers and training. With this approach free wireless access may not be available in the higher rent portions of the city. An article in the Washington Post quotes DC Mayor Anthony A. Williams:
Access to technology is like access to books: it's an important medium of communication and learning and opportunity. Other cities are doing it and I want our city doing it too.
I think there is sufficient market incentive to serve the other areas of the city. The problem is there isn't sufficient market incentive to serve the lowest-income parts of our city, and that's what I am trying to do here.
The bid winning company will have an 8 year contract to install access points on city owned street lights and buildings and the winner will use DC’s private fiber-optic network to carry wireless traffic to the Internet.
According to the Washington Post companies bidding must prepare plans indicating where they would build the network, how they would charge paying customers and what speeds they will offer them. Depending on how companies respond, their paying customers could, in effect, subsidize free access for the poor. D.C. Deputy Chief Technology Officer Peter Roy, who is writing the District's request for proposals, said in a Washington Post interview:
The essential evaluation factor will be: The more digital divide clients that you propose to serve within the first three years . . . the higher your ranking will be in the selection process.
According to the Washington Post, DC hopes to start construction of the network by the end of this year with large parts operational within 9 months. Also, according to the Post, no tax dollars will be involved.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 09:20:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
According to Infoworld Nederland, Singapore will soon start construction on a national broadband network that will offer up to 1 Gbps for homes and businesses in the country.
Infoworld quotes Lee Boon Yang, Singapore's minister for information, communications and the arts:
Today, a high-speed broadband network is an essential infrastructure for economic development, investment and talent attraction, education and a host of other activities.
The country will also construct a mixed national wireless broadband network consisting of both Wi-Fi and WiMax networks. Inforworld goes on to say:
The upgraded broadband network will allow Singaporeans to make video calls to stay in touch with relatives and friends overseas, Lee said. In addition, the faster connections will make possible new consumer services, such as high-definition IPTV (Internet Protocol TV). It will sharpen our business efficiency and spark off many new opportunities for entrepreneurs.
Singapore's Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) will issue a request for concept within the next month to seek industry input on construction of the new broadband network, with a request for proposal to be prepared by the middle of the year.
Private Singapore companies will build this carrier-neutral network for open access in collaboration with the Singapore government.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 09:15:21 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Yesterday AT&T Corporation, announced they would buy BellSouth Corporation for $67 billion. According to Edward E. Whitacre, Jr., the chairman and chief executive of AT&T and quoted in the Wall Street Journal:
We literally have hundreds of competitors coming in every day; it's nothing like the old days...
If we're going to have the strength to compete, we better get our companies together...
Combining AT&T and BellSouth will create a the largest telephone company in the US, a company with $120 billion in sales, approximately 317,000 workers and 71 million local phone customers in 22 states. It will also leave only three Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) or baby bells – Verizon, AT&T and Quest.
What is even more amazing is, up until late last year, AT&T was not even considered an RBOC. However, with SBC's $16 billion purchase of long-distance carrier AT&T last year and the name change from SBC to AT&T – it is obvious what AT&T has become.
Experts are saying it could take a year to finalize this deal and it will have to survive the regulators, consumer groups and competitors complaints.
Keep you eye on this and watch for Verizon to make a possible play for Qwest.
Posted on: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 09:14:56 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Leichtman Research Group has just come out with an interesting study that compared the ten largest DSL providers and the ten largest Cable Modem providers in the United States. Combined, these 20 providers represent approximately 94% of the residential broadband market in this country. In our broadband podcast earlier this year we said that in 2004/2005 approximately 50% of the people purchasing broadband service in the US were buying DSL and the other 50% were buying cable modem service. In 2003 the split was 60/40 with 60% purchasing cable modem and 40% purchasing DSL.
Let's look at selling strategies over the last year - telephone companies have basically been dropping price and maintaining bandwidth while the cable companies have been holding price and increasing bandwidth.
Here's some interesting information from the report:
2005 saw 9.6 million new broadband subscribers.
As of the end of 2005, the top broadband providers accounted for over 42.8 million high-speed Internet subscribers.
The top cable broadband providers now have a 57% share of the overall market versus DSL and account for over 24.3 million high-speed Internet subscribers compared to 18.5 million for DSL
The top DSL providers netted 53% of the broadband additions in 2005
DSL providers added over 5.2 million broadband subscribers in 2005 – about 1 million more than in 2004
Cable operators added about 4.4 million broadband subscribers in 2005 – a nearly identical total as in 2004
The fourth quarter of 2005 was the best quarter ever for DSL providers, adding nearly 1.5 million net additional DSL subscribers, capturing 57% of the net 2.64 million high-speed Internet additions for the quarter. Cable operators added virtually the same number of subscribers during the quarter as a year ago, while DSL providers added about 350,000 more subscribers than in the fourth quarter of 2004
Posted on: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 08:59:45 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Recently there has been a lot of discussion in this country about Internet so called power users and the rest of us. Last week the U.S. Senate held hearings on Internet neutrality with some arguing that Internet neutrality is critical if the Internet is to remain a freely developing and innovative technology. Now, what is meant by this neutrality term?
Simply put neutrality would prevent Internet Service Providers like cable companies and telephone companies from giving traffic prioritization to websites that pay them to do so.
The February 20, 2006 New York Times had an interesting editorial and here's a quote:
The solution, as far as the I.S.P.'s are concerned, could be what some critics are calling "access tiering," different levels of access for different sites, based on ability and willingness to pay. Giants like Walmart.com could get very fast connections, while little-guy sites might have to settle for the information superhighway equivalent of a one-lane, pothole-strewn road. Since many companies that own I.S.P.'s, like Time Warner, are also in the business of selling online content, they could give themselves an unfair advantage over their competition.
On February 7, 2006 the Washington Post quoted the following from John Thorne, a Verizon senior vice president:
"The network builders are spending a fortune constructing and maintaining the networks that Google intends to ride on with nothing but cheap servers," Thorne told a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. "It is enjoying a free lunch that should, by any rational account, be the lunch of the facilities providers".
In the same Washington Post article Vinton Cerf, one several often identified as a key developer of the Internet and now a vice president and "chief Internet evangelist" at Google, said in an interview that:
… his company is worried that if net neutrality protections are not enacted, the Internet's freedom could be compromised, limiting consumer choice, economic growth, technological innovation and U.S. global competitiveness.
