http://www.techsploder.com: Juha

Trade Me, the behemoth on NZ’s Internet

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:07:00 PST

How busy is Trade Me these days? According to Trade Me developer Jay, very busy:

Yesterday being Monday February 1, 2010, Trade Me served up almost 2.4 million pages an hour, or just under 40,000 a minute.

Wonder how much data the 1.4 billion pages represent? Should see if WAND or someone else has stats on NZ Internet traffic.

Technorati Tags: Trade Me,Internet,New Zealand

Losers in the Apple iPad launch

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:20:00 PST

There it is then, another culture-changing device from Apple, as Mike Elgan puts it. The iPad may not be everything to everyone, but Apple has launched the device with its usual thoroughness, and it's backed up by apps, media and 3G right from the start.
So yes, the iPad should sell well. The concept is nicely thought out, the design excellent as per usual and the marketing slick.
Who will hurt the most from the iPad then? My take is that Microsoft will smart the most. Perhaps Microsoft was too early with its TabletPCs, technologically speaking, and insisting on using styluses with them but they never really took off and look clunky compared to the iPad. Like geeky clipboards, unlike the cleanly designed Apple variant. Unfortunately for HP and Microsoft, I don't think there will be many takers for the Slate when it comes out.
Amazon will suffer too. Its Kindle is now officially boring and overpriced. End of story really.
What happened Intel being the official CPU supplier to Apple? The iPad runs custom silicon, a 1GHz A4 chip, made by PA Semi that was bought by Apple in 2008. Not much is known about the A4 at this stage. It could possibly be based on the Power architecture and it does apparently have an integrated graphics unit, like Intel's latest chips do. Clearly, Intel didn't have the parts Apple wanted for the iPad, and it'd be interesting to know why. I'm guessing power efficiency was a major driver behind Apple's decision to go with the P A Semi-designed part.
Adobe not looking too Flash on the iPad either. There's a Mexican stand-off going on between Adobe and Apple, with no Flash support for the iPhone or the iPad on the horizon. Some people will say that's a good thing, but most users will be annoyed when they hit sites that require Flash on their iPads, and there are many many many of those around.
As for the content, too bad if your media organisation isn't supplying material for the iPad. or outside the US. Is Fairfax or APN talking to Apple? If not, they should be.
The iPad isn't a great fit for Vodafone NZ in its present configuration as the 3G support will be 850MHz and 2100MHz, and not 900MHz, just like the iPhone. Telecom NZ of course has 850MHz 3G but will it be able to resell iPads? It didn't get the iPhone.
Plus, there will be no voice call facility on the iPad, only data. How will that fly with our Two Telcos, both of which love putting together Byzantine calling plans that ask you to pay in advance for minutes that you may or may not use, to subsidise handsets?

Technorati Tags: Apple,iPad,iphone,Microsoft,HP,OS X

Twitter.com DNS hijacked?

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:50:00 PST

Twitter.com seems to be hijacked at the moment:
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;twitter.com. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
twitter.com. 1901 IN A 74.217.128.160
;;; QUESTION SECTION:
;160.128.217.74.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR
;; ANSWER SECTION:
160.128.217.74.in-addr.arpa. 3600 IN PTR w-160.netfirms.com.
Was wondering why this popped up instead of the Twitter site before:

My good friend Dylan Reeve tells me that the "Iranian Cyber Army" may be behind the DNS hijack but I don't get that page at the moment, only a PNAP hosted one when I try to load twitter.com.
Update I Fat-fingered a PTR DNS query, and wrongly ended up at www.perfectworld.com - fixed.
Update II Biz Stone at Twitter confirms that it was a DNS hijack. He doesn't believe any accounts were compromised.

Microsoft being a Onecare

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:25:00 PST

All right, I know it's good to that Microsoft provides a free malware scanning utility and that I'm being a bit of a duck to have a go at them, but nevertheless, the Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner is a bad idea that should be taken down fast.

For starters, it uses an ActiveX control - Internet Explorer required in other words - that's annoyingly hard to install. You get warnings galore from Windows 7's UAC and IE about popups and do you really really really want to install something that has the potential to roger your system well and truly?

