bitbol

People argue about whether the actions proposed by net neutrality proponents are the best choices, but not many will fight you when you say that something is wrong. The Federal Trade Commission denies that there is a problem.

For being the largest consumer of the tubes, you would think that the US would be on the bleeding edge of network technology. In fact, we a near the end of the tail, with many still passing us. The current median connection speed in the US is 1.97 Mb/s, while Japan flies around with 61 Mb/s. They're over half way to the triple digits while we still haven't made the double digits.

As a developed nation, and a leading one at that, it is embarrassing to see how pathetic this country is. It is sad that we are cheering for a 5Mb/s average. And for what do we blame this: cheap (not price) ISPs.

People are generally satisfied with their 2Mb/s connection because nobody knows any differently. Since ISPs started, the high-speed offerings have changed very little. In the past five years, Charter has gone from 3Mb/s to 5Mb/s. I have even noticed them throttling YouTube. And all of this is because ISPs don't want to upgrade their networks. We are at the same place we were at five years ago.

But things can change. Years ago, long-distance phone calls were extremely expensive. Now, the cost is negligible. How did this happen, phone companies have to compete. Cable companies do not. What we need is something to force the internet carriers to innovate. That "something" should be congress.

Labels: America, Internet, News

It's just smoldering in NYC, but it's nice where there is air conditioning.

• The RIAA buffoons are at it again, but in some of the most disgusting ways. This time, the cronies called a 10 year old's school to intimidate her. The target was the mother, but it is simply gross to see a collective of jackasses that are so disrespectful of everyone. And the other thing I don't get is why congress or judges won't do anything to stop them; oh wait- bribes.
• Trying to fight copyright infringement, an Aussie ISP regularly deletes media files: any file ending in .mp3, .avi, .mov, and .wmv. This is a prime example of how stupid people ruin things for everyone else. And by people, I mean recording industry goons.
• Cheney decides that he really is part of the executive branch.
• Ann Coulter claims that the Edwards are using her attacks as a way to raise money. I think her logic is a bit backward: when she attacks, Edwards' name is all over the news, thus people notice him and then donate. I may offend many with this, but anyone who listens to a word that woman says I deem a babbling moron.
• Google is complaining about Microsoft, people are saying Google is just jealous, but everyone has a point. I don't like that Google is being so aggressive to get their claim to fame, but I also think that Microsoft is still a monopoly. I mean, not like Vista's market share is large or anything, but Microsoft cannot lock you into their product in the way that they do. Microsoft deserves to be called a monopoly for life because of the way they treat consumers.
• Warren Buffett, the world's third wealthiest man, asks for a tax raise for the rich, citing that all rich pay a smaller proportion into the system.
• Giuliani praises Regent University for their "wonderful" influence.
• The bald eagle is about to be delisted from the endangered species list. While there is no longer a threat of extinction, there is no reason to stop protecting it. Perhaps we need another list for animals that must be protected. Why do people think that it is alright to trample animals and their environment? Cows, sure, we eat them. Eagles on the other hand are simply birds that have no reason to be shot.

I'm beginning to love New York.

Labels: America, Cheney, Collections, Copyright, Giuliani, Google, Internet, Legal, Microsoft, News, Politics

Another day, another list; a shorty:

• Dick Cheney was in the bunker before the attacks, and had "orders."
• Internet radio was silent for the day to protest the outrageous fees from the royalty board.
• A must watch episode of the Daily Show on Cheney's fourth branch.
• The BBC reports that the "law-abiding majority" is a myth, but I don't think that there is any way to say that. The governments just have so many stupid laws that everyone is a criminal for living. Under the table pay: who wants to see a third of their money go towards a bridge to nowhere?

If things pan out tomorrow, I may hit the Apple Store, tonight didn't work.

Labels: America, Collections, Internet, Music, News, Politics

Google is taking a big step forward with their newest option to take the services you use offline. They have just released Google Gears, which allows you to use the services even without an internet connection. In my case, it offers to store 2000 items from Google reader for reading offline.

This is where Google's word processor really comes to compete with Microsoft word, but not just yet. Documents aren't yet supported by this program, but I expect that will be in due time.