Vinton Cerf goes on in the Post article:
"In the Internet world, both ends essentially pay for access to the Internet system, and so the providers of access get compensated by the users at each end," said Cerf, who helped develop the Internet's basic communications protocol. "My big concern is that suddenly access providers want to step in the middle and create a toll road to limit customers' ability to get access to services of their choice even though they have paid for access to the network in the first place."
Posted on: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 09:45:33 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Good Broadband News in Texas
Today Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other politicians formally announced what has been termed a landmark technology investment that will provide broadband service to 71 rural communities in the state. According to Austin Daily Business News:
This initiative will fulfill an unprecedented digital commitment. When this initiative is completed by the end of this year, every switching location in Texas served by AT&T (NYSE:T), the state's largest communications company, will be capable of providing high speed digital subscriber line (DSL) Internet service. The complete DSL buildout will give communities as small as Catarina (population: 135) in Dimmit County access to high speed Internet service.
Last year in his State of the State address, Governor Perry asked the legislature to update the Texas' communications laws and the result was Texas Senate Bill 5, a comprehensive update of Texas communications laws passed by the Legislature last year.
The Austin Daily Business News goes on:
Since the bill's passage, the state's largest local communications company has announced plans to invest $800 million in new technology over the next three years, and one of the state's largest electric delivery companies has announced a $150 million investment in broadband over power line, the nation's largest rollout of this new technology.
In addition:
Texans are seeing other benefits from the Legislature's passage of Senate Bill 5. For example: Cable television rates have declined significantly in areas where competition has gotten off to a fast start. In Keller, the local cable company has lowered its prices by more than 25 percent in response to a new competitor.
That new competitor in Texas is Verizon FiOS with others quoting price drops by as much as 50% among competitors. This is landmark legislation that should be followed by the rest of the country to open up competition and continue to drop broadband prices, closing the broadband divide.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Feb 2006 09:20:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
This week Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 beta 1 with the beta available in two versions: a standalone version for Windows XP Service Pack 2 and an enhanced version that is built into beta 1 of Microsoft Windows Vista to take advantage of new features of the Windows Vista platform. The final release of Internet Explorer 7 will run on Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 2 and will ship once it meets Microsoft standards. The Windows Vista release of Internet Explorer 7 will ship in Windows Vista and is planned for the second half of 2006.
I pulled the IE 7 beta and installed on a spare machine and am pretty impressed with what I’ve seen so far. On of my favorite user features is the Firefox like tabbed browser. In addition I like the RSS tools and think this product will help bring RSS mainstream.
I think the company is on the right track in the development of this product and especially like the way they are approaching security issues. According to a Microsoft Technology Overview document posted on their website, Microsoft has three primary security goals as it builds this product:
Defend against malware. This objective aims to help customers have more confidence in the security of their browsing and helps prevent installations without their consent. Microsoft defines malware as all malicious code or attacks, including worms, viruses, adware and spyware.
Help protect against data theft from fraudulent Web sites. This release includes new personal data safeguards to help users more safely and securely engage in legitimate e-commerce and avoid divulging their information to identity thieves.
Deliver full control over add-ons. This focus on giving users full control over add-ons will allow them to more safely and easily add functionality on their computer system while avoiding inadvertent or hidden download of unintended content.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:20:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Information Week (
http://www.informationweek.com/) has published some interesting stats in their January 2, 2006 edition. A survey of 300 business-technology professionals answered the following question:
What kind of expertise is your company looking for in new IT hires?
Results, based on percent of respondents, are listed below:
Posted on: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 09:20:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
The Telecom Act of 1996 is long overdue for a rewrite and this is the year. Think back to 1996 if you can when the telephone companies sold voice and the cable companies sold video. Things are not the same for the Verizons and the Comcasts of this world as they compete head to head for your business while disruptive companies like Google are nipping at their heels.
At the top of the 2006 list is video, according to a panel that met in Las Vegas in late 2005. The panel consisted of prior FCC Chief of Staff Blair Levin, Nevada Senator John Ensign and his Senior Technology Advisor Michael Sullivan and Anna-Maria Kovacs of Regulatory Source Associates, a telecom consultant.
Washington appears ready to level the playing field between the Telcos and Cable companies, eliminating the need for Telcos to make local municipality franchise agreements.
Mike and I have discussed the different strategies SBC and Verizon are using to provide TV services in our recent Broadband podcast. Over the last year Verizon has been aggressively seeking franchise agreements and now claims agreements in 16 states. Even with this aggressive rate experts say it would take Verizon another 4 years to obtain individual franchise agreements in the approximately 30,000 municipalities Verizon has in its territory.
SBC has taken a much more daring approach, claiming – since they will be using IP delivery technology which better resembles data – that franchise agreements are not required. The group of panelists claim there is now enough support in Washington to completely do away with local video franchises with the telecom companies saying elimination would accelerate there investment in these new fiber based networks.
This bill was submitted by Ensign and Arizona Senator McCain "To provide a market driven telecommunications marketplace, to eliminate government driven competition of existing telecommunications service, and to provide parity between functionally equivalent services." The bill gets even more specific stating:
Silos of regulation based on historical regulatory classifications only invite arbitrage and result in government influenced market decisions.
A video service provider may not be required to obtain a state or local franchise or to build out its video distribution system in any particular manner.
There is significant potential for the consumer and one only needs to look at Keller, Texas in September 2005 when Verizon started to offer FiOS TV service. With the FiOS rollout, local cable MSOs cut prices by as much as 50 percent to compete with Verizon.
This bill also prohibits broadband service providers from blocking a consumer’s use of “competing” VOIP services or devices, allowing companies like Vonage equal access.
Many consumer groups have concerns about the bill as it is currently written. Freepress ( http://www.freepress.net ) says:
This bill is harmful in many regards. For example, it puts consumer protection at risk by stripping the states and local governments of any regulatory power over telecom and cable providers, instead putting very limited regulatory power in the hands of the FCC. It also eliminates any requirement for phone companies or cable companies to resell capacity to third parties. The bill also preempts local governments wishing to offer broadband services to citizens. They would first have to ask the private provider for permission to find out if they would prefer to build the network instead. Existing municipal projects would be grandfathered in, but would not be able to expand services.
The bill (S 1504: Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act of 2005) has been read and is currently awaiting committee assignment.
