Social Studies

Same as it Ever Was

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Wikipedia

I’ve yet to read Nick Carr’s latest, The Shallows, which takes a pessimistic view of the effects of writing and scanning  tweets, SMSs, IMs, etc. on our neural wiring.

It’s on my reading list. Certainly his claim that our attention spans are being stunted, which may ultimately degrade our overall ability to follow more complex, non-shallow arguments when needed, has made its way into our public arguments on the Internet and always-on digital technology

In his Rough Type blog, Carr recently responded to an essay by Justin Smith that takes an opposite view. Smith, writing for Berfrois, points out that transient, non-deep relationships have been  with us since the first “have a good day!” was uttered.

The Internet just turns what were trivial, meaningless interactions within our own small social groups into trivial virtual interactions with our friends, along with a much larger network of  “friends”.Continue reading

@NYC

New York Tech Meetup 1/10/11: The Nobility of Failure

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With a case of post-holiday ennui setting in, I decided to forgo a visit to Skirball and instead tuned into last night’s NYTM video stream from my couch.

It was great entertainment and far more edifying than what’s transmitted over my archaic bronze-age remote vision box. I may go so far as to claim that it was the most interesting and, in a way, uplifting set of demos I’ve seen since I started attending NYTM nine or so months ago.

Before I run down my list of favorites, something that Nate Westheimer said captured the spirit of tech in New York and, I think,  just about any other town where there’s a startup scene:

“If you’re working on a startup, you’re gonna fail. Seriously, if you don’t think that’s true, you’re delusional.”

Nate’s larger point was that we’re all part of a community who want to change the world, and while our own efforts may not achieve success in a narrowly defined way, we may just inspire someone who will.

Here’s my quick rundown of inspiring demos: Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Twilight of POTS Regulation

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Telecom consultant Gary Audin has recently come out with a solid overview article on a question that has no doubt kept telecom wonks up at night: Can the PSTN be Shut Down?

I include myself in that geeky group who ponders whether the public switched telepone network (PSTN) can be unplugged. For those not familiar with the building blocks of our legacy telephone system —class five and four switching points, trunks, copper pairs—his article should be edifying.

Audin’s end-of-life discussion (available from webtorials.com) was triggered by an AT&T comment submitted to the FCC back in December 2009. The unthinkable is more than an academic exercise for our nation’s largest carrier. In their filing, AT&T asked the FCC to workout a “firm deadline for the phase out of POTS service and the PSTN.”

AT&T was writing in response to the FCC’s National Broadband Plan inquiry, and their suggestions and advocacy are framed as a way to achieve this agency’s call for universal  broadband: dropping support of the PSTN, they say, will allow it to focus on in its major IP initiative, U-verse (more on that later).

I suppose I’m impressed that AT&T is looking to the FCC for leadership in this area, considering their overall low opinion of our nation’s telecom regulators.

So you know they must want something.Continue reading

The Rack

Android on Archos: Annoyances

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Wikipedia

I like my newest gadgedroid, the Archos 7o Internet Tablet. It is usable in a way that the lower cost tablets I purchased earlier, and returned, were not.

With sipdroid now installed and configured to work with my onSIP virtual PBX, I’ve turned airy cloudware into a working, low cost mobile phone solution. The Archos’s email app is completely usable, the browser is browsable, and as I just wrote about, I’ve started introducing my own apps using App Inventor.

But …

Archos tablets do not have Android Market installed. That’s not completely bad news, though certainly a disappointment. To load a free Google app onto the Archos 7o (and presumably the rest of their product line), you’re forced to hunt for .apk files in various forums and Android-dedicated sites, and then install manually.

I’ve begun to experience in the nitty details of Android what many others have already gone through: open Android software does not mean software that will install and work uniformly on all devices.

For example, I tried to get the stand-alone Google Reader app to behave on my Archos. Continue reading

The Rack

Inventin’ with Google App Inventor, Part I

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I first learned of Google App Inventor’s existence through David Pogue’s New York Times column. Over the summer, Pogue reported on his experiences using an early beta version of this then invite-only software.

As a former user of visually-oriented rapid development environments, I had a good sense of what the Googlers had come up with.

So it was fun to read how Pogue, no technical slouch by any means, and an expert assistant (his 13-year old son), struggled with this early, glitchy release of Inventor.

Pogue decided that App Inventor was not, in the words of Google’s marketing team, “programming for the masses.”

Based on a long afternoon’s work with the new public release of App Inventor, I would describe it as follows:  “a lightweight Android development environment that lets programmers, students, hobbyists, corporate IT-types, and others in this demographic install a simple app onto a smartphone.”

