crystal-studios.com

“Spectrum is very valuable and we want to make sure it’s being used as efficiently as possible,” he is quoted as saying in the Journal. “The idea of trying to utilize the ‘white spaces’ from a consumer perspective would be a good win for everyone.”

The NAB may claim it is afraid of interference, but the reality it members don’t want to give up control of airwaves they believes are theirs. Verizon Wireless and other wireless operators don’t want competitors to get their hands on free spectrum that they could use to build competing services.

The NAB and others, such as Verizon Wireless, which also opposes the use of white spaces, certainly have their own business motivations for opposing the use of white spaces.

“Microsoft’s applications fail all the time,” said Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters. “But for us our signals need to get to our audience, so it’s a different world. And it’s not acceptable for there to be any interference.”

That said, much of the white space spectrum that will be available will be in sparsely populated rural areas where there are fewer TV broadcasters and little access to broadband. And because the spectrum is ideally suited for rural areas with good propagation characteristics, it could be used by rural communities to blanket their regions with broadband access.

Google and other technology companies such as Intel, Microsoft and Motorola have been lobbying the FCC for months to open up what’s known as “white space” spectrum for unlicensed use after the digital TV transition early next year. These slivers of spectrum that sit between TV channels as buffers to ensure that TV channels don’t interfere with each could be used to provide broadband wireless services.

So far it looks like FCC Chairman Kevin Martin agrees. He was quoted Monday in The Wall Street Journal in favor of opening up white space spectrum to encourage more broadband deployments.

On the other side, Google and the technology community say that these are simply proof of concept devices and not even prototypes that could be used in commercial products. In fact, Google’s Whitt said he is certain his company and others would pour millions of dollars into development if the FCC approved the use of white spaces and gave specific guidelines and rules for products.

But even if the FCC is to allow the use of white spaces, Google and others are concerned that the FCC might succumb to pressure from the broadcasting industry to put onerous rules on the spectrum that will make it virtually useless. Some critics say that the FCC’s rules on low-power FM devices and ultra wide band devices have restricted them so much they can barely be used.

Better coverage
But my gut feeling is that this new spectrum won’t likely become a major threat to wireless operators, such as Verizon, nor will it cause any disruption in TV service. But it could drastically improve the coverage of broadband particularly in rural areas.

This is exactly what Wally Bowen, from the Mountain Area Information Network in Asheville, N.C., and Matthew Rantanen, who works with the Tribal Digital Village in San Diego, Calif.–which represents Native American tribes–say they hope will happen if the white spaces are offered to the public without licenses. They say that broadband operators are currently underserving their constituents and that access to free spectrum would help get broadband to more people in the country.

That said, Google and the rest of the technology companies lobbying for the freeing of white spaces have their own motivations and interests to consider. The more wireless spectrum and broadband services available, the more Google can make from advertising. The company hasn’t denied this. Intel, Microsoft, and Motorola also benefit as they can each sell more products and services to consumers who use this unlicensed spectrum.

“When you look at low power FM or ultrawide band rules, the technology has great promise but the Commission adopted rules that constrained it to the detriment of consumers,” Whitt said. “So of course there are concerns that that the rules could be too limiting.”

But broadcasters say using these channels will cause interference with their broadcast signals and cause major issues for people watching TV.

The debate is coming to head as the FCC finishes field tests of proof-of-concept devices used to detect and avoid spectrum already in use. The results of the tests have been mixed. Some companies claim that geolocation-based technology has proven that it can interference with existing spectrum holders. Meanwhile, a field test of spectrum sensing technology at a major sporting venue proved that technology still has some problems.

The FCC is expected to release a report of the test results next month. And it will likely vote on whether to open the spectrum in the next few months.

The 300MHz to 400MHz spectrum that is being made available through the use of white spaces is not contiguous across the United States, so it’s unlikely that any company could use the spectrum to build a nationwide network to compete against the major carriers.

The NAB says it only trying to protect the TV viewing public.

Google on Monday launched the new site called FreetheAirWaves.com to provide consumers with a voice, the company’s policy guru said during a press conference call.

