Not the freshest news in the world, but I found it interesting when I discovered today that that Ask.com offers a service called AskEraser which allows users to use its service anonymously. That’s right, no longer do you have to be tracked by the Googleplex to search the net–the search isn’t half-bad either for all but the most esoteric topics.
Google has similar privacy features, but it’s a bit harder to use it–and many other search engines–totally anonymously. Obviously Ask.com is adopting a strategy of differentiation, rather than head-on competition, to beat the monolith of Mountain View.
In other search news, I was surprised to learn that AltaVista still exists (who has used this since 1998?) and I was even more surprised to learn that they offer a really cool search tool. Any search can bring up related MP3s if the “MP3/Audio” tab is clicked. It also brings up .ram and .ra files, but who would want to listen to those? This is yet another example of cool things happening in search that help to keep the search market competitive.
Tyler Cowen’s New York Times piece on health care reform.
Which brings me to the topic of Deer Hunting With Jesus, which in its later chapters touches on the troubles of the health care system. This book has gotten a good bit of attention in liberal circles.
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[Disclaimer: When a lawyer writes about economics, things can go dreadfully wrong. My terminology may be way off the mark – and maybe my thinking too. I welcome constructive corrections in the comments.]
Harvard University’s Samuel W. Morris University Professor of Economics Dale Jorgensen kicked off this morning’s session of the PFF Aspen Summit with a talk entitled Whatever Happened to the New Economy? [ppt here – Shane Tews, reading over my shoulder, wants me to mention the pretty colors!] In it, he examined both growth in the IT sector and growth in other economic sectors thanks to their adoption of IT. One of the delights of IT is that innovation in this area propagates out across the economy, magnifying the benefits to society.
I was interested in a slide he put up showing the “Relative Prices of Computers, Communications, Semiconductors, and Software and Computer Services Industry Output, 1960-2005,” slide seven in the PowerPoint. Each area showed consistent decline in price over this period, except Software and Computer Services, which has remained essentially flat.
I was curious about whether and how open source software was measured in Professor Jorgensen’s data, so I asked him during the break whether it was.
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If Eddie Vedder sat stone silent for 30 seconds, everyone would know that he hated George Bush. Eddie Vedder is hate for George Bush. He is the Jeremy to George Bush’s recess lady. Bleeping out Eddie Vedder’s criticisms of George Bush is censorship in the same way umbrellas censor the sun.
But maybe reheating the tempest in a teapot about some AT&T-owned site bleeping some political comments from a big rock star is a good way to while away the August doldrums.
Jon Stokes at Ars has penned a little fantasy about how this Pearl Jam/AT&T ‘censorship’ thing – the most discussed, widely available, and obvious censored information ever! – may bring ‘net neutrality regulation back to life.
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Over the last two years, San Francisco has been in negotiations with Earthlink who, in partnership with Google, has had plans to build a Wi-Fi “cloud” over the 47 sq. mile geek-infested city. The goal, set out in 2005, was to blanket the city with 1,500 wireless hot-spots which would be accessible free of charge, supported by ads from Google. For those who wanted faster, ad-free service, a subscription fee could be paid.
Now rumors are circulating that Earthlink is pulling out of the deal, while the San Fran government is moving forward with a non-binding referendum in September that will presumably decide the fate of this boondoggle.
But San Franciscans needn’t worry. According to a 2005 paper by Steven Titch of the Heartland Institute the number of San Fran hot-spots that year was 396 (making it the #1 Wi-Fi city in the country). The latest jiwire.com numbers show that number is now over 800. It seems that hot-spots are following Moore’s law and doubling in 2 years!
With over 800 public hot-spots (halfway to Earthlink’s goal) already covering this 47 square mile area, why should the city give away special privileges to Earthlink for a city-wide build-out? The competitive marketplace is already taking care of spreading the wireless love around the city. Why not open up the city to more competition by easing right of way access, eliminating or cutting taxes associated with Wi-Fi installation, and opening exclusive franchising? Rather than looking backward and modeling themselves after past state-run follies, cities could take a leading role in increasing competition.
There’s enormous interplay between the policy landscape and people’s expectations. Easy to forget, because expectations are an awful lot like assumptions… taken for granted.
DRMWatch reports on two new surveys finding that consumers are more accepting of DRM.
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I agree with Tim that open networks are great and likely preferable in most situations, but to say that open networks simply “tend to be better than closed networks” doesn’t make sense.
This is akin to saying that copper is more efficient than iron. This begs the question. More efficient at what? Copper is more efficient than iron in some applications like conduction of electricity, but it’s a much less efficient armor plating. Ends dictate the standard by which we judge efficiency, otherwise efficiency is meaningless.
That said, not all networks are built for the same ends. While the Internet is an undisputed engine of growth and innovation, it’s not the only model that EVER makes sense. Closed or limited networks can also have value because Metcalfe’s Law–which states that a network’s utility increases in proportion to the square of the number of members–is not the only factor in determining network worth, despite being a very strong factor.
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With the death of the last year’s video franchising-Net neutrality bill, Democrats have now firmly taken the reins on telecommunications policy in Congress. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii., has legislation designed to map out the availability of broadband, or high-speed Internet connections, in the United States, and it passed out of committee on July 19. Now, this week, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., announced an online effort to write national broadband strategy legislation. He will joined by several telecommunications and Internet experts in open-comment blogging sessions for four nights from July 24 – 27 at OpenLeft.com. Durbin says he will be crafting legislation based on the input he gets during those sessions. He will then post drafts of that legislation online for more feedback before filing it as a bill.
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So went the headline on Drudge. The article itself says:
Officials initially expressed concern after discovering that Besai’s house is located along a flight path for Newark Liberty International Airport. They later learned that used, inoperable AT-4 tubes are sold to the public through military surplus Web sites and other outlets.
It might as well have been used army boots – but the media had you thinking terrorism and downed planes, didn’t they! Gotcha!
Reporting like this is part of the reason why mass surveillance and national ID cards have currency in today’s political debate.
From time to time concern has erupted over the tendency of P2P filesharing software to “share” user files and directories that the user would not want shared–excel files, for example. Identity thieves were known to be mining shared files for social security numbers. Software distributors have several times denied that this continues to be a problem. Apparently that is not so. A new report from the Copyright Office shows that the problem is very much much a current one, and that filesharing software continues to default to settings that share much much more rather than less, sometimes covering the default with deceptive screen displays. TheHouse Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has taken an interest.
Privacy advocates, so far, have not; buy in too far to “business is bad” ideology (ironically perpetrated by Hollywood) and one ends up not being able to see what is right in front of one’s face.
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The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.