Nice sometimes to read what you think, said in a much better way by somebody else, in this case Jim Kunstler.
Nevertheless, I have something to add on this passage:
" The tragic part of all this is that we (Americans) have become such a foolish and craven people, so lost in our endless victory laps, incessant self-awards, and failures of attention, that we will deserve everything that reality throws at us. We are past the point of being unworthy of our own history, so maybe we ought to stop pretending to celebrate it. "
This, as he says, "new religion" is common to the Europeans too, as well as the false assumption that we deserve the lifestyle we have, not aknowledging the fact that we, 2% of the world's population, consume 80% of the resources.
But when he talks about hystory, and I can say this, because I am European and the Americans of today are the Europeans of yesterday, let's drop a pious curtain on it.
The Americans cannot be unworthy of their hystory, if we consider hystory the complete massacre of the people who lived in America BEFORE the Americans of today (the Europeans of yesterday).
They cannot be unworthy of a country which was built on the blood of peaceful people. They cannot be unworthy, because they should be ashamed...
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Friday, December 16, 2005
Le mille illusioni di chi non vuole crescere.
C'e' solo una condizione in cui noi Italiani potremmo risolvere i nostri problemi ed e' fare uno sforzo enorme per cambiare il nostro modo di pensare e il nostro modo di agire.
Se riuscissimo a liberarci da un'economia basata sullo spreco, fare investimenti nei trasporti pubblici e nelle ferrovie in modo particolare, praticare una finanza austera ad ogni livello, compresa la fine al ricorso del facile indebitamento, allora potremmo fantasticare su un possibile cambiamento.
L'irresponsabilita' e' nient'altro che la nostra protensione alla vigliaccheria.
Essere un leader a volte significa anche illuminare la pubblica opinione su aspetti inesplorati.
Un giorno scopriremo che la "corsa al mattone" e' diventata la nostra economia e che la nostra illusione circa la "produttivita'" e il "consumismo" non risollevera' piu' il nostro comportamento malato.
La carenza stessa di nuovi indebitamenti da sola gettera' nel caos la finanza, e l'esperienza sara' grave soprattutto per quelli che hanno investito nei buchi neri dei derivati del commercio.
Invece di preparare i cittadini per un mondo che da tempo e' cambiato e che richiedera' nuovi modelli di vita, i nostri leader continuano a propinarci l'ottimistica visione di un mondo in cui tutto non solo continuera' come e' sempre stato, ma anzi, migliorera'.
La domanda e' questa:
Lo fanno per cinismo o per stupidita' o per altri motivi?
Un po per tutti e tre i motivi, ma soprattutto perche' sarebbe altamente improduttivo presentare una realta' diversa da quella che tutti sognano.
Noi ci aspettiamo una certa vita perche' in definitiva VOGLIAMO una certa vita.
E questo e' tipico di un comportamento infantile.
Questo infatti e' esattamente il comportamento dei bambini al di sotto dell'eta' della ragione, dovuto al loro egocentrismo.
La forza della pubblicita' e degli altri mezzi psicologici usati per un completo lavaggio del cervello esercitato sul consumatore medio, producono proprio questo risultato.
Impediscono il passaggio da un livello infantile di ragionamento ad un livello critico tipico dell'eta' adulta.
E questo e' ben visibile e manifesto se si considera il comportamento e i passatempi dell'italiano medio, se si analizzano i suoi acquisti e le sue aspirazioni.
Se si analizzano le mille illusioni di chi non vuole crescere, perche' la realta' della vita adulta e' ben diversa dal mondo dei balocchi di chi vuole restare un eterno bambino, allora si ha la rappresentazione reale di un paese che e' destinato ad un risveglio molto, molto spiacevole.
Se riuscissimo a liberarci da un'economia basata sullo spreco, fare investimenti nei trasporti pubblici e nelle ferrovie in modo particolare, praticare una finanza austera ad ogni livello, compresa la fine al ricorso del facile indebitamento, allora potremmo fantasticare su un possibile cambiamento.
L'irresponsabilita' e' nient'altro che la nostra protensione alla vigliaccheria.
Essere un leader a volte significa anche illuminare la pubblica opinione su aspetti inesplorati.
Un giorno scopriremo che la "corsa al mattone" e' diventata la nostra economia e che la nostra illusione circa la "produttivita'" e il "consumismo" non risollevera' piu' il nostro comportamento malato.
La carenza stessa di nuovi indebitamenti da sola gettera' nel caos la finanza, e l'esperienza sara' grave soprattutto per quelli che hanno investito nei buchi neri dei derivati del commercio.
Invece di preparare i cittadini per un mondo che da tempo e' cambiato e che richiedera' nuovi modelli di vita, i nostri leader continuano a propinarci l'ottimistica visione di un mondo in cui tutto non solo continuera' come e' sempre stato, ma anzi, migliorera'.
La domanda e' questa:
Lo fanno per cinismo o per stupidita' o per altri motivi?
Un po per tutti e tre i motivi, ma soprattutto perche' sarebbe altamente improduttivo presentare una realta' diversa da quella che tutti sognano.
Noi ci aspettiamo una certa vita perche' in definitiva VOGLIAMO una certa vita.
E questo e' tipico di un comportamento infantile.
Questo infatti e' esattamente il comportamento dei bambini al di sotto dell'eta' della ragione, dovuto al loro egocentrismo.
La forza della pubblicita' e degli altri mezzi psicologici usati per un completo lavaggio del cervello esercitato sul consumatore medio, producono proprio questo risultato.
Impediscono il passaggio da un livello infantile di ragionamento ad un livello critico tipico dell'eta' adulta.
E questo e' ben visibile e manifesto se si considera il comportamento e i passatempi dell'italiano medio, se si analizzano i suoi acquisti e le sue aspirazioni.
Se si analizzano le mille illusioni di chi non vuole crescere, perche' la realta' della vita adulta e' ben diversa dal mondo dei balocchi di chi vuole restare un eterno bambino, allora si ha la rappresentazione reale di un paese che e' destinato ad un risveglio molto, molto spiacevole.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Network neutrality
"Network Neutrality rules are not in the carriers' best interests."
The Internet is going through a caotic situation that certainly won't help its progress.
Everybody wants to do everything.
Telecoms want to be broadcasters, broadcasters want to be Telecoms.
How much better would be if everybody did its job, not aspiring to become the emperor of the moment.
Connectivity has a lot to do with content, if there is a good content there is also the need of good connectivity, if there is no good and affordable connectivity there is not good content.
Right now the only really blooming businesses on the Net have been the ones created by the users, or the ones which saw the majority of the users involved.
They were businesses which didn't make money directly, that is you pay for what you get, but you pay fo leasing the line and you get what you want for free.
Probably the only good business till now has been the "connectivity" business.
The more alluring the content (free movies, free music, free or vey cheap calls)the more people went to broadband.
How many would still pay for fiber optic in Italy if they couldn't use the P2P?
Everybody knows the answer but doesn't dare to say it.
And while they look for something else to use the fiber network for, P2P goes on...
So the stupid network is already producing big revenues the way it is and to produce more it needs to give opportunities to the ones who produce content, and free content.
And to produce free or cheap content you need affordable and reliable lines.
Discriminating won't produce the effectes the providers are looking for.
There will always be a smart guy who will understand it: give something cheap or free and get huge revenues from it...
A stupid dumb network will allow intelligent applications to run on it, and intelligent applications will make the number of users, and the number definetely makes the price and the value...
The Internet is going through a caotic situation that certainly won't help its progress.
Everybody wants to do everything.
Telecoms want to be broadcasters, broadcasters want to be Telecoms.
How much better would be if everybody did its job, not aspiring to become the emperor of the moment.
Connectivity has a lot to do with content, if there is a good content there is also the need of good connectivity, if there is no good and affordable connectivity there is not good content.
Right now the only really blooming businesses on the Net have been the ones created by the users, or the ones which saw the majority of the users involved.
They were businesses which didn't make money directly, that is you pay for what you get, but you pay fo leasing the line and you get what you want for free.
Probably the only good business till now has been the "connectivity" business.
The more alluring the content (free movies, free music, free or vey cheap calls)the more people went to broadband.
How many would still pay for fiber optic in Italy if they couldn't use the P2P?
Everybody knows the answer but doesn't dare to say it.
And while they look for something else to use the fiber network for, P2P goes on...
So the stupid network is already producing big revenues the way it is and to produce more it needs to give opportunities to the ones who produce content, and free content.
And to produce free or cheap content you need affordable and reliable lines.
Discriminating won't produce the effectes the providers are looking for.
There will always be a smart guy who will understand it: give something cheap or free and get huge revenues from it...
A stupid dumb network will allow intelligent applications to run on it, and intelligent applications will make the number of users, and the number definetely makes the price and the value...
L'inizio di una nuova era
L’Italia è l’unico paese dove potresti scambiare l’etichetta a piacere, dove la sinistra è anche la destra, e dove la destra diventa facilmente la sinistra. Non esiste più una differenziazione in destra, sinistra o centro per la politica italiana: non esiste più un’ideologia, uno slogan da urlare con convinzione. Esiste solo un grande unico modo di essere arrivista, speculatore e contrarre interessi privati e personali con la cosa pubblica.
Per questo anche Silvio Berlusconi, e dopo di lui Romano Prodi, Piero Fassino, Francesco Rutelli o Gianfranco Fini che sia, non potranno risollevare le sorti di un’Italia gettata sul lastrico da un abitudine mortale: la mediocrità di tutti (anche di noi cittadini) a tutti i livelli.
Tangenti, corruzione, evasione fiscale sono all’ordine del giorno: tanto anche molti processi sono pilotati e, comunque, alla fine per vari motivi assolutamente legali, si archivia sempre tutto.
Marco Polo 14.12.05 09:41
Mediocrita', disinteresse, cinismo.
La nostra e' la societa' dell'edonismo.
Tutto subito e se si puo' di piu'.
Da un lato l'idealismo e' sconfinato nel fanatismo.
I terroristi portano all'eccesso l'idealismo causando morte e distruzione.
Dall'altro lato il pragmatismo e' sconfinato in puro edonismo.
La nostra e' la societa' degli eccessi, in cui la natura umana non ha piu' restrizioni, perche' dove ci dovrebbero essere restrizioni si ha l'opposto.
Cosa puo' produrre uno stato i cui managers hanno come ideali l'arricchimento ad ogni costo, dove non esistono piu' valori spirituali, dove chi dovrebbe difendere i valori spirituali e' quello forse maggiormente compromesso?
La storia ci insegna che l'eccesso porta alla distruzione e alla rovina.
Alla fine di un'era sulle cui rovine costruire qualcosa di meglio.
Un giorno qualcuno dira' la parola "Basta" e quello forse sara' un bel giorno.
Quello e' cio' in cui dobbiamo sperare e quello per cui dobbiamo vivere, se vogliamo un mondo vivibile o che possa sopravvivere.
Per questo anche Silvio Berlusconi, e dopo di lui Romano Prodi, Piero Fassino, Francesco Rutelli o Gianfranco Fini che sia, non potranno risollevare le sorti di un’Italia gettata sul lastrico da un abitudine mortale: la mediocrità di tutti (anche di noi cittadini) a tutti i livelli.
Tangenti, corruzione, evasione fiscale sono all’ordine del giorno: tanto anche molti processi sono pilotati e, comunque, alla fine per vari motivi assolutamente legali, si archivia sempre tutto.
Marco Polo 14.12.05 09:41
Mediocrita', disinteresse, cinismo.
La nostra e' la societa' dell'edonismo.
Tutto subito e se si puo' di piu'.
Da un lato l'idealismo e' sconfinato nel fanatismo.
I terroristi portano all'eccesso l'idealismo causando morte e distruzione.
Dall'altro lato il pragmatismo e' sconfinato in puro edonismo.
La nostra e' la societa' degli eccessi, in cui la natura umana non ha piu' restrizioni, perche' dove ci dovrebbero essere restrizioni si ha l'opposto.
Cosa puo' produrre uno stato i cui managers hanno come ideali l'arricchimento ad ogni costo, dove non esistono piu' valori spirituali, dove chi dovrebbe difendere i valori spirituali e' quello forse maggiormente compromesso?
La storia ci insegna che l'eccesso porta alla distruzione e alla rovina.
Alla fine di un'era sulle cui rovine costruire qualcosa di meglio.
Un giorno qualcuno dira' la parola "Basta" e quello forse sara' un bel giorno.
Quello e' cio' in cui dobbiamo sperare e quello per cui dobbiamo vivere, se vogliamo un mondo vivibile o che possa sopravvivere.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Christmas' prayer
They say the Jewish were the chosen people, I do not know if it is true, but if it was, it looks like it wasn't a good choice.
Please God, if you have to choose somebody, don't choose me or my country.
We have enough problems.
Let us be nobody and nobody's land.
Please God, if you have to choose somebody, don't choose me or my country.
We have enough problems.
Let us be nobody and nobody's land.
John Lennon
It is already a lot.
It is already a lot, and some people still cry and miss their hero.
I do not think he was a hero, not even after his death.
He was a human being and not even among the best.
He was good in saying and singing what the others wanted to listen to.
He knew whay to say and the right moment to say it.
I even believe that sometimes he really thought he believed what he said.
I hardly believe he didn't care for money and he didn't sing for money and he didn't live for money.
I hardly believe he was not human.
It is already a lot, and some people still cry and miss their hero.
I do not think he was a hero, not even after his death.
He was a human being and not even among the best.
He was good in saying and singing what the others wanted to listen to.
He knew whay to say and the right moment to say it.
I even believe that sometimes he really thought he believed what he said.
I hardly believe he didn't care for money and he didn't sing for money and he didn't live for money.
I hardly believe he was not human.
Friday, December 02, 2005
Hackers
"The world's best research and development lab is all the hackers out there. Enable them, and they'll do it."
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Is technology really worth?
I am a technology fan and I shouldn't even ask the question.
Even worse, I shouldn't even have the answer I have.
I am not young and I am old enought to remember the times in which in Italy traveling on a train could be kind of fun.
You had the chance to meet a lot of people and chat.
So much that sometimes you regretted the trip was finished and you had to leave the train and stop talking.
My mother had the same regret some time ago.
She went to live in a city after twenty years she lived outside.
She was looking forward to make new friends in the condominium she went to live.
"I will finally have a balcony again and I will hve the chance to chat with my neigbourgh.
But that was a bitter surprise.
She has a balcony, quite a big one, but no neibourhgs to chat with.
They have portable phones now and one million TV channels.
The young ones have computers and the Internet.
Soon verybody will buy online and she will may be find an electronich cashier when she goes shopping.
Where has all humanity gone?
On a wire or on a wireless line.
Forgetting that the best wireless is the gossiping you do face to face.
Even worse, I shouldn't even have the answer I have.
I am not young and I am old enought to remember the times in which in Italy traveling on a train could be kind of fun.
You had the chance to meet a lot of people and chat.
So much that sometimes you regretted the trip was finished and you had to leave the train and stop talking.
My mother had the same regret some time ago.
She went to live in a city after twenty years she lived outside.
She was looking forward to make new friends in the condominium she went to live.
"I will finally have a balcony again and I will hve the chance to chat with my neigbourgh.
But that was a bitter surprise.
She has a balcony, quite a big one, but no neibourhgs to chat with.
They have portable phones now and one million TV channels.
The young ones have computers and the Internet.
Soon verybody will buy online and she will may be find an electronich cashier when she goes shopping.
Where has all humanity gone?
On a wire or on a wireless line.
Forgetting that the best wireless is the gossiping you do face to face.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Competitivita'
Stamattina leggo:
Inside the Yodobashi Camera store there was a long counter where sales representatives were promoting various broadband products, with most of the usual suspects represented.
How about 50Mbps DSL for EUR28.50 per month? You got it. An extra EUR21 per month gets you 100Mbps symmetrical fiber.
We asked one sales guy where fiber services were available, and he chuckled and replied, "Within the Kanto region (a mega-conurbation of 40m people), basically anywhere where there's train service." Which I unscientifically calculate as being pretty much everywhere...
Permalink posted by James Enck : 10:58 AM
E ieri quell'imbecille del nostro presidente sbraitava che l'Italia deve riacquistare la competitivita' nell'alta tecnologia!!!
Mi spieghi caro Ciampi:
in Sanfre', un paese che dista 40 Km. da Torino, capoluogo della Regione Piemonte, sono anni che aspettiamo la DSL, badi, miseri 256K, non 100 MBPS simmetrici e fibra ottica...
Qui si pagano 15 euro mensili alla benemerita Telecom per una connessione via Modem a 32 Kilobit al massimo.
Mi dica:
COME PUO' UN Italiano competere in alte tecnologie, quando non ha NULLA?
Si ricorda:
I nostri soldati furono inviati a combattere contro l'armata russa, nell'inverno russo, con SCARPE DI CARTA...
E' passato piu' di mezzo secolo.
Ancora noi Italiani crediamo nella Provvidenza, in Padre Pio e nella Giustizia nell'aldila'...
Perche' non c'e' piu' speranza dell'aldiqua...
Inside the Yodobashi Camera store there was a long counter where sales representatives were promoting various broadband products, with most of the usual suspects represented.
How about 50Mbps DSL for EUR28.50 per month? You got it. An extra EUR21 per month gets you 100Mbps symmetrical fiber.
We asked one sales guy where fiber services were available, and he chuckled and replied, "Within the Kanto region (a mega-conurbation of 40m people), basically anywhere where there's train service." Which I unscientifically calculate as being pretty much everywhere...
Permalink posted by James Enck : 10:58 AM
E ieri quell'imbecille del nostro presidente sbraitava che l'Italia deve riacquistare la competitivita' nell'alta tecnologia!!!
Mi spieghi caro Ciampi:
in Sanfre', un paese che dista 40 Km. da Torino, capoluogo della Regione Piemonte, sono anni che aspettiamo la DSL, badi, miseri 256K, non 100 MBPS simmetrici e fibra ottica...
Qui si pagano 15 euro mensili alla benemerita Telecom per una connessione via Modem a 32 Kilobit al massimo.
Mi dica:
COME PUO' UN Italiano competere in alte tecnologie, quando non ha NULLA?
Si ricorda:
I nostri soldati furono inviati a combattere contro l'armata russa, nell'inverno russo, con SCARPE DI CARTA...
