Category Archives: IT

September 27, 2015 · 00:26

What news is news?

There are several pieces, not just in the Guardian, the BBC, the Independent or the Times. They all tell us that they have news, but do they have any actual news? The Guardian shows us a tech article (in the Tech section) called: ‘the node pole: inside Facebook’s Swedish hub near the Arctic Circle‘, all innocent news, one could surmise that it is just a space filler. Or was it done to give extra view to the article ‘Facebook is making more and more money from you. Should you be paid for it?‘, or perhaps to give extra light to ‘Facebook case may force European firms to change data storage practices‘, which I gave my views on in my previous blog. You decide!

In the business section we see VW to get some centre stage, which makes perfect sense and that is just the Guardian. The independent also has a go at Facebook, but now has a go at its users, well, actually it is not the Independent, but the employee tribunal. Now the article shows all kind of signs of bullying, which is never OK and in that regard Rachael Roberts has a real case, but in light of the events, Mrs Bird does not seem to be a friend of Mrs Roberts, so why is the act of unfriending on Facebook the killer? Yet it is the quote “But employment lawyer Josh Bornstein told ABC news the unfriending incident was found to be workplace bullying in the context of several other issues“, which baffles me, if they are not friends, one or the other could unfriend the other party, that part seems clear cut to me, not bullying. So out of the 18 allegations of bullying in total, the unfriending in Facebook took the cake? It does not add up to me!

In addition we see two whole articles on Facebook being down and oh yes, the new iPhone is for sale! Let’s not forget the fact that the iPhone now allows for sextracking. So, parents buy your boy or girl on of these bad boys so you can find new ways on how you are about to become a grandparent! Really? You need to keep scores on your phone now? Didn’t Ashley Maddison teach you anything regarding sex that is on the internet, everyone will know soon thereafter?

Finally they also gave visibility to ‘Hospital apologises for removing RAF sergeant from A&E because uniform could ‘upset’ patients‘, which is a can of worms in its own right. In that light I expect the NHS to move all drug and binge drink casualties to their basement as not to invoke bad thoughts from the Presbyterian community. How insane was the idea to move a wounded RAF sergeant in the first place!

All these events, some are actually news, but no one seems to have any balls. No one is looking at Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Which of course ties in nicely with the words of the Dalai Lama ‘Dalai Lama on Britain’s policy towards China: ‘Where is morality?’’, the answer might not be such a high moral one, it goes a little like “Who is willing to suck the smallest extremity for the good of one’s career?”

To some extent we can accept that the SFO is silent, only to the smallest extent. You see Tesco is dealing with a write-off of £6.4bn, which of course is massive. We have seen all the news on how some former Tesco entities are getting grilled (as they should) but the press on many levels in many nations keep on rehashing the old news and no one is digging into PwC. No one is digging there. Does that not sound awfully weird? Yet here is the kicker, we see more and more messages like ‘Multinational tax avoiders targeted’, with quotes like “while the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia warned about throwing up new hurdles in what is already a high-cost economy. The chamber’s board includes representatives from ConocoPhillips, GE, Boeing, PwC and Exxon Mobile“, yes it seems it is never a good time to go after tax avoiders (not to mention the impact it has on the bonus benefits for those working in that part of the financial branch).

Before you whisk this away as mere banter (which you are of course allowed to do), take a look at this article that is a little over a week old. It is from the Wall Street Journal, which I do not look into too often. The article (at http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2015/09/15/the-morning-download-identity-theft-key-to-attack-on-cisco-routers/) called ‘The Morning Download: Identity Theft Key to Attack on Cisco Routers‘, starts with: “Good morning. The international attacks on Cisco Systems Inc. routers, disclosed earlier today by security firm FireEye Inc.’s Mandiant unit, began with the theft of legitimate network credentials. Securing and managing the identity of network users continues to be a massive challenge for CIOs and CISOs and ultimately, the CEO and the board. The attacks have been named ‘SYNful’ because of how the malicious software moves across routers using their syndication functions “Cisco said SYNful did not take advantage of any vulnerability in its own software. Instead it stole valid network administration credentials from organizations targeted in the attacks or by gaining physical access to their routers,” Reuters reports today. Mandiant said in a blog post that it had found 14 instances of router implants, which replace Cisco’s operating system”

Now, to complement that statement, I will add the following. On June 5th (more than 3 months before the WSJ article), I wrote ‘In reference to the router‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/06/05/in-reference-to-the-router/) , here I stated: “Soon thereafter no more firewall, no more routers, just the bliss of cloud servers and data, so much data!“, which reflected on the article I wrote on February 8th (more than 7 months before the WSJ), there I wrote “I think that ‘hackers’ have created a new level (as I mentioned before). I think that Cisco IOS was invisibly patched“, (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/02/08/the-next-cyber-wave/). I was literally accused by some to be insane, there was no way that this would EVER happen. Now we see in the Wall Street Journal: “Mandiant said in a blog post that it had found 14 instances of router implants, which replace Cisco’s operating system“, interesting how I am now proven correct. Are the members of the Baboon family (usually found in the FBI) reconsidering their North-Korean option? Let’s face it, this took top level skills, we can (as I pointed out in the past) find those boffins in the US, UK, FR, the FSB and Chinese Intelligence, however in North Korea not that much!

