According to the online magazine Techeye.net an ADSL modem/router is considered by a German court. The dispute is over if a user is allowed to install software that changes the ADSL modem's firewall settings. It was actually a battle between two companies, the company that makes the router and the company making software for the router. I think that this ruling has some extremely interesting implications.
First, by defining a router as a computer it opens the door for a HUGE number of devices to be defined as a computer. Most of us wouldn't think of a router as a computer. It's a switch, it has a very specific purpose of deciding which packet gets through to the network at a given time and to prevent congestion on the network. In this case, it has the additional function of pulling out the high speed data from the phone line as well. It does have a user interface, but it's typically restricted to a web browser. This is hardly something the average user would consider a computer. Which tells me something about the judge in the case - he understands technology and computing. The US and rest of Europe could use more judges like this.
Second, since a broad range of devices are now considered devices, at least in Germany, it could force companies to open up their hardware to user software manipulation. I see a few areas where I think this will cause major companies problems.
The first would be video game consoles. If a router is considered a computer there is no way that a company could argue that a video game console is not a computer. Consider the following, you are able to install software video games onto the console, you actually interact with an operating system, you are able to browse the internet and of course play games on the console. These are all things you are able to do on your PC. There are more restrictions on the console than the PC of course. Now, let's say a third party company wants to come along and create something that will allow you to increase the functionality of the software or the machine in someway. In Germany, the user should have the right to do that.
The second would be cell phones. It's pretty obvious that cellphones are computers and this ruling would just cement that. I think this will cause more problems for iOS than for Android. For two reasons, first Android already allows third party app stores onto the devices which increases the control of the end user over the computer. Second, Apple controls what software can be allowed into the app store thus controlling what a user is able to install on their computer. The German ruling basically says that a company cannot stop a user from installing software onto their computer if they want to install it. Apple and the App store are directly controlling what a user can and cannot install onto their device. I would not be surprised if this type of control is challenged in the German courts.
One other implications could be that as you own the computer user may be able to stop companies from remotely installing software onto their computer they don't want on there. For instance, in the US it's not uncommon for Verizon Wireless to push software out to specific devices without notifying you. You are giving implicit consent by using their networks. However, if the same thing happened to my PC from Comcast there would be a law suit. Since phones are in a weird quasi state of rights in the US there isn't the same sort of feelings. However, I believe as the gap between PC and phones close and the desire to control what goes on the phone and what doesn't increases there will be lawsuits over installing and deleting software from your computer.
Showing posts with label Smart Phones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Smart Phones. Show all posts
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Ubiquitous free high speed wireless: Computing
In my last two blogs, Government and Business, I've discussed some of the impacts on our society of ubiquitous high speed wireless internet. In this post I'll look at the future of the computing industry. I think that this industry will go one of two ways, or perhaps both at the same time. The first route is obvious and is already happening, the second route will probably begin as a backlash to the first route.
The obvious route is cloud computing. As I've said we're already going down this route. The best example of the speed of this transformation is the Amazon Kindle Fire (all three different links). Basically, we will be using less powerful, but still growing in abilities, equipment and pushing the more processor intensive applications out onto a server in the cloud. This will most likely be owned by some private organization. Amazon's Fire is a great example of this because it provides the ability to browse websites at a much faster rate than what's allowed under current network speeds. Even with high speed internet this may continue because it'll fit the website to your screen and make it even faster than over the high speed network.
However, many people are skeptical of cloud computing. There is a sense of a loss of ownership. You become locked in to a specific firm to provide the required services. End User license agreements change frequently and your true ownership of the data and information you place on their servers can change unexpectedly and in ways that aren't in the favor of the users. Additionally, it's been acknowledged by both Google and Microsoft that all data in their cloud servers are subject to the US Patriot Act. This raises privacy concerns for the EU and firms using cloud services.
I think that these concerns will drive another type of cloud computing. I think it'll be something like a personal cloud. It will be similar to working with both a desktop and a laptop at the same time and remoting into the desktop from the laptop, but it will be done seamlessly and transparently. The ownership of the data will be clearly yours and the power will effectively take a phone or low power table and turn it into a fully powered desktop computer. This way the cloud won't be out there and will be easily controlled by the end user. You don't have to worry about the Patriot Act or a company going under, changing rates and other issues like that.