E' passato piu' di mezzo secolo.
Ancora noi Italiani crediamo nella Provvidenza, in Padre Pio e nella Giustizia nell'aldila'...
Perche' non c'e' piu' speranza dell'aldiqua...
Friday, November 25, 2005
Prime time is anytime, and anytime is prime time.
Consumers become producers of content, and niche content surpasses by orders of magnitude the value of traditionally labelled commercial television and film.
The value is not anymore in the best seller or in the blockbuster.
The value is in infinite choice of content and in the opportunity for the consumer to see content when she wants it:
prime time is anytime, and anytime is prime time.
Robin Good
I partially agree.
Well, the future is undoubtely in "programs on demand".
Gone are the days in which you had one channel and one choice and something to see.
Now you have million channels and nothing to look at.
Too much sponsored choice kills quality and variety, because when you spend money to sponsor a program THAT PROGRAM HAS to be liked by the majority, and the majority usually likes always the same things...
The future IS in the Niche market.
And the Niche market is in the Internet.
Prime time is any time, but it is not so easy and cheap as it can look.
The best and cheapest distribution is the one that is blooming:
The peer to peer.
Not only because it costs nothing (no copyright involved and to pay for)but also because the sending and receiving involves many servers.
The biggest problem in content distribution on the Net is the amount of bandwith involved.
Not only on the side of the one who downloads, but on the side of the senders.
This is not the case of the broadcasters on satellite, cable and traditional TV.
The delivery is cheap because it is in Multicasting.
If you send a movie to a million people from the satellite, you consume the same bandwidth you would consume to send it to one.
The Internet, even though has a much lower cost regarding the bandwidth, in this case is enormously more expensive than the Satellite, in spite of all wonderful compressions.
When THIS will be solved, and only THEN, the Internet will be the mean of choice.
Patrizia
The value is not anymore in the best seller or in the blockbuster.
The value is in infinite choice of content and in the opportunity for the consumer to see content when she wants it:
prime time is anytime, and anytime is prime time.
Robin Good
I partially agree.
Well, the future is undoubtely in "programs on demand".
Gone are the days in which you had one channel and one choice and something to see.
Now you have million channels and nothing to look at.
Too much sponsored choice kills quality and variety, because when you spend money to sponsor a program THAT PROGRAM HAS to be liked by the majority, and the majority usually likes always the same things...
The future IS in the Niche market.
And the Niche market is in the Internet.
Prime time is any time, but it is not so easy and cheap as it can look.
The best and cheapest distribution is the one that is blooming:
The peer to peer.
Not only because it costs nothing (no copyright involved and to pay for)but also because the sending and receiving involves many servers.
The biggest problem in content distribution on the Net is the amount of bandwith involved.
Not only on the side of the one who downloads, but on the side of the senders.
This is not the case of the broadcasters on satellite, cable and traditional TV.
The delivery is cheap because it is in Multicasting.
If you send a movie to a million people from the satellite, you consume the same bandwidth you would consume to send it to one.
The Internet, even though has a much lower cost regarding the bandwidth, in this case is enormously more expensive than the Satellite, in spite of all wonderful compressions.
When THIS will be solved, and only THEN, the Internet will be the mean of choice.
Patrizia
Thanksgiving
I gave thanks for my energy rich lifestyle, and the bird that was fed on fossil fuel enriched feed, that came to market on a fossil fuel powered truck, that was kept in a fossil fuel powered electric refrigerator and was cooked on a fossil fuel gas stove. I gave thanks for my friends who had come hundreds of miles in fossil fuel powered vehicles to celebrate with me in a fossil fuel heated room.
David Isenberg
If you had been in a place like Africa you wouldn't have had an energy rich lfestyle, you wouldn't have had to eat a bird fed with fossil fuel enriched feed, that wouldn't have traveled on a fossil fueled powered truck, that wouldn't have had the need to be kept in a fossil fueled powered electric refrigerator, and wouldn't have needed to be cooked on a fossil fuel gas stove. You wouldn't probably have had friends coming to see you in fossil fuel powered vehicles to celebrate in a fossil fuel heated room.
The only positive side would have been to have no need of heating the room, may be because you wouldn't have had a room.
But then, in places like Africa you do not need to celebrate, you do not even have Thanksgiving
Patrizia
David Isenberg
If you had been in a place like Africa you wouldn't have had an energy rich lfestyle, you wouldn't have had to eat a bird fed with fossil fuel enriched feed, that wouldn't have traveled on a fossil fueled powered truck, that wouldn't have had the need to be kept in a fossil fueled powered electric refrigerator, and wouldn't have needed to be cooked on a fossil fuel gas stove. You wouldn't probably have had friends coming to see you in fossil fuel powered vehicles to celebrate in a fossil fuel heated room.
The only positive side would have been to have no need of heating the room, may be because you wouldn't have had a room.
But then, in places like Africa you do not need to celebrate, you do not even have Thanksgiving
Patrizia
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Openness and interoperability pay huge dividends
Openness and interoperability not only pay huge dividends, but are the only possible future of computing.
Rather than looking at massive monoliths which can take forever to build (Longhorn, Microsoft's next-generation operating system, is one example), there is a need to modularise software through openly accessible interfaces at various levels. For example, one can imagine"Visual Biz-ic" as a Lego-like development environment to construct business process management libraries for small- and medium-sized enterprises to mirror their information flows.
The Internet Era brought us at real "Internet time" from a world of a "small town" to the world of a "huge continent", from isolated islands to a complicated network that goes from one side of this earth to the other one in a few seconds.
Communications that require a few seconds make the world so small as making a far away continent just next door.
Grid computing is the next step.
A network is done not only for inter communication, but for using many computrs for the same task.
This is what a peer to peer network does in a lower scale.
Connecting more users and exchanging files.
A grid computing does something more.
Exchanging files and interconnecting every computer writes a part of the complex software for the network to which all belong.
A software is made by small pieces loosely joined, where the Lego bricks are all over the world and work together in the "Virtual world", the "Netsphera" and accomplish a big goal, which none of them could do alone.
But in this case openess and interoperability are a "Condicio sine qua non".
Rather than looking at massive monoliths which can take forever to build (Longhorn, Microsoft's next-generation operating system, is one example), there is a need to modularise software through openly accessible interfaces at various levels. For example, one can imagine"Visual Biz-ic" as a Lego-like development environment to construct business process management libraries for small- and medium-sized enterprises to mirror their information flows.
The Internet Era brought us at real "Internet time" from a world of a "small town" to the world of a "huge continent", from isolated islands to a complicated network that goes from one side of this earth to the other one in a few seconds.
Communications that require a few seconds make the world so small as making a far away continent just next door.
Grid computing is the next step.
A network is done not only for inter communication, but for using many computrs for the same task.
This is what a peer to peer network does in a lower scale.
Connecting more users and exchanging files.
A grid computing does something more.
Exchanging files and interconnecting every computer writes a part of the complex software for the network to which all belong.
A software is made by small pieces loosely joined, where the Lego bricks are all over the world and work together in the "Virtual world", the "Netsphera" and accomplish a big goal, which none of them could do alone.
But in this case openess and interoperability are a "Condicio sine qua non".
Reinventing computing
Unlike most other industries, the computer industry has two giants in Intel and Microsoft which control the supply of two most important components.
The rest of the industry revolves around Intel's CPU and Microsoft's Windows-Office combo.
If computing has to be made available to the next-generation of users, this Wintel stranglehold needs to be broken.
Various visions of the future of computing have been put forward.
Many prognostications and products have suffered from two flaws. First, their primary focus has been on the developed markets where computers have a near-universal penetration. They tend to ignore today's non-users and the world's emerging markets.
Second, they have looked at only one or two dimensions of the computing ecosystem. What is needed is a set of "rainbow revolutions" to make a difference.
There are important computing challenges that need to be tackled:
Affordability: The existing solution, created by and for people with very high incomes, is too costly and too complicated for most people . While hardware costs have dramatically and monotonically declined over time, software has become more expensive to own and manage. Many of most sotware features are unused and so useless.
Consequently, the total cost of ownership of computing solutions is still very high. (Piracy is a commonly used workaround when it comes to software. But most have to take the non-consumption route when even the pirated software plus the hardware costs exceed their budgets.)
Desirability: The utility of computers derives primarily from the services that it provides users. Even if the total package of hardware and software was affordable, people will not buy unless the services they derived from the computer were relevant to their lives.
Security: Using computers is not for the faint-hearted. Rarely a week goes by without the discovery of some flaw in the software that users have on our desktops which, if left unattended, could cause serious damage to the data we have stored, and perhaps, worse. In a world of connected computers, security has become one of the most important concerns, not just for CIOs but also for individual users.
Ubiquity: It is still hard for users to get access to the information that users have whenever they want and wherever they are.
There are goals which a new solution set in computing needs to meet:
Solve the Challenges simultaneously: The challenges of affordability, desirability, accessibility, manageability, security and ubiquity need to be addressed all at the same time.
Make CommPuting as a Utility: The combination of a computer connected to the Internet needs to be available just like electricity, water or telephony: as a utility.
Enable Human-centred Computing: The way users interact with computers needs to change.
Computing needs to put users at the centre, not the technology.
The revolutions that need to happen to address the goals to meet the challenges are:
Grid: Computing needs to become centralised to simplify the end points and also reduce their cost.
Virtual Computers: The end points that connect to the grid need be little more than "thin clients" handling local input/output. What these virtual computers need is, for starters, the ability to take keyboard and mouse inputs and send them off to the Grid, and get back the virtual desktops for display.
Ubiquitous Connectivity: As both wired and wireless broadband networks proliferate, connectivity between the virtual computers and the Grid will be taken for granted.
Loosely Coupled Software: Rather than looking at massive monoliths which can take forever to build (Longhorn, Microsoft's next-generation operating system, is one example), there is a need to modularise software through openly accessible interfaces at various levels. For example, one can imagine "Visual Biz-ic" as a Lego-like development environment to construct business process management libraries for small- and medium-sized enterprises to mirror their information flows.
Humane Interface: The user interface that is at the edge of human-computer interaction needs an overhaul. Whether it is a shift away from a keyboard and mouse to an increasing use of speech and gestures or 3D virtual reality interfaces or contextual workspaces, it is time for move away from files, folders and icons.
By taking a holistic view of the ecosystem and building a chain of integrated innovation, it will be finally possible to fulfill the dream of making computing accessible to every family, student and employee in every corner of the world. Only then will the true promise of the computer as a means to deliver solutions and services for the next users be realised. This is where the future of computing lies. This is why computing needs to be reinvented. This is where the next technology cycle will begin. This is the next big thing platform and opportunity entrepreneurs have been waiting for. This is a transformation that will take root first in the world?s emerging markets. This is what we need to make happen.
Liberally taken from Rajesh Jain's
The rest of the industry revolves around Intel's CPU and Microsoft's Windows-Office combo.
If computing has to be made available to the next-generation of users, this Wintel stranglehold needs to be broken.
Various visions of the future of computing have been put forward.
Many prognostications and products have suffered from two flaws. First, their primary focus has been on the developed markets where computers have a near-universal penetration. They tend to ignore today's non-users and the world's emerging markets.
Second, they have looked at only one or two dimensions of the computing ecosystem. What is needed is a set of "rainbow revolutions" to make a difference.
There are important computing challenges that need to be tackled:
Affordability: The existing solution, created by and for people with very high incomes, is too costly and too complicated for most people . While hardware costs have dramatically and monotonically declined over time, software has become more expensive to own and manage. Many of most sotware features are unused and so useless.
Consequently, the total cost of ownership of computing solutions is still very high. (Piracy is a commonly used workaround when it comes to software. But most have to take the non-consumption route when even the pirated software plus the hardware costs exceed their budgets.)
Desirability: The utility of computers derives primarily from the services that it provides users. Even if the total package of hardware and software was affordable, people will not buy unless the services they derived from the computer were relevant to their lives.
Security: Using computers is not for the faint-hearted. Rarely a week goes by without the discovery of some flaw in the software that users have on our desktops which, if left unattended, could cause serious damage to the data we have stored, and perhaps, worse. In a world of connected computers, security has become one of the most important concerns, not just for CIOs but also for individual users.
Ubiquity: It is still hard for users to get access to the information that users have whenever they want and wherever they are.
There are goals which a new solution set in computing needs to meet:
Solve the Challenges simultaneously: The challenges of affordability, desirability, accessibility, manageability, security and ubiquity need to be addressed all at the same time.
Make CommPuting as a Utility: The combination of a computer connected to the Internet needs to be available just like electricity, water or telephony: as a utility.
Enable Human-centred Computing: The way users interact with computers needs to change.
Computing needs to put users at the centre, not the technology.
The revolutions that need to happen to address the goals to meet the challenges are:
Grid: Computing needs to become centralised to simplify the end points and also reduce their cost.
Virtual Computers: The end points that connect to the grid need be little more than "thin clients" handling local input/output. What these virtual computers need is, for starters, the ability to take keyboard and mouse inputs and send them off to the Grid, and get back the virtual desktops for display.
Ubiquitous Connectivity: As both wired and wireless broadband networks proliferate, connectivity between the virtual computers and the Grid will be taken for granted.
Loosely Coupled Software: Rather than looking at massive monoliths which can take forever to build (Longhorn, Microsoft's next-generation operating system, is one example), there is a need to modularise software through openly accessible interfaces at various levels. For example, one can imagine "Visual Biz-ic" as a Lego-like development environment to construct business process management libraries for small- and medium-sized enterprises to mirror their information flows.
Humane Interface: The user interface that is at the edge of human-computer interaction needs an overhaul. Whether it is a shift away from a keyboard and mouse to an increasing use of speech and gestures or 3D virtual reality interfaces or contextual workspaces, it is time for move away from files, folders and icons.
By taking a holistic view of the ecosystem and building a chain of integrated innovation, it will be finally possible to fulfill the dream of making computing accessible to every family, student and employee in every corner of the world. Only then will the true promise of the computer as a means to deliver solutions and services for the next users be realised. This is where the future of computing lies. This is why computing needs to be reinvented. This is where the next technology cycle will begin. This is the next big thing platform and opportunity entrepreneurs have been waiting for. This is a transformation that will take root first in the world?s emerging markets. This is what we need to make happen.
Liberally taken from Rajesh Jain's
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Reinventare il computer
Egr. dott. Bairati
Questa e' la meta di chi guarda al futuro e alle nuove tecnologie come la via al progresso.
Il sole sorge ad Est, mai come negli ultimi anni questa definizione ha potuto riflettere la realta'.
E' vero, il sole non sorge, e' la terra che si muove, ma noi stiamo parlando del mondo Virtuale, mondo in cui l'Est sembra voler predominare.
Forse chi deve accellerare il passo per seguire il progresso, non e' piu' l'Est, ma l'Ovest che sembra dormire sonni profondi credendo di poter fare affidamento su un passato che e' sempre piu' lontano.
Si sciacqua la bocca con parole dense di tecnologia e non e' in grado di provvedere ai suoi cittadini le basi minime per affrontare il futuro.
Il computer e' il mezzo indispensabile per svolgere qualsiasi attivita', il computer deve essere a disposizione di ogni famiglia, studente, impiegato in ogni angolo del mondo e l'Internet deve diventare una "utility" come l'elettricita', l'aqua, il telefono.
Solo cosi' si potra' far si' che si avveri il sogno di un computer come mezzo per offrire soluzioni e servizi per la futura generazione.
Questa e' la scommessa per il Futuro, non si puo' piu' ignorare quello che succede altrove, perche' cosi' facendo il prezzo diventa insostenibile e si arrivera' alla catastrofe economica, di cui abbiamo gia' purtroppo parecchie avvisaglie...
Questa e' la meta di chi guarda al futuro e alle nuove tecnologie come la via al progresso.
Il sole sorge ad Est, mai come negli ultimi anni questa definizione ha potuto riflettere la realta'.
E' vero, il sole non sorge, e' la terra che si muove, ma noi stiamo parlando del mondo Virtuale, mondo in cui l'Est sembra voler predominare.
Forse chi deve accellerare il passo per seguire il progresso, non e' piu' l'Est, ma l'Ovest che sembra dormire sonni profondi credendo di poter fare affidamento su un passato che e' sempre piu' lontano.
Si sciacqua la bocca con parole dense di tecnologia e non e' in grado di provvedere ai suoi cittadini le basi minime per affrontare il futuro.
Il computer e' il mezzo indispensabile per svolgere qualsiasi attivita', il computer deve essere a disposizione di ogni famiglia, studente, impiegato in ogni angolo del mondo e l'Internet deve diventare una "utility" come l'elettricita', l'aqua, il telefono.
Solo cosi' si potra' far si' che si avveri il sogno di un computer come mezzo per offrire soluzioni e servizi per la futura generazione.
Questa e' la scommessa per il Futuro, non si puo' piu' ignorare quello che succede altrove, perche' cosi' facendo il prezzo diventa insostenibile e si arrivera' alla catastrofe economica, di cui abbiamo gia' purtroppo parecchie avvisaglie...
Convergence
Convergence is finally becoming a reality as the next-generation networks with all-IP cores are making it possible to have triple play services (voice, data and video) flow over the same network.
The promise is clear: a converged world where we can get the applications and services we want where we want them and on the device of our choice. This has been the Holy Grail in the telecom world for many years, but finally things seem to be coming together.
Disruptions are technological shifts which provide opportunity for newcomers to take on incumbents, and perhaps usurp power. It happens all the time. Today's king is not guaranteed to be tomorrow's emperor. We have seen this in history and politics, and we see it in business also. While at times, corporations themselves hasten their downfall by questionable decisions (in retrospect), at other times entrepreneurial start-ups with some luck rapidly make their way to the top. There is no magic formula for success. But understanding disruptions and key trends can help avoid mistakes that can accelerate failure.
I have long been intrigued by what happens to industries when a new technology changes the rules of the game.
The history of technology-based industries: communications, computing, and health sciences is marked by such transformations.
Whether rooted in technology or not, changes wreak havoc, forcing all the players to adapt. Often the only way they can do so is by transforming their own business models in fundamental ways. Most of the firms that dominated the old order usually disappear, replaced by new players operating in new relationships under new rules.
