The Inquisitr » Internet

The usual suspects are threatening to dismantle our Internet

Steven Hodson — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:42:28 +0000

We are coming up to a watershed moment in the existence of the Internet and very few people seem to care. Right now there are two separate events happening that will have a direct impact on both the Internet we have right now and the one we will have in the future.

While they might seem like two disparate events they are in fact being lead by one industry. Under the guise of copyright infringement and piracy the entertainment as a whole is spearheading the adoption of the Digital Economy Bill in England and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which would be global in impact.

It is easy to shrug our collective shoulders over the Digital Economy Bill suggesting that it’s strictly a British problem and doesn’t affect the rest of at all. Well one only has to look at the persuasive use of CCTV in Britain and how it became the template for other countries like the U.S. to follow suite to see how foolish that argument is.

When I first wrote about the Digital Economy Bill here back in August of 2009 it was in light of how the original bill was changed after a weekend meeting get-together on the Greek island of Corfu. This little confab consisted of Lord Mandelson, the British business secretary, members of the Rothschild banking dynasty; who paid for the retreat, and David Geffen, an American billionaire record producer.

Prior to this retreat in sunny Corfu the Digital Economy Bill was actually a forward looking document that the British government hoped would take the country into the next millennium. After the trip though it suddenly became a totally different beast all together that saw everyone using the Internet as a criminal.

Now just this past week thanks to Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing we find out that this new Digital Economy Bill that is now before the British Parliament not only will treat web users as criminals but it is also being used to create a process that will see unelected officials able to do just about anything without Parliamentary oversight or control as long as it is done in the name of protecting copyright.

Doctorow was able to get his hands on some reliable information (via a British Labour Government source) and points to the three specific arguments that Lord Mandelson uses for justifying the revamped bill

1. The Secretary of State would get the power to create new remedies for online infringements (for example, he could create jail terms for file-sharing, or create a “three-strikes” plan that costs entire families their internet access if any member stands accused of infringement)

2. The Secretary of State would get the power to create procedures to “confer rights” for the purposes of protecting rightsholders from online infringement. (for example, record labels and movie studios can be given investigative and enforcement powers that allow them to compel ISPs, libraries, companies and schools to turn over personal information about Internet users, and to order those companies to disconnect users, remove websites, block URLs, etc)

3. The Secretary of State would get the power to “impose such duties, powers or functions on any person as may be specified in connection with facilitating online infringement” (for example, ISPs could be forced to spy on their users, or to have copyright lawyers examine every piece of user-generated content before it goes live; also, copyright “militias” can be formed with the power to police copyright on the web)

As Doctorow points out in this post, and a follow-up to it, unelected officials like Lord Mandelson would have the power to create and run a private copyright police force that wouldn’t answer to anyone.

But that’s just for starters. The real meat is in the story we broke yesterday: Peter Mandelson, the unelected Business Secretary, would have to power to make up as many new penalties and enforcement systems as he likes. And he says he’s planning to appoint private militias financed by rightsholder groups who will have the power to kick you off the internet, spy on your use of the network, demand the removal of files or the blocking of websites, and Mandelson will have the power to invent any penalty, including jail time, for any transgression he deems you are guilty of. And of course, Mandelson’s successor in the next government would also have this power.

Now it would be a common reaction from the rest of us in the world to shrug our shoulders saying ah it’s a British problem, if they want to let this happen it’s their own fault and carry on our way. The problem is that besides recent history showing that this is a short-sighted position to take there is also another much more subtle and potentially dangerous change to individual country laws.

Under the guise of protecting corporate copyrights a new global treaty; think WTO, WIPO, WHO etc., called Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is being created and agreed to in secret. The secrecy around ACTA is so persuasive that anyone viewing the actual agreement and participating in the talks around it are forced to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). The Electronic Frontier Foundation has even had to go to court to force the release of any documents surrounding the Treaty.

This is a treaty that has been written by the entertainment industry and then promoted to governments around the world and being the necessary way to protect the status quo in a world that is changing to fast for many people – especially in the corporate world. Both here in Canada and in the U.S. this treaty will fundamentally change the way that copyright laws are written and policed – just as we are seeing in England with their Digital Economy Bill.

In an article published in the Yale Journal of International Law (PDF version) Eddan Katz and Gwen Hinze wrote

In brief, the ACTA process has been deliberately more secretive than customary practices in international decision-making bodies to evade the debates about intellectual property (IP) at established multilateral institutions. The Office of the USTR has chosen to negotiate ACTA as a sole executive agreement. Because of a loophole in democratic accountability on sole executive agreements, the Office of the USTR can sign off on an IP Enforcement agenda without any formal congressional involvement at all.

via Cory Doctorow

In Canada Professor Michael Geist; Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, has been heavily involved in trying to keep this treaty in the public eye. You can read his work in this area here at his blog but he points to the spin that the organizations and governments involved in foisting this treaty on the world are putting around the secrecy.

In their opinion this secrecy is just normal business when working on large treaties like this but the facts; and history, tell a different story.

In the face of widespread criticism of the lack of ACTA transparency, participating governments and music industry lobbyists have claimed that the transparency issue is much ado about nothing. As governments seek to keep relevant information secret, those same governments released a joint statement last week arguing that “it is accepted practice during trade negotiations among sovereign states to not share negotiating texts with the public at large, particularly at earlier stages of the negotiation.”

It is important to emphatically state that this is simply not the case for many multilateral agreements and the activities of international organizations that typically serve as the forum for global agreement discussions. U.S. NGO groups have made a strong case for how ACTA’s lack of transparency is out-of-step with many other global norm setting exercises.

Michael Masnick at Techdirt also has a good post where he examines this argument that secrecy is normal and that any open discussion about ACTA is nothing more than a distraction.

A third point raised is that this isn’t a “treaty” but a “sole executive agreement,” so we shouldn’t worry since it can’t change the law. Except, by categorizing it as such, it’s actually a loophole that could potentially take Congress out of the process of reviewing or approving anything that’s in the agreement, and then just wait for the “but we must live up to our international obligations” to start pouring out of lobbyists and industry lawyers’ mouths.

