Uncategorized

Author’s Note: This article was written in March 2010 about the original Verizon Droid. Droid fans, you are going to hate this article and, more importantly, you are going to want to write me a nasty emails telling me how “uneducated” I am about the Droid App Store and how there is an app that Continue Reading →

Last week I asked a simple question, What is broadband? The technical definition is easy, however defining broadband in terms of public policy is anything but. As you know, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 directed the FCC to submit a National Broadband Plan to Congress by February 17, 2010 that addresses broadband deployment, adoption, affordability, and the use of broadband to advance solutions to national priorities, including health care, education, energy, public safety, job creation, investment, and others. So, in the spirit of getting a Socratic dialog going, I am asking you to think about what the United States needs to do to be a digital super-power in the 21st century. Continue Reading →

Over the next few weeks, the FCC is going to ask people to weigh in on a very important topic: The National Broadband Plan. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 directed the FCC to submit a National Broadband Plan to Congress by February 17, 2010 that addresses broadband deployment, adoption, affordability, and the Continue Reading →

This week, FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin put some new spectrum up for auction. But there’s a catch. The winner will be required to provide free wireless broadband access to 50% of America within four years and, cover 95% of the country within 10.   First, I want to offer a tip of the cap to Continue Reading →

The crowd went wild as the first dot of glowing red light became visible from atop Stratton Mountain. It was the beginning of the traditional New Year’s Eve Torchlight Parade – about 100 ski instructors each holding a flare, skiing down the mountain in ever-larger synchronized S-turns. It was a truly beautiful sight. As they Continue Reading →

ACCORDING TO A LAWSUIT FILED by the record labels, XM Satellite Radio’s XM + MP3 service is causing “Massive Wholesale Infringement.”  Ooo… that sounds bad!  The suit, filed May 16, 2006, alleges that the service is an improperly licensed “download service.”  Ouch! Having come from the music business, I get a little insulted when businesspeople Continue Reading →

Mae West once said, “When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before.” So here’s something you can do over the weekend just for fun. Create a blog page with one of those inexpensive blogging services like blogger or typepad. Subscribe to a bunch of relevant RSS (Really Continue Reading →

By Lydia Loizides, Emmy Advanced Media Vice Chair – Research   Imagine if you will capex of $200 million for every 5 million cable subscribers every two years.  Internalize that hard-disc storage, while inexpensive to purchase is expensive to deploy and maintain.  Think about this statement, “DVR is a training ground for an head-end driven, Continue Reading →

Remember Razzles?  Back when I was a kid (when the Earth was cooling), they had a wonderful advertising campaign that asked the question: “…is it a gum or a candy?” Razzles were truly unusual.  They were a bizarre cross between a sucking candy and chewing gum.  Nobody knew how to describe them, so the advertising Continue Reading →

There’s an interesting article on CNET’s news.com entitled, TiVo looks for an edge.  It’s fairly non-technical, but unless you are a Java developer, you won’t get too excited.  The author posits that there is a trend afoot to turn TiVo set-top boxes into media hubs.  TiVo is built upon the Linux operating system and, those Continue Reading →