I'd like to borrow a concept from physics to describe the difference between two types of strategic actions. If the effect of a company's strategic action changes only its own competitive position but not the environment, the action is linear. In contrast, a nonlinear strategic action sets off changes in the environment that the company as well as its competitors then have to cope with.
Nonlinear strategic actions would seem to have immense appeal for the ambitious strategist. Not only can they improve the position of the company within the environment, but they hold the promise of shaping the environment so that it is favorable to the company's new strategy. They are the Holy Grail of strategic actions.
Many gurus like Clay Christensen have discussed the theory of disruptions and how to handle them. While it is good to study disruptions, they can also be tremendous opportunities for entrepreneurs. The times we are living in today are filled with disruptions, brought on by forces that interplay with each other, creating multiplier effects.
For the most part, voice has been carried separately from data, while video has had its own network. Now, it is all changing as next-generation networks built around IP at their core, and voice and video are digitised. Voice becomes yet another application, as is already happening with VoIP, and network TV shifts to networked TV
This triple play is becoming a quadruple play with the integration of mobility.
For example, in the future, consumers can experience our Multimedia Communications Services features over their televisions, including the ability to answer email, instant messages and conduct a teleconference - all from the comfort of a living room sofa.
The other thread is the increasing availability of bandwidth. Even as users in South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong experience affordable multi-megabit access, this will extend to other markets also. And change life and lifestyles forever.
In an always-on world, data and applications can reside in the cloud, and we as users can access the information we need from the device we want independent of location.
The mass-market is giving way to a long tail of markets. Tomorrow's world is not just about targeting what is popular culture, but focusing on what are our likes. It is about finding the niches and serving them.
The future can be viewed as shifts from the present. What will be these shifts? Each shift can be thought of as a disruption, and therefore an opportunity. Once we understand what is going to change, we will then need to understand how we can catalyse and capitalise on these disruptions. What is needed is to apply these ideas to the industry we operate in.
As an example, Gerd Leonhard identifies the transformation we are seeing around us:
The Great Transition:
* Music Industry (top down) to Peer to Peer (bottom-up)
* Scheduled Television to Tivo
* Media Publishing to Weblogs
* Client-server applications to Web services
* Circuit-switched telephony to VOIP
* Licensed cellular to Unlicensed wireless
The Key Megatrends related to the digital entertainment industry:
1. The on-demand media lifestyle is here
2. The end of customer sacrifices is near (music !!)
3. Everybody is short of time, and must make choices
4. The end of browsing is near (see Google morph)(This may be controversial though)
5. In media, the traditional scarcity principle of valuation morphs into the ubiquity paradigm
6. Radio is finally unbound (by spectrum or schedule)
7. Consumers are starting to generate their own content
8. A mass of niche markets evolves (lowest common denominator concerns becomes irrelevant)
9. Time-shifting and space-shifting and device shifting become standard
10. Long-tail opportunities are everywhere.
The three key building blocks for my thinking about the future are broadband, mobility and emerging markets. Broadband will enable on-demand, net-native services. Mobility will empower users with computers in their pockets. Much of this future will begin and spread faster in emerging markets because they have very little legacy.
The opportunity lies in putting these building blocks together and creating an ecosystem of focused enterprises which can build out elements of the future.
Liberally taken from
Rajesh Jain's
The promise is clear: a converged world where we can get the applications and services we want where we want them and on the device of our choice. This has been the Holy Grail in the telecom world for many years, but finally things seem to be coming together.
Disruptions are technological shifts which provide opportunity for newcomers to take on incumbents, and perhaps usurp power. It happens all the time. Today's king is not guaranteed to be tomorrow's emperor. We have seen this in history and politics, and we see it in business also. While at times, corporations themselves hasten their downfall by questionable decisions (in retrospect), at other times entrepreneurial start-ups with some luck rapidly make their way to the top. There is no magic formula for success. But understanding disruptions and key trends can help avoid mistakes that can accelerate failure.
I have long been intrigued by what happens to industries when a new technology changes the rules of the game.
The history of technology-based industries: communications, computing, and health sciences is marked by such transformations.
Whether rooted in technology or not, changes wreak havoc, forcing all the players to adapt. Often the only way they can do so is by transforming their own business models in fundamental ways. Most of the firms that dominated the old order usually disappear, replaced by new players operating in new relationships under new rules.
I'd like to borrow a concept from physics to describe the difference between two types of strategic actions. If the effect of a company's strategic action changes only its own competitive position but not the environment, the action is linear. In contrast, a nonlinear strategic action sets off changes in the environment that the company as well as its competitors then have to cope with.
Nonlinear strategic actions would seem to have immense appeal for the ambitious strategist. Not only can they improve the position of the company within the environment, but they hold the promise of shaping the environment so that it is favorable to the company's new strategy. They are the Holy Grail of strategic actions.
Many gurus like Clay Christensen have discussed the theory of disruptions and how to handle them. While it is good to study disruptions, they can also be tremendous opportunities for entrepreneurs. The times we are living in today are filled with disruptions, brought on by forces that interplay with each other, creating multiplier effects.
For the most part, voice has been carried separately from data, while video has had its own network. Now, it is all changing as next-generation networks built around IP at their core, and voice and video are digitised. Voice becomes yet another application, as is already happening with VoIP, and network TV shifts to networked TV
This triple play is becoming a quadruple play with the integration of mobility.
For example, in the future, consumers can experience our Multimedia Communications Services features over their televisions, including the ability to answer email, instant messages and conduct a teleconference - all from the comfort of a living room sofa.
The other thread is the increasing availability of bandwidth. Even as users in South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong experience affordable multi-megabit access, this will extend to other markets also. And change life and lifestyles forever.
In an always-on world, data and applications can reside in the cloud, and we as users can access the information we need from the device we want independent of location.
The mass-market is giving way to a long tail of markets. Tomorrow's world is not just about targeting what is popular culture, but focusing on what are our likes. It is about finding the niches and serving them.
The future can be viewed as shifts from the present. What will be these shifts? Each shift can be thought of as a disruption, and therefore an opportunity. Once we understand what is going to change, we will then need to understand how we can catalyse and capitalise on these disruptions. What is needed is to apply these ideas to the industry we operate in.
As an example, Gerd Leonhard identifies the transformation we are seeing around us:
The Great Transition:
* Music Industry (top down) to Peer to Peer (bottom-up)
* Scheduled Television to Tivo
* Media Publishing to Weblogs
* Client-server applications to Web services
* Circuit-switched telephony to VOIP
* Licensed cellular to Unlicensed wireless
The Key Megatrends related to the digital entertainment industry:
1. The on-demand media lifestyle is here
2. The end of customer sacrifices is near (music !!)
3. Everybody is short of time, and must make choices
4. The end of browsing is near (see Google morph)(This may be controversial though)
5. In media, the traditional scarcity principle of valuation morphs into the ubiquity paradigm
6. Radio is finally unbound (by spectrum or schedule)
7. Consumers are starting to generate their own content
8. A mass of niche markets evolves (lowest common denominator concerns becomes irrelevant)
9. Time-shifting and space-shifting and device shifting become standard
10. Long-tail opportunities are everywhere.
The three key building blocks for my thinking about the future are broadband, mobility and emerging markets. Broadband will enable on-demand, net-native services. Mobility will empower users with computers in their pockets. Much of this future will begin and spread faster in emerging markets because they have very little legacy.
The opportunity lies in putting these building blocks together and creating an ecosystem of focused enterprises which can build out elements of the future.
Liberally taken from
Rajesh Jain's
Monday, November 21, 2005
If God existed, HE would be atheist.
Reps. Boucher and Terry have introduced a bill that would support universal service (roughly, telephone service in rural areas) by imposing a tax on any entity providing voice communications over any platform.
So the bill defines "communications service providers" to include any entity that "uses telephone numbers or Internet protocol addresses, or their functional equivalents or successors, to offer a service or a capability that provides or enables real-time voice communications; and in which the voice component is the primary function."
This must mean that any provider of free voice services is covered too, whether or not they connect to the traditional telephone network. This must cover Skype. The idea is that the FCC is supposed to begin a rulemaking that would lead to charging "communications service providers" for universal service.
Section 4 (starting on p. 17 of the draft) says that another rulemaking is supposed to establish mandatory rules for tracking all services -- presumably so that USF can be assessed. This section is truly startling. It appears, among other things, to outlaw encrypted online traffic.
Susan Crawford
I do not find it startling at all.
I expect even more.
I expect they will try to find the way to charge every call, as they did with the old telephone service.
Why should they say good bye to one of the biggest income?
If God existed HE would be atheist.
If our Governments behaved in the sake of their citizens' they wouldn't be what they are.
So the bill defines "communications service providers" to include any entity that "uses telephone numbers or Internet protocol addresses, or their functional equivalents or successors, to offer a service or a capability that provides or enables real-time voice communications; and in which the voice component is the primary function."
This must mean that any provider of free voice services is covered too, whether or not they connect to the traditional telephone network. This must cover Skype. The idea is that the FCC is supposed to begin a rulemaking that would lead to charging "communications service providers" for universal service.
Section 4 (starting on p. 17 of the draft) says that another rulemaking is supposed to establish mandatory rules for tracking all services -- presumably so that USF can be assessed. This section is truly startling. It appears, among other things, to outlaw encrypted online traffic.
Susan Crawford
I do not find it startling at all.
I expect even more.
I expect they will try to find the way to charge every call, as they did with the old telephone service.
Why should they say good bye to one of the biggest income?
If God existed HE would be atheist.
If our Governments behaved in the sake of their citizens' they wouldn't be what they are.
Friday, November 18, 2005
The long tail
The Long Tail
Forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream.
By Chris Anderson
"Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it in service after service, from DVDs at Netflix to music videos on Yahoo! Launch to songs in the iTunes Music Store and Rhapsody. People are going deep into the catalog, down the long, long list of available titles, far past what's available at Blockbuster Video, Tower Records, and Barnes & Noble. And the more they find, the more they like. As they wander further from the beaten path, they discover their taste is not as mainstream as they thought (or as they had been led to believe by marketing, a lack of alternatives, and a hit-driven culture).
An analysis of the sales data and trends from these services and others like them shows that the emerging digital entertainment economy is going to be radically different from today's mass market. If the 20th- century entertainment industry was about hits, the 21st will be equally about misses.
The main problem, if that's the word, is that we live in the physical world and, until recently, most of our entertainment media did, too. But that world puts two dramatic limitations on our entertainment.
The first is the need to find local audiences. An average movie theater will not show a film unless it can attract at least 1,500 people over a two-week run; that's essentially the rent for a screen. An average record store needs to sell at least two copies of a CD per year to make it worth carrying; that's the rent for a half inch of shelf space. And so on for DVD rental shops, videogame stores, booksellers, and newsstands.
In each case, retailers will carry only content that can generate sufficient demand to earn its keep. But each can pull only from a limited local population.
There is plenty of great entertainment with potentially large, even rapturous, national audiences that cannot clear that bar.
The other constraint of the physical world is physics itself. The radio spectrum can carry only so many stations, and a coaxial cable so many TV channels. And, of course, there are only 24 hours a day of programming. The curse of broadcast technologies is that they are profligate users of limited resources. The result is yet another instance of having to aggregate large audiences in one geographic area - another high bar, above which only a fraction of potential content rises."
Broadcasting on the Net will:
1) Increase enormously the offer of entertainments.
2) Fill every possible niche of the market.Finding 1,500 people around the globe will be much esier than in a town.
3) The constraint of physics doesn't exist in a virtual world
4) Since the cost of delivery will be very low, the profits will be higher and the price lower.
5) Computers work 24 hours a day, on Saturdays and Sundays, even on Christmas...
Patrizia
Forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream.
By Chris Anderson
"Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it in service after service, from DVDs at Netflix to music videos on Yahoo! Launch to songs in the iTunes Music Store and Rhapsody. People are going deep into the catalog, down the long, long list of available titles, far past what's available at Blockbuster Video, Tower Records, and Barnes & Noble. And the more they find, the more they like. As they wander further from the beaten path, they discover their taste is not as mainstream as they thought (or as they had been led to believe by marketing, a lack of alternatives, and a hit-driven culture).
An analysis of the sales data and trends from these services and others like them shows that the emerging digital entertainment economy is going to be radically different from today's mass market. If the 20th- century entertainment industry was about hits, the 21st will be equally about misses.
The main problem, if that's the word, is that we live in the physical world and, until recently, most of our entertainment media did, too. But that world puts two dramatic limitations on our entertainment.
The first is the need to find local audiences. An average movie theater will not show a film unless it can attract at least 1,500 people over a two-week run; that's essentially the rent for a screen. An average record store needs to sell at least two copies of a CD per year to make it worth carrying; that's the rent for a half inch of shelf space. And so on for DVD rental shops, videogame stores, booksellers, and newsstands.
In each case, retailers will carry only content that can generate sufficient demand to earn its keep. But each can pull only from a limited local population.
There is plenty of great entertainment with potentially large, even rapturous, national audiences that cannot clear that bar.
The other constraint of the physical world is physics itself. The radio spectrum can carry only so many stations, and a coaxial cable so many TV channels. And, of course, there are only 24 hours a day of programming. The curse of broadcast technologies is that they are profligate users of limited resources. The result is yet another instance of having to aggregate large audiences in one geographic area - another high bar, above which only a fraction of potential content rises."
Broadcasting on the Net will:
1) Increase enormously the offer of entertainments.
2) Fill every possible niche of the market.Finding 1,500 people around the globe will be much esier than in a town.
3) The constraint of physics doesn't exist in a virtual world
4) Since the cost of delivery will be very low, the profits will be higher and the price lower.
5) Computers work 24 hours a day, on Saturdays and Sundays, even on Christmas...
Patrizia
Thursday, November 17, 2005
E-Learning
"Will electronics lead to a much smaller and less expensive educational establishment, as some hope and others fear? My expectation is that it will not.
This prediction does not deny the value of modern technology.
PCs and the Internet are powerful tools. Personally I am skeptical of the extreme claims for technology.
Technology can replace many teachers in their present roles.
If all we cared about was to produce what the current system does, we could indeed operate with fewer people.
The main reason for expecting no cutbacks in teacher ranks is that human contact is valued very highly.
Although education will continue to evolve, it is likely to be less affected by technology than is forecasted by many people, such as Peter Drucker or Eli Noam [Noam]. Successful institutions will have to respond to the need for life-long education, and distance learning will play a major role. However, that will only change, and not eliminate, the role of teachers."
Andrew Odlyzko
But electronics will lead to a much smaller and less expensive educational establishment. Not only. They will be essential for a future growth of education among the population.
Let's have a look at History.
Culture has been for century available to a small restricted area of the population who could have access to expensive teachers and expensive books.
The invention of the printing machine and the following widespreading of books and their much cheaper cost, allowed a much bigger number of people to have access to culture.
Number that is continually growing thanks also to the further evolution of technolgy.
PC and the Internet will play a major role in the diffusion of education, on one side with the low cost ebooks and on the other side allowing one techer to reach a bigger number of students from his own home.
Yes it is undoubtely right:
"If every institution, from a local community college to Harvard, uses the same holographic projections of the world's best lectures, and has access to the same digital libraries, how will Harvard differentiate itself?
The most likely answer is through stress on the quality of its teachers in their other roles. As with business travel, the leveling by technology of a part of the competitive landscape is likely to lead to greater emphasis on the human element, even when the results are hard to measure."
And if the quality of Harvard's teachers is NOT higher than the quality of other schools' teachers...
I see it as a positive sign.
Why should Harvard or another school have more access to culture, to human cultural inheritance, than any other school of this globe?
May be we will have an outsourcing also on education...
The Internet is exactly this: The Best no matter where...:
This prediction does not deny the value of modern technology.
PCs and the Internet are powerful tools. Personally I am skeptical of the extreme claims for technology.
Technology can replace many teachers in their present roles.
If all we cared about was to produce what the current system does, we could indeed operate with fewer people.
The main reason for expecting no cutbacks in teacher ranks is that human contact is valued very highly.
Although education will continue to evolve, it is likely to be less affected by technology than is forecasted by many people, such as Peter Drucker or Eli Noam [Noam]. Successful institutions will have to respond to the need for life-long education, and distance learning will play a major role. However, that will only change, and not eliminate, the role of teachers."
Andrew Odlyzko
But electronics will lead to a much smaller and less expensive educational establishment. Not only. They will be essential for a future growth of education among the population.
Let's have a look at History.
Culture has been for century available to a small restricted area of the population who could have access to expensive teachers and expensive books.
The invention of the printing machine and the following widespreading of books and their much cheaper cost, allowed a much bigger number of people to have access to culture.
Number that is continually growing thanks also to the further evolution of technolgy.
PC and the Internet will play a major role in the diffusion of education, on one side with the low cost ebooks and on the other side allowing one techer to reach a bigger number of students from his own home.
Yes it is undoubtely right:
"If every institution, from a local community college to Harvard, uses the same holographic projections of the world's best lectures, and has access to the same digital libraries, how will Harvard differentiate itself?
The most likely answer is through stress on the quality of its teachers in their other roles. As with business travel, the leveling by technology of a part of the competitive landscape is likely to lead to greater emphasis on the human element, even when the results are hard to measure."
And if the quality of Harvard's teachers is NOT higher than the quality of other schools' teachers...
I see it as a positive sign.
Why should Harvard or another school have more access to culture, to human cultural inheritance, than any other school of this globe?
May be we will have an outsourcing also on education...
The Internet is exactly this: The Best no matter where...:
Information appliances
"We were frustrated with computers a decade ago, we are frustrated with them now, and will continue to be frustrated in the future.
As long as technology offers enticing new products and services, we will continue to live on the edge of intolerable frustration.
However, by providing for customizable flexibility and developing outsourcing services for computing and networking support, we can smooth the transition to the information appliance era of computing.
The home information appliance environment is likely to be more complicated than the office environment today. Also, many users will be less knowledgeable about electronics than the typical office worker. Therefore it will be essential to outsource the setup and maintenance of home computing and electronics to experts. It will not be economically feasible for them to visit in person every time something goes wrong, or a new device is to be added to the system.
