http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/ http://www.eblah.com en http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1216740731/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1216740731/#num1 UPDATE--Wireless Auction Nets $4 Billion


July 22nd, 2008

Canada's wireless spectrum auction has netted more than four billion dollars, far exceeding expectations.

Also expected is a boon for consumers of wireless products and services, due to the anticipated increase in competition in the sector. But some analysts note that the three largest existing players were among the highest bidders. They note that the enormous amounts bid on spectrum allocation will have to be recouped by passing the costs on to the end user eventually

Industry Canada says 282 licences have been conditionally assigned to 15 companies in the Auction of Spectrum Licences for Advanced Wireless Services and Other Spectrum in the 2 GHz Range.

The provisional winners of the auction, held between May 27 and July 21, were posted online after the bidding ended. Successful bidders are eligible to receive licences after making their final payments and showing compliance with Canadian ownership and control requirements.


The key auction players and the spectrum results:

Globalive Communications Corp. ($442,099,000 in 30 licences): wireless presence across Canada.

Quebecor Inc. ($554,549,000 in 17 licences): the majority of licences in; one licence in Toronto.

Data & Audio-Visual Enterprises Wireless Inc. ($243,159,000 in 10 licences): spectrum in Ontario as well as Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Victoria.

Shaw Communications Inc. ($189,519,000 in 18 licences): licences in British Columbia, Alberta, Winnipeg, urban areas in Saskatchewan and northern Ontario.

6934579 Canada Inc. ($52,385,077 in four licences): spectrum in southern Ontario and Quebec.

Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. ($40,773,750 in three licences): Manitoba.

Bragg Communications Inc. ($25,628,000 in 19 licences): Atlantic Canada; southern Ontario corridor.

Bell Mobility ($740,928,000 in 54 licences): in Quebec, Ontario, Atlantic Canada and the northern territories.

Telus Corp. ($879,889,000 in 59 licences): Ontario, Atlantic Canada, Quebec and Alberta. Rogers Communications Inc. ($999,367,000 in 55 licences): coast to coast spectrum.


"The auction exceeded our expectations in terms of the level of competitive bidding activity. I hope the industry keeps this competitive spirit alive as it enhances and expands its services with improved access to the spectrum," said the Honourable Jim Prentice, Minister of Industry. "The industry now has an unprecedented opportunity -- thanks to the government's Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) policy and auction -- to develop products and services that offer choice to Canadian consumers and businesses. We think consumers will be the big winners in this auction."

Of the 105 megahertz (MHz) of spectrum made available, 40 MHz was set aside exclusively for new entrants to bid on. The other 65 MHz was available to all bidders. The set-aside spectrum was put in place to help create a more competitive market and to increase the number of service providers, a decision designed to lead to lower prices.

The auction and AWS policy are the Government of Canada's contribution to creating a wireless marketplace that offers more choice and better services for consumers and businesses. This auction and policy are designed to increase competition and help the wireless industry develop new and robust services.

AWS spectrum is a valuable resource, providing access to a growing range of innovative wireless applications. It enables next-generation technologies such as high-speed Internet and video, and it provides faster access for mobile phones and other hand-held devices.

Bidding took place electronically over the Internet using secure encryption technology. The auction generated almost $4.3 billion in revenues for the Government of Canada.

List of other winners

1380057 Alberta Ltd.
6934242 Canada Ltd.
6934579 Canada Inc.
9193-2962 Québec Inc.
Bell Mobility Inc.
Blue Canada Wireless Inc.
Bragg Communications Inc.
Celluworld Inc.
Data & Audio-Visual Enterprises Wireless Inc.
Globalive Wireless LP
Novus Wireless Inc.
Rich Telecom Corp.
Rogers Communications Inc.
SaskTel
TELUS Communications Company

http://www.broadcastermagazine.com/issues/ISArticle.asp?id=87302&issue=07222008

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]]> Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:32:11 SAM http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1216657200/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1216657200/#num1 Facebook face-lift
features expanded Wall


By ANICK JESDANUN
The Associated Press
July 21, 2008

NEW YORK — The popular online hangout Facebook is sporting a new look to reflect changes in how its members communicate with each other and how they share photos and updates about their lives.

Central to the redesign, to be unveiled today, is an expanded Wall, the section of a member's personal profile page where friends can leave comments and photos. People will now be able to add items more easily, and the Wall will incorporate reports on a user's activities previously found on a user's "Mini-Feed."

The development comes as Facebook and rival MySpace from News Corp. vie to become the central hub of online communications. Both sites are reorganizing their layouts this summer to reduce clutter and make information easier to find.

Facebook, trying to avoid the type of privacy backlash that has accompanied major changes in the past, said it has been alerting users of the changes in recent weeks. The site first outlined the face-lift in May and plans to let users start testing it this week. A complete switch won't occur for at least another week or two.

The changes stem from the growing comfort people have with sharing details about their personal lives more frequently and in smaller bursts — such as on the "microblogging" site Twitter.

Instead of creating a full photo album or blog entry, Facebook users are apt to share just a single image or update the one-sentence status message on their profile, said Mark Slee, lead product manager at Facebook. On top of that, Facebook profiles are loaded with information generated from games and other applications that Facebook started letting outside developers write last year.

The Facebook redesign seeks to make these now-disparate pieces of information easier to find at a central location. Now the site will organize information into tabs to reduce clutter.

And users will get more control over what appears on their feeds, with the ability to add as well as delete individual items.

Slee said no information about a user's online behavior that wasn't previously public would suddenly become posted to the Wall.

That is a sensitive subject at Facebook, which faced privacy criticisms when feeds first began, though now they are a staple of the site.

Then last year a tracking tool called "Beacon" caught users off guard by broadcasting information about their shopping habits and activities at other Web sites.