More detail can be found in the podcast for this blog and I will write more about this topic over the course of 2006.
Other References:
Telecommunications Act: Competition, Innovation, and Reform;
Report Number: RL33034;
Date: August 12, 2005
Posted on: Mon, 19 Dec 2005 09:20:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
A blue ribbon National Academy of Sciences panel headed by retired Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine is the most recent business and academic group to push for a plan to keep the United States at the forefront of world science and technology. A bi-partisan group of legislators has put together a proposal and have presented it to President Bush. This group hopes, as syndicated columnist David Broder writes, that President Bush highlights it in next months State of the Union address and then underscores his commitment by putting the needed funds into his budget.
According to the Broder column:
Since 1970 the percentage of America's gross national product invested by the federal government in physical science research has declined by 50%.
Almost half of U.S. patents now go to foreign owned companies and foreigh born investors.
Our legislators are starting to react. Representatives Frank Wolf from Virginia, Vern Ehlers of Michigan and Sherwood Boehlert of New York sponsored an Innovation Summit earlier this month that brought business CEO's and University presidents together to the Commerce Department to push this agenda forward. House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert has some interesting comments regarding the NSF in this press release: http://www.house.gov/science/press/109/109-170.htm
… the budget of the National Science Foundation (NSF) hardly reflects the ever growing sense of crisis. The Education Directorate at NSF received $944 million in fiscal year 2004. In fiscal 2005, that number dropped to $841 million and the Administration’s request for fiscal 2006 was another $100 million below that. Fortunately, and thanks to the efforts of Chairman Wolf and Congressman Ehlers, among others, approximately $40 million of that proposed cut was restored. This was a great political achievement, but it hardly made it a banner year for education funding.
Worse still, the funding debate reflects a larger problem – a lack of consensus and understanding about the vital role NSF has played and must play in improving math and science education at all levels. NSF’s peer review processes, its openness to innovation, its connections with higher education, its single-minded focus on, and expertise in science and math, its willingness to evaluate its programs (although that still needs some improving), its stature in the education community, and its focus on excellence as well as equity make NSF a unique and indispensable player in education.
I understand that to make a clear statement about NSF, a commission will have to know what problems are out there and what other federal, state and local agencies are doing. But that’s different from having the report focus on those matters. The focus needs to be NSF. That’s the Science Board’s primary charge – not its only charge, but its most important one and the only one that is not duplicated elsewhere. And it’s where the Board has the greatest influence.
So please, please make sure that any commission gives us the specific guidance that the Administration and the Congress need to enable NSF to make the most of its unique capabilities in K-16 education. So much is at stake at this pivotal time. You have the chance to ensure that NSF education programs, and therefore U.S. education, have a brighter future.
In addition Lamar Alexander from Tennessee, Jeff Bingaman from New Mexico, Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland are preparing legislation calling for a coordinated and sustained attack that would cost the country approximately $9 billion (approx 1/10 of what the Iraq war is costing us annually). This group has proposed the following:
- Boost federal investment in basic research 10 percent per year for the next 7 years
- Recruit 10,000 future science and math teachers each year and give them 4-year college scholarships
- Give big bonuses the new teachers chosing to teach in underserved schools
- Give additional traing to 250,000 current math and science teachers
- Give 200 large grants to promising young researchers
- Create an advanced research projects agency in the Department of Energy
- Give 25,000 competitive scholarships a year to physical science, engineering and math undergraduates
- Fund 5,000 new graduate fellowships in physical science, engineering and math
- Make it easier for foreign students in physical science, engineering and math to come and study here and then stay in this country after graduation
- Provide tax incentives for U.S. based initiatives
- Expand access to broadband connectivity
Senator Alexander met with President Bush on Thursday. At the meeting the President was briefed about U.S. competitiveness in science and math and it was suggested technology investment be the centerpiece agenda of President Bush’s final three years in office. Sen. Alexander said he hopes President Bush uses the findings of a recent National Academies of Science report "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" in his annual State of the Union address next month. A press release can be found on Senator Alexanders website: http://alexander.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Articles.Detail&Article_id=80
According to Alexander:
I’m very impressed with the receptivity of the administration to this. We don’t have science and technology because we are rich; we are rich because we have science and technology. The rest of the world has figured that out.
The National Academies of Science report "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" is linked here: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309100399/html
I'll highlight this report in a future blog since this one is getting a little long.
Broder asks - will President Bush pick this up and run with it - much like he did with his earlier promise of a manned mission to Mars?
Posted on: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:20:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
If you haven't checked out the Xbox 360 you should because most of your kids and students have. The box comes with instant, out-of-the-box access to Xbox online features with broadband service, including Xbox Live Marketplace for downloadable content, gamer profile for digital identity, and voice chat to talk to friends while playing games, watching movies, or listening to music. Hardware includes a built-in Ethernet port and the box is Wi-Fi and video camera ready. A custom IBM Power-PC based CPU with three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each, a custom 500MHz ATI Graphics Processor with 10 MB of embedded DRAM, standard-definition and high-definition video output support, three USB 2.0 ports, detachable and upgradeable 20GB hard drive and a 12x dual-layer DVD-ROM. Check out the specs in detail here: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/xbox360/powerplay.htm
Using My Xbox users can create their own online identity, create Xbox Live Friends Lists, send and receive private messages and share and compare Xbox 360 game scores with other users. If you don’t have one yet the next time you are in a store that does check out the demo - the video output is dramatic when attached to an HD monitor. This is a really hot box for the $400 Microsoft is currently getting.
Most business analysts are using the familiar razor/razorblade analogy when they describe the selling strategy – give away the razor and sell the heck out of the blades. Microsoft and others (Nintendo, SONY) have been using the razorblade strategy for a number of years now. The strategy goes something like this:
The companies initially sell the boxes at a loss or, at best, a break even price. In 2002 Microsoft started selling the first XBox (right before the holidays) for approximately $389 to the million or so early adaptors that just could not live without it. We are seeing a similar Xbox 360 strategy today with analysts saying Microsoft is taking a $100-$125 loss per unit. The goal is to sell approximately .5-1 million units (razors) at this early stage to the early adaptors at a loss, creating a pretty good buzz in the process and also selling a few games (razorblades). Remember the TV and newspaper coverage showing people waiting in line to get an Xbox 360 the first day at midnight last month?
