Category Archives: Google

Google drops sweetener to French media…

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…in order to persuade the French to forget about that nasty “link tax” idea. Well, that’s how The Register describes the deal reached by Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and the French President on Friday. Google, unsurprisingly, describes it in more statesmanlike tones: “Google creates €60m Digital Publishing Innovation Fund to support transformative French digital publishing initiatives”.

Of the two, I’m afraid I’m more convinced by the Register‘s interpretation.

Frederic Filloux’s take on it is here. Excerpt:

Dealing with Google requires a mastery of two critical elements: technology (with the associated economics), and the legal aspect. Contractually speaking, it means transparency and enforceability. Let me explain.

Google is a black box. For good and bad reasons, it fiercely protects the algorithms that are key to squeezing money from the internet, sometimes one cent at a time — literally. If Google consents to a cut of, say, advertising revenue derived from a set of contents, the partner can’t really ascertain whether the cut truly reflects the underlying value of the asset jointly created – or not. Understandably, it bothers most of Google’s business partners: they are simply asked to be happy with the monthly payment they get from Google, no questions asked. Specialized lawyers I spoke with told me there are ways to prevent such opacity. While it’s futile to hope Google will lift the veil on its algorithms, inserting an audit clause in every contract can be effective; in practical terms, it means an independent auditor can be appointed to verify specific financial records pertaining to a business deal.

Another key element: From a European perspective, a contract with Google is virtually impossible to enforce. The main reason: Google won’t give up on the Governing Law of a contract that is to be “Litigated exclusively in the Federal or States Courts of Santa Clara County, California”. In other words: Forget about suing Google if things go sour. Your expensive law firm based in Paris, Madrid, or Milan will try to find a correspondent in Silicon Valley, only to be confronted with polite rebuttals: For years now, Google has been parceling out multiples pieces of litigation among local law firms simply to make them unable to litigate against it. Your brave European lawyer will end up finding someone that will ask several hundreds thousands dollars only to prepare but not litigate the case. The only way to prevent this is to put an arbitration clause in every contract. Instead of going before a court of law, the parties agrees to mediate the matter through a private tribunal. Attorneys say it offers multiples advantages: It’s faster, much cheaper, the terms of the settlement are confidential, and it carries the same enforceability as a Court order.

The ipad Mini: horses for courses

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I’m trying out the small iPad, following a rave endorsement by Jason Calcanis, who claimed that it had left his big iPad for dead. That’s not quite the way I see it: my big iPad is doing just fine. But the Mini would have left my Nexus 7 for dead if it hasn’t been dead already. (It went blank a few days ago after running out of juice, and all attempts to resuscitate it have failed. So it’s going back whence it came.)

Even if the Nexus had stayed alive, however, it was doomed in my eyes, mainly because of the shape. For while it did fit easily in a jacket pocket, I found the aspect ratio hopeless for reading web pages. Some things worked brilliantly on it — Gmail, for example (hardly surprising since it is after all a Google device). And I liked the way Evernote is integrated into the Android environment. But the virtual keyboard was — for me at any rate — almost unusable. And I found that the touchscreen was erratic: there were times when it took umpteen taps to get it to do anything. The battery life was also inadequate compared to the ten hours that the iPad consistently delivers.

The iPad Mini seems, therefore, an improvement. Its most noticeable feature is the weight — it feels much lighter than its big brother. And, objectively speaking, it is: 308g compared to 662g. This matters when using it as an eReader — and I read Kindle books on iPads much more frequently than I read them on the Kindle itself. The big iPad is just too heavy to use as an eReader in bed. For many people (Nick Bilton, for example), it seems that the weight difference is the critical factor.

Some reviewers have complained that the Mini’s screen is significantly inferior to the Retina display of the big iPad. Well, it is certainly inferior in the sense that it’s a pre-Retina technology, but actually for most of my purposes (with one big exception — see below) the display is fine. And strangely, I find the smaller screen keyboard easier to use than the bigger one. Can’t explain why, but my typing on the Mini screen is much more accurate.

My other requirement — for a device that can fit into a pocket — is mostly satisfied by the Mini. At any rate, it slips fairly easily into most of my suit jackets. This is often useful because although it’s only a Wi-Fi model I use my phone as a modem and therefore don’t need to carry the bag that my big iPad necessitates.

In comparing the two iPads and reading the online arguments about which is better I’m struck by the thought that the answer will be different for each individual. It depends on what you use these devices for. In my case, I use the big iPad a lot for writing, and with the Logitech keyboard cover it’s very good for that. And I also use it for intermediate processing of photographs before uploading them to Flickr or sending them out, and for that purpose the Retina display is simply wonderful.

But really the physical properties of the device are only part of the story. For example, one reason why I found the Nexus unsatisfactory (in addition to my problems with the virtual keyboard and the touchscreen) was simply that I couldn’t reproduce on it the software ecosystem that I have built up round my Apple devices. I need that ecosystem for the work that I do, and it works just fine on the Mini. Sad but true: I’m pretty dependent on the services provided in my (luxuriously-padded and skeuomorphic) Apple cell.

So, what it comes down to is the old adage: horses for courses.

On not giving the clock to the monkey

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This morning’s Observer column.

Given that WCIT-12 is being seen by some as a conspiracy in which Russia, China, Iran and other repressive regimes use the ITU as a Trojan horse to begin the process of bringing the internet under adult supervision, you can see why people are becoming agitated about it. Secretive horse-trading between governments is not what created the internet. Cue Google’s efforts to launch a global campaign involving internet users. “A free and open world depends on a free and open internet” declares the front page of the campaign website. Which is true, and the fact that Google’s prosperity likewise depends on that selfsame net doesn’t undermine its veracity. “But not all governments support the free and open internet,” it continues. And “some of these governments are trying to use a closed-door meeting in December to regulate the internet. Add your voice in support of the free and open internet.”