That's not what a non-technical user wants to see, especially if s/he thinks the computer in question has been compromised via the Internet.

Does it work then? No idea yet, because this is far as I got:

Ah yes, good old error number 0x0C600C03. Of course. Tells you exactly what went wrong, doesn't it?

And why is this done over HTTP and not secured HTTPS anyway?

See that little "Love it? Tell your friends" exhortation to email your friends about the scanner? Yep, very bad idea that too, as from now on, malware writers will start spamming about OneCare safety scanner, with the payload likely to be something you really don't want on your computer.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,OneCare,security,viruses,Internet Explorer,Koobface,Windows Live

First test on Vodafone NZ HSPA+

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:30:00 PST

At Vodafone HQ with Scott Bartley from PC World and Chris Keall from NBR, trying out HSPA+. On my Dell Studio 17 laptop and a Huawei K4505 USB stick, the results are...

Pingtest:

And the hoary old Speedtest:

More tests to come with ftp downloads and uploads.

Update A few ftp tests later shows that the around 7Mbit/s sustained throughput per connection is possible, at least on a lightly loaded network. With three ftp downloads going, I hit 14-15Mbit/s sustained. Didn't have time to do upload tests, unfortunately.

The low latency is great, but Vodafone's HSPA+ network will need more tuning before it opens up for general availability. We experienced several instances of the connection staying up but with no data being passed over the link. Once the stability issues are sorted out, HSPA+ could be all the broadband many users need - provided of course that Vodafone follows through with the hints about upgrading the data plans.

On top of meaty data plans, Vodafone would need to source HSPA+ capable phones that can be used as modems as well as for voice, for the fast 3G connection to be attractive to general users looking to dump their landlines in favour of just mobile. Or, Vodafone could organise a 3G softphone to go with the USB data sticks.

Unfortunately, we weren't given any pricing for the uprated 3G service by Vodafone.

Here's Chris's take at NBR on this morning's HSPA+ session.

Geek garden update

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:46:00 PST

Wet and warm keeps the green stuff happy. The garden is growing like anything, something that most New Zealanders are undoubtedly accustomed to, but for me is a Being There experience that still amazes. Have had lovely, sweet strawberries for the last month or so, and green vegetables all throughout winter.
The Italian flat-leaf parsley is huge, ditto the mint, holy basil, lemon grass, oregano, rocket, spring onions, sage and thyme - all the stuff that costs a small fortune in the supermarket. Having it fresh is just that much better as well.
One of the best things to eat from the garden has been the artichokes. The plant itself grew to a ridiculous size, obviously loving the clay soil and the buds are fantastic.
Tomatoes have been planted and they're going berserk. One plant took three weeks to reach enormous proportions, so will have to put some sort of lattice thing behind it to keep it from breaking. Has fruit already though, so don't think it'll be a leaves-only job.
Almost forgot - need to sort out a watering system. What do people use? Those hoses with little holes in them?

Technorati Tags: Life,Gardening,food.

Brothers in spam – the Atkinsons

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:23:00 PST

The conviction of Shane Atkinson in the High Court in Christchurch for spamming was a long time in coming. In 2003, when I wrote about Atkinson as a huge "make big penis fast" spammer, the reaction from the public fed up with huge amounts of offensive spam was immense. They let Shane know exactly what they thought of his business practices, but at the time, there was nothing to be done in New Zealand legally, as the we had no Anti-Spam laws.

Six years ago, Shane promised me he'd stop spamming, something that clearly didn't happen. He continued to clog up people's inboxes with rubbish until 2007, which was a mistake as that year NZ got its Anti-Spam Act. On October 27 this year, Shane and Roland Smits copped a $100,000 and $50,000 penalty respectively,for sending over two million pieces of spam to New Zealand email addresses over four months in 2007.

Simon Cox of the BBC, and Henrik Uffe Jensen were instrumental in proving that Atkinson was continuing to spam, following the trail of money that ended up at Shane's feet. Even then, Shane denied he was spamming.