After the early adopters have made their purchases the companies typically drop prices 20-25% and this is when sales really start to move with the typical goal of selling another 10-20 million boxes. Once that market is tapped prices drop once again and another smaller wave comes in and buys with the final round priced at around $99. Over this life cycle component prices do commonly drop so it is normally not costing the company what it initially cost to make the boxes.
Let's say the average user buys 4 titles per year (I think this is high) and Microsoft makes minimally $20 per title – how long will it take the company to make that initial loss back and start making some money selling these?
Posted on: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 09:20:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Jesse Burns and Alex Stamos of Information Security Partners LLC (iSEC), a security firm hired by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have discovered a second SONY CD Rootkit. The Rootkit vulnerability was found on fully patched Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 machines after the two had played “My Morning Jacket: Z”, and Sara McLachlan’s “Bloom Remix” CDs on the machines. SONY has admitted the second Rootkit and has posted a list of affected titles here:
http://www.sonybmg.com/mediamax/titles.html
According to iSEC:
SunnComm Media Max version 5.0.21.0 (hereafter called Media Max), partially installs itself automatically the first time an affected CD is inserted into a Windows machine. The automated installation includes the creation of a “SunnComm Shared” directory. Media Max creates this directory with a custom access control list (ACL) that contains an access control entry (ACE) granting the Windows principal Everyone “Full Control” rights to the directory. This allows any process, user, or network client the ability to read, modify, and delete the contents of this directory, including low rights accounts which are not even members of the “Users” group. Granting untrusted users “Full Control” rights to executables that will be automatically run by high rights users creates a simple but serious security vulnerability.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 09:20:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released their November employment report with some interesting results. In the United States nonfarm payroll employment grew by 215,000 in November, and the unemployment rate was unchangedat 5.0 percent.
The BLS had modified estimation procedures in September and October to to account for low response rates in Katrina-affected areas. Last month the BLS went back to standard methods as number and type of responses from the Katrina-affected areas were deemed acceptable.
Here are some numbers from the report:
Computer systems design and related services employed 1,342,800 people in November, up 6,100 for the month, and nearly 58,000 for the year, a 4.5% annual gain.
Computer and peripheral equipment makers employed 216,500 people in November, up 7,200 workers in the past 12 months, a 3.4% annual gain.
What is interesting is the ISP, search portal, and data processing data:
ISPs, search portals, and data processing firms dipped to 386,400 month, down from 389,000 in October and 387,200 in November 2004.
Eric Chabrow from Information Week has an interesting analysis that I tend to agree with. According to Eric:
If the worksite primarily supports a service such as an Internet gateway--say an office of American Online--it would be counted as an ISP even though the company provides other services such as Web content.
Americans are migrating away from old-style ISPs to broadband Internet services, mostly provided by cable TV and telecommunications companies. Though these communications providers have increased staffing to support their ISP services, their payroll increases are reflected in the broadcast, not Internet category for cable TV companies and telecommunications for the telecommunications companies.
The good news is job growth continues in our related businesses and industries. The bad news is this may not be reflected in the data collected by the BLS. The full BLS November 2005 report is posted here: http://www.ncttbuzz.org/NCTT_01/dispatch.cgi/Gordon_Blog
You can also post anonymous comments and discuss this blog using this link.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 09:20:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
TiVo is planning to integrate their video recording devices with
Apple's iPod and Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP), allowing
subscribers to download TV shows and films to the devices. You can read
the TiVo press release here: http://www.tivo.com/cms_static/press_66.html)
Some TV networks and studios are concerned since they are hopeful
digital distribution services like iTunes, which charges $1.99 per TV
show will develop new revenue streams. According to the press release:
The enhancement will include exclusive capabilities such as TiVo
auto-sync that will allow subscribers to choose if they want new
recordings of their favorite programs easily transferred to their
portable devices via their PC. Every morning the devices can be loaded
with new programs recorded the night before.
TiVo says it will start testing in the coming weeks with a group of
TiVo Series2™ subscribers who own the Apple Video iPod or PSP devices.
Once the bugs are worked out TiVo plans to make the feature available
to its entire standalone TiVo Series2 subscriber base as early as the
first quarter of next year. These subscribers will have to purchase
some low cost software estimated at $15-$30. The press release goes on:
To discourage abuse or unlawful use of this feature, TiVo intends to
employ "watermark" technologies on programs transferred to a portable
device using the TiVo ToGo feature that would enable tracking of the
account from which a transferred program originated.
It is interesting to see the conflicting opinions on TiVo’s
announcement. Here’s a couple of quotes from a Nov 21 article on
variety.com:
NBC"TiVo appears to be acting unilaterally, disregarding established
rights of content owners to participate in decisions regarding the
distribution and exploitation of their content," an NBC Universal
spokesman said. "This unilateral action creates the risk of legal
conflict instead of contributing to the constructive exploitation of
digital technology that can rapidly provide new and exciting
experiences for the consumer."
Warner Bros."In addition to focusing on the legal issues, it's also important to
focus on the fact that consumers are saying this is the kind of thing
they want," noted Kevin Tsujihara, president of the Warner Bros. home
entertainment group. "We're excited about the fact that people are
buying portable devices and are looking for video content on them. It's
potentially a huge market for us."
NBC appears to see this as a threat while Warner Bros. sees this as an opportunity......
Posted on: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 09:20:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Many of us take our high speed connections at home for granted and we
may forget how fortunate we are to have one. According to a Pew
Internet & American Life Project study published October 5, 2005:
”As of May-June 2005, 68% of American adults, or about 137 million
people, use the internet, up from 63% one year ago. Thirty-two percent
of American adults, or about 65 million people, do not go online.”
“Fifty-three percent of home internet users now have a high-speed connection at home, up from 21% of internet users in 2002.”
“…. 62% of home internet users with a college or graduate degree
have a high-speed connection at home. That is notably higher than the
44% of home internet users with high school diplomas who have broadband
connections.”
“…. internet users living in the highest-income households are not
only
the most likely to go online (93% have access), but are also the most
likely group to have a fast connection – 71% of these internet users
have a broadband connection at home.”
“…. adults living in households with annual incomes of $30,000 or
less are about
half as likely as the highest-income Americans to go online at all (49%
have access), and only 42% of these internet users have high-speed
access at home.”
