News's archive
Worst Google News Headline Ever! - No public viewing at Neverland, but Michael Jackson may get laid
I was happily surfing the Web reading the Google News Top Stories when I saw a headline that said “No public viewing at Neverland, but Michael Jackson may get laid“. Say what? I had to do a double-take. Then I couldn’t help but laugh at how funny this headline was.
No public viewing of Michael Jackson getting laid? Bummer, I’m sure that could have been a pay-per-view event. It’s The 40 50 Year Old Virgin movie come to life! Course that might be a problem unless it’s some sick necrophilia action going on. Then again, Michael Jackson did play the undead / zombie in Thriller. 
Ok, we’ll let Michael Jackson Rest in Peace. I’m sure he too would have laughed at this Google News headline.
Check out a screenshot of it below. Click for Full-screen. Look on the right-hand side. I drew an arrow and box around it. The article in question can be read here. The full article headline is “No public viewing at Neverland, but Michael Jackson may get laid out at Staples Center“. Obviously, the Googlebot abbreviated in a very bad spot. Perhaps a human editor might be in order, Google?
Lastly, since Google News changes the Top Stories home page often, you too can view this news story by clicking this Google News search link. It’s abbreviated there too.
Tags: google, google news, michael jackson, news
Related tags: michael jackson, public viewing, neverland michael, headline public, viewing neverland, google
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Big Stage Adds Cool 3D Avatars to Skype
Big Stage today announced that their popular 3D avatars based on pictures of your own face now works on Skype with their new Skype Add-on. It’s similar in concept to JibJab, perhaps the most popular site to feature animated avatars based on your own face. However, Big Stage goes one step further with technology that lets you move, change expressions, and more. I downloaded the beta to check it out. Here’s their demo video, but I hope to include one of myself soon:
QT_WriteOBJECT(’http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/videos/BlabberForSkype.mov’, ‘200%’,'195%’, ”, ‘autoplay’, ‘true’, ‘bgcolor’, ‘black’, ’scale’, ‘aspect’);
Others trying to make 3D avatars popular include Gizmoz and Kloonies. Gizmoz also uses your own digital photo to create an avatar based on your own face, but according to Big State, it falls short compared to their technology. They use three photos to make a more accurate 3D representation of your face, where as Gizmos only uses one. Kloonies is a different model all together sine they use cartoonist 3D avatars that you pick from a list.
Pretty cool stuff! As I was quoted in the press release they put out:
“Blabber’s advanced facial modeling and real-time animation makes voice over IP lots of fun,” said Tom Keating, CTO, VP, Founder of TMC Labs. “It’s a compelling example of the role the animated digital version of people will play as ever more advanced virtual world capabilities converge with voice and video in the connected online world.”
“Through the launch of a Big Stage-enabled Skype plug-in, we’re extending our advanced 3-D avatar technology into the realm of real-time expressive communications and further advancing our goal of projecting ’self’ into digital life.” said Big Stage CEO Phil Ressler. “The estimated 450 million people using Skype can have fun speaking as an ultra cool version of themselves instead of using chat, or substitute Blabber for video when for any reason they aren’t ready to face their web-cam or need to conserve bandwidth. Blabber debuts our voice-sync engine, which we intend to leverage as we extend a similar capability into video games, virtual worlds, virtual conferencing, and social networks like Facebook.”
You can download the Skype add-on here.
Tags: 3d, avatar, big stage, skype, voip
Related tags: avatars based, skype, stage, avatars, video, technology
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FCC Makes Phone Number Portability Even Faster
The Federal Communications Commission issued an order today that makes number portability faster. Carriers now have one day instead of four to switch phone numbers when requested by a customer’s new carrier. Large carriers have nine months to comply with this rule. The new order impacts the U.S. phone companies more, for they are […]
Microsoft UC Developer Sandbox Featuring OCS 2007 R2 & Exchange Server 2010 Launches
Want your own little UC sandbox where you can learn how to develop speech and UC applications using Unified Communications Managed API (UCMA) without the hassle of setting up your own OCS 2007 R2 & Exchange Server 2010 beta environment?