This isn’t a treat about securing copyrights for rights holders as much as it is a method by which the entertainment industry of the U.S. can exert a stranglehold on the Internet. James Love at Knowledge Ecology International has a list of who the White House shared the ACTA text with; under an NDA, but what is more interesting is seeing just who some of the corporations behind this push for the acceptance of ACTA are.

In this regard Michael Masnick has a list of entertainment companies that signed a letter that was sent to the government supporting ACTA; which considering that they helped draft the treaty shouldn’t be too surprising.

Advertising Photographers of America
American Association of Independent Music (A2IM)
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
American Society of Media Photographers, Inc. (ASMP)
Association of American Publishers (AAP)
Broadcast Music, Inc (BMI)
Commercial Photographers International
Directors Guild of America (DGA)
Evidence Photographers International Council
Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA)
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE)
Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA)
National Music Publishers Association (NMPA)
NBC Universal
News Corporation
Picture Archive Council of America (PACA)
Professional Photographers of America (PPA)
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
Reed Elsevier Inc.
Society of Sport & Event Photographers
Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)
Stock Artists Alliance
Student Photographic Society
The Advertising Photographers of America
The Walt Disney Company
Time Warner, Inc.
Universal Music Group
Viacom Inc.
Warner Music Group

In combination these two seemingly disparate items might seem to be connected but the fact is that behind both of them are the powerful people in the entertainment industry that don’t want to boat rocked. In fact they are doing everything they can to get the boat back into dry dock and under lock and key.

We might like to believe that the Internet will always be open and free but the reality is that there are some strong forces at work that want to turn it into something totally different. It is my fear that with the secrecy surrounding things like ACTA and the Digital Economy Bill along with people’s seeming nonchalant attitudes we will end up with something totally different than we dream of.

That would be a sad day.

Google Chrome OS – the morning after still has people not getting it

Steven Hodson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:27:10 +0000

If there is one thing about the tech blogosphere it is its predictability. Just as you could predict the almost breathless press that surround Google’s announcement that yes they were working on an operating system, yes they were going to open source it (in other words free), and yes everyone can now get excited but you’ll have to wait until next year when you buy a netbook to use the real thing.

There’s gotcha number one – while you can download it (see Kim’s post of where to grab a copy) it isn’t going to be the real thing because the real thing is only going to be installed on the netbooks of those hardware companies that meet Google’s standards.

But just as you can predict the positive spin that comes with just about every Google release you can predict just as well the next day’s rapid back-peddling as the early rush of kool-aid begins to leave everyone’s system. In this regard we definitely weren’t let down in the slightest even though there were a few that seem to have grabbed themselves a whole new serving.

Those still thinking that this is the game changer, or at least close to it, that we’ve been waiting for:

Google Chrome (or something like it) Will Take Over…Bet On It! – TomsTechBlog

Chrome isn’t about next year or even the year after that. No one in their right mind would bet on netbooks as the future of humanity. But it is about Google showing the world a new way of computing and earning the world’s trust.

The Chrome OS Release Is Not About Now, It’s About Next. – Louis Gray

Google’s preview of the Chrome OS was more than a product release. It was a milestone in a vision of a Web-centric world, one in which we are increasingly living. For the vast majority of my own activity, I am online, not using software. I intentionally use some applications, like Microsoft’s Office suite or Adobe Photoshop, quickly, and then close them just as quickly, as to not slow down my computer’s performance. Google’s Chrome OS is the latest development in a vision that says our activity will be online, our data will be stored in the cloud, and applications that have traditionally been desktop software will make their way online.

Why Google Chrome OS has already won – Robert Scoble

Today InfoWorld’s Randall Kennedy says that Google’s Chrome OS will fail.

What he is missing is he’s looking at the wrong field.

Google is playing a different game. Google Chrome OS is NOT about killing Microsoft or Apple.

What is it about? Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers.

See, what happens if the world goes to Microsoft’s Silverlight, the way that Seesmic did this week? Google is locked out of such a world.

Google is in a war over developers with Microsoft. Google wants developers to build for the open web. Microsoft wants developers to build for Silverlight. Those messages are VERY clear coming out of both camps now.

Chrome OS, Google Intends to Destroy the Desktop and Microsoft – Mashable

Here’s the thing: Microsoft is well aware of the Google Revenue Equation. It also knows that Chrome OS and its price point (free) aren’t in its best interests. Thus, Microsoft won’t play to Google’s game, leaving Google with only option: to destroy or fundamentally alter Windows. This is equivalent to gutting Microsoft and leaving it to wither away into oblivion.

Google is setting the stage for is biggest battle with Microsoft yet. The result of its Chrome OS bet will directly affect the fate of computing, the operating system, and the web.

Those that are either back-peddling or are busy writing epitaphs of failure

Why Chrome OS will fail — big time – InfoWorld / Cloud Computing

The Chrome OS is here — sort of. This week, Google was kind of enough to give the world a sneak peek at its nascent desktop operating system. And after months of speculation (and more than a few bogus screenshot galleries), I can finally say that I’ve seen the future … and it’s not Chrome OS.

Google Chrome OS: I Don’t Get It – webomatica

And we had to make do with web apps. I wouldn’t buy such a thing, not after getting used to the Swiss-army wonderment of the iPhone.

As far as I’m concerned, the Google Chrome OS seems limiting at best, and at worst, pointless. I don’t get it.

Was Chrome OS a Disappointment? – ReadWriteWeb

At the end of the day, Chrome OS is an exciting, but not fully realized, vision. Although it has potential, the world may not be ready for a web-based netbook right now. Also, the technology needed to make the Wi-Fi only netbook useful without an internet connection isn’t up to full speed either. At the end of the day, the netbook will be marginally more useful than an iPod Touch – when connected, it’s amazing. Offline, not so much.

A short post on the conceit at the heart of Google ChromeOS – Technovia

That’s why Google ChromeOS, which says “do everything in the web”, is so weak. Of course, there’s good reasons why Google wants you to use web interfaces for everything (MOAR EYEBALLS! MOAR ADS!) but there aren’t really good reasons for customers to want to do it.

ChromeOS Will Fail, Unless Its Purpose Is Not To Succeed – Regular Geek

The second reason, which many blogs have not stated, is that everyone knows this will fail.

ChromeOS will fail because the timing is not right. If mobile phones were still those nasty little devices that made even checking email a chore, it would have a chance.