In the study high-speed connections are defined as broadband including
Digital Subscriber Line, cable modem, wireless connection, fiber or a
T-1 connection. The study goes on:
”Certain groups continue to lag behind: Americans age 65 and older, African-Americans, and those with less education.”
“26% of Americans age 65 and older go online, compared with 67% of
those age 50- 64, 80% of those age 30-49, and 84% of those age 18-29.”
“57% of African-Americans go online, compared with 70% of whites.”
“29% of those who have not graduated from high school have access,
compared with 61% of high school graduates and 89% of college
graduates.”
“60% of American adults who do not have a child living at home go online, compared with 83% of parents of minor children.”
“Americans living with a disability and those who do not speak
English are also less likely to have access. A 2002 survey by the Pew
Internet & American Life Project found that only 38% of Americans
living with disabilities have access to the internet.”
“…. U.S. Census surveys conducted in Spanish and English in October
2003 found that 37% of Hispanics (age 3 and older) have internet
access, compared with 65% of non-Hispanic whites (also age 3 and
older).”
“The biggest drop-off for internet use is after age 70. About half
(53%) of Americans between 60 and 69 years old have internet access,
compared with just 22% of those age 70 and older.”
Posted on: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 09:20:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Last week computer security expert Mark Russinovich posted a blog ( http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html)
with evidence Sony BMG Music Entertainment has been shipping, with some
of it’s music CD’s, rootkit software targeting Windows based machines.
Here is a quote from Mark’s blog:
"Last week when I was testing the latest version of RootKitRevealer
(RKR) I ran a scan on one of my systems and was shocked to see evidence
of a rootkit. Rootkits are cloaking technologies that hide files,
Registry keys, and other system objects from diagnostic and security
software, and they are usually employed by malware attempting to keep
their implementation hidden …..The RKR results window reported a hidden
directory, several hidden device drivers, and a hidden application..."
Mark went on to do some investigating and found that everything pointed
to a SONY music CD he had recently purchased and played on his
computer. He goes on to say:
“I closed the player (CD) and expected CPU usage to drop to zero,
but was dismayed to see that it was still consuming between one and two
percent... It appears I was paying an unknown CPU penalty for just
having the process active on my system…"
"At that point I knew conclusively that the rootkit and its
associated files were related to the First 4 Internet DRM software Sony
ships on its CDs. Not happy having underhanded and sloppily written
software on my system I looked for a way to uninstall it. However, I
didn’t find any reference to it in the Control Panel’s Add or Remove
Programs list, nor did I find any uninstall utility or directions on
the CD or on First 4 Internet’s site. I checked the EULA (End User
License Agreement) and saw no mention of the fact that I was agreeing
to have software put on my system that I couldn't uninstall. Now I was
mad...”
He then went on to remove the rootkit by deleting the driver files and
Registry keys, stopping the service and deleting its image. When he
rebooted he discovered that access to his CD drive had been removed as
a result of his clean-up. With some additional effort Mark did get his
CD drive working again but it was a tedious process.
It turns out Sony has been shipping some music CD’s with the rootkit
for most of 2005. There are all kinds of rumors flying around about
what it does – one thing it definitely does is open a security hole in
your system that allows anyone with some basic filenaming knowledge to
hide files on your system.
You can tell you have one of these CD’s if it is labeled
CONTENT/COPY-PROTECTED CD. The easiest way to check this is to go to
Amazon.com and look up any Sony CD’s you have in your collection.
The rootkit is installed as part of the End User License Agreement
(EULA) that autoruns when you put a CD on in the drive. If you click
yes to the EULA the rootkit gets installed. Mark covers the technical
details well in his blog and I don’t want to rehash them.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Nov 2005 09:20:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
At a recent Massachusetts Networking and Communications Council (http:// www.massnetcomms.org
) meeting I was fortunate enough to listen to a group of industry
experts and venture capitalists discuss the next wave of startups in
the area of network security. The meeting started with some discussion
on where we are at now. It was agreed that much of the spending over
the last five years has been on perimeter devices (routers, firewalls,
software, etc) to prevent intrusion to an inside network. Today the
largest concern is network devices brought in by mobile users and these
devices are typically not secure.
We’ve all heard and read about studies with some organizations claiming
over 90% security breaches are internal. Consider an employee bringing
a personal notebook computer in to work and using it to connect into
the corporate WiFi network. Also consider a scenario where this
notebook had been used by one of the employee’s children for
downloading and game playing and has picked up a virus or spyware.
Perimeter devices are useless in this scenario.
Let’s look at the way industry has categorized employees and (in some cases) departments:
1. Security Staff – want to lock down network as much as possible and prevent access
2. IT Staff – want to enable users as much as possible with open access
3. Network Staff – just want to keep the bits flowing
Typically members of these 3 groups do not talk or work together well but now they must and they will.
Companies like Microsoft, Cisco and others are looking at different
ways to secure networks. Cisco is looking at ways to beter ID and
authorize devices that want to attach to a network using agents
installed on these individual devices. Microsoft is very interested in
security at the directory level on network servers.
The push in business and industry is to move away from “bolt on”
security, embedding security into the infrastructure and end devices at
the enterprise level. It is refreshing to see many of us taking this
same approach in our classrooms.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Nov 2005 09:20:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
We have all been wondering when it would happen and on November 1 it did.
With Google squarely in its sites Microsoft has announce Microsoft
Live, a website that includes email access, a Microsoft search engine,
Microsoft Instant Messenger, on-demand virus cleaning PC health
checkups, web accessible storage space, maps, etc. The Live application
will follow users as they move from device to device (home computer to
work computer to cell phone to PDA, etc). For example, your Internet
Explorer Favorites will follow you from device to device. Microsoft has
a beta up now at http://www.live.com
and you can sign up and start experimenting here.
I signed up and got this RSS Feed added. I also tried to get a gadget over from
http://microsoftgadgets.com
without any luck. It is a beta so not everything is supposed to work
and I may have been doing something wrong. The gadget site includes
instructions on how to build them.
In addition to the gadgets, Microsoft is building a set of hard
core developer tools that will allow programmers to integrate
applications with Live so their applications can take advantage of
Windows Live features.
Right now it reminds me a lot of http://my.yahoo.com
without the ads (there are no ads because it is a Beta). The final
product will be free with Microsoft selling ads on the site. The big
question - can Microsoft generate significant revenue selling ads?