I can see why Google went with their more enticing call to action slogan. Continue reading

Archaic Telecom, The Rack

New Year, New Android, New SIP Client (Sipdroid)

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I made good on the first of my New Year’s resolutions by overcoming my Android Thriftiness Syndrome and splurging for the Archos 7o Internet Tablet. As soon as I powered it on, it was clear my investment (about $270) had almost paid off.

I watched as the 1 GHz Cortex A8 processor and graphics accelerator made the grass in the default wallpaper gently sway in the virtual breeze. Everything else was equally fluid: WiFi, keyboard, and gesturing. And then with an over-the-air firmware update, I finally was able to enjoy the stabler Froyo (Android 2.2).

I was ready to download a SIP client app, preferably cSipSimple, which I had written about before. Unfortunately, Android Market is not available with the Archos tablets.

Darn.

I had known this before the purchase, but  didn’t realize how limited Archos’s own “AppsLib” was. Less choices, and more importantly the CSipSimple version I installed on my Archos 7 was not the same as the Market one. Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

2010 Favorites

 

With 2010 closing up shop, it’s time for an obligatory list of favorite posts from this past year.

Based on a non-scientific review of this site’s web traffic, a few of our more popular can be found after the jump:Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Snowed In with the FCC’s Open Internet Rules

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After burning off my holiday calories shoveling out of Snowmageddon 2010, I was ready to settle down with a good book and a flagon of mulled cider. Perhaps I was still looking for more Sisyphean exercises, so instead of Harry Potter, I reached for my MacBook and downloaded the FCC’s complete Report and Order in the Matter of Preserving the Open Internet, otherwise known as the Net Neutrality rules.

Published on Friday, this 87-page document, excluding appendices and the commissioners’ separate statements, contains over 400 footnotes. A lot of work was expended, so kudos to the FCC’s paper-meisters.

Spoiler alert: the good part starts at Section IV ( paragraph 115, page 62), “The Commission’s Authority to Adopt Open Internet Rules.”

I am all for the Report’s net neutrality rules for transparency, no blocking, and no unreasonable discrimination. But after reviewing the FCC arguments in section IV, along with the usual relevant cases, I don’t think this dog will hunt.Continue reading

The Rack

Rest in Peace, Yixin

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I bricked my Yixin. It didn’t really take that much in the end: merely taping over the on-off button in an attempt to lock a micro SD into a defective slot. Ultimately, I de-springed a not very resilient  power switch, rendering this inexpensive Android device powerless, so to speak.

The market is flooded now with under $200 Android tablets with basic capabilities, most of which will not survive till the next holiday season.  And that is the point: overseas factories will be busy again next year around this time churning out the latest gadgedroids.

My New Year’s resolution after the jump.Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

FCC on Specialized Services: Yawn!

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The FCC voted 3-2 (along the usual party lines) to approve the Open Internet Order  or as the media refers to it, NET NEUTRALITY.  I suppose a set of rules that has brought condemnation from both sides of the argument can’t be all that bad. Consumers received some protections with a non-blocking rule subject to reasonable network management. As expected, the FCC did not approve its third-way approach (Title II reclassification with forbearance of many statutes).  And the agency also decided to leave mobile broadband to its own devices, so to speak.

I was most curious about the fate of specialized services, the new category of vaguely defined advanced (or as  the Google-Verizon proposal put it “additional”) capabilities that was in the FCC’s original Notice of Proposed Rule Making issued back in late 2009. And which the FCC asked for additional comments again in September 2010.

Anyway, after the FCC’s barrage of questions and stated concerns—most significantly over anti-competitive practices and re-allocation of telecom investments—it ultimately  took the completely radical stance of doing nothing.Continue reading

Social Studies

Google’s Ngram Viewer: Internet vs. Telecommunications

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While waiting for the text of the FCC’s Open Internet Order to show up on their web site, I decided it was the right time to take a quick at look Google’s fascinating Ngram viewer. So what has Google wrought this time?

From their vast digitized collection of 15 million books, they’ve analyzed 5 million and produced a frequency dataset of all phrases or ngrams up to five words in length. Even better: the frequency of a particular ngram occurrence includes a time dimension.

With the new Google Ngram Viewer, you have a cute visualization app that shows the rise and fall of phrases or expressions over the years. In the context of the FCC’s “momentous meeting” this morning, it’s worthwhile to really see how the Internet has become what we mean by communications.

I decided to compare the usage of the words “Internet” vs “telecommunications”.Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

Google Delays Announcing Fiber Winners

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Fiber optical lights

scott_waterman/Flickr

Communities waiting to hear if they’ve been selected for Google’s high-speed Internet access contest will have to wait a little longer.

