Verizon is taking “TV Everywhere” to more places, or at least taking it places under more conditions. Their new FiOS Flex View is a kind of Netflix-like approach to content except that instead of streaming it you download it subject to DRM, with 30 days to watch the material. The fact that the video is…
More on Verizon’s Wi-Pad
Verizon has started to advertise its iPad deal, and it’s a bit more complicated than the rumors had suggested. What the big telco is doing is bundling an iPad with a mobile WiFi hub, a gadget that links to a 3G service and then creates a mini-hotspot to which WiFi devices can then attach. This…
Facing Some Broadband Reality
The latest political wisdom, arising from the results of the mid-terms, is that net neutrality as an issue hurt those who supported it. That combines with the Democratic loss to create a loss of momentum—at least according to popular wisdom. Actually, net neutrality never had any momentum. The Congress doesn’t like to intervene in telecom…
Economic Update
It’s time for our weekly financial summary. The Fed’s move in QE2 is being criticized internationally, though we think the criticism right now is pro forma. Countries with large trading surpluses with the US have been upset by the US move to effectively devalue its currency, and that includes Germany, Brazil, and of course China. …
Tech Week: Broadband
Broadband continues to be in the news, both in terms of policy and in terms of business model. The two, of course, should have some relation to each other, but it’s increasingly clear that’s not going to be the case in many world markets. The US elections and the announcement by Clearwire that they’d be…
The Handwriting on the Tablet
One of the prime areas of focus for tech recently has been the tablet space. Tablets are far from new, and in fact some of the “new” models are more like reprises of earlier tablets in that they’re little more than a keyboard-less notebook. The iPad, of course, created an alternative vision of a tablet as…
What Now?
In some ways, we’ve witnessed a historic election. The margin of victory in the House for Republicans hasn’t been seen since Roosevelt’s time, after all. But in a very important way we saw nothing but business as usual. For the last three elections, US voters have turned out the party in power. We’re never happy…
Clouds and Chips
The IT world has provided us with a number of interesting developments this week, starting with a Google suit filed over a proposed Department of the Interior messaging system award to Microsoft. Google feels that its own Apps could have been used for this, and that they should have been given the opportunity to demonstrate…
Hopeful Economic Signs?
Economically speaking it would be hard to characterize last week as great, and yet it was better than expected and certainly better than many had feared. The critical number, the 3Q GDP, came in above last quarter’s level, and that pretty much laid the double-dip recession theory to rest. Far from showing wild swings of…
Not Chicken Little Time…Yet!
This week saw what’s become the usual push and pull of supply- and demand-side issues, and perhaps a bit more than the usual confusion in the markets (financial, enterprise, and consumer) about the net outcome. It’s not been the wild week of stock swings that could have happened had economic news been bad, but at…