- Spectrum and the Public Good
By Brendan Ballou
Some of you may know that the FCC is auctioning off the 2155-2175 MHz (AWS-3) band of spectrum later next month, which could open up a whole host of new wireless technologies to consumers. Right now the commission is considering a number of public-interest requirements for the eventual winner of the auction to fulfill, among them:
(1) that the winner must allocate 25% of the spectrum for free, family-here wireless Internet
(2) that the winner must build the network to be accessible to 95% of Americans within ten years
Now, I’ve got a few concerns about these proposals. In fact, I’ve blogged some of those concerns at the Open Net Initiative. But what I don’t have any concerns about, and what I vigorously support, is the idea of some public interest provisions to be mandated for the spectrum winner.
Yet apparently, the Bush administration does have problems – problems with the very idea of public interest provisions. In a recent letter to Congress, the acting head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) wrote that:
“Auctions without price or product mandates create a level playing field…Restrictions and conditions on spectrum use, however well intentioned, are not the most effective or efficient way to encourage development of services or to assist underserved areas.”
Now, I don’t want to be facetious, but saying that “auctions without price or product mandates create a level playing field,” is a little like saying “anarchy creates a level playing field.” If there are no rules or restrictions, of course the playing field is fair, in so far as the strongest or richest player wins. But is that always what we want in a spectrum auction? Is our goal really to have the strongest or richest player win? As a matter of law, we can’t: federal law prohibits regulators from considering revenues when designing spectrum auctions. And as a matter of public policy, we shouldn’t: from aerospace to the Intenret, the government has often played a role in designing innovative environments. What troubles me about a condition-less wireless auction is that we might make a lot of money in the short-term, but at the price of innovation in the long-term.
- The X in Xbox
[This post was written by Yvette Wohn]
Opening the refrigerator to get some eggs for breakfast, I was surprised to find a strange apparatus built into one of the shelves.
“What the…”
“It’s a power juicer,” the refrigerator said, “I know you like fruit, so I decided to install this last night.”
“Wow, that’s very considerate of you, but I already have a juicer…”
“See?” screamed the juicer from the other end of the kitchen, “She doesn’t need another juicer.”
“No, she doesn’t need you,” the refrigerator replied coolly, “You can only make juice. I can make juice and refrigerate it. So take that. Maybe next week, I’ll start baking.”
The oven gasped.
“And by the way,” the refrigerator continued,” I got rid of the ice maker.”
“But I liked the ice maker!” I protested.
“Too bad for you. Clinical tests proved that eating ice stimulates disorders in the nervous system and I decided I didn’t want to be sued.”
Welcome to my hypothetical networked kitchen, where all appliances can add new functions or eliminate existing features overnight. While this scenario seems highly fictitious, it is in fact already taking place– perhaps not in the kitchen, but in the living room.
If you thought Steve Jobs was being evil in tethering the iPhone, I can’t wait to get started in talking about the Xbox360. (It is a bit painful for me to be speaking about this, because unlike a lot of people, I really like Bill Gates.)
As mentioned in introduction of the book, the Xbox360 video game console is a very smart computer, but unlike the PC, it is wholly controlled by Microsoft.
You may be thinking that is not such a big deal– after all, it’s only gaming, right? Not exactly. On Nov. 19, Microsoft officially unleashed the New Xbox Experience for the Xbox360– adding a number of new features that evolved the game console into an all-in-one home entertainment box. All through a simple “update” that is downloaded in a few minutes through Internet access. Soon, you won’t need a separate Tivo or a DVD player– everything will be in one box.
In many ways, the Xbox360 feels like a PC. Social networking features enable users to chat with “friends” outside of the game– and even across different games. More on-demand movie viewing features have been added as well; users in the United States, for instance, can now download films using Netflix (one must subscribe to Netflix separately). Microsoft has also inked a lot of deals with film distributors and network content providers, bringing exclusive TV programs and movies to the console. I am sure movie distributors applaud devices like the Xbox360 because content can be controlled, monitored, and actually charged for.
While its features echo those available on a PC, the Xbox360 is so not a PC because you really don’t have much say in what happens. The same goes for other consoles like the PS3 and Wii. Unlike software installations on one’s PC, on a tethered console, you either have to accept the updates in whole or not. Even that is not really a choice, because if you choose the latter, you won’t be able to fix the bugs.
