DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) has rules that many people think it does more harm than good! For an example, ATT has been using DMCA as a mean in preventing people from switching to another network on iPhone(s). Today’s DMCA is much better as its rules have now changed to make more sense for consumers. With the modifying rules of DMCA, people can jailbreak new devices such as Apple’s iPhone(s), copy clips of films for educational purposes, use software to switch service providers such as from ATT to another network when using iPhone(s), and so on. The details of the new rules can be found here. Source.
When AOL and Time Warner merged together, everyone thought it was the best idea ever! After many years of failing to make any major footprint in the industry, suddenly AOL Time Warner was a joke to the industry which led to the spin-off where Time Warner re-established its presence fully in the last month of 2009 — a status of which it had before the merger. 10 years later, the two former CEOs of both companies are reunited on CNBC to speak about their thoughts on what so called “the worst merger of the century.” The program was aired on January of 2010, and both CEOs were nice to each other enough and opened about what went wrong with the merged company. The former CEO and co-founder of AOL, Steve Case, also commented on Twitter and Facebook!
The merger of AOL and Time Warner was executed poorly and the clash of cultures which had created a toxic environment where internal politics had overdriven to a point that there was little left of energy to invest into innovation; with hindsight, the merged company faced tough competition with an Internet economy that was bursted, and yet all that while the merged company failed to innovate which led to its downfall/spin-off. The idea of forming AOL and Time Warner had merit and probably is still very true today! Take a look around you today, you can see AT&T has U-verse and Verizon has FiOS — these two companies’ new services are very similar to what AOL and Time Warner had in mind! Why? U-verse and FiOS both offer TV over IP. Although customers don’t care what formats their televisions run on as long they can see their pictures fine, and that’s exactly the point! With careful messages, these companies promote newer entertainment platforms with phrases such as smart TV. It’s true though that customers are able to do more with smart TV such as be more interactive with TV shows. Recording TV programs for later viewing is one of those interactive features that make newer entertainment platforms attractive.
With hindsight, Gerald Levin and Steve Case failed to manage their merged company correctly, therefore they failed to develop what could have been an entertainment format 10 years ahead of its time. Nowadays, phone companies such as AT&T and wireless companies such as Verizon are doing just that and even more. What is more? Besides TV over IP, these companies are offering Voice over IP (phone over IP format). Voice over IP isn’t new, because Vonage has been offering that for years. Unfortunately for Vonage, they have been failing to convince everyone to forgo the traditional phone companies such AT&T fast enough, therefore such companies are catching up with time and technology to put major hurt on Vonage.
Back to the topic, Gerald Levin and Steve Case were ahead of time, but they failed to execute their great vision. With this in mind, we may see the entertainment platforms that we have been accustomed to — change rapidly as the industry moves forward. The technology is smarter, therefore customers are more likely to enjoy the newer entertainment platforms than the previous ones. For an example, TV over IP allows you to be more interactive than otherwise, because it’s easier to do just that with the current technology.
With all the talk of the past and the now, let not forget the future! Google and Intel are teaming up to create something they call Smart TV. Google is planning to bring its Android Operating System closer to TV, and in a way it can contagiously spread its advertising influence onto the TV market. Is this different from TV over IP? It sounds different, but would it be? Instead of TV over IP, it sounds as Google is trying to bring IP over TV. But we all know that is ridiculous, because there is no such thing IP over TV! I’m not an expert, but let me guess! What they’re trying to do is to pushing out a technology that can allow customers watch TV and also surf the web and do the web interactive stuffs, altogether with ease; I guess such technology has to be very similar to TV over IP! Anyway, the point is that more than ever before, more media providers are lining up to form new interactive platforms that custom around customers’ lives — all can very well be even more addictive and pleasurable for customers, and it may very well be very profitable for the providers in terms of subscriptions and advertising.