The Reuters article shows a lot more (at http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/16/us-cybersecurity-routers-cisco-systems-idUSKCN0RF0N420150916), however, they are just rehashing something I stated for almost a year, the quote ““That feat is only able to be obtained by a handful of nation-state actors,” DeWalt said, while declining to name which countries he suspected might be behind the Cisco router attacks” adds to my view that I was correct all along (finally another ‘I told you so!’ opportunity). The only difference is, is that DeWalt includes Israel, I have no real quality data on the Israeli cyber capabilities, so I am willing to give him that one. Finally we should consider the quote “Infected hardware devices include Cisco routers 1841, 2811 and 3825“, which is fair enough, yet in my article I offer the option that the CF unit found in nearly EVERY router could also open doors, so the danger could in theory go far beyond those three routers.

I also stated that my thoughts were based on sound speculation. You might wonder what sound speculation is. Basically, it means that even as I might not have them skills to program, I do understand that my solution is viable, the fact that routers are getting programmed with a new OS is clear evidence of that. In addition, it also gives weight to two infestation systems I speculated on as well as the weakness that those believing in the cloud are not realising at present. I was willing to look beyond the veil, a side everyone ignored. Yet when a router can be reprogrammed to the extent it was, also clearly means that data in motion is no longer safe, which means that pretty much any cloud data can be gotten too, the user only has to access the file to make that happen.

I even had a thought on dealing with the Iranian glow in the dark power plants when the time is there, just by thinking out of the box. It does involve a Piranha valve (which actually already exists in name, but mine is so much cooler). None of this is newsworthy, speculative opinion one might state. Yet in my speculation, I have shown solutions to be real in several occasions and in addition to that I also clearly outlined long before the press decided to show the minimalistic amount of balls (read testicles), that a look into Pricewaterhouse Coopers was adamant. It seems that apart from a December 2014 message from the SFO (rehashed by nearly all papers) not much happened, apart from that news, the press at large stayed clear of mentioning PwC and Tesco in one sentence. Is that not utterly weird?

Of course the luggage of someone’s mum in Tenerife (shipping at £122) gets front seat exposure, yet, the issue on £6.4bn getting lost due to assistance (better stated too weak opposition) by Pricewaterhouse Coopers seems too trivial to keep pressure on. Way to go Consumer Champions, Money! I actually mean that! They did do a good job and they have done so in the past, yet I fear that a letter by Dave Lewis on how his firm lost £6.4bn as the keeper of his books was not prudent, or is that tenacious enough to ring that bell very loudly when things looked too odd. Will Consumer Champions find that money? Will they write “Pricewaterhouse Coopers must accept responsibility for the signing off on books as the “accountant”?” Consumer Champions might not get this done, which is fair enough. It should not be on their plate, but the parties this should be very visible on are also not doing anything as far as we can tell, they remain silent, they remain this silent after 9 months.

Yet in all this there is one part both the Guardian and the Independent are getting right. It is the news on the NHS, there are massive problems and knowing them all is essential in finding a solution. In this matter the press has played a good role. In my view exposing former and current politicians a little more on the political game they play, so that we all understand that a proper solution is needed and taking the politicians out of that equation might not be the worst idea, the end result stays the same, the NHS is now too close on the edge of collapse to be acceptable, yet where lies the solution? Although I understand the issue the Independent shows, I partially disagree. The headline ‘New NHS junior doctor contract would discriminate against women, senior medics warn‘ is not incorrect (at http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/new-nhs-junior-doctor-contract-would-discriminate-against-women-senior-medics-warn-10516885.html), yet in all fairness, the quote “Under the new contract, trainees who decide to work part-time would see their pay increase more slowly than their colleagues” is a can of worms! Why would my co-worker doing 32 hours get the same raise as myself working 60 hours? (Remember, I am not a doctor). A choice was made! Yet, there is a level of fairness here too. Which means that to tackle it should be done in another way. Even as there is a shortage, the burnout of physicians is a known issue and making a maximum of 40 hours a week a mandatory status could be close to the only solution. Perhaps we have been too indulged, perhaps some options should only be there during the week. Perhaps the change to healthcare is essential (like hiring 40% more staff), but we also accept that at current not one government remains to afford that change (well perhaps Easter Island where there are less than 10 doctors). In the end the system has been ignored for too long. Too many politicians are on the ‘let’s get the computers up and running‘ whilst they know that staff will remains a problem for a long time.

That is news! That is what matters, but too many papers and too many news broadcasts are about the emotions and not the actual news that matters. That might be an incorrect view and a very biased view. It might be that some news is more important than other news parts, I will instantly agree, yet in all that the complete silence from pretty much all the papers regarding Tesco and some involved book keeping parties remains a mystery to me, how is that part not news? We will see more events that will not get the proper light in newspapers, both in paper as well as online, I’ll let you decide how that measurement applies to an involved party to events that started a £6.4bn downgrade.

 

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September 24, 2015 · 22:06

Imperitos idiot

This is a view I have had for a while, it is a view that I have advocated on more than one situation, yet business remains silent, deaf and as they hide in ignorance they are limiting the options they have, in the future and in an acted decimation of one’s own future. The information in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/23/us-intelligence-services-surveillance-privacy) shows a title ‘Facebook case may force European firms to change data storage practices‘ that questions certain elements. The quote “a court accused America’s intelligence services of conducting “mass, indiscriminate surveillance”” in the first paragraph is the act of alerting, but is that all?

The Case C‑362/14 Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner is the calling entity here. A request for a preliminary ruling.

Let’s take a look at the elements. We see at [25] Mr Schrems lodged a complaint with the Commissioner on 25 June 2013, claiming, in essence, that the law and practices of the United States offer no real protection of the data kept in the United States against State surveillance. That was said to follow from the revelations made by Edward Snowden from May 2013 concerning the activities of the United States intelligence services, in particular those of the National Security Agency (‘the NSA’).

