This week's c&binet talking shop where business secretary Peter Mandelson confirmed his intention to cut off illegal file-sharers also addressed the worrying decline in local journalism.
Traditional advertising-based newspapers have had their lunch eaten by the internet. It's not like they weren't on notice. This week was also the 40th anniversary of the first (intelligible) message sent on the internet (LO - it was meant to be Log-on, but the nascent net crashed).
But ever since Tim Berners-Lee started the Web, and Craig started Craig's List, the writing has been on the screen.
Who cares? Well, anyone who cares about democracy, for a start.
Parliamentary democracies are under-represented in the world as a form of government, but people vote with their feet too. Not a lot of dictatorships have an illegal immigration problem.
Some think you can tell how strong a nation's democratic credentials are by the freedom with which its press operates and holds to account people who claim to act in the public interest.
That freedom starts at grassroots, with local people being able to find out what's happening on their patch. And it concatenates up to national and international levels, and horizontally through things like the people who publish this blog entry.
So how could the government help to preserve local journalism?
It got plenty of advice, thanks to a meeting on hyperlocal media in the UK chaired by Rachel Sterne of Ground Report and Will Perrin of Talk About Local.
For a complete list go to Perrin's blog of the event, but I want to focus on just two items. Anonymous Post-It note-writers said access to the news was crucial. They wanted "Free Wi-fi in cities - please!" and "Broadband for all".
Computer Weekly reported this week that the government is thinking of taxing Wi-Fi hotspots and WiMax networks, and of levying a £7.50 tax on people with fibre to their homes.
This is precisely the opposite to what most voters want.
But the government faces another problem. It wants people to have broadband, but up to 42% of people, especially over-50s (the richest and most politically engaged age group), couldn't care less because, they say, there's nothing in it for them.
Having more local news online could change that percentage. But that would require the government to take a long-term statesman-like view.
It should set at zero the business rates tax on fixed and wireless networks; it should instruct Ofcom to force BT and Virgin Media to interconnect other operators' networks at more sensible prices; and it should open the airwaves for more channels.
The government prides itself on its commitment to free enterprise; now let's see it's commitment to democracy.
It looks like Oracle's CEO Larry Ellison and Sun Microsystems' chairman Scott McNealy took to the stage in fighting mode this weekend at Oracle Open World 2009.
They both lashed out at competitors that have been seeking to take advantage of uncertainty created by delays in Oracle's plans to acquire Sun for $7.4bn.
Although the deal was announced in April and has been approved by US authorities, their European counterparts are delaying the process.
The EC is concerned that the acquisition could be anti-competitive because it claims Oracle databases and Sun's MySQL compete in many parts of the market.
McNealy said MySQL competes with Microsoft's SQL Server and not Oracle's database, according to reports out of the US.
That was the first issue that the duo attempted to set straight, before rounding on competitors who have been attempting to take advantage of the situation.
The biggest target was IBM, which according to Ellison has been claiming that Oracle will not invest in Sun's Solaris operating system and SPARC processor technology.
Ellison said Oracle does not plan to sell off any of its hardware business and McNeely said Oracle will spend more money on SPARC than Sun has on its development.
In an obvious attempt to talk up the benefits of the panned acquisition, Ellison said a combined hardware and software capability will enable Oracle to design "faster, cheaper, and more reliable" systems.
Even Java creator James Gosling was roped in to bolster confidence around the programming language's future.
According to Gosling, Oracle's fastest growing products use Java and Oracle continues to be one of the biggest contributors to the code.
Ellison has also thrown down the gauntlet to IBM and challengers, saying he pay $10m if it fails to run any existing database twice as fast on Sun gear.
Ever the showman, Ellison appears to be putting his money where his mouth is, which is probably a good sign for end users seeking an end to the uncertainty and doubt.