OK, finally I could see why iPad is appealing to me! It’s all about the broadband connection really! It seems that with iPad you only have to pay around $29.99 per month to get unlimited Internet connection with no contract through AT&T. This means it’s much better than most Internet connection plan that you could get for your laptop and netbook. iPad is smaller in size when comparing to most laptop, and so it’s a perfect device to replace laptop when you’re on the go. Obviously, laptop could be more powerful than iPad and less powerful than desktop, this is why Steve Jobs didn’t mind saying iPad is here not to replace anything but only filling in the gap between laptop and smart phones (I think that’s what he said)! Wouldn’t mind buying iPad if the price drops a little more. Patience is virtue!
iPhone users who have been complaining about bad 3G connection may have something to be happy about since AT&T has just announced that it will spend about $2 billion more than usual to improve its network’s capability in handling data for iPhone and iPad. Everyone knew that this would have to come sooner or later, but it’s a great news for iPhone users that AT&T had decided that it has to be done now. It seems AT&T is going to work on this homework right away, because 2010 won’t wait — especially per chance iPad gets popular, AT&T will have a huge network problem! Does this mean AT&T will also improve regular broadband network where home users could see faster broadband speed? I’m not sure about this, but I’m crossing my fingers for this too! Faster download and upload for home Internet connection, who wouldn’t want it right? Source.
Having been left out from Android’s party, AT&T has decided it’s time to tell Apple that it too is going to join the Android’s party. AT&T announces that it will launch five Android phones (made by Dell) for the first half of 2010. How Apple (iPhone) is feeling? The benefits are obvious, because the hypes around Android keep on getting bigger. All major players are joining Android’s world, and so AT&T doesn’t want to see customers switch carriers just to test out Android phones. Source.
Looking for a small laptop as a gift to a friend, a family member, or to yourself for this Christmas? If you’re loaded with money and hated underpowered laptop, then Nokia Booklet 3G is not going to be something you want for sure. On the other hand, if you only have about $300 to spend, although you have to pay for the 3G Internet Connection by binding with a two year contract with AT&T, and you love a really small laptop (as of now Nokia Booklet 3G is considered to be one of the smallest laptops, if not the smallest of them all), then you’ll love Nokia Booklet 3G. This small guy has battery which lasts for 12 hours. Its specification is boring. It has 120GB hard drive, 1 GB of RAM, and 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor. By the look of the specification, don’t you expect this little guy to be lifting anything heavy, because it may lag the hell out of you. Almost left out, it has an HDMI port which I like, and it got Windows 7 Starter edition installed.
In my opinion, don’t buy this little guy if you want it to be awesome, but rather buy it for on the go kind of thing. Nowadays, on the go kind of thing is more likely belonging to the smart phone’s territory, but if you had to run a laptop software on the go that Nokia Booklet 3G has the horsepower to support, then Nokia Booklet 3G is just the thing you want to carry around. After all, this little guy weight less than 3 pounds, and so it won’t tired you out!
Amazon may have to compete against AT&T as AT&T is offering something that is similar to Amazon Web Services known as AT&T Synaptic Compute as a Service. This service is best for people who want to start a business that’s in need of the ability to scale servers. This service is also great for web developers who need a quick way to fire up a server at a cheap cost and using a pay as you go model.
Amazon has a head start, but if AT&T provides competitive prices, then Amazon may have to worry. Cloud compute structure may have stability problem if AT&T or Amazon is not carefully managed. Customers may sway between both companies depend on stability of the services. As now, AT&T is only offer AT&T Synaptic Compute as a Service to customers that are living in the U.S., but Amazon has been offering Amazon Web Services to U.S. and Europe. Source.
I’m an AT&T customer, and so far I have no problem with their DSL service. Sadly, through a leaflet in my mailbox, I saw Comcast offers a moderate fast download speed up to 12 Mbps (double DSL speed), and you can also get the insanely fast download speed of 50 Mbps. At the same time, Comcast is also offering High-Speed 2go Mobile Broadband service so you can access the fastest wireless service when you out of the house.
It isn’t clear that for a download speed of 12 Mbps with High-Speed 2go Mobile Broadband is $49.99 per month (with a contract of 12 months), or it’s that a download speed of 50 Mbps with High-Speed 2go Mobile Broadband is $49.99 per month (with a contract of 12 months). I have to call Comcast up to confirm about the service prices, but even if it’s only 12 Mbps is at $49.99/month, it’s still way faster than my AT&T’s DSL, and the prices for Internet Service of both companies are roughly equal.
I heard a lot of bad things about Comcast, of how they throttle your Internet’s downloads, of how they have bandwidth limitation, and so I’m very cautious about Comcast. If Comcast throws away the contract and allow its customers to pay monthly without contract, then I may think about switching. For now, I’m going to wait for awhile, read some more point of views on the web, and wait until Comcast throws away its contract paid model. Let hope AT&T is ready to compete against Comcast by offering faster speed, then I don’t have to go through the trouble of switching my Internet Service.
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