Showing posts with label New Zealand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Zealand. Show all posts

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Google Balloon: More Promising Than Google Fiber, Google Glass And Google Car

I am psyched about this, what can I say? I am as psyched as I have been about Android, perhaps more so.




Google launches Internet-beaming balloons
the flimsy helium-filled inflatables beam the Internet down to earth as they sail past on the wind. .... the balloons were the first of thousands that Google's leaders eventually hope to launch12 miles into the stratosphere in order to bridge the gaping digital divide between the world's 4.8 billion unwired people and their 2.2 billion plugged-in counterparts ..... "The power of the Internet is probably one of the most transformative technologies of our time." .... Google's balloons fly free and out of eyesight, scavenging power from card table-sized solar panels that dangle below and gather enough charge in four hours to power them for a day as the balloons sail around the globe on the prevailing winds. Far below, ground stations with Internet capabilities about 60 miles apart bounce signals up to the balloons. ..... The signals would hop forward, from one balloon to the next, along a backbone of up to five balloons...... Each balloon would provide Internet service for an area twice the size of New York City, about 780 square miles, and terrain is not a challenge. They could stream Internet into Afghanistan's steep and winding Khyber Pass or Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, a country where the World Bank estimates four out of every 100 people are online..... The signals travel in the unlicensed spectrum, which means Google doesn't have to go through the onerous regulatory processes required for Internet providers using wireless communications networks or satellites ..... in the next phase of the trial they hope to get up to 300 balloons forming a ring on the 40th parallel south from New Zealand through Australia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina. ..... "It's a very fundamentally democratic thing that what links everyone together is the sky and the winds," said Richard DeVaul, an MIT-trained scientist who founded Project Loon and helped develop Google Glas ..... they wouldn't interfere with aircraft because they fly well below satellites and twice as high as airplanes ...... The balloons would be guided to collection points and replaced periodically. In cases when they failed, a parachute would deploy. ..... "For every person online, there are two who are not. By the end of the decade, everyone on Earth will be connected" ...... "The nutritional and medical information, farming techniques, democratic principles those are the wonderful parts of it," he said. "But you also have everyone wanting to drive a car, eat a steak, drink a Coke." .... the balloons were invisible in the sky except for an occasional glint
Can Google Fly Its Internet Balloons Wherever It Wants?
a network of high-altitude balloons ...... to beam Internet access to the ground at speeds similar to today’s 3G networks or faster ...... balloons can be “steered by rising or descending to an altitude with winds moving in the desired direction.” ......... hundreds of balloons flying at a latitude of approximately 40 degrees south, which would take them over a lot of open ocean but also include transits over New Zealand, southern Argentina, and southern Chile. ...... “approximately two thirds of the world’s population today doesn’t have Internet access.” ..... a truly global system of Google-operated Internet access balloons
Introducing Project Loon: Balloon-powered Internet access
We believe that it might actually be possible to build a ring of balloons, flying around the globe on the stratospheric winds, that provides Internet access to the earth below. It’s very early days, but we’ve built a system that uses balloons, carried by the wind at altitudes twice as high as commercial planes, to beam Internet access to the ground at speeds similar to today’s 3G networks or faster. As a result, we hope balloons could become an option for connecting rural, remote, and underserved areas, and for helping with communications after natural disasters. ...... how to control their path through the sky. We’ve now found a way to do that, using just wind and solar power: we can move the balloons up or down to catch the winds we want them to travel in. That solution then led us to a new problem: how to manage a fleet of balloons sailing around the world so that each balloon is in the area you want it right when you need it. We’re solving this with some complex algorithms and lots of computing power. ..... We imagine someday you'll be able to use your cell phone with your existing service provider to connect to the balloons and get connectivity where there is none today
Google Loon: Google's Second Most Important Project
a phalanx of balloons that sail in the stratosphere like low level satellites ..... winds in the stratosphere are slow and that’s what makes Loon feasible ..... balloons will use solar power to move the communications equipment between layers of slow moving winds ..... Google is wrestling with how to be an infrastructure player, in order to bring more customers to its core business. ..... Google Fiber, one of its three telco infrastructure projects, is too slow-build to matter in the near future. In White Spaces, the use of excess TV spectrum, Google is in a tight battle with Microsoft, especially in Africa where Microsoft seems to be moving ahead with rural access, much faster than Google has. ....... Samsung’s moves into 5G wireless...... Winds in the stratosphere are generally steady and slow-moving at between 5 and 20 mph, and each layer of wind varies in direction and magnitude ..... Project Loon uses software algorithms to determine where its balloons need to go, then moves each one into a layer of wind blowing in the right direction. By moving with the wind, the balloons can be arranged to form one large communications network ...... by the time it rolls out, if it works, the world will have moved beyond 3G, the capacity Google expects from its balloons ..... makes Loon Google’s second most important project, behind one that gets very little press – White Spaces for rural, developing areas.
Who Should Be Scared Of Samsung's 1Gb+ Wireless Technology?
one reaction to the news was that cable is dead..... wireless could displace fixed line, and is a threat to cable companies that have been slow to upgrade their networks .... the world’s first adaptive array transceiver technology operating in the millimeter-wave Ka bands for cellular communications. The new technology sits at the core of 5G mobile communications system and will provide data transmission up to several hundred times faster than current 4G networks…5G mobile communications technology is the next generation of the existing 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network technology. 5G will be capable of providing a ubiquitous Gbps experience to subscribers anywhere and offers data transmission speeds of up to several tens of Gbps per base station ..... over 500 billion devices to be connected to the Internet by 2020 and diversity in the network is key to enabling all that activity ..... the aim is for 10 Gbps transmission ..... Samsung has perfected an extraordinary capability to innovate and advance itself across a wide range of activities ...... developing significant and deep partnerships with telco carriers ..... direct carrier billing for apps bought via Samsung devices and services such as Hub ..... Samsung is producing a new philosophy that emphasizes end-to-end support for its carrier clients. ..... end-tend from chip to infrastructure. ..... Samsung and Google are developing a deeper partnership ...... the company most likely to produce the important innovations in display, battery and processors ..... As Google improves its own UI design capabilities, Samsung becomes better allied to what is beginning to look like the world’s leading software company. This is a significant partnership. ..... What Google showed this week and Samsung has been demonstrating for a while is that innovation is now a different game – much broader in scope, often more narrow in focus, but incredibly fast. Apple is looking outpaced.
Enhanced by Zemanta