What if you weren't using the Web to read this blog post? What if you were using the Mesh? That's not as outlandish as it might sound: the father of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, considered calling his invention 'the Mesh' and only ruled the name out because it "sounds like a bit of a mess".That's something I found out last night when I attended a talk by Sir Tim at the Science Museum, here in London. The talk was part of the museum's centenary celebrations - and it's birthday cake all round because while the Science Museum is 100, the Internet has recently turned 40. The
Some other snippets from the talk:
- According to Sir Tim, there are 1x1011 Web pages in existence - "but I didn't count them", he promises. It's no surprise, then, that "technical properties that make it scale" are so important to the Web.
- "The value-add of the Web is serendipitous reuse" - and to that end, it should be a place "where information can go no matter what its status".
- Sir Tim on the early days of the Web: "What I look back on is the fun that it was, the spirit that everybody had." So is this spirit - of creative collaboration - intrinsic to the Web? No, says Sir Tim: after all, "the Web is a reflection of humanity". That means the bad as well as the good.
- What about the question of paid-for content on the Web? As a journalist, I was particularly interested in the answer to this one. Sir Tim recognises that "the content industry is going through a huge change" and he has identified a "crying need for professional, high-quality, edited information". The real challenge, he believes, is making sure that people can find it. Perhaps the solution is to mark up information as 'written by a professional', 'an eye-witness report', 'not Photoshopped' - or whatever the case may be.
- And so to the future. As well as his work with the World Wide Web Foundation, Sir Tim hopes to use the Web to create a "Domesday Book snapshot of the environmental state of the planet" which can then act a baseline to track change. And he made a final plea to the audience: "If you have any environmental data, stick it on the Web. You have a duty to make it available."
Photo courtesy of Rex Features.
The UK's communications regulator Ofcom was off-line for the whole of today due to fault in the Colt Telecommunications network.
Officials at Colt declined to say how many others were affected, but Ofcom's web site and e-mail services were off-line. There was no indication when the service would be restored.
The outage prevented Ofcom from issuing written statements about the day's big news, the proposed merger of the merger between T-Mobile UK and Orange UK mobile networks.
It also stopped journalists from looking up key background reports on the UK's mobile market from Ofcom's web site. "It's very inconvenient," one Ofcom official said.
The outage comes just two weeks after Colt joined the Open Cloud Manifesto, an attempt to set industry standards for cloud computing.
Colt said at the time it was urging such standards "to address issues that are of real concern to businesses such as risk management, compliance, data retention, security and business continuity".
Managing director of Colt Managed Services Maggy McClelland said then that the industry was "too focussed (sic) on technological and technical debates".
"It is our customers' business issues that motivates or restrict them from adopting cloud services and it is, therefore, imperative that any regulation or standardisation addresses these requirements," she said.
Officials at Colt declined to say how many others were affected, but Ofcom's web site and e-mail services were off-line. There was no indication when the service would be restored.
The outage prevented Ofcom from issuing written statements about the day's big news, the proposed merger of the merger between T-Mobile UK and Orange UK mobile networks.
It also stopped journalists from looking up key background reports on the UK's mobile market from Ofcom's web site. "It's very inconvenient," one Ofcom official said.
The outage comes just two weeks after Colt joined the Open Cloud Manifesto, an attempt to set industry standards for cloud computing.
Colt said at the time it was urging such standards "to address issues that are of real concern to businesses such as risk management, compliance, data retention, security and business continuity".
Managing director of Colt Managed Services Maggy McClelland said then that the industry was "too focussed (sic) on technological and technical debates".
"It is our customers' business issues that motivates or restrict them from adopting cloud services and it is, therefore, imperative that any regulation or standardisation addresses these requirements," she said.
It may have sounded like a bird-brained idea but it's paying off for McMillan Cancer and several other charities having Chris Hanson, Computacenter's international sales manager spend time on the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square in a pigeon suit handing out sweets to kids and adults.
Hanson has collected more than £1,000 for the charities, a sum Computacenter will match, from posting tweets on twitter. To find out more follow Chris on Twitter.
