Last Train From Austin

This being said in Googleland, and having the privacy options clearly enough spelled out for me that I even understood what I was checking off when opting in or out of this or that, there is some news today/yesterday about this issue that everyone should understand. Verizon got bitch slapped once again in a PA state court, where a judge said their practice of either mailing the opt-out cards to their wireless subscribers "stinks", since it rarely seems to happen, or when it does it's written in so much legal jargon that Atty Gen Holder would re-open GITMO just for their executives. I don't use them, so surfed on over to their website to view the thing for myself, only to be told that the "page unavailable" was Of Course, the one I wanted.

On the same issue, but regarding different carrier sources, The Free Press came out with a story called "The End Of The Internet" as relates to DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) that has been such a hoary problem for the big broadband boys Cox Comm and Comcast recently. The report seems to assign a bit more of a rant than a factual arguement to an issue thats been ongoing for years now, but not all that many people have been paying attention until we all found out how badly the NSA has been intruding into our interwebs. But it's certainly more than worth a read for anyone who's not schooled on the subject of net neutrality.

The last big and most interesting news this week was again, Cisco Systems in the slurping up San Francisco's Pure Digital, a 100 person 8 year old tech company that makes the very popular Flip videocam. Already it has captured about 1/5th of market share, putting right in direct competetion with Sony and the other heavyweights. For $588 Million in stock the company is seemingly a bargain. And since Cisco is going to most certainly have even more server market to divvy up, both Dell and HP are spinning off separate divisions to deal with it. And Rackspace Rackables launched itself into the fray, not that they weren't there already, but their edge is cutting power consumption by up to 25% by using the Intel Atom @320 per rack with it's own fan, and an onborard Ac-Dc power conversion. Makes this market more watchable by the day. Even Intel itself said that by the year 2011 nearly one quarter of it's chips would be used exclusively for the server market. Now just WHY didn't I buy Intel stock back when it was selling at $4.00?? Oh, right, busfare.

Very Cool New Things

Happy St Patricks Day Everyone!!! Way Cool new shit coming out of Austin Texas this week, if you're not a geek and musik freak, then you don't know about the SXSW (South By South West) Festival that been happening there every year for quite some time now. Every tech company every heard of is here, from IBM and Apple, to little known guys like Xiam. It's an impressive display of technology, for cloud computing and servers, and handheld mobile computing. Let me just give TODAY'S news and it's verrrry interesting.

First off, Cisco Systems has announced it's going to be entering the server market, using Intel's Xeon chipsets, which is a total departure for a company that's known for it's router business. Great for them, more competion for HP is a good thing. Next came Quallcom's announcement that it's partnership with Xiam is going to launch a new mobile carrier service, taking demographic info from GPS and API's and offering adverting based on where you are at any given time and place. So if you're like in say Seattle, and there's a concert there, it'll tell you. BUT, not to be out done now, Google has this Thursday launched it's own Latitude service, which basically does the same thing. Both of course raise privacy concerns, and if one company really succeeds, market dominance. I personally am creeped out by my carrier knowing where the hell I am at all times. Sounds just too Huxley to me.

Along with all that there is Google's attack on the the telecom's (which I just LOVE!!) called GoogleVoice. It could revolutionize what we all know of as phone service. It can handle multiple phone calls on one phone number, work, home, cell, whatever. It allows you to route all calls to a easy to use Voice Mail system, using the Interwebs to handle the calls, even having a voice transcription service that route to your laptop!!!! It puts it in direct competion with Skype, an eBay division, so there will be bloodshed. Again, there is that nagging privacy thing, but hell, I'm posting this through a Google service, so how much can I bitch about it. I actually think of my gmail. in-box as the SAFE one, the one where the spam filter actually works. I'm more than happy with it. Let them take on ATT and the rest now. Let the blood flow. The telecoms all sold out our privacy with the FICA rules, so let them all die!!!! (You wouldn't guess that I'm Irish by this rant would ya???lol)