Sunday, January 29, 2012

MegaUpload: The SOPA/PIPA Aftermath

Image representing Megaupload Limited as depic...Image via CrunchBaseThe Shout: Megaupload: A Lot Less Guilty Than You Think
The heart of this case is whether and when an enterprise can be held criminally liable for the conduct of its users. ....... “Can the Grokster theory of CIVIL liability even be the basis for CRIMINAL copyright claims?” This has never been decided by any Court. ...... Rojadirecta’s lawyers at Durie Tangri have challenged the U.S. Government’s assertion that criminal liability arises from linking to infringing content. The lawyers argue that judge-made secondary infringement liability theories, including Grokster style inducement, cannot be the basis for a criminal copyright violation because the criminal copyright statute doesn’t mention secondary liability. Congress considered and rejected statutes that would have created such liability, in COICA and PROTECT IP. In sum, due process doesn’t allow incarceration under a civil legal theory that the Supreme Court dreamed up in 2005. The issues yet to be decided in Rojadirecta apply to the Megaupload case as well. ...... The list of overt acts show that the object of the conspiracy was infringement by Mega users. ....... If the idea is that Mega conspired with its users to infringe, those users may or may not have been criminally infringing copyright. They were located all over the world, and may or may not have acted willfully, i.e. intended to violate U.S. law. Again, the government would basically have alleged an agreement to violate a U.S. CIVIL law, including by many people who are not subject to U.S. rules. ....... Is it a federal crime to conspire to induce others to violate a U.S. civil law? ....... The answer to that is an obvious “no”. ...... prosecuting this case against Mega, especially if Defendants get good criminal lawyers who also understand copyright law, is going to be an uphill battle for the government. ..... the indictment identifies four films that the defendants supposedly distributed before release: The Green Hornet, Thor, Bad Teacher, Twilight–Breaking Dawn Part 1. But Count 4 only charges one such act of prerelease infringement, the movie Taken. What about the other films? Why were those not also charged? .......... Finally, this case is extremely interesting from a JURISDICTIONAL standpoint. One of the very first issue to be litigated will be extradition to the United States. Does the United States have jurisdiction over anyone who uses a hosting provider in the Eastern District of Virginia? What about over any company that uses PayPal? That’s a very broad claim of power, and I expect it will be vigorously contested.
TorrentFreak: Mega Aftermath: Upheaval In Pirate Warez Land
While last week’s shutdown of MegaUpload is of huge interest in itself, but a wave of aftershocks and side-effects are proving equally fascinating to watch. In addition to causing all sorts of problems for legitimate users of file-sharing services, there is no avoiding the fact that certain elements of the piracy scene are in a mess. But amazingly, still the beat goes on. ....... The perception of the established ground rules had been changed, without the passing of a single new law. ....... “If the US government can come for Kim Dotcom it can happen to almost anyone,” a file-hosting operator told TorrentFreak on condition of anonymity. “I’m trying to think of everything I did possibly wrong in the last 3 years and worrying about that and the next 3 years also, if we even have that long.” ..... For many hosting sites it was time to react – quickly. ......... drastic actions taken by services such as Filesonic and Fileserve who shut down all 3rd party sharing and, like many others, closed down their affiliate payout programs ...... file-hosting competitors such as 4shared, Rapidshare and Hotfile had grown as users hunted for spare capacity ...... huge libraries of both legitimate and pirated material were wiped out as filehost after filehost deleted an impossible-to-calculate number of files and closed down thousands of suspected infringing accounts. ....... For more than half a decade Hollywood and the recording industry have spent millions of dollars not so much on actually eliminating illegal content, but getting rid of links to content such as those found on BitTorrent........ But this week, without a single cease and desist being sent, cyberlockers across the globe not only self-deleted vast quantities of files, but in doing so made millions of links across thousands of ‘linking sites’ completely useless too. ......... While there is money to be made in torrent sites, the content sharers there are largely altruistic. ...... But like worker ants whose nest has just been smashed apart by angry humans, others are utterly unfazed and just want to know which hosts are still paying out. Despite the climate of fear, quite a few hosts say they are ...... Cyberlockers are in a mess, but already recovering. Release sites are continuing, albeit with a reduced number of multiple links to the same content. ...... Perhaps the best test is whether it’s now very hard or impossible to find and download popular content. Not even close.
This MegaUpload stuff is related to SOPA/PIPA. The people who lost the battle in Congress hit back in New Zealand. There is no fighting the technology. But the music and movie industries have the option to come up with new business models.

