In a page straight out of "La la la... Can't hear you!", the "Can you hear me now?" people are again muting grandfathered data holders and plotting to kill our unlimited data on "The Network." It appears VZW's CFO (clusterf**k officer fits here), Fran Shammo, is revoking our all-you-can-eat should we change to 4G LTE. From monetizing data more, to an untrue LIE that VZW is 'out of bandwidth' for serving everyone data, this is a milking. Your only recourses: 1) take a quick offer and reup on a new 2 year, or 2) buy your phone outright. Shammo (read as Gary Forsee killing iDEN) is adamant about shared data plans. VZW went defensive quickly, stating you WILL have time. Question: HOW MUCH?
As we have stated publicly, Verizon Wireless has been re-evaluating its data pricing structure for some time, Customers have told us that they want to share data, similar to how they share minutes today. We are working on plans to provide customers with that option later this year.
We will share specific details of the plans and any related policy changes well in advance of their introduction, so customers will have time to evaluate their choices and make the best decisions for their wireless service. It is our goal and commitment to continue to provide customers with the same high value service they have come to expect from Verizon Wireless.
---VZW Presser
Some people might be happy moving their hogging to WiFi, heavy users too, but wait! Our fav cableco to hate on is talking out both sides of their mouth, AGAIN.
It's not a Mac vs. PC thing anymore... ...they'll grab you without even knowing it.
Just when you think your Kapersky, AVG, avast!, CA, Norton, McAfee, STOP ME NOW, protected machine was safe from intrusion, THINK AGAIN! The FBI is dealing with two PITAs that have been plaguing the interwebz for years, one of which they had to insert hardware into the interwebz to fix. Now, they no longer want to deal with the fix, and it's all on you. Time to rid yourself of the Trojans! No, not USC, and the other... get your minds out of the gutter, will you??? Let's take these viral instruments to task, shall we?
This headache comes by way of the fine people at Java leaving back doors open, and you taking it in the rear. Once upon a time, Java thought they had this licked. Patches were released, solutions verified, and all was good in Javaland. This was until someone got hold of the virus and MuTaTeD it. That's right! Someone took this virus and made a variant, just to pee in your Cheerios. Most anti-virus/malware removal softwares have a way to boot this, but it depends on how deeply it's implanted. Should you have major issues, F-Secure has a manual removal instructions set, but BEWARE!, it's not for novices, and could put a floater in your Cheerios to go with the whiz. This set of instructions is for Mac. PC users should be able to update Java to the latest version and have no issues. Also, this does NOT infect the popular web coding named Javascript.
Built as a huge whammy for the interwebz, DNSChanger is the worst of its kind. So bad, the FBI had to hire a non-profit group, Internet Systems Consortium, to set up ghost Domain Name Servers to fix the issue criminal servers in Estonia were taken offline. As of March 8th, nearly half a million computers were still using these ghost servers, and still infected. Without a DNS, your computer couldn't connect to websites using the popular .com, .net, .gov, we all know the interwebz to be. Every site is listed as numbers, called an Internet Protocol address (IP for short). Example: the domain to this site, KE4QPF.com is viewed by the interwebz as 69.161.143.196. If you had no idea of the IP, you'd be lost. Some sites, like this one, have multiple domains assigned to one IP; so even if you entered the IP, it wouldn't produce. In July, the ghost server will be removed, so it's on you to check if you're infected. Go to the FBI's website to find out if you are. A GREEN background means you're most likely OK, a RED background means you're in trouble.
A total class act and broadcast icon has slipped away from the bonds of Earth to meet his Maker, today. Host of American Bandstand, various forms of Pyramid, and New Year's Rockin' Eve for 40 years, Richard Wagstaff Clark, better known as Dick Clark, has passed away at the age of 82 in Santa Monica, CA from a "massive heart attack", according to his agent, Paul Shefrin. He is survived by his three children and a wife, Kari Wigton.
Long remembered as America's oldest teenager, Clark has produced several thousands of hours of television programming, having moved up from radio DJ in Philadelphia to move from the radio version of Bandstand, to the local TV version. Later, an ailing ABC turned him into the boy who every parent welcomed into their homes, taking Bandstand national and transforming it into American Bandstand, then forming his own production company.
Dick Clark Productions has numerous awards shows to which Clark offered his production experience and helped turn around, including The Golden Globes, The Academy of Country Music Awards, and many others, then offered a competing awards show to the Grammys, named The American Music Awards. After suffering a stroke in 2004, Clark missed his first New Year's Eve ball drop (2004-2005), but returned the next year to continue the legacy, handing off most of his on-the-street duties to his protege, Ryan Seacrest. Here is Dick's final countdown to a new year:
From ABC News... "I am deeply saddened by the loss of my dear friend Dick Clark. He has truly been one of the greatest influences in my life. I idolized him from the start, and I was graced early on in my career with his generous advice and counsel. When I joined his show in 2006 , it was a dream come true to work with him every New Year's Eve for the last 6 years. He was smart, charming, funny and always a true gentleman. I learned a great deal from him, and I'll always be indebted to him for his faith and support of me. He was a remarkable host and businessman and left a rich legacy to television audiences around the world. We will all miss him." ---Ryan Seacrest
Seed money seeker scores in record time, with record cash.
