February 2008 Archives

Trackbacks have reappeared on the Google Blog. I wonder if the time I spent on the phone with a C|Net reporter had anything to do with it, or if they have a real explanation.

Plagiarism is pretty darned low.  At the risk of getting admonished by Andrew for lack of a proper introduction, here's the scoop from CNN.com

 

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A senior White House official admitted Friday that he copied large sections of another writer's work for an essay appearing in a Fort Wayne, Indiana, newspaper.

In an e-mail to The News-Sentinel, Tim Goeglein, special assistant to the president and deputy director of public liaison, apologizes, saying, "It is true. I am entirely at fault. It was wrong of me. There are no excuses."

Goeglein goes on to say he has reached out to the author, Jeffery Hart, whose 1998 writings in the Dartmouth Review he copied nearly verbatim.

"I have written to Jeff to apologize, and do so categorically and without exception," he said.

The White House press office provided the e-mail to CNN. Spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said the White House was made aware of Goeglein's column and actions Friday morning.

"It's not acceptable," Lawrimore said. "And we're disappointed in Tim's actions."

Lawrimore would not speculate on whether the plagiarism would affect Goeglein's job at the White House, adding "we will certainly keep you updated as we learn more."

 

 

There is a world of difference between what I just did there (and what we do often) and plagiarism.  What I put in here from CNN is clearly attributed, with a verbal acknowledgement, a link back to the original content, and even a change in format to indicate that the material is from a different source.

 

In an age where information changes hands with incomprehensible speed and people react to reactions to reaction to the original content, it is more vital than ever that we give credit to the creator(s) of said content and make it clear what is original and what isn't.  Every instance of plagiarism calls into question the credibility of an entire industry.

I just bought the eponymous (Hooray SAT word!  Mom would be proud.) album from Vampire Weekend.  It's a quick, poppy 11 tracks that's a really fun listen.

 

When I bought it at Rasputin I was not treated as I am normally there, which is to say ignored entirely until they take my money.  Instead, the girl (she's probably my age but the lack of maturity classifies her as a "girl") decided that she first needed express her inability to comprehend the popularity of the album, stating that she didn't "get it."  If you want, you could make a suggestion.  It could be an additional purchase, you know?  Or just find some way to be helpful.  Unless your job despcription includes "be a condescending tool" you're in potentially dangerous territory, little missy.

 

I know, my consumer-y posts are usually more "here's how you can improve" and less "you suck" but this goes beyond poor service to effectively insulting me by way of my taste in music.  At the very least it deserves semi-public ridicule.  If I were her boss and was within earshot it would have resulted in her being in need of a new job.  Some things can be improved.  Sometimes the way to improve, however, is to let someone go.

 

Back to happier thoughts, Vampire Weekend (the band and the album) are great and I can't wait for more.

Reuters has some stats regarding the percentage of Americans who get their news online as opposed to getting it by traditional means.  I am certainly someone who gets their news from the web.  I don't subscribe to a newspaper and my TV is really just a monitor for my DVD player and recently re-acquired XBox 360. 

 

Here's an excerpt right from Reuters.com

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news, according to a new survey.

While most people think journalism is important to the quality of life, 64 percent are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities, a We Media/Zogby Interactive online poll showed.

"That's a really encouraging reflection of people who care A) about journalism and B) understand that it makes a difference to their lives," said Andrew Nachison, of iFOCOS, a Virginia-based think tank which organized a forum in Miami where the findings were presented.

Nearly half of the 1,979 people who responded to the survey said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, up from 40 percent just a year ago. Less than one third use television to get their news, while 11 percent turn to radio and 10 percent to newspapers.

...

Howard Finberg, of the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, said the public often doesn't understand that the sources they are accessing online such as Google News and Yahoo News pull stories from newspapers, television, wire services and other media sources.

"It's delivered in a non-traditional form, that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't traditional journalism underneath it," he explained.

 

I disagree with the latter half of the excerpt.  I don't think I'm alone in realizing that a lot of sites, like Google news, are an aggregator of news from other sources, neatly grouped and delivered to be more convenient.  I get most of my online news directly from the online entity of its source (ie Reuters.com, CNNMoney.com, WashingtonPost.com, etc, etc). 

 

Journalism certainly isn't dead, and I don't think anyone really dedicated to delivering news via the internet is out to try and kill it.  It's simply an advance in the method of delivery.  The internet has obvious advantages over print media.  The fact that you don't need to wait for printing and delivery makes it amazingly useful for breaking stories.  By way of RSS feeds you can be told when the news happens as opposed to dedicating your time to specifically monitoring the evening broadcast. 