Therefore all devices will have to be designed for remote administration. (Most of it will be automated, and it will be facilitated by, and may essentially require,broadband access to the home.) Perhaps even more important, all these new information appliances will have to be designed for customizable flexibility, so that only the administrators will have full control of them. Users will be given varying degrees of control, depending on their skills and trustworthiness. The operating system will need to be rigidly isolated from the applications, and the applications will have to be tested for compatibility by the administrators before they are installed. This will reduce users' freedom to modify their systems.
However, it should bring in some sanity to the potentially chaotic scene and make possible deep penetration of information appliances into society. If Aunt Millie wants to give a new toy to your son Bill for Christmas, she may first have to check with your system manager whether that toy will interoperate with all the other information appliances in the house. Most users are likely to accept such restrictions to simplify their lives."
Andrew Odlyzko
As long as technology offers enticing new products and services, we will continue to live on the edge of intolerable frustration.
However, by providing for customizable flexibility and developing outsourcing services for computing and networking support, we can smooth the transition to the information appliance era of computing.
The home information appliance environment is likely to be more complicated than the office environment today. Also, many users will be less knowledgeable about electronics than the typical office worker. Therefore it will be essential to outsource the setup and maintenance of home computing and electronics to experts. It will not be economically feasible for them to visit in person every time something goes wrong, or a new device is to be added to the system.
Therefore all devices will have to be designed for remote administration. (Most of it will be automated, and it will be facilitated by, and may essentially require,broadband access to the home.) Perhaps even more important, all these new information appliances will have to be designed for customizable flexibility, so that only the administrators will have full control of them. Users will be given varying degrees of control, depending on their skills and trustworthiness. The operating system will need to be rigidly isolated from the applications, and the applications will have to be tested for compatibility by the administrators before they are installed. This will reduce users' freedom to modify their systems.
However, it should bring in some sanity to the potentially chaotic scene and make possible deep penetration of information appliances into society. If Aunt Millie wants to give a new toy to your son Bill for Christmas, she may first have to check with your system manager whether that toy will interoperate with all the other information appliances in the house. Most users are likely to accept such restrictions to simplify their lives."
Andrew Odlyzko
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
"Content is King" "Content is not king"
"The Internet will surely have a major impact on the content industries.
This may mean that writers and artists will get a bigger share of the pie. That appears to have been the trend over the last few decades, with movie actors and professional sport stars increasing their share of the revenues their work brings in.
Content is King, and Content is not king.
They are both true and both false.
The truth is that Content is changing.
Better: the broadcasters are changing.
Content is not king in the sense that the traditional broadcasters are not kings anymore.
The Internet is a disruptive technology, it does have unprecedented ability to emulate other delivery mechanisms, and we are already seeing rapid growth in music delivery on it.
There will be continuing competition to traditional media, as well as increasing diversity of delivery mechanisms for content. This may mean that writers and artists will get a bigger share of the pie.
It is less certain whether carriers will manage to improve their share of the content pie to the same extent. There will certainly be a shift of revenue towards broadband services, but content distribution may not be the largest contributor to it.
That real-time multimedia traffic would not dominate the Internet has been predicted several times in the past. It is an obvious conclusion from the rapid increase in traffic.
The discussion above is futurology. We cannot be certain how the Internet will evolve. However, history teaches us several lessons. One is that the growing storage and communication capacities will be used, often in unexpected ways.
Another important lesson is that the value of the myriad social interactions has often been underestimated.
Sociability was frequently dismissed as idle gossip, and especially in the early days of the telephone, was actively discouraged.
Yet the most successful communication technologies, the mail and the telephone, reached their full potential only when they embraced sociability and those "useless calls" as their goal [Fischer]. That seemingly idle chit-chat not only provided direct revenues, but it encouraged the diffusion of the corresponding technology, and made it more useful for commercial and other applications. Such social interaction frequently function to grease the wheels of commerce.
Whether content is king or not has direct relevance for the question of whether the Internet will continue to be an open network, or whether it will be balkanized. If content were to dominate, then the Internet would be primarily a broadcast network. With value proportional to the number of users, there would be few inherent advantages to an open network.
Content has never been king, it is not king now, and is unlikely to ever be king. The Internet has done quite well without content, and can continue to flourish without it. Content will have a place on the Internet, possibly a substantial place. However, its place will likely be subordinate to that of business and personal communication."
Andrew Odlyzko.
Nevertheless Content IS the Internet.
The first and massive "Broadband boom" came with Napster and file sharing.
The real Mass Market of connectivity bloomed when there was content to deliver.
And in "pure Internet style" was not a central broadcasted content, but an "end to end" broadcasted content.
The Internet for its nature is an "End to End" network and the very succesful broadcasting will be an "end to end" broadcasting.
High compression, multicasting, new generation Set Top Boxes, will see the dawn of a new way of broadcasting, the birth of a new figure of broadcaster.
The content will be a copyrighted Mp3 or the last electronic song of the unknown artist, or the last song of the famous singer.
We will see the dawn of the new Era where the publishers, the Music Labels,the movie distributions will slowly either disappear or change their role.
The artist will earn the biggest part of his creative production.
The Internet will allow him to sell his creation at a fraction of its actual price with and increase of his profits.
The profit will be close to the revenue, so close as to have almost the same meaning.
Patrizia
This may mean that writers and artists will get a bigger share of the pie. That appears to have been the trend over the last few decades, with movie actors and professional sport stars increasing their share of the revenues their work brings in.
Content is King, and Content is not king.
They are both true and both false.
The truth is that Content is changing.
Better: the broadcasters are changing.
Content is not king in the sense that the traditional broadcasters are not kings anymore.
The Internet is a disruptive technology, it does have unprecedented ability to emulate other delivery mechanisms, and we are already seeing rapid growth in music delivery on it.
There will be continuing competition to traditional media, as well as increasing diversity of delivery mechanisms for content. This may mean that writers and artists will get a bigger share of the pie.
It is less certain whether carriers will manage to improve their share of the content pie to the same extent. There will certainly be a shift of revenue towards broadband services, but content distribution may not be the largest contributor to it.
That real-time multimedia traffic would not dominate the Internet has been predicted several times in the past. It is an obvious conclusion from the rapid increase in traffic.
The discussion above is futurology. We cannot be certain how the Internet will evolve. However, history teaches us several lessons. One is that the growing storage and communication capacities will be used, often in unexpected ways.
Another important lesson is that the value of the myriad social interactions has often been underestimated.
Sociability was frequently dismissed as idle gossip, and especially in the early days of the telephone, was actively discouraged.
Yet the most successful communication technologies, the mail and the telephone, reached their full potential only when they embraced sociability and those "useless calls" as their goal [Fischer]. That seemingly idle chit-chat not only provided direct revenues, but it encouraged the diffusion of the corresponding technology, and made it more useful for commercial and other applications. Such social interaction frequently function to grease the wheels of commerce.
Whether content is king or not has direct relevance for the question of whether the Internet will continue to be an open network, or whether it will be balkanized. If content were to dominate, then the Internet would be primarily a broadcast network. With value proportional to the number of users, there would be few inherent advantages to an open network.
Content has never been king, it is not king now, and is unlikely to ever be king. The Internet has done quite well without content, and can continue to flourish without it. Content will have a place on the Internet, possibly a substantial place. However, its place will likely be subordinate to that of business and personal communication."
Andrew Odlyzko.
Nevertheless Content IS the Internet.
The first and massive "Broadband boom" came with Napster and file sharing.
The real Mass Market of connectivity bloomed when there was content to deliver.
And in "pure Internet style" was not a central broadcasted content, but an "end to end" broadcasted content.
The Internet for its nature is an "End to End" network and the very succesful broadcasting will be an "end to end" broadcasting.
High compression, multicasting, new generation Set Top Boxes, will see the dawn of a new way of broadcasting, the birth of a new figure of broadcaster.
The content will be a copyrighted Mp3 or the last electronic song of the unknown artist, or the last song of the famous singer.
We will see the dawn of the new Era where the publishers, the Music Labels,the movie distributions will slowly either disappear or change their role.
The artist will earn the biggest part of his creative production.
The Internet will allow him to sell his creation at a fraction of its actual price with and increase of his profits.
The profit will be close to the revenue, so close as to have almost the same meaning.
Patrizia
Internet: the revolution of our generation
The Internet signed the dawn of a new Era: the Era of the end of Monarchies.
Exactly as the French Revolution.
Revolutions are a necessity for progress.
Usually conservative forms of government tend to be defensive of the "Status Quo", because they are fearing of progress.
That usually means a change in the economical share of the markets, and a share means that the rich are getting less rich and the poor less poor.
It means that the money must change hands so that many more can have access to it.
People who understand this simple mathematical operation are the ones who are able to forsee into the future, all the others (the majority) cannot or do not want to see it.
This lead and will lead to whatever is necessary to change the "Status Quo" including revolutions...
France is the ideal example of it.
May be it is, as it was, the first glimpse of what is going to happen.
Where there is a huge asimmetry between people who have too much money and people who have too much time, the result is what is happening right now.
Exactly as the French Revolution.
Revolutions are a necessity for progress.
Usually conservative forms of government tend to be defensive of the "Status Quo", because they are fearing of progress.
That usually means a change in the economical share of the markets, and a share means that the rich are getting less rich and the poor less poor.
It means that the money must change hands so that many more can have access to it.
People who understand this simple mathematical operation are the ones who are able to forsee into the future, all the others (the majority) cannot or do not want to see it.
This lead and will lead to whatever is necessary to change the "Status Quo" including revolutions...
France is the ideal example of it.
May be it is, as it was, the first glimpse of what is going to happen.
Where there is a huge asimmetry between people who have too much money and people who have too much time, the result is what is happening right now.
Monday, November 14, 2005
What do people really want?
My son is a succesful showman.
He is not popular yet, but I am sure he will.
Why?
Not only because he is good, that in itself is not enough.
He will be succesful because the audience likes him.
And why do they like him?
Not just because he is good or says things they like, but because he does what a succesful showman knows how to do :
He involves the people.
And that is exactly what the audience wants.
They not only want to see a show, they want to be part of it.
Content - material prepared by professionals for consumption by large audiences - undoubtedly plays a big part in consumers' lives.
Many businesses based on movies, book publishing, recorded music,professional sports or news dissemination are large and prosperous.
And content is certainly a more glamorous business than providing 'dumb pipes'.
But the truth is, content has never been as essential to consumers or as economically vital as connectivity.
Providing pop videos or movie trailers for consumers to watch on 3G cellphones has provoked a similarly underwhelming reaction from end users.
What does appear to be more popular in the new generations of cellphones is the ability to take pictures and send them to friends and family, a typical connectivity application.
In the last few decades, with the development of cellular services, wireless transmission has started to move back to its roots as a point-to-point communications service and the revenues from wireless telephony now far exceed those from radio broadcasting and are even greater than those of radio and television combined.
People do not like to be passive, they want to be INTO the picture and involved into the story.
So who needs streaming video on a phone?
Those third-generation services, combining Internet and wireless technologies, were to ring in a new era of communications. Instead, rising skepticism about their prospects, together with the staggering sums paid by carriers in spectrum auctions, helped precipitate the telecom crash.
People don't want to be entertained by their cell phones. They want to be connected.
He is not popular yet, but I am sure he will.
Why?
Not only because he is good, that in itself is not enough.
He will be succesful because the audience likes him.
And why do they like him?
Not just because he is good or says things they like, but because he does what a succesful showman knows how to do :
He involves the people.
And that is exactly what the audience wants.
They not only want to see a show, they want to be part of it.
Content - material prepared by professionals for consumption by large audiences - undoubtedly plays a big part in consumers' lives.
Many businesses based on movies, book publishing, recorded music,professional sports or news dissemination are large and prosperous.
And content is certainly a more glamorous business than providing 'dumb pipes'.
But the truth is, content has never been as essential to consumers or as economically vital as connectivity.
Providing pop videos or movie trailers for consumers to watch on 3G cellphones has provoked a similarly underwhelming reaction from end users.
What does appear to be more popular in the new generations of cellphones is the ability to take pictures and send them to friends and family, a typical connectivity application.
In the last few decades, with the development of cellular services, wireless transmission has started to move back to its roots as a point-to-point communications service and the revenues from wireless telephony now far exceed those from radio broadcasting and are even greater than those of radio and television combined.
People do not like to be passive, they want to be INTO the picture and involved into the story.
So who needs streaming video on a phone?
Those third-generation services, combining Internet and wireless technologies, were to ring in a new era of communications. Instead, rising skepticism about their prospects, together with the staggering sums paid by carriers in spectrum auctions, helped precipitate the telecom crash.
People don't want to be entertained by their cell phones. They want to be connected.
Broadband o Banda Larga
Ogni trenta secondi un esponente della cosidetta "generazione del boom demografico" compie 60 anni.
Considerando l'invecchiamento della popolazione prendiamo in considerazione l'aspetto economico dal punto di vista di un capitalista.
Da un lato abbiamo si' un abnorme numero di "pensionati", ma dall'altra abbiamo un mercato enorme che presenta un mare di opportunita'.
Molti economisti si sono gia' accorti della potenza del numero dei "baby boomers" e molti investitori hanno fatto la loro fortuna investendo nei bisogni di questa generazione.
Questa generazione, al contrario della precedente, annovera un gran numero di individui colti, con un diploma o una laurea e con una certa esperienza su Internet.
Immaginiamoci un futuro in cui parecchi rappresentanti di questa generazione siano felicemente attivi lavorando a casa, part time.
La nostra e' stata definita l'era dell'"informazione".
La crescita reale di molte aziende dipendera' enormemente e sempre di piu' dal grado di "livello di informatizzazione" raggiunto.
Anche nel campo della Medicina e dell'Agraria il progresso dipendera' sempre di piu' nel prossimo futuro dall'uso di nuove tecnologie informatiche.
C'e' una perfetta asimmetria tra coloro che hanno soldi e coloro che hanno tempo, tra coloro che aspettano una risposta e coloro che sono in grado di darla.
Questa e' una grande opportunita'.
L'economia del futuro e' in gran parte rappresentata dai servizi, la maggior parte dei quali e' servizi informatici.
Il libero mercato cerchera' sempre piu' opportunita' nell'educazione e nell'insegnamento servendosi delle nuove tecnologie come Internet, facendo si' che i "baby boomers"possano conservare una certa elasticita' mentale .
L'apprendimento perenne non e' solo un passatempo, diventa un imperativo economico.
E in cosa potrebbe il Governo partecipare a tutto cio'?
Soprattutto nelle areee in cui al contrario sembra intralciare piu' che aiutare.
Per essere chiari:
1) Acesso alla Banda Larga.
La Banda larga e' il futuro dell'economia.
Ma l'Europa ( e l'Italia in special modo) e' molto al di sotto di altri continenti per quanto riguarda la sua adozione.
Solo una minima parte dei sessantenni ha accesso a Internet.
La Banda Larga fa parte delle infrastrutture, come le autostrade.
Le strade devono seguire il progresso dei veicoli e cosi' gli strumenti informatici, hardware e software per potersi sviluppare hanno necessita' di infrastrutture.
Forse che il governo impedirebbe la costruzione di nuove strade perche' in competizione con le vecchie?
Eppure e' esattamente quello che si fa nel campo informatico e di Internet specificamente.
2) Ristrutturare il campo della Medicina.
Perche' e' cosi' importante?
Noi stiamo entrando in un secondo Rinascimento che concerne le Scienze Mediche, ma il progresso e' limitato da una burocrazia che si muove a ritmo da era glaciale.
La frustrazione e la tensione sono incrementate da un conflitto tra lo "status quo" e il passo esponenziale dei progressi tecnologici.
L'80% di tutti i geni sono stati scoperti negli ultimi 12 mesi.
Nei prossimi 20 anni noi scopriremo sulla genetica, sulla biologia, sull'origine delle malattie, piu' di quanto sia stato scoperto in tutta la storia umana.
Il futuro di una nazione dipende dalla sua leadership sulle frontiere dell'esplorazione scientifica.
Se i governi saranno in grado di dare libero e illimitato accesso alla banda larga e libero e illimitato accesso alle frontiere della scienza, allora potranno gloriarsi di aver contribuito al futuro delle loro Nazioni.
Considerando l'invecchiamento della popolazione prendiamo in considerazione l'aspetto economico dal punto di vista di un capitalista.
Da un lato abbiamo si' un abnorme numero di "pensionati", ma dall'altra abbiamo un mercato enorme che presenta un mare di opportunita'.
Molti economisti si sono gia' accorti della potenza del numero dei "baby boomers" e molti investitori hanno fatto la loro fortuna investendo nei bisogni di questa generazione.
Questa generazione, al contrario della precedente, annovera un gran numero di individui colti, con un diploma o una laurea e con una certa esperienza su Internet.
Immaginiamoci un futuro in cui parecchi rappresentanti di questa generazione siano felicemente attivi lavorando a casa, part time.
La nostra e' stata definita l'era dell'"informazione".
La crescita reale di molte aziende dipendera' enormemente e sempre di piu' dal grado di "livello di informatizzazione" raggiunto.
Anche nel campo della Medicina e dell'Agraria il progresso dipendera' sempre di piu' nel prossimo futuro dall'uso di nuove tecnologie informatiche.
C'e' una perfetta asimmetria tra coloro che hanno soldi e coloro che hanno tempo, tra coloro che aspettano una risposta e coloro che sono in grado di darla.
Questa e' una grande opportunita'.
L'economia del futuro e' in gran parte rappresentata dai servizi, la maggior parte dei quali e' servizi informatici.
Il libero mercato cerchera' sempre piu' opportunita' nell'educazione e nell'insegnamento servendosi delle nuove tecnologie come Internet, facendo si' che i "baby boomers"possano conservare una certa elasticita' mentale .
L'apprendimento perenne non e' solo un passatempo, diventa un imperativo economico.
E in cosa potrebbe il Governo partecipare a tutto cio'?
Soprattutto nelle areee in cui al contrario sembra intralciare piu' che aiutare.
Per essere chiari:
1) Acesso alla Banda Larga.
La Banda larga e' il futuro dell'economia.
Ma l'Europa ( e l'Italia in special modo) e' molto al di sotto di altri continenti per quanto riguarda la sua adozione.
Solo una minima parte dei sessantenni ha accesso a Internet.
La Banda Larga fa parte delle infrastrutture, come le autostrade.