Those who see the glimmer or at least honest enough to sit on the fence

As much as I might yank Scoble’s chain on this over his blanket statement he also sees where the real play for ChromeOS is.

Why Google Chrome OS has already won – Robert Scoble

Well, it’s a new field altogether. I’m hearing a raft of new, low-cost, devices are coming that you will only need to have on the Web. For instance, I want a cookbook on my kitchen counter that just brings me cool recipes. Right now I use my big Windows 7 computer for that, or my big MacBookPro.

But what if there were a new device that costs less than $100 that JUST does cookbooks and other things I need in the kitchen? I would buy one. A Chrome OS is all that’s needed for such a specialized device.

4 Big Gambles Google Is Taking With Chrome OS – GigaOM

There are quite a few misconceptions going around about the new operating system, among them that it’s aimed squarely at Microsoft’s operating system hegemony. It’s not. Chrome OS is targeting netbooks, not desktop and server systems.

158,616,176 Reasons Why Google Chrome OS Won’t Fail – SiliconAngle

That leaves 158,616,176 potential users for a Google product that could effectively be the cheapest computer ever mass produced.

Cheap. We’re talking theoretically $150, which incidentally is cheaper than what you can buy the famed “$100 Laptop” for.

You’re telling me that Google and their partner vendors don’t have an incentive to move 158,616,176 $150 machines? In case you’re really bad at math, that could theoretically be a $23 billion market. And that wouldn’t include one single Microsoft or Apple customer, nor does it touch the dollar figure that Google makes from selling ads against those people’s time online.

End game

As Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and I went back an forth on this in a podcast last night the thought came to me that as he points out in his post ChromeOS + Netbooks + Broadband = the cheapest possible computers we have ever seen. Take that one step further and given Google’s penchant for giving things away it is entirely possible that they could partner with all the broadband providers and give away ChromeOS equipped netbooks and just in time for the 2010 holiday season.

That could possibly result in the largest influx of people to the Internet we have even seen in the Web’s short history.

Researchers: Surfing on World Wide Web Affects Readers’ Brain Functions

AHN — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:00:44 +0000

Columbia, MO (AHN) – According to a recent survey 73 percent of all American adults use the Internet on a daily basis. In a recent study of Internet users researchers found that readers were better able to understand, remember and emotionally respond to material found through “searching” compared to content found while “surfing.”

Kevin Wise, assistant professor of strategic communication and co-director of the Psychological Research on Information and Media Effects (PRIME) Lab at the University of Missouri says, “If, as these data suggest, the cognitive and emotional impact of online content is greatest when acquired by searching, then Web site sponsors might consider increasing their advertising on pages that tend to be accessed via search engines.”

Half of the adults surveyed use the Web to find information via search engines, while 38 percent use it simply to pass the time. Internet analysts went further in their behavioral search engine analysis and examined how methods for acquiring news – searching for specific content versus surfing a news Web site – affected readers’ emotional responses while reading news stories. Researchers in the study monitored participants’ heart rate, skin conductance and facial musculature to gauge their emotional responses to unpleasant news. They found that unpleasant content triggered greater emotional responses when readers sought the information by searching rather than surfing.

“How readers acquire messages online has ramifications for their cognitive and emotional response to those messages,” Wise said. “Messages that meet readers’ existing informational needs elicit stronger emotional reactions.”

The researchers also found that information was better understood and remembered when individuals conducted specific searches for information.

Let’s Stop The Nonsense, OK?

Kyle Brady — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:05:43 +0000

The “bleeding-edge” segment of the Internet has gone full-on crazy, so it’s time to give them their medicine… and fast.

First of all, let’s make some definitions:

“technology” does not include only the Internet
“the Internet” does not include only so-called “social networking” sites
“groundbreaking” does not include every minor change or release from X’s favorite site Y

With me so far? Good.

If you’re one of the people that goes insane and hyper-joyous over things like Twitter Lists, you need to seek medical help – these “features”, used in the loosest sense of the software term, are not something to get overly excited about. Facebook Chat opening to external clients is not “groundbreaking” or a “gamechanger”, because that IM process is used for an extremely different purpose than, say, regular instant messaging – in fact, the only real operational difference is that I can be connected to some people I don’t want to talk to via Pidgin. Twitter Lists, small changes to Google’s algorithms, and the like are included in this “excited about nonsense” category.

Furthermore, if you’re someone who claims to “love technology”, but what you really mean is that you’re a Facebook addict, a Twitter whore, and an iPhone fanboy, I have some news for you: you don’t love technology. If you really loved technology, you’d be more interested in real technological items like working space elevator prototypes, the multiple industry revolutions that are fast approaching, or even just software that has real and useful purposes. Reading a few blogs about the Internet and going to Twitter conferences do not make you a technogeek – try PhysOrg.com, almost-science-journals like New Scientist, or even some self-education on the things that make your favorite software or gadgets work.

So when you’re retweeting your favorite self-proclaimed geek pundit’s semi-legible statement about a “groundbreaking” release from “the Internet” using brand new “technology”, stop for a moment to think about what you’re saying – how often do you think Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs cry tears of joy over the latest incremental update from FarmVille?

That’s right – never.

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

Study: Internet Use Boosts Brain Activity

AHN — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:00:10 +0000

Chicago, IL (AHN) – Web surfing among older adults with little Internet experience has been shown to give their brain function a significant boost, according to a new study.

The University of California, Los Angeles researchers said in a statement that Internet use among new Web users triggers key centers in the brain that control decision making and complex reasoning after just one week. The researchers presented their findings at the Oct. 19 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago.

The researchers worked with 24 volunteers between 55 and 78 who had normal brain function. Half the participants said they had little experience using the Internet. Age, education level and gender were similar between the two groups.

The levels in brain activity were measured using magnetic resonance imaging before and after the two-week experiment began. In between, the participants conducted Internet searches at home for one hour a day, seven days a week, for two weeks.

In the end, the brain activation patterns among the computer novices were “very similar” to those seen in the savvy Internet users, the researchers said in a statement.

Many Americans Refusing Broadband Internet, Congress Tells FCC To Figure Out Why

James Allen Johnson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:02:06 +0000

It’s not an issue you would think Congress would be worried about, but it turns out that the refusal to get high speed broadband service is a big concern for not only the U.S. government, but governments worldwide, so much so that Finland has promised universal broadband for all their citizens by the end of 2010.