 

I totally understand why the old media is wary of the internet.  The newspaper has been around in the States since the late 1600's.  I understand the fear that they'll be replaced.  I'm sure the town crier was scared shitless when newspapers started coming out, fearing that he would be replaced.  Maybe a savvy town crier or two could have embraced printed media and started distributing their own newspaper.  The less-savvy who complained and derided the newspapers probably had to look for new jobs.  This new wave of internet vs print/tv/radio news is the same thing, and should be a non-issue.

 

If old media outlets would embrace the internet the way Reuters and the Washington Post, among others, have, they won't have anything to fear.  Howard Finberg is at least partially right -

"It's delivered in a non-traditional form, that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't traditional journalism underneath it,"

 

I agree, but I don't think it's the public who need to pay attention to that fact.

Update - they're back up on the Google Blog, but it seems like they aren't letting us link to them from here. Also, the trackbacks are still disabled. Here's the same cut-and-paste as earlier. The images come up now, but they don't come up in the post from yesterday Now click on the link to the entry...still no trackbacks!

Here is a screenshot deeper in the application:



We're proud of the product that we've designed and are continuing to build, but recognize that we are just at the initial stages of our "launch early and iterate" strategy. We look forward to the feedback we will receive from our Cleveland Clinic pilot, from all of you, and from the initial users of our service when we make it publicly available in the coming months.

Did anyone notice that they've disappeared from the Google Blog? Only the original press-releasish blog post remains. Did they put it down the memory hole? Have they invented one?

Are they backtracking now that people have heard about this privacy nightmare of a product? They should know you can't just make it go away.

Still waiting, Google...

I was going to do this myself, but mocoNews.net did it first and better.  Here is their totally awesome comparison of the new $99 unlimited plans from the Big 4.

 

-- Sprint Nextel: Perhaps the biggest example of this, the Overland Park company launched today an unlimited pricing plan that includes unlimited voice, data, text, e-mail, Web-surfing, Sprint TV, Sprint Music, GPS Navigation, Direct Connect and Group Connect for $99.99 a month. For $89.99 a month, there will be an unlimited voice, push-to-talk and text option. On financial impact, Hesse said they are balancing fiscal responsibility and growing the wireless data market.

-- T-Mobile USA: Announced on Feb. 19 that it will offer a plan that includes unlimited voice, and unlimited text, picture and IM messaging for $99.99 a month.

-- AT&T: Announced an unlimited voice plan for $99.99 a month on Feb. 19. Separately, AT&T customers can sign up for data plans such as $5 for 200 text, picture, video and instant messages or $35 for unlimited messaging and MEdia Net access. AT&T said it still expects 2008 revenue growth in the mid-single digit percentage range despite offering the unlimited calling plan, and said a very small percentage of its customers spend more than $100 a month.

-- Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless: Announced an unlimited voice plan for $99.99 a month. An unlimited plan including messaging is $120 a month, and a plan including messaging, VCAST, VZNavigator and Mobile Email is $140 a month. Verizon said currently about 305,000 customers, or 0.5 percent of its subscriber base, have monthly plans above $99. Those customers have an average monthly bill between $125 and $135 a month. Over time, the reduced revenues from higher value customers moving down to the unlimited plan should be offset by increased revenues as a result of customers moving to unlimited plans, Verizon said.

 

The story goes on to metion the unlimited offerings from some of the smaller carriers and MVNOs (companies who offer mobile phone service but lease space on another company's network).

Do any of you have service from a carrier that wasn't mentioned?  Know of an awesome unlimited plan that got overlooked?  Let us know!

 

OpenDNS has launched a free web-filtering service that parents or network admins can use to block web sites based on content.  Sites with topics ranging from drug and alcohol use to social networking to dirty dirty porn can be filtered out by anyone who takes the time to set up a free account with OpenDNS and change some settings on their machine so that they use OpenDNS' DNS server instead of their ISP's.  Huh?

 

Here's more about how DNS server's do their thing from Security Fix at WashingtonPost.com

OpenDNS filters out Web page requests at the domain name system (DNS) level. DNS is responsible for translating human-friendly Web site names like "example.com" into numeric, machine-readable Internet addresses. Anytime you send an e-mail or browse a Web site, your machine is sending a DNS look-up request to your Internet service provider to help route the traffic.

Most Internet users use their ISP's DNS servers for this task, either explicitly because the information was entered when signing up for service, or by default because the user hasn't specified any external DNS servers. By creating a free account at OpenDNS.com, changing the DNS settings on your machine, and registering your Internet address with OpenDNS, the company will block whatever content you have specified.

You can change the DNS settings on each computer in your home. But if your network is behind a wireless router, a speedier and more reliable solution is to change the DNS settings on the router (see this link for instructions broken down by router model). That should cover all of the systems that connect to that router.

 

What OpenDNS is offering would be an amazing tool, both for parents and for administrators at companies who need to restrict web access on a budget.

 

Of course, there's opposition.