Spamming seems to run in the family for the Atkinsons. Shane's brother Lance has the dubious honour of being the one of two first cases prosecuted by the Federal Trade Commission under the United States CAN-SPAM act, together with Mike van Essen. In December last year, Lance admitted to spamming and paid $100,000 plus $7,666 in costs for that.

The Anti-Spam Compliance Unit at the NZ Department of Internal Affairs has done a great job in following the Atkinson money trail, leading to the successful prosecution. They worked out that the spam was flogging Herbal King, Elite Herbal, Express Herbal whatever penis pills, as made by Tulip Lab of India with the business itself being the Genbucks Affiliate Programme. Genbucks Ltd of Mauritius ran that scheme, and it can't have been easy to connect the Atkinsons to those overseas entities.

We'll see how much impact the penalising of the Atkinsons will have though. Given the huge volume of spam currently and the apparent ability of Lance Atkinson to stump up $100,000, you have to wonder how much of a deterrent the penalties in the Act are.

Technorati Tags: Shane Atkinson,Spam,Lance Atkinson,CAN-SPAM

Today’s incomprehensible Windows security warning

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:47:00 PDT

Not enough caffeine in bloodstream this morning, and I fat-finger an Excel 2010 formula. Can't see what I've done wrong so click on "Get help with this error." Watch a window pop up with this warning:

Wait. "Microsoft Office" from "Microsoft Corporation" is an add-on that websites can run? Surely not. Being a trusty suicide pilot, I click on the yellow warning to allow said add-on to run and it turns out to be an ActiveX control:

Right, but it doesn't tell me what ActiveX control is being executed, or even why. Pretty useless really, as information goes.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Office 2010,security,windows,Excel,ActiveX,nonsense

Why would anyone buy the Wolfram Alpha iPhone app?

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 04:01:00 PDT

From the curious marketing strategy department: @duncn in Nelson pointed out via Twitter that the new Wolfram Alpha iPhone app is rather optimistically priced:

"the Wolfram Alpha iPhone app looks cool, might pass since its sixty-five fricken dollars!!! NZ, that is."

And so it is:

Perhaps it's really great but unless it offers something unique that the website doesn't, I can't see why you'd stump up $65 bucks for it. As @duncn points out, Wolfram Alpha works great in Safari on the iPhone. Here's the evidence:

Am I missing something here?

Maybe not.

Update Wolfram Alpha charges for the API too, as OleNessie points out. Pricing plans range from US$60 (1,000 requests) to $2,100 (50,000 requests) hitting $220,000 a month for the 10 million requests Enterprise plan.

Technorati Tags: iPhone,Wolfram Alpha

Apropos that new Telecom logo

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:12:00 PDT

Tonight there will be son et lumière courtesy of Telecom New Zealand, as the telco lights up the Auckland Ferry terminal.

Rumours are flying around that this old logo, some eight years by now:

...will be replaced by a new set tonight, plus a whole new corporate identity unveiled. We'll see if that happens, but I've had it suggested to me that these ones are likely candidates, as they're registered as Trade Marks by Telecom:

Really not sure about them. Surely not? They're probably registered as spoilers to hide the real ones.

Then there's this more sombre, straightforward and simple design from 2008, to go with the T Plus stuff:

Err, what is the T Plus stuff? Anyone know?

I am told that the XT network was a taste of things to come, for the new corporate identity. It's not a bad logo, and a variation of it would be my choice:

Tonight will tell, or not. Will update if it does.

Update The lighting up of the Ferry Building was cool, and I had a quick chat with Paul Reynolds about the logo. Most illuminating, I thought. Still think something along the lines of the XT badge would've been better though.

Mauricio has the full wrap on the logo on his blog, and The Keallor's Krowd is going arse-teristisk over at NBR.

Update II Geekzoner Satch is discovering his true talent as a graphics designer:

Time to blog some more on Geekzone

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:56:00 PDT

Now that Mauricio and Red Jungle have made it easier, with the Metaweblog API. This is good stuff, which means you can blog offline. I'm using the Technical Preview of Word 2010 to write this post, for instance. This is a test post really, to see how well it works. One thing I can see is missing are the Technorati tags... or maybe they don't show up in Word 2010?