[35] Nevertheless, according to the High Court, the revelations made by Edward Snowden demonstrated a significant over-reach on the part of the NSA and other similar agencies. While the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (‘the FISC’), which operates under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, (18) exercises supervisory jurisdiction, proceedings before that court take place in secret and are ex parte. In addition, apart from the fact that decisions relating to access to personal data are taken on the basis of United States law, citizens of the Union have no effective right to be heard on the question of the surveillance and interception of their data.

This all goes back to ‘the revelations made by Edward Snowden‘. I have forever had issues with the ‘revelations’, too many holes, too many issues that from an IT perspective are a given no no. In addition, it assumes a level of ‘openness’ within the alphabet group that does not exist. Such openness has never existed, yet the press and many others have been very willing to blindly accept the events of Edwards Snowden, yet the data was never made bare, the data is filtered and was largely ‘stamped’ as complex, as too dangerous. Yet proper analyses of the data was never made by any person that could be regarded as trustworthy. For now, to underline what comes, I will give you this quote “An intelligence operation is the process by which governments, military groups, businesses, and other organizations systematically collect and evaluate information for the purpose of discovering the capabilities and intentions of their rivals. With such information, or intelligence, an organization can both protect itself from its adversaries and exploit its adversaries’ weaknesses“, the source is not important right now, the impact will be discussed, yet before I do this I want to continue the other elements I started.

Now consider [224] where we see “In addition, the Commission expressly acknowledged at the hearing that, under Decision 2000/520, as currently applied, there is no guarantee that the right of citizens of the Union to protection of their data will be ensured. However, in the Commission’s submission, that finding is not such as to render that decision invalid. While the Commission agrees with the statement that it must act when faced with new circumstances, it maintains that it has taken appropriate and proportionate measures by entering into negotiations with the United States in order to reform the safe harbour scheme“.

Now consider the following thought by transforming the quote: ‘there is no guarantee that the right of citizens of the Union to protection of their data will be ensured‘ into ‘it will be certain that the right of citizens of the Union to protection of their data will be unsuccessful‘. The issue is that moving data will open up a massive amount of dangers, data instabilities and data security hazards. Too many players within the EEC and other places all want their fingers on the data so that they can get a foothold of power. It is THAT simple in my opinion!

All these nations wanting access to data, setting up corporations, all trying to make a quick buck whilst during political manipulating, the security of our data will be available to anyone offering 39 pieces of silver. Before you start listening to people with nice PowerPoint presentations and long winded explanations with considerable non liability asterisks on how this is so not possible consider the following events (at http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/worlds-biggest-data-breaches-hacks/). Ashley Maddison might be the most sensual one, but also the most embarrassing. In that same light we can see 145 million records of EBay, Sony, Heartland with 130 million and that list goes on for a long time. So the last thing I want to see is our data in the hands of some ‘seemingly’ ignorant individual, whilst completely unexpectedly and totally against ‘protocol’ the data will make it into the hands of third parties. Now I go back to that other quote, which I will paraphrase: “An intelligence operation is the process by which businesses systematically collect and evaluate information for the purpose of discovering the capabilities and intentions of their rivals and exploit the weakness of its adversaries“. This is what I foresee. This is why the crying over the NSA, whilst handing over health data to parties too unprepared to properly protect that data is more than just a big farce. Now we need to look at two sources. The first is the Guardian on the 28th February 2014 (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/28/nhs-data-will-not-be-sold-insurance-companies-jeremy-hunt), which gives us “Health secretary to provide assurance that confidential information will not be used for commercial insurance“, now Wired three days before that reported (at http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-02/25/insurance-companies-buy-medical-records) “Details relating to hospital admissions from 1989 to 2010 were given (for an extraction fee) to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. The 13 years of data covering 47 million patients were given to the professional body to help them ‘improve accuracy in pricing’ of insurance“, yet all insurance is commercial, so as data goes, it is out there and too many players want a slice of that pie. Forcing more personal data into any open direction is beyond dangerous. That part can be constructed from http://www.wsj.com/articles/more-health-care-insurers-seek-big-premium-increases-1433206078. “Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois is looking to raise rates by averages of 29% or more. In Pennsylvania, Highmark Health Insurance Co. is asking for 30%, according to proposals submitted by insurers for the year ahead. Around the country, some of the main market leaders are looking for double digit increases“. What do you think in all honesty will happen when they get the option to make healthcare unaffordable to all or unaffordable to some. Data will become the compromise and that danger is a lot larger when it is in the hands of ‘other’ third parties whilst the law is unable to deal with the issues at hand. The US has some strict rules in place that barring national security cannot be broken. Now we see a push towards fields where these levels of security do not stringently exist. What do you expect will happen? And healthcare is not the biggest slice of it all, just the most visible one.

In all this there are issues on both sides, yet at the core the pushed fear for governmental access is a fake and an illusionary one and it is shouted the loudest by people who have a little too much to hide. Hiding for the sake of their ego, their acts and/or the need for continue or renewed satisfaction of greed. Yes, I agree that my view is polarised to some extent, I agree that my view has flaws, but I approach it from a clinical side, whilst the others are all hiding through the shouting and claims set behind the emotions, the push to fear.

In all this I have yet to see the cold light of evidence that the alphabet group is disserving the people. The link to movies and conspiracy theories, nearly all of those claimants with their own agenda, sometimes badly hidden. Yet, in that light, is my view not too conspiracy theory set? I ask that of myself too, because without that consideration it is just a viewpoint. It will remain a viewpoint no matter what, yet consider that when you seek ‘NSA transgressions’ you find very little acceptable news events, with this I mean events that are of a decent level of report. When we look at data transgressions from other parties, that list is growing at an almost exponential rate and the size of the transgressions seems to be increasing, shifting data all over the place is not my first idea of safety.