The debate over new unlicensed spectrum the Federal Communications Commission is considering opening up is heating up as Google ups the ante with a new lobbying Web site.

Technology companies have also proven that they can mitigate interference issues through proper engineering. Just look at the use of Wi-Fi. The technology uses unlicensed spectrum in the 2.4GHz band, and there are specifications to ensure that Wi-Fi devices don’t interfere with microwave ovens and garage door openers that operate at the same frequency.

“NAB supports new technology and ending the digital divide,” Wharton said. “What we can’t support is a multibillion-dollar spectrum giveaway to Google and Microsoft that threatens interference-free television.”

It’s clear that this has become as much of a political debate as it has a technical one. On the one hand, the National Association of Broadcasters is pointing to the tests as evidence that interference can’t be avoided.

“Microsoft’s applications fail all the time. “But for us our signals need to get to our audience, so it’s a different world. And it’s not acceptable for there to be any interference.” –Dennis Wharton, National Association of Broadcasters

Once you’re done with any creation made on the site you can save it to your hard drive, or send it to a friend either by e-mail or through MySpace, Facebook, and Windows Live Spaces. There’s also an option to publish it so that other WriteOnIt users can see it, which will put it into a bucket of recently uploaded photos and make it eligible for “battle” where users can vote on which result looks better.

(via BuzzFeed)

WriteOnIt is a simple service that lets you caption and manipulate uploaded photos. Just like BigHugeLabs’ Flickr toys project (story), it can take uploaded photos and stick them into magazine covers. It can also slyly insert them onto coffee mugs, billboards, art easels, and fake mirrors within ready-made photos.

Of all the tools my favorite is the newspaper creator. You have five different periodicals to choose from including Time, Rolling Stone, and Wired. It’ll take whatever photo you upload (up to 8MB) and stick it in the background. You can also change the headline and tagline underneath it, but that’s the only other thing you can change.

You have very little control over the complicated bits, like transparency, placement, and cropping–which are all absent. However, with that simplicity you can very quickly put together something that both looks polished, and that could fool your viewer.

CNET’s very own Caroline McCarthy gets a (fake) cover.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

The Twitter community may not be paying much heed to your posts this weekend, but it’s not your fault.

Click on some of your friends’ profiles. You’ll see they have updates, yet those updates are probably not in your Twitter stream. But some are, making things even more confusing, and making it harder for people to tell that Twitter is broken.

(Credit:
ParisLemon.com)

We’re aware of the problem and are working through it. It may take a bit to resolve but we are on it.

This is a result of some of the caching changes we made during last night’s maintenance window. While those changes have made the service more stable over all, there have been some unintended effects.

The company behind the messaging service and Web 2.0 darling acknowledged late Saturday that some back-end changes had been failing to show tweets from a number of people. A post on the Twitter site from a person identified as “goldtoe, Official Rep,” had this to say:

The post–which has a box noting that “106 people have this problem”–went on to say that “this solves the problem,” but goldtoe some hours later updated things: “Just to be clear - we know the problem is not yet fixed. We still have work to do.”

Some Twitter users on the forum indicated that they had been able to find workarounds, but others continued to report posts going MIA.

Outside Twitter itself, the outages got some attention from blogger MG Siegler on his ParisLemon site:

I noticed a few people thinking the same thing as me today: is everyone taking a break from Twitter? People do get burnt out from the web after all and it was a pretty nice weekend day in a lot of cities. But no, Twitter is broken. People are updating and most of the updates are simply not coming through.

Previous iPlayer coverage:
iPlayer gets iPhone support
BBC’s iPlayer getting Mac version in 2008, Web version continues to dominate usage
BBC moving to Adobe Flash, iPlayer on the Web soon
BBC puts shows online

This is the first time the iPlayer has made its living room debut. Previously the only way to get iPlayer programming on your TV set was by hooking up your home PC or laptop to your television. Enterprising
iPhone users were also able to take advantage of the streaming on their TV sets, as long as they had the AV cable pack and a universal dock, which costs about ?70.00 ($139) combined.