When I last wrote about this filtering service, I received quite a few comments from readers who took issue with the idea of parents deciding what sites their children should be permitted to visit online. Most who were critical of this approach said parents should instead focus on explaining to their kids why such sites are inappropriate and should be avoided.

But for a lot of parents -- particularly those with very young children -- that approach only goes so far. As nearly anyone who has been online for any length of time can attest, it is often quite easy to start out online at one completely innocent site or simple Web search, only to end up in the back alleys of the Internet's red light district with an errant click.

 

Are you kidding me?  Were any members of the opposition ever children?  Can they say that they never did anything stupid or dangerous even though their parents said not to?  Do we expect parents to watch over their kids' shoulders every second they're online?  It's so ridiculous that parents have a service available to them, for free, that can protect their kids and someone would have the audacity to admonish them for it.  I wonder if anyone opposed even has kids.  Even a kid. 

 

They way I see it, OpenDNS' system is like the V-Chip.  It's there.  If parents want to use it, fantastic.  If they don't care or if they think that they can convince their kids to "do the right thing" without technological aids, more power to them.  For the parents who want to use the technology available to help protect their children from content they don't want them seeing...please do.  I'd rather have parents limiting what their kids can view as opposed to the government getting involved and blocking content from everyone, thanks to some loud-mouthed buffoon whose kid only saw porn because mommy was too lazy to do anything about it herself.

Patrick Ruffini sent me to a wonderful, wonderful study examining the email strategies of the six major candidates this year (Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Huckabee, McCain, Romney). The results are not encouraging. The candidate who used email the most effectively was...

 

...71 year old John McCain.

 

The Results
After examining the email programs and grading each candidate, 24 total points equaling a perfect score, no campaign's email program received a passing grade.

Here is the final tally:

While Sen. McCain scored the highest of the six with 16 points, each candidate's campaign missed multiple opportunities toward full email optimization. As the election steamrolls through the summer toward Election Day in November, each of the remaining candidates needs to critically look at his or her campaign and make sure each marketing effort, including email, is being maximized to its full potential

 

I suggest checking the study out.

 

I'll be covering the 2008 Politics Online conference right here in Washington next Tuesday and Wednesday. One of the keynote speakers is CV favorite Drew Clark, of Broadband Census and I should have coverage of a bunch of really cool panels on technology, democracy, and their intersection in Washington.

There is alot of attention focused on "Social Networking" for politics. I'm interested to see what the DC chattering class and the so-called "technologists" have to say about it. To some degree it looks like alot of bunk, and just another money-raising tool. I have at least one person I plan on talking to about it on Tuesday.

The schedule is posted here. Please let me know if there's something you want to see or a speaker you want me to talk to.

Only two days after that I head to Austin for SXSW Interactive. Again, reader suggestions on what to cover are appreciated, otherwise all you'll have is what I think is cool. While that may be great for some, I think those of you not there should have some input on what you get to hear about.

If you're going to either and you'd like to meet up, feel free to drop me a note.

Broadcasting & Cable is reporting that Meredith Baker, acting head of NTIA, and the public face of the DTV Converter Box program, is leaving. This is only four months after her predecessor  John Kneuer quit last November.

"Given ongoing concerns about the converter box coupon program, it is important that there be continuity of leadership at NTIA, I'm pleased Ms. Baker is committed to remaining at NTIA until a replacement is confirmed and urge the President to nominate a well-qualified replacement who is knowledgeable about the transition and whose arrival will not cause any disruptions at this critical time in the transition."

So one of my regular reads is the Google Blog. Recently, I've been writing about some of their entries, and it's been driving some traffic this way since they link to posts that link back to them.

Today around 10:30 am I read a post on Google Blog about their new Google Health product that described it and showed some screen shots. I thought "wow, that's a bad idea" and I so I took a lunch break, threw together my thoughts and posted them here on this site. The post went live at 12:00pm EST.

Now, I had been busy at work, but earlier (around 9:45am EST) I had checked the Google Analytics for the site and the visitor count was low since neither Alex nor myself had posted anything new since last night (2/27/07). Maybe an hour after I posted I went back and was a bit shocked, the visitor count had gone through the roof. I looked at the Google Blog, and out of all the links shown on the "Links to This Post" list, mine was the only one with a remotely critical title, "Google Health is Frightening." The rest were either simply linking or re-reporting with various degrees of fawning and praise going on. Yet, there was my post on how I thought it's a horrible idea, and that any doctor would be insane to use it, and that there were probably legal issues that hadn't properly been considered.  It was maybe the 5th link in the list.

Around 4:00PM EST I noticed the hit count slowing. I went back to the source (the original Google Blog post), and lo and behold, the post had every single link/trackback deleted.

