Netizen

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Facebook Eating Into Its Ecosystem

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Right before Bill Gates retired he was talking in terms of baking anti-virus software right into Windows. He had been doing things like that during the entire life of that operating system. Remember when he baked the web browser into Windows and got into trouble?

I think it is but natural for Facebook to eat up into its ecosystem. Instagram owed no small amount of its user base growth to the fact that it used the social graphs on Facebook to spread the word. And guess what happened.

Mark Zuckerberg Reveals He Is Open To A Radical Change In Facebook Strategy

Facebook's sudden openness to owning more of its platform

Republic Wireless' $19 Feast

It should not be possible to escape wireless broadband. Anywhere. In that ocean smartphones should float. Voice is just data. It can be super cheap.

Republic Wireless reopens its unlimited $19 per month beta, starts offering Motorola Defy XT

the Motorola Defy XT, an Android 2.3 device with a 3.7-inch display, 1GHz CPU, 1650 mAh battery, 5MP camera / VGA front camera, 1GB of ROM and microSD slot. It can be your for $249

Republic Wireless Outs The Defy XT, Reopens Beta For $19/Month Unlimited Wireless Service

For just $19 a month customers get truly unlimited data, voice and text messages. Plus, this is offered free of a contract. .... The Defy XT .. won’t topple any of today’s flagship phones .... But thanks to a deal with Sprint, the phones also work wherever there is a cellular signal. ..... the company is going to be a disruptive force in the wireless industry. Republic Wireless isn’t a scrappy startup either. It’s a division of the Cary, North Carolina-based Bandwidth.com, the VoIP company responsible at least in part for Google Voice, Skype, Pandora and many more data services.

Republic Wireless reopens $19 service, sells Motorola Defy XT
Let the Waves Begin!

It’s a great phone, and it’s incredibly durable. ..... With the DEFY XT, you don’t have to worry about expensive replacements and insurance policies. This phone is the real deal, with Corning Gorilla Glass and an IP67 Rating for solid particle and water resistance. .... at a time when Big Cell is busy making more money at higher prices, with more restrictions and continued confusing business practices.

Republic Wireless now brings Motorola Defy XT to its $19 unlimited monthly plans

Republic Wireless is an unusual carrier.

Half Of India In The Dark

electrical sunset grid (Photo credit: soonerpa)

Time to work to commercialize Nepal's 43,000 MW hydroelectric potential.

Something like this happening in the US would have been a terrorist attack.

The unofficial power grid is like the Indian economy's informal sector. It is kind of important.

Power Failures Hit Half of India

About 600 million people lost power in India on Tuesday when the country’s northern and eastern electricity grids failed, crippling the country for a second consecutive day. .... The outage stopped hundreds of trains in their tracks, darkened traffic lights, shuttered the Delhi Metro and left nearly everyone — the police, water utilities, private businesses and citizens — without electricity. .... an unofficial power grid in the form of huge numbers of backup diesel generators and other private power sources..... The failure happened without warning just after 1 p.m. ..... supply and demand may not explain away this week’s grid failures .... state governments which were overdrawing power. .... “We have one of the most robust, smart grids operating” in the world .... “We had never anticipated such a thing” ..... over 26,000 megawatts of power stations are idle due to the nonavailability of coal

Fighting Over Rectangles

Image representing Apple as depicted in CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

That is nicely put. Apple is fighting over rectangles. It is being unreasonable. If Samsung is a copycat why is it beating Apple in both the smartphone and the table space by now?

Samsung Product Chief: ‘It’s Unreasonable That We’re Fighting Over Rectangles’

the most important patent dispute of the decade ..... the ongoing patent wars that have spawned dozens of lawsuits across the globe, involving not only Samsung and Apple, but also HTC, Motorola and Microsoft ..... Samsung owns more than 100,000 patents worldwide ..... Kevin Packingham ... Samsung's Chief Product Officer .. There are times when I’m absolutely appalled that we sell what I consider to be the most innovative, most secret parts of the sauce of our products to some other manufacturer — HTC, LG, Apple, anybody. ..... these very broad design patents like a rectangle. ..... “How is this possible that we’re actually having an industry-level debate and trying to stifle competition?” Consumers want rectangles and we’re fighting over whether you can deliver a product in the shape of a rectangle. ...... the patent system is broken. .... there’s just one company that’s firing the first shot consistently

Fight it out in the market, not in the courts of the world. The real news here is that the patent system is broken. The industry itself has to take the lead. Policymakers will follow.