The BBC promises to bring a slightly updated version in the coming months that will add additional functionality, the same way Opera did with the specially designed version of its browser made just for the Wii. Best of all, it will be a standalone channel app. The BBC’s Anthony Rose hopes this will fit the needs of users who don’t want to have to load up the browser and navigate to their iPlayer bookmark, or pay for the Internet application in the first place.

The BBC’s iPlayer TV catch-up service is making its way to the
Nintendo Wii today. British residents who navigate to www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer using Opera’s Internet Channel browser will be greeted by the same selection of streaming programs made available for PC users.

Much of IBM’s business is focused on the data center. “We have to solve problems end-to-end in a holistic way. Clouds have a role in the enterprise, many times behind the firewall because of issues of security and protection of information,” Palmisano said. “Virtualization is key, but don’t dumb down the problem. If the answer is to take four Intel servers down to one, they will ask you to take your PowerPoint and go home. The problem is more complex. We have to work together and help out.”

(Credit:
Dan Farber)

IBM chief Sam Palmisano

LOS ANGELES–Following renditions of “Goldfinger,” “Mission Impossible” and “Star Wars” and other movie inspired themes, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano took the stage at the Nokia Theatre here to address 1,000 of the company’s top business partners.

The so-called mid-market, with a million potential clients and $500 billion in revenue, is a key new target for IBM. Palmisano argued that smaller business need help and providing the right-sized solution that solves problems is a big opportunity. IBM has stepped up its focus on the mid-market with vertical solutions in 120 sub-industries and in 20 countries, he said.

So far, it appears IBM is doing exactly that. The company blew through first quarter earnings expectations with $1.65 per share earnings on revenue of $24.5 billion.

Regarding the current economic climate, Palmisano, who is also IBM’s chairman and president, told his business partners, “We are going to weather the storm and come through it stronger than most. Just like IBM had to rethink its business model, you have to pick the segments of space and prioritize the opportunities. We have to invest and we have to invest together.”

In his remarks, Palmisano also dropped broad hints that IBM would provide a marketplace for applications using Google-like technical infrastructure. “Through collaborating together, we could create an application marketplace with business partners, with some applications in the cloud or some on premises,” he said.

Palmisano took over as IBM’s CEO in 2002 after serving as president and COO under Lou Gerstner. He commands an army of 386,558 employees generating nearly $100 billion in annual revenue. During his 35-year tenure at IBM, Palmisano has run business units such as IBM Global Services and Personal Systems and the Enterprise Systems groups.

He described how the world is changing, requiring different kind of investments. “If you have expertise, capabilities and can innovate, you are of value in this world. If you don’t, you have a strategic issue to work on,” Palmisano said.

He concluded, as you would expect, that IBM is a better bet for its partners. “When you are old, you are disciplined. You’ve seen it all before and you re-prioritize investments and go for share because you have the balance sheet,” he said.

“We are pretty well positioned,” Palmisano told the crowd of partners. “We are at a point in time where we will have to make some investments and commitments to each other. You have to do self assessment of skill sets, of our people and your people.”

On top of that, venture capital spending is on shaky ground, mergers and acquisitions in tech are down, and successful initial public offerings on the stock market are as unlikely as they have been at any point since the dot-com bust. Also, anyone who believes hundreds of little companies completely dependent on advertising for their revenue can survive is kidding himself. We’ve seen that play before, and it doesn’t end well.

Anyone who believes hundreds of little companies completely dependent on advertising for their revenue can survive is kidding himself. We’ve seen that play before, and it doesn’t end well.

So what’s happening now? Truth is, no one really knows because the modern tech industry has never had to navigate through this sort of economic uncertainty. Jason Calacanis has made some dramatic predictions about start-ups disappearing. He could be right: But then the start-up executives at the Web 2.0 conference three weeks ago (just as the scope of the Wall Street meltdown was becoming clear) who fell back on that “cautiously optimistic” catchphrase could also be right.

A depression? That may be pushing it. But as Thursday’s front page of The Wall Street Journal puts in very stark terms, bailout or not (the House of Representatives is expected to vote on a new version of the bailout bill Friday), signs are pointing toward a recession: auto sales are down; manufacturing activity is down; housing foreclosures are still high, while housing prices are down; and construction spending has tanked.