Facebook ultimately allowed users to turn Beacon off.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008062986_facebook21.html

.]]> Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:20:00 SAM http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1216338220/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1216338220/#num1 Web libel to cost man $179,000
  
Canwest News Service
Thursday, July 17, 2008


VANCOUVER -- A Nanaimo man has been ordered to pay more than $179,000 in damages arising from hundreds of libellous statements he made on numerous websites over a four-year period.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice D.A. Halfyard found that Patrick Michael Sullivan defamed Robert Griffin, a 43-year-old resident of Sydney, Australia, in Internet postings from May 30, 2003 up until the trial in April.

A war of words had erupted between the two men on a website used by depressed and suicidal people.

The judge ruled that Sullivan maliciously made false allegations that Griffin is, among other things, a stalker, abuser, harasser, killer, sexual predator, pervert, coward, manipulator and hate-monger who threatens other people with death and violence.

Halfyard said he agreed with Griffin's submission that the statements were "numerous and monstrous," "outrageous" and "so extreme that it is difficult to find case precedents that come anywhere close."

Griffin said that the postings broke him emotionally and physically, ruined his relationship with his girlfriend, made him fearful of going out in public and in large part caused a suicide attempt that required him to consult psychologists.

The judge ordered Sullivan to pay $150,000 in general and aggravated damages for libel, $25,000 for breach of privacy and $4,600 in special damages.He also ordered an injunction be imposed on Sullivan barring him from posting any further defamatory messages on the Internet.

Sullivan could not be reached for comment.

http://www.canada.com/victoria.....de-a34d-29639d31fa2c

.]]> Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:43:40 SAM http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1216227100/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1216227100/#num1 Free Long Distance Calling
Application Now on Facebook

Mediacaster.com
July 16, 2008

Talkster, the Toronto-based online mobile voice and text communications company, has launched a new software application taht lets Facebook users make free long distance calls.

Talkster Phone Party lets Facebook users set up and manage free Talkster long distance, international, and group conference calls, directly from their Facebook profile pages.

Built on Facebook Platform, so companies and developers can build applications for the Facebook website, Talkster's Phone Party not only delivers free calls to and from more than 34 countries, developers describe, but also allows Facebook users to preserve the privacy of their personal phone numbers when calling or receiving calls from their Facebook friends around the world.

With Talkster's Phone Party on Facebook people can set up their calls from their Facebook profile page, select the friends they want to call from their Facebook account, and even add other phone numbers from outside Facebook to be included in a group party call. Advertising and special personalized offers for callers cover the cost of the calls.

Talkster Phone Party lets callers add and remove friends from their Phone Party groups on the fly, the company describes. Callers can give their Phone Parties custom names, and are given a clear view of all of their scheduled Phone Parties so they can easily schedule and reschedule group calls and make any changes needed.

Talkster Phone Party delivers free calls to and from more than 30 countries, including popular international calling destinations such as the United States, Canada, the UK, Mexico, and China, with new countries being added each month. With Talkster Phone Party, Facebook friends can party with more friends from more places -- all for free.

"With Talkster's Phone Party you can bring up to five of your Facebook friends together for a free chat," says James Wanless, Talkster co-founder and COO. "Setting up the Talkster calls with other Facebook users all over the world is as simple as selecting them from your friends list, and with Talkster there are never any long distance or international calling charges. Because you may not be comfortable sharing your phone number with some of the people you have in your friends list, Talkster never exposes your personal phone number."

Once the Talkster Phone Party application is added to a Facebook profile page, callers simply select friends from their Facebook friend list or enter the names and phone numbers of the person or persons they want to call. Talkster assigns free local Talkster numbers for each person or group of people a user wants to call.

These new phone numbers are automatically listed in their profile on the Talkster Phone Party call list, can be saved in any address book or contact list and can be used every time a Talkster Phone Party user wants to talk for free, with no interruptions or talk time limits.
Facebook is a social utility that offers an efficient way for people to stay connected with their friends and the people around them.

A truly global community, with more than 80 million global users Facebook users communicate and share information through the social graph, the network of connections and relationships between people from all over the world.

Talkster Phone Party can be downloaded from Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/talksterconf/.


]]> Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:51:40 newsviewer http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1215538464/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1215538464/#num1 courtesy Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, July 08, 2008

TORONTO - Internet heavyweight Google Inc. has waded into a fight with Bell Canada, saying the telecommunications company should be "prohibited" from the practice of curtailing of peer-to-peer Internet use to manage limited capacity on its network.

"Providers of broadband Internet access services, including Bell, should be prohibited from throttling lawful applications," Google says in a document made public by the Canadian Radio-telecommunications and Telecommunications Commission.

"Network management does not include Canadian carriers blocking or degrading lawful applications that consumers wish to use."

The battle over throttling, or managing Internet usage, "goes to the heart of the Internet and how it acts as an extraordinary platform for innovation and fair competition," Google's document says.




© Canwest News Service 2008]]> Tue, 8 Jul 2008 13:34:24 boredop http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1215533317/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1215533317/#num1 Get ready to pay
for incoming text messages
Bell and Telus to hit users with levy next month
  
Sarah Schmidt

Tuesday, July 08, 2008


CREDIT: Crack Palinggi, Reuters
Canadians now send 45.4 million text messages each and every day.

OTTAWA - Cellphone users are about to be hit with new fees as two of Canada's telecommunications giants plan to bring in a levy on incoming text messages.

Bell Mobility will begin charging customers 15 cents per incoming text message on Aug. 8. Telus Mobility is moving to the same billing practice effective Aug. 24. Until now, their pay-per-use customers who send text messages have been charged a 15-cent fee per message, but it hasn't cost anything to receive them.

The pending new charge has sparked outrage on blogs, with customers saying they can't control who sends them messages, especially when spammers obtain their cell number or retailers send them unsolicited messages.