Back to deadlines now. I'll leave you with this amusing error dialog, from Windows 7's Snipping Tool:

Snow job on termination rates

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 02:54:00 PDT

There's a new stoush over termination rates brewing, this time cooked up by a rather peculiar alliance: Econet's successor NZ Communications/2 Degrees, Matthew Hooton's PR company Exceltium, Consumer NZ and The Telecommunications Users Association of NZ (TUANZ). These are joined by the Federation of Maori Authorities (FOMA), Airnet, New Zealand Union of Student Associations (NZUSA), Federated Farmers and Unite the labour union.

This motley crew is campaigning for mobile termination rates (MTRs) to be dropped, forcibly by the government through the regulator, the Commerce Commission. Unfortunately however, the group has resorted to using rather faulty arguments, as Steve Biddle points out on his blog.

The Commerce Commission has banned media from revealing the details about 2 Degrees' sweetheart deal on MTRs with Vodafone, but you should know that what's on the Drop The Rate, Mate site doesn't reflect reality.

Since Vodafone bills MTRs on a per-second basis, a twenty-second call would not attract a termination rate of 15c. If you want to know exactly how much 2 Degrees pays, head over to Wikileaks and do some simple calculations.

You should also be aware that 2 Degrees bills its customers on a per-minute basis, and not per-second. Work out for yourself the margin difference between the MTR 2 Degrees pays for a 20-second call and compare that to the retail rate of 44c/min you would pay.

Given that 2 Degrees was very vocal in the regulatory process about per-second billing, I think the company has some explaining to do why they launched with per-minute instead.

Would dropping MTRs result in lower retail rates then? That's not at all certain, because this is TelcoLand where reality is altered and confusion reigns.

MTRs do influence retail rates, but it can be in both directions as telcos use them to subsidise other parts of their business. Some countries, like the US and Singapore, have billing systems where people pay to receive calls as well as to make them. In those countries, there are no MTRs unlike in places like New Zealand and most European countries, that use the Calling Party Pays (CPP) principle.

I'd love it if MTRs were simple wholesale rates meaning if they're slashed, retail rates go down too. That, unfortunately, isn't quite how it works and it makes the argument about pass-through a red herring. How much difference do you think 5.5c/minute would make to your phone bill? That's what a 75 per cent pass through of MTR reductions would achieve for customers.

Droptheratemate PR spinner Matthew Hooton reckons that we're overcharged to the tune of 15c/minute which happens to be the standard MTR today, and more than what 2 Degrees pays. Except he won't tell you that. Hooton also won't tell you that the Commission isn't proposing the total removal of MTRs and that it is not in favour of 2 Degrees' Bill and Keep regime.

Depending on how a telco's pricing structure is set up, you can actually pay less in retail rates than the prevailing MTRs are.

How badly ripped off are we these days then? I'm not saying that mobile communications are cheap, but the OECD issued a set of figures for August 2008, showing how much people pay for a medium-use "basket" of telco services, comprising 780 voice calls, 600 texts and eight PXTs a month year.

Netherlands and the Nordic countries were the cheapest, followed by Austria, Luxembourg and New Zealand. Interestingly enough, MTRs in Netherlands are 19c, same in Denmark, and 11c in Finland. Sweden is the lowest with 8c/minute (NZ$, non-PPP adjusted).

Have a look at the MTR-less United States though. You'd think it'd be the cheapest with zero MTRs...

It seems that regulating MTRs is done for a less direct purpose than to lower retail rates, namely to reduce the market power of large telcos. Imagine a normal month, with millions of minutes flying around on the mobile networks, and you'll see we're talking about some pretty large sums even with low termination rates. Text messages also attract termination rates between 3.5c and 9.5c and with something like 700 million messages zooming around on each of the two big telco networks, that's big money.

Obviously, calls between say two Telecom customers don't attract termination rates. This and the big dollars that flow between the networks make it difficult for a new entrant to get a foothold in the market but again, things are not so clear-cut.