Is it your choice?

When you decide and it goes wrong, you only have yourself to blame and as I see it, you lose all rights to complain when (not if) it goes wrong.

The next iteration of our lifestyles that what happens over the next 2 generations will all be about data and who has control over it and who gets access to it, which is not freedom.

 

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September 13, 2015 · 22:40

The choice of a new religion

The Guardian had an interesting article yesterday by none other than Alex Hern. He and I look towards the gaming world in very different ways, it does not make him wrong and it does not make my view right. We have at times different views on things. That is the wonderful world of gaming, it is one of the few fields where the approach to any solution tends to be almost artistic, many views, none the same can still warrant true correctness or success. In ‘Apple wants the Apple TV to be a games console. But can it be trusted?‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/12/apple-tv-games-console-can-it-be-trusted), which is a very true piece. The subtitle states ‘Apple would like to see its new set-top box become the next Nintendo Wii. But it’s questionable whether the company really understands gaming‘, which is as true as it gets. I have been ‘connected’ to Apple systems in one way or another since 1990. One thing from the very start is that the Apple systems were always ahead in many ways, even in artistic ways, yet true gaming was never supported to the extent it should have been. One of my very first freelance jobs was to take a look at ‘Balance of Power’ (by Mindscape), I ended up checking it on the Mac as well as the Amiga. Another one was Shadowgate by the same makers. Even though these games were always worshipped, but on the Mac they seemed to be on the side, accepted as in existence, but never truly part of the ‘Apple’ environment accepted. It is hard to get it into words. You would have had to be there to understand it.

The quote “The problem is that games are treated as just another type of app by the company – albeit a very profitable type. The games store, for instance, is organised in exactly the same way as the rest of the app store, with prominence given to a few select apps and then three charts of top-selling paid games, most-downloaded free games, and “top grossing games”“, helps here. It is like a bunch of economists see games in the spreadsheet as deep green and those economists really like deep green (as in profit). Yet games is a lot more than numbers (something Ubisoft has an issue with too). To see Apple people look at games and advice their users on is like going to your accountant for sex guidance. That person gets off on spreadsheets and a balance books, for many people not the orgasmic solutions to embrace. Yet there is also a side where I have to disagree on.

Part one is “Similarly, in the newly-released guidelines for Apple TV apps, the company reveals that “the maximum size of an Apple TV app is limited to 200MB”, with no persistent local storage. In other words, apps must be lean, and they must download everything they show from the cloud“, part two is “The top-tier consoles right now ship their games on Blu-ray discs, which store at least 25GB and can rise to 128GB per disc (twice the total storage of the highest-capacity Apple TV“. Now, Alex speaks the truth and he is 100% correct. My issue is that quote 2 implies (he never really states it anything in that way) that size makes the game, that is wrong. Still there is a truth here. 200Mb is nowhere near enough for any decent game. If we look at previous games, like Metroid Prime on the GameCube, that game exceeds the 200Mb. Many games from the PC could get close to the 200Mb, but will in all likelihood exceed that part.

In addition, the statement “In other words, apps must be lean, and they must download everything they show from the cloud“, which now implies that we are all dependent on quality connection. A property that is even debatable in parts of Western Europe, the US, Canada and Australia. For Apple it must be good to know that at least Scandinavia and its 18 million people will see the bulk of Apple TV gaming. The second issue is “Unlike PC games, consoles have always been fairly locked down by the platform manufacturers. In a way, it’s “no sex, no drugs, only rock and roll” attitude is merely replicating the same approach that Nintendo has emphasised for years in its efforts to keep its games consoles family friendly“. Now I am all for family friendly games, yet some people want more than Mario Kart. Some want to play the master Sergeant (HALO). Some want to be in the wasteland (Fallout) or they want to sneak their ways around a city (Thief). Many of these games would never be allowed, with a massive portion of the gamers being 21+, they end up being nothing more than a nuisance to Nintendo and without a massive arsenal of IP that will not happen any day soon.

It is the final quote that is concern as well as the source of howl of deriving laughter “But its success as a games console would be handing yet more control of the medium to a company which fundamentally looks down on games and gaming. And that should concern anyone who likes to play“, wasting this level of resources on a system with no expertise on quality gaming will put a dent in the Apple coffers, in addition, once rejected by gamers, those at the helm will be forced to take a harsh look at their choices and their considerations. It seems that so far in new gaming only Elite Dangerous made it. If the iMac 5K would have one additional hardware update. If they had something in equal or exceeding the Radeon R9 295X2, the system would become something to behold, not just with Elite Dangerous, but in addition with games like No Man’s Sky (if it ever gets here). The iMac would be an option, the Apple TV is clearly not that option, beyond Minecraft there is not a lot that plays on the Apple TV. So do I disagree with Alex?