Well, today Marshall Harrison over at GotUC.net announced a Microsoft UC sandbox for developers to play in, enabling them to develop UC applications quickly and easily.
Well, whatcha waitin’ for? Head on over and kick some sand in your very own UC sandbox! 
Tags: beta, developer, exchange server 2010, Marshall Harrison, microsoft, OCS 2007 R2, sandbox, UC, unified communications, voip
Related tags: exchange server, sandbox
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50% of Mobile Voice Traffic Will Use End-to-End VoIP by 2019
Gartner, a respected research firm located just a stone’s throw from TMC said today, “mobile VoIP poses a huge challenge for traditional mobile voice providers.” You don’t say? Hmm, I would have never guessed such a thing. Ok, other than stating the obvious, the research does have some fascinating points, including claiming that ore than 50% of mobile voice traffic will be carried using end-to-end VoIP by 2019 - or basically 10 years from now.
“Mobile portal voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) offered by third-party application-based providers poses a huge and direct challenge to the $692.6 billion global mobile voice market”, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner predicts that over time traditional network-based mobile carriers face the real prospect of losing a major slice of their voice traffic and revenue to new non-infrastructure players that use VoIP.
But Gartner doesn’t paint an entirely rosy picture for VoIP. Gartner said “that despite this significant potential, conditions for the rapid expansion in the use of mobile VoIP are not yet right and are not likely to become right for at least five years and perhaps as long as eight years.”
Yeah, well when carriers like AT&T pull crap like forcing Apple to only allow VoIP over WiFi and not over a 3G data connection, it’s no wonder why mobile VoIP growth will be stunted by anti-competitive tactics. Then you have countries like Canada which outright block Skype on the iPhone. Fortunately, avid mobile phone users aren’t taking this lying down. For instance, you can jailbreak your iPhone and run VoIP over 3G no problem.
Why do we have to put up with this crippleware? I get that AT&T is a business and needs to make money. If they’re worried that flat-rate data plans that run VoIP over it will drastically hurt their voice revenue, then change your business model! Keep the flat-rate data plan, but install packet-inspection technology that detects voice packets and charge a few cents for VoIP calls. If the flat-rate data plan’s business model is outdated, which it seems to be, then change it.
Yeah, sure customers may not like the idea and certainly it seems that our culture today expects “something for nothing”, but hey, it’s business folks. I’d rather have the capability of making VoIP calls using a SIP provider or make Skype calls and pay a few pennies than not be able to use VoIP over 3G/4G at all. I’m sure if AT&T did try and charge money for VoIP calls running over a data connection that customer advocate groups, the ACLU, and people who think they should get something for nothing will run to the government and complain that AT&T is charging them money for using VoIP. Perish the thought that a business is charging you money for using their services!
Maybe we should just nationalize all the carriers like most countries have and then petition Congress to pass a law that will force the nationalized carriers to give us free mobile VoIP. Heck, with trillions of dollars being spent on the bailout package, why not free mobile VoIP at the expense of the big bad carriers? Free healthcare for everyone, free mobile VoIP for everyone, it’s all free baby! Socialism here we come!
Ok end rant. Back to Gartner…
“Mass-scale adoption of end-to-end mobile VoIP calling will not happen until fourth-generation (4G) networks are fully implemented in 2017,” said Tole Hart, research director at Gartner. “Once the basic market conditions are in place, transition to mobile portal VoIP should be fairly rapid because of the inherent convenience and end-user cost savings. In 10 years time we expect that 30 percent of mobile voice traffic will be carried out through third-party mobile portals, such as Google, Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo, which will adopt wireless VoIP service as a voice option to their current communications hub.”
A number of third parties, such as Skype, Truphone and fring, which carry VoIP traffic using a mobile phone, have cropped up in the past couple of years, offering access to voice services via Wi-Fi and/or the carriers’ wireless voice networks. This has been the most efficient way to offer the service to date because of the inconsistencies of voice services over third-generation (3G) data networks. However, with the advent of 4G networks (WiMAX and Long Term Evolution [LTE]), and increased use of smartphones with open operating systems, it is conceivable, perhaps even inevitable, that wireless voice services will be run completely over VoIP.
