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Free wireless broadband plan is dÃ©jÃ vu all over again

Admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:30:12 +0000

As part of the grand hoopla-fest building up to the release of the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan this month, the agency hosted a Digital Inclusion Summit at Washington, DC’s Newseum on Tuesday. Co-sponsored with the Knight Foundation, during the course of the event the FCC disclosed more components of The Plan. These include recommending the creation of a Digital Literacy Corps “to conduct skills training and outreach in communities with low rates of adoption,” and tapping into the agency’s Universal Service Fund to subsidize broadband for low income people.

But what really got our attention was this: the NBP will ask the government to “consider use of spectrum for a free or very low cost wireless broadband service.”

That’s odd, we thought, since the FCC and Congress have been considering such an idea for years.

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Avaya, Polycom Partner on UC Solutions

Admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:30:10 +0000

Avaya and Polycom are expanding their relationship to include the development and marketing of new voice and video unified communications solutions. The integrated offerings will be based on Avaya’s Aura UC platform and Polycom’s Open Collaboration Network strategy. The Avaya-Polycom partnership is the latest move in a quickly changing UC landscape as vendors attempt to take on major players like Cisco Systems.
– Avaya and Polycom are expanding their partnership to include integrated
video, voice and collaborations offerings, the latest move in a quickly
evolving unified communications market.
The two companies March 9 announced plans to jointly develop
and market a host of new, tightly integrated UC sol…

It’s BrokenTV’s Pop Pocket!

Admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:30:12 +0000

Yeah, we know were not meant to be a music blog, but this is really good. Its the (edited) video for the new Babybird single, directed by Johnny Depp (you know, him off Benny & Joon). Its a great video, and hey, an utterly brilliant song too, packed with all the swirling wordplay weve come to associate with Stephen Jones and his special songwriting pen.

One of the things we really like about Stephen Jones is the way that for every commercially viable move he makes, he deliberately shoots himself in the foot. Youre Gorgeous was a huge success with people who didnt pick up on the actual theme of the song? Make sure the lead single from the following album is one of the grimmest pop songs ever to be pressed into twin CD singles (Bad Old Man, possibly the only song to get daytime airplay on Radio 1 that contains the word paedophile). Got a Hollywood A-lister to make his directorial debut shooting one of your pop videos? Ensure theres no way itll get shown uncut on the vast majority of music video channels.

We dedicate this update to all the people who liked "Youre Gorgeous, went and bought a copy of Ugly Beautiful, and were unable to listen to it beyond the demented magnificence of King Bing.

80% say ‘Net access fundamental right, split on regulation

Admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:30:11 +0000

Access to the Internet is a fundamental right to nearly four out of five adults across the globe, and those in South Korea, Mexico, and China seem to have the strongest feelings on the topic. This is according to a report (PDF) by the BBC World Service, which polled 27,973 adults on their feelings about, usage of, and concerns about the Internet. Although users are somewhat divided on whether the Internet should be regulated, they are in agreement on its usefulness for learning and information discovery.

Across all 26 countries, 79 percent of Internet and non-Internet users said that they felt that Internet access should be “the fundamental right of all people.” When isolated for people who already use the Internet, that number went up to 87 percent. Almost universally (90 percent), respondents said that the Internet was a good place to learn and almost 80 percent said the Internet brought them greater freedom.

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Verizon Wireless on Track for Big LTE Rollout in 2010

Admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:30:09 +0000

Verizon Wireless is on track to deploy LTE in 25 to 30 markets, it has previously announced, after successful testing in Boston and Seattle. The rollout will enable LTE to finally begin catching up to WiMax, which Clearwire and Sprint currently offer in 27 U.S. markets.
– Verizon Wireless officials are saying their
plans to roll out 4G Long-Term Evolution networks are coming along swimmingly.

LTE
trials in Boston and Seattle reportedly saw peak download speeds of 40M to
50M bps and peak upload speeds of 20M to 25M bps quot;significantly
faster quot; than cu…

The poor don’t care about broadband? Of course they do

Admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:30:09 +0000

By now most Ars readers have been saturated with statistical data about broadband adoption in the United States: who has access, who doesn’t, where, why, and how we compare with the rest of the world. One of the conundrums with which all these surveys grapple is that allegedly stubborn portion of the population—mostly poor, rural, and older—who don’t use the Internet at all, because they supposedly don’t care to do so.

