Larrys Page’s take on white space on capital hill

Google co-founder Larry Page says the time for delays has passed: he wants the Federal Communications Commission to open up fallow “white space” in the TV broadcast spectrum for unlicensed use, and to do it before November’s presidential election. Page, who spoke at a Capitol Hill event Wednesday, blasted incumbent broadcasters for lobbying “against the public interest” to block access to the unlicensed spectrum. Calling claims of potential interference with existing broadcast stations “garbage” and “despicable,” Page charged that FCC field tests this summer had been “rigged” against spectrum-sensing technology that’s designed to enable exploitation of white space.

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The event, sponsored by the Wireless Innovation Alliance, highlighted how fierce the battle between white-space advocates and incumbent broadcasters has become. Wednesday also saw the release of a statement from the National Association of Broadcasters that attacked Google’s pro–white space petition, which Page said has attracted some 16,000 signatories to date. The NAB argued it gives short shrift to interference concerns, but Page dismissed the interference argument as a red herring deployed by incumbents anxious to stifle competition. “It’s just garbage,” said Page, “It’s not true.”

Brandishing one of the freshly-unveiled Android phones for emphasis, Page argued that the benefits of increasingly ubiquitous WiFi technology—he estimated that a billion WiFi-enabled devices would be produced this year— stemmed from the deregulation of “a slice of junky spectrum thought to be good only for garage door openers.” He called the 2.4 GHz band used by WiFi devices, “the worst chunk of spectrum you could possibly use” due to its limited range, tendency to be blocked by walls, and unsuitability for bandwidth-intensive applications like streaming HDTV. Given the success of WiFi, said Page, “why we’re debating whether we need a little more unlicensed spectrum is beyond me.”

With the United States falling to 15th place in broadband penetration among developed nations, Page lamented that all the “static” on interstitial bands represented a “wasted resource.” There are, said Page “a billion devices that aren’t being produced today because the FCC has not acted.”

But his harshest words were reserved for the broadcasters, who he faulted for stalling the exploitation of white spaces, and who he said, “all benefit directly [from the status quo] against the public interest.”

read more here http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080926-page-blasts-whitespace-fud-on-capitol-hill.html

Research is in ! Narcissists are drawn to facebook

A team of researchers from the University of Georgia has come to a conclusion that will undoubtedly turn the tech world on its side (ha): if you use Facebook to promote your lovely self, it shows through. Narcissists, or those psychologically defined as “excessively egotistical,” will inflate their profiles on the social network with more photos, massive friends lists, and packed activity feeds.

As we used to say on the playground in third grade, duh.

“We found that people who are narcissistic use Facebook in a self-promoting way that can be identified by others,” study leader and Ph.D. student Laura Buffardi said in a Live Science article about the study. Past research back in the dinosaur days of the Web had revealed similar conclusions about narcissists and personal Web pages. Imagine how hard it was to self-promote when you had to know how to use HTML to turn the background of your personal homepage pink!

In order to conduct the study, untrained observers were shown Facebook profiles and asked to identify which ones belonged to people who are classified as narcissists. The narcissists’ profiles were easy to pick out, the researchers noted.

The report is published in October’s issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin academic journal.

“Narcissists might initially be seen as charming, but they end up using people for their own advantage,” study co-author W. Keith Campbell said to Live Science. “They hurt the people around them and they hurt themselves in the long run.”

So it looks like now the prolific Internet chatter about oversharers, bloggy self-promoters, and “wantrepreneurs” now has some academic basis.

Visas applications for googles android

Visa will enable Android users to get near-real-time alerts on card activity, as well as get discounts and directions to merchants.

By Marin Perez
InformationWeek
September 26, 2008 03:16 PM

Visa this week announced it will develop financial service applications for Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s Android platform.The application will let Chase Visa cardholders receive notifications on their Android-powered phones about transaction activities on their account, get discount offers from merchants, and use the built-in location-based technology to find nearby ATMs or stores.

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The company said the applications will be available by the end of the year and will eventually be offered to other types of Visa accounts. Additionally, the company is working on an Android app that will enable mobile payment in retail locations or over wireless networks.The announcement comes a few days after T-Mobile, Google, and HTC unveiled the first Android-powered handset, the G1. Part of the appeal of the G1 and the Android platform is the amount of mobile apps expected to populate the Android Market.

“Through this effort, U.S. consumers will, for the first time, be able to download Visa mobile service applications directly to their handsets,” said Elizabeth Buse, Visa’s global head of products, in a statement.

Meantime, Visa rival MasterCard said it is continuing to do its due diligence around the latest mobile device innovations.

Simon Pugh, head of MasterCard’s global mobile payment strategy, said because Android’s an open platform, particular attention to security would have to be paid for any financial service app created.

“The way to make mobile payment compelling is to make it on a wide array of different platforms, including Android, iPhone, Java, Brew and more,” Pugh said. “Asking customers to switch their phones or subscriptions is a real challenge, and we’re aiming to offer our services on the broadest array of technologies as possible.”

Microsoft yahoo merger talks/rumors

After watching the demise of U.S. capitalism in the last couple of weeks, nothing shocks me any more. So I’m the last person to dismiss the veracity of M&A rumors one might ordinarily classify in the “No way, Jose” category.

So it is that the latest buzz centers on a post from Matt Marshall at VentureBeat, who reports renewed rumblings of a Microsoft-Yahoo marriage–but this time with a twist: the deal would follow Yahoo’s acquisition of AOL.

But here’s why it makes sense. Increasingly, word is that Google is going to have trouble upholding its advertising deal with Yahoo, because antitrust regulators are concerned about the market dominance the deal gives to Google and there’s a very strong chance they’ll reject it…That would make Yahoo even more desperate to do a deal with another company.