Not only that, but they turned off the trackbacks for every single post on the blog, but didn't remove the presence of the feature from their front page template! Look! Straight-up cut-and-paste job from their front page as of 10:30PM EST:

Here is a screenshot deeper in the application:

We're proud of the product that we've designed and are continuing to build, but recognize that we are just at the initial stages of our "launch early and iterate" strategy. We look forward to the feedback we will receive from our Cleveland Clinic pilot, from all of you, and from the initial users of our service when we make it publicly available in the coming months.

Permalink Links to this post

Labels: healthcare

Now, when I went to click on the "Links to this post" link, I got a blank space. Nothing. All the  trackbacks are kaput.

So, it's ok to link to the Google Blog in order to shower them with praises and talk about how revolutionary and wonderful they are...but criticize them or suggest they are heading down a dark path? They'll make you disappear. At least that's what it looks like. Now, I know a lot of tech types don't get Washington, but us Beltway locals have a saying: "the coverup is worse than the crime." You may have heard that before.

Hey, Google Bloggers: want to tell me why you turned off trackbacks? If you give me a real reason, I'll even apologize to you. Heck, I'll fly out to California and buy you all a round of your preferred beer.

But only if you can prove to me that you're not so scared of criticism based on your own blog that the second someone does, you stop linking back.

Your corporate motto is "do no evil" but honestly, this looks like something Steve Ballmer would do. I'm just too far away from the Googleplex for you to throw chairs at me.

So come on, Google Bloggers. Turn them back on, or explain on your blog why they are gone.

I'll be reading. And I'll be writing, too.

Let me start off by admitting that this post is a bit off-topic.  It has nothing to do with DC or with technology.  It is related to one of my passions, which is awesome customer care.  I've mentioned over and over how much I think that corporate honesty and getting good information to the consumer allows those consumers to make better decisions.

 

I had that kind of experience last night.

 

I was getting a very ill-advised tattoo covered up last night.  When I was having my little consult with the artist I told him what I wanted and he weighed in.  He let me know that with any cover-up it has to be larger, of course, and probably very solid.  He explained that the cover-up would be more permanent than the original.  He also let me know that he thought my idea would be a little obvious, that it would be readily seen as a cover up.  When I gave him my reasons for it he was totally cool about doing it.  He gave me his opinion, made me very aware of the longer term consequences but still let me make the decision.

 

That's what was so important to me.  I, the consumer, told him what I wanted.  He drew on his training and expertise and gave me his opinion of the situation and gave me his suggestions.  I took that information, made my decision, and he ran with it.  The entire time he was really friendly and professional and when he did offer suggestions he did it without being the least bit condescending, despite his infinitely superior knowledge of the product, in this case, a tattoo.

 

In a perfect world, you could apply that last paragraph to any situation and simply replace "tattoo" with "Television" or "wireless plan" or "internet package."  In fact, by being such an off-topic product, it may actually drive the point home that consumer education allows 3 big things to happen:

 

 1^st - The supplier of the product or service eliminates a lot of their liability if the customer's choice blows up in their face.  "Hey, we told you what would happen."

 

2^nd - The customer can feel a lot more confident in their purchase.  They know the facts and aren't guessing as far as whether or not the product matches their needs.

 

3^rd - The customer knows that the supplier/sales rep/company cares about them, by way of highlighting potential pitfalls of the customer's decision.  This is the kind of thing that customers remember and causes them to be repeat customers.  Anyone who took Business 101 (or has an ounce of common sense) knows that you make a lot more money off of repeat customers versus one-time customers.  Also, it cuts down on things like complaint calls and returns, which waste money, further eating into profit margins.

 

Well, I've rambled long enough, but I think you get my point.  There are certain principles of the sales and customer support processes that transcend industry and make the entire process of buying a product much more pleasant.  Once again, I challenge any representative of any company who reads this to try this with their customers.  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with the outcome. 

Sun Microsystems missed the boat in a huge way. They ignored Linux until it wasn't cool to ignore Linux anymore, and by then they were almost as deep in as Silicon Graphics, which barely exists anymore. Remember them? I always wanted to own a SPARC or an O2, but Linux was so much better, and it ran on hardware that I could afford. We know where that battle ended.

McNealy still thinks he's smart, and so he says that telcos need to serve up content or die, as opposed to say, providing services in accordance with their FCC licenses issued under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which amended the Telecommunications Act of 1934:

"I have explained to every telco that either you become a destination site, or the destination site will become a telco...I think the telcos have to make sure they don't get marginalized to just being bit providers and bandwidth providers"

Um...did he miss the FCC hearing Monday, when one of the Commissioners (I forget who) noted that if Comcast didn't offer Video on Demand service, that their restriction of Vuze's BitTorrent-based video content would have not been an issue?

Telcos have much to gain through R&D, competition, and being honest brokers. In fact, by law that's what they are. McNealy obviously knows very little about communications law, policy, or the history such concepts as the common carrier, Stratton-Oakmont v. Prodigy or the recent Net Neutrality debates.