The United States is campaigning for third-world countries to cut MTRs because... the United States is a next exporter of calls. Ergo, said third-world countries make money out of US telcos. If a new entrant can attract calls from larger networks to its own, and manages to strike an asymmetric deal on MTRs, it'll make good money. It's all a question of call flows between networks, and these are difficult to assess as telcos move away from circuit-switched to packet-switched call routing.

What we're looking at here is a commercial marketing ploy by 2 Degrees, masterfully leveraging its position as a third entrant encouraged by the government - the taxpayer has sunk some $10 million into the business already, through 2 Degrees predecessor Econet and NZ Communications.

What's happening now is a heady mix of 2 Degrees exploiting its position and going down the populist route with mainly Vodafone in its sights. Thanks to the lack of transparency in an overly complex regulatory process that few understand, 2 Degrees gets away with it. The chickens are coming home to roost for Vodafone and Telecom too, after years of simmering customer dissatisfaction with high retail rates; in terms of timing, 2 Degrees' campaign is spot on.

I'm guessing 2 Degrees' business plan is to keep up the populist pressure as in the past, and pick up enough customers to appeal to Optus or TelstraClear for a quick sale over the next two years or so.

Instead of lending their support and voices to a commercial campaign by 2 Degrees with some rather dubious claims, shouldn't TUANZ and Unite think about for instance Telecom landlines, which are regulated and which will never go down in price? Telecom put up the landline cost with $3 a month recently, because it is allowed to by law. I don't need a voice landline, but have to have one for broadband.

How about making some noise around that?

Update OECD Low User basket, with NZ taking the 10th spot:

OECD High User basket, with NZ at 14th place:

Attack of the SS PR

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:05:00 PDT

I am subscribed to the great and wonderful FreeBSD mailing lists, which occasionally throw up gems like the below message. First time I've heard of a "deep Rolodex", actually.

Mindy Franklin to freebsd-questions.

I am writing to introduce myself and SS | PR.

We have a deep Rolodex of editorial contacts with trades and national editorial outlets. My firm has been in business for over 20 years and has strong media relationships. Our agency can be instrumental in generating features, reviews, applications stories, etc.

We can show you how to use your news to get you more PR coverage.

SS | PR can be a valuable assistance at OpenSource World.

If you would like to talk or schedule a meeting please let me know.

Regards, Mindy

Mindy Franklin SS | PR 800-287-2279 ext:9328
_______________________________________________
freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"

Google Chrome OS announced

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:48:00 PDT

The competition for Microsoft just heated up considerably, with the Google announcing that it intends to release an operating system aimed initially at Netbooks in the second half of next year. Google Chrome OS is the somewhat unimaginative name, and it's supposed to be fast, simple and secure.

"It should just work" might end up being Google VP Sundar Pichai and Engineering Director Linus Epson's famous last words but judging by the Chrome browser and Android mobile OS, the search engine giant should be able to produce something worthwhile.

While Chrome OS is supposed to have a minimalist user interface, it'll be curious to see what kind of windowing system Google intends to use with a Linux kernel.

Also, how will Google solve some of the thorny issues facing Linux device drivers that have to load binary non-open source driver BLOBs, for things like hardware accelerated 3D?

Looking at the larger picture, a Google OS could pique the interest of anti-monopoly regulators, especially if it will be closely tied in with Google webapps - making it Open Source should circumvent that though, but an Internet experience that's Google all the way from boot-up to the advertising and information that's presented to you in the Google browser does seem a little bit constricting.

The announcement seems to say the OS will be extremely web-centric, and potentially boot straight into a browser. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't know if I like the thought of that...

Update Mauricio made an interesting point earlier - Chrome OS might be ad supported. In fact, it's a reasonably safe bet it will be that, in some form or the other. That's a whole new kettle of fish, and one that could be controversial for regulatory reasons.

Rumours of my heart attack are greatly exaggerated

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:31:00 PDT

Ahh... the Internet; don't you just love it? David MacGregor, one of the Idealog founders, has unfortunately come down with a very dodgy ticker. He's currently awaiting to undergo bypass surgery, and blogged about it. I read what David had written, thought it interesting and retweeted his tweet with a link to the blog:

It's probably the way Tweetie formats retweets, but I was little taken aback when the well-wishes started rolling in. So to clarify, I'm fine. No heart attack for me. Please read David's blog though to see how he's going.