“Ten years from now, more than half of mobile voice traffic will be carried end-to-end using VoIP,” said Akshay Sharma, research director at Gartner. “Carriers will adopt voice services because of the increased capacity and reduced cost of delivering voice over 4G networks. Third parties will adopt a voice option for their communications hub.”
Gartner analysts warned that there will also be a number of factors that will inhibit the adoption of third-party, end-to-end VoIP services, including the delay in rolling out 4G networks because of current economic conditions and also the general plan to put 4G only in the main cities and build out from there. Nevertheless, in five to 10 years time, as 4G networks become common, mobile VoIP services will have a strong impact on the communications market.
Competing with mobile portal VoIP will be wireless carriers that offer circuit and VoIP voice and data services, and resellers and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) that also offer services off the carrier networks. Gartner expects this opening of the VoIP channels to spawn a number of voice services from companies that offer voice services to communities using voice as a communications link. This means that the biggest competitors to mobile VoIP may be text messaging and e-mail, as people may prefer to use these types of communication because of their non-intrusive, less emotional and less time-consuming nature.
Although the impact of the technology shift will be gradual as 4G networks roll out, Gartner advises carriers to start thinking now about how the transition will occur and how they might cooperate and partner with other types of service providers. Third-party providers, such as Google and Yahoo, should look to offer voice services today using the carriers’ networks and Wi-Fi to leverage their portfolio of services. Mobile social communities, such as Facebook and MySpace, which benefit from messaging traffic as it keeps eyeballs on their sites, should also have a voice option.
Tags: 4g, fring, gartner, long term evolution, lte, mobile voip, sip, skype, tole hard, truphone, voip, wimax
Related tags: voice services, mobile voice, voice traffic, third party, voice option, mobile
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eBay to Launch Skype IPO
It just gets better and better - First, there was the legal fight between Joltid (Niklas Zennstrom) and Skype/eBay that I wrote about. Then the NY Times reported that Skype’s founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, were in talks with several private equity firms to make a bid to buy back Skype. Now, eBay today announced they want to spin off Skype as an IPO. Apparently, they don’t like the bid prices offered by Niklas and Janus. eBay probably didn’t like the patent threats by Joltid run by Niklas and Janus either.
I’m not sure in this current economic climate that a technology-based IPO is a good idea. Heck, any IPO at this point is very risky. This could be a bluff by eBay to get Zennstrom and Friis to raise their offering price for Skype and to counter the Joltid lawsuit. Can’t we all just get along? What’s a few billion dollars between friends? 
Check out the full announcement below:
eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) today announced that it plans to separate Skype from the company, beginning with an initial public offering that is intended to be completed in the first half of 2010. Specific timing of the IPO will be based on market conditions. “Skype is a great stand-alone business with strong fundamentals and accelerating momentum,” said eBay Inc.’s President and CEO, John Donahoe. “But it’s clear that Skype has limited synergies with eBay and PayPal. We believe operating Skype as a stand-alone publicly traded company is the best path for maximizing its potential. This will give Skype the focus and resources required to continue its growth and effectively compete in online voice and video communications. In addition, separating Skype will allow eBay to focus entirely on our two core growth engines–e-commerce and online payments–and deliver long-term value to our stockholders.”
The decision to separate Skype is based on a timeline outlined by Donahoe when he became eBay’s CEO in April 2008. At the time, the company said it would spend a year evaluating Skype and its potential synergies within the eBay Inc. portfolio before making any decisions about Skype’s future. Donahoe also installed a new management team at Skype led by Josh Silverman, which has driven stronger momentum and improved performance. In 2008, Skype generated revenues of $551 million, up 44 percent from 2007, and segment margins of approximately 21 percent. Registered users reached 405 million by the end of 2008, up 47 percent from 2007, and user metrics improved significantly throughout the year. The company recently announced that it expects Skype to top $1 billion in revenue in 2011, nearly doubling 2008 revenues.
“Under the leadership of Josh Silverman and his management team, Skype has become a stronger business in the past year, and I expect it will be even stronger a year from now,” Donahoe said. “Skype has accelerating global user growth and strong fundamentals, diversified revenue streams and is competitively positioned in a large market. We expect Josh and his team to continue delivering results as we prepare Skype for an IPO.”