As reported earlier, on this post, Pebble Technology of Palo Alto, CA was moving up the charts on the website Kickstarter, a social networking for venture capital website. At 12:40AM EDT, their Pebble smartwatch surpassed the game Double Fine Adventure for the king of the kingdom, with about 1/4 of the backers. With 31 days left, how much higher will it go? Stay tuned for more info. This could break the bank for all-time greatest backing by the general public for a single product, EVER! The record breaking pledge sent the total to $3,336,475. I am sure there are more great things to be heard about the Pebble in the days to follow.
In reaction to this never before accomplished feat, a person from Pebble's design team posted this as a thank you for everyone's support:
At around 7:30pm EDT, Wired posted an exclusive interview with the Pebble's lead designer, Eric Migicovsky, about what it meant to reach this goal. The report can be found at this link. Humbled by the experience, Migicovsky stated he was ramping up his production path to a much more robust one, developing a strong SDK, and he was totally surprised when he hit his first Kickstarter milestone of setting his goal of $100k in just 2 hours.
Today, at the 2012 NAB Show in Las Vegas, NV, JVC put the world a bit on edge with their debut of a new ProHD camera to smack the world of electronic news gathering around a bit. The new GY-HM650 ProHD handheld mobile news camera takes news to a new level. Gone are the days of a huge, shoulder-breaking nemesis. This puppy is the size of, dare I say it, HandyCam, and comes packed with all the bells and whistles you come to expect out of JVC. Complete with a Fujinon wide-angle 23x zoom lens, a 29-667mm focal length, and everything you'd expect from the old-school models, like ND filters, manual focus, iris rings, and a pro servo zoom, this thing rocks.
But how well does it do it's job? Glad you asked! Here's the scoop! Inside, there are three 1920x1080 12-bit CMOS sensors at 1/3" each. The model is lightweight and portable. Instead of needing a microwave truck, it launches a dual-stack encoding system to transcode one file to one memory card for web use, and another file to another memory card to FTP for air ingest. It's all done in full HD, and has built-in WiFi abilities to shuttle everything to the cloud over the interwebz. It will debut in Winter of 2012 at a sticker price of $5,695. This camera is getting a lot of press, Broadcasting & Cable, CreativeCow, Videomaker, and several others have seen, played with, and enjoyed the overall product. However, this isn't the only bombshell JVC launched at NAB.
In an effort to compete with RED Cameras, JVC is launching the GY-HMQ10, a 4K AVCHD camera. At a pretty nice price tag of $5,550, it will be a head turner, as well. The only question that begs to be asked is, who the hell shoots amateur stuff in 4K when everything gets crushed to 1920x1080? I guess we'll be finding out soon. It appears the days of only Discovery and BBC productions getting the 4K will soon be over. Mike Wilhelm, from Videomaker, explains what 4K (4096x3112) shooting means for you in this article. He makes a valid point by stating a crush down of 1920x1080 from 4K poduces a much better image quality, especially if you have to crop, re-frame, or scale. It does take quite a bit of space, so do it sparingly, unless you have the wealth of dollars backing you that Discovery and BBC have.
It appears the inventors of VHS have graduated to play with the big boys' toys. I hope it continues. I have a lot of personal JVC gear of my own and love it. The products are durable, and last. No complaints here.
A BIG BANG has gone off in smartwatches, courtesy of Pebble Technology and SONY. While waiting for Fossil to make one that was available, and affordable, I gave up. Then, these dropped. Pebble is from a team led by Eric Migicovsky, in Palo Alto, CA. He posted it on Kickstarter for pledge $, passed his goal of $100k, and got $1M in 28 hours. SONY's dropped to stores and online, Friday.