The issue has become such a big problem that Congress this week ordered the FCC to research the lack of broadband acceptance and find out by February 2010 how they can turn around broadband subscriber numbers (hint, give it to us for free, just a thought).

Early numbers according to SlashGear are misleading, with 96% of American households being able to receive broadband services, but 33% of those same households refusing high speed services.

According to a New York Times report many of those households refusing service are lower income families who can’t afford the service and senior citizens who rarely or never use the internet. In fact only 30 percent of users 65 and older actually subscribe to any broadband services, with 18 to 29 years old users still at a low 77 percent.

What current reports don’t include are the number of users who simply refuse high speed internet because they don’t see the need for the services, a fact that the FCC will try to broach in their upcoming studies.

I’d like to save the FCC some tax payer cash and suggest they just figure out how to provide inexpensive broadband to the masses, rather than questioning why low income families aren’t paying $50 a month or more for those services, there you go, problem solved.

Garlic Farmer Resists High-Speed Internet Tower

AHN — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:10:24 +0000

Lenny Levine, a Nova Scotia garlic farmer is reluctant of the high-speed internet from Victoria Harbour, a rural community on the Bay of Fundy.

Since the 1970’s she has been planting and harvesting garlic. She now fears that the radiation can damage his crops once Eastlink has built a microwave tower, which is about hundred meters from his farm.

In order to provide high-speed internet access to rural areas, Eastlink uses microwave transmission.

Levine believes that microwave tower radiation is a pollution and she does not want to grow crops in those conditions. Saying that, “I think over a period of time it will change the DNA of the garlic because it shakes up the molecules.” He added that he moved in the rural town because he dreads pollution in the city.

Levine raised his concern to the Kings City Council and the council rejected the one’s to be built near Levine’s farm, though they agreed with five other towers. Homeowners in the community have signed a petition supporting the high-speed internet tower.

Still, the final decision remains with Industry Canada. Eastlink raised this matter to the federal department and a decision is expected to be released soon.

Kings County Warden Fred Whalen said that the council’s decision might be overruled because the radiation from the internet tower is 60,000 times lower than the government’s accepted limits for organic farms.

Whalen added, “If council’s decision is overruled, the municipality has no plans to launch a legal challenge.”

Anonymous data not so anonymous after all

Kim LaCapria — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:26:34 +0000

Like Hansel and Gretel’s trail of breadcrumbs, we all leave a trail of personal information as we navigate the internet.

Your friend sent you a birthday drink! A post about taxes in your hamlet, another about your toddler’s eating habits, a flight or hotel reservation, your Netflix queue… I think every internet user has a bit of a creeping bit of nervousness about what the web collective “knows” about their lives.

Ars Technica has an interesting post on this very subject today, summed up in a slightly jarring quote here:

“For almost every person on earth, there is at least one fact about them stored in a computer database that an adversary could use to blackmail, discriminate against, harass, or steal the identity of him or her. I mean more than mere embarrassment or inconvenience; I mean legally cognizable harm. Perhaps it is a fact about past conduct, health, or family shame. For almost every one of us, then, we can assume a hypothetical ‘database of ruin,’ the one containing this fact but until now splintered across dozens of databases on computers around the world, and thus disconnected from our identity. Reidentification has formed the database of ruin and given access to it to our worst enemies.”

Luckily for all of us, we’re Joe Average. The majority of us will never run for office or be in the headlines, but woe betide those of us who do. Google knows who you are, and it doesn’t keep secrets. Everyone laughed at Caribou Barbie Sarah Palin when some enterprising /b/tards youths hacked her e-mail account. But how secure are your security questions?

We all think we’re careful, not spilling an awful lot in public space and hey, my Facebook profile is set to private! (But as the ACLU pointed out not too long ago, our random FB tidbits also leak out through the profiles of our friends, of which I have over 150. I haven’t even met 150 people, in my life.) The linked Ars Technica article points out that even the benign stuff is not necessarily benign, when combined with other data that’s readily available. For instance, 87% of Americans are identifiable by birth date, zip code, and gender alone. How many places on the internet is that information readily available about you?

Perhaps the most worrying part is that information leakage seems to be trending toward being perpetuated forward but becoming relevant backwards. Let me explain with another anecdote from the article. In the mid-90s, a grad student in Massachusetts took an admittedly dopey initiative to study “anonymized” medical records data for all state employees to try to identify one. She was quickly successful in finding and delivering the Governor’s personal data to him:

Only six people in Cambridge shared his birth date, only three of them men, and of them, only he lived in his ZIP code. In a theatrical flourish, Dr. Sweeney sent the Governor’s health records (which included diagnoses and prescriptions) to his office.

So while you may be anonymous for now, bear in mind that almost unlike the fairly recent past, most of the information you release is leaving a trail. Could a forum post made in haste about a chronic cough affect your health coverage in 15 years? Could an old Netflix queue be used against you in court?

The Internet Turns 40

AHN — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:09:30 +0000

San Francisco, CA (AHN) – Tuesday marks the 40th anniversary of the birth of the Internet in a lab at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The 226 million websites now dotting the World Wide Web was an offshoot of an experiment by 20 UCLA engineers, who passed meaningless data from two computers 15 feet apart through a grey cable connection on September 2, 1969. Those two computers were the earliest network then called Advanced Research Projects Agency Network or ARPANET.

The expansion of the ARPANET with the joining of Stanford Research Institute the following month and the UC Santa Barbara and the University of Utah by the end of 1969 slowly built the Internet. UCLA and Stanford figured in the first but incomplete sending of a message between two offsite computers. The message, supposed to be the word “login,” arrived only as “lo” as the computers crashed on October 29, 1969.

Continuous developments made the Internet an economic backbone, global socializing medium and a way of life today. The data transfer technology called Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) was created in the 1970s.

In late 1971, the first e-mails were sent through the ARPANET by Ray Tomlinson, complete with the @ sign. However, it was only in the 1980s that this application became extensive.

The ARPANET went beyond the shores of the U.S. when the U.K. and Norway joined the network in 1973. Twelve years later, the .com domain was created together with .net, .org, .gov, .edu and .mil.

