25 Jan 2011 - permalink
Basil Safwat investigates exactly what happens when you’re in the iPhone mail app and a new message arrives. It’s a fantastic example of the incredible attention to detail that makes Apple products so insanely great.
24 Jan 2011 - permalink
Errol Morris made this 30-minute film for IBM, celebrating their centennial. It’s a fantastic tribute to the brilliant people of IBM and what we can accomplish under the right circumstances. (via John Gruber)
14 Jan 2011 - permalink
Last year, I linked to an article about Watson, the fantastic machine IBM has spent the last 3 years building. Now ZDNet has video of one the the testing rounds. It really is remarkable what the clever among us can accomplish.
13 Jan 2011 - permalink
I’ve written about computer controlled trading before and the legality of it still baffles me. Ars Technica explains the dangers:
“Our financial markets have become a largely automated adaptive dynamical system, with feedback,” says Michael Kearns, a computer science professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has built algorithms for various Wall Street firms. “There’s no science I’m aware of that’s up to the task of understanding its potential implications.”
4 Jan 2011 - permalink
Great advice from Kyle Neath on designing the structure of URLs
URLs are universal. They work in Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, cURL, wget, your iPhone, Android and even written down on sticky notes. They are the one universal syntax of the web. Don’t take that for granted.
23 Dec 2010 - permalink
Ars Technica reviews 4 books on net neutrality:
In the current net neutrality debate, for example, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and other network operators have claimed they have a First Amendment right to control communications on “their” networks. It takes a moment for the stunning breadth of this assertion to sink in: if the network owners succeed in this claim, there will be only handful of fully vested First Amendment speakers in the country, and the rest of us will speak and receive information only to the extent that the network owners allow.
23 Dec 2010 - permalink
The FCC has released the details (Word file) of the new net neutrality order and it would seem they are aware of the dangers:
A commercial arrangement between a broadband provider and a third party to directly or indirectly favor some traffic over other traffic in the connection to a subscriber of the broadband provider (i.e., “pay for priority”) would raise significant cause for concern. First, pay for priority would represent a significant departure from historical and current practice. Since the beginning of the Internet, Internet access providers have typically not charged particular content or application providers fees to reach the providers’ consumer retail service subscribers or struck pay-for-priority deals, and the record does not contain evidence that U.S. broadband providers currently engage in such arrangements. Second this departure from longstanding norms could cause great harm to innovation and investment in and on the Internet.
It remains to be seen how well it holds up in court. Ars Technica has more on the details.
22 Dec 2010 - permalink
Net neutrality is the proposition that internet service providers should provide equal access to all information from any source. Among the big questions has been whether wireless internet access should be treated differently than wired.
Critics say net neutrality will make it difficult to ensure quality of service for VoIP (voice data transmitted over the internet) and that heavy bandwidth sites, like Youtube or Netflix, should pay for using the infrastructure.
Supporters argue that it is precisely the unrestricted access to any online service that has made the internet what it is. Anyone is free to create a new service and users can choose to use it based only on the quality, not the price or speed.
Wired got hold of a plan outlining how, without net neutrality, wireless providers could charge extra for using Facebook, Skype or Youtube:
In this case, a customer can watch a 15-minute preview of a movie for free. If she doesn’t order the film, the company that served up the film would pay the carrier for the bandwidth used. But if the customer pays to watch the movie, then the ISP gets a cut of the money paid to the online movie service.
Compare that to the current de facto state of affairs for broadband connections, where a customer pays the cable company or wireless provider to connect them to the internet, the online movie service pays to connect to the internet, and the network’s only role is to connect the two.
Yesterday the FCC voted on the net neutrality issue, adopting a very vague version. Particularly troubling, however, is that they exempt wireless access from most of the rules. Politico reports:
Under the order, broadband providers will be required to disclose their network management activities to consumers. Traditional wired broadband providers may not unreasonably discriminate against any lawful traffic, though no such rule will be put in place for wireless providers, which public interest groups and some Internet companies like Skype and eBay say will not do enough to protect wireless customers.
The issue is important to Europe as well. Not only will the US policy effect European access to US sites and vice versa but the decision will likely have an impact on politicians in Europe. British communications minister Ed Valzey recently sparked debate in the UK, saying ISPs should be allowed to differentiate content. The Guardian comments:
For those not paying close attention, the basic theory of the internet was that all packets, all data was created equal, which means that a pirated copy of Hey Jude can fly around the network with the same speed as a page of your favorite digital newspaper. All of which is fine in an era of bandwidth plenty, but as the BBC iPlayer and YouTube hog traffic, they start to cause problems. […]
The fear, of course, is that this leads to a world where – say – the Daily Mail’s web pages arrive more quickly than the Mirror’s because one publisher is willing to pay BT more for a better deal. Or where the BBC’s online video crawls and becomes no fun to use, while Sky speeds along.
Even if the issue quickly becomes technical and complex, it is something everyone should take a stance on or the internet may change forever. I’ll let Steve Wozniak have the last word:
The early Internet was so accidental, it also was free and open in this sense. The Internet has become as important as anything man has ever created. But those freedoms are being chipped away. Please, I beg you, open your senses to the will of the people to keep the Internet as free as possible.
20 Dec 2010 - permalink
Ricky Gervais:
My point being, I’m saying God doesn’t exist. I’m not saying faith doesn’t exist. I know faith exists. I see it all the time. But believing in something doesn’t make it true. Hoping that something is true doesn’t make it true. The existence of God is not subjective. He either exists or he doesn’t. It’s not a matter of opinion. You can have your own opinions. But you can’t have your own facts.
13 Dec 2010 - permalink
With the year coming to an end and the winter setting in, I thought of the estimated 20 million Pakistanis, whose lives were destroyed by the disastrous flooding.
The media interest has been waning and I wondered how the situation is by now. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the scale, there is still enormous problems to be solved.
The shocking fact about events in Pakistan is that even now, almost two months after this journey in late October, so little has improved. Large areas of Sindh remain under water. Tents, long lines of white canvas along the embankments, have been erected for the many families made homeless as an estimated 1.6 million houses countrywide were damaged or destroyed by the flood waters.
But, as the chill of winter sets in, there are still an estimated 600,000 families without even emergency shelter.
Most of the people affected were living in poverty before the floods, but they made a living. Today they have no home, no income, nothing. Yet, as The Guardian writes, the needs are simple:
The list of what flood victims need to rebuild their lives is astonishingly short and inexpensive: seed for the next crop, fertilisers, some form of subsidy on electricity and irrigation water, and, if you want to be really generous, some financial help to rebuild their homes.
It may not be “news” anymore but we need to remember these people, help them get back on their feet. Several newspapers, including BBC, New York Times and The Guardian, have special sections covering the Pakistan Floods, but it is aid that is truly needed.