Google Goes ‘Big With A Gig’

This article was originally written for The Hartford Informer on February 18th, 2010.
In a huge announcement this week, Google announced last Thursday the development of a gigabit internet service provider (ISP). The California company and internet search giant is going to places it has never reached. Google provided more than 65 percent of the searches in the United States in 2009 and in recent years Google has moved from its Web based origins in the form of Gmail, Google Maps and Google Docs and has begun developing an operating system. Android, the company’s phone OS, was released in late 2008. Google also plans to release a computer OS, named Chrome later this year. This latest announcement is a clean departure from online and personal computing.
The idea is to gain the support of whole communities and provide this lightening fast Internet to them. In total, Google ISP looks to reach between 50,000 and 500,000 people in its first test run.
The real importance of this announcement is not that Google is now going to compete with the likes of Comcast, AT&T, Cablevision and Verizon but that Google will be providing a service capable of being 100 times faster than any single one of those companies can provide.
In recent years current ISP’s have been trying to boost their speed. Comcast announced it will rebrand its Internet service as Xfinity this week, but really this is still the slow network they’ve been running for years. Verizon is laying fiber optic lines around New York and New Jersey bringing FiOS to their consumers. Both services only provide up to 50 Mbps, and their only main motive is profit.
Google is not different and could technically charge anything for their new fiber optic service, given that companies like Comcast charge over $50 for under 20Mbps, Google’s gigabit would provide 50 times that. But Google’s mantra is “don’t be evil,” and (whether you believe it or not) this test isn’t about making money. This test is really about the physicality of providing 1Gbps to large numbers of people. The average internet speed for the United States is just 4.8Mbps, in Japan it’s 61Mbps. The kicker is that they both cost the same, around $15 a month for the average speed.
Seattle, Ontario County NY, Washington DC and the entire state of Hawaii have already expressed interest in “going big with a gig” with Google’s new service.
Google’s idea is to see the reality of providing amazing speeds at a low cost. With real-world cost analysis and implementation of the technology we can see just how viable high speed internet is.
It remains to be seen whether this will be a game changer or a massive failure. But with initial costs that could be in the billions, this is an experiment Google must be invested in for the long term.

The Fool Formerly Known as Rupert Murdoch

Maybe it’s the denigration of an old man stuck in an antique media showing the signs of his age, or maybe pay media is the way forward for the internet medium.
Rupert Murdoch, creator of the News Corporation (News Corp) Empire, discussed this week his plans to do two things to News Corp’s subordinate websites. One, to create a pay-wall behind which subscribers would have to pay money to read any one of the news stories on his websites. Two, to remove his websites and all their content listings from search indexers like Google and Bing.
News Corp owns, among many other Newspapers, the Wall Street Journal, and the Times (England).
Murdoch’s reasoning behind his decisions are mostly monetary based. He says to Sky News Australia, ‘no web sites anywhere in the world make serious money.’ Which is partially true, most news websites don’t make much money—but they do make some money. This system would not have worked from the beginning 10 to 15 years ago if the websites were not making money. Murdoch, in his infinite wisdom of all web-based media, counters this, ‘they [consumers and search engines] shouldn't have had it free all the time…and I think we've been asleep.’
While it may have been nap time for this old fart, he doesn’t realize cyberspace has grown up. We’re in a time when broadcasters can stream the entirety of their primetime shows to anyone in a nation for free over the internet. Admittedly, there was some foolish CEO the other week boasting about how Hulu.com would become a pay service by 2010 these rumors were quickly shot down. We will never know if they were dispelled because of the sheer uproar at the news, but we know that people would be entirely adverse to it.
And this is the reason why pay content will not work. One, people will never pay for it so you’re limiting your income base originally. You would then have to remove any income generating ads from a pay service, so that’s another step down in income. Not only that, but Murdoch intends to remove his websites from search engines. What he doesn’t seem to realize is that search engines are a major source of traffic for non-readers. New users will never become familiar with the site if they can never find it or see what kind of content it holds.
Murdoch says that you pay for a news paper, so why not pay for content online. But I don’t believe this is how things work anymore. But I could be wrong. The New York Times is making its decision in the next couple of weeks whether or not they will be constructing a pay wall. The New York Times has about 19 million visitors monthly (Compete.com), it will be interesting to see how this would affect that number. It would also be interesting to see the affects on a company who has no plans for a pay-wall, CNN.com (30 million visitors monthly). If consumers cannot get their content for free at the site of their choice, they will go to other places to get it without any sign of remorse. The internet is free and it will remain free. Murdoch might not get it at this time, but his empire is bleeding and this is not the bandage he needs.