And thank you very much everybody for your concern - I really appreciate it, and promises to get the exercise going again properly, so as to keep that all-important muscle running smoothly.

Reviews here on Geekzone: Dell 2130cn colour laser and HTC Magic

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:52:00 PDT

Short blog post today, to alert those who follow me on RSS about two reviews that I've posted here on Geekzone.

Dell 2130cn review here.

HTC Magic review here.

Check them out and let me know what you think.

Today's strange Internet Explorer 8 error message

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 03:04:00 PDT

Windows 7 x64 is great but I'm not totally convinced about Internet Explorer 8. Of all the browsers I've tried - IE6/7, Opera 9.x, Safari 3/beta 4, Chrome 1.x/2.x, Firefox 3.x and betas - IE8 is the only one to choke on Gmail's Javascript regularly. IE8 also does some funky stuff with Twitter Direct Messages: if using the Twitter website for DMs, you're prompted to save a file when you click Send.

The message gets sent, but IE8 is the only browser doing this (probably a MIME type issue). Should try to hack around it, I guess.

As for the above error message well... what? What problems? The problem's already been, the usual "Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site. Operation aborted" error while going to a blogspot.com site. The error message above isn't particularly useful, and leaves non-techie users in a limbo.

Orcon lays off 23 staff

Mon, 04 May 2009 05:37:00 PDT

Yesterday, I got an email saying some of Orcon's prices "simply aren't sustainable", meaning the excess data charge doubled from $1 per GB to $2, unless you took up the $8/month for 5GB additional traffic offer.

Today, I see that Orcon is cutting staff - 23 employees means a 16 per cent reduction in staff numbers.

Last year, the ISP, a state-owned enterprise that's part of Kordia lost almost $3.6 million, so I guess this was to be expected, but how does this fit with Orcon buying webhoster iServe?

Media statement
5 May 2009

Statement from
Scott Bartlett
CEO, Orcon Internet Limited

Although on target to meet current year profit objectives, Orcon anticipates a more challenging year ahead.

The company has therefore revised its growth targets for the next period and as a consequence will also be reducing the business cost structure.

Orcon is today entering into consultation with employees across the company to reduce staff levels by approximately 23 positions (of a total of 144), with numbers subject to change as a result of consultation.

The current proposal involves staff across all levels and divisions of the business.

Orcon is introducing several measures to assist any affected staff find new jobs. Measures include:

working closely with employment agencies to ascertain what levels of vacancies exist in similar fields;

allowing staff time off to attend interviews during their redundancy notice period, and

access to employment assistance programmes and financial advice via WINZ.

Orcon operates in a fast moving industry. Restructuring the company to meet market conditions and balance risk is a natural part of business.

Because the consultation process is now underway, no further comment will be made by Orcon.

Watch out: Twitter direct messages delivered to wrong people

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:11:00 PDT

This morning, I fired up DestroyTwitter and Seesmic Desktop as usual, to check out what's happening on Twitter. Had a few direct messages or DMs, from people I don't know and assumed they were those noxious and annoying automatically generated ones.

But, I took a closer look and noticed that they weren't from people I follow. In fact, they weren't even for me:

I don't follow any of the above people, and as far as I can tell, they don't follow me either. What's strange is that DestroyTwitter showed some the above DMs, but Seesmic Desktop didn't, but had others not destined for me:

The above DMs contain nothing particularly outrageous or whatever, hence I haven't blanked out the usernames.

Either way, don't use Twitter DMs for any sensitive, personal or similar communications. You don't know where they'll end up.

Update Seems Twitter is aware of it, and has blogged about the problems.

Browning jumps from Freeview to Hybrid TV and TiVo?

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 09:32:00 PDT

Freeview sent over a press release earlier today, saying Steve Browning, its GM, has resigned effective April 9, to "pursue new opportunities".

The release doesn't say why he left or where to, but Allan Swann at NBR reckons Browning has gone to... Hybrid TV, the company part-owned by TVNZ and Seven Media Group, to launch TiVo in New Zealand.

