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Network neutrality

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3 minutes read

Tuesday, I read on ArsTechnica about SBC's CEO Edward Withacre interview on BusinessWeek, where he declares, and I quote:

How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google (GOOG ), MSN, Vonage, and others?

How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?

The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! (YHOO ) or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!

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Lost in translation?

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1 minute read

In 10 years, you will be able to be understood by anyone in the world. Talk to anyone in your preferred language (say English), they will listen to you in whatever language they want to (Spanish? Portuguese?), all this in real time, thanks to this translation goggles. A step back for the Esperanto community, a huge step forward for globalization.

Deskloops

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1 minute read

My iMac is having video problems: my screen is scrambled. After some goggling, I found out that my iMac serial number is in the range for the Apple repair extension program, so it has to be repaired. Meanwhile, back to Windows. But I surelly lack Exposé, and meanwhile, I found Deskloops, and my first impression is that, maybe, there are some ideas that can be taken to the next Exposé version. Apple dudes should take a look at this.

Evolution

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1 minute read

The world is evolving, and so are human relations. Media formats will be purely digital, and distribution will be in a peer-to-peer model. Search engines will understand what I want, in plain english. But should I say 'will' or 'are'? Is the future nearer then we think?

Data stored in your browser

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1 minute read

Back in the late 90's, I had this really crazy ideia of having data stored in the browsers of our web site viewers. We run against a lot of technical problems, so we had to cancel the whole deal. But today I found someone with the same levels of insanity (thank god i'm not alone) and definitely, a best programmer: combining AMASS with the TrimQuery SQL engine, he is able to store full SQL tables in your browser cache. Could this be the driver for new AJAX applications?