Whatever...

The French government knows how to earn money…

By Alexandra Radius

In France, the government is finding yet another way to get money out of us… its currently engaged in talks to extend the TV licence to computers as a new method of accessing television content.  Simply put, this means that soon, those who do not own a television but do own a computer will have to pay for the privilege.  According to the government, this is one of the ways of ensuring autonomous and long-term financing for the public audiovisual industry (particularly now that advertising is no longer allowed on public channels!)

 

One of the problems with the proposal as it currently stands is that there is no discrimination between users with different types of Internet access – so it may apply both to broadband subscribers and to those subscribers who could never watch TV on the Internet because their slow connection and lack of bandwidth makes it impossible to do so.

 

So what happens to those people who can’t, or simply don’t, watch TV on their computer?  I’m not sure that more than a small percentage of the people who decide not to have a television set in the first place are going to watch TV on their computer.  Not having a TV is becoming a lifestyle choice for a growing number of people in France where the quality of programmes on public TV is often not up to scratch.  I’m sure they’ll be overjoyed if the proposal is ever put into action.

 

And what about the people who have a computer, but no Internet access?  Rare, I imagine in this day and age, but they surely exist.

 

These and many other questions are still up in the air and are likely to stimulate a lot of debate and disagreement.  I’m not in favour of these measures, particularly in this time of economic crisis and they could penalise one of the rare growth sectors that continues to create employment.  I think the government is trying to establish this tax to not only subsidise lost earnings from advertising on public television, but taxes lost because of Internet downloading.  I’m also sceptical as the government hasn’t proposed other ways to finance the public audiovisual service.  Why not propose a tax directly on internet or triple play service providers?  Possibly because they will pass the cost along to their subscribers anyway...

 

For now, nothing has been decided, but it feels like this is imminent and I’m wondering when the government will extend the tax to the mobile sector?  Is it going to make all the users of 3G mobile phones subject to the licence as well?  I think this is only the tip of the iceberg and that we may well have to get used to paying extra for our beloved high tech devices.

Jury is out over whether Google costs the earth

By Claire Ayles

Press coverage of the tech sector has had somewhat of a green hue so far this year, kicking off with the Consumer Electronics Association announcement that around two thirds of consumers want to buy ‘environmentally friendly’ technology, and half of these are willing to pay more money for the privilege.  While it’s important to point out that some of this research did take place before consumer spending went down the swanny, it’s fair to say that most of us would prefer the tech industry to pollute less.

 

But are tech firms really up to the challenge of delivering green IT?  The Sunday Times is pretty sure they’re not.  Its 11 January edition included an exposé on how much CO2 the IT sector was spewing out into the atmosphere and the conclusion was bleak:  the industry is just a hair’s breadth behind the aeronautical sector in the race to become the world’s principal polluter.   

Cast as the principle villain was Google.  According to the research that formed the basis of the story, each Google search produces seven grams of CO2, that’s half what’s produced when you boil a kettle.

For a tea drinking Google addict like me, this is certainly worrying news... or is it?  Seems as if The Sunday Times’ story may not have been totally accurate.  The reporter’s main source, Harvard University’s Alex Wissner-Gross, has since refuted that he specifically commented on Google, and the search giant itself has criticised the story, stating that carbon dioxide emissions per search are around the 0.2 gram mark.  

While it obviously does matter how much CO2 Google – and the rest of the tech sector – emits, I’d argue that even the highest estimates have to be better than the alternative:  not using technology.  If we couldn’t use technology to communicate it’s safe to say we’d fly more, use more petrol and cut down more trees – and what would be the environmental cost of all that? 

Tech set to survive the crunch

By Mike King

 

Yesterday’s 0.5 percent cut in the base rate, down to 1.5%, the lowest since the Bank of England was founded in 1694, raised further questions about how bad things are going to get before they start to improve. 

 

One thing is for sure, while everyone else in the UK is talking about the current recession being the first since 1991, in the tech industry we’re different.  As if any of us could forget, we had the deep, prolonged tech recession that started in 2001 and I’ve seen it argued that this time around we could fare better than many other sectors. Part of the rationale for this is that because we’ve so recently come out of a downturn, many technology firms are running lean and aren’t carrying excess fat.   