Droid does what iDoesnt; and what this means to the iPhone and Verizon

You may have seen over the past week or so several of the new Verizon attack ads on the TV. The target? Well originally it was AT&T, but as of this Sunday it’s been more specifically targeted at Apple.
Last week Verizon rolled out the ‘there’s a map for that’ campaign. Cleverly taking the AT&T-Apple iPhone slogan, ‘there’s an app for that,’ and turning it around on them. The ad shows Verizon’s 3G network (a map that is nearly entirely red shaded) compared to AT&T’s 3G network (a maps that has hardly any blue shaded). And while the maps may not be entirely accurate, points have to be given for Verizon finally taking a stand against the near unstoppable iPhone.
As of last week though, Verizon didn’t have anything to counter the iPhone in terms of phone power. This weekend changed this. In an even more direct attack on the iPhone, Verizon launched its Droid does commercial. The advertisement serves to pronounce all the things the iPhone doesn’t do with phrases like ‘iDon’t take pictures in the dark’ or ‘iDon’t run simultaneous apps.’
The advertisement is smartly played along to a tune that could have come right out of any other iPhone commercial, and the font face is eerily similar. The ad ends with the saying ‘Droid does’ and ‘November.’
The product Verizon is advertising is the Motorola Droid, due for release on October 28th (as far we can figure from the droiddoes.com website). The phone will run Android 2.0, the latest version of Google’s Mobile Phone operating system; and will include a 5 megapixel camera, a full QWERTY keyboard as well as all the other bells and whistles associated with the average touch-screen Smartphone.
The reason why all of this is significant is twofold. Firstly it marks the first Smartphone that has come close to rivaling the market dominance of the iPhone in terms of features and power. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it signals that Verizon may not ever be getting the iPhone.
The current contract between Apple and AT&T is set to expire in 2010. And like with any Apple venture there is ample speculation about what exactly is happening in Cupertino. The speculation states that Verizon will finally have a piece of the iPhone pie—a partnership that could mean potential hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue for Apple. Further rumors say that even at this moment a fourth generation iPhone is being tested on Verizon’s next generation LTE (long term evolution) network.
Looking at the UK for example, the iPhone has lost its single carrier exclusivity, and is now carried by the three major mobile phone networks. But how can this happen in a U.S market where Verizon is deliberately and unmistakably attacking the iPhone’s potential? And the truth is that it most likely can’t.
So dispel those 2010 CDMA Verizon-iPhone rumors because with the kind of money Verizon is throwing at knocking the iPhone down a rung on the mobile ladder they are burning all sorts of bridges that could have made it a done deal.

Drop your old browsers!

Hey, old browsers, I don’t respect you and I’m not going to take it lying down anymore, there are better browsers out there and you might just be the worst of all time.
Like this Kanye West meme, Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) isn’t going to die anytime soon. And this is a problem. Let me preface this all and tell you I’m a web developer. This means I build the websites and web applications you use on a daily basis (that might be a bit of an egotistical statement). So why is this a problem and, why does IE6 still command almost a 15% share of internet traffic (August 2009, w3Counter.com)?
Released in 2001 the browser is still prevalent in a vastly changed internet, and continues to be supported by Microsoft—until April 2014 to be specific. So why is it so bad? For starters it doesn’t even support 1 of 3 major image types on the web. Then, the basic building blocks of webpages are, for no specific reason apart from complete ignorance, completely different to any other standard browser. Meaning a page that looks one way in Firefox, Safari, etc. will render differently in IE6. Headaches are bountiful and extortionate hours are lost, from web design firms to digital ad agencies, across the world because of single outdated piece of software. This is not to mention that IE6 operates at an unimaginably lower speed than any of its competitors.
But it’s not like there aren’t other products out there. In fact what we’ve seen over the past year is nothing short of a revolution in the web browser market. Google debuted the slim and efficient Chrome. Firefox put out its latest version, 3.5. Safari brought 4 out of beta. Opera developed version 10. And the diabolical Microsoft released IE8. All of these are stable and usable browsers, each with there own features, extensions, pros and cons and come in all shapes and sizes
So why is it supported still supported, despite others and even Microsoft developments? Some say it’s the business programs that still require IE6 to run vital operations. But I say it’s the IT staffs fault for not picking up the ball, and showing support for the other options out there. Last time I checked (approximately three and a half seconds ago) Firefox could be installed next to Internet Explorer. But it’s not just IE6 that’s problematic, any browser that is operating on an older version poses problems to the development of the web.
So I urge you take charge of your browser especially if you happen to be one of those stuck in IE6 rut. Even if your not, know your options, and find a browser that best for you.. And if your own a business machine locked down by the tyrannous IT crew, know you can install Google Chrome locally (which means you don’t kneed them anymore). Or, if you were so inclined, Google just released Google Frames which runs in the Internet Explorer browsers, brining standards to your doorstep without changing browsers. HTML 5 is waiting, and we (the web developers) are waiting for you to get on board so we can show its amazing power to you.

in the news today

I don't know who was in charge of guests and reported on this mornings MSNBC, but they were all highly retarded.
Firstly was a women commenting on President Bush's visit to Iraq. Casually she stated that the war in Iraq had been going for 8 years now. 8 years?!! does she know what year it is? or, what does she know that the rest of us don't. as far as my mathematical skills go, that would mean the war started in 2000...before the event that started all the U.S involvement in the middle east (September 11, 2001). The worst part was that no one checked or challenged her on it. whats the news come to when anything that's said goes...
secondly, the weather guy was describing the blizzard like conditions in North and South Dakota today. Roughly quoting he said, 'with visibility at or below zero.'
...
at what point does visibility decrease below zero? i don't even have words or sarcasm to comment on this with the due diligence it deserves.
Finally on MSNBC this morning i saw them using Google Earth for their imaging. In case you didn't know, or couldn't figure (perhaps your visibility is below zero?) MSNBC is a joint venture between Microsoft Corp and NBC Universal. Microsoft has its own satilite imaging software, Virtual Earth...so why is MSNBC using Google software?

I'm usually a fan of MSNBC, but the news this morning was baffeling and confusing...so i watched a rerun of Mythbusters instead.

Gmail

I dont know why (probably because ive been reading these past days about gmail's new Video Chat, and this article), but i decided i wanted to make a gmail acount for myself. And now im really confused. basically i was expecting a big hassle because i have blogs under one blogger sign in and then would have this gmail account (google owns blogger), so i would have to sign in multiple times to different places with different logins. im confused because not only did it automatically take control of the blogs i was posting under the account for my mercury studios website, it also found a blog i had started about two years ago for a website i had since forgotten about and deleted...

im not sure exactly whats going on, or why im even alowed to post this...but here goes!

oh and my gmail account is: britishboy973@gmail.com  ...unsuprisingly any variations on davidhitchings@gmail.com were already gone.