Actually no! When we consider his quote “Despite my concerns, there is the chance that the Apple TV could be good for gaming“, it connects to my thoughts that good gaming is not about the size (well not completely). Consider that some of the games that were a massive success on the Commodore 64, the Commodore Amiga and the Atari ST can still be the games in the new generation systems like the Apple TV. The games by Sid Meier, games like seven cities of gold, some of the legends like Lemmings, Dune 2 (Command and Conquer), pretty much most of the games Peter Molyneux made (including Dungeon keeper), there are loads of other games. The opposite is also true, now we can get a pirates game Sid Meier could never offer when he did because technology stopped him. In equal measure quality gaming has dwindled as there are no limitations, so that game designers are no longer trying to squeeze the maximum out of a console. Tomb Raider is an example here. When we consider that Apple TV could get a market, whilst the hard core end games on consoles and PC remains, I state ‘Yes’, that is a definite option. Yet Alex does illustrate a side of Apple that the foundation of Apple should be ‘concerned’ with. “If you want to criticise a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical App. It can get complicated, but we have decided to not allow certain kinds of content in the App Store”, in all fairness there should be space for that approach, but it will hinder your business. You see, the guidelines at 15.1 state “Apps portraying realistic images of people or animals being killed or maimed, shot, stabbed, tortured or injured will be rejected“, which is nice but that pretty much sums up almost every game ever made, including New Zealand Story, where the little Kiwi loses health when he touches a spike. 15.3 makes any WW2 game a non-starter, unless Apple insists that Nazi Germany was never a real government where my response becomes: ‘good luck with that one!’

So, even though we can accept that guidelines are needed to keep certain groups (read children) free to wander on the app store selecting games. I get that, but as I stated before, it limits the Apple TV to the realm of Nintendo who already has a massive grip on its user base through several means, why would Apple TV wander in that field? It almost reads like Apple wants to add to the foundation of a failed system. The idea that was a write off in 2007, regarding a big fat fail in 2010, suddenly got the title ‘How Apple’s biggest failure could be one of its greatest accomplishments‘ in 2014 (at http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/saving-apple-tv-think-different/) we see: “Apple has a chance here to beat its competitors to the punch, first and foremost, by making sure that you can play every significant type of video file type that Apple TV doesn’t offer now. This will broaden the range of apps the device can support, and ensure they never have an issue like they did with Hulu again. They would also be wise to create a browser for the device, and to let users access its hard drive“, which is true, yet the article reads like a marketing approach to ‘new’ options for Apple TV and now a year later we see the games ploy. Is it truly about that, or is there a fear within Apple that they are being passed by, passed by those who had a clear goal and by growing in any direction they get to hold onto non-write-off a little longer.

I will let you decide on the parts that are a given, but are they truly a given? I must warn my own view that it is tainted and also clouded. There is a view that comes from true gaming and as such Apple TV does not add up to much, yet what is small can grow and as I stated, let true innovation grow through limitations. It gave us true pearls on three generations of consoles, innovations that seem to be missing in NextGen. Yes, there is still innovation, but not to the extent there was in the past. The idea that Apple starts it up again is partially pleasing. Pleasing because that is the one part that have been downplayed by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to the larger extent, if you doubt that, then look at how many independent productions made it to consoles in the past. The fact that this year is a lot more about independents is not a given, it is a fab and no guarantee exists that independents will make it through in 2016 and 2017.

That is the part where Apple could grow, you see I personally believe that the next 12 years will be all about the small innovators. As larger players have become vultures, eating the small ones and carrion eaters as they devour their brands in the insane vision that growth comes from interactive innovation, large jumps are ignored. You only need to see the success of Markus the Notch and Minecraft to see that I am right. Will Sean Murray be the next one to show this? David Braben is on the right track to do so too and they are not alone. Even though Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is not likely to be the success others are becoming, the truth is that this game is innovative. Even though in respect to my Tomb Raider view that 10 hours of game play is not acceptable, it would be equally unacceptable to see a 6 hour story as a good thing (source: YouTube). Yet, it is a story and the challenge as such is too small. You only need to look back at the game Portal (by Rob Swigart) to see something a lot larger, even though not in an open world environment, the result as well as the story was truly unique. That does not make the game a failure or inferior, yet the truth remains that the challenge needs an upgrade. Too small, yet remains a true innovation compared what is out there. In all this my own perception is an issue for discussion too. Where is it a given that a 10 hour game is insufficient? I base it on past play and play that some games give, as such 10 hours of gaming just doesn’t hack it neither does 6 hours. Yet all this started with a new religion, one of gaming. not the worship of a controller, or the divination of a system, but the choice of what we believe is to be an open direction, a choice of innovation, because without innovation gaming seizes to survive and we get iteration of a given, in the artsy world gaming exists in, that part can never be allowed to remain in iteration. This is one of the core reasons why the iteration of Assassins Creed, the iteration of Lara Croft the raider of Tombs and Call of Duty will simmer down, will cease to be the cash cows they once were.

The future is all about true innovation in gaming, in that Apple TV could have a space if it opens the doors to independent developers. When we consider the iPad, it has had a nice collection of games and some are truly innovative, in all that IOS has a place and the Apple TV could bring it to the big screen (and I do mean on your TV). In the final part, I agree with Alex for the most, except for the part “a company which fundamentally looks down on games and gaming“. I am not certain it does. It seems to have an approach not unlike Nintendo. Do we look down on them? The question does remain when we see gaming as a religion. It could be the one religion that should be without a bible, which is fair enough, but what about the 10 commandments? Should we not consider some guidelines? Personally I state no, but then again, I started in a world where gaming was born, where it evolved. In all this gaming can evolve within any limited system (consider the 16KB VIC-20), as such any system can bring the joy of gaming, we only need to consider where we take gaming. Nintendo took a direction, there is nothing stopping from Apple taking it in the same direction. In my mind, it should be now and forever about innovation, because that is what draws us to a new game. Consider how Elemental Kingdoms took the concept of CCG and gave it a digital evolution, that is just one of many options, I hope many that are yet unemployed and it awaits the next visionary to create that path.

Who? That is up to the developer that dares to dream and make it reality.