Le strade devono seguire il progresso dei veicoli e cosi' gli strumenti informatici, hardware e software per potersi sviluppare hanno necessita' di infrastrutture.
Forse che il governo impedirebbe la costruzione di nuove strade perche' in competizione con le vecchie?
Eppure e' esattamente quello che si fa nel campo informatico e di Internet specificamente.
2) Ristrutturare il campo della Medicina.
Perche' e' cosi' importante?
Noi stiamo entrando in un secondo Rinascimento che concerne le Scienze Mediche, ma il progresso e' limitato da una burocrazia che si muove a ritmo da era glaciale.
La frustrazione e la tensione sono incrementate da un conflitto tra lo "status quo" e il passo esponenziale dei progressi tecnologici.
L'80% di tutti i geni sono stati scoperti negli ultimi 12 mesi.
Nei prossimi 20 anni noi scopriremo sulla genetica, sulla biologia, sull'origine delle malattie, piu' di quanto sia stato scoperto in tutta la storia umana.
Il futuro di una nazione dipende dalla sua leadership sulle frontiere dell'esplorazione scientifica.
Se i governi saranno in grado di dare libero e illimitato accesso alla banda larga e libero e illimitato accesso alle frontiere della scienza, allora potranno gloriarsi di aver contribuito al futuro delle loro Nazioni.
Internet TV: The long distance network
The Internet is likely to have a a much larger impact on TV than TV will have on Internet backbones.
There is vastly more storage than transmission capacity, and this is likely to continue.
Together with the the requirements of mobility, and the need to satisfy human desires for convenience and instant gratification, this is likely to
induce a migration towards a store-and-replay model, away from the current real-time streaming model of the broadcast world. Further,
HDTV may finally get a chance to come into widespread use.
The flexibility of the Internet is its biggest advantage, and will allow for continued experimentation with novel services.
The rapid growth of storage capacity is significant, since it makes non-streaming modes of operation much more attractive.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, disk storage available on PCs in households was so small that streaming real time delivery of video was the only feasible
alternative.
Today, local storage is becoming viable even for high resolution movies.
(Note the estimate of 7 GB for a single HDTV movie, versus a capacity of 80 GB that often comes with high-end PCs in mid-2001, and the likelihood that this will reach 1 TB around the
year 2005).
As time goes on, and the disk capacity grows rapidly,while digital movie sizes grow slowly, the attractions of local
storage will only increase.
If Internet traffic continues doubling each year, where will the increases come from?
Video is likely to play an increasing role, taking over as a major driver of traffic growth from music (which got a large boost from
Napster).
However, this video is likely to be in the form of file transfers, not streaming real time traffic.
The basic argument is that video will follow the example of Napster (or MP3, to be more precise), which is
delivered primarily as files for local storage and replay, and not in streaming form.
This local storage has several advantages.
It can be deployed easily (no need to wait for the whole Internet to be upgraded to provide high quality transmission). It also allows for
faster than real time transmission when networks acquire sufficient bandwidth.
(This will allow for sampling and for easy transfer to portable storage units.)
The broadcast model, in which people have to adjust their schedules to fit those set by network executives was an
unnatural one, forced by the limitations of the available technology.
The popularity of video tape rentals showed that people preferred flexibility.
Similarly, when cable TV operators chose to offer more channels as opposed to higher resolution channels, they were
presumably responding to what they saw as their customers' desires for variety.
The Internet will offer even more flexibility.
Its other effect may be on high resolution video.
HDTV has made practically no inroads because of the usual chicken-and-egg syndrome.
Sets are expensive since there is no mass market, people do not buy sets since they are expensive and their is
nothing novel to watch, stations do not carry HDTV programming since there is no audience, and so on.
Internet allows for marketing to small groups.
Studios already are making high resolution digital version of movies, and over the Internet will be able to reach the
initially small groups of fans willing to pay extra for them.
Liberally taken from Andrew Odlyzko.
There is vastly more storage than transmission capacity, and this is likely to continue.
Together with the the requirements of mobility, and the need to satisfy human desires for convenience and instant gratification, this is likely to
induce a migration towards a store-and-replay model, away from the current real-time streaming model of the broadcast world. Further,
HDTV may finally get a chance to come into widespread use.
The flexibility of the Internet is its biggest advantage, and will allow for continued experimentation with novel services.
The rapid growth of storage capacity is significant, since it makes non-streaming modes of operation much more attractive.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, disk storage available on PCs in households was so small that streaming real time delivery of video was the only feasible
alternative.
Today, local storage is becoming viable even for high resolution movies.
(Note the estimate of 7 GB for a single HDTV movie, versus a capacity of 80 GB that often comes with high-end PCs in mid-2001, and the likelihood that this will reach 1 TB around the
year 2005).
As time goes on, and the disk capacity grows rapidly,while digital movie sizes grow slowly, the attractions of local
storage will only increase.
If Internet traffic continues doubling each year, where will the increases come from?
Video is likely to play an increasing role, taking over as a major driver of traffic growth from music (which got a large boost from
Napster).
However, this video is likely to be in the form of file transfers, not streaming real time traffic.
The basic argument is that video will follow the example of Napster (or MP3, to be more precise), which is
delivered primarily as files for local storage and replay, and not in streaming form.
This local storage has several advantages.
It can be deployed easily (no need to wait for the whole Internet to be upgraded to provide high quality transmission). It also allows for
faster than real time transmission when networks acquire sufficient bandwidth.
(This will allow for sampling and for easy transfer to portable storage units.)
The broadcast model, in which people have to adjust their schedules to fit those set by network executives was an
unnatural one, forced by the limitations of the available technology.
The popularity of video tape rentals showed that people preferred flexibility.
Similarly, when cable TV operators chose to offer more channels as opposed to higher resolution channels, they were
presumably responding to what they saw as their customers' desires for variety.
The Internet will offer even more flexibility.
Its other effect may be on high resolution video.
HDTV has made practically no inroads because of the usual chicken-and-egg syndrome.
Sets are expensive since there is no mass market, people do not buy sets since they are expensive and their is
nothing novel to watch, stations do not carry HDTV programming since there is no audience, and so on.
Internet allows for marketing to small groups.
Studios already are making high resolution digital version of movies, and over the Internet will be able to reach the
initially small groups of fans willing to pay extra for them.
Liberally taken from Andrew Odlyzko.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
The end of an Era and the dawn of a new one
Do you remember the Dilemma of the Telecoms torn between loosing their milking cow and VoIP?
Well, History, as usual, repeats itself.
This time is the case of new players, old almost monopolistic companies,( we are talking of the Murdochs of our days)"Most fundamentally, looking at Sky’s technology roadmap and hearing James Murdoch state definitively that Sky would not look to replicate linear TV on DSL in the near future, I would argue that this would be way off message."
What will happen when TV will be on IP?
When the Commercials will be on IP?
When the football games will be broadcasted directly from the "Football Clubs"?
The Internet has signed a mile stone in the History of economical markets.
The milestone of the end of the "Middlemen" being them unknown sales people or famous entertainments providers.
You do not need somebody to bring the products into the homes of the consumer.
It is the consumers that reaches the place of production, through the Internet.
And cuts all what is in between...
WHAT ABOUT THAT?
Well, History, as usual, repeats itself.
This time is the case of new players, old almost monopolistic companies,( we are talking of the Murdochs of our days)"Most fundamentally, looking at Sky’s technology roadmap and hearing James Murdoch state definitively that Sky would not look to replicate linear TV on DSL in the near future, I would argue that this would be way off message."
What will happen when TV will be on IP?
When the Commercials will be on IP?
When the football games will be broadcasted directly from the "Football Clubs"?
The Internet has signed a mile stone in the History of economical markets.
The milestone of the end of the "Middlemen" being them unknown sales people or famous entertainments providers.
You do not need somebody to bring the products into the homes of the consumer.
It is the consumers that reaches the place of production, through the Internet.
And cuts all what is in between...
WHAT ABOUT THAT?
The Drama of regulators, trying to regulate what must not and cannot be regulated.
Scott Bradner, Network World, 09/26/05
In mid-September the House Energy and Commerce Committee took its first shot at trying to set the ground rules for telecom reform. The committee was apparently trying to produce a more balanced starting point than the strongly pro-carrier bill proposed by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.).
It says, "broadband Internet transmission service" (BITS) is a service that offers "the transmission of information in a packet-based protocol, including TCP/IP protocol or a successor protocol, regardless of facilities used." Likewise, a "broadband video service" is one that offers a "two-way, interactive service," with or without fee, to the public "regardless of the facilities used" and "integrates, on a real-time and subscriber customizable basis, a video programming package" and "integrates the capability to access Internet content of the subscriber's choosing. The draft also defines a "VoIP service" to be a "packet-switched voice communications service . . . effectively available directly to the public, regardless of the facilities used; and enables a subscriber to send or receive voice communications . . . over a broadband transmission service to or from any subscriber with a telephone number . . . or other identification method as designated by the commission."
The draft would require all BITS, broadband video and VoIP service providers to register with the government before they could offer service (there is a grace period for providers already in business).
What's wrong with this picture? Note that none of the definitions require a facilities-based service provider. All of these services can be offered over any infrastructure that supports IP. In theory, service providers anywhere in the world could provide them all, as long as there is sufficient bandwidth in the communications path. The draft does not seem to understand this basic feature of the Internet. "
What will happen when they won't be able to control "streaming, broadcasting, talking" because it will be done in a medium like the Internet where broadcasting is not from one source to many, but from many to many, when the content will be uncopyrighted content, when it will be impossible to check or control because the number of broadcasters will be enormously superior to the number of the ones who are supposed to control and regulate?
Well: this is the Internet, the World finally made global.
I can shout to as many as I can find wanting to listen to me.
My voice doesn't have the bound of distance.
I can reach China as well as USA or any part of Europe.
WHAT ABOUT IT?
In mid-September the House Energy and Commerce Committee took its first shot at trying to set the ground rules for telecom reform. The committee was apparently trying to produce a more balanced starting point than the strongly pro-carrier bill proposed by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.).
It says, "broadband Internet transmission service" (BITS) is a service that offers "the transmission of information in a packet-based protocol, including TCP/IP protocol or a successor protocol, regardless of facilities used." Likewise, a "broadband video service" is one that offers a "two-way, interactive service," with or without fee, to the public "regardless of the facilities used" and "integrates, on a real-time and subscriber customizable basis, a video programming package" and "integrates the capability to access Internet content of the subscriber's choosing. The draft also defines a "VoIP service" to be a "packet-switched voice communications service . . . effectively available directly to the public, regardless of the facilities used; and enables a subscriber to send or receive voice communications . . . over a broadband transmission service to or from any subscriber with a telephone number . . . or other identification method as designated by the commission."
The draft would require all BITS, broadband video and VoIP service providers to register with the government before they could offer service (there is a grace period for providers already in business).
What's wrong with this picture? Note that none of the definitions require a facilities-based service provider. All of these services can be offered over any infrastructure that supports IP. In theory, service providers anywhere in the world could provide them all, as long as there is sufficient bandwidth in the communications path. The draft does not seem to understand this basic feature of the Internet. "
What will happen when they won't be able to control "streaming, broadcasting, talking" because it will be done in a medium like the Internet where broadcasting is not from one source to many, but from many to many, when the content will be uncopyrighted content, when it will be impossible to check or control because the number of broadcasters will be enormously superior to the number of the ones who are supposed to control and regulate?
Well: this is the Internet, the World finally made global.
I can shout to as many as I can find wanting to listen to me.
My voice doesn't have the bound of distance.
I can reach China as well as USA or any part of Europe.
WHAT ABOUT IT?
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
IPTV
Subject:Japan demonstrates next-gen TV broadcast
"I don't think there is any need to be concerned about additional innovation beyond HDTV. The next phase of innovation in the business of video delivery will occur on the IP platform, not the 20+ year old broadcasting platform where HDTV is probably the last gasp of air.
I feel optimistic about this.
Unlike the broadcasting platform, the IP platform is an open market where all types of codecs and formats will be in unregulated competition.
The market can drive the technologies itself, rather than be hamstrung by regulatory issues of an old-world broadcasting platform.
In the new world, media devices already have far more codec and display flexibility
(aside: we won't be watching TV on our computers, but our TV's will internally look just like our computers).
And TV,or a big screen, or a projector will be connected to the Net via a Set Top Box, and we'll have the REAL INTERACTIVE TV.
There will still be innovation limiters: i.e. the available capabilities of the IP platform, and issues re.DRM and content protection.
IPTV will mean also a new form of content"the users' made content".
Millions of new broadcasters will bring their production on the NET.
If there's a business case for super hi-def video delivery, expect the market to satisfy it without having to wait for regulations.
The example of this in action is the business of music delivery.
In the last five years it's just started its very first steps of migrating from
the stifling old world of regulated AM, FM (and perhaps DAB, etc)formats to the new world of MP3, AAC, OGG, WMA, RM, etc.
In the case of video delivery, disruptive reformation of delivery onto the IP platform has hardly started (pokey video bites in web pages, web streaming video, IPTV, iTunes video downloads, the P2P video-sharing wars,etc).
We're looking at years, if not a decade, I think, for all the strands to come into place (i.e. the wide availability of video streams and content, at acceptable quality, to a enough IP connected end users,with low cost and ubiquitous broadband tuners [i.e. media player generation-N]) to make it a reality.
Here in the UK, there's excitement about the coming wide-scale availability ADSL2+ at 24Mbps (if you're lucky).
Unfortunately, this doesn't really offer much hope for the next decade of innovation in rich-and-high-speed services such as mass-market video-over-IP.
Not true. The compression and the multicasting will allow a stream on a very low bandwidth with high quality for the live transmission and high bandwidth for the registered content.
We really need something better, but there's not much to hope for on the horizon.
There is a full new world of new features and application, a future world on IP!
The party over the UK's mass availability of high-speed broadband may be over in a few years time when we're looking on in envy at places (that already exist in fact) where gigabits (if not gigabytes) per second to the home are enabling all sorts of services with higher content-density."
Matthew Gream
Patrizia
"I don't think there is any need to be concerned about additional innovation beyond HDTV. The next phase of innovation in the business of video delivery will occur on the IP platform, not the 20+ year old broadcasting platform where HDTV is probably the last gasp of air.
I feel optimistic about this.
Unlike the broadcasting platform, the IP platform is an open market where all types of codecs and formats will be in unregulated competition.
The market can drive the technologies itself, rather than be hamstrung by regulatory issues of an old-world broadcasting platform.
In the new world, media devices already have far more codec and display flexibility
(aside: we won't be watching TV on our computers, but our TV's will internally look just like our computers).
And TV,or a big screen, or a projector will be connected to the Net via a Set Top Box, and we'll have the REAL INTERACTIVE TV.
There will still be innovation limiters: i.e. the available capabilities of the IP platform, and issues re.DRM and content protection.
IPTV will mean also a new form of content"the users' made content".
Millions of new broadcasters will bring their production on the NET.
If there's a business case for super hi-def video delivery, expect the market to satisfy it without having to wait for regulations.
The example of this in action is the business of music delivery.
In the last five years it's just started its very first steps of migrating from
the stifling old world of regulated AM, FM (and perhaps DAB, etc)formats to the new world of MP3, AAC, OGG, WMA, RM, etc.
In the case of video delivery, disruptive reformation of delivery onto the IP platform has hardly started (pokey video bites in web pages, web streaming video, IPTV, iTunes video downloads, the P2P video-sharing wars,etc).
We're looking at years, if not a decade, I think, for all the strands to come into place (i.e. the wide availability of video streams and content, at acceptable quality, to a enough IP connected end users,with low cost and ubiquitous broadband tuners [i.e. media player generation-N]) to make it a reality.
Here in the UK, there's excitement about the coming wide-scale availability ADSL2+ at 24Mbps (if you're lucky).
Unfortunately, this doesn't really offer much hope for the next decade of innovation in rich-and-high-speed services such as mass-market video-over-IP.
Not true. The compression and the multicasting will allow a stream on a very low bandwidth with high quality for the live transmission and high bandwidth for the registered content.
We really need something better, but there's not much to hope for on the horizon.
There is a full new world of new features and application, a future world on IP!
The party over the UK's mass availability of high-speed broadband may be over in a few years time when we're looking on in envy at places (that already exist in fact) where gigabits (if not gigabytes) per second to the home are enabling all sorts of services with higher content-density."
Matthew Gream
Patrizia
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Please, give me a "peer"...
"Strong words, Shaitaangul, and fascinating! I plead ignorance and would like to learn more. But first let me completely agree that peering is a business arrangement that requires economic justification, and that companies have a total right to de-peer with companies they don't deem a peer.
But citizens also have rights to take issue with legitimate business decisions, and such citizen protests have sometimes caused beneficial changes. The boycott of companies doing (legitimate, economically well-motivated) business in South Africa, which ended Apartheid, is a good example."...
D.Isenberg
Dave,
in my enormous ignorance, I forsee a Future where big expensive backbones will charge to "peer" and small ones will not.
But,as it happens in other market fields like TV, this WILL bring the majority of customers to the "free" backbones...
We will have different levels and different prices.
But I really do not see it as a negative side.
We will have the "commercial, low level" Internet and the "pay, higher level".
Then somebody will realize that the number of users makes the value of a Network, and the Value of the Network means higher revenues...
Is it better one dollar out of 1 million or 100 dollars out of 100?
At the end THIS is going to be the real matter...
But citizens also have rights to take issue with legitimate business decisions, and such citizen protests have sometimes caused beneficial changes. The boycott of companies doing (legitimate, economically well-motivated) business in South Africa, which ended Apartheid, is a good example."...
D.Isenberg
Dave,
in my enormous ignorance, I forsee a Future where big expensive backbones will charge to "peer" and small ones will not.
But,as it happens in other market fields like TV, this WILL bring the majority of customers to the "free" backbones...
We will have different levels and different prices.
But I really do not see it as a negative side.
We will have the "commercial, low level" Internet and the "pay, higher level".
Then somebody will realize that the number of users makes the value of a Network, and the Value of the Network means higher revenues...
Is it better one dollar out of 1 million or 100 dollars out of 100?
At the end THIS is going to be the real matter...
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Marco Tronchetti Provera
Egr. dott. Marco Tronchetti Provera,
le scrissi tempo fa dal mio Blog (l'unico modo possibile).
