Dan's New Blog

My first post in 3 weeks. I’m not suffering from writer’s block. I’ve gone through this before.

This time I was mute because I realized that the only tech topics anyone really wants to talk about any more — and I’m talking about myself here, too — are the iPhone/iPad and Facebook/Twitter. These are not central to legal research.  They’re designed for social networking, not real work. (However I have to admit here that I borrowed a colleague’s iPad this week to install the free Fastcase app. I thought it would be lame, compared to the desktop version, but I was wrong. It made a compelling case for buying an iPad.)

Anyway, I spent much of August coming up with a new presentation, “Search is Still the Killer App”, which I’m presenting at the Phila Bar next week. It felt good to concentrate on search, but I couldn’t help wondering if I was experiencing the first stages of a terminal case of Cranky Old Fart Librarianitis. But then I read this article’s take on the new Google Instant search feature. I’ll boil it down to one pity quote:

“Google needs to stop trying to be Facebook and focus on extending and investing in what makes Google successful: The Algorithm.”

And the faster they get that, the less chance I have of my COFL getting any worse.

Today Google and Verizon provided some clarity wrt their views on net neutrality. Like I said earlier, it’s a quid pro quo. In exchange for net neutrality in the wired, non-mobile world:

“So, in addition to not blocking or degrading of Internet content and applications, wireline broadband providers also could not favor particular Internet traffic over other traffic.”

Google advocates letting Verizon manage its network bandwidth any way it wants:

“In recognition of the still-nascent nature of the wireless broadband marketplace, under this proposal we would not now apply most of the wireline principles to wireless, except for the transparency requirement.”

I can live with this.

I’m trying to parse the Google-Verizon deal which, as Om Malik says, appears to be a knife in the back of net neutrality.  The NY Times started it all off by announcing that:

“Google and Verizon, two leading players in Internet service and content, are nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege. The charges could be paid by companies, like YouTube, owned by Google, for example, to Verizon, one of the nation’s leading Internet service providers, to ensure that its content received priority as it made its way to consumers. The agreement could eventually lead to higher charges for Internet users.”

This raises several questions. If Google is so concerned about traffic to YouTube being throttled back, why haven’t they also cut a deal with Comcast? (You may remember that back in April the DC Circuit Court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission didn’t have the authority to tell Comcast how to manage its bandwidth.) And why is YouTube traffic an issue now? Is YouTube a red herring — is this all really about bandwidth for, say, Google Music?

Very confusing.

Both Google and Verizon said uh-uh.  Here’s Google’s Public Policy Twitter feed:

“@NYTimes is wrong. We’ve not had any convos with VZN about paying for carriage of our traffic. We remain committed to an open internet.”

And Verizon’s PolicyBlog:

“The NYT article  regarding conversations between Google and Verizon is mistaken.  It fundamentally misunderstands our purpose. As we said in our earlier FCC filing, our goal is an Internet policy framework that ensures openness and accountability, and incorporates specific FCC authority, while maintaining investment and innovation. To suggest this is a business arrangement between our companies is entirely incorrect.”

(If someone could read between the lines in all that and explain the nuances to me, it would be much appreciated.) Anyway, now the other shoe has dropped. The Washington Post reports that the FCC-hosted talks on a national broadband policy have collapsed:

“Under criticism for its handing of closed-door discussions with certain companies on broadband policy, the Federal Communications Commission announced Thursday the meetings with Verizon, AT&T, Google and Skype were unsuccessful and that it would stop holding them. The announcement comes amid an apparent agreement between Verizon and Google on so-called net neutrality ground rules that would allow certain prioritization of Web sites on fixed wire networks and no rules on wireless networks. Sources familiar with the discussions at the FCC said reports Wednesday of a deal between Verizon and Google on net neutrality upset participants in the meeting, who were moving closer to agreement on stronger rules against blocking and slowing traffic on wireless and fixed-wire networks.”

So what gives? Has Google abandoned “Don’t Be Evil”? Again, I’m confused. But this story from Bloomberg makes a lot more sense to me:

“Verizon Communications Inc. and Google Inc. have struck their own accord on handling Internet traffic, as both participate in talks by U.S. officials on Web policy, two people briefed by the companies said. The compromise as described would restrict Verizon from selectively slowing Internet content that travels over its wires, but wouldn’t apply such limits to Internet use on mobile phones, according to the people, who spoke yesterday and asked not to be identified before an announcement. Verizon and Google have been adversaries over the issue, known as net neutrality. Verizon was among cable and phone companies saying they need leeway on the delivery of Web content to protect performance of their networks. Google led content providers and advocacy groups that say restrictions are required so communications companies don’t favor their own online offerings or those of partners that pay for higher speeds.”

See the difference? Verizon isn’t extorting money from Google. (“Nice little YouTube ya got here. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it.”) It’s actually a quid-pro-quo — Google preserves net neutrality while Verizon gets a free hand with its wireless traffic, which is much more lucrative.

At least that’s what it seems to me. I’m not naive, nor am I a Google fanboy. But who knows?

This chart says it all: AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo aren’t capturing eyeballs the way they used to. AOL’s share of people’s online time is down 6% over the past 4 years, Yahoo has lost 4% and Microsoft is at -2%. Over the same time period, Google is up 8% and Facebook 9%.

