Well I guess we are at the point where we are going to see many of the early pioneers of IT pass away now. I am nearly 60 and most of first rung CS leaders predate me by at least another 20 years. So it is time.
Yesterday we lost John McCarthy at 84. The unparalleled voice of Artificial Intelligence and the co-developer of the LISP programming language. He was known as a cankerous sort but an acknowledged leader in several fields. McCarthy unknown to many was also significant in developing core systems used by a firm called BBN. Lest you know, BBN was the hand maiden to the Internet, being the firm that DARPA turned to for turning a paper idea into a physical net reality.
Wired has more here.
A huge loss.
… in the tablet market. I read with some interest the idea that my compatriot posted below. The topic of course the idea that NYT or CST develop their own tablets. —
For the love of God, please stop trying to make your own tablets.
The Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, the Los Angeles Times and several other newspapers and television stations, is reportedly the latest media giant to be seduced by the sweet siren harmonies of multitouch gestures and brushed aluminum. “More than half a dozen current and former Tribune employees” confessed to CNN that the Tribune’s CEO is smitten with the idea of a tablet of his very own, first requesting “anonymity for fear of losing their jobs or of souring relations with a former employer.”
According to these accounts, the Tribune would like to partner with Samsung to produce a modified Android tablet, even though Samsung already makes a popular and quite capable Android tablet, and the Tribune Co. to date has no tablet-optimized Android apps for its newspapers. (Is any part of this making sense yet?)
The author of the piece goes on to recount tech companies better than NYT that flat out failed in the market place. So like the author, I agree that I do not hold much hope for a newsie to get it right. Considering that NYT’s paid for website is not doing all that well I don’t consider they have the track record to pull it off. However —
There is a route that a news publisher could go and still have their tablet narviana. The core of this idea is you don’t build one, you subsume one. It would go something like this:
Do that and you will have an fair chance of make a transition technically. However I should caution that all the tech in the world will not make up for trash content. Too many papers today are a walled garden of mental trash. Seriously, when the primary reason that many people buy a paper is to read the `Page Six` gossip content? Well then you have become nothing more than a move up from The Inquirer.
Good night and Good luck.
This week, the US government responded to a Spanish Internet company’s petition to have its seized domain name returned. Earlier this year, customs officials seized the domains rojadirecta.com and rojadirecta.org under suspicion of copyright infringement. The domains’ owner, Puerto 80, has argued that, by seizing the domain names and preventing their use, the government has not just taken down a legitimate site, but also is suppressing speech—not just the speech of the site’s operators, but of the users on the discussion boards hosted at the site. (Public Knowledge joined a brief with the EFF and CDT supporting the release.) The government requests the court not to release the domain names, claiming that Rojadirecta will only use the domain to commit crimes.
As the article points out, the retention by the government of ill gotten goods that might be used to further additional crime has merit. However we are talking the vehicle of free speech. The govt has yet to make its case yet it wishes to squelch the speech of another by retaining seizure. Really quite extraordinary.
Read the whole thing.
This blog has been up nearly 4 years. In that time we have been beating the drum that its the governemnt – telecom axis that has delayed US deployment of faster, better, cheaper services. Don’t take our word for it –
Internet
Why is European broadband faster and cheaper? Blame the governmentIf you’ve stayed with friends who live in European cities, you’ve probably had an experience like this: You hop onto their WiFi or wired internet connection and realize it’s really fast. Way faster than the one that you have at home. It might even make your own DSL or cable connection feel as sluggish as dialup.
You ask them how much they pay for broadband.
“Oh, forty Euros.” That’s about $56.
“A week?” you ask.
“No,” they might say. “Per month. And that includes phone and TV.”
It’s really that bad. The nation that invented the internet ranks 16th in the world when it comes to the speed and cost of our broadband connections. That’s according to a study released last year by Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society on behalf of the Federal Communications Commission.
It’s not surprising that we lag behind such hacker havens as Sweden (number one worldwide, according to the study) and Finland (number seven), nor densely-populated Asian nations like Japan and South Korea (numbers three and four). But the U.S. also trails countries that are poor by European standards: Portugal is just ahead of us in 15th place; Italy is number 14. (The full rankings are on page 81 of the study.)
We’re barely behind of Portugal folks and by next survey we will have sunk even further. Count on that. We as a nation are sinking in the morass of a cabal that likes it the way it is. Its, the 4th of July, Ben Franklin would be pissed if he saw our current state of affairs.
A new report from Cisco predicts web traffic will explode over the next four years. Since it”s the 800 pound gorilla in the infrastructure business, Cisco does have a vested interest in a blockbuster forecast. While it has been prone to err on the high side in the past, I think this particular forecast could be very close to reality.
Cisco has released its fifth annual Visual Network Index Forecast, predicting a rapid growth in Internet traffic and connected devices in the coming years. By 2015, the company believes global Web traffic will quadruple, reaching 966 exabytes per year. Cisco estimates that global Internet traffic between 2014 and 2015 will increase by 200 exabytes, which is said to be greater than the total amount of traffic generated in 2010. Mobile broadband will increase 26 times to 75 exabytes a year. (Techspot)
Media will account for the lion’s share of that growth, with file sharing shrinking. Pols will probably tell us their draconian copyright laws are working. Reality is that illicit file sharing has been dropping as the availability of on demand media has grown.
The telcos and cable guys could significantly slow the growth. Consumers now account for the vast majority of internet traffic and their disposable income is currently in free fall. Low usage caps and high overage charges could relieve access providers from the need to invest in new infrastructure while growing revenues. Unfortunately, if the duopoly succeeds in slowing traffic growth, it will also be choking growth in the larger economy.
Literally. ABC has decided to end two of the longest running shows on television — All My Children and One Life to Live. Yes I know, their soaps, not real shows. If you have ever watched the series Mad Men you understand the nirvana it is for an advertising exec to have a multi-decade relationship with a company. Well Hoover and a firms like P&G and Palmolive are examples. Well Hoover has launched a multipronged attack against ABC –
Unhappy with ABC’s plans to cancel One Life to Live and All My Children in favor of lifestyle programming, longtime advertiser Hoover is sucking all its ad dollars away from the network.
Announcing the decision on its Facebook page, Hoover’s vice president of marketing writes:
To all the loyal ABC soap fans,
I want you to know from me personally that we hear you loud and clear. My wife and mother are both passionate viewers of All My Children and One Life to Live, as are many of my colleagues here at Hoover. We were and are as disappointed with this news as you are.
In fact, we will discontinue our advertising with ABC this Friday, 4/22. We’re making every attempt to pull our spots from these programs sooner.
Now lets consider, soaps are a chunk of American life past and present. That some lay scorn just denies the fact that this art form still has millions of followers around the country. A relative by marriage was hooked on them. Heck even my dad was addicted after being laid up in the hospital for a month.
The Hoover action is just a reflection of what is going on in channel based broadcasting. The art form is not dying but it competes with the likes of Ophrah which many consider more hip. Tho in a sense that too is a soap opera. It just uses real live people instead of actors.
But I think the advertisers like Hoover are missing the boat here. Why not form a LLC with the likes of Lever Brothers, Procter&Gamble, etc. Buy up the shows and the production companies from the those networks willing to sell. Then turn right back around and offer those shows on Hulu and as network syndication with their targeted ads. Guaranteed audience shift and a near exclusive for those in the ‘club’.
Opportunity sometimes masquerades as adversity.
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