Lei e' sempre dov'e', io pure, e Sanfre' continua ad essere senza DSL, come peraltro la maggior parte dei comuni italiani.
Presto saremo nel 2006 e a Torino vorranno far vedere al mondo quale grande paese e' l'Italia.
Mi permetta di non manifestare la mia opinione, perche' dovrei usare termini non appropriati al gergo di una "signora".
Le vorrei trascrivere alcune parti dell'Atto di Ginevra sulle Telecomunicazioni del 1996, non perche' penso che lei non lo conosca, ma perche' penso lei (come molti altri a cui fa comodo) volutamente lo ignorino.
Se l'Italia fosse un paese diverso in cui la Giustizia e' solo un'opinione e la Democrazia una parola del dizionario, varrebbe forse la pena di discuterne in altro loco.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 dramatically changed the landscape of telecommunications and specifically the relationship between communications providers and local governments. The purpose of the Act was to create competition in the telecommunications industry. In addition, continuing technical advancements in the area of communications have reached the point where it is now possible to merge various communications, information, and video technologies that were historically developed, implemented, and regulated separately.
Le ricordo che la Telecom ha perso il Monopolio.
Mi sento in dovere di ricordarglielo, perche' a tutti gli effetti il comportamento della Telecom e' tale da far pensare che l'Atto di Ginevra, sottoscritto dall'Italia, non sia mai esistito.
E, per piacere, non mi ricordi che le Linee sono di proprieta' della Telecom, perche' qui mette un altro dito sulla piaga.
Se il Governo Italiano non fosse una farsa qual'e', se non fosse guidato da Mafiosi, forse ricorderebbe alla Telecom che le linee sono state strapagate dai cittadini italiani dopo un secolo di "Canoni telefonici".
Non solo il canone e' illegale, e' anche illegale pretendere una quota di 150 Euro per un allaccio.
150 Euro per un click del mouse.
In addition to opening up competition between the various industries, the Act also loosens regulation of the cable system rates and telephone service rates. The Act creates a class of basic telephone service called "Universal Service." These rates must be "just, reasonable and affordable."
A me non sembra che 150 euro per un click di mouse, il canone mensile e il costo astronomico delle telefonate si possano definire "just, reasonable and affordable."
Ma questo non e' tutto.
Non solo la Telecom spadroneggia in fatto di tariffe, spadroneggia anche in fatto di servizi.
Non solo non provvede servizi ormai essenziali come la DSL, ma non permette ad altri operatori di provvederli.
E tutto cio' per l'ottusita' o la malfede (cambiano gli addendi, ma il risultato e' lo stesso) di managers come LEI Marco Tronchetti Provera.
The changes created by the 1996 Act are monumental. It is important that local government understand these changes from several standpoints. Local government officials must be informed and understand the structural reconfiguration of the telecommunications markets. In addition, it is important that officials understand how the new market affects existing and future relationships that they will have with telecommunications and video programming providers .
I cambiamenti in Italia non sono stati monumentali, almeno non per il consumatore.
E per quanto riguarda la Telecom, non so se per dabbenaggine o per corruzione mascherata da dabbenaggine, sembra si voglia investire in cretinate.
Come il video telefono o la TV via cellulare (3 frames al sec. invece delle 25, 28 richieste i risultati parlano da soli) o altre cretinerie costose e che non produrranno mai profitti.
Lei e' noto per ben altri investimenti, per una indubbia acutezza sulle esigenze del mercato.
Lei che crede nella fibra ottica, perche' indubbiamente crede nelle nuove tecnologie, nella nuova trasmissione su IP, nel fatto che l'IP sara' senza dubbi il futuro delle telecomunicazioni, intese non solo come trasmissione di voci, ma di dati e immagini,
Lei che SA, perche' continua a IGNORARE?
Lei ha la responsabilita' di centinaia di migliaia di famiglie, nonche' la responsabilita' di dare un futuro e il progresso all'Italia, LEI CHE PUO', perche' non vuole?
Perche' non fa un piano di informatizzazione, perche' non porta l'Italia ai livelli della Corea, del Giappone, dei nostri grandi concorrenti?
Perche' in Italia non si fa nulla, ma si precipita sempre di piu' nella voragine del regresso tecnologico, economico e culturale?
Io ho un marito tedesco e non le nascondo che mi sento terribilmente depressa vedendo quello che si fa in Germania e quello che NON SI FA in Italia.
Eppure noi Italiani non siamo piu' stupidi, piu' ignoranti, piu' imbecilli dei tedeschi...
Perche' solo NOI in Europa dobbiamo essere malgovernati, mal manageriati?
Lei e' in grado di darmi una risposta?
Fulvia Patrizia Demaria Broghammer
le scrissi tempo fa dal mio Blog (l'unico modo possibile).
Lei e' sempre dov'e', io pure, e Sanfre' continua ad essere senza DSL, come peraltro la maggior parte dei comuni italiani.
Presto saremo nel 2006 e a Torino vorranno far vedere al mondo quale grande paese e' l'Italia.
Mi permetta di non manifestare la mia opinione, perche' dovrei usare termini non appropriati al gergo di una "signora".
Le vorrei trascrivere alcune parti dell'Atto di Ginevra sulle Telecomunicazioni del 1996, non perche' penso che lei non lo conosca, ma perche' penso lei (come molti altri a cui fa comodo) volutamente lo ignorino.
Se l'Italia fosse un paese diverso in cui la Giustizia e' solo un'opinione e la Democrazia una parola del dizionario, varrebbe forse la pena di discuterne in altro loco.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 dramatically changed the landscape of telecommunications and specifically the relationship between communications providers and local governments. The purpose of the Act was to create competition in the telecommunications industry. In addition, continuing technical advancements in the area of communications have reached the point where it is now possible to merge various communications, information, and video technologies that were historically developed, implemented, and regulated separately.
Le ricordo che la Telecom ha perso il Monopolio.
Mi sento in dovere di ricordarglielo, perche' a tutti gli effetti il comportamento della Telecom e' tale da far pensare che l'Atto di Ginevra, sottoscritto dall'Italia, non sia mai esistito.
E, per piacere, non mi ricordi che le Linee sono di proprieta' della Telecom, perche' qui mette un altro dito sulla piaga.
Se il Governo Italiano non fosse una farsa qual'e', se non fosse guidato da Mafiosi, forse ricorderebbe alla Telecom che le linee sono state strapagate dai cittadini italiani dopo un secolo di "Canoni telefonici".
Non solo il canone e' illegale, e' anche illegale pretendere una quota di 150 Euro per un allaccio.
150 Euro per un click del mouse.
In addition to opening up competition between the various industries, the Act also loosens regulation of the cable system rates and telephone service rates. The Act creates a class of basic telephone service called "Universal Service." These rates must be "just, reasonable and affordable."
A me non sembra che 150 euro per un click di mouse, il canone mensile e il costo astronomico delle telefonate si possano definire "just, reasonable and affordable."
Ma questo non e' tutto.
Non solo la Telecom spadroneggia in fatto di tariffe, spadroneggia anche in fatto di servizi.
Non solo non provvede servizi ormai essenziali come la DSL, ma non permette ad altri operatori di provvederli.
E tutto cio' per l'ottusita' o la malfede (cambiano gli addendi, ma il risultato e' lo stesso) di managers come LEI Marco Tronchetti Provera.
The changes created by the 1996 Act are monumental. It is important that local government understand these changes from several standpoints. Local government officials must be informed and understand the structural reconfiguration of the telecommunications markets. In addition, it is important that officials understand how the new market affects existing and future relationships that they will have with telecommunications and video programming providers .
I cambiamenti in Italia non sono stati monumentali, almeno non per il consumatore.
E per quanto riguarda la Telecom, non so se per dabbenaggine o per corruzione mascherata da dabbenaggine, sembra si voglia investire in cretinate.
Come il video telefono o la TV via cellulare (3 frames al sec. invece delle 25, 28 richieste i risultati parlano da soli) o altre cretinerie costose e che non produrranno mai profitti.
Lei e' noto per ben altri investimenti, per una indubbia acutezza sulle esigenze del mercato.
Lei che crede nella fibra ottica, perche' indubbiamente crede nelle nuove tecnologie, nella nuova trasmissione su IP, nel fatto che l'IP sara' senza dubbi il futuro delle telecomunicazioni, intese non solo come trasmissione di voci, ma di dati e immagini,
Lei che SA, perche' continua a IGNORARE?
Lei ha la responsabilita' di centinaia di migliaia di famiglie, nonche' la responsabilita' di dare un futuro e il progresso all'Italia, LEI CHE PUO', perche' non vuole?
Perche' non fa un piano di informatizzazione, perche' non porta l'Italia ai livelli della Corea, del Giappone, dei nostri grandi concorrenti?
Perche' in Italia non si fa nulla, ma si precipita sempre di piu' nella voragine del regresso tecnologico, economico e culturale?
Io ho un marito tedesco e non le nascondo che mi sento terribilmente depressa vedendo quello che si fa in Germania e quello che NON SI FA in Italia.
Eppure noi Italiani non siamo piu' stupidi, piu' ignoranti, piu' imbecilli dei tedeschi...
Perche' solo NOI in Europa dobbiamo essere malgovernati, mal manageriati?
Lei e' in grado di darmi una risposta?
Fulvia Patrizia Demaria Broghammer
Sunday, October 16, 2005
More about Monopolies
Give Me a Cell Break
By Mike Mills, CQ Columnist
I am not happy with my family's cell phone service.
My wife and teenage daughter complain all the time about spotty coverage and dropped calls.
I've stopped using my mobile phone completely, relying instead on my employer's Blackberry, which uses a more dependable network.
If only I could fire my family's cellular phone provider and get a new one.
But I can't. Doing so would cost me an early termination fee of $150 per phone, or $450. So unless I want to pay their ransom, I'm stuck with this lemon of a carrier until November 2006, when my three two- year contracts expire.
But don't feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for a guy named Jerome in Riverside, Calif., who posted his story on ConsumerAffairs.com:
He signed a two-year deal with his carrier, only to quickly find there
was no coverage within two miles of his home.
"In this situation I will pay for not receiving service, no matter what," he wrote.
Freedom to choose among multiple carriers, of course, was a promise of the 1996 Telecom Act.
We were even supposed to be free to pick someone other than a Bell company for our local land-line service.
But when that didn't happen - instead all the Bells merged back together and blocked rivals from leasing their lines - we heard,"Well, at least consumers can choose among multiple wireless carriers."
True, we do have six major wireless providers nationwide.
Oops, make that four: The market recently consolidated again with the Cingular/AT&T and Sprint/Nextel mergers.
But by imposing hefty early termination fees - from $100 to $240 per user - the Big Four (including Verizon and T-Mobile) make it mighty difficult to exercise choice in the wireless market.
The fees are the wireless industry's revenge after the Federal Communications Commission made carriers offer "number portability" in late 2003 - letting consumers keep their phone numbers even as they switch carriers.
Back then the research firm In-Stat/MDR predicted number portability would lead to 22 million additional customers switching carriers in 2004.
Instead, Merrill Lynch reported in June that customer "churn" over the past year actually declined by 20 percent.
The industry celebrated those figures as evidence of customer satisfaction.
But in an August survey of 1,000 consumers by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, 47 percent said they would seriously consider switching carriers if there were no early termination fees in their contracts.
Who protects consumers when we're being unfairly held to a contract that we feel our wireless carrier has reneged on?
In recent years, state public utility commissions have been cracking down on the most egregious abuses of early termination fees, and class action suits are pending in several states.
California's Public Utilities Commission last year upheld a $12 million fine against Cingular for charging early termination fees and prohibiting refunds at the same time it was aggressively signing up consumers without disclosing significant network problems. (Cingular denied any wrongdoing.)
But now the carriers want the FCC to effectively prohibit states from challenging their shut-off fee practices.
They want the regulators to treat the fees as part of their overall rates, rather than as penalties.
The Company Line
Cell carriers argue the fees are necessary so they can recoup the costs of adding new customers to their networks in the event that customers leave before their contracts expire.
They point, in particular, to their practice of greatly subsidizing the cost of the
phones themselves (a tactic borrowed from the razor blade industry).
Moreover, they argue, in a free and competitive market, states shouldn't be going around telling them what kinds of fees to charge.
Customers should know the terms of the contract when they sign up - and shouldn't complain later if they don't like those terms.
I'm all for this free-market thing: I'm a consumer, after all, and I want as many companies as possible beating each other's brains out to win me as a customer.
But since when, in a free-market, does any company have a guaranteed right to recoup its costs - even when an unsatisfied customer wants to leave early because of shoddy service?
If I buy a car and then return it because it doesn't work, should the dealer be able to charge me a fee for selling it to me?
The wireless carriers' "cost recovery" argument is a reminder that they're owned by the same old land-line phone companies that spent decades haggling with the FCC and state public utility commissions back when their costs - and their profits - were highly regulated.
Though they are now free to earn as much as they can, they seem to not yet grasp the notion of "risk capital."
Interestingly, these telecom giants don't yet have such stiff fees on their broadband Internet services.
Verizon asks only for a one-year contract and has a $79 early termination fee for its high-speed Web access - compared with their two-year contract and $175 early cancel
fee for its cell service.
Why? Their rivals can't charge such fees, as a rule: Cable companies still must answer to local regulators.
How quaint: If you want to fire your cable company, you need only pay off your bill and send back their leased equipment.
Mike Mills is CQ's executive editor for electronic publishing.
Source: CQ Weekly
The definitive source for news about Congress.
© 2005 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved.
By Mike Mills, CQ Columnist
I am not happy with my family's cell phone service.
My wife and teenage daughter complain all the time about spotty coverage and dropped calls.
I've stopped using my mobile phone completely, relying instead on my employer's Blackberry, which uses a more dependable network.
If only I could fire my family's cellular phone provider and get a new one.
But I can't. Doing so would cost me an early termination fee of $150 per phone, or $450. So unless I want to pay their ransom, I'm stuck with this lemon of a carrier until November 2006, when my three two- year contracts expire.
But don't feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for a guy named Jerome in Riverside, Calif., who posted his story on ConsumerAffairs.com:
He signed a two-year deal with his carrier, only to quickly find there
was no coverage within two miles of his home.
"In this situation I will pay for not receiving service, no matter what," he wrote.
Freedom to choose among multiple carriers, of course, was a promise of the 1996 Telecom Act.
We were even supposed to be free to pick someone other than a Bell company for our local land-line service.
But when that didn't happen - instead all the Bells merged back together and blocked rivals from leasing their lines - we heard,"Well, at least consumers can choose among multiple wireless carriers."
True, we do have six major wireless providers nationwide.
Oops, make that four: The market recently consolidated again with the Cingular/AT&T and Sprint/Nextel mergers.
But by imposing hefty early termination fees - from $100 to $240 per user - the Big Four (including Verizon and T-Mobile) make it mighty difficult to exercise choice in the wireless market.
The fees are the wireless industry's revenge after the Federal Communications Commission made carriers offer "number portability" in late 2003 - letting consumers keep their phone numbers even as they switch carriers.
Back then the research firm In-Stat/MDR predicted number portability would lead to 22 million additional customers switching carriers in 2004.
Instead, Merrill Lynch reported in June that customer "churn" over the past year actually declined by 20 percent.
The industry celebrated those figures as evidence of customer satisfaction.
But in an August survey of 1,000 consumers by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, 47 percent said they would seriously consider switching carriers if there were no early termination fees in their contracts.
Who protects consumers when we're being unfairly held to a contract that we feel our wireless carrier has reneged on?
In recent years, state public utility commissions have been cracking down on the most egregious abuses of early termination fees, and class action suits are pending in several states.
California's Public Utilities Commission last year upheld a $12 million fine against Cingular for charging early termination fees and prohibiting refunds at the same time it was aggressively signing up consumers without disclosing significant network problems. (Cingular denied any wrongdoing.)
But now the carriers want the FCC to effectively prohibit states from challenging their shut-off fee practices.
They want the regulators to treat the fees as part of their overall rates, rather than as penalties.
The Company Line
Cell carriers argue the fees are necessary so they can recoup the costs of adding new customers to their networks in the event that customers leave before their contracts expire.
They point, in particular, to their practice of greatly subsidizing the cost of the
phones themselves (a tactic borrowed from the razor blade industry).
Moreover, they argue, in a free and competitive market, states shouldn't be going around telling them what kinds of fees to charge.
Customers should know the terms of the contract when they sign up - and shouldn't complain later if they don't like those terms.
I'm all for this free-market thing: I'm a consumer, after all, and I want as many companies as possible beating each other's brains out to win me as a customer.
But since when, in a free-market, does any company have a guaranteed right to recoup its costs - even when an unsatisfied customer wants to leave early because of shoddy service?
If I buy a car and then return it because it doesn't work, should the dealer be able to charge me a fee for selling it to me?
The wireless carriers' "cost recovery" argument is a reminder that they're owned by the same old land-line phone companies that spent decades haggling with the FCC and state public utility commissions back when their costs - and their profits - were highly regulated.
Though they are now free to earn as much as they can, they seem to not yet grasp the notion of "risk capital."
Interestingly, these telecom giants don't yet have such stiff fees on their broadband Internet services.
Verizon asks only for a one-year contract and has a $79 early termination fee for its high-speed Web access - compared with their two-year contract and $175 early cancel
fee for its cell service.
Why? Their rivals can't charge such fees, as a rule: Cable companies still must answer to local regulators.
How quaint: If you want to fire your cable company, you need only pay off your bill and send back their leased equipment.
Mike Mills is CQ's executive editor for electronic publishing.
Source: CQ Weekly
The definitive source for news about Congress.
© 2005 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Europe and VoIP
Are the European Telcos different or the Europeans?
... or are the telcos whistling in the dark?
Interesting post of Richard Stastny.
Why
Forrester Research believes that pure plays have no chance of dethroning proactive European incumbent Telco's from their consumer fixed voice market leadership?
And:
Telco's like British Telecom and France Telecom can continue to dominate future voice markets as long as they maintain their proactive and innovative VoIP response strategies.
There is a basic difference between USA and Europe.
The first exists, the second exists only on the paper.
In the first we have 300 millions Americans speaking the same language.
In the second we have 450 millions of "French, Germans, Italians, Uks and so on..." speaking different languages.