Click here for ongoing coverage from CNET News, ‘Tough times for tech’

Instead, the bust that could be in the wings is more likely to resemble the tech bust of the late 1980s, when a Wall Street and banking crisis, a recession (and yes, too many companies) conspired to cause rapid consolidation in the young PC and desktop software industries. In some ways, it was a longer, more painful episode for the tech industry. Tech spending and venture capital activity didn’t dramatically rebound until Netscape Communications released its first browser and the dot-com boom was on.

There’s an old joke about economists: Being an economist means you never have to say you’re wrong; you’ve merely changed your outlook based upon further data.

Already, we’re starting to see signs of growing problems. Rumors are spreading of growing layoffs in Silicon Valley, and since the third quarter just ended, it’s a good bet that surprising earnings shortfalls could be the big news in the coming days.

Nonetheless, while many may fear a replay of the dot-com bust, what could happen to the tech industry over the next year will be different for a combination of reasons: This isn’t a self-made disaster, there’s not as much public money on the table, and the rate of spending for Web 2.0 companies has been relatively modest when compared to the wild gold rush days of the late 1990s.

That brings us to the current, very shaky state of affairs for the global economy and–since we’re a site dedicated to coverage of technology–the high-tech industry. What worried economists six months ago has them in an outright panic now: one hyper-ventilating commentator on CNN opined on the day the U.S. House of Representatives defeated a Wall Street bailout package (or is that an “economic rescue” plan now?) that the economy was now on the brink of a depression.

And if you believe this has little to do with the tech industry, think again. That mess on Wall Street means it’s hard to get credit–whether you’re a giant company looking to make capital expenditures like new server farms, or a start-up looking to buy office furniture or put money down for rent. Wall Street has always been a cutting-edge technology buyer, and that spigot is all but shut off for now. Universities and states are announcing plans to trim or freeze spending, and private customers probably aren’t far behind. (Here’s a breakdown of how foreclosures on subprime mortgages could lead to another tech bust.)

We’re going to do our best here at CNET News to keep you updated on the unfolding mess. (Or is it merely an untidy moment?) We’ll let you know who’s being acquired, who’s going under, where the big layoffs are, and whether there’s reason for optimism in the middle of all this bad news. Here’s a roundup of this week’s news.

I saw the browser running on Windows Mobile Standard–meaning on a non-touch-screen device. The browser makes good use of a D-pad controller to go from link to link, but it’s still not as elegant as on a touch screen. I’ll be interested to see how the browser works on a touch-based Windows Mobile device, but am still not expecting navigation to be up to the
iPhone level.

Navigation may be better on the iPhone, but IE 6 will have some advantages, such as full Flash support.

McDonough didn’t offer much of an update on timing for IE 6, except to say that “it’s still this year.”

“The market today is really at ‘Can I see a page?’ Very quickly we’re getting to ‘Can I do something?’” he said. “That’s where we will really shine.”

The biggest benefit will be the fact that it is the full IE 6 rendering engine, meaning that any page that renders properly in IE 6 on the PC should do just fine on Windows Mobile. Tim McDonough, a senior director in Microsoft’s Windows Mobile unit, showed me the browser running the standard MSN home page.

The current version of mobile Internet Explorer, seen here, leaves a lot to be desired. A new version, based on the same rendering engine as Internet Explorer 6 for the PC, promises Flash support and other improvements.

SAN FRANCISCO–Microsoft still isn’t quite ready to release its new
mobile browser, but I did get an advance look at Internet Explorer 6 for Windows Mobile at a Microsoft event Wednesday night.

Another interesting option on IE 6 is the ability to quickly shift from a site’s mobile page to its standard desktop version. Just because IE 6 can show the full site, doesn’t mean that’s always what people want. It’s particularly true in Europe where even so-called “unlimited” data plans typically have data caps that can easily be reached by loading a lot of standard Web pages. IE 6 toggles between mobile and standard Web pages by sending a different user agent, depending on which page type a user wants to see.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

That’s left Windows Mobile device makers scrambling to try to better compete against Apple’s browsing experience. To fill the gap, many are turning to Opera’s Windows Mobile browsing, which offers better navigation and rendering than the current mobile Internet Explorer.