"This charge is unbelievable. If someone sends me "spam" on my Bell phone, I have to pay for it? I made the mistake of giving my cellphone number to a car rental agency and now I get spam text messages," a Bell customer ranted on a Canadian technology blog.

"I actually work for Bell and I think this incoming text messages being charged is bogus!" posted another.

Text messaging has ballooned in popularity since inter-carrier service came to Canada in 2002.

In its first year, there were 369,000 text messages sent every day, or 11 million annually. Today, Canadians send 45.4 million per day, according to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. And cellphone subscribers sent 4.1 billion in the first quarter of this year, close to the annual total of 4.3 billion sent in 2006 and on track to surpass the 10.1 billion sent last year.

Association spokesman Marc Choma said the phenomenon has moved beyond the teenage crowd - known as the "early adopters" - to parents, who use it as a "family management tool."

Telus Mobility spokesperson AJ Gratton cites this rapid growth as the reason for the new charge.

"The growth in text messages has been nothing short of phenomenal," Gratton said. "This volume places tremendous demands on our network and we can't afford to provide this service for free anymore."

Characterizing the annual growth in text traffic on Bell's wireless network as "massive," company spokesman Jason Laszlo said the result has been greater capacity, licensing and support costs.

He said all but one of Bell's North American competitors charge for both incoming and outcoming text messages.

Bell and Telus customers can avoid the charge by switching to Rogers, which says it has no plans to institute a fee to receive a text message. But Bell and Telus both charge penalties if customers break their contracts, at $20 for every month remaining on a broken contract up to $400.

"We just don't charge for it, and have no plans to. Now it's a unique differentiator for Rogers," company spokeswoman Elizabeth Hamilton said of the move to charge for incoming messages.

Howard Chui, based in the Toronto suburb of Richmond Hill, runs an online forum about the mobile phone industry in Canada. He isn't optimistic that consumers are going to win this fight. And he's not sure how long Rogers will hold out.

"I think overall customers will just have to take it," he said, characterizing the three Canadian carriers as an "oligopoly."

Rogers is dealing with its own customer backlash over its rate plans for the Apple iPhone, on store shelves on Friday. The company, which has an exclusive iPhone carrier arrangement with Apple Inc. in Canada, is offering monthly plans ranging from $60 to $155.

The proposed fee schedule has unleashed an online campaign against Rogers, under the tagline "Screwing Canadian iPhone customers since '08."

Canadians already pay more than Europeans and Americans for cellphone services. Industry Minister Jim Prentice acknowledged this fact in the spring when he opened Canada's wireless spectrum auction.

Industry Canada set aside 40 megahertz, out of a total 105, for smaller companies to compete against the established telecommunications giants. Prentice said "the intent behind the auction is lower prices, more choice for consumers.'"

http://www.canada.com/victoria.....57-8fc6-e9ced298e73c

.
]]> Tue, 8 Jul 2008 12:08:37 Cued_Up http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1215135247/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1215135247/#num1 Google must divulge
YouTube log


Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched any video on YouTube, a US court has ruled.

The ruling comes as part of Google's legal battle with Viacom over allegations of copyright infringement.

Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called the ruling a "set-back to privacy rights".

The viewing log, which will be handed to Viacom, contains the log-in ID of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video clip details.

While the legal battle between the two firms is being contested in the US, it is thought the ruling will apply to YouTube users and their viewing habits everywhere.

Viacom, which owns MTV and Paramount Pictures, has alleged that YouTube is guilty of massive copyright infringement.

The UK's Premier League association is also seeking class action status with Viacom on the issue, alleging YouTube, which was bought by Google in 2006, has been used to watch football highlights.

Legal action

When it initiated legal action in March 2007 Viacom said it had identified about 160,000 unauthorised clips of its programmes on the website, which had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times.

Following the launch of its billion-dollar lawsuit, YouTube introduced filtering tools in an effort to prevent copyright materials from appearing on the site.


We urge Viacom to back off this overbroad request
Electronic Frontier Foundation


The US court declined Viacom's request that Google be forced to hand over the source code of YouTube, saying it was a "trade secret" that should not be disclosed.

But it said privacy concerns expressed by Google about handing over the log were "speculative".

Google's senior litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera said in a statement: "We are disappointed the court granted Viacom's over-reaching demand for viewing history.

"We will ask Viacom to respect users' privacy and allow us to anonymise the logs before producing them under the court's order."

The ruling will see the viewing habits of millions of YouTube users given to Viacom, totalling more than 12 terabytes of data.

Viacom said it wanted the data to "compare the attractiveness of allegedly infringing video with that of non-infringing videos."

YouTube and Google had "compelled" it to go to court, Viacom said, "by continuing to defend their illegal and irresponsible conduct and profiting from copyright infringement, when they could be implementing the safe and legal user generated content experience they promise".

It said it would not be asking for any "personally identifiable information" of any user.

"Any information that we or our outside advisors obtain will be used exclusively for the purpose of proving our case against You Tube and Google (and) will be handled subject to a court protective order and in a highly confidential manner."

'Erroneous ruling'

Leading privacy expert Simon Davies told BBC News that the privacy of millions of YouTube users was threatened.


The chickens have come home to roost for Google
Simon Davies, privacy expert  

He said: "The chickens have come home to roost for Google.

"Their arrogance and refusal to listen to friendly advice has resulted in the privacy of tens of millions being placed under threat."

Mr Davies said privacy campaigners had warned Google for years that IP addresses were personally identifiable information.

Google pledged last year to anonymise IP addresses for search information but it has said nothing about YouTube data.

Mr Davies said: "Governments and organisations are realising that companies like Google have a warehouse full of data. And while that data is stored it is under threat of being used and putting privacy in danger."

The EFF said: "The Court's erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights, and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube.

"We urge Viacom to back off this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users."