Both of these changes will create disruptive changes within the computing industry. The Kindle Fire is on the cutting edge of this. I fully expect Amazon to create additional applications that will run on the Amazon cloud system. There's no reason not to expect this. It will shift how apps are developed. It will also change who is in the game of creating computers. Dell, for example, will continue to have a major hold over both servers and personal computers, however as we move away from laptops to tablets and phones over time Dell is going to fail in this market. They have been unsuccessful at every attempt to enter these markets. There will be a shift in the players in the market.
These systems will only work with ubiquitous internet connection. They will become more effective as the network speed and capacity increases. Users will become more willing to use the systems as the reliability of the systems increase.
In my opinion these changes will fundamentally change the way that we look at computers. The way we interact with computers and how we feel about the usage of computers. Today they are everywhere, but in the next few years I expect them to become more prevalent as we are able to offload high power demanding applications off of our phones and onto powerful servers.
In my next blog I'll discuss some overall societal changes.
The obvious route is cloud computing. As I've said we're already going down this route. The best example of the speed of this transformation is the Amazon Kindle Fire (all three different links). Basically, we will be using less powerful, but still growing in abilities, equipment and pushing the more processor intensive applications out onto a server in the cloud. This will most likely be owned by some private organization. Amazon's Fire is a great example of this because it provides the ability to browse websites at a much faster rate than what's allowed under current network speeds. Even with high speed internet this may continue because it'll fit the website to your screen and make it even faster than over the high speed network.
However, many people are skeptical of cloud computing. There is a sense of a loss of ownership. You become locked in to a specific firm to provide the required services. End User license agreements change frequently and your true ownership of the data and information you place on their servers can change unexpectedly and in ways that aren't in the favor of the users. Additionally, it's been acknowledged by both Google and Microsoft that all data in their cloud servers are subject to the US Patriot Act. This raises privacy concerns for the EU and firms using cloud services.
I think that these concerns will drive another type of cloud computing. I think it'll be something like a personal cloud. It will be similar to working with both a desktop and a laptop at the same time and remoting into the desktop from the laptop, but it will be done seamlessly and transparently. The ownership of the data will be clearly yours and the power will effectively take a phone or low power table and turn it into a fully powered desktop computer. This way the cloud won't be out there and will be easily controlled by the end user. You don't have to worry about the Patriot Act or a company going under, changing rates and other issues like that.
Both of these changes will create disruptive changes within the computing industry. The Kindle Fire is on the cutting edge of this. I fully expect Amazon to create additional applications that will run on the Amazon cloud system. There's no reason not to expect this. It will shift how apps are developed. It will also change who is in the game of creating computers. Dell, for example, will continue to have a major hold over both servers and personal computers, however as we move away from laptops to tablets and phones over time Dell is going to fail in this market. They have been unsuccessful at every attempt to enter these markets. There will be a shift in the players in the market.
These systems will only work with ubiquitous internet connection. They will become more effective as the network speed and capacity increases. Users will become more willing to use the systems as the reliability of the systems increase.
In my opinion these changes will fundamentally change the way that we look at computers. The way we interact with computers and how we feel about the usage of computers. Today they are everywhere, but in the next few years I expect them to become more prevalent as we are able to offload high power demanding applications off of our phones and onto powerful servers.
In my next blog I'll discuss some overall societal changes.
Ubiquitous free high speed wireless: Business
In my previous blog I discussed some governmental issues with ubiquitous free high speed wireless internet. In this piece I'm going to discuss the impact on businesses. I'll start with some really obvious impacts and then move into some that may be more interesting.
First, this would effectively kill the current business model for telecoms. Not just internet providers but it would also have a massive impact on telephony and television providers. Internet providers would basically go out of business unless the governments that implemented the network hired them to manage the networks and perform the upgrades required to ensure expected performance. It should also be expected that net neutrality should be the norm as the internet is free as in free beer and as in free speech in a situation like this. This would impact telephony in a similar manner. With free internet phones could be designed to work on wifi (or whatever the network type is) and use services like Google Voice (which is popular in the US and free). These services provide a telephone number as well. Further more skype communication or similar type programs could become the norm as they are free and easy to use. The impact on television would be a continuation of the current system. With Netflix and Hulu driving usage to the web. Without easy access pirating will be the norm and extremely easy.