Posted on: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 09:20:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
A couple of weeks ago Blackboard Inc. and WebCT Inc., announced an
agreement to “merge”. In reality, Blackboard is purchasing WebCT.
According to eschoolnews.com:
The merger would leave the combined entity with more than 80 percent
of the LMS market share in higher education, which includes the
software platforms that drive online learning. The impending deal has a
price tag reported to be approximately $180 million.
The education market research firm, Eduventures Inc., estimates the
2005 eLearning platform market in higher education will reach $220.7
million, a growth rate of 17.9 percent. Eduventures also estimates the
2005 market for K-12 schools to be $136 million, with an expected
annual growth rate of 5 percent over the next two years.
Blackboard has also disclosed an agreement with Microsoft that will
integrate the Blackboard software with Microsoft products. According to
the two companies Microsoft's SharePoint Portal Server will be
integrated into Blackboard’s Community System with the goal of better
interoperability between Blackboard's Academic Suite and Microsoft's
Office suite.
The following quote comes from an AP story on Oct 18:
"Our customers want these solutions to work together, and we want to
provide more choice and the flexibility to easily deploy and manage the
combination of Blackboard and Microsoft technologies that best meet the
individual needs of each institution," said Rob Curtin, Microsoft's
industry solution manager for higher education.
Blackboard had it’s initial public offering in 2004 with the stock
starting at $14 per share. The stock trades on Nasdaq with the symbol
BBBB and was at $28.10 yesterday. Yes, I wish I had bought some last
year. WebCT is a privately held company.
Posted on: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 10:15:44 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Japan, just like the United States, experienced a baby boom after World
War II and that population is now moving close to the Japanese
traditional retirement age of 60. In addition, over the last ten years
Japan suffered through a recession with many companies offering early
retirement incentives to older workers.
Now, as the Japanese economy has recovered, a large worker shortage is
developing in the high tech disciplines – especially in Engineering,
Medicine and Information Technology related areas. As a band-aid,
companies like Honda, Toyota and Canon have been scrambling to offer
extended contracts for retired workers. These companies have also
started hiring retirees as mentors for younger technical workers.
The Japanese government, and most corporations, realize these efforts
will not be enough and have determined one of the quickest ways to home
grow workforce is to include more women. In Japan approximately 55% of
women work outside the home, compared to approximately 65% of women in
the U.S. The Japanese government estimates if the can raise the female
worker population to the 65% U.S. level, 2.4 million workers will be
added to the workforce.
This effort will not be without resistance. Here is some information
found in an Inter Press Service News Agency article by Suvendrini
Kakuchi:
According to the United Nations, Japan's population will decline
from 127 million in 2004 to 109 million in 2050. Its fertility rate set
a new record low of 1.32 in 2002 from 1.33 a year earlier. The
percentage of those over 65 years old stood at 18.5 percent as of
October 2002 and is expected to rise to 28.7 percent in 2025.
By tradition Japanese companies hire men almost exclusively to fill
career positions, reserving shorter-term work, mostly clerical tasks
and tea serving, for women, who are widely known in such jobs here as
office ladies, or simply O.L.'s.
And some quotes:
''It is true that female workers are being taken more seriously in
Japan. However, they still have a long way to go before they can
fulfill their dreams of being career women.'': Yoko Yamaguchi, Trade
Union Rengo.
“….at the corporate level…. female numbers are almost negligible'': Yoshio Murata, Takashimaya Labour Union.
''Now comes the important task of changing male conservative views
of women workers. We must show them that investing in a working
environment for women, actually brings about more talent and profits
for the company.'': Yumiko Yagi, Nikko Cordial Securities.
Can Japan make these rapid cultural changes and pull this off? Can the U.S. learn something from the Japanese?
Posted on: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 10:15:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
There has been lots of press about Google Print (http://print.google.com)
lately. Google has joined up with several libraries (including the
University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, the
New York Public Library and Oxford University) to digitize their
collections and make them searchable on Google Print. In addition the
Google Print Publisher Program has been established by the company to
entice authors and publishers to allow their content to be digitized
and place on Google Print. Once the content is placed searchers can
view the text, get information on the books, authors and publishers and
also purchase the text from a Google approved vendor.
Over the last month the Authors Guild and the American Association of
Publishers have filed suit against Google. These groups claim that
Google is committing infringement by scanning entire books covered by
copyright without the permission of the copyright owners.
Just for kicks I did a search on my name and my Network
Security text came up. Turns out just the Table of Contents has been
provided by Delmar, the publisher and all pages are clearly marked as
copyrighted material.
As an author I go back and forth on having my material fully posted in
this format. On one hand having it posted and searchable and reviewable
may increase sales. On the other hand people can always take it off the
web and print as many copies as they want. What if one student was to
get a copy of my book and then make photocopies for 20 other students
in the same class? Is there a difference between another student
ripping a copy from the web and making 20 copies? Not much – so that
part does not really bother me.
Here’s what keeps making me go back and forth – Google’s is currently
selling advertisements (Google calls them “Sponsored Links”) on the Web
pages displaying copyrighted work. Check it out.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 11:11:40 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Every year Wilkofsky Gruen Associates, a telecommunications consulting
firm, does a market review and IT infrastructure forecast for the
Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA: http://www.tiaonline.org). TIA is a trade association representing providers of communications and IT products and services.
This years report is very interesting – here are a few quotes from a Business Week supplement:
“For years, systems were dominated with the early legacy form of
proprietary systems. In the 90s, multiple operating systems became the
enterprise norm, but they were proprietary outside of their niche. That
wasn’t initially much of a problem because companies tended to
segregate those operating systems by work area, with Windows office
suites for office workers, Unix for engineers and running large
databases, mainframes often handling payroll, Macintosh in art
departments, etc….…. today’s infrastructure is becoming truly
interoperable for operating systems, which is where things get more
complicated. Networks are changing, moving away from the private
networks that dominated much of the 20th century to data and
telecommunications
networks riding over the public Internet.”
The report goes on to discuss multiple points of failure in today’s typical IT infrastructure:
“Of the major components that make up the IT infrastructure, the
applications and databases account for 65 percent of the problems…..