Most recently, the release of the Skype for iPhone application has generated a great response. More than one million people downloaded Skype for iPhone in the first 36 hours after it became available–and Skype immediately became the No. 1 downloaded free iPhone application in more than 40 markets, including the U.S., UK and Japan. In just over a week, downloads passed the two million mark, putting Skype on more than 6 percent of all iPhones and iPod Touch - and adding almost half a million new Skype users.
Tags: ebay, initial public offering, ipo, Janus Friis, Niklas Zennstrom, skype, voip
Related tags: strong fundamentals, separate skype, niklas ennstrom, skype iphone, niklas janus, skype
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Comments on this Entry:
(Ruben on
Apr 14, 2009 6:37 PM)
I doubt that eBay will do a IPO. As I wrote in my blog entry at http://bit.ly/17cyqh - there are to many loose ends before a IPO makes any sense.
However - I completely agree with your stance that “suddenly” talking about an IPO now, with all that is happening, is just to push the price higher.
It’s all a game from now on - and let’s sit back, relax and eat our pop-corn while watching the battle.
Twitter slow today
Twitter has been super slow today, though not a full outage. My tweets and trying to follow people are taking forever. Lots of users are complaining as well.
Why oh why did I join twitter - it’s absolutely killing my productivity… Oh yeah, that’s why.
Feel free to check out my Twitter profile and follow me. http://twitter.com/tomkeating - just not today. If you click ‘Follow’ you’ll wait and wait and sometimes even summon the fail whale.
Tags: fail whale, outage, slow, tweets, twitter
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Dotcom-Monitor announces new SIP Monitoring tool
Today, Dotcom-Monitor announced a new SIP monitoring tool to add to its portfolio of external monitoring services. It’s similar to other web-based Monitoring-as-a-Service (MaaS) services which monitor the uptime of web servers and notify when a problem occurs. In this case, Dotcom-Monitor’s SIP Monitoring service monitors on-premise or hosted IP-PBXs.
How’s it work? Dotcom-Monitor’s SIP monitoring service makes live intermittent SIP-based calls to VoIP devices, providing real-time monitoring, alerts, and performance reports regarding SIP component connectivity. When a problem is detected, the SIP monitoring notification feature sends an alert via phone, pager, email, or SMS. Basically ,it acts as a SIP end client, placing an actual telephone call to a specified number, and checking the results of that call. The expected result of the call is setup as “Answer”, “No Answer”, “Busy”, or an Error Condition (if there is an unexpected result).
According to their representative, “real-time connectivity status reports are provided via an intuitive online Dashboard interface offering sufficient detail to help pinpoint where the error condition is occurring. This reporting functionality also includes detailed historical reports and charts for managing VoIP systems and components, including Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance issues.”
I’m going to talk to then next week to find out more. For now, check out the news release…
Dotcom-Monitor Enhances Unified Suite of Monitoring Services with SIP Monitoring for VoIP Systems
Easy-to-Use, Cost-Effective External Service Monitors and Analyzes SIP Systems or Infrastructure for Uptime and Performance
Minneapolis, Minn. − March 18, 2009 − Dotcom-Monitor, (www.Dotcom-Monitor.com), a leading provider of externally-hosted network monitoring services, today announced the addition of a cost-saving SIP monitoring service to the company’s unified suite of monitoring capabilities. Today’s announcement adds another critical tool to Dotcom-Monitor’s portfolio of external monitoring services, which includes uptime and performance monitoring of websites, web applications, and Internet network infrastructure.
Dotcom-Monitor’s new SIP monitoring service makes live periodic SIP-based calls to VoIP devices, providing real-time monitoring, alerts, and performance reports regarding SIP component connectivity. When a problem is detected, the SIP monitoring notification feature sends an alert via phone, pager, email, or SMS. Additionally, real-time connectivity status reports are provided via an intuitive online Dashboard interface offering sufficient detail to help pinpoint where the error condition is occurring. This reporting functionality also includes detailed historical reports and charts for managing VoIP systems and components, including Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance issues.