Labels: Google, Internet

Wordpress.com, the hosted alternative to Blogger, has finally passed 1 million blogs. This is great news for wordpress, simply because it is such a monumental number. There is no way to compare this to Blogger, as blogger has no such statistics, and is much more vulnerable to spam blogs than wordpress seems to be.

Labels: Internet, Wordpress

Google has finally made it easier to access all of the services they offer. Now, the Google homepage has a bar of links for different search divisions (web, images, etc). There is also a drop down for the lesser-used items like patent search, calendar, etc.

Now that we have this, what I want to see is a "smart" link bar. By that I mean, links to the services you use the most are the most prominent. The other option would be to allow people to individually select what links they would like to show up in the link bar.

Labels: Google, Internet

Update 8:56pm: Talks are reported to be over. There is no mention of any kind of deal.

There is nothing definitive, yet, but Yahoo and Microsoft are having formal discussions. It is speculated that Microsoft is trying to acquire Yahoo. This is a benefit for both companies, as Microsoft gains internet presence and Yahoo get additional financial backing along with other services to play with.

I never really thought that Yahoo ever stood a chance against Google, especially in the "extras" market (Gmail, etc). Yahoo's stance has always been the obnoxious banners that swirl around and are overall annoying. Google has always taken care that it is as unobtrusive as possible. Besides, I prefer the simplicity of Google's interface.

Labels: Internet, Microsoft, News, Yahoo

Google is confident that they are protected by the law in the Google vs. Viacom lawsuit. Google says that they are protected by copyright law because they have done everything that was required of them. From the article:

Viacom said that by the time it filed the lawsuit, it had identified over 150,000 clips on YouTube that infringed its copyright and asked for them to be taken down. Viacom also argued that YouTube's reliance on rights-holders to notify it of cases of infringement places an unfair burden on them.

Wait! It's unfair to Viacom that they have to notify YouTube? It's unfair that YouTube is 100% responsible for monitoring the thousands of videos uploaded every day. It's not as if Google is a pain to work with; they remove all the clips that they are sent notices for. What are they complaining about?

Labels: Google, Internet, Legal, News, YouTube

Update 5/2/07: After the community protest below, Kevin Rose has decided to allow the key to be posted, risking sending Digg to court.

Digg staff recently posted a post concerning the removal of the HD-DVD key that is circulating the internet. In response to this, Digg users are protesting the removal seeing it as censorship.

Nearly all stories on the homepage are related to the HD-DVD key. (Click image for full page screenshot.) There were eight stories that specifically give the key, along with an additional six about the censorship itself. It is questionable whether or not digg will regain the respect that people had for them, especially after it was revealed that they were sponsored by HD-DVD.

Labels: Digg, Internet, Technology

Information has been uncovered that suggests that even though Microsoft offered a higher bid, DoubleClick opted to join Google instead. Here's how I see what happened: Google initially stepped in the bidding, surely driving the price up, but apparently Microsoft stayed put. Then, Google acquired DoubleClick causing Microsoft to get mad and fight it.

As much as I don't trust the amount of information that Google collects, I still prefer them over Microsoft. Microsoft has a terrible track record for respecting users, while Google is the opposite ("Don't be evil"). The only complaint that I have about today's technological state is data retention; if companies would purge it once and a while, that would alleviate many people's privacy concerns.

Labels: Advertising, Google, Internet, Microsoft, News

Microsoft wants to make sure that you won't miss their most recent MS Office 2007 advertisement- they made it take a large portion of the screen:


It's not just for looks either. Two of the tabs bring up options to style some of the text, or to play with the pictures. The text options only changes the font, while the picture options add different effects like "wet-floor" among others. As much as I hate Microsoft, this is advertising well done.

Labels: Advertising, Internet, Microsoft

I don't care about much about what Google does, but there has been recent coverage of a growing issue. Matt Cutts, a Google employee, has solicited the help of people to report paid links to Google. There has been quite an outrage among the internet about this, and many are pissed.

Google seems to be abusing their control of the search market. They are calling out for people to report sponsored links, and are penalizing people for writing posts/links for money. Google, more and more, is seeming like the identity that would love to control the internet.