The World Wide Web was born in the 1990s. On Christmas day 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created the first Internet server at the CERN nuclear research facility and launched it on August 6, 1991. The first graphical web browser, Mosaic, was released in 1993 that made the Internet very accessible and popular.

Webcycle Rewards Peddlers With More Bandwidth

James Allen Johnson — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:40:04 +0000

The Webcycle may very well be the next big thing in fitness. The bike offers internet access, but only to motivated cyclists who are willing to work for their bandwidth, while at the same time getting a full cardiovascular work out.

The bike is hooked up to an Ubuntu based OS that users sensors to determine how fast the user is peddling the bike. The faster the peddles move the more throughput the user receives. Essentially if the user peddles fast the sensors allow for more bits and bytes to be sent through the system.

For users who may just want to take part in some casual web surfing, such as loading text based webpages and mobile pages, the system only requires a casual slow peddle to operate. We probably wouldn’t recommend trying to download large video files, unless of course you plan on riding out a practical marathon to complete the take in any reasonable amount of time.

Here’s a video of the bike in action:

[via Engadget]

Could radio and newspapers save each other?

Steven Hodson — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:36:28 +0000

There is no denying the fact that both terrestrial radio (and probably satellite as well) and the newspaper industry are facing some dire times as they try to find their way in this new media world. A lot of talk has been floating around lately about the online versions of newspapers moving to a paywall subscription type of thing. As well you have the Associated Press seriously thinking of committing hari kari by killing off links and quoting unless you pay for it.

Radio on the other hand is facing a growing pressure from the entertainment industry to change the rules of the game and as a result make playing music on the radio prohibitively expensive. Satellite radio may not survive just out of plain economics and the rapidly changing technology of the web.

With this as the backdrop it was rather interesting to read Doc Searls this morning where he was talking about the conversation that had developed around his earlier post that talked about the sale of WQXR radio station to WNTC, a public radio station in New York. One of the points Doc made was that for much of history of both industries newspapers owned radio stations. This all changed however when the FCC changed the regulations and prohibited that kind of ownership.

That however was back in a time when both industries were more the most part in their golden era as businesses. The idea was that it was wrong to let one buy out the other and as a result consolidate all the news distribution. It was felt that if such a consolidation of news providers did happen it would be detrimental to the public as there would be less choice of where we got our news, and to a certain extent – entertainment in general as well.

But a lot has changed since those FCC regulations were created. The Internet didn’t even exist let alone the growing number of ways that we can get our news. In this new media world those old regulations could actually turn out to be one of the nails in the coffin of old media.

Competition for news delivery to the public is like it has never been before. It is that very competition that is the biggest threat to traditional news distribution like newspapers and radio. It is also the same competition that if they were allowed to merge could see radio and newspapers turn into a smaller better combination of previously separate dinosaurs.

It’s not like it hasn’t happened in the past as Sean Reiser commented on one of Doc’s posts

One of the unique things about the QXR was it’s relationship with the Times. The Times owned QXR before the FCC regulations prohibiting newspapers ownership of a radio station were enacted. Because of this relationship, QXR’s newsroom was located in the NY Times building and news gathering resources were shared. In a precursor to newspaper reporters doing podcasts, Times columnists and arts reporters would often appear on the air doing segments.

There is no reason why something like this couldn’t happen again and who knows maybe it would be the best thing to happen to both of those dying industries.

“Wi-fi allergy” allegedly tormenting 2% of the population

Kim LaCapria — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:34:33 +0000

Wi-fi allergy, or “electromagnetic sensitivity,” might keep 2% of the population away from Starbucks and McDonald’s for the foreseeable future.

Steve Miller, a UK DJ who really loves your peaches and wishes to shake your tree, has come forward with the newfangled illness and a tale of woe including having to ditch his work at parties in Ibiza. Now that’s sad. Miller claims he is increasingly trapped in the concrete walled home he purchased to escape the ever-present connection that permeates our lives.

Experts are not impressed by the claims, however, citing a plethora of reasons why the condition can’t exist. A bit in the Telegraph roundly debunks the claims of Miller and others who feel they may be “sensitive” to Wi-fi, positing that the people may just be suffering from pervasive ignorance about science.

Wifi consists of electromagnetic waves, just like light or radio waves, with a frequency of 2.4GHz, giving it a wavelength of around 12.5cm. There is some variation but not enough of a range to make any difference. 2.4GHz is on the long end of microwave, getting close to radio, rather similar to mobile phone signals. It transmits at much lower power than a mobile phone mast, so even if those signals were harmful, Wifi would be less so.

Mr Miller makes no mention of mobile phones, he is only bothered by Wifi. If it is electromagnetic radiation in general he’s sensitive to, he’s in real trouble as radio waves and visible light flood our atmosphere every minute of every day.

Experts don’t think that Miller is faking it per se, though- their diagnosis? Agoraphobia.

Dutch government ignores its own Internet tax study – listens to the people

Steven Hodson — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:51:14 +0000

According to Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten at TheNextWeb.com blog the Dutch government recently formed a special committee to come up with a course of action to save the Dutch newspaper industry. The main recommendation of the Brinkman committee was to place a special tax on all Internet access.

The idea being that the 2 Euros yearly tax all Dutch families would be required to pay, resulting in and extra 12 million per year, would be used on ‘innovative’ projects. These so-called innovative projects the committee suggested might help find a solution to the increasing decline in the newspaper industry.

Needless to say said Boris the blowback to this idea has been strong and swift

As you would expect there are thousands of angry comments on the online articles who reported on the issue this morning. They compare it to paying a ‘car tax’ to save the Horse-Drawn Carriage Industry. Or taxing email to fund the post office because people are sending less paper around.

It appears though that this response has been successful if the update from Boris is any indication

UPDATED: Dutch parliament will ignore the commission’s advice and has decided against an Internet tax. I’m sure that is a huge relief for a LOT of people.

Wow … a government that actually seems to listen to the people who elected them – how unusual.

The Cloud vs. The Desktop: An Irrelevant Argument

Kyle Brady — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:17:06 +0000

These days, tech pundits and futurists can’t go a week without pontificating on the future of computing, wondering (and arguing) whether the computer will be merely a tool to access “the cloud” or as an application set. Even the most inconsequential software release (or failure) sparks this argument – the most recent example is the release of the Opera browser’s repackaging of a personal webserver.