The body said the ruling was also potentially unlawful because the log data did contain personally identifiable data.

The court also ruled that Google disclose to Viacom the details of all videos that have been removed from the site for any reason.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/7488009.stm

]]> Thu, 3 Jul 2008 21:34:07 Swamp Water http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1215123260/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1215123260/#num1 Bell to offer smartphone
with unlimited data plan

Thursday, July 3, 2008
By Paul Jay
CBC News



Bell Canada said it is the first carrier in Canada to offer the Samsung Instinct. (CNW Group/Bell Canada)Bell Canada is planning to offer a touch-screen mobile phone with the option of an unlimited data plan, upping the ante in its battle for the Canadian smartphone market
.

Bell said Thursday it would offer the Samsung Instinct, which includes many of the features found on Apple Inc.'s iPhone, on Aug. 8. The phone would be available with a range of data and voice plans, including a $10 add-on data plan offering unlimited internet access.

The announcement comes just eight days before Rogers Communications plans to launch the iPhone. Rogers is already taking heat from potential customers over data rate plans it announced for the iPhone. In the last week more than 30,000 people signed an online petition at ruinediphone.com, with many saying complaining Rogers' prices were "ridiculous" when compared to iPhone plans in other countries.

The basic Rogers monthly plan begins at $60, plus a system access fee of $6.95, and gives subscribers 150 daytime minutes and 400 megabytes of data usage.

By comparison, the lowest Bell plan for the Instinct comes to just under $40 before taxes, including the $10 unlimited data plan. There is also a one-time $35 activation fee.

Unlike the iPhone, the Instinct cannot access the internet through a Wi-Fi connection, but it has many features in common with the iPhone, including a touch-screen interface and HTML web browsing.

Bell spokesperson Jason Laszlo said the unlimited data plan includes web browsing, web-based e-mail and downloads. Other services, including GPS navigation, access to Bell's Full Track Music, Sirius satellite radio and on-demand TV content, are available at additional charges.

As with most mobile phones, media that require software — such as QuickTime or RealPlayer — to be downloaded will also not work on the Instinct.

The Instinct itself costs $149.95 when consumers opt for a three-year contract, $249.95 on a two-year contract or $399.95 on a one-year contract. Without a term contract it can be purchased for $449.95, Bell said.

The phone can also not be used under the Bell plan as a tethered device to offer roaming access for laptops.

Tethering has been controversial
The practice of tethering might have allowed consumers to use the unlimited connection to access a wider range of downloading and viewing options than would normally be available on a mobile phone.

Last year tethering was at the centre of a controversy for Bell Canada after a Calgary man got a bill of nearly $85,000 for using his phone plan to connect to a computer and surf the internet, which drew substantial additional charges. Bell later dropped the amount owing to $3,423.

Telecommunications analyst Mark Goldberg said the announcement is a good sign for consumers.

"I think it's a sign that no carrier is conceding any space to any other carrier."

Goldberg said that while Rogers, through its Rogers and Fido brands, is the only carrier in Canada to offer the iPhone, the other carriers aren't sitting on their hands.

"The iPhone raised the bar for smartphones, but it's not the only option," he said.

He added that while Rogers is the only carrier in the country to run its network using the Global Systems for Mobile (GSM) standard for cell phones — the standard the iPhone uses — that could change as new carriers enter the market next year.

A government auction of wireless airwaves currently winding down set aside some of the spectrum for new entrants. Goldberg said the current auction results suggest most markets will get one or two new carriers next year. Many of these are likely to run on the GSM standard because of its ubiquity.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/07/03/bell-instinct.html

.]]> Thu, 3 Jul 2008 18:14:20 newsviewer http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1214798339/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1214798339/#num1 Software Notebook:
Windows XP begins its long goodbye

by Todd Bishop
SeattlePI.com
June 29, 2008

BARRING A LAST-MINUTE reprieve, Windows XP will start to fade away this week, when Microsoft stops selling the seven-year-old operating system to retailers and major PC makers.

It's the moment Galen Gruman hoped wouldn't arrive.

Gruman, an executive editor at the InfoWorld online tech site in San Francisco, is one of the leaders of a movement seeking to save Windows XP from extinction. Under different circumstances, a company might welcome such an expression of devotion.

But in this case, the initiative isn't as much an endorsement of Windows XP as it is a comment on XP's successor. Windows Vista, released last year, has been negatively received by some PC users because of its early technical problems and steeper hardware requirements.

"I think the issue is that it's not meaningfully better than XP," Gruman said last week. Improvements in areas such as security aren't enough to justify the inconveniences, he said. InfoWorld's "Save XP" online petition has collected more than 200,000 virtual signatures.

Microsoft previously gave XP a five-month reprieve, but it has made it clear that it's sticking to the Monday cutoff. The company says it wants to keep moving PC users and businesses to Windows Vista as the new standard, in part so that the industry can focus on making software and devices more compatible with Vista and its new security approach.

The cutoff means it will become tougher to get a new computer with Windows XP -- but not impossible, by any means. Although Microsoft will stop selling XP to retailers and major PC makers, it plans to continue selling the operating system through some channels.

For example, smaller companies that make custom PCs from scratch, commonly known as system builders, will be able to continue buying Windows XP through Jan. 31. And for two years, at least, the company also will continue to offer selected versions of Windows XP for "ultra low-cost" computers, such as the Asus Eee PC and Intel Classmate PC, that lack the advanced hardware needed to run Windows Vista.

In addition, buyers of Windows Vista Business or Ultimate editions will be able to take advantage of what are known as "downgrade rights." In some cases, for example, people will be able buy Windows Vista but get it on a disc for later use, and have Windows XP Professional pre-installed on the PC instead.

Downgrade rights are offered through Microsoft's volume licensing program for businesses. Some PC makers, such as Dell, also are giving customers that option.