The problem is not only what you can control, but also when. The manufacturer [which has suddenly promoted itself to the content provider] decides when the updates will take place: Sony PS3 and Wii users will experience fairly frequent changes, while Xbox users are subject to updates once every few months. I use the term ‘update’ instead of ‘upgrade’ because users do not always agree that the changes are for the better. Regarding the New Xbox Experience, for example, users are already complaining that the new avatar system makes it difficult to find friends, and noting that the Netflix movies have poor graphic quality.
So do these new features turn me off? Forgive me for sounding like a hypocrite, but not really. I think these updates are super cool– especially the new chatting feature that lets people playing on different games still chat with each other, because most of my friends like the gory shooting games and I don’t. And yet I stand with Jonathan on opposing the mainstreamization of tethered devices.
My reason for disliking tethered devices is not so grand– it’s quite selfish. As an avid gamer, it annoys me that the closed architecture of these game consoles prevents more diverse games from being developed. It also crushes true competition, because console makers are forever trying to get exclusive content, which limits what is available to people who only have one console– or no console, since these exclusive contracts even forbid game makers from making PC versions. How unfair is it that people who don’t have consoles cannot play Fable 2 (exclusive to Xbox360), Little Big Planet (exclusive to PS3), or even Guitar Hero World Tour (exclusive to consoles)?
At least until now, PCs had the edge over consoles in massively multiplayer online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online, but now that all of the consoles are connected to the Internet, that domain will soon begin to shake up.
So what does the X in Xbox stand for? To me, it’s a big fat “no.” No to creativity, no to diversity, no to genuine competition, no to playing cool games over Thanksgiving weekend.
- Flash for Android, not the iPhone
Almost since the introduction of the iPhone, there have been complaints that it doesn’t support Flash. Those complaints have picked up steam in the last week week, as Adobe demonstrated polished versions of Flash on other mobile platforms—including Android—and all but publicly begged to be allowed onto the iPhone.
Flash, an Adobe product, is software that enables rich web content. It allows developers to add animation, integrate videos, and make websites interactive. A large portion of the web’s content (including advertisements) can only be properly viewed with Flash. On PCs, Flash is integrated into the browser, so users may never realize that they’re encountering Flash-supported content. On the iPhone, however, users will immediately know when a website requires Flash, because the website won’t work. Most importantly, Flash is also a run-everywhere platform—developers can code applications (like games) in Flash, and a user can access those applications via the web.
Thus far, Apple has been hostile to the idea of supporting Flash on the iPhone, to the dismay of Hulu-lovers everywhere. The iPhone’s TOS specify that an application “may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means,” including via plug-in architecture. Steve Jobs has also said that Flash for Macs is too clunky, and that Flash Lite (the prior version used on mobile platforms) wasn’t powerful enough for the iPhone.
Jobs’ argument is less convincing now, though, since Adobe demonstrated fully-functional versions of a new and improved Flash on the mobile platforms Android and Windows Mobile last week. Moreover, Adobe says they’ve got a version of Flash working on the iPhone emulator. But even if Apple and Adobe could work out a perfectly smooth version of Flash for the iPhone—and even if they could take care of some technical hassles, like keeping Flash from draining battery power or memory—Apple would probably still resist Flash. Why? Two reasons.
First, as noted, it’s a development platform. So if the iPhone supported Flash, anyone who had an app rejected by Apple—or who didn’t want to go through the annoyance of being certified and approved in the first place—could code the app in Flash, put it on a website, and let iPhone users flock to it. (The CEO of Nullriver, whose app NetShare was banned months ago, has already expressed interest in this.) According to one survey, 33% of mobile phone users use the phones primarily for entertainment. If all those users had access to free Flash games, the App Store would suffer proprtionately.
An even bigger issue would be the collaboration required to produce a top-quality version of Flash for the iPhone. Adobe could develop a standalone plug-in that a user could invoke to see specific content on the web. But users have gotten used to the seamless integration of Flash on PCs. What Adobe really wants—and it’s saying so quite openly—is to work directly with Apple to integrate Flash into Safari, the web browser offered on the iPhone. This would deeply break down the walls between the iPhone’s native software and the outside apps.
It’s entirely unsurprising that Apple is hesitant to take such a dramatic step. On the other hand, if users choose Android and WiMo phones—so that they have access to the whole web—Apple might have to reconsider its choice. This may be a chance to see market forces resist a tethered device.