In February Google said it had plans to  deploy a 1 Gig per second, fiber-to-the-home network in several communities in the US. Over 1100 towns and cities responded to their request-for-information feeler, hoping to become one of the Google fiber finalists.

Continue reading

The Rack

Yixin: Yikes!

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I’m afraid my brief infatuation with Yixin may be nearing an end. I was having trouble with freebie voice recorder apps from the Android Market. Since many require an external chip to store the voice files, I knew it was time to purchase an 8 GB micro SD card. That started a chain of events that led to the disabling of my Yixin 7200’s power button.

Valuable lesson I learned: highly sticky moving tape can be dangerous.Continue reading

@NYC

New York Tech Meetup: Holiday Extravaganza

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year. And there is no other place I’d rather be than New York City in December— chestnuts roasting, falafels cooking, and Food52 giving a demo at New York Tech Meetup.

Of course, this is also the season of NJ Transit delays, so thanks to mechanical problems at Sunnyside Yards yesterday, I missed most of 52’s presentation. As I walked into NYTM’s temporary digs at New World Stages on 50th street, I heard some questions being asked about “FoodPickle.” FoodPickle? More on that later.

My favorites from the evening: WanderFly, Food52, and Marco. In the interesting, but problematic category: ClearGears.Continue reading

Quote of the Day

…the grunt work of key clicking and comment writing is being done by us, the ambassadors from Brandistan who are paid with logos and other …

Social Studies

GetGlue: Platforms, Brand Ambassadors, and Puccini

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I’ve been writing lately on rating and suggestion services and their underlying data prediction technologies, which are fascinating.

What about those users (like me) who don’t completely trust the algorithmically generated suggestions that are proffered?

They can instead lose themselves in the stream of likes and comments that are displayed in the standard “recent activity” box found on the home pages of these sites. It’s a direct way to pick up ideas on movies, books, food, TV shows, and lizards.

I made up the part about lizards, but the point is that with social rating sites, anything in this world can be judged as good or bad and then become a part of the intimate information flow for the rest of humanity to see.

For example, GetGlue, the recommendation service I’ve been referring to in my posts, has an Android (and iPhone) app that lets the crowd comment on what they’re currently reading, watching, listening, or thinking. It’s really a check-in service—Foursquare without being tied to a specific physical place

With my new Yixin Android tablet now on my coffee table, I’ve become another gadget-owning media critic. Continue reading

The Rack

Google eBooks: The Search for Free

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On Monday, Google opened the doors to its eBookstore. Google is just getting started as a ebook seller, but they are already boasting they have “the world’s largest selection of ebooks.” Take that Amazon!

While the Google claim makes for good copy, the truth is that most of their ebooks, over 3 million in fact, are from their trove of public domain classics—Dickens, Conan Doyle, Jane Austen, and all the others you were supposed to have read in high school.

In fact, these free books have been available from Google since 2009. It’s not a big secret that Google has been busily scanning books from partner libraries and making them available on-line.

Sure you can select new books from Google’s growing list. But for me the lure of free books, especially now that they can be read on my Yixin Android gadget, is irresistible.Continue reading

Archaic Telecom

SIP on Android

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One of my very modest goals in finding an inexpensive, usable Android tablet is replacing my cell phone with an open source SIP client. I spend enough of my time near WiFi hotspots that an Android gadget could do double-duty as a browser-email-ebook as well as a phone. And the chance to free myself from Verizon’s tentacles with WiFi telephony has been tempting me for a long time.

With the Yixin 7200 MID I finally had the right platform. Could I locate a functioning SIP client in the Android Market, Google’s answer to the App Store?

So I walked the virtual aisles of the Market and pulled a few SIP clients off the shelves for testing.

I did discover a working client and learned that the quality of Android freeware is, charitably, very uneven.Continue reading

@NYC

Do I Need a Web Recommendation Service?

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Xydo is a recommendation startup I first discovered at Hoboken Tech Meetup. Since then I’ve partially trained GetGlue and Hunch to respond to my tastes (not successfully), perused Parse.ly’s recommendation app for filtering feeds, and gauged Google’s own Prediction APIs and Set suggestion tools (pretty good stuff).

So when I received the beta invite from Xydo, I was almost at the beginnings of an existential crisis: do I really need a web site to show me other URLs to look at? After all, I was heavily reliant on Google Reader to bring the feeds I like to my attention. I wasn’t sure whether I required additional content advice.

I would want Xydo and other such sites to be my web magazine 2.0, bringing both content that I absolutely need yet also uncannily anticipate what I may want.Continue reading