Vint Cerf, who can fairly be described as one of the godfathers of Internet has endorsed Barack Obama in the US presidential race, saying that his decision is swayed by Obama’s stance on net neutrality - the question of whether content providers should be charged more for different content by the “pipe” providers.
Extracts:
We believe that the Internet should remain an open environment. It’s vital to innovation. Companies like Google, and Yahoo, and eBay, and Amazon, and Skype and so on, got their start without having to get permission from any ISP or any broadband provider to offer services. They simply acquired access to the internet, put their services up and then made them available to the general public.
We think that’s the best way for the…
Tags: Amazon, Barack Obama, Broadband, eBay, Google, ISP, net neutrality, Skype, United States, Vint Cerf, Yahoo!.
In one of the most significant legal rulings in the tech industry this year, a Superior Court judge in California has ruled that the practice of charging consumers a fee for ending their cell phone contract early is illegal and violates state law.
The preliminary, tentative judgment orders Sprint Nextel to pay customers $18.2 million in reimbursements and, more importantly, orders Sprint to stop trying to collect another $54.7 million from California customers (some 2 million customers total) who have canceled their contracts but refused or failed to pay the termination fee.
While an appeal is inevitable, the ruling could have massive fallout throughout the industry. Without the threat of levying early termination fees, the cellular carriers lose the power that’s enabled them to lock customers into…
According to a story in this week’s RCR Wireless News, building and climbing towers (which can be hundreds of feet tall) is more dangerous than ranching, fishing, logging, and even ironworking. The fatality rate is currently 183.6 deaths per 100,000 workers: Five tower workers died during one 12-day span earlier this year alone. 18 tower workers died on the job in 2006.
The cause for the runup in tower worker deaths isn’t completely clear, but it’s likely a combination of careless working practices (workers not using safety gear 100 percent of the time, or not using it correctly) and network operators pushing to build out and upgrade their networks too quickly. Hard to blame carriers for wanting to get faster networks up and running, but not…
Vodafone to launch mobile phone money transfer service in Afghanistan - Yahoo! News
“This is really the early days, but when you see the low banking penetration in emerging markets, compared to rapidly growing mobile penetration, the potential is very big,” said James Moberly, senior manager for payment solutions at Vodafone on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress here.
The GSM Association, the global mobile phone industry body, estimates that about a dozen such schemes involving money transfer services are in operation throughout the world, with 10 million users.
Vodafone plans to launch cash transfer services soon in India and other African countries.
“You can send money, withdraw cash, pay your bills or your loan, and all this is within seconds,” said Aleeda Fazal, head of product development…
Tags: Afghanistan, Aleeda Fazal, cash transfer services, cellular telephone, dozen such schemes involving money transfer services, GSM, GSM Association, India, James Moberly, low banking penetration, payment solutions, Roshan, Vodafone, World Congress, Yahoo!.
In his first major speech since taking control of Yahoo last June, Mr. Yang announced the launch of a new upgraded mobile home page for cellphones, an updated version of its mobile portal Yahoo Go as well as new software tools to help outside developers design applications and widgets to work in conjunction with Yahoo’s mobile offerings.
Yahoo also announced new partnerships with News Corp.’s MySpace, eBay Inc. and Viacom’s MTV network, which will see those companies use Yahoo’s development tools to create mobile applications users can access through Yahoo.
However, Yahoo has opted not to enter the mobile operating system market. Microsoft has already shipped millions of Windows Mobile-equipped devices while Google plans to unveil its own open source operating system later this year that will…
Tags: eBay Inc., Google, Microsoft, MySpace, News Corp., operating system, operating systems, software tools, Viacom, Yahoo!, Yang.
Cell phones double as electronic wallets - Yahoo! News
Mobile banking services, which are also catching on in Kenya and South Africa, enable people who don’t have bank accounts to transfer money easily, quickly and safely. It’s spreading in the developing world because mobile phones are much more common than bank accounts.
The system is particularly useful for the 8 million Filipinos — 10 percent of the country’s citizens — who work overseas and send money home, like Dennis’ mother, Anna Tiangco. Previously, she sent money via a bank wire transfer, which costs $2.50 and takes two days to clear. The cell phone method costs only 13 cents and is nearly instantaneous.
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Tags: Anna Tiangco, bank, bank accounts, bank wire transfer, cell phones, cellular telephone, cents, Dennis, Kenya, Mobile banking, Mobile banking services, mobile phones, South Africa, the Philippines, USD, Yahoo!.
Yahoo has upgraded its free email service to put users in touch with mobile subscribers.
The improved platform allows users to exchange text messages with mobile phones and comes as the portal experiments with making its Mail application “a stickier experience”.
It offers a trio of contact options including basic email, Web chat and the transmission of text messages to mobile.
The text-to-mobile feature is initially available in the US, Canada, India and the
Philippines but will expand to a further 21 other markets within next six weeks.
Mail users simply type-in a phone number to the email address field to send a text message to wireless friends - although some carriers have already announced they will charge for delivery. Read more.
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The broadband battle is being fought between “imperialist” telcos and “guerilla” Internet firms, a Yankee Group analyst told Tuesday. The established telcos focused on ARPUs and the idea of guiding consumers to a choice of apps on the network.
“They are pretty much trying to think about voice, content and access as palette from which consumers can choose.”
The guerillas are firms such as Google and Yahoo who don’t own a network and aren’t focused on ARPU, and whose apps run on PCs, mobile phones, PlayStations and all kinds of networks and devices. “They’re advertising-funded. They have a different view of the world,” Schaefer said. Read more.
Big Money in Little Screens - New York Times
Searching the Web on a mobile phone has been a lot like getting online via dial-up modem circa 1995: slow, tedious and not terribly useful. Typing on tiny buttons, squinting at a list of links and clicking through to a page that won’t display properly is enough to test anyone’s patience.
The head of Yahoo’s mobile strategy, Marco Boerries, standing, said overcoming difficult Web navigation would be a challenge.
But that is beginning to change. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have all trained their sights on cellphones, which they see as the next great battleground in the Internet search wars. They have thrown tens of millions of dollars and armies of programmers at the problem, seeking to develop tools that…
Early warning regarding tsunamis depends on skilled interpretation of earthquake data from seismic monitors like the one at Pallekale and data from ocean based buoys that detect fast moving bodies of water.
The ocean between Sri Lanka and Thailand now has one. It is up to us to make sure that the warning that get communicated from international and regional warning centers will be communciated to the affected communities promptly and that those communities will be prepared to respond properly.
NOAA Provides First Tsunami Detection Buoy for the Indian Ocean: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
Following a ceremony in Phuket, Thailand, where the 2004 Boxing Day event caused the most extensive tsunami damage in Thailand, the MV SEAFDEC set sail today to deploy the buoy about mid-way between…
Tags: Boxing Day, communications upgrades, DART station, dissemination systems, India, Indian Ocean, Indonesia, Maldives, National Disaster Warning Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Phuket, Sri Lanka, Thai Meteorological Department, Thailand, U.S. government, United States, United States Agency for International Development, World Meteorological Organization, Yahoo!.
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