In the first the FULL POPULATION has the need to call long distance (California to New York).
In the second, just few companies have the need to call long distance and those few are managed mostly by OLD people, OLD THINKING and BEHAVING people who see the new TECHNOLOGIES as something scaring and damaging.
And indeed damaging they are.
Europe is the OLD WORLD, still shaped in the "Mafia Fashion" where few families (Monopolies) control the economy because they control the Politics.
And this "Mafia" survives and guaranties to all "associates" the right profits.
Why should they embrace "Disruptive Technologies" and change the Status Quo?
The Mafia survives thanks to the fact that there is no fight among the "families" and the profits are equally distributed among all.
The eventual fight is on the "how much" but not the "who".
If they made a referendum through Europe right now, I think ALL would vote NO, but not because they do not believe in Europe, THEY DO NOT BELIEVE IN THIS EUROPE.
And as long as they will be able to keep the "Status Quo" there won't be any space for VoIP, for Progress and for innovation.
And we REALLY SHOULDN'T BLAME CHINA FOR THAT.
"Chi e' fonte dei suoi mal pianga se stesso"
The only ones to blame would be ourselves
... or are the telcos whistling in the dark?
Interesting post of Richard Stastny.
Why
Forrester Research believes that pure plays have no chance of dethroning proactive European incumbent Telco's from their consumer fixed voice market leadership?
And:
Telco's like British Telecom and France Telecom can continue to dominate future voice markets as long as they maintain their proactive and innovative VoIP response strategies.
There is a basic difference between USA and Europe.
The first exists, the second exists only on the paper.
In the first we have 300 millions Americans speaking the same language.
In the second we have 450 millions of "French, Germans, Italians, Uks and so on..." speaking different languages.
In the first the FULL POPULATION has the need to call long distance (California to New York).
In the second, just few companies have the need to call long distance and those few are managed mostly by OLD people, OLD THINKING and BEHAVING people who see the new TECHNOLOGIES as something scaring and damaging.
And indeed damaging they are.
Europe is the OLD WORLD, still shaped in the "Mafia Fashion" where few families (Monopolies) control the economy because they control the Politics.
And this "Mafia" survives and guaranties to all "associates" the right profits.
Why should they embrace "Disruptive Technologies" and change the Status Quo?
The Mafia survives thanks to the fact that there is no fight among the "families" and the profits are equally distributed among all.
The eventual fight is on the "how much" but not the "who".
If they made a referendum through Europe right now, I think ALL would vote NO, but not because they do not believe in Europe, THEY DO NOT BELIEVE IN THIS EUROPE.
And as long as they will be able to keep the "Status Quo" there won't be any space for VoIP, for Progress and for innovation.
And we REALLY SHOULDN'T BLAME CHINA FOR THAT.
"Chi e' fonte dei suoi mal pianga se stesso"
The only ones to blame would be ourselves
Open source e Free Software
Buongiono Cesare,
ovviamente tutti siamo per l'open source e per il free software.
La mia perplessita' (e non solo mia) sta nel fatto che, anche se esistono persone in questo mondo guidate da ideali e che considerano il loro lavoro quasi un Hobby (io ho un marito cosi', talmente appassionato che non riuscirebbe a vivere senza un computer) queste persone necessitano di un minimo di compenso per sopravvivere.
La maggior parte degli umani lavora si' per la gratificazione del successo, ma anche per una gratificazione economica.
Per cui, se uno deve lavorare gratis o fa il minimo o non fa niente del tutto.
Con questo non voglio dire che le attuali leggi sul copyright siano giuste.
Vede io faccio sempre l'esempio di Dickens.
Questi scriveva a mano le sue storie.
Ci volevano cinque anni e piu' per scrivere un libro di successo e ci voleva una vita per poter guadagnare coi diritti d'autore uno stipendio minimo.
Per cui all'epoca era giusto concedere i copyright per un'opera per 70 anni.
Oggi un libro come Harry Potter vende milioni di copie in pochi mesi, richiede altrettanto breve tempo per essere scritto, per cui mi sembra giustissimo abbassare la durata dei copyright.
Anche perche' un libro che non vende nei primi mesi o nel primo anno, molto difficilmente vendera' nei prossimi 69.
Lo stesso dicasi dei film.
Anzi aggiungerei che il film di successo e' ampiamente pagato gia' con gli incassi delle sale cinematografiche e il prezzo pagato per affittare o comperare il DVD e' altamente sproporzionato.
E per questi motivi e' un bene che esista la pirateria, anzi dovrebbe addirittura danneggiare di piu', cosi' che si sarebbe finalmente costretti a cambiare le leggi.
Proporrei quindi una lotta per una legge sui copyright piu' equa nei confronti del consumatore, che pero' fosse fatta rispettare cosi' che chi produce software o qualsiasi altro prodotto possa essere tutelato e avere la giusta ricompensa.
Questo sarebbe ovviamente uno stimolo ad una produzione di qualita' sempre piu' alta.
Per quanto riguarda Linux, ovviamente e' un buon sistema operativo, ma Windows e' certamente migliore, per lo meno nell'usabilita'.
Se no perche' la gente comprerebbe Windows?
Tornando all'Open Source io mi batto per un VoIP open source, per combattere ogni tipo di Monopolio perche' credo che l'unico futuro economico possibile dipenda dallo sfascio dei monopoli e dall'entrata sul mercato di milioni di piccoli imprenditori.
Il futuro e' nelle mani delle piccole aziende, piu' flessibili, piu' economiche, piu' gratificanti...
ovviamente tutti siamo per l'open source e per il free software.
La mia perplessita' (e non solo mia) sta nel fatto che, anche se esistono persone in questo mondo guidate da ideali e che considerano il loro lavoro quasi un Hobby (io ho un marito cosi', talmente appassionato che non riuscirebbe a vivere senza un computer) queste persone necessitano di un minimo di compenso per sopravvivere.
La maggior parte degli umani lavora si' per la gratificazione del successo, ma anche per una gratificazione economica.
Per cui, se uno deve lavorare gratis o fa il minimo o non fa niente del tutto.
Con questo non voglio dire che le attuali leggi sul copyright siano giuste.
Vede io faccio sempre l'esempio di Dickens.
Questi scriveva a mano le sue storie.
Ci volevano cinque anni e piu' per scrivere un libro di successo e ci voleva una vita per poter guadagnare coi diritti d'autore uno stipendio minimo.
Per cui all'epoca era giusto concedere i copyright per un'opera per 70 anni.
Oggi un libro come Harry Potter vende milioni di copie in pochi mesi, richiede altrettanto breve tempo per essere scritto, per cui mi sembra giustissimo abbassare la durata dei copyright.
Anche perche' un libro che non vende nei primi mesi o nel primo anno, molto difficilmente vendera' nei prossimi 69.
Lo stesso dicasi dei film.
Anzi aggiungerei che il film di successo e' ampiamente pagato gia' con gli incassi delle sale cinematografiche e il prezzo pagato per affittare o comperare il DVD e' altamente sproporzionato.
E per questi motivi e' un bene che esista la pirateria, anzi dovrebbe addirittura danneggiare di piu', cosi' che si sarebbe finalmente costretti a cambiare le leggi.
Proporrei quindi una lotta per una legge sui copyright piu' equa nei confronti del consumatore, che pero' fosse fatta rispettare cosi' che chi produce software o qualsiasi altro prodotto possa essere tutelato e avere la giusta ricompensa.
Questo sarebbe ovviamente uno stimolo ad una produzione di qualita' sempre piu' alta.
Per quanto riguarda Linux, ovviamente e' un buon sistema operativo, ma Windows e' certamente migliore, per lo meno nell'usabilita'.
Se no perche' la gente comprerebbe Windows?
Tornando all'Open Source io mi batto per un VoIP open source, per combattere ogni tipo di Monopolio perche' credo che l'unico futuro economico possibile dipenda dallo sfascio dei monopoli e dall'entrata sul mercato di milioni di piccoli imprenditori.
Il futuro e' nelle mani delle piccole aziende, piu' flessibili, piu' economiche, piu' gratificanti...
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
They have signed their death sentence, let's buy chinese!
TCPA-Disgraced
The Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA), founded by Compaq, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft,has set themself the goal to create an "extended and operating system-based computer platform, that implements confidence in Clients, servers, networks and communication platforms".
The Big Players defined an ambitious goal. But the confidence into this objective was strongly impaired in the last days.
The technology:
TCPA stands for Trusted Computing Platform Alliance.
For the technology we will speak from TCP (The trusted computing platform).
This plans that every computer will have a TPM (Trusted Platform Module), also known as Fritz-Chip, built-in.
At later development stages, these functions will be directly included into CPUs, graphiccards, harddisks, soundcards, bios and so on.
This will secure that the computer is in a TCPA-conform state and that he checks that it's always in this state.
This means: On the first level comes the hardware, on the second comes TCPA and then comes the user.
The complete communication works with a 2048 bit strong encryption, so it's also secure enough to make it impossible to decrypt this in realtime for a longer time.
This secures that the TCPA can prevent any unwanted software and hardware.
The long term result will be that it will be impossible to use hardware and software that's not approved by the TCPA.
Presumably there will be high costs to get this certification and that these would be too much for little and mid-range companies.
Therefore open-source and freeware would be condemned to die, because without such a certification the software will simply not work.
In the long term only the big companies would survive and could control the market as they would like.
Some could think that it should be possible to get around this security.
But probably they would be proved they're wrong. Until now there're no such hardware-implemented security systems and actual security systems have to work offline.
This would be changed with TCP.
The rights and licenses would be central managed by the TCPA (USA?).
And as soon a violation is noticed, they will get notified.
Read the chapter "The bills" to get an overview about the possible resulting consequences.
The companies:
The TCPA was founded 1999 by Compaq, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft. But in the meantime around 200 companies joined them. You will find Adobe, AMD, Fujitsu-Siemens, Gateway, Motorola, Samsung, Toshiba and many other well known companies. IBM already sells first desktops and notebooks with integrated TPM.
Let's buy Chinese!
The Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA), founded by Compaq, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft,has set themself the goal to create an "extended and operating system-based computer platform, that implements confidence in Clients, servers, networks and communication platforms".
The Big Players defined an ambitious goal. But the confidence into this objective was strongly impaired in the last days.
The technology:
TCPA stands for Trusted Computing Platform Alliance.
For the technology we will speak from TCP (The trusted computing platform).
This plans that every computer will have a TPM (Trusted Platform Module), also known as Fritz-Chip, built-in.
At later development stages, these functions will be directly included into CPUs, graphiccards, harddisks, soundcards, bios and so on.
This will secure that the computer is in a TCPA-conform state and that he checks that it's always in this state.
This means: On the first level comes the hardware, on the second comes TCPA and then comes the user.
The complete communication works with a 2048 bit strong encryption, so it's also secure enough to make it impossible to decrypt this in realtime for a longer time.
This secures that the TCPA can prevent any unwanted software and hardware.
The long term result will be that it will be impossible to use hardware and software that's not approved by the TCPA.
Presumably there will be high costs to get this certification and that these would be too much for little and mid-range companies.
Therefore open-source and freeware would be condemned to die, because without such a certification the software will simply not work.
In the long term only the big companies would survive and could control the market as they would like.
Some could think that it should be possible to get around this security.
But probably they would be proved they're wrong. Until now there're no such hardware-implemented security systems and actual security systems have to work offline.
This would be changed with TCP.
The rights and licenses would be central managed by the TCPA (USA?).
And as soon a violation is noticed, they will get notified.
Read the chapter "The bills" to get an overview about the possible resulting consequences.
The companies:
The TCPA was founded 1999 by Compaq, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft. But in the meantime around 200 companies joined them. You will find Adobe, AMD, Fujitsu-Siemens, Gateway, Motorola, Samsung, Toshiba and many other well known companies. IBM already sells first desktops and notebooks with integrated TPM.
Let's buy Chinese!
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
The future of the Internet and IP
Let's talk about the end of TV, Cinemas, telephony and the beginning of the new ERA of Entertainment.
Everything will be on IP also the Commercials...
And when the commercials will migrate to IP, I would suggest the old broadcasters to begin to think in a new way...
"Optical Entertainment Network (OEN) announced today their plans to deploy fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) to over 1,600,000 households in Houston, Texas, the 10th largest television market in the U.S. The company, who has partnered with leading European and North American vendors plans to launch its United States service offering in December 2005 and begin European operations in Q2 of 2006.
The company has designed the first truly integrated IPTV service for Video, 10 to 100 Mbps Internet, Voice, Video-on-Demand (VOD) and other broadband applications such as, Home Security, videoconferencing and telemedicine. OEN has acquired programming agreements for IPTV distribution from top programming television networks and will deliver over 400 television channels, including 50 plus channels of High Definition Television (HDTV) to subscribers. In addition, OEN will offer video-on-demand, subscription video-on-demand, pay-per-view specials and events and original HDTV programming created by OEN Studios, the creative television production arm of Optical Entertainment Network.
The OEN system provides state-of-the-art integrated services including standard and high definition television, Internet, telephone services and unified messaging. This network delivers innovative new applications such as, videoconferencing, gaming, telemedicine, niche programming, and connected learning to homes in the Houston area.
All of these services have been integrated into IP (Internet Protocol) architecture, designed specifically for Gigabit Ethernet FTTH systems. "
Everything will be on IP also the Commercials...
And when the commercials will migrate to IP, I would suggest the old broadcasters to begin to think in a new way...
"Optical Entertainment Network (OEN) announced today their plans to deploy fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) to over 1,600,000 households in Houston, Texas, the 10th largest television market in the U.S. The company, who has partnered with leading European and North American vendors plans to launch its United States service offering in December 2005 and begin European operations in Q2 of 2006.
The company has designed the first truly integrated IPTV service for Video, 10 to 100 Mbps Internet, Voice, Video-on-Demand (VOD) and other broadband applications such as, Home Security, videoconferencing and telemedicine. OEN has acquired programming agreements for IPTV distribution from top programming television networks and will deliver over 400 television channels, including 50 plus channels of High Definition Television (HDTV) to subscribers. In addition, OEN will offer video-on-demand, subscription video-on-demand, pay-per-view specials and events and original HDTV programming created by OEN Studios, the creative television production arm of Optical Entertainment Network.
The OEN system provides state-of-the-art integrated services including standard and high definition television, Internet, telephone services and unified messaging. This network delivers innovative new applications such as, videoconferencing, gaming, telemedicine, niche programming, and connected learning to homes in the Houston area.
All of these services have been integrated into IP (Internet Protocol) architecture, designed specifically for Gigabit Ethernet FTTH systems. "
Friday, September 23, 2005
Why did eBay do it?
Martin,
I agree with you.
The only possible explanation is that had they built their own VoIP, Skype would have been a competitor.
On the other end, eBAY is the only survival hope for Skype.
The customers will practically be obliged to stick to it.
At least eBay's customers.
Because all the others are going toward an open standard VoIP which in my opinion IS the only future for VoIP.
There are already platforms open to all H323 and SIP codecs.
You can use whatever and you are able to communicate with the others.
Not with Skype of course.
It isn't difficult to understand who in the end will win.
Patrizia
As I always said, if I was a VC I wouldn't make a long term investment in a short term revenue company...
I agree with you.
The only possible explanation is that had they built their own VoIP, Skype would have been a competitor.
On the other end, eBAY is the only survival hope for Skype.
The customers will practically be obliged to stick to it.
At least eBay's customers.
Because all the others are going toward an open standard VoIP which in my opinion IS the only future for VoIP.
There are already platforms open to all H323 and SIP codecs.
You can use whatever and you are able to communicate with the others.
Not with Skype of course.
It isn't difficult to understand who in the end will win.
Patrizia
As I always said, if I was a VC I wouldn't make a long term investment in a short term revenue company...
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Missing the Skype VC Opportunity
by Mark Evans at 12:33PM (EDT) on September 21, 2005
While there has been a lot of attention on the VCs that hit the jackpot with Skype
(Draper Fisher Jurvetson, etc.), there are likely dozens of VCs that took a pass when the company was seeking capital.
At a VON panel today on VC investment in VOIP, David McCarthy, managing director with BCE Capital, said he didn't jump on Skype because he couldn't figure out their business model.
"Shame on me but I generally pass on things without a business model and will likely do so again in the future.
" Kudos to McCarthy for being honest about what coulda/shoulda/mighta been but truth be told, there are hundreds of intriguing technology companies like Skype looking for private equity.
If they're really, really lucky, it all works out for everyone but the vast majority never go anywhere.
I think it was wise to behave the way most VCs did.
When you invest money you must consider the reality, not the unpredictable...
Which is exactly what happened, may be if eBay had waited a little bit, they wouldn't have wasted their money...
VCs think the Market ruled by wise and competent managers, that is why sometimes they miss the point..
But it is not so easy to predict the unpredictable...
Patrizia
While there has been a lot of attention on the VCs that hit the jackpot with Skype
(Draper Fisher Jurvetson, etc.), there are likely dozens of VCs that took a pass when the company was seeking capital.
At a VON panel today on VC investment in VOIP, David McCarthy, managing director with BCE Capital, said he didn't jump on Skype because he couldn't figure out their business model.
"Shame on me but I generally pass on things without a business model and will likely do so again in the future.
" Kudos to McCarthy for being honest about what coulda/shoulda/mighta been but truth be told, there are hundreds of intriguing technology companies like Skype looking for private equity.
If they're really, really lucky, it all works out for everyone but the vast majority never go anywhere.
I think it was wise to behave the way most VCs did.
When you invest money you must consider the reality, not the unpredictable...
Which is exactly what happened, may be if eBay had waited a little bit, they wouldn't have wasted their money...
VCs think the Market ruled by wise and competent managers, that is why sometimes they miss the point..
But it is not so easy to predict the unpredictable...
Patrizia
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Infrastructures, Applications, Content.
When you talk about TV you consider two businesses:
1) The Infrastructure business (Satellite, cable operator)
2) The content business ( TV programs, movies)
When you talk about Internet you must consider a third one:
3) The applications business.
That is by far the revolution of our enterteinment world, it is what allows the customer to make his own content, and it is mostly the content he prefers.
Thus the huge success of the P2P networks, of all the interactive softwares.
But one greater revolution is going to happen soon.