But a new study suggests that this community of broadband outsiders is rapidly disappearing from the landscape, particularly among low income Americans.

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Traffic pumping: threat to everyone? (or just AT&T)

Admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:30:13 +0000

Did you know that while decent, law-abiding citizens are minding their own business and making perfectly respectable phone calls to each other, a growing number of schemers are engaged in a sordid, porno-packed activity known as “traffic pumping”? Well, they are, says AT&T, and the telco wants to stop it.

Traffic pumping “is growing at an alarming rate,” AT&T has been warning the Federal Communications Commission for months). “Indeed, the companies involved in these activities seem to have been emboldened by Commission inaction and are encouraging other companies to ‘make hay while the suns shines’ because they do not believe the FCC will move to address the problem in the foreseeable future.”

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Radio Times, December 2010

Admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:30:17 +0000

A lot of people seem to be agreeing with us on the whole Mark Thompson hacking off the BBCs minority interest limbs affair, going by the way the blogs hit counter has gone up over the last few days. Thats a bit of a shame in a way, because weve completely changed our minds now. Like many of you, wed assumed that closing BBC 6 Music and the BBC Asian Network in order to get a few more hours of drama on Sunday nights was a daft move. That was before we saw a leaked copy of the Christmas Radio Times for December 2010. The things that the BBC have in store for us are so special, they just couldnt wait to tell us all about it, apparently.

Well, that and it looks like the Radio Times may have been flogged to another publisher by then, and if News International or Associated Newspapers get their paws on it, the listings for the BBC channels each day will be accompanied by a stock photograph of a big steaming poo. So they wanted an honest listings guide at the printers as soon as possible.

But dont take our word for it heres a scan of the Christmas Day listings, coming just nine and a half months from now. (Click for a bigger, more readable version. And dont tell us about any spelling mistakes, it took ages.)

Ah, bet you thought youd never see another lame attempt to copy TV Go Home, didnt you? How very wrong you were.

How much hate will the National Broadband Plan get?

Admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:30:13 +0000

With the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan scheduled for unveiling in less than two weeks, Capitol Hill folk are already wondering how much Congressional opposition to its many proposals the agency can expect. In fact, the National Journal reports that the top Republican lawyer for the House Energy and Commerce Committee says that some lawmakers may launch bills intended to “prevent” the FCC from pursuing its proposed regulatory agenda. Neil Fried made the comment on Tuesday during the National Association of Broadcaster’s state leadership conference.

Oh well—it isn’t like politicians needed the upcoming plan to throw tacks on the road. No sooner did FCC Chair Julius Genachowski announce that he was going to propose net neutrality rules than the Party of Lincoln started growling.

First, they warned Genachowski that he needed to run a “market failure” study before proposing new regulations. At the same time, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and six other GOP biggies tried to nuke net neutrality by an amendment to a Department of Interior appropriations bill. Hutchison’s (R-TX) rider would have forbidden the FCC to spend any money to “implement any Internet neutrality or network management principles.”

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The BBC Cuts: Thundering Idiocy Special (2)

Admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:30:23 +0000

Another aspect of the BBC cuts announced today is that, as expected, BBC Worldwide is likely to lose control of magazines such as Top Gear and the Radio Times. Of course, we remember the days when BBC Worldwide used to announce new projects frequently, no matter whether theyd be profitable or not. One such example we can EXCLUSIVELY reveal here.

1997. BBC Worldwide decided it was to make a move into the lucrative world of videogames. After all, the original Sony PlayStation was really taking off, and PlayStation titles using the BBCs biggest properties would surely be a massive hit.

Sadly, the first title, based on one of BBC Twos leading figures at the time, and a certain interview on a flagship news programme, only saw a limited release. The title was soon being pulled from the shelves after a lawsuit was swiftly filed by Namcos legal department. Weve got some EXCLUSIVE shots of the game for you here, see if you can work out why it was pulled.

Ah-ha-ha.