I had to have a smartwatch, NOW! As Pebble is something that's in prototype, I had to read up on it via Forbes, Wired, and Engadget. It's really impressive. As for SONY, other than a few simple posts and some homebrew glam, there were crickets. It showed in their store too. Here's what I found out:
THE PEBBLE SMARTWATCH:
Huge SUPPORT on Kickstarter with 20k+ yays, and $2.8M pledged as of the time of this post
Multiple watchface designs AND apps built through a well-made SDK
Feedback from design team on Facebook and Kickstarter
WATERPROOFED, stated in product updates
ePaper display, sunlight happy
Use with Androids AND iPhones (another watch for BB has already dropped)
Native support for ANY 22mm watchband
THE SONY SMARTWATCH:
Small 0.3" color display has BAD screen door effect and BAD in sunlight
Clips onto watchbands, needs ADAPTER for alternates
Android ONLY
I went to my local SONY store to compare, trying to make SONY beat Pebble. I compared the SONY in my hand with Pebble on my Droid X, and found Pebble FAR SURPASSED ANYTHING THE SONY ON MY WRIST COULD DO... AND PEBBLE HASN'T EVEN DROPPED!!! SONY IS SO SCARED OF PEBBLE, they are paying LOTS OF $ to AdWords for "SmartWatch" to top post.
WE LIKE YOU, BUT WE DON'T "LIKE YOU" LIKE YOU. KNOW WHAT WE MEAN?
CNET has been floating that there appears to be a 4G version of the iPhone heading for Sprint's 4G LTE network, based on information from Joe Eutenuer, Sprint's CFO. This is based on a hunch from a statement Eutenuer made at an investors conference, Tuesday. The quote, logged by Dow Jones, goes down as follows:
"If you make the assumption that they launch a device at a similar time that they did last year, you're basically done with the major markets," [...] "So I don't think we are really disadvantaged at all."
Sprint is lagging at LTE. After utilizing WiMAX as a way to put something on its inherited AWS spectrum from NEXTEL, then finding WiMAX to be horrible at bandwidth, and even worse at signal penetration, they are just now coming online with 10 cities by June 30. If you want to compare to the other big boys who are already ponying up LTE to the masses, VZW has 196 cities + 122 airports, and at&t has 28 cities (and unfortunately calls HSPA+ 4G, thanks to their failed T-Mo deal that would have called them out if it were still called 3G). S has committed $20B on 30M iPhone handsets over the course of the years to come.
How badly does S need iPhones? In a filing with the SEC, apparently, not much. S says customer totals would have risen, even without iPhones, and 300k iPhones sold directly to their subs drove growth/prevented churn. Continuing to post losses, S is still dealing with the wind down of NEXTEL's iDEN net, and they'll continue, so long as S has to fund Clearwire for the WiMAX they sold off, but still use. James Ratcliffe, Barclays, states that only 11% of S subs who have an iPhone would churn out to another carrier, 3/4 of them would have signed on to S contracts anyway, and the only downfall to the iPhone has been cheap Androids.
Will S be able to stomach these payouts, plus Apple's tributes for rights to carry the iPhones? Will customers hang around if better things abound? Therein lies loyalty; apparently something being dismissed. Although S is making BIG claims, will they hold up? CNNMoney reports that it's not looking good. The average time a sub stays with a carrier before saying "Peace, Out!" is down to only 4 years, an all-time low, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The article hints that big changes could be coming to sales forecasts and tactics, so hang on to your hats! It's going to be a bumpy ride in terms of pricing, plans, and OS wars.
IF YOU DIDN'T HEAR US THE FIRST TIME, WE'LL CRANK UP THE VOLUME!
Like a 2nd boot to the keyster, Public Knowledge is throwing flames to get the attention of the FCC about how ISPs and mobile carriers are treating data any way they feel fit. PK, today, put Comcast in its crosshairs again, essentially calling out Comcast as hypocrites, laying a smack down on the nation's largest broadband provider for skirting its own policies against data hogs. Comcast's Xfinity TV over Xbox 360 is being taken to the mat for NOT being counted in the data chewing by their subscribers, but every other online video service IS. Once again, Broadcasting & Cable got the story.
PK's president, Gigi Sohn, commented on the Xfinity Xbox service:
"The reports that Comcast is offering a video product through the Xbox 360 without the data counting toward the customer's data cap raises questions not only of the justification for the caps but, more importantly, of the survival of an open Internet." [...] "This type of arrangement is exactly the type of situation the Federal Communications Commission's rules on the open Internet were designed to prevent -- that an Internet Service Provider juggles the rules to give itself an advantage over a competitor. This is nothing less than a wake-up call to the Commission to show it is serious about protecting the open Internet. It also shows, once again, that the Commission should take the first steps toward understanding data caps."
In a flash, Comcast had a full rebuttal:
"Comcast is committed to an open Internet and has pledged to abide by the FCC's Open Internet rules -- and our policies with respect to XfinityTV and the Xbox 360 fully comply with those rules and our commitments." [...] "Any XfinityTV service that travels over the public Internet, including XfinityTV.com and our Xfinity TV app on mobile devices, counts toward our data usage threshold, as they always have. The Xfinity On Demand content that we will deliver to Xbox 360 will not travel over the public Internet and is delivered in much the same way as we deliver your video service to your set-top box. Your Xbox 360 essentially acts as an additional cable box for your existing cable service via the Xbox 360. As a result, our data caps do not apply."