The content that was a monopoly of big corporations, thanks to the lowering cost of the hardware used to make it, will have the competition of millions of "Content makers" and "Content providers".
The "Infrastructure business" is changing hands.
The customers thanks to the fact that can lease the lines for an afforfdable flat fee, are able to broadcast every content they want.
The "content business" is changing hands too.
From the war between the copyright holders and the "hackers" to the war of "artists" chained to a content producer and "artists" representing themselves.
And it is not difficult to understand who will be the winner.
1) The Infrastructure business (Satellite, cable operator)
2) The content business ( TV programs, movies)
When you talk about Internet you must consider a third one:
3) The applications business.
That is by far the revolution of our enterteinment world, it is what allows the customer to make his own content, and it is mostly the content he prefers.
Thus the huge success of the P2P networks, of all the interactive softwares.
But one greater revolution is going to happen soon.
The content that was a monopoly of big corporations, thanks to the lowering cost of the hardware used to make it, will have the competition of millions of "Content makers" and "Content providers".
The "Infrastructure business" is changing hands.
The customers thanks to the fact that can lease the lines for an afforfdable flat fee, are able to broadcast every content they want.
The "content business" is changing hands too.
From the war between the copyright holders and the "hackers" to the war of "artists" chained to a content producer and "artists" representing themselves.
And it is not difficult to understand who will be the winner.
Skype
Every increase in the value or valuation of Skype or equivalent is "an increase" in the value of the telecoms.
What users never saw was that Skype was (and always wanted to be) nothing else than a NEW TELECOM, which used new and more powerful infrastructures.
The differences were:
1) It used lines that didn't belonged to them (but customers' owned or better leased and paid for from the customers)
2) It had lower prices because it just had to charge the last mile, being the trip on the Internet already paid, leased by the customer.
3) It was going to become even a bigger monopoly than the actual ones, because most of the Telecoms, at least in Europe are national.
4) It was even worse because used proprietary protocols and codec, making it an obligation for the customer to use THEIR last mile.
If you hate monopolies and want to demolish them, YOU HAVE to propose the opposite scenario.
Free market for all the small entrepreneus who want to work and invest.
Better service, because there is competition.
Besides, I laugh thinking of a threat to the Telephone companies.
Now a day their biggest revenue IS the MOBILE market and everybody who understands a little bit of wireless understands also that WI-FI at least now, IS NOT a threat to their incomes...
May be in the future, but in a different way, not certainly building copies of the old telecoms.
What people didn't understand is the big potential of VoIP which is in the possibility of having "Customers' owned infrastructures".
What users never saw was that Skype was (and always wanted to be) nothing else than a NEW TELECOM, which used new and more powerful infrastructures.
The differences were:
1) It used lines that didn't belonged to them (but customers' owned or better leased and paid for from the customers)
2) It had lower prices because it just had to charge the last mile, being the trip on the Internet already paid, leased by the customer.
3) It was going to become even a bigger monopoly than the actual ones, because most of the Telecoms, at least in Europe are national.
4) It was even worse because used proprietary protocols and codec, making it an obligation for the customer to use THEIR last mile.
If you hate monopolies and want to demolish them, YOU HAVE to propose the opposite scenario.
Free market for all the small entrepreneus who want to work and invest.
Better service, because there is competition.
Besides, I laugh thinking of a threat to the Telephone companies.
Now a day their biggest revenue IS the MOBILE market and everybody who understands a little bit of wireless understands also that WI-FI at least now, IS NOT a threat to their incomes...
May be in the future, but in a different way, not certainly building copies of the old telecoms.
What people didn't understand is the big potential of VoIP which is in the possibility of having "Customers' owned infrastructures".
Monday, September 19, 2005
The Internet
Talking about the Internet everybody has his own personal ideas.
Somebody sees it as a "chat line" or a "downloading mean" or an "email server".
It is, for all, the way to "communicate with the world".
But in reality the Internet is nothing else than a "New infrastructure" as opposed to the old ones (voice, TV Mail)
It is so powerful that in a very near future will be the "only one" doing mostly the job of the old ones and in a much better way (faster, easier, more powerful)
That is why it looks ridicolous to me using means like the old phone lines to send "images".
With a 64bits line you simply CANNOT compete...
In the same way, it is stupid to use the mobile phone for TV or Movies, even small images.
The low bandwidth DOESN'T allow this.
It is a wonderful "mobile and ubiquitous" way to send voice, but that is and that must be.
Unless obviously they find a better way to use the air..
Even WI-FI and Wimax are not powerful enough.
At least for now, and it is plain silly to illude the consumer.
I am sure it will come either with a very new and revolutionary image compression, which will allow to send huge files in a very low bandwidth, or with a new way to use the available bandwidth (or with a combination of both).
But in the meantime we have to adapt to what is AVAILABLE NOW.
Somebody sees it as a "chat line" or a "downloading mean" or an "email server".
It is, for all, the way to "communicate with the world".
But in reality the Internet is nothing else than a "New infrastructure" as opposed to the old ones (voice, TV Mail)
It is so powerful that in a very near future will be the "only one" doing mostly the job of the old ones and in a much better way (faster, easier, more powerful)
That is why it looks ridicolous to me using means like the old phone lines to send "images".
With a 64bits line you simply CANNOT compete...
In the same way, it is stupid to use the mobile phone for TV or Movies, even small images.
The low bandwidth DOESN'T allow this.
It is a wonderful "mobile and ubiquitous" way to send voice, but that is and that must be.
Unless obviously they find a better way to use the air..
Even WI-FI and Wimax are not powerful enough.
At least for now, and it is plain silly to illude the consumer.
I am sure it will come either with a very new and revolutionary image compression, which will allow to send huge files in a very low bandwidth, or with a new way to use the available bandwidth (or with a combination of both).
But in the meantime we have to adapt to what is AVAILABLE NOW.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Read: Skype and think: the rising of a new MONOPOLY
"No one knows how exactly this story will play out. What is clear is that every major player will want to have communications capabilities as part of its toolkit. Users will get converged communications services from multiple providers: it will sound as awkward to talk about "your phone company" as it would to identify "your e-commerce company" or "your search engine company."
The problem I see is a huge dilemma:
Is it the right road to follow Skype (with or without ebay) like we followed Microsoft?
It has indeed the advantage to make us able to communicate with 50.000.000 users and more...
Or wouldn't it be better, after we saw where Monopolies bring the customers, to follow an open standard (like SIP or H323) platform and leaving this way the possibility to competition to play the role of driving the market?
VoIP IS the Future, like the PC was the future, but do we really want a new Microsoft?
The problem I see is a huge dilemma:
Is it the right road to follow Skype (with or without ebay) like we followed Microsoft?
It has indeed the advantage to make us able to communicate with 50.000.000 users and more...
Or wouldn't it be better, after we saw where Monopolies bring the customers, to follow an open standard (like SIP or H323) platform and leaving this way the possibility to competition to play the role of driving the market?
VoIP IS the Future, like the PC was the future, but do we really want a new Microsoft?
Friday, September 16, 2005
eBay-Skype
Why eBay did a very good bargain
My first impression, like many others' was that the deal was totally on Skype's advantage, then I began to think.
Why should people who certainly are not idiots do a bad deal?
What are they going to do and why Skype?
I began seeing the business on their side and with their eyes and I came to the conclusion that it was indeed a very good deal.
What will happen now?
Well this is what I think.
In a very near future the seller on eBay will have a new feature: the "Call me button".
Let's say it will cost something like 10 or 20 cents more.
But between a seller he can contact on VoIP (free IP to IP) and one he cannot, it is sure the buyer will choose the one with the "call me button".
It's like the image of what you sell, it is not a must, but undoubtely makes the deal much more attractive.
It is true, you can send the picture via email, but it is not the same. Everybody agrees.
And everybody agrees that a call IS more immediate than a email.
But that is NOT all.
The main reason why eBay can be more profitable is the "do ut des".
If Skype had woken up one day and charged for example a fee of 10 dollars a year (do) for the using of the IP to IP (ut des) Skype it would have lost a lot of customers.
And not because 10 dollars are a big sum of money, but because there are others on the market that offer the same for free.
Why stick to Skype?
It is different for eBay.
For just 10 dollars a year you can call IP to IP and use the "call me button" every time you contact a customer.
But they could have done the same with their own VoIP and saving a lot of money.
But then Skype would have been a competitor.
A buyer could have written an email to the seller and say: Skype me!
No call me button, no annual fee.
So, considering the number of Skype customers and eBay customers, it is easy to calculate that they will come back with their money very soon...
I know there is always the unpredictable.
In the beginning of the other century, if a market analyst had to bet, he would have bet 100% on Hitler.
Mussolini did exactly that.
But for every Napoleon, any Hitler, any Mussolini there is always a Russia which represents the unpredictable...
And also for every eBay...at least Hystory teaches us so, you can never be sure, and when you are so sure it is the moment you should begin not to be...
My first impression, like many others' was that the deal was totally on Skype's advantage, then I began to think.
Why should people who certainly are not idiots do a bad deal?
What are they going to do and why Skype?
I began seeing the business on their side and with their eyes and I came to the conclusion that it was indeed a very good deal.
What will happen now?
Well this is what I think.
In a very near future the seller on eBay will have a new feature: the "Call me button".
Let's say it will cost something like 10 or 20 cents more.
But between a seller he can contact on VoIP (free IP to IP) and one he cannot, it is sure the buyer will choose the one with the "call me button".
It's like the image of what you sell, it is not a must, but undoubtely makes the deal much more attractive.
It is true, you can send the picture via email, but it is not the same. Everybody agrees.
And everybody agrees that a call IS more immediate than a email.
But that is NOT all.
The main reason why eBay can be more profitable is the "do ut des".
If Skype had woken up one day and charged for example a fee of 10 dollars a year (do) for the using of the IP to IP (ut des) Skype it would have lost a lot of customers.
And not because 10 dollars are a big sum of money, but because there are others on the market that offer the same for free.
Why stick to Skype?
It is different for eBay.
For just 10 dollars a year you can call IP to IP and use the "call me button" every time you contact a customer.
But they could have done the same with their own VoIP and saving a lot of money.
But then Skype would have been a competitor.
A buyer could have written an email to the seller and say: Skype me!
No call me button, no annual fee.
So, considering the number of Skype customers and eBay customers, it is easy to calculate that they will come back with their money very soon...
I know there is always the unpredictable.
In the beginning of the other century, if a market analyst had to bet, he would have bet 100% on Hitler.
Mussolini did exactly that.
But for every Napoleon, any Hitler, any Mussolini there is always a Russia which represents the unpredictable...
And also for every eBay...at least Hystory teaches us so, you can never be sure, and when you are so sure it is the moment you should begin not to be...
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Read: SKYPE and think: eBay VoIP
Joseph E. Sullivan, Director of Compliance and Law Enforcement Relations, Senior Counsel, Trust and Safety for online auction powerhouse eBay, recently addressed a group of law enforcement officials regarding eBay's policies for cooperating with government investigations. Below are verbatim quotations from his briefing at the recent CyberCrime 2003 conference:
"We [eBay] try to make rules to make it difficult for people to commit fraud and easy for you [law enforcement agencies] to investigate. One is our Privacy policy. I know from investigating eBay fraud cases that eBay has probably the most generous policy of any internet company when it comes to sharing information. [emphasis added]
We do not require a subpoena except for very limited circumstances. We require a subpoena when we need the financial information from the site, credit card info or sometimes IP information."
Now why, _exactly_, would anyone want to let these clowns route their phone calls and IM traffic, let alone PAY for the privilege?
--burdonlane
"We [eBay] try to make rules to make it difficult for people to commit fraud and easy for you [law enforcement agencies] to investigate. One is our Privacy policy. I know from investigating eBay fraud cases that eBay has probably the most generous policy of any internet company when it comes to sharing information. [emphasis added]
We do not require a subpoena except for very limited circumstances. We require a subpoena when we need the financial information from the site, credit card info or sometimes IP information."
Now why, _exactly_, would anyone want to let these clowns route their phone calls and IM traffic, let alone PAY for the privilege?
--burdonlane
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Transformation of Work in Modern Capitalism
"We have no future because our present is too volatile. The only possibility that remains is the management of risk. The spinning top of the scenarios of the present moment." (W. Gibson: Pattern recognition, tr. It. L'accademia dei sogni)
In the 1970s the energy crisis, the consequent economic recession and finally the substitution of work with numerical machines resulted in the formation of a large number of people with no guarantees.
Since then the question of the precarity became central to social analysis, but also in the ambitions of the movement.
We began by proposing to struggle for forms of guaranteed income, uncoupled from work, in order to face the fact that a large part of the young population had no prospect of guaranteed employment.
The situation has changed since then, because what seemed a marginal and temporary condition has no w become the prevalent form of labour relations. Precariousness is no longer a marginal and provisional characteristic, but it is the general form of the labour relation in a productive, digitalized sphere, reticular and recombinative.
"The arrow of time is broken: in an economy under constant restructuring that is based on the short-term and hates routine, definite trajectories no longer exist. People miss stable human relations and long term objectives." (R. Sennett: The corrosion of character)
If we analyse the first aspect, i.e. the technical transformations introduced by the digitalisation of the productive cycle, we see that the essential point is not the becoming precarious of the labour relation (which, after all, has always been precarious), but the dissolution of the person as active productive agent, as labour power. We have to look at the cyberspace of global production as an immense expanse of depersonalised human time."
And we have to look at a new future where the individual has the chance to drive the "machines" instead of being driven by them.
And since the machines have got a lot smarter, it is essential that in this future the man is smarter than them.
The main problem of our society is that laziness has driven us at the point where we are.
Before the 70s, man (of US and Europe) was used to have a "sure job" that mostly meant just a "sure salary" and so political forces have based their strength in the assurance of this.
People mostly voted for the one who promised the "Forever legalized salary" in spite of production, in spite of revenues.
But Economy follows other patterns.
If you do not produce, you do not have revenues, and if you do not have revenues there is somebody who can produce revenues and HE will steal your job.
No political force can guarantee "The Status quo", no political force can guarantee a salary when you do not produce revenues.
And this is NOT the Chineses' fault, it is just mathematics.
In the 1970s the energy crisis, the consequent economic recession and finally the substitution of work with numerical machines resulted in the formation of a large number of people with no guarantees.
Since then the question of the precarity became central to social analysis, but also in the ambitions of the movement.
We began by proposing to struggle for forms of guaranteed income, uncoupled from work, in order to face the fact that a large part of the young population had no prospect of guaranteed employment.
The situation has changed since then, because what seemed a marginal and temporary condition has no w become the prevalent form of labour relations. Precariousness is no longer a marginal and provisional characteristic, but it is the general form of the labour relation in a productive, digitalized sphere, reticular and recombinative.
"The arrow of time is broken: in an economy under constant restructuring that is based on the short-term and hates routine, definite trajectories no longer exist. People miss stable human relations and long term objectives." (R. Sennett: The corrosion of character)
If we analyse the first aspect, i.e. the technical transformations introduced by the digitalisation of the productive cycle, we see that the essential point is not the becoming precarious of the labour relation (which, after all, has always been precarious), but the dissolution of the person as active productive agent, as labour power. We have to look at the cyberspace of global production as an immense expanse of depersonalised human time."
And we have to look at a new future where the individual has the chance to drive the "machines" instead of being driven by them.
And since the machines have got a lot smarter, it is essential that in this future the man is smarter than them.
The main problem of our society is that laziness has driven us at the point where we are.
Before the 70s, man (of US and Europe) was used to have a "sure job" that mostly meant just a "sure salary" and so political forces have based their strength in the assurance of this.
People mostly voted for the one who promised the "Forever legalized salary" in spite of production, in spite of revenues.
But Economy follows other patterns.
If you do not produce, you do not have revenues, and if you do not have revenues there is somebody who can produce revenues and HE will steal your job.
No political force can guarantee "The Status quo", no political force can guarantee a salary when you do not produce revenues.
And this is NOT the Chineses' fault, it is just mathematics.
Skype-eBay: I agree
Good grief, with a nearly $5 billion carrot (if all financial incentives are met) dangling in front of them, the Skype folks would have been IDIOTS not to take eBay's dumb money.
I say cash the check, sell the eBay stock as soon as you can and invent something else wild and wonderful that we all can't live without.
--Brock
The reality is that government-mandated backdoors will likely be implemented in all commercial VoIP systems, period. However, at this stage, there are millions of people using Skype based merely on the "faith" that it is reasonably secure. That's bad science across the board.
In the real world, those of us "in the know" are not the people I'm most concerned about. It's the folks who do not have technical backgrounds who are most dependent on us to try keep the commercial operations as honest as possible in a very difficult political environment.
--Lauren--
The bad thing of VoIP is that people do not know and do not understand enough of it.
The good thing is that it is very easy to change from one supplier to the other.
And that is why it was a good business for SKYPE and a bad bargain for eBay.
Because open standard will win, being it h323 or SIP.
There will soon be interconneting platforms.
You will be able to belong to a SIP platform and be able to communicate with a H323 platform.
But Skype will still be a propietary island (with a downward number), relying (as they shout) on other people's nodes.
With Vonage for example you pay for a Service, for Skype you pay for a software.
Patrizia
I say cash the check, sell the eBay stock as soon as you can and invent something else wild and wonderful that we all can't live without.
--Brock
The reality is that government-mandated backdoors will likely be implemented in all commercial VoIP systems, period. However, at this stage, there are millions of people using Skype based merely on the "faith" that it is reasonably secure. That's bad science across the board.
In the real world, those of us "in the know" are not the people I'm most concerned about. It's the folks who do not have technical backgrounds who are most dependent on us to try keep the commercial operations as honest as possible in a very difficult political environment.
--Lauren--
The bad thing of VoIP is that people do not know and do not understand enough of it.
The good thing is that it is very easy to change from one supplier to the other.
And that is why it was a good business for SKYPE and a bad bargain for eBay.
Because open standard will win, being it h323 or SIP.
There will soon be interconneting platforms.
You will be able to belong to a SIP platform and be able to communicate with a H323 platform.
But Skype will still be a propietary island (with a downward number), relying (as they shout) on other people's nodes.
With Vonage for example you pay for a Service, for Skype you pay for a software.
Patrizia
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Stumble It!