Oh, yeah. Speaking of too-little, too-late:

"During a speech earlier in the day, McNealy slammed the U.S. government for not being interested in adopting open-source software. McNealy said the farther he gets from Washington, the more governments get interested in open source."

Thanks for finally jumping on the bandwagon, Scott. You recieve no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.

As per our previous post, Nokia and Qualcomm are in a recently consolidated legal battle over various mobile phone patents since their licensing agreement expired last April.  Nokia just won over some of Qualcomm's arguments.

 

Here are some of the details from mocoNews.net

By Tricia Duryee - Thu 28 Feb 2008 10:24 AM PST

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) checks off another win against Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM). The International Trade Commission upheld a ruling in one of their many patent battles on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The agency determined there is no need to review a decision issued on Dec. 12 that found that Nokia did not infringe on three Qualcomm patents at issue in the case and that one of the patents is invalid, a Nokia spokeswoman told the WSJ. Qualcomm said it was disappointed with the ruling and had not yet decided whether it would appeal.

 

Under the Licensing agreement Nokia was paying Qualcomm $500 Million per year in licensing fees, which they were looking to reduce.

We'll update with more details as they become availble.

...is a Sacrement in the Ritual of Public Humiliation performed before on the altar of the Church of Washington over and over. First, the Gaffe. It takes many forms. It could come in a hearing, statement, news conference, speech, or any off the cuff remark in the age of YouTube.

Next, the Outrage: Druge, newspaper websites, blogs, cable news,  network news, local news, next day headline, editorial, "expert," and if it's really bad, Nancy Grace.

Then, finally, the Apology. The Politico's Ben Smith notices a curious pattern that has developed over the past year:

In the course of the primary campaign, and perhaps in a preview of the fall election drama, Senator Barack Obama has accepted the apologies of three United States senators, a former senator, CNN and various lower-level supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton.

Isn't it great? And it's not even the general election campaign yet. Here's a preview:

On Tuesday, a talk radio host, Bill Cunningham, introduced McCain to an Ohio crowd by attacking Obama, and dwelling on his little-used middle name, Hussein.

McCain swiftly responded. "I regret any comments that may be made about" Clinton and Obama, he said. "I will take responsibility in any offense that was inflicted."

The next day, there was a different culprit, but the same offense: the Tennessee Republican Party sent out a press release dwelling on Obama's middle name.

And again the spotlight turned to McCain, who was asked about it at a San Antonio press conference.

"All I can say is that I have made my position very clear and I have made it time after time and I made it yesterday," he said.

I can't wait to see who becomes the next acolyte.

Drew Clark reported for TechDaily for a long time. He also runs the Broadband Census. So, I pretty much take what he says about the Cable/Internet industry as gold, and I won't try to "reinvent the wheel" by saying something better than he does. I missed this story yesterday where he does a good job of explaining the hole a certain cable operator is in, both politically and technically.

After going into some background on Monday's FCC hearing which we both covered, Drew notes the back story:

Besides, Comcast is not a very good FOK, or Friend of Kevin -- as in Kevin Martin, the chairman of the agency. Martin has done nearly everything in his power to harm Comcast and the cable industry since he took over the FCC in March 2005.

 

That political battle with the cable industry is all about a la carte, or per-channel television programming.

So, the company that fought tooth-and-nail to keep Net Neutrality off the table last year has a guy who really, really doesn't like them. As we reported yesterday, the "family tiers" were the compromise to Martin's a la carte proposal. Martin is apparently still a bit miffed. It also didn't help that the Verizon VP who was at the hearing said that Verizon doesn't need to manage their network at all. Drew (who was at the hearing) even noticed the name tags:

 

Note even the pre-ordained and subtle digs, visible in this photograph: It is "The Honorable Tom Tauke" on the left, but merely "David L. Cohen" on the right. (Tauke received this honorific because he is a former Congressman, a Republican from Iowa.)

 So, when you walk in with a politically stacked deck, and the other guy says he doesn't even need to do what you're accused of doing...that's bad. But when you admit that your product has a technical limitation, and he manages to plug his products? Ouch. Quoth Mr. Clark:

 

The basic problem for Comcast is that users of P2P applications like BitTorrent do consume an extraordinary amount of bandwidth . But BitTorrent users aren't hogging the fat, downstream pipe that cable offers. It's the the scrawny upstream trickle that everyone is fighting over.

 

DSL service, in general, has the same "asymetrical" character, offering far greater downstream speeds than upstream speeds. But the cable modem service's shared network compounds this problem.

 

Contrast this with the message that Tauke imparted. Given the capacity of Verizon's fiber optic service (FiOS), "at the current time, we do not have the necessity of thwarting or curtailing traffic." Tauke even touted Verizon's 20/20 service, or 20 megabits downstream and 20 megabits upstream. The Bell company announced this symmetrical during the same week in which the revelations of Comcast's BitTorrent behavior surfaced last fall.