Microsoft says it plans to offer various levels of product support for Windows XP, including security updates, through April 2014.

Bill Veghte, a Microsoft senior vice president, outlined those continuing options for Windows XP but also defended Windows Vista in a letter to customers last week.

"The architectural changes that improved security and resilience in Windows Vista led to compatibility issues with existing hardware and applications," Veghte acknowledged in the letter. "Many hardware drivers and applications needed to be updated, and while the majority worked well when we launched Windows Vista, some key applications and drivers were not yet available."

However, he added, "Since then, Microsoft and its industry partners have been hard at work to address compatibility issues, and now the situation is fundamentally different."

All things considered, Windows Vista is "actually a pretty good operating system," said Michael Gartenberg, a Jupiter Research analyst. Microsoft has cited significant sales volume. However, Vista isn't good enough to make people and businesses feel strongly compelled to upgrade.

"It certainly hasn't captured anyone's hearts and imaginations," Gartenberg said.

Given the complications of moving to Windows Vista, more companies may start considering it a reasonable option to move to Apple computers, particularly if Apple adds more features to its Mac OS X operating system tailored to businesses, Gartenberg said.

The end of mainstream Windows XP sales happens to coincide with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' departure from day-to-day duties at the company. In that way, Gates might be leaving "on the expiration of the last real major desktop operating success for Microsoft," Gartenberg said, adding that one of the major challenges for CEO Steve Ballmer will be to restore the luster to the Windows brand.

First, Ballmer will be getting a little something in the mail. As of last week, InfoWorld's Gruman was planning to print out the Save XP petition and signatures for delivery to Ballmer's office Monday.

"Maybe the big stack of paper will drive it home," Gruman said.

--

Software Notebook is a Monday feature by P-I reporter Todd Bishop. He can be reached at 206-448-8221 or toddbishop@seattlepi.com.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/368860_software30.html

.]]> Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:58:59 newsviewer http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1214681254/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1214681254/#num1 Customers groan
as Rogers sets iPhone prices
  
Susan Taylor and Wojtek Dabrowski
Reuters
Saturday, June 28, 2008



CREDIT:  
Apple Corporation CEO Steve Jobs
REUTERS/Kimberly White

OTTAWA/TORONTO (Reuters) - Rogers Communications Inc, owner of Canada's biggest wireless carrier, announced pricing plans on Friday for Apple Inc's 3G iPhone, prompting an outcry about prices from angry customers.

The sleek, multimedia device will hit Canadian stores on July 11. But soon after Rogers unveiled its plans, a protest website began collecting signatures and comments that its creators plan to send to the company on the day of the launch.

"This plan is a joke compared to other countries," wrote one complainer, while another wrote: "What a rip off!!!"

Canadians have long bemoaned high cost of wireless service compared to those in the United States, and many blame lack of competition in a relatively thinly populated country that stretches across six time zones.

Aside from Rogers, only Telus Corp and BCE Inc are national carriers, and Rogers is the only one of the three with the GSM wireless technology that the iPhone uses.

Rogers and its Fido wireless unit said they were offering voice and data plans ranging in price from C$60 ($59) to C$115 ($114) a month for the iPhone, a price that includes unlimited Wi-Fi access at Rogers and Fido hotspots.

The top-end C$115 plan will buy 800 weekday minutes for voice calling and unlimited time at evenings and weekends.

It will allow users to send 300 text messages and have 2 gigabytes of data usage -- something that Rogers says is enough for about 1 million text e-mails, or 16,000 Web pages, or 7,000 photo attachments.

By comparison, U.S. carrier AT&T has said it will offer unlimited 3G iPhone data plans for $30 a month in addition to voice plans that start at $39.99 a month.

The iPhone combines Apple's ubiquitous iPod portable music player with a smartphone that can receive e-mails wirelessly and let users browse the Internet.

Prices for the phone are almost the same in Canada and the United States -- C$199 or $199 for the 8 GB version or C$299 or $299 for the 16 GB version.

But Rogers requires a three-year contract while AT&T is asks for a two-year commitment only.

Its exclusive deal to bring the iPhone to Canada has been a winning stroke for Rogers, whose stock rose 2.3 percent on April 29, the day of the announcement. Some analysts said that news was more important than the strong financial results the company released that day.

On Friday, Rogers shares rose 38 Canadian cents to close at C$39.52 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The iPhone has been tagged as a potential challenger to Research In Motion Ltd's 3G BlackBerry Bold, which will roll out globally this summer and cost between $300 and $400.

(Editing by Janet Guttsman)

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=85d4b456-606f-453c-bf66-aaaa58a14996

.]]> Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:27:34 newsviewer http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1214151312/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1214151312/#num1

New media
require a new level of diligence


By KAREN BLOTNICKY
Small Business
Nova Scotia, Halifax
theChronicalherald.ca
June 22nd, 2008


TECHNOLOGY has greatly enhanced business communications.

Whether your business is large or small, tremendous savings are to be had by simply using creative technologies to communicate with internal and external stakeholders.

For example, you can meet with colleagues anywhere in the world by using simple applications like private chat rooms or you can use more advanced software, like GoToMeeting, to get real-time communications with full audio and video support.

It is possible to collaborate on documents for free using platforms like Googleworks.com. Meeting face to face may become passe as the cost of travel skyrockets and as staff learn to take full advantage of the functionality of software that is only a click away.

New media will continue to revolutionize the face of business. New media, consisting of social networks and information vehicles, will continue to make life more affordable for small- and medium-sized enterprises, while making communications management even more challenging.

New media consist of both social networks and information-sharing systems that operate through the Internet or wireless technologies.

Information-based media include e-mail, podcasts, Wikis (like Wikipedia), and blogs or online forums. Social networking media include such popular applications as Facebook, MySpace and LiveJournal.