AOL knows what it wants to become when it grows up, but it’s still failing. Yahoo? It doesn’t appear to have a clue.

After a 3-month hiatus, Google has resurrected google.cn. It only offers music search and text translation, but does sport a big honking link to Google Hong Kong. Six of one, half a dozen of the other as far as I’m concerned, but TechCrunch says Google “flinched“.

The Supreme Court upheld the Fed Circuit in denying patent protection for the Bilski energy hedging business method, but they didn’t, as many people hoped, rule on business method patents as a whole. The NY Times says they stuck to the “middle ground“. (Amazon can finally exhale on this one.)

Dell sold almost 12 million computers from 2003-2005 that they knew were junk. The problem was bad capacitors on the motherboard. The Times says this epitomizes the “decline of one of America’s most celebrated and admired companies“.

The other big thing announced at Google’s I/O conference — other than Google TV, I mean — was Android 2.2, known as Froyo. (That’s short for “frozen yogurt”, btw. All Android releases are given a dessert code name. Don’t ask why.)

Anyway, Froyo will feature USB tethering, support for Flash — take that, Steve Jobs! — and over-the-air updates/streaming for apps and/or music files. Stuff that the iPhone doesn’t yet do, or do particularly well.

Sounds great. But I’ll never see it with the phone I’ve got now. I’m stuck at Donut. I’m hoping I can get to Eclair before December, when my contract is up and I can upgrade my T-Mobile G1. That’s what I get for being an early-adopter.

Yesterday Google introduced Google TV, which “combines the TV you know and love with the freedom and power of the Internet.”

It’s a lot like Apple TV or maybe Boxee, only better — so I’m told — so I don’t have to get into all the details.

Basically all this boils down to Google (a) worming its way onto your TV’s “desktop”, thus enhancing its ubiquity, and (b) shoving YouTube videos front-and-center on your TV, thus giving the monetization of the site a much-needed boost. (Hey, YouTube might break even this year.)

Do I need another box connected to my TV? No. And given how the digital switchover went for me, I don’t even want to try.

The NY Times is reporting that the “data protection supervisor for the city-state of Hamburg” — impressive job title! — has given Google a week to turn over the hard drive containing 600GB of data from unsecured wifi networks that the Google Street View cars inadvertently collected as they bopped around the city.

You may remember last month Google horrified the German federal commissioner for data protection when they admitted to collecting data from unsecured wifi networks. Last Friday they finally explained what happened:

“… we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-password-protected) WiFi networks, even though we never used that data in any Google products. However, we will typically have collected only fragments of payload data because: our cars are on the move; someone would need to be using the network as a car passed by; and our in-car WiFi equipment automatically changes channels roughly five times a second. In addition, we did not collect information traveling over secure, password-protected WiFi networks. So how did this happen? Quite simply, it was a mistake. In 2006 an engineer working on an experimental WiFi project wrote a piece of code that sampled all categories of publicly broadcast WiFi data. A year later, when our mobile team started a project to collect basic WiFi network data like SSID information and MAC addresses using Google’s Street View cars, they included that code in their software—although the project leaders did not want, and had no intention of using, payload data.”

With regard to that unwanted data, Google said that they are “currently reaching out to regulators in the relevant countries about how to quickly dispose of it.” Data captured in Ireland has already been destroyed.

But Johannes Caspar of Hamburg isn’t going to be so accomodating:

“Mr. Caspar, who is leading the government’s discussions with Google, said during an interview that ‘Up until now, all we have to go on at this point is what Google has told us that they have collected. But until we can inspect one of the hard drives ourselves, we will not know to what extent what kinds of data have actually been stored.’”

First it was Google. Back in January Steve Jobs called the Big G’s “Don’t Be Evil” corporate motto “bull****”. This was yet another episode in the two companies’ long and drawn-out parting of the ways. (Although a couple of months later Steve and Google CEO Eric Schmidt did meet publicly for coffee. Why do the pictures remind me of this?)

Today it was Adobe. Steve decided to “jot down some thoughts” about why Flash will never ever make it on Apple’s mobile devices:

“Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short … New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.”

Boom.

You have to hand it to Steve, though.  He’s all about equal-opportunity. You don’t have to be a big corporate competitor to get the Steve Jobs treatment — all you gotta do is “find” an iPhone and post it on the Web.

Last May I bought a netbook. It was cheap enough — under $300 — that I decided to run an experiment: I’d go without anti-virus software for a year and see if Google Chrome would live up to its reputation as the safest of all the browsers.

So last night I fired up AVG’s free Rescue CD on a bootable flash drive — is that an oxymoron? — and let it crank for about an hour.  The results? After 50 weeks of daily use at home, in hotels, and at 2 different colleges by me and 2 other family members, the netbook contained a grand total of 4 viruses. And they were spyware-type stuff. Nothing major, more like barnacles on a boat.

Now I realize that “4 viruses” means that Chrome isn’t perfect. And I confess that maybe I’m a bit less problematic than most users — I don’t visit online porn or gambling sites (although I did download music). But still, can you imagine the carnage if I used IE for a whole year without AV?

Based on my results, I’ve decided not to load AV software on the netbook.  I don’t need it to slow me down. It’s not worth giving up the 30 second boot and 15 second shutdown times I get by running free.