At this point, I'm going to stop keeping score. Thanks, Drew.

As we reported last week, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile all announced $99 per month plans that offer unlimited calling.  T-Mobile had the edge by including unlimited SMS (text) messaging.  There was speculation that Sprint would offer an unlimited plan for around $60.

That didn't happen, but here's the direct line from Sprint

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., Feb 28, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- In an industry-defining move, Sprint (NYSE:S) today announced it will launch a domestic unlimited pricing plan that gives customers unlimited voice, data, text, e-mail, Web-surfing, Sprint TV(SM), Sprint Music, GPS Navigation, Direct Connect(R) and Group Connect(R) for $99.99 a month. The new pricing plan is available to existing and new customers beginning tomorrow.

...

For families, Simply Everything includes an incremental $5 discount for each incremental line, up to five lines on the same bill. For example, two lines would amount to $194.98 ($99.99 + $94.99); a third line would cost an additional $89.99. This is in sharp contrast to the multi-line unlimited rates offered by some competitors. The Sprint plan offers significant savings the more lines a customer adds.

 

Depending on the type of phone, this becomes a better and better deal.  Assuming that BlackBerrys are included (they don't mention anywhere that they are or are not) that means that you're getting, in addition to the unlimited minutes, $40 worth of data access and $10-$15 worth of tect messaging.  Although it's at the same price point as the rest of the big 4 it's tremendously more bang for your buck.  The Family discount is cool too, especially because the discount "stacks" with every additional line.

 

Amazing move on Sprint's part that could really help them woo power users and rebuild their customer base.

That's right. Google wants to host your medical records. Last week they announced a partnership with a clinic in Cleveland, OH. Now they're talking more about the product itself. Here's the scoop from Google Blog:

 

• Platform - One of the most exciting and innovative parts of Google Health is our platform strategy. We're assembling a directory of third-party services that interoperate with Google Health. Right now, this means you'll be able to automatically import information such as your doctors' records, your prescription history, and your test results into Google Health in order to easily access and and control your data. Later, this platform strategy will mean that you will be able to interact with services and tools easily, and will be able to do things like schedule appointments, refill prescriptions, and start using new wellness tools.

• Portability - Our Internet presence ultimately means that through Google Health, you will be able to have access and control over your health data from anywhere. Through the Cleveland Clinic pilot, we have already found great use-cases in which, for example, people spend 6 months of the year in Ohio, and 6 months of the year in Florida or Arizona, and will now be able to move their health data between their various health providers seamlessly and with total control. Previously, this would have required carrying paper records back and forth. With Google Health, the user can simply import the data from each medical facility and then choose to share it with the other facilities. It's advances in data portability like this that we think can really make a difference in the quality of healthcare. The clearer and more comprehensive the information regarding your health becomes, the better your care will be.

I'll be clear. I like Google. I think they mean well. They've got a ton of smart people there. On the other hand, the idea that my medical records are stored somewhere central, indexed and made available to anyone who can get access to the machine (as opposed to my doctor keeping his own records and sharing them when I tell him to) goes completely counter to my sense of privacy. Some things are best kept difficult. Sharing confidential records of any short should be one of them. To be honest, I think anything you want to keep secret or confidential should be on paper. My doctor, who is a pretty young, tech-savvy individual, uses a tablet PC to take his charts, and he's been kind enough to print his notes and stick them in a paper file.

Why do I ask him to do this when I don't have anything to hide? When there is no paper, there is no paper trail. If I know that only my doctor has my records, if they show up anywhere else, I have a pretty good idea of where they came from. If they're hosted on Google's machines, I have no idea who is doing what with my data.

Would this extend to mental health records? Imagine if you went to a therapist, marriage counselor, rehab, whatever, and those notes and records were online for "easy access." I want it to be a total pain in the neck for anyone to get them. I want it to be difficult for me to get them sent to anyone.

I switched Dentists this year. To transfer my charts and X-Rays, I had to call my old dentist, have them fax my new dentist a release form, which I signed in their presence, which they faxed back to my old dentist, who put my charts and X-Rays in a tracked, signed for FedEx envelope. It took some time and it was annoying, but my privacy was protected. Remember, there are many medical conditions that are illegal to disclose in the U.S. Imagine if a misplaced setting on this Google Health inadvertantly released people's genetic records or HIV status? I wonder what Andrew Sullivan, the Internet's favorite HIV+ pundit has to say about this.

People's medical records contain all kinds of things that are nobody's business but their own. Any doctor or hospital that would outsource their record-keeping, which is one of the most important things that a doctor can do for a patient (keep a good chart), is abdicating their responsibility and calls into question whether they value convenience over ethics. The doctor-patient relationship, including medical records, has long been considered sacrosanct. For a company like Google to actually want to offer this as a service says more about their arrogance than the system itself does about their capacity to innovate, and for any doctor or hospital to buy or use it would, to me, be a violation of trust.