 

Even though Alistair Darling now accepts that the current economic malaise is going to be a lot worse than a six month blip, there is still reason to have some faith in the tech industry’s durability.  For a start, those areas of tech that directly improve operational efficiency are well placed.  There are also areas that simply can’t be neglected, such as IT security, where spending levels remain strong. Cloud computing, mobile applications, gaming and digital entertainment are all examples of other areas that are still seeing decent growth.

 

That isn’t to say that the entire technology industry is immune to recession fever.  From our own point of view, we were originally aiming to grow this year but we’ve revised our plans and expect business to be flat.  So far, eight months into our current financial year, billings are the same as at this point last year.  For us, it is a case of working very hard to stand still. Not great, but a lot better than it could be. Ask anyone in retail, financial services or property how that sounds, and I’m sure they’d grab it with both hands. 

It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid…

By Tom Kirkham

 

…Except when it comes to the new Microsoft Internet Explorer critical flaw, which is causing us all to run for the hills. 

These are paranoid times indeed for technology.  Industry leaders may be feeling shaken, but that’s nothing compared to the actual tech users.  We’re afraid of Microsoft security flaws, we’re concerned about Google and our ISPs, we’re worried the public sector will cost us money and mess up our services, we’re now being warned of the dangers of virtualisation – the list goes on and on.

Sometimes you can’t help but feel the tech scare factor may be slightly overstated.  After all, compared to things like knife crime, gang violence or international terrorism, this paranoia seems trifling at best. 

Or is it?

 

I always considered my fear of wasps to be irrational and perhaps slightly stupid, in the grand scheme of things.  But then during the summer I was stung for the first time in many years, and was astonished to find that it hurt just as much as I’d feared! 

Now, there’s an argument that people are over-paranoid about IT security threats, for example.  But if you get your email login swiped by a hacker, who accesses your account to find your credit card details, then uses your credit card to sign up to a child pornography website, the consequences could be pretty devastating. 

What’s more, a new infected webpage is discovered every four and a half seconds, which when you think about it is really quite often, while Christmas is typically a peak period for malicious online activity.  In contrast, the chances of being stabbed on your way to midnight mass, finding your mulled wine laced with ricin or uncovering a nail bomb in your turkey seem remote. 

I’m not seriously trying to suggest that we should be more fearful of tech threats than we should about suffering a horrific physical attack.  But given that we continue to shift more of our lives online, to the point at which the activities undertaken by our virtual selves can carry as many consequences as those in the real world, can we say for sure that physical threats will always carry the most weight?

And on that overly paranoid (virtual) bombshell, Merry Christmas everyone!

From Plato to PCs – my path to enlightenment

By Steffi Nowak

 

As a political science major, I never (never!!) saw myself working in a technical environment.  The industry norm tells me this is something of a novelty too.

 

The reputation of humanities majors are in general not often linked with any kind of technical advancement.  What’s more, rumour goes that women especially - who make up the vast majority of humanities majors in Germany - don’t usually don’t fancy anything ‘techy’ at all.

 

Since my time at Johnson King I can’t help but wonder, is this really true?

 

I have to admit that I struggled with my computer on a regular basis during my studies. I was always glad to be able to use it for navigating the web, researching and finding information to help me get my papers for university done.  This of course has all changed.  Nowadays my computer has not only become an important working tool, but also a must have. 

 

Nevertheless, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it my ‘friend’ just yet …

 

The things you can do with a computer today are amazing - you can easily get your grocery shopping done online, always find new and used books for sale online and, some of my female friends have even found their future husbands online!

 

After my studies, I spent five months in Estonia which is beyond doubt THE internet capital of Europe – no big surprise from the country that spawned the Skype evolution.  You can pay parking tickets online and vote for municipal representation online – which, as a political science major really amazes me.  And, all of this is made even more incredibly easy with the hundreds of wireless hot spots scattered across this small region, thanks to Veljo Haamer and the WiFi.ee organisation who successfully lobbied Estonia’s local government, hospitals, cafes, hotels, and parks to spread WiFi throughout the country.

 

With that, and as I become more familiar with my computer, I really am growing to like it - and, not only because it’s helping me pay my bills!  Nevertheless, when I come home from a busy day at work, I still don’t mind reading an old fashioned book.

 

Games without frontiers

By Jonathan Mathias

 

In-between the controversies of Grand Theft Auto 4 and whatever the next computer game witch-hunt may be, you’ll find the ‘Christmas Top Ten Most Unwanted’.  Each year America's National Institute on Media and the Family assembles a list of all the games that feature guns and bombs and blood and naked ladies and swearing etc to make it easier for parents to decide which games are most likely to destroy their kids’ morals and tenuous grip on reality.