Hanson said he got the idea from his childhood when he used to go to the square to feed the pigeons. "Now that you can't do that, I thought I'd use Anthony Gormley's
One and Other show to feed the children and publicise our charitable work," he told Computer Weekly.
Hanson has collected more than £1,000 for the charities, a sum Computacenter will match, from posting tweets on twitter. To find out more follow Chris on Twitter.
Hanson said he got the idea from his childhood when he used to go to the square to feed the pigeons. "Now that you can't do that, I thought I'd use Anthony Gormley's
One and Other show to feed the children and publicise our charitable work," he told Computer Weekly.
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says the source of yesterday's denial of service attack on the microblogging service is still unknown.
The attack also affected Facebook, LiveJournal, Google's Blogger and possibly even YouTube, which has led to speculation that the target was an individual not a web site.
According to Facebook, what all these sites have in common is a user who is an anti-Russian blogger called Cyxymu from Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.
This theory is given "credibility" by that fact that the DoS attacks coincide with the first anniversary of the start of last year's conflict between Russia and Georgia.
Facebook claims cross-service DoS attacks were all aimed at preventing Cyxymu communicating with his followers on this date.
Speculating about what caused the attack is probably more interesting but not nearly as important as the effects of the attack, particularly on business.
An increasing number of businesses are using Twitter, Facebook and other social media to engage with customers and partners.
UK cyber security experts have warned businesses against becoming too reliant on these services because of their vulnerability to attack.
There is little these sites can do against a well organised denial of service (DoS) attack, says Tony Dyhouse, director of the UK's Cyber Security Knowledge Transfer Network.
Twitter was downed by a DoS attack yesterday and took nearly three hours to restore services after it experienced connectivity problems.
Business and other users were unable to access the microblogging site for at least 90 minutes as Twitter scrambled to deal with the problem.
The attack also affected Facebook, LiveJournal, Google's Blogger and possibly even YouTube, which has led to speculation that the target was an individual not a web site.
According to Facebook, what all these sites have in common is a user who is an anti-Russian blogger called Cyxymu from Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.
This theory is given "credibility" by that fact that the DoS attacks coincide with the first anniversary of the start of last year's conflict between Russia and Georgia.
Facebook claims cross-service DoS attacks were all aimed at preventing Cyxymu communicating with his followers on this date.
Speculating about what caused the attack is probably more interesting but not nearly as important as the effects of the attack, particularly on business.
An increasing number of businesses are using Twitter, Facebook and other social media to engage with customers and partners.
UK cyber security experts have warned businesses against becoming too reliant on these services because of their vulnerability to attack.
There is little these sites can do against a well organised denial of service (DoS) attack, says Tony Dyhouse, director of the UK's Cyber Security Knowledge Transfer Network.
Twitter was downed by a DoS attack yesterday and took nearly three hours to restore services after it experienced connectivity problems.
Business and other users were unable to access the microblogging site for at least 90 minutes as Twitter scrambled to deal with the problem.
Plans to create a vibrant European digital economy may be hamstrung by reform of the telecommunications sector.
Communications commissioner Viviane Reding said yesterday Europe's governments had to dismantle barriers to new communications services if Europe was to release the economic potential of its 'digital natives'. "We must make access to digital content an easy and fair game," she said.
But a commission opinion released last week could harden the barriers, slow the introduction of new services and open the way to internet censorship, said Monica Horten, the iptegrity blogger and intellectual property researcher. Not what Reding says she wants.
The commission has tried to harmonise and reform telecommunication law across the EU since the late 1990s. Its telecoms package, a bundle of related directives, has passed the EU's two law-making bodies, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, except for a section known as Amendment 138/46, which deals with net neutrality. This is generally taken to mean the right of consumers to have their access to and use of the internet pass unhindered.
According to Horten, the text to be considered by the lawmakers next month creates a right for governments to implement "measures regarding end-users' access to or use of services and applications through electronic communications networks", whatever that means.