Interestingly enough, the release quoted Freeview Chairman Rick Friesen extensively. Friesen is one of the MediaWorks bosses, and that broadcaster is reportedly very unhappy with TVNZ HD going onto SkyTV.

Sam Irvine, Freeview's marketing manager steps in as acting general manager until a permanent appointment has been made.

As someone who's been favourably impressed by Freeview, I hope this doesn't mean the digital broadcaster is about to fall apart. A state broadcaster in cahoots with a commercial satellite one doesn't sound like a good idea for New Zealand, although it may appeal to some freemarketer purists...

Full TVNZ content on SkyTV from June-July this year

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:03:00 PDT

Maybe it was due to political pressure from National, but TVNZ and Sky Television say they have come to an agreement that means all of the state broadcasters's channels will be available on the latter's service.

This means high-definition versions of TV ONE and TV2 will be available to MySkyHDi viewers from June 1, and the digital TVNZ 6 and 7 channels from July 1.

TVNZ will provide regional advertising from July 1 too, on TV ONE, and of course, the state broadcaster's full content will now reach a combined audience of two million viewers. No doubt this makes TVNZ look financially rather attractive, perhaps ahead of the rumoured sell-off by the National government.

While TVNZ's policy is to be available on every screen in New Zealand, you have to wonder where this leaves the digital Freeview service. In fact, I'll ask them... stand by, blog update coming up.

TV3 can't be happy about this though.

Update As RedJungle says below, how about it, Sky? Prime TV on Freeview. Surely that's only fair?

Update II An industry watcher suggests that Prime axing its news service may be related to this announcement.

Update III Comment from Freeview CEO Steve Browning: "Freeview has never been about exclusivity. We are NZ’s only open digital TV and radio platform, which means we do not require any channel to be Freeview exclusive."

"We always expected TVNZ 6 and 7 to be made available on Sky. The appeal of Freeview is once you have purchased a Freeview approved receiver all the channels are free. Conversely, with SKY you are paying a monthly subscription to watch free-to-air digital channels."

"We believe that the added exposure for these channels on Sky will draw attention to what viewers can get elsewhere for free and that’s good news for Freeview,” he says.

Copyright claims anti-competitive and often just wrong: Google

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 07:58:00 PDT

The Teditor, or PC World Editor Ted Gibbons, has been reading through Google's submission on the Telecommunications Carriers' Forum (TCF) Code of Practice, which would be the agreement between telcos and ISPs on one hand and the rights holders, on how to terminate the Internet access for people deemed to repeatedly infringe on copyright.

Ted writes:

In its submission, Google notes that more than half (57%) of the takedown notices it has received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998, were sent by businesses targeting competitors and over one third (37%) of notices were not valid copyright claims.

Now contrast this with what Campbell Smith of RIANZ states in the recent Q&A here at Geekzone:

A: Yes, we are confident that this is reliable enough to be accepted by a court. The evidence gathered consists of publicly available information about the IP addresses used at a certain time on a certain date to upload copyright infringing material. The evidence supplied by us is synched to a trusted atomic time source and based on ICANN (APNIC) information regarding the allocation of Internet protocol address spaces.

Anyone can log onto file-sharing networks and note the IP addresses used for uploading content, since the uploader makes this information publicly available.

This type of evidence has been accepted in countries around the world as the basis of criminal and civil legal actions. We are confident that the standard of our evidence gathering process is robust enough to be accepted by any court in New Zealand, as it has been internationally.

To date the evidence provided by IFPI, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, has always been sufficient for a court. RIANZ, as an IFPI member, would use the same standard of evidence techniques and technologies. We have been through the evidence gathering process with ISPs here in NZ and we have had no concerns raised about the robustness of our evidence.

Judge Harvey noted in his submission that around 30 per cent of copyright claims going to court were invalid.

Google has evidence that most copyright take-down notices are issued for anti-competitive purposes and over a third are not valid copyright claims.

In the face of that, how can RIANZ, APRA and other supporters still claim that there will be no false accusations or claims?

Would you buy a used car from this person?