“Due to SLA requirements and hybrid VoIP traffic routes, it is important for VoIP monitoring to proactively mimic the end-user’s perspective from external locations, rather than only relying on passive internal network analysis systems,” said Vadim Mazo, founder and chief technical officer of Dotcom-Monitor. “Many organizations’ VoIP monitoring and uptime needs are best addressed by a simple, cost-effective external system, rather than a large, expensive in-house system. Dotcom-Monitor’s SIP monitoring service provides customers a unique, easy-to-use, targeted solution for quickly identifying and pinpointing VoIP connectivity error conditions,” noted Mazo.
The new SIP monitoring service can be configured and managed with little or no IT expertise, which is ideal for the growing number of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) with on-premise or hosted IP-PBXs. Its proactive monitoring ensures connectivity errors can be addressed before the errors become downtime problems for customers. Dotcom-Monitor’s SIP monitoring service ensures SMBs can rely on their VoIP systems, Service Providers can monitor their VoIP infrastructure, VoIP Wholesalers can monitor Service Provider connectivity and reliability, and VoIP VARs and managed service providers can count on client uptime and revenue.
“As the VoIP ecosystem continues to grow in scope and complexity the need for simple and affordable SIP monitoring has never been greater,” said Jonathan Fuld, CTO of SIP Print, the only provider of pure, affordable SIP call recording systems for SMBs. “In fact, SMBS and any cost-conscious organization that is dependent on SIP-based communications could benefit by investigating an externally hosted SIP monitoring provider like Dotcom-Monitor.”
Dotcom-Monitor’s SIP Monitoring is available immediately by visiting: www.dotcom-monitor.com
Tags: Dotcom-Monitor, phone, SIP Monitoring, sla, sms, voip
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Global Warming has been canceled!
Hold the phone! Global warming has been canceled! A new study by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee could cause President Obama to re-think Cap and Trade legislation that aims to reduce carbon emissions through a new “carbon” tax.
The article about the global warming study states:
The climate is known to be variable and, in recent years, more scientific thought and research has been focused on the global temperature and how humanity might be influencing it.However, a new study by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee could turn the climate change world upside down.
Scientists at the university used a math application known as synchronized chaos and applied it to climate data taken over the past 100 years…
“In climate, when this happens, the climate state changes. You go from a cooling regime to a warming regime or a warming regime to a cooling regime. This way we were able to explain all the fluctuations in the global temperature trend in the past century,” Tsonis said. “The research team has found the warming trend of the past 30 years has stopped and in fact global temperatures have leveled off since 2001.”
Synchronized chaos? Now that’s some funky science. Sounds like something from Star Trek if you ask me. Scientists are going to examine the study to see if there is indeed some validity. If proven accurate, then maybe all that talk about humans causing Global Warming is wrong? We can all agree that Global Warming exists, as does Global Cooling. The question is whether it’s a natural cycle or if human activity is having an adverse effect on the climate.
As for me, I’m all for less carbon pollution, including less carbon dioxide, a by-product of human breathing. Not sure I agree that a cap and trade tax is the way to do it though. Seems like just another government scam to come up with a new tax. The U.S. electric companies, which burn coal to produce 57% of U.S.’s electricity, will be hammered hard with this tax. But guess who pays for it? You the consumer. The cap and trade “sin” tax might work if it forced the electric companies to build “clean” power from nuclear power, but the U.S. hasn’t built a nuclear plant since Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar 1 reactor was built in 1973. The NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) mentality and political wrangling has forestalled any nuclear power plants being built. So we stuck between a rock (cap and trade) and a hard place (no new nuclear plans) for America’s future electricity needs. With more people using electricity-guzzling large screen TVs, multiple home PCs/laptops, gadgets, and mobile phones, America’s insatiable demand for electricity is only going to get worse.
So for me, this cap and trade is just a smokescreen for the government to raise billions of dollars. Also, when I start to get taxed for breathing carbon dioxide, then by golly, you will see revolts and protests that will make the Boston Tea Party look like a slumber party. Ok, no political party would be that dumb to “tax” breathing - certainly not if that value their political future. Still, the cap and trade legislation may not target human breathing, but once precedent is set for taxing carbon dioxide, we’re one step closer to that end. Just imagine a future 1040 IRS tax form where you have to fill out the number of TVs, PCs, mobile phones, DVD players, gaming consoles so they can calculate your “carbon footprint”? Even George Orwell himself couldn’t have imagined such a government intrusion.