 

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August 21, 2015 · 07:41

Optus Yes = Optus WTF

You know, I have been in this field for quite some time and for the most I tend to give people (and organisations) the benefit of the doubt. Yet what should we think of an organisation that does not have its act together, seems to be clueless what it is doing, or should be regarded as massively incompetent?

I’ll let you decide on the following facts.

Fact one. The bulk of the Optus Shops, as well as nearly every other shop that deals in Optus mobile internet is out of stock.

This literally amounts to the notion that at Optus, at least two boss levels above the store keeper, people are either incompetent or asleep (which amounts to the same thing). The Huawei E5377 WIFI Modem is registered to be out of stock. How can a mobile provider like Optus continue without sellable product? To be this unable to service your customers, without any alternative is just beyond stupid. In addition, the fact that Optus stores are still in ‘Yes’ advertisement mode could be construed as misleading conduct. When we consider Australian Consumer Law, we see in section 18 Misleading or deceptive conduct “A person must not, in trade or commerce, engage in conduct that is misleading or deceptive or is likely to mislead or deceive“. Stating ‘yes’ and then not have it in stock, seems to be just that.

This is however not enough. You see, one product does not make for issues, this should be regarded as just a case of bad luck, which we all have that at times.

When people pay for services that cannot be upheld, we have an entirely different matter.

That part seems to be an additional issue that hit me like a steel mace across the chops. You see, I had a case of bad luck, I had to get a new phone, in my case the Huawei P7, which was on special. Less than three months later the battery buckles. I now only get 10 hours standby from a battery. This is massively unacceptable! So, I go to Optus and fair enough, they take it into repair under warranty. I cannot ask for more, which is fair enough, so now I am stuck with my old phone, which is a major concern on several levels. I got lucky, because I got to borrow a Huawei E5251 with 8 GB. The first file goes swimmingly, which means 700 Mb all done. Now the problem starts! Even though powered, it takes three attempts to get a 4.8 GB file, 1.7 GB, 3.8 GB, and after that at a little over 1.3 GB the system stops, failed attempts with corrupt data. No way to save it, this now implies that Optus can no longer maintain a functional 3G wireless connection. This now has large repercussions for the consumers, because the consumer pays for 8 GB of data, whilst it was never functional. The lobotomised excuse from ‘customer care’ is ‘you used your data’, whilst we now have an issue with the reliability of the Optus network. The half-baked excuse they gave that ‘this can happen’ holds little water when the consumer gets to pay for functionality that cannot be met.

The question in my mind now becomes, is this isolated or is this a symptom of a much larger issue? This now takes us to the Australian Financial Review of May 18th 2015, where we see “Singtel-Optus chief executive Allen Lew will focus on keeping costs down by providing more customer services via the internet and run a “hard-nosed” review of its 160 retail stores” (at http://www.afr.com/business/telecommunications/optus-in-hardnosed-retail-review-to-keep-costs-down-20150517-gh3h5q). Yet, when we consider the hard-nosed part. Is that the case or has the upper staff ignored infrastructure issues? When I cannot rely on 3G networks in Sydney city to download data (speed was not an issue), we must consider that the objective of ‘keeping cost down’ is now at the expense of its consumers, a part that was not that clear in the Financial Review. This makes the quote “yes, we will grow but we will make sure that the growth is profitable growth” debatable at best, and concerning at the very least. Another quote is “an Optus spokeswoman later told Fairfax Media that cutting costs would not lead to any decrease in service quality or an overall fall in jobs“, well the service levels are not met, whether the job situation remains good, is something for the future to be decided.

So, is there a pure stock issue, or is there more? The latter remains the more likely than not scenario as my personal point of view, for all shops to be without 4G wireless routers implies that that the stocktake part does not work or the shortage is nothing more than a signal that the Optus network is starting to get really congested. That last part is of course a speculation on my side, but doesn’t it make sense? Virgin and Telstra are selling their 4G modem plans, yet in the case of Virgin, they too ‘suddenly’ ran out of the Huawei E5377 WIFI Modem. Which would seem to give strength to the thought that this is a mere ‘stock’ issue. Yet, if that is so, how incompetent was the executive to let it go this far? In addition, the issue of the unstable 3G is not addressed.

