Category: Editorials

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Netflix to End “Network Congestion” Warnings Following Verizon Cease and Desist

netflix-logoNo company has been working harder to illustrate streaming performance on different ISP’s networks than Netflix, and they’ve collected years worth of data on which companies are actually living up to their “high speed” claims.

This month’s speed report from the video service is chock full of all kinds of inside baseball info on what the relationship is like between companies like Netflix and ISP’s like Verizon. Following a controversial deal in which Netflix agreed to pay Verizon for more stable streaming service, we’ve actually seen speeds on Verizon’s networks dip, with their FiOS service now slotting in behind two DSL carriers. What exactly is Netflix getting here for their “Fastlane” money?

netflix congestion warning

Starting out as a test platform, Netflix started broadcasting “congestion” warnings, alerting customers that Verizon’s network was having difficulty streaming high quality video. This prompted a cease and desist from Verizon, and Netflix countered with this letter.

To ensure that these customers get the level of service they pay you for, it is your responsibility to make sure your network, including your interconnection points, have sufficient capacity to accommodate the data requests made by those customers. To try to shift the blame to us for performance issues arising from interconnection congestion is like blaming drivers on a bridge for traffic jams when you’re the one who decided to leave three lanes closed during rush hour.

Continue reading “Netflix to End “Network Congestion” Warnings Following Verizon Cease and Desist”

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When Web “Myths” Become “Real” – Two Girls Stab Classmate Over Slenderman

slender-man-600This is sad, tragic, and horrific. My heart goes out to all of the families involved. I hope my comments regarding this situation don’t read as insensitive, but it’s also a fascinating example of our relationship with media.

By now you’ve likely seen the headlines that two twelve year old girls plotted to kill a classmate, stabbing the victim nineteen times. What wasn’t immediately clear was the motive for this heinous act. Today we’ve heard word that the two girls who committed this crime did so as a tribute to Slenderman.

sl-65For those unfamiliar, Slenderman is an internet scary story initially created as part of a photo editing contest on the Something Awful forums in 2009. Readers of the forum were impressed by this impossibly tall and thin figure wearing a suit, and plaguing children. Others quickly added to the fictional mythos. The popularity of the figure exploded, and early in the viral phase of sharing, many sites purported to have the “True Story” of this mysterious figure, adding to the reality of the creation. Some sites even went as far as creating historical backstories, linking Slenderman to ancient wood carvings and Dark Age superstitions.  Continue reading “When Web “Myths” Become “Real” – Two Girls Stab Classmate Over Slenderman”

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Sign Me Up. I’m Ready For Driverless Cars In California.

google self driving carThe open road. The freedom. The romance of wide open throttle on a long stretch of asphalt.

None of that exists in Los Angeles anymore.

Sure, on a holiday weekend at three in the morning you can let loose a little, but the normal condition for Los Angelinos is a bumper to bumper, stop and go, passive-aggressively, road ragey experience. You can’t live in the state for any length of time without witnessing the most common stories we all share. The jerks who skip the line of cars to merge at the last possible second. The jerks who cut you off while driving ten miles an hour slower than you were going. The INSANE number of people doing anything else instead of focusing on driving, even watching videos on tablets (actual pic from one of my commutes)… Continue reading “Sign Me Up. I’m Ready For Driverless Cars In California.”

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Let’s Speculate: What Will Apple Do With Beats Electronics?

dr dre jimmy iovine billboard beats audioI’m leaving this one up to you folks! The pundits are weighing in on the announcement that Apple will be snatching up the love child of Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine for $3.2 Billion. The general consensus? No one really knows why Apple is making this move now, or what they really stand to gain from it.

tim cook apple logoIt makes some sense following the announcement that the former head of the Nokia camera division was moving to Apple, that Cupertino is looking to make a bigger multimedia push for future devices, but if the Beats buyout is approved, it’ll mark Apple’s biggest acquisition in the company’s history.

Also, Beats recently bought out HTC’s stake in the company to fly solo. At the time they discussed diversifying the brand and moving into more professional audio solutions. An Apple buyout would seem to contradict those plans.

Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine Buy Beats Back From HTC

Drop me some comments below. What does Apple really stand to gain here? Does the Beats brand help restore some of Apple’s “cool factor”? Will consumers be more likely to consider Apple products if they come with Beat Audio?

Honestly, my readers out there are probably better informed than the pundits commenting on this story, so let’s speculate! Go nuts!