 

Given that the titles and artwork for these games give a clear indication of their content.  why is this kind of list necessary?  Is your average parent really so devoid of common sense?  Do people genuinely find this kind of nannying valuable?  We don’t have lists of paintings or poems or novels that are likely to upset kids, so why the trend for singling-out video games for persecution?

 

The problem with classifying games as you would a movie – like the PMRC tried to do in the 80s over the horrors of popular music – is that it’s impossible to have absolute control over access to them, whether online or just around at a friend’s house.  You can ask for ID at the pictures, but is Timmy’s mum going to be as conscientious as his best friend Johnny’s?

 

I can’t help feeling that trying to restrict content to an appropriate audience is going to have a negative, or at least undesired effect - those little ‘15’ and ‘18’ badges tend to have a magnetic pull on kids.  At the very least, this kind of heavy-handed categorisation and pigeonholing risks stifling free choice.

We can’t let our emotions restrict online freedom of speech

By Shazia Mowlabaccus

 

The recent online suicide of a teenager on live videocam has raised questions once again about whether the internet should be regulated.  While live broadcasts of a young man committing suicide are shocking and tragic, trying to control and regulate this is a particularly difficult task without infringing on rights of free expression. 

 

There is always the danger of incidents like this being used as a backdoor to enforce stringent policies to control the materials the public can post and read/view, as is currently the case in Australia, where the government wants to introduce a content-filtering scheme.  The scheme, which many criticise as amounting to censorship, is being imposed upon Australian citizens in the name of protecting children from inappropriate content.  But once implemented, schemes like this can also easily be abused. 

 

Our freedom of expression via the internet is vital to our freedom to protest and raise awareness.  In some countries, the internet serves as the only way to contact and inform the rest of the world of, for instance, political oppression.  Blogging has become a new means of resistance and often the only way for people to ensure they don’t suffer in silence. 

 

Certain governments have censored the internet and persecuted bloggers in recognition of their influence, and Western society has rightfully frowned on this.  However, are we also not moving in the same direction without realising it?  We need to ensure we don’t sleepwalk into internet censorship through scaremongering from our own governments. 

 

Internet companies such as Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft have an important part to play in this by refusing to cooperate with governments enforcing any form of censorship or suppression of citizens’ opinions online.  These companies pride themselves on being ‘caring’ organisations, which strive to be the best companies to work for by, for example, providing generous benefit packages for employees.  But as was the case with Yahoo!, which allegedly passed on information leading to the prosecution, torture and jailing of internet bloggers in China, it’s outrageous for them to then collaborate with repressive governments to help identify those who dare to speak out.

 

We must guard against online censorship wherever it occurs and challenge the internet companies that support it.  And similarly, we cannot allow governments to appeal to our emotions in order to pass laws restricting our freedom of expression.

The Beeb machine - what a load of tripe

By Lucy Smart

For those of you who may have been living on another planet the last two weeks, BBC comedians Jonathan ‘wossy’ Ross and Russell ‘my booky wooky’ Brand, have been accused of taking comedy a step too far after leaving lewd messages on Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs's answer phone.  Several days later (or what felt like weeks in media terms) Brand resigned and the BBC finally pulled its finger out, suspending Ross for three months without pay. 

While the media has undoubtedly inflated the situation, the BBC’s painfully slow corporate reaction to events - despite the 35,000 complaints received - suggests this may not have been the case had its PR operation actually been up to the job.   Journalists have reported the BBC press office as being ”half-hearted” in its response to the story, whilst the majority of licence fee payers remain disgusted with the BBC’s inability to take Ross’s and Brand’s behaviour seriously enough.

As a result, there has been increased pressure on the BBC to justify its very existence, with this blunder reopening old wounds such as the dispute around celebrity salaries and the Beeb’s pursuit of a younger audience with the launch of its digital channel.  However, as director general of the BBC Mark Thompson informed us: “If you go into a restaurant and they’ve got tripe on the menu and you don’t like tripe, you don’t order tripe”.   True, but what if, as one disgruntled Daily Telegraph reader questioned, “the restaurant says that you have to pay for tripe whether you order it or not?”  Not only is this a shocking way to respond to what is fast becoming an outright scandal, but the BBC exists as a public entity - funded both by and for the public - and as such, must be held more accountable for its actions.  