For this I have to make a jump back to 2010, when this was posted “Optus is known to put a lot of its web data through a proxy which reduces the packet size and makes it seem like your connection is faster. This comes at the cost of reduced quality in the form of images and the like“, important to know here is that the source is not reliable, but it is one of many voices. In 2011 the Sydney Morning Herald gave us (at http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/optus-makes-customers-pay-to-fix-its-blackspots-20110411-1da6b.html), with the quote “But analysts believe the real reason behind launching the product is that the Optus mobile network is struggling and Optus would prefer to make consumers fork out money to ensure their mobile phones work at home, as opposed to the Telco investing in more mobile towers“, which now gives us a clearer view, a view that is more reliable at least, in addition we get “Foad Fadaghi, a telecommunications analyst at Telsyte, said femtocells had typically been used in the US by poor quality carriers that had not invested enough in the capacity of their networks” which is an additional tone to the previous quote. The Optus response was “Optus said in response to the criticisms that the new technology was designed to ensure customers received “the best value and experience from their mobile devices”. It said it had invested over $2 billion in its mobile network over the past five years and built over 600 mobile sites in 2010, with a similar number of mobile sites planned to be built this year“, yet consider the issue when we read “Telco’s needed to be upfront from the start about coverage and the capacity of their networks and the onus should be on them, not the customer“, an issue I basically faced as no uncorrupted data house arrived at my station. The mention of ‘capacity of their networks‘ is now in play. For a 4G tower to scale back to 3G is one thing, yet do they process basic 3G in the same way? 600 towers is a massive amount, and that article is a few years old, but the final part in all this was at http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/133245-4g-vs-3g-it-s-not-just-download-speed-you-know, as well as the Telstra site (which I will ignore for now). A 4G network should be able to offer data at 15.1Mbps, which is only barely above normal broadband. 3G gives data at 6.1Mbps, which is considerable slower, yet if time was not an issue, 3G should work, but in my case it did not. I reckon that we are starting to see congestion where 3G is sacrificed to maintain the 4G standards. This is pure speculation on my side, but is that such a stretch? There were clear indications for half a decade that Optus was a failing network, now they thought they were back, but the deals offered through Optus Yes were so ‘fashionable’ that millions switched, now we see that adding a thousand towers whilst the data need of millions went up by 250% could be a clear indication of massive congestion dangers, which will now lead to dropped data packages and in some cases corrupt packages, which gave me my aggravating position. 8 GB to download 5 GB and none of it survived the trip. Now this month (actually this week) we see “Optus launches tri-band carrier aggregation“, which shows increased speeds. The quote “It is a more efficient use of our spectrum bands and will provide a more consistent and better experience for our customers“, it is the ‘more efficient use of our spectrum bands’ that flagged it for me. Is this truly about ‘speed’ for the customer or to deal with congestion? If congestion is a problem in Sydney, than we have new worries, more important, we will soon have a lot less stability. In all this I will state again, that some of these views are speculative and of course they are tainted due to issues I faced, but are they less of an issue because of that? Now let’s see if the same problem persists with Telstra, I know a guy with an extra wireless router, let’s see what happens tonight!

I try to stay on the fence and fair (even though I am very much pissed off), I just wonder who else has been faced with corrupted downloads whilst having to pay for the download. I reckon Optus has a problem and they still have to find a way to address it.

 

 

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August 5, 2015 · 23:46

Fine, Finer, Fined

My mother always told me (when I was young) that I was allowed to swear, as long as I did it grammatically correct. Little did I know that mommy made me paint myself into a corner! Ah well, the innocence of youth!

So when the board of directors of the Royal Bank of Scotland learned their usage of adjectives, comparatives and superlative was only correct in theory. First the bank was doing fine, then its position was much finer, only to get fined in the end. Did they realise that the year 10 student in the corner, the one who did not get it, was the one person making an accurate prediction? I’ll bet you tuppence that they never realised that Mr Dunsel was an actual fortune teller.

So, why am I going in this direction?

Well, consider the article ‘RBS share sale explainer: why has Osborne started selling taxpayer’s stake at a loss?‘ (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/rbs-share-sale-explainer-why-has-osborne-started-selling-the-taxpayers-stake-at-a-loss-10437095.html), whilst we heard that the taxpayer lost another billion, due to, I reckon you know what comes after this uncomfortable break: “RBS shares are still trading 33 per cent lower than the Labour government paid for them, which means selling them has incurred a loss for the government of around £1 billion on the first sale of 600m shares“.

As the Guardian reported last week that ‘RBS expects further fines with no let-up from regulators‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/30/royal-bank-of-scotland-expects-further-fines-dividend-delay), we see that not only is the selling of shares costing the taxpayers a billion, the £1.3bn of charges to cover fines and compensation payouts seem to sting a little more than we bargained for. A few of the reasons why the buyback of shares will not happen until 2017, with a decent chance that more hardship will be burdened upon them payers of taxation. So when I see a quote from Sir Philip Hampton stating “The industry as a whole has got a poor track record in predicting these [provisions]. We’ve consistently under-called them”. Can anyone explain to me why the people at RBS are allowed to nag? Consider the quote “the long list of mistakes from the past continued to catch up with the bank” and compare it to the BBC article (at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8392147.stm), which was from 2009 which gave us ‘RBS board could quit if government limits staff bonuses‘ with the quote “they say they have to remain competitive in the market in recruiting senior executives“, which is nice when it deals with the bonuses that go into the millions, but when we see that it is linked to years of inadequacy, mistakes, fines and prosecutions, we need to tailor a solution where some of these bankers need to be barred for life from entering the financial sector. So when we learned in February 2014 that ‘RBS pays out £588m in bonuses despite suffering £8.24bn loss‘, we need to ask a few really serious questions, now that the shares are sold at a massive loss and the total sale could result in total loss of  £15bn. I feel certain that I could do a better job, whilst not having any economic degree.

So as a large portion of the UK is in a state of hardship, the failing RBS constituency still makes over half a billion in bonuses. The aftertaste is far beyond bitter, so why get back to all these matters, which in some case is a repetition of events that had passed?

In the first, as I see it, these board members failed, the value of the company is down and as such, in sight of “We’ve consistently under-called them“, they are not due any bonuses until December 2016 and only if the value of the bank is back on par with the share value at which the government bought them. In addition, the news ‘Hedge funds make quick buck after getting wind of RBS stake sale’ from the Financial Times only adds to the bitterness of the taste of shares with pepper and salt. In my view another reason why the bonus of board members and RBS bankers should be set to £0. In addition, as Sir Philip has been around since 2009, whilst getting a not too uncomfortable £750,000. The need for not letting up on allowing the bankers any extras should be considered. So if they would like to retry their bluff of December 2009, where they stated “threatening to resign“, let them. Why does the RBS have any need for employees “consistently under-called them“, whilst at the same time fines for ‘rigging’ are banging the corporate coffers of the RBS, leading to damages that total into billions.