YouTube involves aspects of both social networking and information sharing.

A key advantage of new media is that they can be used to easily communicate with many different kinds of stakeholders: everyone from employees and partners through to customers and competitors.

Other advantages of new media are that they are so widely used and easily accessible.

An important part of communications management has always been the ability to target communications carefully to specific recipients. This is easy to manage with some media, such as print and direct mail, but much tougher to manage with mass media (like newspapers, billboards, radio, and television) and nearly impossible to manage well with most new media.

This brings a special challenge to those who wish to employ new media to promote their business. A special degree of diligence is required to do it well. For example, this writer received a confidential e-mail this week that was not meant for her. Shortly after that, an e-mail was sent from her firm to a client that was meant for another party.

How did this happen? Part of the efficiency of e-mail, one of the new media, is its ease of use. If you simply key in the first few letters of the recipient’s name, the software will fill the rest in for you.

In both of the e-mail incidents, the intended recipient had the same first name as the person who actually ended up receiving the e-mail. An embarrassing oversight for sure, and one that could cause harm if vital information landed in the wrong hands.

Then there is the example in 2006 when Costco became embroiled in a controversy over seal oil capsules at its St. John’s store.

Costco continually denied the role that the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society had played in the retailer’s decision to pull the item from the shelves, arguing instead that it was for purely financial reasons.

This did not play well in Newfoundland and Labrador, where Premier Danny Williams launched a high-profile and adversarial campaign to get seal oil capsules back on Costco’s shelves.

Imagine the embarrassment caused when Costco’s own e-mail to Sea Shepherd, agreeing to pull the seal oil capsules, was promptly posted on the society’s website for everyone to see.

In less than a month, Costco had put seal oil capsules back on the shelves in St. John’s, had managed to frustrate the people in that good province, had frustrated the conservationists on the international stage and had nothing to show for it, except that they don’t pay close enough attention to their own e-mails!

Another important element of new media is the speed with which it moves. Messages are forwarded in real time, often to millions of people.

This is may be an advantage when communicating with the market, but it isn’t an advantage when the message is negative, such as an anti-image blog or website. Every major retailer has its detractors, many of whom like to post their complaints on the international stage. Only a year ago, a lonely tire in a tree hung beside Highway 102 near the Bedford exit. One day, the tire mysteriously disappeared. High school students launched a Facebook site about the tire. This site was followed by another Facebook site. That site resulted in a story in The Chronicle Herald about the tire in the tree.

In less than two weeks, over 6,000 people had joined one of the two Facebook sites, and students had been interviewed at least four times by local radio stations, and then finally by CBC Radio One’s Sounds Like Canada.

Clearly, new media have legs and they run very quickly.

New media is a boon to modern business, but it can also become a bust if it isn’t used correctly and monitored closely. Due diligence is required.

Karen Blotnicky is president of TMC "The Marketing Clinic" and a professor at Mount Saint Vincent University. ( kblotnicky@herald.ca)

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Business/1063483.html

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]]> Sun, 22 Jun 2008 12:15:12 newsviewer http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1213823983/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1213823983/#num1

CRTC mulls rules for managing Internet traffic
Industry 'shaping' spat between major service providers
and independents is 'only the tip of the iceberg'

Grant Robertson and Matthew Hartley
GlobeandMail.com
June 18, 2008

The fight between Bell Canada and a consortium of independent Web service providers over how traffic is allowed to flow over the Internet is "only the tip of the iceberg," for an industry that could find itself in more disputes, Canada's telecom regulator has warned.

Speaking to the sector yesterday, the head of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission indicated the government might need to step in to establish rules on Internet "traffic shaping" or further disagreements are likely to erupt.

Bell Canada has come under fire from the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) over policies designed to manage the flow of content on Bell's network. CAIP - an industry group representing independent Internet service providers - complained to the CRTC that Bell was slowing traffic on the network space it was leasing to them.

However, Bell has argued it needs to manage, or "shape," certain types of Internet traffic to ensure that small numbers of customers consuming large amounts of bandwidth through peer-to-peer downloads don't bog down the network.

This argument has angered members of CAIP, who allege that Bell is illegally managing their subscribers' traffic.

Rogers Communications Inc. is facing similar criticism for shaping the flow of traffic on its network, which it argues is done to prevent congestion.

Now the CRTC may consider holding hearings to consult with the industry and devise guidelines to oversee such practices.

"The CAIP complaint is really only the tip of the iceberg," CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein told the telecom conference. "Sooner or later - hopefully later - this is going to evolve into a major consultation ... It seems to be inevitable."

Proponents of the unwritten rule of net neutrality contend that all Internet traffic should be treated equally and advocate against network management practices such as shaping.

CAIP chairman Tom Copeland said he expected the CRTC to eventually broaden its investigation beyond the group's spat with Bell and he hopes the Canadian public will take note of the dispute.

"The CAIP issue is a regulatory issue," he said. "But it's not that bigger societal issue of who controls the media and who controls the pipes ... there is always a risk that those who deliver the content can also control the content."

John Lawford, a lawyer representing the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, a consumer group, said many Internet users are angry at the strategies of Bell and Rogers.

But Ken Englehart, head of regulatory affairs for Rogers, said the company hasn't seen the same reaction.

"We hardly get any complaints," Mr. Englehart said. He said peer-to-peer file sharing applications such as BitTorrent sites could squeeze other applications such as e-mail or streaming video off the network if traffic wasn't managed.

"So we give the peer-to-peer network their own dedicated lane ... and if we didn't, the network wouldn't work."

The CRTC asked Bell last month to produce evidence to support its claim that 95 per cent of its users were being negatively affected by peer-to-peer traffic emanating from as few as five per cent of its subscribers.