—Elisabeth Oppenheimer
- Internet filtering updates
[The following post was written by Yvette Wohn]
In the United States, we sometimes tend to forget about how grateful we are to the First Amendment; the freedom of speech. Not many people may stop to think that for all accusations of evildoings, the current government has never tried to ban websites with funny pictures of George Bush or stories that put him in negative light.
Freedom of speech, however, is not to be taken for granted in many other countries, where the Internet is being used as a means to clamp down unfavorable information. People are in danger of having their voices suppressed, and cannot use truth as a defense.
The Palestinian National Authority has blocked access to a popular news website for users in the West Bank and Gaza Strip because it was reporting on corruption. The website, Donia al-Watan, can be seen outside of the area and by those who use proxies, but the majority receives a message stating, “We are sorry, the site was blocked based on attorney General instructions…” It was extremely convenient for the PNA because it controls the telecom company which offers Internet services.
In Myanmar, the military regime is exercising tight control over the Internet, banning access to news sites and even to web-based e-mail services such as Yahoo or Hotmail. This week, it sentenced a blogger to 20 years in prison for publishing information about the junta.
Unfortunately, net filtering is not just for countries with developing economies. Australia is truly going “down under” with its Internet filtering legislations and South Korea filters content, although they claim it is only for information that may harm national security.
The OpenNet Initiative has more updates on who filters what, where, and how that is being tracked.
- Tenenbaum Trial and Future of the Internet
[The following post was written by Yvette Wohn]
Joel Tenenbaum was one of thousands, perhaps millions of teenagers. When he was 17, he allegedly downloaded seven songs from the Internet using a peer-to-peer file sharing program called Kazaa [Both parties appear to agree this is a downloading case, not (solely) an uploading case like many of the others]. Now, 10 years later, he is being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), along with Capital Records and Sony BMG. What does the RIAA want from Mr. Tenenbaum? $1 million.
But before we begin to think about the legal details and who is right or wrong, let’s think about why this is a problem. For starters, the current architecture of the Internet does not technically support copyright. It is different from controlled virtual environments such as Second Life, in which any object made by someone will forever contain the “watermark” of the maker. Items or programs in Second Life can be designated at birth whether or not they will be copyable or transferable.
That does not mean copyright has no meaning on the Web– only that the architecture of the Web makes it easy to exchange copyrighted material to a scale that cannot compare to what could happen in the physical world.
Is the Architecture of the Net Creating Problems?
These copyright issues are taking place because the creators of the Internet did not think like proprietary networks. As explained in Chapter 2, the people who designed the Internet were primarily academic researchers and corporate engineers who “had little concern for controlling the network or its users’ behavior.” When they first made the Internet, they probably had no idea that someone (actually two someones) would come along and invent a peer-to-peer file sharing program.
If the Internet were designed by the RIAA, they probably would have made it so that music would not be able to be shared by multiple people. We can make this assumption because one of the attempts made by the music industry has been to impose digital rights management, or DRM, on their products. DRM gives the media maker the authority to control what can and cannot be done with a song. For instance, a music file can be programmed so that it can only be played a certain number of times, or only on certain devices. While DRMs are increasingly fading, they still have a strong presence in much of the content available on online music stores like iTunes.
So what does that mean for an organization like the RIAA? It could continue its current mission of hunting down music downloaders/uploaders and suing them, hoping in the long run that this will discourage people from doing so. Or, it could look for an entirely different business model that still brings in revenues regardless of Internet file sharing. Or… it could try to change the Internet to one that is more controlled by requiring Internet service providers to impose filters.
That last scenario is something that concerns people like Charles Nesson, Harvard Law School professor and Mr. Tenenbaum’s legal representative. According to Prof. Nesson, the RIAA’s lawsuit against Mr. Tenenbaum is more about working to change the infrastructure to make control of content easier.
In the defense of the counterclaim he argues:
They do this, not for the purpose of recovering compensation for actual damage caused by Joel’s individual action, nor for the primary purpose of deterring him from further copyright infringement, but for the ulterior purpose of creating an urban legend so frightening to children using computers, and so frightening to parents and teachers of students using computers, that they will somehow reverse the tide of the digital future.
That is something we should think about. Will the Internet continue to run on the open infrastructure that it currently is? Do we, as users, have any say in what happens to it?
August 12th, 2008 at 8:15 pm (#)
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