It’s quite clear that the BBC failed to act quickly enough in the face of the escalating crisis, demonstrating a complete breakdown in its corporate communications strategy.  The organisation faces some big challenges ahead - which it will only overcome if it listens to the public’s concerns and becomes more concerted in its decision making.  One thing is for certain, this isn’t the first and it won’t be the last time that the BBC is at the centre of a storm of controversy.  Let’s just hope that next time its PR machine is up to the challenge!

Politics 2.0 : the new way to communicate

By Alexandra Radius

For some years now, election candidates in many countries (France being among them) have understood how they can use Web 2.0 media formats to give them a little edge over their competitors. Of course, the United States has been at the forefront of this trend and has taken it to new heights.

Barack Obama is one of the best examples of how the strategic use of Web 2.0 can bring energy to a political campaign.  On the home page of his campaign website, a section called ‘Obama Everywhere’ lists the various networks and social media sites where you can encounter and interact with the democratic candidate.

These days, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Flickr and Wikipedia, represent essential parts of the electoral candidate’s communications strategy.  McCain is, of course, in on the act, recently answering the questions from LinkedIn users, for example.  

The Obama camp has even gone even further, launching an iPhone application, Obama ’08, which is aimed at keeping supporters up to speed with the latest campaign developments and encouraging interaction between them.

In the US election, the candidates’ web presence is now deemed important enough for it to be measured and compared.  There are figures available that show which candidate is tallying up more points on the web.

Using the latest communications techniques to ensure candidates are ever-present on the Web enables them to gather funds and build their image. But does Web 2.0 hinder or help democratic citizenship?  What about those who don’t have easy access to the internet? And while the Web can create a great buzz and enhance a politician’s reputation as being forward-looking and innovative, it can also do serious damage and provide a platform for rumours ad scaremongering.

Tina Fey’s skit of Sarah Palin and the Alaskan governor’s subsequent appearance on Saturday Night Live may have endeared the Republican co-runner to the American public. I’m not sure becoming America’s first political porn star or rumours concerning McCain and Vietnam have had the same effect.

It seems pretty clear that Barack Obama is winning the virtual battle (with, according to Techpresident, significantly more Facebook friends, more YouTube views and more MySpace friends).  Whether or not this reflects the real world will be revealed on 4^th November.  I have a feeling it might.

 

I’m so bored with the iPhone challengers

By Ryan Whelan

 

Thursday will see the launch of the new Google/HTC device cleverly named the G1, hailed as the ‘iPhone challenger’.  Now, is it just me or is everyone getting a little tired of this ‘iPhone challenger’ label that seems to have been heaped upon EVERY smart phone launched since Apple blessed us with the iPhone?

 

Is Google’s G1 incapable of being a phone in its own right?  Does it always need to be compared to the iPhone?  Does EVERY smartphone need to be compared to the iPhone?  The answer to all of these questions is a big fat NO!  Let me explain why...

 

The iPhone is unique and it is pretty much as simple as that.  The G1 does have many similar features and for its own reasons is a great device – however, I think the question of whether it is an iPhone challenger can be put to bed simply by looking at the cons of this device. 

 

The G1 does not allow users to synchronise music directly with a PC – something that iPhone users demand.  The G1 does not look as elegant as the iPhone and its interface is a little more complicated.  Complicated is simply not a word associated with the iPhone.  HTC’s device also lacks support for corporate emails and is short of a standard headphone jack.  Not to mention the fact that the device is not supported by a mighty application like iTunes.

 

Everything that the G1 lacks can be found in the iPhone – hardly competition, is it?

It seems that everyone is trying to ‘do an Apple’ and launch a sophisticated touch screen device: LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Google and most recently RIM with a touch screen Blackberry.  OK, so touch screen devices did exist before the iPhone, but none of them offered the same seamless, uncomplicated and stylish end user experience. 

 

Yes, the iPhone has well-publicised drawbacks – only a 2 megapixel camera, no video capture and no MMS... but no other device can compare to the complete package offered by Apple.  It is like saying Amy Winehouse and Joss Stone are the same simply because they are both white females with soulful voices – as you can see, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

 

All of these devices will undoubtedly sell and be loved by their users for various reasons – some may even sell more than Apple’s offering.  But please, do us all a favour: lay off the CONSTANT comparisons and allow the G1 to be just that and not the ‘G1 iPhone rival’.