Google is increasing approaching becoming the Microsoft of the internet. Step by step, I am pulling my out of different services simply because Google seems to focus too much on money. Blogger has gone for months without any kind of update. Google Analytics is confusingly complicated to navigate. The only product actively being improved is advertising and search- the moneymakers.

Labels: Advertising, Google, Internet, Rants

Determined not to be one-uped by Google, Microsoft is starting an antitrust case against Google. It's the pot calling the kettle black here. Microsoft has always been fighting antitrust lawsuits, and now they are calling out at others.

I think that this is just jealousy and Microsoft is made that Google stepped in and took DoubleClick. Microsoft could have stopped this had they bought DoubleClick themselves. I think they are just mad because they can't make money off the internet like Google is succeeding in doing.

Labels: Advertising, Google, Internet, Microsoft, News

Google has announced that they have acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in stock, which is nearly twice as much as what they paid for YouTube. I thought that Google wanted this for to expand their advertising network, and is what happened.

I mentioned before that DoubleClick uses tracking cookies to make the ads relevant to what people view, but borderlines invading privacy. Perhaps Google will live up to the "do no evil" and stop the tracking cookies and make the ads less intrusive.

Labels: Advertising, Google, Internet, News

The current controversy is VeriSign and how they recently raised the base cost of domains. One person has gone as far as to calculate that there is a 4500% profit margin for VeriSign. An ex-board member of VeriSign has said that each domain costs the company $0.14 to handle- everything else becomes profit.

One of the underlying problems with VeriSign is their lack of initiative. The image at right is of the trend of domain "tasting." Tasting is where the registrant will register the name to see how well it works for type-in traffic, and then drop it within the five-day grace period. VeriSign has done nothing to stop people from gaming the system in such a way.

Like Microsoft, VeriSign is abusing the control that they have of the system. Because they can, they will, and as far as anyone can tell, there is no justification for the rise in price.

Labels: Internet, News, Technology

One former music store owner has written a piece in the NYTimes about how the record industry killed itself, not the downloads. The underlying problem is the fact that the big labels are more interested in what their pocketbook is like now, and pay no attention to the future. Their decisions are in no way based on consumers. From the article:

In the late '90s, our business, and the music retail business in general, was booming. Enter Napster, the granddaddy of illegal download sites. How did the major record labels react? By continuing their campaign to eliminate the comparatively unprofitable CD single, raising list prices on album-length CDs to $18 or $19 and promoting artists like the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears — whose strength was single songs, not albums. The result was a lot of unhappy customers, who blamed retailers like us for the dearth of singles and the high prices.

What the record labels did was increase prices to compensate for the dip in profits, but in the long run, they made more of an incentive to download. With such high prices, it practically encourages people to download. Even with online sales legal, music companies are focusing on albums, which has been proven to be wrong. The only way they can continue to exist is to create high-quality songs, not albums.

Labels: America, Internet, Music, News

Don't worry, not everything is cars now, still some tech in between. Google is reportedly interested in buying DoubleClick, the advertising company. Their intent is still unknown, but I speculate that it is to gain more control over the advertising network.

DoubleClick offers video advertising (which I have seen), and almost surely this is what Google wants. Google hasn't gotten far with their video ads, so this is likely to gain those customers.

Perhaps if Google buys out DoubleClick they can stop the questionable practices of DoubleClick. DoubleClick (in the past at least) uses tracking cookies to "serve the most relevant ads," but I block DoubleClick for that very reason. Google would have the ability to stop that if they buy them out.

Labels: Advertising, Google, Internet

Google has announced their newest service: TiSP. To get started, sign up and they send you a free installation kit. From there, you simply flush the unit down the toilet where it then connections to the sewer's fiber optic network. I waited all week for Google to do their April fools joke, and this one was pretty funny.

Labels: Google, Internet

The Google Blog just got a redesign so it is now similar to some of its counterparts. I like the redesign, not that I ever actually go to the blog itself (RSS for me). The only thing that bothers me is the amount of "stuff" thrown into the sidebar. To be honest, I don't care about other Googler's websites, otherwise I would already be reading them. [via Google Blogoscoped]

Labels: Google, Internet

I don't blame them. Link. [via digg]

Labels: Google, Internet, Microsoft