700 MHz auction

Much (virtual) ink has been spilled regarding next years auction of the 700MHz band (much of which took place during my hiatus from blogging earlier this year). At the encouragement of new potential auction participants (like Google), the FCC adopted some new rules. According to this item from Ars Technica (and which has been reported elsewhere), Verizon is now appealing the FCC's decision. This could delay the auctions as the Appeals Court decides on the matter. Stay tuned ...

Micropayments and Adblock

There have been a number of posts recently like this one was relevant to the subject of micropayments, which I discussed earlier. In that item, one argument was that web site advertisements amount to a form of micropayment for content that was not expected by industry analysts. The use of the Adblock extension has resulted in a loss of revenue for websites that have relied on advertisement (see this, for example).

It seems as though this user-controlled technology may force major changes in how micropayments have been accomplished. How radical do you think the Adblock-related changes in Internet-content delivery will be? Do you forsee a kind of technology "arms race" in which content providers try to subvert the Adblock technology?

Walled gardens and the telecom industry

There is an interesting juxtaposition between this article and the articles referred to in this earlier item on this blog.

The previous post discussed Apple's possible desire (or not?) to build a wireless infrastructure. The rationale for this is the desire on their part to completely control the user experience, as the company does through its iTunes/iPod combination and in the hardware/software bundling of its Macintosh platform (see this item for more). Doing this, in essence, creates a "walled garden" of a sort ... a space in which user activities are controlled (at least to some extent) by the service provider. While this enables the development of a peerless user experience, it also provides many avenues for the service provider to profit.

Another related thought ... some of the motivation behind the "wireless Carterfone" is to eliminate these "walled gardens". Is regulation necessary? Should Apple be discouraged from building one? Should government have anything to do with this whatsoever? If carriers are eliminating them anyway (according to the article), is "wireless Carterfone" dead?

More generally, which direction do you think the industry will go? Is Apple swimming upstream by wanting to move in this direction while the rest of the industry is moving away from this direction? Who is the visionary?

Apple and the spectrum auctions

There have been numerous rumors that Apple will bid on spectrum in the upcoming auctions (see this, for example). In this article, Brian Caulfield of Forbes argues that this speculation doesn't make sense for Apple.

How would Apple's entry change the dynamics of the wireless industry?

History of technology: Thin clients

I enjoy technology history, so this article in the NY Times caught my eye. You can also relate the quote below to my previous post on micropayments ...

In the world of information technology, the future often arrives as predicted but rarely on time. The big things that ignite new markets and change people’s behavior, like the personal computer and the Internet, are actually collections of related technologies rather than single breakthroughs — symphonies rather than solo performances.

The PC revolution was the crest of a long wave of advances in chip design and software. The Internet, through decades of incubation, exploded only after millions of people began using newly affordable PCs with faster communication links and souped-up browsers.

The Internet shook the business world, but about a decade later than forecast. A similarly late though potentially revolutionary trend may finally be getting its day.

A decade ago, the network computer — also called the thin-client computer — was promoted as a replacement for personal computers and desktop software. Thin clients have no hard drives to store desktop applications, like Microsoft’s Word or Excel, permanently. The leading supporters of the inexpensive, terminal-style machines were Microsoft’s archrivals at Oracle and Sun Microsystems.

The market never took off in the 1990s. But the vision of a decade ago now seems within reach. Years of progress in hardware, software and networking have enabled thin computers to mimic the user experience of PCs for most tasks. Evidence that thin computing may really be catching on came in July, when Hewlett-Packard announced it would buy Neoware, a thin-client maker. The $214 million deal sent a message: thin-client computing was a market that could not be ignored.