The next most likely source of infrastructure failure lies with the
operating system, which comes in at 18 percent. The hardware, it
turns out, is the least troublesome, even though that is where many
companies focus their infrastructure reliability efforts. Network components, servers and storage only account for five percent and seven percent of the problems, respectively……”
And more:
“The challenge of creating a reliable and scalable IT infrastructure
goes beyond
focusing on any one—or even several— components of the infrastructure.
Maintaining a reliable infrastructure entails seven disciplines, says
Kenneth
Smith, executive vice president of strategy and software at Sungard
Availability
Services. The company divides those seven disciplines into two groups,
disciplines
that deal with the physical infrastructure and those that deal with the
management of the infrastructure. There are four physical
infrastructure disciplines: technology, physical facility, the network
and people. The technology discipline focuses on the hardware and
software. The physical facility discipline addresses the computer room,
environmental concerns (HVAC) and power. The network discipline
involves the movement of data around the enterprise and beyond…... With
human error as a common cause of infrastructure failure, “we see people
as a physical resource that must be managed,” Smith says. Sungard
identifies the three management disciplines as operations, information
and applications. The operations discipline addresses such issues as
maintenance and patch management. The information discipline deals with
issues like security and backup and recovery processes. The
applications discipline focuses on the management of the applications
themselves.”
Posted on: Tue, 04 Oct 2005 10:15:35 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Google has been quietly spending $100M purchasing dark fiber connecting
major metropolitan areas in the United States and the rumor is they
will be building a free WiFi network.
Take a look at https://wifi.google.com/download.html
where Google has been offering a Google Secure Access application. When
installed this application looks for Google access points that allow
the user to securely access the Internet. According to the FAQ on the
site Google Secure Access is a new product that is only available at
certain locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. This, in combination
with a possible Sun StarOffice collaboration (Google has hired Joerg
Heilig, Sun’s former StarOffice project manager), Gmail, photo
management, instant messaging and rumors of a Google desktop will make
for some interesting times.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 12:17:32 -0400 by: G. Snyder
The
recent London bombings have opened many eyes to the potential level of
surveillance we may find ourselves under in this country. According to
the UK Financial Times, Britain now has in operation over 4 million
CCTV cameras! These cameras do not appear to have had much of an effect
on stopping terrorism but have helped considerably in the
identification of terrorists after attacks. Research continues in the
development of surveillance cameras, face-recognition software, ID
cards, phone monitoring systems, chemical sensors, RF ID and other
anti-terrorism technologies.
For example:
ObjectVideo in Reston, Virginia, has developed software that
detects unusual video patterns such as abandoned bags or suspicious
movement. Systems using this software are currently being used in
military bases in the United States, Europe and Asia.
Nexidia, a voice recognition software company in Georgia, is
developing speech recognition software that filters thousands of hours
of recorded conversations looking for specific key words. Gartner says
$140 million worldwide was spent on security based speech recognition
software in 2004.
Most surveillance is currently done by monitoring mobile telephone
conversations and the fear is, with terrorists knowing this,
communications will go back to age old mouth-to-ear-to-mouth methods,
leaving authorities in the dark. Other methods need to be developed
that identify terrorists before they attack. Catherine Yang, and Kerry
Capell in London and Otis Port in New York have an interesting article
in the August 8, 2005 edition of Business Week. In the article they
discuss several developing identification methods including DNA,
saliva, body odor, breath, video gait recognition and RFID
identification.
As long as we are under some level of threat many will not object to
a rapidly ramping level of surveillance (we won’t get into civil
liberties here but it is a serious concern we probably all have thought
about). As it stands right now development in this area will continue
will continue at a swift pace.
Much of work done in these emerging fields requires a cross
disciplinary background at a level higher than an AS degree. It is
important we give our Community College grads the option of moving in
different directions whether it be directly to work with a two year
degree or on to a four year program with all 2-year degree courses
accepted.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Aug 2005 09:17:51 -0400 by: G. Snyder
On
July 27 the following top business and technology associations called
for doubling the number of math, science, technology and engineering
graduates by 2015:
AeA
Business-Higher Education Forum
Business Roundtable
Council on Competitiveness
Computer Systems Policy Project (CSPP)
Information Technology Association of America (ITAA)
Information Technology Industry Council
Minority Business RoundTable
National Association of Manufacturers
Semiconductor Industry Association
Software and Information Industry Association
TechNet
Telecommunications Industry Association
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
This group released a report entitled, "Tapping America's Potential
(TAP): the Education for Innovation Initiative" that can be found at:
The report focuses on five areas to increase number of
bachelor's degrees awarded in science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics:
1. Build public support for making improvement in science,
technology, engineering and mathematics performance a national priority.
2. Motivate U.S. students and adults, using a variety of
incentives, to study and enter science, technology, engineering and
mathematics careers, with a special effort geared to those in currently
underrepresented groups.
3. Upgrade K-12 mathematics and science teaching to foster
higher student achievement, including differentiated pay scales for
mathematics and science teachers.
4. Reform visa and immigration policies to enable the United
States to attract and retain the best and brightest science,
technology, math and engineering students from around the world to
study for advanced degrees and stay to work in the United States.
5. Boost and sustain funding for basic research, especially in the physical sciences and engineering.
Most of us have seen the stats - here are a few examples pulled from the report:
- Although U.S. fourth graders score well against international
competition, they fall near the bottom or dead last by 12th grade in
mathematics and science, respectively.
- By 2010, if current trends continue, more than 90 percent of all scientists and engineers in the world will be living in Asia.
- The percentage of students in the U.S. planning to pursue engineering degrees declined by one-third between 1992 and 2002.
Funding for basic research in the physical sciences as a
percentage of the gross domestic product has declined by half since
1970.
We are being clobbered in science, technology, engineering and
math achievement by the rest of the world and should make us realize
how critical our academic work is for our country. The 18 page report
(including endnotes) is worth a careful read.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Aug 2005 09:03:36 -0400 by: G. Snyder
The
U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics has released some very interesting
statistics in this year's second quarter report. According to the
report the IT workforce is just about back to where it was during the
summer of 2001.
In 2001 3.46 million people in the U.S. defined themselves as IT
professionals and in the second quarter of this year 3.43 million
people defined themselves as IT professionals. This is the highest
number of employed IT professionals since 2001 and is up 128,000 from
the same quarter last year.
Where is the growth since 2001?