There are those in Washington and around the country (Paul Krugman is one) who believe that electronic, portable charts are the key to universal health care. Krugman regular cites the Veterans Administration as an example, since they use some electronic records. The big difference is a) they keep it in-house, and b) they are a single organization. If I wanted to send my VA records to a private doctor, I would have to jump through way more hoops than just telling Google it's OK...and I should have to. Hillary Clinton regularly throws out "e-charts" as the solution to all our problems, and more centralization of records was a big part of her failed 1993 "Hillarycare" plan that she is so loathe to discuss now.

This should not be easy.

Google should be commended for trying to simplify health care record keeping, but this is an arena where they should keep their mitts off. If they want to sell a "black box" turnkey solution for internal record keeping, go for it, but I will still insist on paper. Host my records for me? Go away.

At his news conference, President Bush announced his "economic stimulus" refund checks would be mailed this May.

Can we figure out how to invest it back into some expanded broadband, considering it would provide $143 BILLION to the economy?

Bah.

Two gems today before I head to the office. First is from B&C:

NBC is working with Pando Networks, a peer-to-peer content-delivery-technology company, to revamp its NBC Direct service...

...

The NBC Direct Service lets users download high-resolution, ad-supported versions of NBC shows including 30 Rock, The Office, Heroes, American Gladiators and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The service -- currently only available for PCs using Internet Explorer -- uses P2P technology to quickly and efficiently download the shows, which are automatically deleted after viewing or after a viewing window has lapsed. Taking a cue from TiVo, the service lets users "subscribe" to their favorite shows, automatically downloading new episodes when available.

NBC will use Pando technology to improve the efficiency of its P2P-delivery system, as well as protecting it through encryption and digital-rights management, including "hash-matching, digital-fingerprinting and content-watermarking technologies," according to Pando.

If you read this space last week, you'd remember that NBC filed comments with the FCC against Vuse, making an uncited assertion that "at least 50% of broadband capacity is taken up by a small minority of users (about 5%) using peer-to-peer networks to traffic in pirated music, video and software." It is a bit interesting that so soon after Monday's hearing that they have announced their intention to use P2P technology to distribute their lawful content, presumably with the expectation that it will not be throttled or blocked by ISPs, especially ones with competing Video On Demand service.

I guess you need a network TV weatherman to know which way the FCC wind blows. Apologies to Bob Dylan.

Next up, the Senate joined their friends in the House of Representatives yesterday in passing legislation giving cable and VOIP providers like Vonage equal access to 911 systems, so that operators can determine the physical location of a call. To their credit, the differences between the bills should be easily fixable, according to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI). In a statement yesterday, Dingell said:

"I am confident that we can resolve the minor differences between the House and Senate legislation in short order...and present a final measure to the president."

With GPS becoming more common on mobile phones, hopefully this will pave the way for more confidence in the 911 system, and faster responses to emergencies for all, no matter who you get your phone service from. Kudos to the FCC for leading the way, and to Congress for putting more teeth behind the initiative. Sometimes these guys really do get things right for the right reasons.

Ok, so I've been reading Slashdot since 1998 or so...I have a 4 digit user ID (9848, if you must know), so I've seen alot of stuff pass through those pages. I remember meeting Jeff "Hemos" Bates and the infamous Jon Katz at The Bazaar (a one-off Open Source trade show/love-in where I helped run the Debian Linux booth) and doing some contract work for the company that bought Slashdot (Andover.net, which became OSDN, which got bought by VA Linux, which became VA Software, which I think is now SourceForge). They've broken some interesting stories and were one of the first "must-read" blogs before there was such a word.

They've even acquired enough a patina of credibility through longevity that they can get celebrities and the occasional politician to participate in their "interviews." On the other hand, as they've grown more popular they've had less and less original editorial content, and really have been reduced to a "gatekeeper." They won't link to commentary, even when it's original, only the source story. I've submitted things only to have them pull my words out, put them in the "firehose" where noone sees them (or my work) and just write their own summary and link to the story I found them.

And occasionally they link to total sensationalist trash like this. A former FBI agent named Patrick J. Dempsey has made a startling discover: criminals can use networks to cover their tracks.

Although the Internet may be considered the greatest achievement of the past 50 years, the technology behind it has created a sanctuary for various types of computer criminals. The unfortunate and ugly truth is that the Web is providing a brand new "world" where international cyber criminals can thrive, and the world's numerous criminal justice systems just aren't ready to address these crimes in their entirety.