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Samsung, Apple, Lawsuits, and Consumer Fatigue

samsung appleBy now you’ve probably seen that a Californian Jury has handed down their decision in the most recent legal saga between Samsung and Apple. Who was the big winner?

Nobody.

Neither side really came out ahead. Sure Apple was awarded more money, but both sides walk away with a mere fraction of what they wanted. Apple claimed Samsung infringed on five patents covering covering functions such as slide-to-lock, universal searching, quick linking, automatic word correction and background syncing. They were asking for $2.2 Billion, and the jury awarded them $120 Million. Samsung claimed Apple had infringed two of its camera patents, one related to video compression and transmission, and asked for $6 Million. It was awarded $150,000. Continue reading “Samsung, Apple, Lawsuits, and Consumer Fatigue”

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Net Neutrality and Contacting the FCC (Before May 15th)

FCCThe FCC will be voting on May 15th to approve new rules which will essentially wreck the fair and neutral internet we all enjoy. We’ve detailed the proposal in another post, but the long and short of it is ISP’s are already allowed to degrade services as they see fit. If these new rules go into effect, ISP’s will be allowed to charge different rates to every online service. Those new added costs will likely be passed on to consumers, or might create a barrier too high for start ups to consider paying, ultimately punishing any service which becomes more popular than a carrier would like.

The announcement has sparked off a pretty visceral reaction from advocacy groups and the tech-ier folks out there. Enough noise has been made for the FCC to request comments be sent to a special email address set up specifically for this discussion: openinternet@fcc.gov.

Now the cynic in me would be afraid that email is essentially the digital equivalent of a “rectangular filing cabinet” (or rubbish bin) to keep all these complaints from filling up the important inboxes. In hedging our bets on messages actually making an impact, at least by sheer quantity, you can also reach out to the individual commissioners on the FCC by going to http://www.fcc.gov/contact-us. There you’ll also find an email for Chairman Tom Wheeler who proposed these new rules.

But maybe that’s not enough.  Continue reading “Net Neutrality and Contacting the FCC (Before May 15th)”

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OnePlus Smash Your Phone Contest: When PR Encourages Irresponsible Behavior

oneplus one smash your phoneWhen you’re a newcomer you’ve got to build buzz. OnePlus is waking into a very mature market, so they need to get people talking. They need those internet points and hashtags and Youtubes. Their hook however is borderline irresponsible.

The OnePlus One smartphone looks like it could be an attractive competitor. The specs are cutting edge, comparable to many flagship devices currently on the market, and people are already talking about the intro level price of $299. It would seem that’s not good enough though.

The first batch of 100 One phones will be filtered out to a select few contest winners. What’s the contest requirement? Smash your current high end phone, and you might be selected to be one of the first hundred.

Not just any phone will do either, the list is very specific limited to phones manufactured within the last two years. HTC Ones, Galaxy S3-5’s, LG G2’s, and high end Lumias. The current cream of the smartphone crop, all still functional and competitive handsets.

The messaging is clear if a bit mean-spirited:

“Look at all these folks ready to smash their own flagship phones for a CHANCE to get our phone. That means it’s desirable!”

Using customers’ own social media followers to spread videos, hope for a few viral hits, and a good chunk of their marketing is tackled for cheap.

It’s all in good fun right? Continue reading “OnePlus Smash Your Phone Contest: When PR Encourages Irresponsible Behavior”

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Please don’t buy this MicroUSB adapter for the Galaxy S5…

microusb adapterIn the past, we used to have to deal with the scourge of proprietary phone connectors. Buy a new phone, toss all your old accessories and re-buy cables and chargers. Then Mini-USB started catching on, and everything got a lot easier. Sure, the transition from Mini-USB to Micro-USB meant re-buying stuff, as did the iPhone switch from the old Dock Connector to the Lightning port, but you could better count on a number of people around you using the same accessories as you. It was an actual ecosystem.

Whenever something like a connector changes, people freak out, but the nice thing about the move from MicroUSB2 to MicroUSB3, is that you won’t need any adapters or new cables. The port INCLUDES a USB2 connection. It only adds a couple pins for additional speed and feature support. All of you old cables will still work, so that adapter shown at the top is pretty much useless. It’s a placebo. Please, don’t buy it.

galaxy s5 microusb3 port

If you need any confirmation, below is a video demo of using a MicroUSB2 Flash Drive adapter on the Galaxy S5’s MicroUSB3 port.

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