One thing to consider is that you can currently do this with Gmail. I do this with my in-box by adding a +servicename after my username, coming out to something like Yourname+Amazon@gmail.com. That way you can phase them out completely using a simple filter if you start getting spammed. OtherInbox offers you a little more security with its block feature, and the fact you’re basically signing up for another address.

The service may be most useful for figuring out what services are selling out your e-mail address to other parties, but it’s also good for handling bacn–the messages you may want from a service, but not necessarily filling up your in-box. What makes it special is that users can effectively kill off that special address making the messages bounce back to the people who would be spamming you.

OtherInbox lets you use a special sign-up address when signing up for various services. That way you can tell if someone's sold your information to third parties.

OtherInbox is a service that helps with one of the growing problems of using Web services: e-mail overload. More specifically, services that take your information and sell it to third parties–thus filling up your in-box with decentralized junk.

(Credit:
CBS Interactive)

The service is currently in private beta, but made its public debut at Monday’s TechCrunch50 conference. On a side note: you need to provide OtherInbox your e-mail address when you sign-up. And we have 25 invites to give out–so go here to get yours while they last.

OtherInbox works by giving you a special address you can use when you sign up for things and it helps you filter them in a central location with tags and layout akin to Apple’s Mail application. Each “subscription” reads like its own in-box.

Verizon Wireless is beefing up its infrastructure in Denver to prepare for the influx of as many as 50,000 people expected to enter the city later this month for the Democratic National Convention.

Verizon will also be providing backup microwave facilities and a 24-hour emergency operations center during the convention.

In-building coverage has also been enhanced with signal boosters and repeaters in a number of hotels, parking garages, and other convention sites. The extra capacity is anticipated to accommodate the 15,000 members of the media, as well as others, expected to attend the event that begins August 25.

The company said on Wednesday that it has added three permanent cell sites to downtown Denver and also plans to install a mobile “cell-on-wheels.” Upgrades at specific cell sites have doubled voice capacity in the city and increased data-handling capacity four-fold.

Earlier Friday, I spoke with Tom Krazit about what Jobs likely will announce–as well as the chances for a redesign of the iPod Nano as well as rumors of a new version of ITunes.

The guessing game is almost over. On Tuesday, Apple will hold a press conference here in San Francisco to announce–well, Apple’s invite just says “Let’s Rock.”
But unless 99.99 percent of the blogging and journalistic world is wrong–a phenomenon hardly unknown–Apple’s going to announce a refresh of its
iPod line.

Apple’s flaks may have stewed, but each time the company got dinged by Fake Steve Jobs it was worth its weight in marketing gold. Seriously, outside of family members and confirmed sadomasochists, just how many people would be sufficiently interested to read a blog called Fake Mark Hurd or (gasp!) Fake Sam Palmisano?

Redesign for the Nano?

What's up Jobs’ sleeve this time around?

The bar usually gets set higher when it comes to Apple product launches–and this time around it is no different. There likely will be even more than the predictably insane scrutiny because of the glitches which accompanied the introductions of the iPhone 3G and MobileMe.

Still, I haven’t heard anyone at Apple complaining about the company being unfairly singled out. This just goes with the role of being the media’s favorite eye candy. Besides, I’d wager that over the years Apple has received millions of dollars in free publicity by cranking up the buzz machine in advance of official technology debuts.

But there’s no need to overthink this. Right now, the test of a successful launch for Apple comes down to the basics: As Krazit points out, the product just has to work. Everything else is gravy.

In March, the audio chipmaker Wolfson told its shareholders that it had failed to win a contract to design next-generation media players for “a major Tier 1 customer” planning a third-quarter launch. Wonder who that might be? The September launch date is a no-brainer as that’s when Apple and every other tech appliance maker tries to get as many new units as possible into the market ahead of the holiday shopping season.