In is uncertain if PK will issue a formal snark to the FCC over the allegations. There may not be any legal standing. Since Xfinity is a private net, available only to Comcast's subs, the FCC's new rulings on net neutrality may not apply, showing a lack of teeth the agency has over new media. Competition issues do arise, as Comcast's own data is being prioritized, possibly setting them up for more gripes over their NBCUniversal merge.
HEY, HEY! HO, HO! TIERED DATA PLANS HAVE GOT TO GO!
In an ongoing effort to make the Federal Communications Commission wake up and smell the coffee, Public Knowledge is seeking yet another flogging of the FCC in their failure to determine "WHY, GOD, WHY?" we have to cough up so much for data, then get capped, when it was a one price, all-you-could-eat buffet just a few years back. In this report from Broadcasting & Cable, PK tried twice last year to get the FCC off of its keysters to investigate not just wireless, but also wireline data providers. Those speficially called out were Verizon Wireless, at&t, and Comcast. As more of us consumers purchase tablets, cell phones, and other toys like MiFis, the data crunch will continue. FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, stated that tablets will exceed PCs by 2015, and smartphones sales have already done it. On the wireline side, video streaming and uploading to the web will blast through any sense of comprehension. Public Knowledge's president, Gigi Sohn, made the following remarks regarding the caps:
"It is simply inexcusable that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has not even seen fit to ask wireless and landline carriers to explain why those caps are necessary, how they are set and how consumers are affected by them." ... "Millions of consumers and at least two major publications have now discovered that the new iPads which went on sale come with a hidden cost – the caps on data usage which wireless carriers put on consumers," said Sohn. "It's a ridiculous situation that the carriers sell millions of these devices specifically designed to view video on one hand, while they restrict the usage of their networks for video on the other."
So, why does B&C carry this interesting bit of info on it's home page, you might ask? Simple. The National Association of Broadcasters weighed in on the matter. As time goes by, people will be seeking their information solely from these portable devices. If there are restrictions applied to the data flows, the dissemination of information critical to the public safety and knowledge will be limited as well. Here's their statement:
"This should serve as a reminder that broadcasting's 'one-to-everyone' transmission architecture is much more efficient in delivering content than is wireless broadband."
Common sense would dictate that if the FCC didn't listen to the plea twice before, they certainly will not listen now. Even if the FCC changed its mind, the providers would then launch a counter attack. Everyone is going to feel a sense of entitlement to their own way of doing things. Prodivers of broadband service will state their case on capacity concerns, PK will state its case of why now, the FCC will remain mute, and the NAB will be the only ones PK will be able to look to for support. However, until there's a huge customer backlash over the extremes providers will go through to cut you down, nothing will ever happen.
BLAME THE FCC! "THEY TOOK YER JEEEEEEOOOOOBBBBSSS!!!"
at&t's 'Death Star' logo has launched a plasma ray right at the center of their war with the Federal Communications Commission over the acquisition of T-Mobile, which died due to numerous regulatory and antitrust concerns. Due to the inability to merge, and T-Mobile looking to straighten out its books from a nice $4B present for having to break off the deal, T-Mobile has decided to lay off 1,900 workes in 7 calls centers around the U.S. at&t counter: If the FCC would have let the deal pass, we would have saved those jobs, and bring 5,000 call center jobs back home to the good ol' USA. Jim Cicconi, head of legislative affairs for at&t, lit the flamethrower and fired upon the FCC on Friday.
Knowing at&t would result to job warfare, the FCC stated the merger would cause job losses, when it launched its findings. at&t claimed that through $40B in slash and burn techniques, it would have mitigated those losses of jobs. Cicconi stated, in a gloating reply to the events that went down:
"Rarely are a regulatory agency's predictive judgments proven so wrong so fast." ... "But for the government's decision, centers now being closed would be staying open, workers now facing layoffs would have job guarantees, and communities facing turmoil would have security. Only a few months later, the truth of who was right is sadly obvious."
Of course, the FCC couldn't lay low and had to add more fuel to the effect, by speaking to AllThingsD, and firing back with the following in a terse e-mail:
"in just a short period of time, T-Mobile has re-emerged as a vibrant competitor in the mobile marketplace." ... "Competition benefits all wireless consumers." ..."The bottom line is that AT&T's proposal to acquire a major competitor was unprecedented in scope and the company's own confidential documents showed that the merger would have resulted in significant job losses."
There's no way of knowing if any of this would have gone if the merger actually would have happened. From a technology standpoint, the merger of at&t with T-Mobile probably would have caused issues farther down the road. at&t would have a stranglehold on a cellular standard known as GSM in the U.S., and there would have been issues for those who wanted to use it in being able to compete for dibs on upgrades and handsets.