Cyber criminals don't necessarily need to leave the comfort of their homes to commit their crimes. Today, for example, bank robberies can be committed in Southeast Asia via a computer that's being controlled by an individual in Russia. Identity theft is achieved through a complex network of individuals residing in North America, Europe, and Africa, all effectively working together on the Internet to profit from shared information. And organized crime has ties to spam campaigns, identity theft, denial-of-service attacks, and organized hacking rings.

Is this a joke? This guy's job is "Chief Information Security Officer" at Janney Montgomery Scott, a financial services firm. He has also apparently been living in a cave since 1999 or so. On the other hand, Osama bin Laden lives in a cave and probably knew that the Internet had unsavory elements back when he was using it to plan attacks.  The fact that he's using the term "cyber-" anything makes him horribly dated.

Also, tying organized crime to "spam campaigns, identity theft, denial-of-service attacks, and organized hacking rings?" Did he get his education in Information Security by watching Sandra Bullock in The Net? Also, why is he a "former" FBI agent? Did he retire, or was he fired? Does he have any experience in investigating computer crimes? Does he know anything about computers? I'm curious as to his credentials, because it sounds like he has no clue what he's talking about, or he's using a really outdated Buzzword Bingo card.

But the problem with investigating international cyber crimes and capturing criminals on the Internet is not necessarily due to lack of cooperation among international law enforcement bodies. The issue has much more to do with the fact that the legal systems throughout the world vary greatly and take a very long time to change. These two facts make it extremely difficult for law enforcement to cooperate, investigate, capture, and ultimately prosecute the cyber criminals today.

Oh, so it's not that you can't cooperate, it's those pesky laws...or does he mean lawyers? Maybe Mr. Dempsey was one of those guys that wanted to throw Phil Zimmerman in prison for writing PGP back in the '90s. One more thing. Investigating crimes and prosecuting them are two completely different tasks. I am guessing this man has no law degree, and knows very little about prosecuting criminals.

Either way, Mr. Dempsey has come up with a solution. We need a "new" "more secure" Internet where people will "register" with some kind of "authority." What, like old style AOL? Has he heard of Kerberos or Virtual Private Networks?  All those things allow "registration" with "authority." There's a difference between registration and monitoring...

He throws around terms like spoofing and InterNIC (which by the way hasn't existed since ICANN took over running the world's domain registration system) and talks about "managing a more secure Internet." Whether or not he has a clue what he's talking about, I don't know. It doesn't look that way. His article looks like a cut and paste job from a bunch of sensationalist puff pieces from the Bubble pre-2001 era.

If Mr. Dempsey had done any research he would understand and be able to articulate the Internet is built on 1970's technology designed to survive a nuclear war, that operates based on open protocols and a degree of trust between systems, and requires skilled network managers to keep running. When he talks about a "new internet" he means a more tightly controlled network with systems built in for monitoring and controlling its' use.

The fight against international cyber crime is going to take a concerted effort from large and small corporations, law enforcement in all countries, as well as the governments and legislative bodies of those same countries. Most importantly, the average end user will have to join the fight to bring about change on the Internet, or create a "new" Internet using the lessons we've learned.

What does that mean? Governments and legislative bodies? You mean there is a difference? The biggest change that needs to hit the Internet is adoption of IPv6. If he wants some kind of ubermensch system to keep bad things from happening and bad people from using networks, he's going to have to go back in time or move to China.


I don't think I'm going to read Slashdot as much anymore.

While I fully admit that it would be reckless gun-jumping to assume that the Wireless Consumer Protection Bill will become a law any time soon.  To assume that it would become a law at any time without significant changes would also be extraordinarily naive.  It's just a draft at this point.

However, it's still exciting to me.  The stipulations that would allow us, as consumers to a) purchase a phone at full price to avoid a contract and b) to not have to pay anything extra on our monthly bill to avoid a contract are what really float my boat. 

This would be a move towards a mobile phone culture like they have in Europe and Asia.  I've posted about it in bits and pieces so I'll be brief.  You buy a phone, you buy your service and that's it.

What would be so great about the Wireless Consumer Protection Bill is that no one is saying that contracts would be eliminated.  You see, it's all about choice.  A contract is far less offensive when instead of your being only option it's an option.  There are plenty of people who are just fine with signing a contract in order to get a cheaper phone.  Especially, if like me, you just bought a phone with a no-contract price tag of $550 a 2-year contract that reduces your price by $300 after mail-in rebates sounds great.  A lack of choice is what I feel has held the U.S. mobile phone market back.  The lack of choice in handsets has started to be addressed with the iPhone, the Tilt (AT&T's branded HTCH Tytn II) and the Touch (another HTC device for Sprint) and En-V from Verizon.  That's a great start, but hardware is only half of the mobile phone equation.

I think that the potential for a hybrid of the Euro/Asian mobile culture and the American contract-based culture is a step towards putting the U.S. in a position to say it's changing the industry.

There's a lot more going on in the WCP bill than just