A Busy Day on the Hill October 29, 2007
Posted by ianmartinez in : General , add a commentTomorrow’s Hill Markup Schedule is going to be hectic for the throngs of rabid tech and telecom legislation fans.
At 2 p.m. the House Energy & Commerce Committee will mark up, among several other bills, HR-3403, Rep. Gordon’s 911 Modernization and Safety Act of 2007 and an amended version of HR-3919, Chmn. Markey’s Broadband Census of America Act of 2007. As Cisco points out, a comprehensive broadband deployment map is long overdue, and Markey seems to agree.
At 2:30 the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee will mark up S-1853, the Community Broadband Act of 2007. This speaks to municipal broadband networks, and local governments’ ability to decide on their own terms whether a municipal network is right for them.
And then there’s the pending Internet Tax renewal. It looks like this Congress really does take its role as a high-tech Congress seriously. Hopefully they’ll keep the ball rolling.
Save This Page
Google
Yahoo MyWeb
A Standard-Setting Career October 25, 2007
Posted by Grant Seiffert in : General, Standards , add a commentWe talk a lot in this industry about investment, about innovation and regulation and other political issues. In hopeful moments we speak of connecting rural Americans and the people of developing nations to a high-speed, global information network. In anxious moments we talk about bandwidth limitations and technological neutrality.
There are so many separate ways to look at our industry, so many different sectors and components that drive the larger whole. The ICT economy, as a microcosm of the world economy, is so multifaceted it almost defies analysis.
There’s one facet of the industry so important nothing else could go on without it, yet it very rarely gets any attention. That’s standards and the process of standards-setting that goes on every day, not only in our industry but in every corner of the global developed economy — from construction to plastics to telecom to environmental compliance.
In a sense, the work of the standards sector — from large, accredited international bodies at the macro level to the individuals who volunteer their time and energy at the micro level — is like oxygen to the economy. No one really notices when air is plentiful, but we couldn’t live without it. Standards are the same — while most of the world’s manufacturing, public safety, and even service sectors hum along blissfully unaware of their presence, consensus standards continue to support those sectors’ very existence.
(more…)
Save This Page
Google
Yahoo MyWeb
Monday Blog Roundup October 22, 2007
Posted by ianmartinez in : General , add a commentI love the way TechCrunch consistently tracks startup content providers with an eye to their market viability and their utility (and “cool factor” for that matter) in the consumer market. None of the companies they feature in and of themselves is necessarily the next big thing, or even a big story. But if you want to stay in the loop on these things, do it through TechCrunch.
Keep your eyes on this legislation, brought to you courtesy of Tech Daily Dose, which sets about cushioning the blow to any workers displaced by international trade. TDD’s Aliya Sternstein details various reactions in the tech community, which run the gamut.
Oh man. The 463 on Lou Dobbs. Not taking sides here: just a highly amusing flogging.
When tech news is slow, apparently, stories just get made up — via Engadget. Worth noting that the ongoing coverage of the iPhone phenomenon has revealed some hard-core self loathing in the ICT pundit community (’real loser,’ etc.).
Save This Page
Google
Yahoo MyWeb
Conferring in a Changing Landscape October 19, 2007
Posted by Grant Seiffert in : General , add a commentLast week I had the pleasure to be a panelist and an attendee at the Telephony LIVE summit in Dallas. As a conference focusing on turning cutting-edge technology into profits, Telephony LIVE was also a unique opportunity to join several TIA member companies in exploring the latest trends in our industry, in both the technology and business realms. In a sense, it seemed that the show’s main theme was sharing and learning that kind of information.
As ICT technology continues to migrate to IP, as speed and capacity increase – and the challenge of meeting the growing demand for bandwidth increases, as well – there’s a new focus on the end user. Each vendor wants to be the first into new product markets and service niches and truly adopt the right business model. Each wants to reach the customer in an efficient, effective way. There are countless opportunities in this respect, but in such a competitive, convergent market, also countless questions.
(more…)
Save This Page
Google
Yahoo MyWeb
More Investment. Too Much? October 17, 2007
Posted by ianmartinez in : Trends, What's New? , add a commentI noticed an interesting number of items in the media today, new and old, that, taken individually, likely wouldn’t be all that significant. But together, they resonated.
Today’s New York Times says tech investors may be showing signs of irrational exuberance and overvaluing startups.
Consider Facebook, the popular but financially unproven social network, which is reportedly being valued by investors at up to $15 billion. That is nearly half the value of Yahoo, a company with 38 times the number of employees and, based on estimates of Facebook’s income, 32 times the revenue.
Google, which recently surged past $600 a share, is now worth more than I.B.M., a company with eight times the revenue.
More broadly, Internet start-ups are drawing investment based on their ability to build an audience, not bring in revenue — the very alchemy that many say led to the inflation and bursting of the dot-com bubble.
It’s tough language, though there’s no evidence we need to “sell high” just yet. But in light what the early part of this decade saw in tech and telecom, it’s almost worth note.
(more…)
Save This Page
Google
Yahoo MyWeb
That’s TERAbytes October 15, 2007
Posted by ianmartinez in : General, Trends, What's New? , add a commentIan drools.
A nuts-and-bolts explanation by c|net:
With the new, elegantly named current perpendicular-to-the-plane giant magneto-resistive heads (CPP-GMR heads to you laypeople), drive makers will be able to come out with 4 terabyte drives in 2011 and/or 1 terabyte notebook drives.
The CPP-GMR drive essentially changes the structure of drive heads. Current drives come with a tunnel magnetoresistance head. In these, an insulating layer sits between two magnetic layers. Electrons can tunnel through the layer. Precisely controlling the tunneling ultimately results in the 1s and 0s of data.
Ones and zeros indeed. This isn’t stopping anytime soon.
Save This Page
Google
Yahoo MyWeb