IS managers have increased 70,000 to 340,000
Computer software engineers have increased 87,000 to 736,000
Database admins have increased 27,000 to 195,000
Computer systems admins have increased 21,000 to 195,000
Where is the loss since 2001?
Programmers have declined by 180,000 to 558,000
Computer scientists and analysts have declined 38,000 to 777,000
Computer support specialists have declined 8,000 to 349,000
Network systems and data communications analysts have declined 10,000 to 346,000
Annualized unemployment rates for this same quarter are down to 3.4% compared to 5.2% during the same quarter last year.
Posted on: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 09:23:20 -0400 by: G. Snyder
Many
of us have cell phones with built in email capabilities, organizers and
cameras and mp3 players. The voice cell phone industry is rapidly
becoming commoditized and providers must continue to integrate new
services to remain profitable.
The next application to hit the United States and currently hot
in Japan, will be the use of cell phones as debit cards. Japanese
carrier NTT DoCoMo is taking a 34% stake in Japan's number two credit
card issuer Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and is in negotiations with
the top issuer JCB International.
Since last July, DoCoMo has sold over 3 million handsets with
FeliCa chips that have built in transmitters and send a signal when the
phone is placed near a sensor. The company is projecting sales of 10
million handsets by March 2006.
The technology, developed with Sony uses a 13.56 MHz carrier
frequency and a transfer speed of 212 Kbps that currently lets Japanese
users securely purchase (in a debit card arrangement) from vending
machines, buy groceries, pay cover charges in clubs, go to cinemas and
pass through turnstiles to board commuter trains. The credit card
infrastructure build out (store sensors, etc) is in progress in Japan.
In the United States carriers are very interested - it is estimated
between 10 and 20 million people in the U.S. do not have bank accounts
but have cell phones.
The last two weeks have been sad ones for those of us who knew Mark Wildermuth from Midlands Technical College in Columbia, SC. Mark had a bad motorcycle accident two weekends ago and passed away Monday, June 6.
Mark had quite a life in his 36 years. Many of us did not know he graduated from the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY, in 1991. At West Point, he was Brigade boxing champion in his weight class, competed on the Army's intercollegiate boxing team and was Sandhurst military training company captain. After West Point he had a well-decorated Army career, rising to the rank of Major, serving in Korea and in several stateside posts. He was Ranger, Airborne and Expert Infantryman qualified.
I first met Mark five years ago when he started at Midlands and was working to create a Telecommunications degree program. In September 2001 Midlands, with Mark as PI, received a grant from the NSF to adapt and implement the NCTT telecommunications education program and our formal relationship was launched. Mark and others including Keith Quigley worked hard to build an exceptional program and over the grant adapted the NCTT curriculum to include a pre-telecommunications technologies component delivered by secondary teachers to local SC high schools. Laboratories were designed to house the appropriate equipment, and Midlands ensured the ongoing operation and continued support for the work. In addition to articulated course work in telecommunications in local high schools, the project facilitated the professional growth and development of college and high school instructors as well as recruiting, retaining, graduating, and placing students in good jobs.
Two years ago, with Mark's leadership, Midlands became one of the original NCTT Regional Partners. Mark was an active participant in the NCTT group, always willing to share his technical and leadership skills. He also like to have fun and could always get us laughing. Marks work can be found at: http://www.midlandstech.edu/telecommunications/default.html. A wonderful person who I will miss greatly.
Midlands Technical College has established a scholarship in his memory. If you wish to contribute, send an email to me at: gsnyder@stcc.edu
MIT Media Labs wants to produce $100 laptops. Media Lab team members Nicholas Negroponte, Seymour Papert and Joseph Jacobson have a vision of "one laptop per child", and plan to provide 100 million to 200 million laptops to school children in the developing world by the end of 2006. Google and AMD have committed $2 million each to the project and MIT is also working with Samsung, Motorola and News Corporation on this project.
Specs include a 500 MHZ processor, wind-up power, a 12 inch flat rear-projection color screen, Linux and OpenOffice software. Devices will be Wi-Fi and 3G-enabled with lots of USB ports. The laptops will use flash memory (no hard drives) and will not be hooked up via a conventional local area networks. The laptops will use Wi-Fi mesh networks, where one laptop will act as the print server, one the DVD player, and another the mass storage device, etc.
The first working prototype is projected to be ready by September 1 with limited distribution by the end of the year.
Lately IĂve been hearing a lot about Tor (The Onion Router). Tor is an anonymous Internet communication system initially designed and developed as part of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory's Onion Routing program with support from ONR and DARPA. Tor anonymizes web communications including browsing, publishing, instant messaging, IRC and SSH and also provides a platform on which software developers can build new applications with built-in anonymity, safety, and privacy features.
Tor uses a distributed group of network of servers, called onion routers that allow data packets to take a random pathway through a series of Tor servers on the web. These servers anonymously pass traffic between each other so network traffic analysis cannot tell where the data came from or where it's going.
Tor is distributed as free software and could be an interesting student project. Downloads, overviews, links and lots of good Tor information can be found at the website and the source of this blog: http://tor.eff.org/
MentorLinks is designed for community colleges that could benefit from technical assistance and networking opportunities to improve undergraduate education that prepares technicians in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. AACC is requesting proposals from colleges interested in working with acommunity college mentor who has successfully planned and implemented amajor change in a program in a high-technology field. This grant is primarily aprofessional development and technical assistance program, with emphasis on a mentoring relationship.
Although not directly involved as a mentor or mentee, I did have the chance to work with mentor (and NCTT Regional Partner) Midlands Technical College (http://www.mid.tec.sc.us/) and mentee Chaffey College (http://www.chaffey.edu/) in 2000. The experience was a very positive one for both schools.
Grant awards will be made for a total of $15,000 for the two-year grant period (October 1, 2005 ñ September 30, 2007) and the application is simple to fill out. Deadline is June 10, 2005 with arrival at AACC by 5:00 p.m. (EST).
"The technology of RSS allows Internet users to subscribe to websites that have provided RSS feeds; these are typically sites that change or add content regularly. To use this technology, site owners create or obtain specialized software (such as a content management system) which, in the machine-readable XML format, presents new articles in a list, giving a line or two of each article and a link to the full article or post."
- from Wikipedia
Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation.
This material is based on work
supported by the
National Science Foundation
under Grant Number DUE 0302548.
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