July 2012

3 Disappointments from the Google Fiber launch

[Commentary] After the high of launching yesterday, there are three elements of the Google Fiber announcement that aren’t so awesome. Outside of the compelling pricing, the free service at low-end speeds and the blazing fast speeds, there are a few things that are letdowns of a sort.

Google doesn’t want to share: The network will not be open for other Internet Service Providers.
It’s closed in another sense: Google has changed the economics of deploying a network by building its own gear, employing social engineering to deploy its fiber to the homes most efficiently and even rethinking the build and deployment of consumer devices such as set-top boxes. But it’s not being open about how it did this and what that really will mean for lowering network costs.
It gives Google a lot of control and information: Having Google as your ISP could open users up to privacy worries all over again, although for now Google is focused on providing a connection to its other paid or ad-supported products. So for now, Google’s gigabit service just wants to get you to its advertisements faster but it doesn’t want to know where you go.

Google says book scanning didn’t cost authors a single sale

The long-running lawsuit over Google’s decision to scan millions of books could be nearing the end game. Google’s latest filing, in a case poised to redefine copyright law, claims that its creation of full-text book searching is “the most significant advance in library search technology in the last five decades” and that the Authors Guild has shown “no evidence that Google Books has displaced the sale of even a single book.”

Google cites a number of pop culture examples to argue that a searchable digital library is a benefit to the public. Google also cites evidence suggesting that online book discovery helps authors sell more copies. It quotes a memo from literary agency William Morris that says “inclusion in Google Books is a fair use and not detrimental to the copyright owner in any way” and points to the Authors Guild’s own suggestion that writers make a chapter of their book freely available on the internet.

Who Really, Really Invented the Internet?

In a recent interview published by CNET, Vint Cerf, one of the creators of the TCP/IP protocol, responded to L. Gordon Crovitz recent editorial for The Wall Street Journal, rejecting most his ideas, which he characterized as a “revisionist interpretation.” The Internet did start with the ARPANET project and the federal government directly funded the creation of the Internet we know today, Cerf wrote. And Xerox deserves credit for great work, Cerf wrote, including creation of the Ethernet protocol, the ALTO personal computer, the Xerox Network System and PARC Universal Packet. “XEROX did link homogenous Ethernets together but the internetworking method did not scale particularly well,” Cerf wrote. Ultimately, it was the work of researchers around the world from dozens of organizations that created the Internet. “After our initial paper was published, detailed design was conducted at Stanford during 1974 and implementation started in 1975 at Stanford, BBN and University College London. After that, a number of other institutions, notably MIT, SRI, ISI, UCLA, NDRE, engaged heavily in the work,” Cerf wrote. As for Crovitz’s declaration that the TCP/IP protocol languished for decades in the hands of government, only to be set free by private enterprise, Cerf responded, “I would happily fertilize my tomatoes with Crovitz's assertion.”

Wireless Tiered Plans Affecting Customer Satisfaction

More and more wireless customers are moving (or being moved) to tiered service plans that regulate data and Internet access, and it’s having an effect on their perceptions of customer service from their carriers. According to a new study from J.D. Power and Associates, customers who have the tiered service plans are considerably less satisfied with their carrier’s customer service than those with unlimited data plans. Overall satisfaction among full-service (as opposed to pre-paid) customers who have tiered plans was 748 (on a 1,000-point scale), while those who had unlimited data plans had average index scores of 775.

The Dot-Gov Footprint is Inching Down

A governmentwide effort to slash the federal Web presence is clearly still on despite some indications it might be delayed by other elements of the government digital strategy launched in May. There are 1,122 top-level federal Web domains that are still active and not redirecting to other sites, according to a running tally maintained by the General Services Administration. That’s down from the mid-1,200s when the digital strategy was launched in May. Updated dot-gov consolidation guidance is due from GSA in November. Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel has said officials won’t let up on the plan to make the federal Web presence more compact and navigable.

Amendments are critical hurdles in cyber debate

The fate of the Senate's cybersecurity reform measure now hinges on amendments — and bill sponsors, the White House and top Republicans have all drawn their lines in the sand.

The challenge for the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 after a key procedural vote is whether a growing number of amendments can resolve enough differences to attract GOP support in the Senate — and, ultimately, the House, too — while not completely removing the teeth that Democrats and the Obama Administration think is essential to protect the nation from cyber threats. Some Republicans are angling for a broad set of revisions to the critical infrastructure and information sharing bill, and a bloc of GOP members plans to pitch its own cybersecurity measure — the SECURE IT Act — as an amendment during the forthcoming floor debate. That rival bill leaves out any mention of cybersecurity protections for critical infrastructure, a change to the legislation that the White House indicated Thursday it would not support. Other amendments lawmakers are promising could add new provisions to the bill meant to improve energy-grid security or require tech companies to disclose when they have been breached by hackers. There are also members angling to amplify the privacy safeguards in the measure, or revise its section on liability protection.

