Wall Street has called the end of an era and the beginning of the next one: The most important technology product no longer sits on your desk but rather fits in your hand.

The moment came Wednesday when Apple, the maker of iPods, iPhones and iPads, shot past Microsoft, the computer software giant, to become the world’s most valuable technology company.

As she humourously notes:

I had my moments of doubt: should government, for example, really be in the business of telling people when museums are open?

But I came away thinking that in a city where it can be tough to make it, or even just make the rent, it makes a lot of sense to have a 24-hour line where people can report potholes, yes, but also vent.

Read the full article here.

Now we have a powerful ally: the New York Times.

With the majority of Internet traffic expected to shift to congestion-prone mobile networks, there is growing debate on both sides of the Atlantic about whether operators of the networks should be allowed to treat Web users differently, based on the users’ consumption.

While we were researching the subject, we did not take a position on net neutrality, but we now agree that its blind application in our settings will harm our constituents, the teleusers at the bottom of the pyramid. We do agree with the statement below, also excerpted from the NYT:

But there is a big flaw in the concept, according to the operators: Networks have never been neutral. They have always been actively managed to some extent since their inception in the 1980s to ensure that all customers get a basic “best effort” level of service.

If an operator could not restrain bandwidth hogs, who typically make up 15 percent of customers but who generate 80 percent of the traffic, most Internet users would experience poor service.

While net neutrality is an emotion loaded minefield that is not the most hospitable for evidence based discussion, we are at least happy that the mobile piece of the argument is running parallel with ours.

In the midst of the controversy about Google threatening to withdraw from China because of their approach to censorship, it was mentioned in the NYT that some Chinese twitters saw it as a withdrawal from the world by China, not as a withdrawal of Google from China:

China promptly tried to censor the ensuing debate about its censorship, but many Chinese Twitter users went out of their way to praise Google. One from Guangdong declared: “It’s not Google that’s withdrawing from China, it’s China that’s withdrawing from the world.”

There has been an unfortunate tendency for the Sri Lanka government, at least the parts of it responsible for the issuance of visas to withdraw from the world in a similar manner.

Last year, before the LIRNEasia@5 conference that brought close to a 100 people from abroad to Sri Lanka and allowed them to see with their own eyes that there was no blood letting going on, I invited some Canadian journalists to come by and cover some positive stories for a change. I was then informed by the Toronto Star correspondent that he would be glad to come but that the Consulate in Toronto was refusing to issue him a visa until the Star changed its attitude toward Sri Lanka.

Zimbabwe has tried this method for years and all they get is negative coverage. Recently, an intelligent consular official gave a visa to Vikas Bajaj from the New York Times and the result was a wonderful story about a Sri Lankan success in niche marketing. Should I try again to see if the stupid official in Toronto has seen the light? Or is this still a case of Sri Lanka withdrawing from the world?

Oh, and by the way, Mr Consular Official, I got the story covered even without your visa.

According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.

Judging from conversations with retired bloggers, many of the orphans were cast aside by people who had assumed that once they started blogging, the world would beat a path to their digital door.

But Ms. Rice, 73, is far from lonely. Housebound after suffering a heart attack two years ago, she began visiting the social networking sites Eons.com, an online community for aging baby boomers, and PoliceLink.com (she is a former police dispatcher). Now she spends up to 14 hours a day in online conversations.

“I was dying of boredom,” she said. “Eons, all by its lonesome, gave me a reason to keep on going.”

However, security concerns remain. 41 percent of the consumers who transmit data said security was the reason they didn’t buy things via their mobile phone. And 21 percent said they did not trust that the transaction would be completed.

LIRNEasia’s study on Mobile2.0@BOP intends to address such issues relating to M-payments, particularly exploring in detail the case of the Philippines.

Universe – Laws of Nature – Physics – New York Times

Against all the odds, we can send e-mail to Sri Lanka, thread spacecraft through the rings of Saturn, take a pill to chase the inky tendrils of depression, bake a turkey or a soufflé and bury a jump shot from the corner.

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Computer enthusiasts in the developed world will soon be able to get their hands on the so-called “$100 laptop”.

The organisation behind the project has launched the “give one, get one” scheme that will allow US residents to purchase two laptops for $399 (£198).

One laptop will be sent to the buyer whilst a child in the developing world will receive the second machine.

The G1G1 scheme, as it is known, will offer the laptops for just two weeks, starting on the 12 November.

The offer to the general public comes after the project’s founder admitted that concrete orders from the governments of developing nations had not always followed verbal agreements.

Nicholas Negroponte told the New York Times: “I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a cheque written.

“And yes, it has been a disappointment.”

Read full story

NYT: “The driving reason we’re doing this is that there are not enough broadband options for consumers,” said Adam Kovacevich, a spokesman for Google’s policy office in Washington. “In general, it’s the belief of a lot of people in the company that spectrum is allocated in an inefficient manner.”

“In their proposal, Google executives argue that by permitting companies to resell the airwaves in a real-time auction would make it possible to greatly improve spectrum use and simultaneously create a robust market for innovative digital services. For instance, a company could resell its spectrum on an as-needed basis to other providers, the executives said in their formal proposal to the federal agency.”

Reed Hunt, the former FCC chief, is now heading a consortium that will bid for new spectrum that the FCC will put up for auction in 2009. He endorses Google’s proposal:

“We propose that one quarter of the capacity of the network that uses this spectrum must be sold not in a long-term service contract but instead in ongoing open auctions to any and all comers.”

The proposal is for the wholesale auction of spectrum. However, in the future such a system might require that advanced computing technology be built into wireless handsets and computers to automate the auction bidding process and permit it to take place without users noticing. The Google proposal states that such a system would reduce retail prices for wireless spectrum and extend Internet access into rural areas not now served by existing providers.

The full article is available in the New York Times.

Oh, and the WiFi News has links to the Bangla Broadband story and on the Internet thru powerlines, they’re saying that companies are reluctant to invest.