Horten said this should be read with Amendment 1.2a of the Universal Services and Users Rights directive, which will permit broadband providers to block or impose "conditions limiting access to and/or use of services and applications".
"Decoded, (this) calls for the package to seal in the right of governments and broadband providers to restrict the internet," she said.
They are already doing it. Recent incidents where ISPs disrupted users' access to to the internet include T-Mobile blocking Skype, BT throttling peer-to-peer services, and Karoo, a small UK ISP, cutting off users. "It should now be abundantly clear what this text means," Horten said.
Horten said the package will guarantee that users had a right to a contract, and to switch providers. "What it does not say publicly, but is being actively debated by civil servants behind the scenes, is how far the text permits governments to go with copyright enforcement measures," she said.
She said the new text fell short of earlier language which required judicial review before broadband providers could block peer-to-peer or other services. "The user could (now) appeal to an administrative body, which is not the same thing," she said.
A spokesman for Reding's office said the reforms were intended to regulate the behaviour of telecommuncations companies, not consumers. He said the commission explicitly rejected an earlier French proposal for a "three strikes and you are out" or graduated response to internet absuers.
The new pan-European regulatory regime could be in force by March 2010, but some experts believe that the whole package could fail if there is no agreement on Amendment 138/46.
Communications commissioner Viviane Reding said yesterday Europe's governments had to dismantle barriers to new communications services if Europe was to release the economic potential of its 'digital natives'. "We must make access to digital content an easy and fair game," she said.
But a commission opinion released last week could harden the barriers, slow the introduction of new services and open the way to internet censorship, said Monica Horten, the iptegrity blogger and intellectual property researcher. Not what Reding says she wants.
The commission has tried to harmonise and reform telecommunication law across the EU since the late 1990s. Its telecoms package, a bundle of related directives, has passed the EU's two law-making bodies, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, except for a section known as Amendment 138/46, which deals with net neutrality. This is generally taken to mean the right of consumers to have their access to and use of the internet pass unhindered.
According to Horten, the text to be considered by the lawmakers next month creates a right for governments to implement "measures regarding end-users' access to or use of services and applications through electronic communications networks", whatever that means.
Horten said this should be read with Amendment 1.2a of the Universal Services and Users Rights directive, which will permit broadband providers to block or impose "conditions limiting access to and/or use of services and applications".
"Decoded, (this) calls for the package to seal in the right of governments and broadband providers to restrict the internet," she said.
They are already doing it. Recent incidents where ISPs disrupted users' access to to the internet include T-Mobile blocking Skype, BT throttling peer-to-peer services, and Karoo, a small UK ISP, cutting off users. "It should now be abundantly clear what this text means," Horten said.
Horten said the package will guarantee that users had a right to a contract, and to switch providers. "What it does not say publicly, but is being actively debated by civil servants behind the scenes, is how far the text permits governments to go with copyright enforcement measures," she said.
She said the new text fell short of earlier language which required judicial review before broadband providers could block peer-to-peer or other services. "The user could (now) appeal to an administrative body, which is not the same thing," she said.
A spokesman for Reding's office said the reforms were intended to regulate the behaviour of telecommuncations companies, not consumers. He said the commission explicitly rejected an earlier French proposal for a "three strikes and you are out" or graduated response to internet absuers.
The new pan-European regulatory regime could be in force by March 2010, but some experts believe that the whole package could fail if there is no agreement on Amendment 138/46.
Twitter appears to be experiencing some kind of database problem. Or perhaps it's a server problem. Whatever it is, we don't know, because despite hundreds of people suffering from it the company is keeping quiet about what's going on.
My account is one of those affected. It wouldn't be so frustrating if it hadn't been going on for nearly two days now, without a glimmer of explanation. All my followers have been wiped off my profile, and so were all the people I follow. As of yesterday I could only see the updates of two people (thanks, @brynmorgan and @rachel_h, for keeping me going). All my own updates are no longer visible to my followers, because they're not following me anymore. I've re-followed a few people, but it's basically like going back to square one, or being wiped off the face of the Twitter earth.