Tags: cap and trade, carbon footprint, coal, electricity, global warming, nuclear power, president obama, synchronized chaos
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“Holy Two-Face, Batman!” : Real Batman denied a Facebook account!
“Holy Two-Face, Batman!” The real Batman was denied a Facebook account!
Batman’s got more friends than Superman and Aqua Man combined. How could Facebook Founder & CEO Mark Zuckerberg do this?
Do you really want to mess with the Batman? Do you really want to mess with this… Do ya?
Ok, so it’s not “the” Batman I’m thinking of. It’s even better - it’s a female Batman!
Tags: batman, facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, two-face
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SmartSIP Launches for OCS 2007 R2 Enabling Any SIP Phone & Any SIP Trunking Service Provider
OCS 2007 R2 won’t replace your PBX just yet. However, their latest R2 version adds the ability to do direct SIP trunking, thus bypassing the need for an IP-PBX.
One drawback however is that Microsoft only supports direct SIP trunking with two providers, namely Global Crossing and Sprint. Well that’s pretty lame, considering their are dozens of decent SIP trunking service providers and probably hundreds across the entire world.
Fortunately, Mike Stacy an OCS 2007 guru, over at Evangelyze Communications has some products that enhance OCS 2007 R2 functionality. One such product is SmartSIP which launches tomorrow. According to Mike, the first dot release due next month will add the capability to use standard SIP phones with OCS. Currently, you have limited options namely Tanjay or Snom phones, but with SmartSIP you can use a Polycom IP phone, an Aastra IP phone, or dare I say, a Cisco IP phone connected to OCS 2007 R2. With the Cisco SIP firmware load of course.
Tags: aastra, cisco, Evangelyze Communications, ip phone, microsoft, Microsoft OCS 2007 R3, mike stacy, ocs 2007 r2, polycom, service provider, sip, SIP trunking, smartsip, unified communications, voip
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John Chambers Blogs about Broadband Stimulus on GigaOM
Om Malik sent a note saying Cisco CEO John Chambers posted a guest blog entry so I went to check it out.
John begins:
Now that President Obama has signed the $787 billion economic stimulus package into law, the real hard work begins: using that money to create jobs. If spent wisely, this package has a chance at fundamentally reforming the U.S. health-care system, making our economy energy efficient and providing Americans with the training and skills required to succeed in a 21st century global marketplace.But the country can’t accomplish these goals unless it has the infrastructure to support them. That’s why the funding for broadband was so vital. Broadband is the ticket for entry to participate in the world economy. It is a fundamental technology upon which other things are built. It enables collaboration, innovation and operational excellence, and positions the U.S. to compete on a global basis.
Well, you probably already know my thoughts on Obama’s broadband stimulus. I hate it! It’s not that I wouldn’t like 100% of Americans to all have high-speed broadband. I just don’t think broadband is that vital that we need to spend billions of tax payer dollars when we are a fiscal crisis, the stock market is imploding, and the deficit is shooting through the roof. The “pie in the sky” idea that the government can just magically produce more money (and spend it) to do just about anything is partly what got us into this economic mess. What happened to fiscal responsibility? What happened to only spending what you have? Why are we mortgaging our children’s future by throwing money around?
I support an economic stimulus to help spark the economy, but spending billions on broadband today when we won’t actually reap the rewards for years… it just seems to me like the money could be better spent elsewhere for a more immediate economic impact. Believe me, I love my broadband and feel sorry for those that can’t get it, but those billions of dollars could be better spent to help the economy in the near future.
And don’t forget to factor in ‘compound interest’ and government waste. The government has never been good at investing money wisely, because it isn’t their money. It’s your money. It’s so much easier to spend other people’s money foolishly. So if it’s a $40 billion broadband package, then expect it to cost the tax payer more like $120 billion.
I can see why John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco supports the broadband stimulus. It gives Cisco a HUGE windfall of revenue to help build out this high-speed broadband network. Cisco is obviously a huge benficiary of this broadband stimulus.