US Internet Adoption and Efforts to Boost IT

[Commentary] Although we may take for granted these days that “everyone uses the Internet,” recent headlines demonstrate that Internet and broadband adoption are not yet universal and much work still needs to be done if the U.S. is going to realize the full benefit of these powerful tools. Without broadband, people and businesses are cut off from the $8 trillion global Internet economy, limiting opportunities for jobs and economic prosperity. Although the data pertains to respondents' access as of October 2010, the findings would still appear to support the relatively urgent efforts of several federal agencies — particularly the Federal Communications Commission — to narrow the gap in Internet adoption through initiatives stemming from the National Broadband Plan.

Chicago Tribune staff demands answers from editor over Journatic

The editorial staff of the Chicago Tribune has written to its editor, Gerould Kern, demanding answers about the company’s continued relationship with under-fire content provider Journatic.

90 Tribune journalists — including Pulitzer prize-winning columnists Mary Schmich and Blair Kamin and several Metro desk editors — have written to Kern, citing “deep frustration and concern in the newsroom over the Tribune’s continued relationship with Journatic, one that threatens to jeopardize our credibility.” The letter refers to other incidents of plagiarism and false bylines at other Journatic clients, including the Houston Chronicle, and says “repeated incidents of false bylines and false datelines, along with plagiarism, have been exposed at several Journatic clients.” The journalists write that they know Kern shares their concerns about the credibility of the Tribune. But they say they want answers from Tribune management about what the Tribune’s relationship with Journatic will be in the future. Specifically, they are demanding to know how much the Tribune invested in Journatic; what percentage of Journatic it owns; how the company was vetted; who decided not to immediately sever ties with Journatic; how content provided by Journatic will be labeled for readers if it is brought back; and how the Tribune’s credibility as a watchdog can be maintained if the Tribune doesn’t demand the same high standards from its business partners.

The Future of Higher Education

A majority of technology stakeholders polled in a Web-based survey anticipate that higher education in 2020 will be quite different from the way it is today. They said university-level education will adopt new methods of teaching and certification driven by opportunity, economic concerns and student and parent demands.

In the Pew Internet/Elon University survey, 1,021 Internet experts, researchers, observers and users, 60% agreed with a statement that by 2020 “there will be mass adoption of teleconferencing and distance learning to leverage expert resources…a transition to ‘hybrid’ classes that combine online learning components with less-frequent on-campus, in-person class meetings.” Some 39% agreed with an opposing statement that said, “in 2020 higher education will not be much different from the way it is today.” Among the majority expecting much more dependence upon online components in higher education in the future, many bemoaned it. “They are worried over the adoption of technology-mediated approaches that they fear will lack the personal, face-to-face touch they feel is necessary for effective education,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet Project. “Most noted that economic forces will compel the changes. Yet, a share of this group was excited about the possibility for universities to leverage new online capabilities and peer-to-peer collaborations that they believe would enhance knowledge creation and sharing.”

What’s Good for Verizon and AT&T Is Terrible for American Consumers

[Commentary] This summer, the very big wireless carriers in America, Verizon (106 million subscribers) and AT&T (99 million), are poised to get even bigger. As they move towards squashing cheap data substitutes for expensive voice minutes, consider charging application providers to reach subscribers, layer on fees for additional devices, and collect overage charges for data usage, they will bulk up on customers and revenue. This is good for them, but not good for the rest of us.

You can bet that AT&T will be making it very difficult for other connectivity services (modern-day versions of voice and text) to reach subscribers without paying tribute to AT&T. Indeed, AT&T’s inadvertently-announced “1-800″ toll-free applications idea is exactly this: Applications that pay AT&T will not be subject to users’ data caps and will “feel” free. But applications that try to run over the top will trigger usage caps and may be digitally roughed up in other ways. We should be talking about fiber networks that enable rich clouds of nomadic connectivity and commodity devices that can access those networks and any content or application they want. Wireless policy is fiber policy, and abundant network capacity should be our common goal. Instead, we’re navigating through a thicket of press releases this summer that all signal the carriers’ power to charge whatever they like for uses of their platform by everyone involved. The bottom line could not be clearer: AT&T and Verizon plan to get even bigger in 2012, and users will pay in the long run.

Benton

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