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Look very closely at this picture of the Sun. See the speck at the left near the equator, and teh even tinier speck next to that?
That is the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle undocking from it, taken on September 17, 2006.
(Via Bad Astronomy, which counts this No. 5 on its list of the top ten astronomy shots of 2006).
Below is a closeup showing the station and shuttle in more detail.
In order to get its merger with BellSouth approved by the FCC, AT&T offered some last-minute concessions, including a promise to respect network neutrality for two years and a few other minor items. After that, Net neutrality could be dead in the water unless the Democratic Congress picks it up again and passes legislation to enshrine it. (Last spring, the Republican Congress killed a similar amendment).
Today, all bits on the Internet are treated pretty much the same, but Web companies like Google and Yahoo are afraid that telcos in the future will want to discriminate between bits and perhaps charge them extra tolls to have data from their Websites delivered over the high-speed lanes the telcos plan to build out for things like video and phone calls. In fact, if you read the fine print of AT&T's proposed agreement with the FCC, you will find that it wants to exclude its planned IPTV network from any Net Neutrality rules. IPTV is the technology the telcos want to use to compete with cable companies and deliver hundreds of TV channels to consumers. AT&T is expanding its IPTV trials to 15 cities in the U.S. Initially, the service is more of a private network that uses the Internet Protocol to deliver video. So just as a cable company reserves the right to pick which channels it will offer over its network, AT&T wants to be able to do the same thing.
As long as we are talking about traditional TV, there is not much to object to here. But the way IPTV works is that you get at least 30 megabits per second download speeds (compared to 786 kilobits to 3 megabits per second for DSL and cable today). When you are watching IPTV, you are using that bandwidth to stream video to your TV. But what about when you are not watching TV? AT&T's desire to exclude IPTV from any Net neutrality provisions indicates that it may want to also use that bandwidth to offer its customers a mega-broadband service.
Continue reading "The New Ma Bell, Net Neutrality, and IPTV" »
Apple (AAPL) released its annual report this morning, along with details of its options backdating investigation. The company will $84 million in earnings, but board member Al Gore specifically exonerated Steve Jobs, saying the board "has complete confidence" in him. The financial impact is minimal—$4 million, $7 million, and $10 million in the last three years, respectively—but a full 15 percent of the options granted between October 1996 and January 2003 were found to be improperly dated.
Among those misdated was the 7.5 million options granted to Steve Jobs in 2001. The options were dated October 19 (when the stock was trading at $18) instead of the actual grant date the day before (when the stock was trading at $21). That single clerical "error" would have netted Jobs an additional $22.5 million if Apple hadn't later canceled all the options and replaced them with restricted stock.
Investors are relieved—the stock is up $3 this morning. Jobs' job seems safe. But the SEC could still fine the company.
The issue here is not whether companies should be able to richly reward their executives, but the lack of disclosure. Public companies can compensate their executives any way they want. They just can't lie about it.
Update: (Some financial highlights from the 10K after the break):
Continue reading "Al Gore Clears Steve Jobs of Options Wrongdoing" »
Okay, things are getting really meta in the social networking space. No sooner do I post an item about ProfileLinker (the new startup that will let you manage all of your online profiles in one spot) than I get an e-mail from Harrison Tang about Spokeo, which is like ProfileLinker in reverse. Instead of sending your data out to a bunch of social networking sites, Spokeo is more of a central hub where you can keep up with all the posts, pictures and links your friends put up in any of 21 different sites. These include MySpace, Digg, Bebo, Xanga, Flickr, Photobucket, and YouTube:
Tang and his recent Stanford roommates launched the site in November, and he says it is already tracking over two million blogs, photos, and videos. So if some of your friends are on Xanga, some are on MySpace, and the rest are on Hi5, you can keep track of them all at Spokeo, as well as their pictures on Flickr, their links on Digg, and their videos on YouTube. Clicking on a link or photo takes you back to the original site, but if sites like Spokeo can become the new launching points to the social Web they should should do well.
To take advantage of the social monitoring capabilities of Spokeo, of course, takes a bit of setting up. But if you are a college student on holiday break, what else are you going to do?
Amid controversy over how many people actually visit its site and how easy it is to game, Digg raised $8.5 million from existing investors Greylock Partners and Omidyar Network. That probably means that Digg won't be selling itself to a bigger company anytime soon—unless, of course, someone wants to offer a sum of money that is to bubblicious to refuse.
With less than 20 people on staff, that $8.5 million should keep Digg going for a while. Or do they need the money for an expansion into new markets?
Google launched its blog search engine more than a year ago, but only last week did it finally pass category leader Technorati, according to Hitwise. The surge in traffic to Google's beta blog search started in October when Google News began to link to it prominently, but what pushed it over the top is a prominent link on Google's main homepage. When you click "more" above the search box, "Blogs" is the first option.
Never underestimate the power of of the homepage firehose that is available Google and the other top ten or so Websites. It's hard to compete with that, no matter how good your service is.
I still think Technorati returns better blog results, but it is not where I go to first to search for blog entries. Neither is Google Blog Search, for that matter. It's plain old Google. Usually I know the blog I want to search, so I just type in its name and the the search term and more often than not I get what I am looking for. If that doesn't work or I am doing a more general search, then I go to Technorati. The ability to narrow results by blog authority I find very helpful. But for the most part I'm just too lazy, I guess, to separate my blog searches from my regular ones.
I don't think I'm alone, which is not good news for a stand-alone blog search engine like Technorati.
Update: For what it's worth, competing Web-measurement firm Compete.com, says "Not so fast".
We all know there are way too many social networks out there. How can you keep track of them all, much less create and maintain profiles on more than one or two? Well, a new startup called ProfileLinker (in closed beta) wants to help you do just that. You create a profile once, and then you can export it to multiple social networking sites.
There has been an obvious need for this type of service for a while. I think we are goingto start to see a lot of centralized identity services popping up, not just for social networks, but for reputation, financial identity, and other forms of authentication.
(via TechCrunch)
While Apple (AAPL) investors await an SEC filing which is expected to include details from its options backdating investigation, the FT reports that Steve Jobs may be implicated in the scandal. According to its sources, when Jobs received 7.5 million options in 2001 board approval did not come until after the grant.
Perhaps that explains why the options were later cancelled and replaced with restricted stock.
It's good to be king, but sometimes it can come back to bite you.
Still, my prediction is that this will blow over. Who in their right mind would call for his head? The original options grant was done in a cavalier fashion, but he gave the options back and never enriched himslef. Investors will think, "No crime, no foul." But will the SEC see things that way?
My second prediction for Apple: I see a big fine in its future.
Blogger Robert Scoble apparently has been enlisted by John Edwards' campaign to help announce the former VP hopeful's presidential bid in New Orleans tomorrow. He confirms on his blog that is where he is headed, but it is not clear if he is being paid by the Edwards campaign or is simply covering the event. (Update: The trip is legit. He says he is just covering the event and paying his own way).
Is this the triumph of "you politics", or the age-old political art of embracing those with influence? (I guess Edwards is going for the geek vote).
