Category Archives: Technology

The long arm of the law

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This morning’s Observer column…

Although the established order struggled initially with the challenges posed by the net, in general it has made astonishing strides in getting the unruly beast under control. That control will never be perfect (witness the way the file-sharing genie escaped from the bottle), but the long arm of the law has had little difficulty reaching into cyberspace when it chooses to make the effort.

And although libertarians will no doubt protest, sometimes these intrusions may have beneficial effects. Those of us who want the net to serve as the Speakers’ Corner of the 21st century have to accept that speakers must take responsibility for what they say.

Even in the US, freedom of speech does not include the right to shout ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre.

And in Britain it should not include the right to call somebody a sex offender when he is not.

Posted in Web

New York Times discovers the Slingbox

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Yep — there’s a piece by David Pogue.

IN the olden days, Americans gathered in front of the television sets in their living rooms to watch designated shows at designated times. You had a choice of three channels, and if you missed the broadcast, you’d feel like an idiot at the water cooler the next day. Quaint, huh?

Then came the VCR, which spared you the requirement of being there on time. Then cable TV, which blew open your channel choices. Then TiVo, which eliminated the necessity of even knowing when or where a show was to be broadcast. What’s next — eliminating the TV altogether?

Well, sure. Last year, a strange-looking gadget called the Slingbox ($250) began offering that possibility. It’s designed to let you, a traveler on the road, watch what’s on TV back at your house, or what’s been recorded by a video recorder like a TiVo.

The requirements are high-speed Internet connections at both ends, a home network and a Windows computer — usually a laptop — to watch on. (A Mac version is due by midyear.)

Today is another milestone in society’s great march toward anytime, anywhere TV. Starting today, Slingbox owners can install new player software on Windows Mobile palmtops and cellphones, thereby eliminating even the laptop requirement.

On cellphones with high-speed Internet connections, the requirement of a wireless Internet hot spot goes away, too. Now you can watch your home TV anywhere you can make phone calls — a statement that’s never appeared in print before today (at least not accurately).

New Internet backbone map for North America

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From BoingBoing. CIO.com just published a new detailed map of the North American Internet backbone. 134,855 routers are mapped, each colour-coded to indicate which provider owns it. The colour coding is interesting.

Red is Verizon, blue AT&T, yellow Qwest, green is other backbone players like Level 3 & Sprint Nextel, black is the entire cable industry put together, & gray is everyone else, from small telecommunications companies to large international players who only have a small presence in the U.S.

The CIO journalist who produced the map with Bill Cheswick of Lumeta suggests that what it tells us is that the debate on net neutrality needs to be understood not only in terms of the last mile, but also in terms of the backbone. The players are increasingly the same.

Large version of the map (pdf) available here.

Here’s a close-up of one region.

Britannica retaliates

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From Good Morning Silicon Valley…

Remember the study in Nature that concluded Wikipedia is about as authoritative a resource as Encyclopedia Britannica (see “Wikipedia vs. Britannica Smackdown ends in carrel throwing brawl”)? Turns out it wasn’t the rigorous piece of erudition you’d expect from the world’s foremost weekly scientific journal. In fact, it was anything but that. According to Britannica, everything about the study — from its methodology to the misleading way Nature spun the story in the media — was ill-conceived. “Almost everything about the journal’s investigation, from the criteria for identifying inaccuracies to the discrepancy between the article text and its headline, was wrong and misleading,” Britannica’s editors wrote in an annihilative bit of deconstruction entitled “Fatally Flawed”. “Dozens of inaccuracies attributed to the Britannica were not inaccuracies at all, and a number of the articles Nature examined were not even in the Encyclopedia Britannica. The study was so poorly carried out and its findings so error-laden that it was completely without merit.”

Ndiyo systems in South Africa

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Quentin’s installed the first Ndiyo networks in South Africa, using 3G mobile phones to provide internet connectivity. As ever, the biggest problem is sorting out the power cables. The Nivo thin clients are fixed to the wall under the desk. Nice to think that each of them replaces an ugly, power-hungry, resource-consuming PC!

Technolust (contd.)

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Why, oh why, does Canon always beat Nikon to the punch? (I write as a Nikon user.) This is the EOS 5D, which I think is the first product to reach the market with an image sensor the same size as a 35mm film frame. Expensive (£1800 inc VAT for body only in the UK). But still… More detailed spec here.

Technolust

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The Editor of a leading Indian newspaper came to visit us today. Like me, he’s a full-blown gadget freak. Unlike me, he travels a lot — and therefore spends a lot of time in duty-free shops. (He also has more money.) He was quietly flaunting this exquisite device — the iMate Jasjar. (Who invents these names?). It’s beautifully made, has a good QWERTY keyboard and gives excellent Web access. The only problem is that it runs Windows. And costs £649.49 on Amazon.co.uk. Sigh.

The significance of the Writely acquisitiion

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More on Google’s acquisition of Writely, the web-based processing tool, about which I wrote briefly the other day. I’ve just come on an interesting (if slightly hyperbolic) essay describing the acquisition as Microsoft’s “Pearl Harbour”! I think that’s overblown, but it’s interesting to remember that Bill Gates chose Pearl Harbour Day way back in 1993 to alert his company to the threat posed by the Internet and Netscape.

Slingbox

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Interesting gizmo. Blurb reads…

Introducing the Slingbox™ — a groundbreaking piece of hardwired ingenuity that will literally transform the way you watch television.

The Slingbox enables you to watch your TV programming from wherever you are by turning virtually any Internet-connected PC into your personal TV. Whether you’re in another room or in another country, you’ll always have access to your television.

That’s assuming you want to, of course. Costs $249. Only available in the US at the moment, as far as I can see.