As a dear college professor of mine used to say, yes, but. Yes, Yahoo conceivably would want to do another advertising deal. But would it be that keen on going all the way with Microsoft? I’m not sure there’s much ardor on the Yahoo side. After four months of foreplay and no consummation, both sides were left hot and very bothered.

That’s not to say they don’t still have a yen for each other. A lot’s going to depend on how far south the Internet advertising business falls. Earlier today, an analyst with Collins Stewart put out a note arguing that Yahoo’s “fundamentals are deteriorating.” Yahoo earlier in the week gave the world its first public viewing of the company’s new APT ad platform. Jerry Yang and Sue Decker still want to prove the naysayers wrong.

The wild card is the wild man on Yahoo’s board. Now that Carl Icahn’s on the inside, thanks to his campaign to win board representation, what’s to stop him if the Justice Department puts the kibosh on the proposed Yahoo-Google ad arrangement? If the DOJ kills the Google deal, Icahn can go to the mattresses again–this time as a oh so respectable insider.

Apples Success Steve Ballmer

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer, who’s watched his company’s PC business come under immense pressure from Apple, used a forum this week to discount the Mac maker’s potential for future share gains and designate its mobile phone business as a doomed initiative that will “lose out” in the long run.

Microsoft aims at Apple integration

In July, Ballmer issued a widely publicized email to employees acknowledging the looming threat presented by Apple, in which he outlined a cause of action that, among other things, suggested Microsoft follow the example set forth by its rival in providing the same “narrow but complete” experience to its customers going forward.

Among the changes he proposed were a shift in relations with Microsoft hardware vendors designed to mimic the experience offered by Apple’s tightly-controlled Mac platform. Likewise, he called for a similar approach in the mobile phone arena, vouching to create “great end-to-end experiences” akin to that of Apple’s closed ecosystem, where it maintains tight control of nearly every aspect of a product’s design.

Ballmer’s 180 on integration

Ballmer was quick to criticize those same strategies during a dinner at the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley this week. He said Nokia, Research in Motion and Apple will all lose out as the market expands over the next five years, because they control their own proprietary software, which is then tied too closely to their own hardware.

Today, Nokia leads the worldwide smartphone market with a 30 percent share. “If you want to reach more than that, you have to separate the hardware and software in the platform,” he said, suggesting that the same strategy that helped Microsoft dominate the PC market will inevitably win out in the mobile space as well.

Of those mobile platforms left standing and battling for the biggest piece of the pie will be the open source Symbian OS, mobile versions of Linux, and his very own Windows Mobile, Ballmer claimed.

The market indicates otherwise

According to mobile market tracker Canalys however, it has been Microsoft’s Windows Mobile share of the market that has slid precipitously, falling from 23% in the first quarter of 2004 to 18% the next year, and 12% in 2006, where it remained through 2007. In the fourth quarter of 2007, Apple grabbed 7% of the worldwide smartphone share, despite being limited to one model and primarily one provider in one country. It’s expected that Apple will match or overshadow Windows Mobile sales worldwide this year, and the iPhone has already trounced Windows Mobile in the US and as a browsing platform.

Symbian’s smartphone platform has similarly fallen from a commanding 72.8% lead share in late 2006 to today’s 55% share under the assault of integrated phones including RIM’s BlackBerry, Apple’s iPhone, and Motorola’s closed Linux phones sold in Asia. Symbian partner Sony Ericsson is struggling with weak sales, and Symbian itself reported earlier this month that revenues had tumbled 14% as its software royalty payments per phone continued to fall. Nokia is buying out its Symbian partners to take the platform open source for the very reason that there is little business model left in selling the phone software.

Add in Google’s free Android platform, and Microsoft is left as the last vendor trying to sell a commercial software platform for smartphones. This has led many observers to expect that Microsoft would attempt to release its own ‘Zune phone’ model, but the company has said no such product is the works, and instead has pointed to the release of Windows Mobile 7 late next year.

Ballmer dismisses the iPhone in 2007 while touting Windows Mobile

Microsoft expects Mac to do as poorly as iPhone

Ballmer similarly argued that Apple will fail to see further Mac share gains or make strides in the enterprise market because it won’t license the Mac OS to third-party hardware vendors.

“Apple’s a good company, I won’t take anything away from them, but they have a certain kind of strategy,” Ballmer said. “They believe in putting the hardware and software together, they don’t believe in letting other people make it.”

“I’m not saying there isn’t a threat” he added. But if we “do our jobs right, there’s really no reason Apple should get any footprint in the enterprise.”

Just a month ago, Benjamin Gray of Forrester Research pointed out that the Mac had taken 4.5% of the enterprise market in June, despite Apple’s apparent lack of any targeted efforts to push its systems. Microsoft’s Windows Vista, a year and a half after launch, had still only reached 8.8% deployment in the enterprise. That was far short of Microsoft’s original goal of 20% Vista adoption by the end of 2007.

T-mobiles New Phone – G1 – Pictures

Sizing Up the G1

T-Mobile this week unveiled the first phone to use the open-source Android operating system developed by Google and its partners. The G1, based on HTC’s Dream handset, will be available in the United States starting October 22.

The T-Mobile G1 design is similar to that of the iPhone, but some differences distinguish the two. The G1 is bulkier than the iPhone, nearly 30 percent thicker, and almost 20 percent heavier. Nevertheless, it’s a bit narrower than the iPhone and comes with a 320-by-480 touch screen. Below the screen, the bottom juts out slightly, with five buttons and a small BlackBerry-like trackball to aid screen navigation.

Read More Here http://www.pcworld.com/article/151448/tmobiles_g1_in_pictures.html