Companies and individuals alike have been heralding the death of the computer as we know if for years, claiming all applications, data, and other innovations will live in a decentralized fashion across distributed networks - Google’s office suite offerings are an example of this. Everything from instant messaging clients to word processors, video editors to photograph storage, and email to computer programming tools can be found as browser-based applications. But just because they exist doesn’t mean they should, as not everything needs to be achieved inside the browser.

Some activities, such as photo or video editing, are best left to desktop tools that aren’t reliant on crude Javascript or Flash plugins, and still others have no reason to exist “in the cloud”. The essential test is this: does existing in the cloud add value to the tool, allowing easier multi-computer interaction? Or maybe it’s a service that allows users to connect and interact with each other?

If it doesn’t pass these tests, the application/tool doesn’t need to be cloud-oriented. It is precisely for this reason that the computer will never be just a gateway to the ‘net – besides the obvious hardware and software complications with “the browser is the future operating system” arguments. With the ridiculously marketed release of Opera’s twenty-year-old technology, a claim of “the desktop isn’t dead, and we’re the real future!” rung out through some circles… this isn’t the answer either.

These arguments are irrelevant, useless, and ultimately nothing more than a well marketed fist-fight. Computing’s future is likely a combination of desktop and cloud, making intelligent choices between the two based on the needs and value of any given application. The real issue is going to be the interoperability and real-world use/abilities of the cloud – a highly relevant and critical issue only just achieving any semblance of discussion.

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

Diller pulls a dilly, says the web will become a paid system

Steven Hodson — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 05:00:00 +0000

What happens when you get a bunch of rich old pricks gathering together for yet another conference and the talk turns to how poor they are and how it’s the Internet’s fault?

Well you get people like Barry Diller (who looks surprising like a older version of Steve Ballmer) pontification about how the web will return to its glory days of when you paid for stuff – and all within five years. Yes folks by the time five years rolls by we will be forking over cash for all that stuff we are getting for free today.

“I absolutely believe the Internet is passing from its free days into a paid system. Inevitably, I promise you, it will be paid,” Diller said in a keynote discussion opening up the Advertising 2.0 conference held at his company’s futuristic glass building alongside the Hudson River in Manhattan. “Not every single thing, but anything of value. “

The fact that content and services on the Internet so far have been largely supplied for no charge is “an accident of historical moment that will be corrected,” he said, in an era of “creative chaos” that will span the next three to five years.

Source: Between The Lines

It’s not a matter that businesses are going to have to find new ways to be profitable in the era of Web 2.0 (or if you prefer Web 3.0 or Scoble’s favorite 2010Web). No it will be us suddenly realize that out of the goodness of our hearts that we should be paying companies for the privilege of being able to keep on doing business as usual. Even though those business models are proving all on their own that they don’t work.

Diller goes on to add

The entire Internet, in effect, would become an app – or content – store.

“That little thing – that in fact that you scroll it, you do it, it comes, everything else is taken care of, is the answer to what’s going to happen on the Internet, when in fact, you get the applicability of that broadly across the Internet,” Diller said. “It’s absolutely going to happen.”

So in effect the Web becomes nothing more than a gigantic iTunes store with the old guard once again charging what they think is a fair price and walking away with all the profits.

Okay Barry, what ever you say. How about you and I getting back together in five years and see exactly how wrong you were.

No related posts.

Are we headed to an Internet Dark Ages?

Steven Hodson — Wed, 27 May 2009 04:16:12 +0000

The common wisdom these days is that the Internet and Web, as well as technology in general, will continue on a forward momentum. It will constantly add to our collective knowledge and increase our achievements as it grows. Things like Moore’s Law and Ray Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerated Return would have us believe that our future of incredible technology is within our grasp. After all there is no indication that it is otherwise.

Or is there?

I like to consider myself a realist when it comes to technology and society. I would like to think that there are incredible things ahead for us as we make discovery after discovery. I also believe, unlike a lot of my equals, that as much good as all this new technology will bring society there are those who will subvert the future to their own advantages. That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t hope for a bright future. In fact I hope to always be proven wrong and that we live to see the benefits of a universally equal society as it is helped by our constantly growing technological knowledge.

What if I am wrong?

We live in a world where the Internet and by extension the Web is an increasingly integral part of our society. We might bicker about things like ubiquitous access for all and worry about things like search monopolies, but we would like to believe that as we move to the future we will overcome those problems. We like to believe in a technologically driven world where things like health and other problems which plague us today will no longer exist. Things like oil and coal shortages would be a thing of the past and we would live without fear of the planet imploding from our mere presence.

What if this isn’t the future we end up with?

While the majority of forward thinkers and technologists might dismiss these question as being not something we need to be asking ourselves there are some whole think otherwise. I ran across the writings of one of these types of persons earlier today via a post on Treehugger. John Michael Greer is the author of the Archdruid Report and two of his most recent posts directly look to these types of questions.

The End of the Information Age

In the first post I read titled The End of the Information Age he suggests that rather than heading into a technological Golden Age we are in fact headed in the opposite direction. Much of his argument in the post is based around the point that our technological world is being powered by an increasingly limited supply of energy.

This kind of logic is common enough these days that it’s probably necessary to point out the flaws in it. Electricity isn’t an energy source; it has to be generated, using some other energy source to do so. The electricity that powers the European and Japanese rail systems is mostly generated by plants that burn coal, with significant help from nuclear reactors and a rather smaller assist from hydroelectric plants. Of these, only the hydroelectric plants are a renewable energy source; the others are poised just as firmly on the downslope of depletion as the diesel oil that runs American locomotives.

His point being that our principal forms of creating long term supplies of energy are in fact finite. I realize that this is the point where a vocal group of environmentally minded people will jump up and start waving the banners of solar, wind and wave generated power. Once more we tread into the realm of possible futures but the reality is more likely that these forms of energy generation are going to have a lot harder time gaining a foothold than they think.

As I pointed out in a previous post here we are only just entering into the fields of generating alternative forms of energy. We are barely getting our toes wet in this new world and already see the flag of NIMBY being waved in the communities that, as much as they need these new forms of energy they don’t want its transport systems going through their neighborhoods.