John ends his guest blog post with this:
As our policymakers work on maintaining U.S. competitiveness, they should keep in mind that broadband is the vehicle by which our citizens can be more productive, health care can be modernized, our economy can become more efficient and innovation can flourish. To continue our nation’s growth, add jobs and drive innovation, we must invest in broadband.
I agree investments must be made in broadband. My beef is with who the “we” is. Is it the “we” tax payer or is it “we” the employees at Verizon, AT&T, Level3, and other ISPs that should ‘invest’ in building broadband networks. The web has only existing for about 14 years and in that time, U.S. companies themselves have brought high-speed broadband to 80-90% of Americans without a government (aka tax payer) handout.
We Americans complain about the banks needing billions of dollars in government bailout money to stay afloat, yet we’re willing to hand over billions to corporations to “help” them build high-speed broadband without complaint? It doesn’t make any sense. I guess because we all love our broadband so much and we want to “share the broadband love”, we’re willing to look the other way when the government gives OUR money to broadband providers.
If we had a budget surplus, I’d me more apt to say go ahead and give the ISPs money to build out their networks. But to me with all this spending on programs that won’t stimulate the economy today, President Obama is being penny-wise, pound-foolish. Make that penny-foolish, pound foolish.
Tags: broadband, cisco, economic stimulus, gigaom, john chambers, om malik, president obama
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HandoutBailout to Internet Providers”>President-Elect Barack Obama’s $40 billionHandoutBailout to Internet Providers - Jan 15, 2009![1934[1].jpg](http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/assets_c/2008/11/1934[1]-thumb-75xauto-3976.jpg)
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YouTube Kills Fair Use, Mutes Audio
Apparently YouTube has decided to ignore the whole “fair use” thing. You know, the law whereby you are allowed limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review. Fair use also allows for copyrighted materials to be used in spoofs, parodies, etc.
Many YouTube users create an original video using their favorite song as the audio in the background. They won’t be able to do that any more, since YouTube has started muting any videos that use unauthorized copyrighted music. You will see a message at the bottom of the video that says “Notice This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by all copyright holders. The audio has been disabled. More about copyright”
You can see examples here, here and here.
Now does background music mixed into a video constitute “fair use” or copyright infringement? That’s a good question. Certainly, someone could strip the audio from the YouTube video and then upload to their MP3 player. Why they would do that is beyond me since the audio bitrate on YouTube isn’t that great and often times the music is overlaid on top of people’s voices speaking on the video.
But how far does this go? What if I capture a home video with my CD player playing music in the background with my 2.5 year old daughter dancing to it? Will YouTube “silence” the audio leaving my daughter dancing in eerie silence?
I think copyright holders need to get a grip in the digital age. Besides, people don’t go to YouTube to listen to music for free. They go for the fun & entertaining videos. By removing the YouTube user’s artistic license and replacing it with silence I feel as though my 1st Amendment right to “freedom of speech” has been silenced. Where’s the ACLU when you need them?
via Mashable
Tags: audio, copyright, copyright infringement, fair use, mashable, mute, videos, youtube
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CNET - Where’s the ♥ love?
I love CNET, it’s one of my favorite technology, electronics, and gadgets sites. But I’m just not feeling the love. You see, I wrote a quick review of the just launched GizmoCall Flash-based VoIP service this morning. A few hours later, see in my RSS alerts another article on GizmoCall. Naturally, I want to see other people’s opinions on it, so I click through and see that it’s a CNET article. (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10124311-94.html)
The CNET article had very similar sentiments to my own and performed the same test I did by dialing a free 800 number. I thought to myself what a waste of a click, it’s basically the same thoughts I had and did the same test I did. How boring. I was about to close the window when I noticed my username (tkeatingtmc) on the CNET screenshot within the CNET article! WT-??
That’s just fantastic, CNET! There goes my privacy. You just gave away my GizmoCall username. 
And what, no link love? You ‘borrow’ my image with my username in it and you don’t link to the source? Bad form, CNET. Bad form!
Also, you would have had to have read the article in order to see the image. So why not say “Tom Keating also checked out GizmoCall. Here are his thoughts.”