Twitter becomes more helpful the more you use it - you find interesting new people and you build up followers who respond to your updates. It actually takes work and effort to find the people you like, so to lose them all is a bit of a blow.
I'd like to ask Twitter what on earth is going on, and why it's taking so long to fix it. I don't think people would mind if they just let us know, but since I've signed up to the forum thread on this issue I've seen dozens of updates from people in a similar position who are similarly confused. I sent an email to their support desk, and had a hugely unhelpful automated message back saying, amongst other things, "If you want to delete your account, log in and click the 'delete my account' link in your settings page." No, Twitter, I do not want to delete my account. You have deleted it for me. And you won't tell me why. I'd ring your press office, but you don't have one.
Strangely, the problem seemed to get fixed overnight, only for everything to disappear again first thing this morning. And several people affected have mentioned an account called @monkeybutler19, who mentioned me in a tweet around the time my account died. I'm sure there's a perfectly simple explanation but a little bit of communication would be very welcome.
Update July 24 - Last night there were a few hours where it all seemed ok again. But by this morning, after Twitter carried out its so called "correcting" exercise where spammers were removed from people's follower lists, all my followers and all the people I followed had gone. So my account has been wiped out. The same thing happened to a couple of people I found on the forum for technical problems. Losing these people is extremely annoying - they were really useful for my job and it had taken me six months to build them up. Twitter is still ignoring me.
My account is one of those affected. It wouldn't be so frustrating if it hadn't been going on for nearly two days now, without a glimmer of explanation. All my followers have been wiped off my profile, and so were all the people I follow. As of yesterday I could only see the updates of two people (thanks, @brynmorgan and @rachel_h, for keeping me going). All my own updates are no longer visible to my followers, because they're not following me anymore. I've re-followed a few people, but it's basically like going back to square one, or being wiped off the face of the Twitter earth.
Twitter becomes more helpful the more you use it - you find interesting new people and you build up followers who respond to your updates. It actually takes work and effort to find the people you like, so to lose them all is a bit of a blow.
I'd like to ask Twitter what on earth is going on, and why it's taking so long to fix it. I don't think people would mind if they just let us know, but since I've signed up to the forum thread on this issue I've seen dozens of updates from people in a similar position who are similarly confused. I sent an email to their support desk, and had a hugely unhelpful automated message back saying, amongst other things, "If you want to delete your account, log in and click the 'delete my account' link in your settings page." No, Twitter, I do not want to delete my account. You have deleted it for me. And you won't tell me why. I'd ring your press office, but you don't have one.
Strangely, the problem seemed to get fixed overnight, only for everything to disappear again first thing this morning. And several people affected have mentioned an account called @monkeybutler19, who mentioned me in a tweet around the time my account died. I'm sure there's a perfectly simple explanation but a little bit of communication would be very welcome.
Update July 24 - Last night there were a few hours where it all seemed ok again. But by this morning, after Twitter carried out its so called "correcting" exercise where spammers were removed from people's follower lists, all my followers and all the people I followed had gone. So my account has been wiped out. The same thing happened to a couple of people I found on the forum for technical problems. Losing these people is extremely annoying - they were really useful for my job and it had taken me six months to build them up. Twitter is still ignoring me.
It's easy to view the Twitter phenomenon as little more than the chattering classes proclaiming themselves loudly to anyone who will listen, but some companies out there have found a practical use for it.
Who knows? Other companies that still have customers might follow their example.
(Nod to Heidi for the tip-off)
Who knows? Other companies that still have customers might follow their example.
(Nod to Heidi for the tip-off)
It's easy to view the Twitter phenomenon as little more than the chattering classes proclaiming themselves loudly to anyone who will listen, but some companies out there have found a practical use for it.
Who knows? Other companies that still have customers might follow their example.
(Nod to Heidi for the tip-off)
Who knows? Other companies that still have customers might follow their example.
(Nod to Heidi for the tip-off)
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