Right on! As we ageing hippies say. The basic complaint is that while an outfit like the ITU, whose voting members are all nation states, might be OK for deciding the allocation of international dialling codes, it’s completely inappropriate to allow it to regulate the internet. The argument is that entrusting the governance of the network to an organisation in which Robert Mugabe’s vote counts for as much as the UK’s would be like giving a delicate clock to a monkey.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a serious problem here. The old adage — if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it — isn’t entirely helpful. The difficulty is that the present system of Internet governance — which, for largely historical reasons, gives the US an unduly large role in Internet governance — works pretty well. But now that the Net is a genuinely global system, then it’s getting harder and harder to justify. Given that the main system for international governance that states recognise is the UN, then it’s understandable that they would turn to a UN agency — the ITU — to take on the governance task. But that’s misguided for several reasons, only one of which I had room for in the column: that UN agencies are states-dominated and therefore top-down decision-making institutions. Other good reasons are that: the ITU is essentially a technical-standards organisation, not a governance one — and governance is about freedom, human rights and politics; government-dominated organisations tend to be secretive rather than open; and the RFC-IETF method for discussing and deciding on Internet technical issues has an impressive track record.

So whatever the question is, the ITU is not the answer. The problem is that those who dislike — or are rightly fearful of — it need to come up with a more imaginative solution that meets some demanding criteria. Here are a few that come to mind:

  • Respect, preserve and enhance the openness of the Net
  • Protect the network’s integrity and technical effectiveness
  • Prevent the Balkanisation of the network
  • Ensure that technical decisions about the network are made on technological and not political or ideological grounds
  • Increase the availability of the Internet to the poor people of the world
  • Embody governance principles which do not privilege any one country or bloc

    • And they’re just for starters.

    Where Samsung’s revenues come from

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    Chart shows Samsung’s revenues heading for twice those of Google.

    What’s funny about this? Answer: most of Samsung’s revenues come from Android, which is provided by Google. Interesting case of symbiosis in action, eh? Or is it just parasitism?

    Old combatants, new wars

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    This morning’s Observer column.

    This has been quite a week in that strange, frenetic universe known as techworld. Two major companies did things that they once vowed they’d never do: Apple launched a small iPad in order to attack similar-sized devices marketed by its rivals – Samsung, Google and Amazon – and Microsoft launched the first computer it’s ever made (a tablet called Surface). So we have Apple playing catch-up and Microsoft getting into a business – hardware manufacture – it had hitherto wisely avoided.

    It’s the ecosystem, stoopid

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    Thoughtful ZDNet piece by Jason Perlow arguing that the fact that the iPad mini is more expensive than the Nexus 7 is actually irrelevant. Why? Because it’s not just about comparing hardware. It’s really about comparing apps and content ecosystems. As someone who runs both a Nexus and an iPad, I’m afraid that I have to agree with him.

    No matter how much hardware you stuff into a device at less cost than your competitor, if your ecosystem is inferior, and your apps just aren’t as good, then it doesnt matter what you put in that pile of silicon, plastic and metal.

    As a device manufacturer, the ecosystem that you are capable of offering to your customers is worth more than all of your component integration, period. 

    However, it just so happens that Apple’s component integration is also better than the Nexus 7. Don’t believe me? I own a Nexus 7 and I’ve been travelling with it as my only tablet device since the device was released.

    Also Read: Nexus 7, Push comes to shove, I prefer my iPad

    I also own an iPad 3 and an iPhone. The only reason why I own a Nexus 7 is that I like to travel with at least one current generation iOS and Android device at any time, because I actually write about this stuff.

    But as a consumer? If I had to choose between the Nexus 7 and and iPad mini, I’d much rather have an iPad mini. And I’m a real bona fide, certified geek, a Linux and open source evangelist, and a professional technologist that actually works as one for a living. I don’t just play one on TV, folks.

    It’s true that on paper that the 8GB version of the Nexus 7 is only $199 (the 16GB version is $249, and the iPad mini starts at with 16GB at $329) and has some theoretically better components in it, such as a quad core processor, more integrated RAM, and a higher resolution display. It also has a similar resolution front-facing camera.

    Have you ever actually USED most Android apps on a Nexus 7 versus an iPad 2, which shares the same SoC and screen resolution as the iPad mini? No? Well I have.

    Despite the fact that the Nexus 7 has more horsepower and more memory, the iOS apps on balance are better, run faster, and are more stable.

    The Skype implementation on Android is a joke, the video rendering and capture is pathetic and the audio transcode is horrendous, so if you plan to do video chats with that 720p camera, fuhgeddaboudit. And Google Video Chat on G+ is even worse.

    Worth reading in full.

    Google’s self-guided car isn’t just about automobiles

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    This morning’s Observer column.

    At the ceremony in Mountain View, Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, announced the company’s intention to bring autonomous vehicles to the market in five years. In a pre-emptive attack on critics, he pointed out that autonomous vehicles would be significantly safer than human-controlled ones. That seems plausible to me: 40,000 people are killed every year in road accidents in the US and many, if not most, of those are caused by human error. “This has the power to change lives,” Brin said. “Too many people are underserved by the current transport system. They are blind, or too young to drive, or too old, or intoxicated.” He also argued that manual operation of cars was inefficient: autonomous vehicles could make better use of the road and reduce the size of car parks by fitting into smaller areas than humans could get them into.

    Ignore the evangelism for a moment and think about what Google has achieved. Its engineers have demonstrated that with smart software and an array of sensors, a machine can perform a task of sophistication and complexity most of us assumed would always require the capabilities of humans. And that means our assumptions about what machines can and cannot do are urgently in need of updating.

    This isn’t just about cars, by the way…