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More Google Fiber potential in the midwest and south

31 October 2015 by Steve Blum

Google has announced three more potential fiber cities. According to the Google Fiber blog…

We’re inviting Oklahoma City, OK, Jacksonville, FL and Tampa, FL, to explore bringing Google Fiber to their communities, as we did last month with three other cities. These growing tech-hubs have a strong entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to small business growth. Their list of accolades is long—from Jacksonville’s title as a top 10 city for tech jobs, to Tampa Bay’s #2 spot on the list of best cities for young entrepreneurs, to Oklahoma City’s recognition as the #1 city to launch a business.

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Data flows along paths set in the age of sail

25 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for the look ahead.

International submarine fiber optic cables traverse many of the same routes that sailing ships followed in centuries gone by. In one sense, that’s not such a surprise. If goods move between the U.S. and Britain, say, then information is going to flow that way to something like the same extent. Even so, an interactive graphic on Vox.com brings that relationship to life in a fascinating way, by combining a shipping map from 1912 with the latest edition of Telegeograhy’s submarine cable wall map, published retro-style with everything except Here be Dragons included.… More

Google's broadband balloons are almost perfected exec says

24 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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Project Loon is closer to being a commercially useful platform for broadband connectivity in remote areas. That’s what Wael Fakharany, Google’s business lead in South Africa told a trade show audience in Cape Town. According to Mobile World Live, Fakharany said that the technology needed to use semi-randomly floating balloons to relay Internet traffic is nearly ready for prime time…

“For the last two years we have almost perfected the technology, it’s time for us now to scale in this part of the world,” he said in a session discussing rural broadband coverage.

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The Apple car coming in 2019, rumors say

17 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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Apple’s plans to get into the car business – supposedly code-named Project Titan – are taking on a firmer shape, according to an article in Information Week. It lists the top eight Apple car rumors floating through the automotive and high tech communities. Number one on the hit parade is a supposedly leaked target date of 2019 for the launch. That’s considered ambitious in automotive terms, where development cycles can run as long as a decade or more.… More

Police can't grab your data or hack your stuff in California without a warrant

11 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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It’s still okay to ask politely, though.

California now has “the nation’s best digital privacy law“, or at least that’s how the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is being described in the press. Governor Brown signed the bill on Thursday. It requires a police officer or any other government employee or agency to get a search warrant before seizing electronic data or trying to access it without permission.

According to the analysis prepared for the state senate…

The warrant shall describe with particularity the information to be seized, including by specifying the time periods covered, and as appropriate and reasonable, the target individuals or accounts, the applications or services covered, and the types of information sought;

The warrant shall require that any obtained information unrelated to the objective of the warrant shall be sealed and not subject to further review, use, or disclosure unless a court issues an order that there is probable cause to believe that the information is relevant to an active investigation, or is otherwise required by state or federal law.

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Manufacturers willing to accept some liability for driverless cars

10 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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Taking the blame, up to a point.

Self-driving cars might be less than five years away. Toyota is planning to put one on the road in time for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 and Elon Musk has said that Tesla might have one even earlier than that. In fact, Musk has said that some existing Teslas could soon get a software update that will let them go driverless – or at least do the driving while a human watches – on highways and parallel park themselves.… More

Santa Cruz to Soledad fiber optic network shifts course, makes progress

11 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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Work on an independent fiber route that will run from Santa Cruz to Watsonville, and then on through Salinas to Soledad is moving ahead. So far it’s just paperwork that’s getting done, but that’s the part of the project that takes the most time. Originally proposed in 2013 and awarded a $10.6 million subsidy (out of a total cost of $13.3 million) by the California Public Utilities Commission in 2014, the network owner, Sunesys, LLC, spent a year obtaining environmental clearances and is now negotiating construction permits with the cities and counties along the way.… More

Federal court sets banana peel standard for consumer data protection

7 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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Not best cybersecurity practice.

Companies that let bin loads of customer data get hauled away have one more thing to worry about: being sued by the Federal Trade Commission. A federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled that the broad authority to police “unfair methods of competition in commerce” that congress gave the FTC 100 years ago extends to cyberspace. That means the FTC can move ahead with legal action against Wyndham Hotels, which let crackers transfer data from more than 600,000 customers to a server based in Russia in 2008 and 2009.… More

Projects, policies and plans for broadband development on California's central coast

6 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for the presentation.

Broadband projects and policy are moving ahead on California’s central coast. That was my message to a meeting with elected officials from Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, convened in June by the Central Coast Broadband Consortium (CCBC).

The project with the biggest impact on the region is the middle mile link between Santa Cruz and Soledad, which is being built by Sunesys and largely paid for by the California Public Utilities Commission via the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF).… More

FCC fines WiFi operator $750K for jamming at convention centers

4 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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It’s kinda like poisoning your water bottle to make you buy a $10 coke.

The Federal Communications Commission has nailed another company for trying to force people onto its own, very expensive WiFi service by jamming personal hotspots created by mobile phones and cellular wireless routers. Smart City Holdings, which sells WiFi access in convention centers for $80 a day, was fined $750,000 for forcing visitors onto its network. According to the FCC consent decree, it was the result of a complaint…

In October 2014, the Bureau’s Spectrum Enforcement Division undertook the Investigation, which included sending a series of Letters of Inquiry to Smart City and reviewing the company’s written responses.

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