Speaking to the conference, Mirko Bibic, chief of regulatory affairs for Bell Canada, said the company has been forced to manage the traffic of its own Bell Sympatico users, an indicator that it's not just targeting smaller Internet service providers that use its network.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080618.wrregulator18/BNStory/Technology/home

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]]> Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:19:43 SAM http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1213640238/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1213640238/#num1
More on this from Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=aUut7Sc3YqMY&refer=canada
And from CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/06/16/telecom-summit.html
]]> Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:17:18 spiffiness http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1213489861/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1213489861/#num1 Charging by the Byte to Curb Internet Traffic
By BRIAN STELTER
NEW YORK TIMES
June 15

Some people use the Internet simply to check e-mail and look up phone numbers. Others are online all day, downloading big video and music files.

For years, both kinds of Web surfers have paid the same price for access. But now three of the country’s largest Internet service providers are threatening to clamp down on their most active subscribers by placing monthly limits on their online activity.

One of them, Time Warner Cable, began a trial of “Internet metering” in one Texas city early this month, asking customers to select a monthly plan and pay surcharges when they exceed their bandwidth limit. The idea is that people who use the network more heavily should pay more, the way they do for water, electricity, or, in many cases, cellphone minutes.

That same week, Comcast said that it would expand on a strategy it uses to manage Internet traffic: slowing down the connections of the heaviest users, so-called bandwidth hogs, at peak times.

AT&T also said Thursday that limits on heavy use were inevitable and that it was considering pricing based on data volume. “Based on current trends, total bandwidth in the AT&T network will increase by four times over the next three years,” the company said in a statement.

All three companies say that placing caps on broadband use will ensure fair access for all users.

Internet metering is a throwback to the days of dial-up service, but at a time when video and interactive games are becoming popular, the experiments could have huge implications for the future of the Web.

Millions of people are moving online to watch movies and television shows, play multiplayer video games and talk over videoconference with family and friends. And media companies are trying to get people to spend more time online: the Disneys and NBCs of the world keep adding television shows and movies to their Web sites, giving consumers convenient entertainment that soaks up a lot of bandwidth.

Moreover, companies with physical storefronts, like Blockbuster, are moving toward digital delivery of entertainment. And new distributors of online content — think YouTube — are relying on an open data spigot to make their business plans work.

Critics of the bandwidth limits say that metering and capping network use could hold back the inevitable convergence of television, computers and the Internet.

The Internet “is how we deliver our shows,” said Jim Louderback, chief executive of Revision3, a three-year-old media company that runs what it calls a television network on the Web. “If all of a sudden our viewers are worried about some sort of a broadband cap, they may think twice about downloading or watching our shows.”

Even if the caps are far above the average users’ consumption, their mere existence could cause users to reduce their time online. Just ask people who carefully monitor their monthly allotments of cellphone minutes and text messages.

“As soon as you put serious uncertainty as to cost on the table, people’s feeling of freedom to predict cost dries up and so does innovation and trying new applications,” Vint Cerf, the chief Internet evangelist for Google who is often called the “father of the Internet,” said in an e-mail message.

But the companies imposing the caps say that their actions are only fair. People who use more network capacity should pay more, Time Warner argues. And Comcast says that people who use too much — like those who engage in file-sharing — should be forced to slow down.

Time Warner also frames the issue in financial terms: the broadband infrastructure needs to be improved, it says, and maybe metering could pay for the upgrades. So far its trial is limited to new subscribers in Beaumont, Tex., a city of roughly 110,000.

In that trial, new customers can buy plans with a 5-gigabyte cap, a 20-gigabyte cap or a 40-gigabyte cap. Prices for those plans range from $30 to $50. Above the cap, customers pay $1 a gigabyte. Plans with higher caps come with faster service.

“Average customers are way below the caps,” said Kevin Leddy, executive vice president for advanced technology at Time Warner Cable. “These caps give them years’ worth of growth before they’d ever pay any surcharges.”

Casual Internet users who merely send e-mail messages, check movie times and read the news are not likely to exceed the caps. But people who watch television shows on Hulu.com, rent movies on iTunes or play the multiplayer game Halo on Xbox may start to exceed the limits — and millions of people are already doing those things.

Streaming an hour of video on Hulu, which shows programs like “Saturday Night Live,” “Family Guy” and “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” consumes about 200 megabytes, or one-fifth of a gigabyte. A higher-quality hour of the same content bought through Apple’s iTunes store can use about 500 megabytes, or half a gigabyte.

A high-definition episode of “Survivor” on CBS.com can use up to a gigabyte, and a DVD-quality movie through Netflix’s new online service can eat up about five gigabytes. One Netflix download alone, in fact, could bring a user to the limit on the cheapest plan in Time Warner’s trial in Beaumont.

Even services like Skype and Vonage that use the Internet to transmit phone calls could help put users over the monthly limits.

Time Warner would not reveal how many gigabytes an average customer uses, saying only that 95 percent of customers use under 40 gigabytes each in a month.

That means that 5 percent of customers use more than 50 percent of the network’s overall capacity, the company said, and many of those people are assumed to be sharing copyrighted video and music files illegally.

The Time Warner plan has the potential to bring Internet use full circle, back to the days when pay-as-you-go pricing held back the Web’s popularity. In the early days of dial-up access, America Online and other providers offered tiered pricing, in part because audio and video were barely viable online. Consumers feared going over their allotted time and bristled at the idea that access to cyberspace was billed by the hour.

In 1996, when AOL started offering unlimited access plans, Internet use took off and the online world started moving to the center of people’s daily lives. Today most Internet packages provide a seemingly unlimited amount of capacity, at least from the consumer’s perspective.

But like water and electricity, even digital resources are finite. Last year Comcast disclosed that it was temporarily turning off the connections of customers who used file-sharing services like BitTorrent, arguing that they were slowing things down for everyone else. The people who got cut off complained and asked how much broadband use was too much; the company did not have a ready answer.

