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Why does mobility always mean compromise?

By Mike King

In many ways, increased mobility and the technology that supports it would appear to be a marketing person’s dream.  There’s barely any need to convince people they should give it a try – the concept is easy to understand and people want to use it. 

Trouble is, although that’s the message the mobile industry preaches, it isn’t what it gives us.  It says it does, but in reality, it usually serves up some half-baked compromise that leaves you with the feeling that this stuff will be good at some point in the future - but unfortunately, not today.   

For example, I’m a big fan of Wi-Fi (who isn’t?). It’s great for surfing the web, using email and accessing your work network remotely.  BUT, and it’s a big but, it often isn’t available where it would be most useful.  Like now, for example, as I sit here on a train writing this blog because I can’t get access to my corporate network to do some real work. 

Of course, the irritation factor with Wi-Fi can actually increase when you use it.  If you’re lucky enough to find a connection point, more often than not, you then have to mess around completing forms, registering your details and paying for access (at some ridiculous rate for a few hours access that equates to what you pay for a month’s broadband at home) before getting online. 

Not a big deal, but hardly the utopian high speed, always connected world that we’re always being promised.

If you go the always-connected route, with something like a Blackberry, the compromise is that you have to put up with limited functionality with no practical way to work on documents or do most of the stuff that you can do at home or in the office.  Of course, you’ll have email access - but very little else.

Or you can get a 3G card for your laptop giving you always-on connectivity.  But the cost is high, the service is patchy and the real compromise is that the performance is slow, and certainly nowhere near broadband (or Wi-Fi) speeds.

It’s pretty simple: we want high speed, always available connectivity so we can do what we do in the office wherever we are.  The most frustrating thing is that the technology exists to provide this - yet the mobile industry is dragging its heals, giving us bits and pieces, but leaving us feeling we are being short-changed and only getting half of what we really want.

Microsoft struck down by foot in mouth disease

By Claire Ayles

Microsoft admitting there are flaws in its software isn't really a big deal anymore.  In fact, the company has been praised in the last year or two for its glasnost PR approach - being open about the problems, rather than trying to hide them.  Because let's face it, we all use Microsoft software so we all know it isn't perfect.

However, one has to feel for the poor PR charged with convincing the world that Microsoft is a serious and dependable security player, when the people actually responsible for developing its flagship consumer security product – the amusingly named OneCare - are all too eager to point out its failings. 

For example, at this month's German techfest, CeBIT, no lesser figure than Microsoft's European security product manager confessed that its security software has "bits and pieces missing".  And just in case anyone was in doubt about this, a blogger from the anti-malware engineering team confirmed that detection rates need to "gradually and steadily increase until they are on par with the other majors in this arena". 

It's hard to work out where exactly these comments fit into Microsoft's strategy to achieve worldwide domination of the consumer security market. 

However, what's interesting here is the play-off between a 21st century corporation's desire to be touchy-feely - spearheaded by the growth of company blogs and the like - and the need to actually grow market share.  Personally, I'm surprised that, given Microsoft's poor reputation for security and the vast investment it's made into cracking this market, OneCare has been fumbled so badly by the Redmond spin machine. 

Of course, lying that your product works when it doesn't would also be a very bad thing - but that's no reason for Microsoft to shout from the rooftops that its product has shortcomings…

Don't watch that, watch this! Or, preferably, nothing...

By Dominic Walsh

It seems that governments worldwide are finally catching on to the fact that the internet has a lot more on it these days than pictures of dogs dressed as bees and innumerable football discussion forums.  With sites such as YouTube and Google Video now delivering a seemingly unstoppable stream of video content, even Gordon Brown has joined the party, and only a couple of years late.

The first response to the Chancellor’s proposal for a new media ratings system is, do we really need this?  Is he suggesting that the current age rating used on cinema releases, DVDs and games, the watershed on TV and radio and the advisories of explicit lyrics in music are somehow too arcane for the average member of society?

The second response, especially regarding ratings on websites, is how will it be enforced?  Will ISPs in the UK be required to flag up all inappropriate content a user tries to access, or will the websites themselves be asked to supply age ratings?  What effect will this have on those sites based outside the country, such as YouTube?  Of course, we could also bear in mind that this is a politician looking for party leadership tackling “family values” and engage all relevant cynicism.

The same questions are likely to be asked in France, where laws are making it illegal for non-journalists to film or broadcast violent events in the country.  But if a YouTube user uploads a video of, for example, rioting in Paris, what authority will the French have to order its removal from the site or to obtain the identity of the person who originally uploaded it?

Of course, there is always the option taken by China and, more recently, Turkey, of simply denying access to any content that doesn’t take the government’s fancy.  With luck, actions taken by repressive regimes and countries that evidently aren’t that desperate to join the EU won’t be repeated over here – but you never know.  In the future, exactly how much control will governments have over the content their citizens can access?

Right now (well, not right now, as I respect the company internet policy!) I could access any number of images, documents, videos or sounds that would offend and disturb me and, perhaps more importantly, the government.  How much power should they have to protect us and themselves?  Is it a proportionate response to a minor national insult to deny access to a site such as YouTube that, when it’s not showing dangerous videos of William Shatner singing Rocket Man, provides an invaluable service to immigrants looking to stay in touch with their home country, friends and family (I speak from experience here)? 

Whether the access granted by the web can draw communities further together or push them further apart, isn’t that a choice to be made by the communities themselves?

Wikipedia's fallibility could undermine Blogosphere dogma

By Tom Kirkham

It seems that every week another collaborative online project makes the headlines, 'A Million Penguins' being just the latest example of joined-up Web 2.0 user-generated content in action.  Whether it's for the purposes of creating fiction, entertaining others, or just expressing opinions and starting debate, these forums for interaction are now commanding greater recognition and respect than ever before.

However, the actual value of user-generated content has been subject to considerable scrutiny, and this has recently been brought into focus by the discovery of a worm in the online apple of knowledge that is Wikipedia.  The recent revelation that an editor working on the world's biggest collaborative encyclopaedia was not in fact the professor of religion he claimed to be has reignited the debate as to just how much user-generated content can really be trusted.

Until a few days ago, Ryan Jordan had the power to edit Wikipedia articles, arbitrate disputes between authors and verify ‘facts’ (or not, as the case may be), and his exposure as a fraud is likely to infuriate and upset a great many readers and contributors, not to mention other Wikipedia editors who could well find their own legitimate credentials being called into question.

While paid up members of the Blogosphere march under a puritanical 'power to the people' banner, non-believers object to the simple fact that a lot of user-generated content is unmoderated, unsubstantiated and in some cases, seemingly authored by the criminally insane - and this issue is far harder to ignore when Web 2.0 figureheads like Wikipedia are also subject to such failings. 

It's not that Ryan Jordan lacked integrity - reports suggest he was genuinely trying to do the job properly, even if this involved using that definitive religious text 'Catholicism For Dummies' - but at the end of the day, he was just another self-proclaimed expert trying to pull a fast one.  It was only thanks to the anonymity of the web that he was able to mask his true identity.

Many people see the Blogosphere as the last bastion of ‘the truth’, fighting the battle against spin and big media in general.  But going forward, sites like Wikipedia need to set a better example by putting stringent peer review policies in place to stop reputation of Web 2.0 as a whole being dragged through the mud. 

There are already fears about the influence of the corporate world on the user-generated space, and if this new community doesn't learn to moderate content effectively, then the likelihood is that a handful of global corporations will step in to do the job for them...