It is this untethered medium that is defining future trends in user behavior, sweeping away the legacy of interaction methods established for fixed computing scenarios, he argues. In other words, "touch" is emerging as the preferred interface for content consumption, though mice and keyboards still are required for content creation. But since most people primarily consume content, rather than create it, the change suggests a reason why tablet devices have proven they have a new niche in the computing devices market.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Mobile Now Meditates the Majority of Digital Experiences
T"he majority of the world's digital experiences now happen through mobile devices linked by wireless networks," says MEX founder Marek Pawlowski.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Networks are Difficult, Business Models Stressed, Net Neutrality Makes it Worse
Comcast’s David L. Cohen noted at his Brookings Institution Center for Technology Innovation speech that "the courts … the FCC … and the Congress [are] all valuable institutions filled with capable, conscientious people … but few of them [have] the background to work out consensus on what are essentially complicated technical issues.”
Cohen noted broadband policy is dominated by lawyers and lobbyists, not engineers who know how things really work: “No offense to anyone here,” he said. “I’m a lawyer and have done my share of politics. But that kind of experience doesn’t make me, or anybody else like me, an authority on the Internet."
Cohen noted broadband policy is dominated by lawyers and lobbyists, not engineers who know how things really work: “No offense to anyone here,” he said. “I’m a lawyer and have done my share of politics. But that kind of experience doesn’t make me, or anybody else like me, an authority on the Internet."
That is not a call for decision making by technocrats or engineers; simply an acknowledgement that network management is unavoidable when running a network that must take a statistical approach to usage. And all public networks are oversubscribed, intentionally.
That always means there is potential for some actual blocking of access or degradation of service, because no company can afford to build a large network that is engineered to support every conceivable level of demand.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Wallets don't Crash, Phones Do
Single points of failure always are troublesome, and especially troublesome when any application, device, tool or appliance is used in a "shared" mode. So digital wallets, keys and apps will, when widely used, start to cause new problems when the devices fail for any reason. Keyless door locks are great, unless your key fob has become inoperative. Then you revert to a good, old fashioned key.
We'll eventually discover issues of that sort if any when mobile phones start to assume additional roles in our lives, from payment mechanisms to remote controls of various types. Operating systems and applications crash. Just assume that will happen to any functions provided by the mobile as well. And have backup and redundancy: keys, your wallet and old-fashioned credit cards.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Back to Thin Clients, Again
"X as a Service" models may reduce the workstation to a dumb terminal more and more, we are hearing, again. Call them "thin clients," or "zero clients" or something else, the emergence of cloud computing and web-delivered software is pushing computing to a new architecture that is not a "back to the future" mainframe model, but some new form of highly-distributed, loosely-coupled model that often involves more "assembly" of applications and experiences than simple "invoke and use" models.
One example is each users' experience of "Facebook." My own assembled experience is different from that of every other user, even though we all use the core Facebook app.
For enterprises and business users, the new paradigm means much more concern about data security, availability and "vendor lock-in, though also providing greater ease of management and lower cost.
For communications service providers it means a potentially enhanced role in the ecosystem. For app providers it means faster development, lower selling and distribution costs. Every new business ecosystem requires genuine value for every participant in the ecosystem, and cloud computing is shaping up to be that sort of thing.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
4G Could Enable Different Mobile Packaging and Pricing, Verizon Says
When Clearwire launched its services, it suggested it would be able to offer different types of mobile pricing and packaging, including offers that did not rely on monthly subscriptions. Clearwire has done so, with some a la carte plans. But most observers might agree that Clearwire has not disrupted pricing or packaging quite so much as some might have hoped.
Now Verizon executives say they are taking a look at what they might do once the new Long Term Evolution network launches, and among the possible options being looked at are packages that resemble fixed-line broadband plans in some ways, such as charging different prices for plans that feature different typical speeds, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Another potential option: plans that blend speed and transferred megabytes in some way, possibly lower access speeds and bigger buckets of usage, or faster speed and a smaller bucket, for example.
Some of us would like to see the equivalent of broadband "family plans" where a number of devices could share a single broadband bucket, across devices, either "wireless only" or "wireless and fixed line." In a sense, that is how some people use personal 3G or 4G hotspots, for example. But those only work for one user or several users in close proximity. Families will need to use wireless and fixed-line services over a wider area.
read more here (subscription required)
Now Verizon executives say they are taking a look at what they might do once the new Long Term Evolution network launches, and among the possible options being looked at are packages that resemble fixed-line broadband plans in some ways, such as charging different prices for plans that feature different typical speeds, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Another potential option: plans that blend speed and transferred megabytes in some way, possibly lower access speeds and bigger buckets of usage, or faster speed and a smaller bucket, for example.
Some of us would like to see the equivalent of broadband "family plans" where a number of devices could share a single broadband bucket, across devices, either "wireless only" or "wireless and fixed line." In a sense, that is how some people use personal 3G or 4G hotspots, for example. But those only work for one user or several users in close proximity. Families will need to use wireless and fixed-line services over a wider area.
read more here (subscription required)
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
So Long as Consumers Are Informed, Bit Prioriization is Not a Problem
Consumers should be free to buy, and content providers and Internet access providers should be free to offer, services with varying levels of assured quality, says Ed Vaizey, U.K. Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries.
"The important thing is that ISPs and networks remain free to innovate," Veizy argues. "In doing so they may make mistakes and consumers should have the ability to make them pay for those mistakes."
In other words, the ban on any priorities applied to bits, which network neutrality advocates want, is not a good idea for the United Kingdom and its consumers and providers.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Video Subs Decline in Third Quarter
Beyond the impact of market share gains and losses among the contestants, it still appears that total subscriptions to multichannel video services fell for the second straight quarter, according to SNL Kagan.
Nobody can say for sure whether the trend is directly related to a sour economy and disruption of housing markets, of the sign of more-consequential change.
SNL Kagan estimates that U.S. cable operators shed about 741,000 basic video customers in the third quarter, the largest single quarterly dip for cable since 1980. Kagan estimated that cable operator market share dropped to 60.3 percent, compared to 62.9 percent in the third quarter of 2009.
Telephone companies added 476,000 customers in the third quarter. 6.4%, Telco market share is steadily rising, up from 4.7 percent in third-quarter 2009 to 6.4 percent in the third quarter of 2010.
Telephone companies added 476,000 customers in the third quarter. 6.4%, Telco market share is steadily rising, up from 4.7 percent in third-quarter 2009 to 6.4 percent in the third quarter of 2010.
The satellite video companies added a net 145,000 subscribers in the third quarter, growing share to 33.2 percent.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
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