Thus, like Time Warner, Comcast is considering a form of Internet metering that would apply to all online activity.

The goal, says Mitch Bowling, a senior vice president at Comcast, is “ensuring that a small number of users don’t impact the experience for everyone else.”

Last year Comcast was sued when it was disclosed that the company had singled out BitTorrent users.

In February, Comcast departed from that approach and started collaborating with the company that runs BitTorrent. Now it has shifted to what it calls a “platform agnostic” approach to managing its network, meaning that it slows down the connection of any customer who uses too much bandwidth at congested times.

Mr. Bowling said that “typical Internet usage” would not be affected. But on the Internet, “typical” use is constantly being redefined.

“The definitions of low and high usage today are meaningless, because the Internet’s going to grow, and nothing’s going to stop that,” said Eric Klinker, the chief technology officer of BitTorrent.

As the technology company Cisco put it in a recent report, “today’s ‘bandwidth hog’ is tomorrow’s average user.”

One result of these experiments is a tug-of-war between the Internet providers and media companies, which are monitoring the Time Warner experiment with trepidation.

“We hate it,” said a senior executive at a major media company, who requested anonymity because his company, like all broadcasters, must play nice with the same cable operators that are imposing the limits. Now that some television shows are viewed millions of times online, the executive said, any impediment would hurt the advertising model for online video streaming.

Mr. Leddy of Time Warner said that the media companies’ fears were overblown. If the company were to try to stop Web video, “we would not succeed,” he said. “We know how much capacity they’re going to need in the future, and we know what it’s going to cost. And today’s business model doesn’t pay for it very well.”

]]> Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:31:01 mikedup http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1212956742/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/forum/m-1212956742/#num1 New legislation to crack down on digital copyright infringement
by Sarah Schmidt
Canwest News Service
Published: Sunday, June 08, 2008

OTTAWA - The federal government's new copyright legislation is expected to take a hard line on the use of circumvention devices that could mean consumers are effectively locked out of digital content they have already purchased.

Lobbyists familiar with the bill, expected to be tabled this week, say those who want the prohibition of circumvention devices to get around digital security to be limited to people who crack locks on copyrighted material to make multiple copies and sell them for commercial profit will be disappointed.

And this broad approach could brand as lawbreakers consumers who use circumvention devices to copy legally purchased material, including music and movies, for personal use.

This includes any attempt to transfer music from a copy-protected CD to a computer or music player, crack a region-coded DVD or video game from Europe or Asia to play on their Canadian DVD player or console, or copy portions of electronic books.

While the new bill will likely be updated to make expressly legal the "time shifting" of television programs through widely used Personal Video Recorders, there will be a catch. The bill's anti-circumvention provisions could also mean that if broadcasters block the ability to digitally record certain shows through broadcast flags, consumers would not be able to get around that digital lock legally.

"There are real incentives for broadcasters to do just that," said Michael Geist, a digital copyright expert at the University of Ottawa. He cited a push by content owners to sell or stream their content online.

"It feels as if the Industry minister gives on one hand and takes away with the other, even on the issue of something like time shifting."

Industry Minister Jim Prentice was set to table the legislation last December, but pulled it at the last minute amid concerns the Canadian legislation too closely resembled the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, recognized as the toughest legislation worldwide. For example, the U.S. law makes all acts of circumvention an infringement unless subject to a specific exception.  

Meanwhile, sources say Internet service providers will get a reprieve in the new legislation, an area where Canada is expected to deviate from provisions under U.S law. The American legislation requires ISPs to block access to allegedly infringing material or remove it from their system when they receive a notification claiming infringement from a copyright holder or their agent.

The Entertainment Software Association of Canada lobbied the government for liability provisions to force ISPs to stop the download of infringing content and block pirated material from moving freely online using peer-to-peer technology.

But observers say absence of a U.S.-style "notice and takedown" system under Canadian copyright law could be meaningless if Canada signs on to the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), to be tabled next month at the G8 summit in Japan.

Details of the international deal, recently leaked on the Internet, could require ISPs to filter out pirated material, hand over the identities of customers accused of copyright infringement, and restrict the use of online privacy tools.

"ACTA threatens to undermine many of the liability provisions anyway if, internationally, we agree to new surveillance requirements for ISPs," said Geist.

Mark Hayes, a partner in the Intellectual Property Group at the law firm of Blake, Cassels & Graydon, has watched and participated in government consultations on copyright for the past eight years.

Drafting of the new legislation has been complicated by the fact that business groups are divided on the issue. On one side is a recent push by some corporate heavyhitters, under the banner of the Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright, to take a more measured approach to copyright than other business groups demanding tough amendments on behalf of copyright holders.

The coalition brings together the largest cable companies, broadcasters, retailers and Internet companies, including_Rogers Communications, Telus Inc., Google and Yahoo! Canada.

"This is one of the more difficult issues the government has had to deal with. It's not the traditional continuum where the government has the recording industry and motion picture industry on one end and some of the user groups at the other end," said Hayes.

All sides have hired politically connected lobbyists to make their case on Parliament Hill.

Barry Sookman, co-chair of the technology law group at the law firm McCarthy Tetrault and a lobbyist for the recording industry, said the polarized debate gives the mistaken impression that "if one side wins, the other side loses."

Paying artists and rewarding creators "that get something to market is somehow seen as bad for consumers. That's just wrong."

A POLLERA poll of 684 Canadian musicians and songwriters, released Friday, commissioned by Canadian music industry organizations in cooperation with the Ontario Media Development Corp., found 71 per cent of the musicians surveyed view unauthorized file sharing as threat to the music industry; 15 per cent said it was not a threat. The poll is considered accurate within 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

© Canwest News Service 2008]]> Sun, 8 Jun 2008 16:25:42 ronrob