In the US Starbucks is extremely popular for two reasons, gigantic flavored coffees and free wireless internet. I think in the Dutch context free wireless internet would spur an increase in the amount of business meetings that happen at cafes. With the slow service which is designed to encourage conversation and being social, it would be a great way to work remotely from outside of home. As it stands there aren't that many places, at least in Eindhoven, that have wireless internet like that. I think it will spur sales at restaurants.
The broadband movement is already increasing the number of people that can work from home and be educated at home. I think there will be some differences though. Mostly because of the freedom that is allowed with the wireless connections. You are able to connect everywhere and anywhere. I think this will create more flexible schedules. I'd be able to work nearly as easily on a train as I would be able to in the office. I would be able to get on a train at the time I'm supposed to be at work get there for some meetings and finish up around the same time just on the train.
I think that there will be more business models based on highly interactive advertisements and user driven actions out in the "wild." I've seen a lot of the QR codes outside of buildings as it is, but I think there will be an increase in the number of these. Users will be more willing to activate them because they are going to get the data from them significantly faster than previously. This will drive traffic to these sites and potentially new jobs from the different types of videos/ads that could be created with them.
I think this will also be something of a technological discontinuity. Broadband at home encourages one type of behavior, but I think there will be very different interactions with broadband everywhere. In the long term there could be a slew of different devices that will take advantage of the continual connections. Clothing could be that could measure the current weather conditions real time which could be uploaded to get real time weather information. We could collect data at levels we've never seen it before. This is just one usage of the informational sphere we'll be living in. There will be a huge number of new applications that will radically shift the way people think about knowledge, information and computing products. Predicting the next wave of technologies based on the wireless web is difficult. It's likely to be impossible.
However, I think that in my next blog on Computing, we'll see the largest changes.
First, this would effectively kill the current business model for telecoms. Not just internet providers but it would also have a massive impact on telephony and television providers. Internet providers would basically go out of business unless the governments that implemented the network hired them to manage the networks and perform the upgrades required to ensure expected performance. It should also be expected that net neutrality should be the norm as the internet is free as in free beer and as in free speech in a situation like this. This would impact telephony in a similar manner. With free internet phones could be designed to work on wifi (or whatever the network type is) and use services like Google Voice (which is popular in the US and free). These services provide a telephone number as well. Further more skype communication or similar type programs could become the norm as they are free and easy to use. The impact on television would be a continuation of the current system. With Netflix and Hulu driving usage to the web. Without easy access pirating will be the norm and extremely easy.
In the US Starbucks is extremely popular for two reasons, gigantic flavored coffees and free wireless internet. I think in the Dutch context free wireless internet would spur an increase in the amount of business meetings that happen at cafes. With the slow service which is designed to encourage conversation and being social, it would be a great way to work remotely from outside of home. As it stands there aren't that many places, at least in Eindhoven, that have wireless internet like that. I think it will spur sales at restaurants.
The broadband movement is already increasing the number of people that can work from home and be educated at home. I think there will be some differences though. Mostly because of the freedom that is allowed with the wireless connections. You are able to connect everywhere and anywhere. I think this will create more flexible schedules. I'd be able to work nearly as easily on a train as I would be able to in the office. I would be able to get on a train at the time I'm supposed to be at work get there for some meetings and finish up around the same time just on the train.
I think that there will be more business models based on highly interactive advertisements and user driven actions out in the "wild." I've seen a lot of the QR codes outside of buildings as it is, but I think there will be an increase in the number of these. Users will be more willing to activate them because they are going to get the data from them significantly faster than previously. This will drive traffic to these sites and potentially new jobs from the different types of videos/ads that could be created with them.
I think this will also be something of a technological discontinuity. Broadband at home encourages one type of behavior, but I think there will be very different interactions with broadband everywhere. In the long term there could be a slew of different devices that will take advantage of the continual connections. Clothing could be that could measure the current weather conditions real time which could be uploaded to get real time weather information. We could collect data at levels we've never seen it before. This is just one usage of the informational sphere we'll be living in. There will be a huge number of new applications that will radically shift the way people think about knowledge, information and computing products. Predicting the next wave of technologies based on the wireless web is difficult. It's likely to be impossible.