Here’s a snapshot in case it is deleted:
Tags: CNET, flash, GizmoCall, image theft, voip
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The Pirate Bay Offline for Christmas?
Interesting message on The Pirate Bay today. At first I thought maybe the FBI, Interpol, or some other law enforcement entity took them offline. Or perhaps the plethora of Christmas downloaders had knocked them offline. Though, I’m not sure giving a gift of pirated music or movies burned to a CD/DVD is exactly the type of Christmas spirit that Jesus would approve of. See Commandment “Thou shall not steal.”
I was getting an authentication window popup asking for username and password. The initial message said something about “Forbidden Planet”. Now I see this message below that says “A username and password are being requested by http://thepiratebay.org. The site says: “Dont Panic! TPB will be back shortly. Dont enter”:
Interestingly, this message only appears on one of my ISPs but not another. Much be some .htaccess rule they’re playing with that blocks some IP addresses but not others.
As to why I was visiting a known pirate/warez site, well, I actually like their Top 100 lists for DVDs. It gives me ideas for what popular DVDs I should buy my family for Christmas. Call me a prude, but I don’t download movies illegally. Least not any more… 
Tags: authentication, christmas, offline, The Pirate Bay, TPB
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Copy Paste Comes to the iPhone
Pastebud is a cool new service launching tomorrow that leverages javascript, web services, and bookmarks in mobile Safari to finally bring copy and paste to the iPhone and iPod touch. Thank the heavens! It’s about time. What was Steve Jobs thinking when he didn’t put copy/paste into the iPhone? Why Steve Jobs crippled the Jesus phone is beyond me. Further, I believe some third party copy/paste apps were banned in the Apple App Store. Well rejoice iPhone users, your savior just may have arrived.
Gizmodo has a video showing it in action. It allows you to to select text from a webpage (including hyperlinks on the web page) and paste it either into mobile Safari or into an email in the iPhone’s Mail application. I didn’t see in the video if this service allowed you to copy the URL you are currently on. I don’t think it does allow that, in which case it’s a little bit limiting
There have been some third party applications that offered some sort of copy and paste for the iPhone, Pastebud will be the first to provide the functionality without having to install any software on the iPhone.
Don’t expect something for nothing though. With copy/paste in such high demand on the iPhone, it appears Pastbud will display popup ads. In the Gizmodo video a popup says, “Thank you for trying pastebud! Upgrade now to make it even more convenient, for just $5.”
I should also add that security / privacy is a concern. You’re sending what you copy/paste to Pastebud’s servers. I guess you best not be copy/pasting any confidential info.
Tags: App Store, Apple, copy and paste, copy paste, gizmodo, iPhone, iPod touch
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WordPress 2.7 released
WordPress 2.7 “Coltrane” was just released featuring some pretty cool upgrades in features. First, it sports a drag-and-drop interface for redesigning the layout of your WordPress blog/website. Second, it automatically updates core WordPress files and your plugins (if you so choose). Heck, you can even have it set to download beta nightlies.
According to WordPress “Matt”:
“this may be the last time you ever have to manually upgrade WordPress again. We heard how tired you were of doing upgrades for yourself and your friends, so now WordPress includes a built-in upgrade that will automatically notify you of new releases, and when you’re ready it will download them, install them, and upgrade your blog with a single click.”
The new dashboard lets you arrange items with drag and drop to put the most important ones on top. Also features QuickPress, comment threading, paging, and the ability to reply to comments from your dashboard (better GUI in 2.7), and the ability to install any plugin directly from WordPress.org with a single click. You can even mark a ’sticky’ post to give it prominent position.
Here’s a screenshot of the Dashboard:
Check out the video demo of WordPress 2.7 “Coltrane”:
Download WordPress 2.7 now or check out the full new features list here
Full Disclosure: This site runs on Movable Type (MT). I’ve been running on MT since v3.2, before WordPress even existed. Just haven’t seen the need to switch now after countless hours of customization, plugins installed, etc. They’re both good blogging / CMS platforms. Congrats to the WordPress team for a nice release. I may just finally have to play with Wordpress just for the fun of it.
Tags: blog, blogging, CMS, Coltrane, update, upgrade, WordPress 2.7
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