Now I talked about this whole thing with a good friend of mine, Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins, via IM and he raised the point that Greer was forgetting things like Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerated Return. It was his point that even now stuff like nano-tech solar technology is only about five years from hitting the market in any great degree. For Mark it is things like this that will allow increasing amounts of solar energy to be generated on a smaller more local scale

Well, take into account urban solar initiatives as well as nano-tech – solar is currently poised for a quantum leap forward.

We’re about five years out from affordable solar accessible to everyone.

Having read Ray Kurzweil’s book The Singularity is Near I can understand the point that Mark is making. Technology isn’t a linear growth, it is in fact an exponential growth that builds on top of what we already know and have. While I may not be in total agreement with what John Greer is trying to say in this first post I also think that people like Kurzweil, and Mark, forget about a major contributing factor in all human growth.

Human Nature

As much as we might like to believe that all human beings are good and want to do the right things for our world and our society that isn’t the case. We live in a world where money and power are the major driving force. Those in power will always do the bare minimum to keep the maximum number of people happy. Beyond that it is all about garnering as much power and money as possible. Corporations have equal or more power than the governments we elect to [supposedly] govern us.

We have seen time and again throughout our history where any serious change in our society has been brought in only through kicking and screaming. Governments and business do not want to change anything that will affect their long term power and profit margins. At the heart of this is our current situation of an inevitable decline of fossil based source of energy and the constant bickering over moving to more renewable sources of energy. On the smaller scale we have even within our own neighborhoods and communities those that will do whatever they can to stop change because it might affect their short term bottom lines.

The Cost of Our Information Age

When it comes to the bottom line in our technological world we all want as much access with a little interference as possible for a little cost as possible. For many people, myself included, this is a perquisite for any attempt to move ourselves into a true technological future. However all this access costs us a lot of energy. We tend to loose sight of this cost when we look on the small scale of our own personal usage of technology. It is a totally different story when start approaching the bedrock of that technology.

Very few people realize just how extravagant the intake of resources to maintain the information economy actually is. The energy cost to run a home computer is modest enough that it’s easy to forget, for example, that the two big server farms that keep Yahoo’s family of web services online use more electricity between them than all the televisions on Earth put together. Multiply that out by the tens of thousands of server farms that keep today’s online economy going, and the hundreds of other energy-intensive activities that go into the internet, and it may start to become clear how much energy goes into putting these words onto the screen where you’re reading them.

At some point we are going to reach a convergence of the need for more cheap energy and the reality that we’ve been playing NIMBY far too long. There will come a point, if what Mark suggests about things like nano-solar doesn’t happen, that energy cost could become the most crucial deciding factor in who – if anyone other than Government and Business, has access to technology.

The Economics of Decline

We could actually arrive at a point where those things like libraries, newspapers and shopping in our neighborhoods become more economically viable because of an increasing cost of technology due to our delay, or inability, in moving to a more sustainable energy production. John Greer talked about this in his second post I read titled The Economics of Decline

All this is true, but it misses the central issue I’ve tried to raise in the last few posts – the impact of energy and resource scarcity on the relative costs and benefits of different technologies – and it also dismisses the even broader issue of whether such energy-intensive technologies are sustainable at all in the future ahead of us. It’s a dizzying departure from reason to insist that the advantages conferred by the internet mean that the internet must continue to exist. The fact that something is an advantage does not guarantee that it is possible.

Our Internet, and all our other technological toys we wouldn’t want to be without, do in fact eat up huge amounts of energy. Companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft along with a host of other technology companies are spending millions of dollars a year trying to find ways to lower their energy consumption. It is a good effort that has already shown promise but they are fighting against an ever growing tide of new technology coming online everyday.

The Growing Energy Cost of the Infrastructure

For as much as technology like the Internet, computers and other modern toys, may have a direct cost energy wise we have to also take into consideration the energy cost of the infrastructure to maintain and grow our technologies. As Greer puts it in his post

It’s crucial to remember that the entire supply chain that keeps the internet and its potential competitors running has to be factored into these calculations. It’s easy to see the internet as uniquely efficient if all you take into account is the energy going into your home computer, or even if you consider the gigawatts used by server farms. Putting those gigawatts to work, however, requires an electrical grid spanning most of a continent, backed up by the immense inputs of coal and natural gas burnt to put electricity into the wires, and a network of supply chains that stretches from coal mines to power plants to the oil wells that provide diesel fuel for trains and excavation machines; the server farms draw on a vast array of supporting services and manufactures, from the overseas mines that produce rare earths for semiconductor doping through the factories that turn out components to the colleges that turn out trained technicians, and the list goes on.

To try and just center our attention on the direct energy cost of technology is myopic and potentially irresponsible. We need to understand that the energy cost of maintaining the world we know and the one we want is going to be immense. As much as our current online experience might like us to believe that the things we want in life can be had at no or extremely little cost the real world shows us otherwise.

The Cost of Living Off of Abundance

Our society for its entirety has lived much a a parasite on this planet. We have placed ourselves above everything else on the planet to the point that we are sucking it dry of its lifeblood. We have no concern for any consequences until we are backing to the proverbial corner. As Mark pointed out though in IM when we talked about this

throughout history, just at the precipice of collapse, humanity figures out a way to continue the growth curve.

He is right.

We have always seemed to pull our asses out of the fire when any bookie in Vegas would have laughed at the odds. Unlike the past though we are reaching a point where the cost of our greed, ignorance and collective self-importance may have exacted too high of a price. While ordinary people fly their NIMBY flags to make sure their corner of the doesn’t change Corporations do everything in their power to maintain the status quo. They have made an art form out of the practice of Avoidance of Cause and Effect.

I am not saying that everything that Greer puts forward in his writing is something that will come to pass. I do believe though that as long as we keep playing the the game of diminishing energy we are in danger of losing any truly good changes that technology could bring to our society. As much as I might like to believe that Kurzweil’s hypothesis might save our asses I also realize that human nature still has a very large part to play in this and that most definitely gives me pause.

Thoughts anyone?