However, I think that in my next blog on Computing, we'll see the largest changes.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Technological Convergences
Convergences happen in all different ways. They happen in books or book series, where a good author can plan to have plotlines converge in a specific time and place. In the case of the series I just finished, the Malazan Book of the Fallen, the author was able to get two totally unrelated characters meet in really unexpected ways. It happens in films too, Crash and 21 Grams are two great examples of this. This happens in technology as well. Most of the time, we as consumers never even see it happening. When we look back though we realize it was incredibly obvious that it would happen. Two great examples of this happened with cell phones.
MP3 players have been wildly popular since they came out in the late 90's. Napster and easy to rip CD's made them incredibly useful and provided hours of great listening. Around the same time cell phones were becoming smaller and more popular. No unexpectedly, phone manufacturers decided that it would be useful to put a music player onto the phone. These were clunky and really only used when people didn't have a better MP3 player. Apple had created a great MP3 player and realized, like the phone manufacturers that users only wanted to carry one of these devices. This is one of the reasons that drove them to make the iPhone. Great interface and good music experience. At this point they already had the music infrastructure and the loyal fan base to be sure of a high number of sales.
Around the same time as the MP3 boom businessmen were starting to use Portable Digital Assistants (PDA). This was a replacement to the calendar and phone book. It also provided a few applications that allowed some work on documents. It could also be used to schedule emails when the PDA was synced with the computer. It was obvious that this would be a great device to connect to some sort of network aside from plugging it in. Blackberry used to make two way pagers and figured out a way to send emails and other useful data over the pager network. This was one of the earliest smart phones. Eventually Microsoft and Palm got into the phone manufacturing game for the same reason. People didn't want to carry two device a PDA and a phone. If you put them both together you'd have a better product and would sell more.
These two technologies converged on a similar product, smart phones. Both types of phones had a very different set of users initially. However, since the iPhone there has been a further convergence of these phones into general purpose phones. Blackberry, while still catering to the business side, is shifting to compete directly with the iPhone because business users want the apps that the iPhone has. Palm has vanished from the market being unable to compete and Android has appeared as the first PC based OS. Android is a distribution of Linux, it doesn't run well on PCs but MS and Apple are moving in a direction of merging mobile OSes and PC OSes (sure it's a Mac, but it uses Intel so there's no different besides the OS).
If we look back at these convergences, aside from new competitors and firm failure, they appear to be pretty obvious. Why wouldn't these companies move into these market spaces? I'll discuss some of that in my next blog.
MP3 players have been wildly popular since they came out in the late 90's. Napster and easy to rip CD's made them incredibly useful and provided hours of great listening. Around the same time cell phones were becoming smaller and more popular. No unexpectedly, phone manufacturers decided that it would be useful to put a music player onto the phone. These were clunky and really only used when people didn't have a better MP3 player. Apple had created a great MP3 player and realized, like the phone manufacturers that users only wanted to carry one of these devices. This is one of the reasons that drove them to make the iPhone. Great interface and good music experience. At this point they already had the music infrastructure and the loyal fan base to be sure of a high number of sales.
Around the same time as the MP3 boom businessmen were starting to use Portable Digital Assistants (PDA). This was a replacement to the calendar and phone book. It also provided a few applications that allowed some work on documents. It could also be used to schedule emails when the PDA was synced with the computer. It was obvious that this would be a great device to connect to some sort of network aside from plugging it in. Blackberry used to make two way pagers and figured out a way to send emails and other useful data over the pager network. This was one of the earliest smart phones. Eventually Microsoft and Palm got into the phone manufacturing game for the same reason. People didn't want to carry two device a PDA and a phone. If you put them both together you'd have a better product and would sell more.
These two technologies converged on a similar product, smart phones. Both types of phones had a very different set of users initially. However, since the iPhone there has been a further convergence of these phones into general purpose phones. Blackberry, while still catering to the business side, is shifting to compete directly with the iPhone because business users want the apps that the iPhone has. Palm has vanished from the market being unable to compete and Android has appeared as the first PC based OS. Android is a distribution of Linux, it doesn't run well on PCs but MS and Apple are moving in a direction of merging mobile OSes and PC OSes (sure it's a Mac, but it uses Intel so there's no different besides the OS).
If we look back at these convergences, aside from new competitors and firm failure, they appear to be pretty obvious. Why wouldn't these companies move into these market spaces? I'll discuss some of that in my next blog.
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