The Solution Is Tech Heavy, Data Heavy

Friday, January 20, 2012

MegaUpload, SOPA, PIPA

Image representing Megaupload Limited as depic...Image via CrunchBaseAre they related?

GigaOm: Follow the traffic: What MegaUpload’s downfall did to the web
Arbor Networks said it saw traffic begin to drop fairly sharply in Europe after about 7 p.m. GMT and 2 p.m. EST, when the site was estimated to have been shut down on Thursday. ...... MegaUpload was indeed one of the more popular sites on the web for storing and sharing content. It ranked as .98 percent of the total web traffic in the U.S. and 11.39 of the total web traffic in Brazil. It garnered 1.95 percent of the traffic in Asia-Pacific and a less substantial .86 percent in Europe.
Reuters: Megaupload site wants assets back, to fight charges
The Internet website Megaupload.com, shut down by authorities over allegations that it illegally peddled copyrighted material, is trying to recover its servers and get back online ..... "Megaupload will vigorously defend itself." ..... The company's executives earned more than $175 million from subscription fees and advertising ..... The new website, which is being hosted in the Netherlands, looked similar to the original Megaupload.com website.
CNet: Megaupload assembles worldwide criminal defense
"There are significant issues of due process," Rothken said early this morning. "The government has taken down one of the world's largest storage providers and have done so without giving Megaupload an opportunity to be heard in court." ....... cost the film industry more than $600 million in damages ..... Rothken dismissed the government's attempt to file criminal charges against his clients. "Many of the allegations made are similar to those in the copyright case filed against YouTube and that was a civil case....and YouTube won." ...... Anonymous launched denial-of-service attacks on a number of music and film industry sites as well as the Web site of the Justice Department. ..... lives in a $30 million mansion in New Zealand. ..... DotCom was known for his flamboyant lifestyle and partying. He was certainly not hiding out in New Zealand. He threw a New Year's party and paid for a huge fireworks show over Auckland. ...... "Despite our staff clearly identifying themselves, Mr Dotcom retreated into the house and activated a number of electronic locking mechanisms," Detective Inspector Grant Wormald said in a report from New Zealand news outlet TVNZ. "While police neutralized these locks he then further barricaded himself into a safe room within the house which officers had to cut their way into."
TechCrunch: Anonymous Reacts to Megaupload Takedown With “Largest Attack Ever”
“The government takes down #Megaupload? 15 minutes later #Anonymous takes down government & record label sites. #ExpectUs.” ..... the group claimed responsibility for taking down the Universal Music, RIAA (the record industry’s lobbying arm), MPAA (the movie industry’s lobbying arm), and Department of Justice websites, among others. As of 3pm Pacific, the sites were still down for me ..... The group also claimed that the current attacks were “the largest attack ever by Anonymous,” with 5,635 participants. And it looks like the campaign is ongoing — Anonymous says it’s going after the FBI’s website next: “Get some popcorn… it’s going to be a long lulzy night.”