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 12:54:00 PDT

Browsing TradeMe's car section, I looked at the Jaguars (yeah, I know, not entirely sensible) and found a '99 S-Type. Nothing unusual about that, but the seller or whoever it is that's modelling on the bonnet of the car seems quite remarkable:

Mmm... think I might pass on that. $15k seems a bit pricey anyway.

Stalky Twittermania: list of artists, bands and musos on Twitter

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 07:32:00 PDT

Twitter is incredibly celebrity driven, to the point of being quite ridiculous at times. Many of the celebs has tens, even hundreds of thousands of followers, but follow few of their fans back themselves (with some notable exceptions like @stephenfry).
Despite that, if you want to follow what your favourite artist/e is twittering about, Gabriel Nijmeh (@gcn1) has put together a very impressive Google Spreadsheet for you, with thousands of musos, bands, and err... one comedian. Dave Robinson? Who he?
No guarantees all or any of them are for real (I mean, Neil Diamond twittering? Come on) but check it out by all means.

Fibre-to-the-home boosts quality of life, productivity, employment and public services

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 07:40:00 PST

Lazy dog blogging today as I feel a bit worn out, but the below release from analysts Ovum is interesting.

Why? Because I've lost count of how many times the argument is wheeled out that fast network connectivity is a luxury item that's neither here nor there for most people. The Ovum study seems to refute that argument quite comprehensively. I'd like to read the whole lot first before saying it's so, and I can see that the pat comments in the release are from the FTTH Council but everything I've seen so far point to serving communities better with broadband having a positive effect in many important areas.

Do you agree?

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Ovum study finds FTTH deployments contribute to higher quality of life, productivity, employment and public services in European communities

Joint Ovum and FTTH Council Europe survey first to study socioeconomic impact of FTTH For immediate release, February 27, 2009. Ovum recently completed a study into the socio-economic impact of European FTTH deployments undertaken with the FTTH Council Europe.

The study is the first of its kind to closely investigate how FTTH enables socio-economic growth in European communities and municipalities, and the results were presented at the FTTH European conference in Copenhagen, Denmark on February 11, 2009.

The study was conducted in the underserved rural areas of Sweden which had a number of small communities with very high penetration of FTTH and FTTB. Carried out using a wide range of metrics that determine relative ‘prosperity’ and its correlation to FTTH deployments at the local/regional level, the study concluded that FTTH positively contributes to improvements in socio-economic metrics such as quality of life, improved productivity, better public services and increased employment.

“The study is the first of its kind to show a correlation between a large percentage of businesses and homes connected with fiber and a link to benefits and cost savings for education, health and public administration,” said Lynn Hutcheson Vice-President Communication Components, Ovum.

“The study itself included extensive consumer survey’s, regional case studies and interviews with representatives from government agencies, municipalities, network associations and network operators.”

The findings demonstrate clear social and economic improvements in areas with higher FTTH and FTTB penetration. Benefits included better e-learning and health services, significant reductions in telecoms costs and a closer collaboration between municipalities and public-service providers.

Thomas Kallstenius from the FTTH Council Europe’s Market Intelligence Committee, explains: “The study has successfully demonstrated that fiber to the building or home at a municipal level has significant positive impact on local economies from both a social and economic perspective.

The clear network superiority of fiber provides a platform for improving employment levels; attracting small businesses, encouraging remote workers and ultimately helping to raise the regional knowledge economy. Couple this with the benefits to public services such as enhanced e-learning opportunities and improved health and home care by enabling services such as remote diagnostics and it becomes clear that improved communications can provide significant socio-economic benefits to European communities.”

Joeri Van Bogaert, President of the FTTH Council Europe, concludes, “This study provides even further depth to the business case for FTTH. FTTH’s ability to enhance social inclusion and create a positive impact on social and economic welfare for consumers is a key consideration for today’s telecommunication and investment communities and the results of this study provide a clear message. Furthermore, and most interestingly, the section of society which was afforded most socio-economic benefit from FTTH was that with the lowest income. In a time of financial downturn where concerns grow daily regarding the next economic stimulus package, these results indicate that where limited resource and distance remain barriers to quality of life, next generation broadband can provide the social and economic stimulus needed today.”