Last time I wrote about the business and technical context into which Apple would be bringing its long-rumored tablet computer, which many of us now believe will also be some form of e-reader. That column stimulated a lot of lively comments, thanks, but now I have to put up or shut up, giving my thoughts on both the still-secret Apple device and the possible content strategy behind it.
I think we’re all fairly sure at this point that Apple will shortly release such a device and that it will be nominally based on the iPhone or iPod Touch. This is key because of the App Store and iPod ecosystems it will leverage. Anything that runs on […]
Network neutrality came from the telephone business. With electronic phone switching (analog, not digital) it was possible to give phone company customers who were willing to pay more priority access to trunk lines, avoiding the dreaded “all circuits are busy, please try your call again later.” Alas, some folks almost never got a circuit, so the FCC put a halt to that practice by mandating what it called “network neutrality” – first-come, first-served access to the voice network. When the commercial Internet came along, network neutrality was extended to digital data services, lately over the objection of telcos and big ISPs like Comcast, and the FCC is now about to expand those rules a bit more, […]
This week the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) releases its proposed new rules for Internet Service Provider (ISP) network neutrality. I have written many times about Network Neutrality and once I have a look at the FCC proposal I am sure I’ll have comments to make here. In general I’m in favor of rules that allow me, as a consumer, more digital freedom. It would be great to run Skype over my iPhone, for example, just as I can already run it over the cellular connection on my notebook. But right now I’m talking about a different kind of network neutrality, the kind I’m struggling to achieve in my own home.
I was hanging the other day with some ex-Google folks. There are more and more of these as the search company matures and the fact that I’m running across a few is, in itself, meaningless. But without giving away any trade secrets (which the ex-Googlers absolutely refused to do) these chance encounters have opened my eyes a bit to how things actually function inside the Googleplex. It’s different, really different.
