Received my cell phone email bill the other day.  I never go over my voice/text limits and I have an unlimited data plan - so unless I’m traveling, my cell phone charges tend to be very consistent.  I couldn’t help but notice, though, that this bill was $10 higher than usual.  While I’m no fan of AT&T’s network quality (more on that here), I’ve found them to be pretty on top of things, billing-wise - so I was a little surprised.

Off to their website I went, looking for whatever annoying new fee, tax, or disputed charge that was surely there waiting for me - with that familiar old feeling of cell-phone-company-fear-and-loathing already coming on, I logged on to my account….

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A few weeks ago, we wrote that while a recent panel discussion of the iPhone NPR app was focused on the ability to access any NPR station despite its over-the-air local broadcast range constraints (geographic independence), the primary value proposition of the NPR app is the ability to access any program despite its scheduled air time constraints (temporal independence).  Put another way, this app represents the ‘tivo-ization’ of NPR.

In fact, the intrinsic ability to time-shift content is arguably the primary value proposition of any internet media platform.

Some recent coverage of Apple’s forthcoming Apple TV subscription model misses this point entirely, though…

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We’ve written about DNS before - how important it is, how remarkably well it works, how often it’s attacked, and how taken for granted it is by the general public.

As such, last week’s announcement that Google is getting into the DNS business is worth paying some attention to (historically, DNS has been provided for at the Internet Service Provider level, but there’s no intrinsically technical requirement to do so).

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Comcast has bought a controlling share in NBCU.  Maybe you’ve heard.

Just what this means for hulu is now topic du jour.  For those unfamiliar with the service (are there any left?), hulu is a browser-based premium video website that launched a year and a half ago as a NBC/Fox joint venture and has since became wildly popular (and deservedly so: on a technical level, the streaming is very well implemented, and on a user experience level, the UI is  very cleanly designed).  Since April, when Disney bought into hulu, CBS has been the only major broadcast network left outside of the hulu fold.

More than any other service, Hulu was looking like the future of premium online video.

Then along comes Comcast and makes things interesting: the largest company in the vertical industry most threatened by the advent of online premium (non user-generated) video is now part owner in the nascent medium’s industry leader.

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Turns out, I spent a good part of Thanksgiving weekend catching up on my subscription to The Online Reporter.

As I am going through weeks and weeks of back-issues of the popular Internet and CE digest, I catch myself repeatedly noticing the growing number of consumer software start-ups with particularly short and vowel-rich companies names.

Think Google, Hulu, Lala, Vudu, and Veoh. Oh, and then there’s Rollyo, Slooh, and Bebo, of course. And that’s only the beginning.

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Several decades after the advent of CAD, electronic ignition and anti-lock brakes, digital technology continues to make new inroads into the auto industry. A few of the more interesting examples:

Advertising?  There’s an app for that. Volkswagen is planning to promote their new GTI (the performance version of the Golf) exclusively via a licensed and rebranded mobile game app released for the iPhone and iTouch.  Recognizing a substantial overlap between the iPhone and GTI demographics, VW is apparently counting on the free app alone to get the job done, and at a much lower cost than traditional commercials and print ads.  The game uses the iPhone/iTouch motion-sensing, includes a virtual VW showroom (at left), and in a clever promotional move, VW plans to give away free cars to the six highest-scoring players.  If effective, look for more convergence between apps and advertising going forward…


The car network Another innovation from Germany: the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, in collaboration with manufacturers such as BMW, Audi, and Daimler, is working on the specification of a network standard to unify the various (until-now) standalone digital systems found in the modern automobile. Dubbed “Security in Embedded IP-based Systems“, the research project is aimed at reducing complexity and ensuring security, and will be based on Ethernet networking technology and the same Internet Protocol upon which the internet is based. We’re thinking such a system could easily find its way into the aviation industry as well. Yet more uses for ethernet - after over 30 years, maybe the most successful, extensible and long-lived networking technology ever invented.

At this week’s Web 2.0 Summit in San Fransisco, Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker had a lot to say about the future of mobile computing, most of it strongly positive.


A few points from her presentation:

• Apple makes a great device, which has helped drive explosive growth in mobile computing
• The stock market is a leading indicator of economic recovery
• Mobile computing means carriers face “surging demand but uncertain economics”

Granted, these proclamations are hardly revelatory - in fact, they’re nothing you haven’t heard a few dozen times before. But while it’s hard to know what contribution (if any) yet another restating of such already thoroughly accepted truisms will make to the current level of reverberation going on within the echo chamber of technology and economics analysis, there was (as usual) a great deal of other useful information packed into her presentation.

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Last week, I watched a great technology-related segment on The Daily Show.  The subject was flash trading - the algorithm-based automated trading of securities executed by high-performance computers on high-performance networks at certain exchanges - done at an extremely fast pace.

It’s not something those involved want to make too much noise about, but countless such trades are being fired off by machines continually throughout the trading day - and it’s on the rise.  Often, these are trades you or I might be interested in making - but flash trades execute just a few crucial milliseconds before ours would, often adversely affecting the prices we get in (or out) at.  Reported by a cow suit-wearing Samantha Bee (’cash cow’, get it?), last week’s segment on flash trading was The Daily Show at it’s finest: intelligent coverage of an otherwise under-reported issue, all wrapped in a layer of funny.

It got me thinking about technology …and gaming the system.

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A few thoughts on the Bing/Yahoo deal - it’s been about a week now since Carol Bartz decided outsource searches to Microsoft, effectively steering the company away from the technology business and (presumably) more towards the media and content/aggregation business.

For a few years now, the two companies have been attempting to join forces in one manner or another.  How did it finally happen?  Microsoft built a compelling product - their Bing search engine works well, has some interesting features, and has gotten generally good reviews.  The takeaway?  While previous unsuccessful Microsoft attempts to partner with Yahoo! depended on cash as a lever, this successful deal was based on the lever of product quality.

For all involved, I would like to think this would be (to use a currently fashionable buzzword) a “teachable moment”.

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Although I’ve been thinking about this for a while, it took a recent Union Square Maoz lunch with the folks from Incubakor,  to write one more rave about how urban and digital lifestyles increasingly seem to meet and merge.

This one’s about the sizeable number of new sleek and modern looking vertical micro eateries that have popped up in Manhattan and other cities across the country.

Think Chop’t, Chipotle and Maoz respectively for do-it-yourself salads, burritos, or falafels. Think Rice to Riches for not-quite-your-mother’s-favorite milk rice. Or Yolato, Pinkberry, Red Mango and Berrywild , all eager to declare the next renaissance for frozen yogurt on-the-go.

Essentially, if your parent’s culinary experience at McDonalds, IHOP, or Olive Garden appears rather Web  0.0 passe to you, these aforementioned new and casual eateries are clearly all out Web 2.0.

For one, designed to have you pick-and-choose your items as easily as you select your favorite video snacks from your preferred YouTube channel, this new breed of fast food spots is all void of sit-down menus, deliberately limiting your selection to but a few tastes and choices.

Still sounds too close to the age-old salad bar approach? Not so fast.

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