Murdoch says to get ready to pay up

Steven Hodson — Sat, 09 May 2009 01:19:33 +0000

Rupert Murdoch, the man behind News Corp, says that it’s time to fix a “malfunctioning” business model when it comes to online news – specifically his newspapers. To do this he is expected to follow the Wall Street Journal subscription model and expect us to open up our wallets for his other online newspapers. This move to fix what he sees as a problem will happen within the year.

Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire media mogul last night said that papers were going through an "epochal" debate over whether to charge. "That it is possible to charge for content on the web is obvious from the Wall Street Journal’s experience," he said.

Source: Guardian Online (still free)

The only problem with this is that as smart as Murdoch might be he seems to be missing the global nature of the Web. The world of newspapers, especially the ones that made Murdoch insanely rich, on the other hand are for the most part regional. Exceptions do exist where some newspapers have broken through this regional limitation much as Murdoch’ Wall Street Journal has. It is also a paper that many people are willing to pay a subscription for. This mentality doesn’t apply to the other 99% of newspapers that are online.

The idea that readers are going to be willing to pay a subscription for the same news that they can find at a hundred other news sites, blogs or otherwise, is just a little hard to see happening. While news is pretty well unique the interpretation or presentation of it isn’t. There is nothing in the way news is presented on the web that would make it a commodity that people will be willing to pay for.

The Wall Street Journal is unique among online news properties and is a member of a very exclusive club. That doesn’t mean though that Murdoch is going to be able to turn the rest of his news properties into the same kind of thing. In trying to do that all he will be doing is creating another Wall Street Journal. Just how many of those do we need in this day and age?

I thought so .. good luck with that plan Rupert.

Time Warner Cable to try out some social blackmail

Steven Hodson — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:34:02 +0000

Back on April 14th I wrote a post about Time Warner implementing metered broadband in certain test area and how I thought it was a bad idea. I wasn’t the only one to write about and in the resulting furor it seemed as if Time Warner had reconsidered the whole idea, even if only temporarily. As everyone was patting themselves on their backs it appears that Time Warner went onto Plan B.

Because of all the bitching Time Warner has also decided to reconsider its deployment of super-fast broadband in San Antonio and Austin, Texas; Greensboro, N.C.; and Rochester, New York. As Time Warner said to Stacey Higginbotham in an email reply

A Time Warner Cable spokesman says the cable company was planning to roll out DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades as part of its consumption-based broadband trials, but it’s now “reevaluating whether or not the trial cities are among those places” scheduled for DOCSIS 3.0 rollouts. As for rolling out next its next-generation cable network, Time Warner has been making vague statements but so far hasn’t laid out any definitive plans.

So in other words you don’t let us cap your asses we won’t let you have really cool high speed broadband like most of the rest of the world. Nice play Time Warner – nice play.

Amazon’s ‘gay glitch’ spreading to schools

Steven Hodson — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:43:15 +0000

This past weekend saw a collective gasp across the web as Amazon seemingly removed all books to do with gays from their book rankings – effectively removing the books from their index. In the PR mess that followed the company tried more than one excuse to explain away the mishap with ‘glitch’ being one of those throw away excuses.

It would seem that this homophobia has now spread to the public schools in Tennessee who have been found to be filtering access to any online sites discussing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. At the same time they aren’t blocking sites that advocate ‘reparative’ therapy to correct these types of behaviors. While nobody is using the glitch argument in defense of a known and accepted practice within the Knox County Schools and Metro Nashville Public Schools there is still a lot of finger pointing going on as to who is actually responsible.

On one hand the schools are blaming their internet and filtering service for the blocking but on the flipside the company, Education Networks of America, providing the service are saying it is the at the school’ direction.

Jason Callen, an ENA attorney, said the company does not have a say in what is filtered.

"The decisions on whether to block certain websites are made solely by the school districts. ENA does not participate in these decisions in any way and is instead simply told which websites to block," ENA attorney Jason Callen said (.pdf) in response to a state Public Records Act request by the ACLU.

Olivia H. Brown, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, said it was up to ENA to determine how to abide by the Children’s Internet Protection Act.

"The vendor is responsible for the interpretation of the CIPA requirements and ensuring compliance. Under the contract MNPS can request additional sites to be reviewed for blocking or unblocking," Brown wrote ACLU attorney Tricia Herzfeld (The ACLU have taken an interest in this case)

Source: Threat Level

Some of the sites being blocked are: Human Rights Campaign, Marriage Equality USA, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, the Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and Dignity USA.

Included among the ‘reparation therapy’ sites being allowed are: National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, People Can Change, The Americans For Truth Against Homosexuality and the Tradition Values Coalition.

[picture courtesy of abovegroundpool on Flickr]

Metered broadband will kill online video

Steven Hodson — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:39:17 +0000

I have said this before and I will say it again without a second of hesitation – metered broadband is bad for the Internet. It is bad for innovation on the web and it is especially bad for any video business online. This will be especially true as the quality of downloadable, or streaming, video – be it movies or television shows – increases in quality. With every increase in quality you will have larger and larger file sizes being transferred via the web and every single byte of those files will count against your download cap.

Stacey Higginbotham made this point the best today in her post at GigOM where she used the example of downloading the HD version of Twilight from iTunes

Time Warner Cable: Time Warner’s price per GB for its proposed tiers ranges from 75 cents to $15 (unless you max out the overage fees on the 100 GB per month tier and default into unlimited service for $150). This means the bandwidth for “Twilight” would cost between $2.85 and $20.60. After adding in the $3.99 rental fee, the evening at home costs between $6.84 and $24.59.

At a time when just about everyone and their brother is spouting off about how big video is going to be we have broadband providers talking up the supposed need to move to a metered broadband. The only need that I can see is the need to find more ways to gouge their customers.

So it was interesting to see this story on SA Business by David Saleh Rauf reporting that Time Warner is postponing the implementation of their metered broadband program

Officials with the cable company said Monday they are postponing implementation of a new billing format for San Antonio and Austin customers based on Internet usage until October.

A trial program intended to charge varying rates depending on usage was slated to begin this summer. The decision to delay the meter program was prompted mostly by customer reaction, said Gavino Ramos, Time Warner’s vice president of communication for South Texas.

I don’t see how Ramos figures that customer reaction is going to change between now and October. The point is that metered broadband is just a bad idea all around.