So when did you have a job where the company needs 45 billion from the taxpayer, they have not returned into a state of grace and they still get a 7 figure Christmas present? I never had a job like that. To change my luck, could Sir Philip kindly give me one? I need £8m over the next 3 years (for reasons of retirement). I am willing to do anything legal, including working my bud off to return the RBS to profit. From my point of view, I offer something more than the RBS board ever delivered (well, since 2009), so we can agree that my value is better than their value, ain’t it?

But this is not about me, this is also to a lesser extent not about the board members. This is about the engine behind it and the changes they are about to face. You see the sounds have been there, the rumours have almost forever been there and on the sidelines the links have been there, but what is this linking?

I am referring to the following events ‘Auditors go high-tech to win new business‘ (at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/183cb13c-2557-11e5-bd83-71cb60e8f08c.html), where we see “Auditors have a newfound zest. Rapid developments in digital technology and new rules requiring large companies to invite bids for auditing work at least once a decade have forced accounting firms to refocus on winning new business” and ‘Accountants warn on audit market reforms‘ from last November where we see “Within the “big four” accountancy firms, market share has been shifting. EY has overtaken Deloitte as the third biggest auditor to FTSE 100 clients, behind PwC and KPMG in first and second place, respectively. This month Royal Bank of Scotland announced it had appointed EY as its auditor from 2016, ending a 14-year contract with Deloitte” (at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f22383ca-6410-11e4-bac8-00144feabdc0.html). This is actually more than just the shaking of the trees and the stirring of the gravy bowl. You see this is a shifting picture where the big four are now pushing for data analytics, the Wall Street Journal have been slowly filling the spaces in that regard. The headline ‘Accountants Increasingly Use Data Analysis to Catch Fraud‘ states it, but what do they state? At http://www.wsj.com/articles/accountants-increasingly-use-data-analysis-to-catch-fraud-1417804886, we see “When a team of forensic accountants began sifting through refunds issued by a national call center, something didn’t add up: There were too many fours in the data. And it was up to the accountants to figure out why“. Yes on the night of St. Nicholas the presents are handed out to all and especially the bankers, because analytics are here, the secret sauce of the needy to quench those who want to solve and hide those in the shadows. You see Benford’s Law is here and everything will be OK now! Is that so? Let’s take a look at ‘The Irrelevance of Benford’s Law for Detecting Fraud in Elections‘ (at http://www.vote.caltech.edu/sites/default/files/benford_pdf_4b97cc5b5b.pdf), where we see: “Detecting and measuring fraud is much like any criminal investigation and requires a careful gathering of all available data and evidence in conjunction with a “theory of the crime” that takes into account substantive knowledge of the election being considered, including the socio-economic and geographic correlates of voting“. This is about voting, so how does this apply? Consider the quote on page 23 “The operant clause here, though, is “in otherwise homogeneous data” since this indicator is intended to detect the heterogeneity introduced by a specific form of fraud“, now we get to those two parts, when we see “In statistics, homogeneity and its opposite, heterogeneity, arise in describing the properties of a dataset, or several datasets. They relate to the validity of the often convenient assumption that the statistical properties of any one part of an overall dataset are the same as any other part” (quick Wiki reference). So as we contemplate “the statistical properties of any one part of an overall dataset are the same as any other part“, ehhh, when has that ever been the case in keeping financial books? It is a balancing act, which means half on one side, means half on the other side (does that not prove the point?) No, because they are two sides of the same coin, double elements so to speak, so what to include, what not, the formula becomes unbalanced even further. Consider that banking is all about specifics, I will stay away from that element for a while, because the element of specifics is the issue, consider the graphs below.

Benford

 

I can tell you now that I violated loads of rules. It comes from a list of 400 movies, their revenue. So, it spans several year, 400 numbers and those are the most visible reasons why Benford does not apply. The books of Tesco have similar issues. Dozens of accounts, interactions, loads of numbers spanning a time zone, but at times those numbers are also of a small count. Could this work with a ‘grocery’ store? Consider the amount of articles at 99c and £1.99. The amount of special offers going on, day to day (Tesco example), from that, if we use EVERY transaction, we will see skewing, giving us the problem, banks have similar issues, but now more often with seriously large numbers. If we ‘Benford’ the hell out of all the commissions, will they stand the ‘fraud’ test? If not, will the bank see that cash returned, or will we suddenly see a ‘rationalisation’ of non-valid application?

 

 

This is at the heart “in otherwise homogeneous data“, which gave the Call-centre a ‘ding-dong’, yet I feel that overall numbers could have shown the issue as well. Too many issues do not hold water here, yet the end of the article gives us what matters “Benford’s Law isn’t a magic bullet. It’s only one approach. It isn’t appropriate for all data sets. And when it is a good tool for the job, it simply identifies anomalies in data, which must be explained with further investigation“, ah the common sense. That did not take long did it?

So as there are serious options for investigating Fraud, the watchers of Tesco are still not in the limelight of the press, they have been given the ‘shade’ by the press at large. In one moment we see Tesco getting replaced by DeLoitte and recently we see Santander bank replacing DeLoitte for PwC and the SFO is nowhere to be seen. So are the Elves of Statistics and the Serious ‘eff’ Ogres in a state of non-war? Perhaps the SFO is too busy and whilst those auditors give new presentations on those yummy statistics, but as I personally see it, it is basically another presentation to lull groups of people to sleep. There is a mess in front of the people and those who should look and act, seem to be too busy and many can slightly fall asleep again.

Just 6 weeks ago, the UK got the message ‘RBS, once the world’s largest bank, is using analytics technology to go back to the era of personal customer service‘, with a promise to invest £100m in data analytics technology. I personally believe in analytics, it is a great tool, but in light of many factors, unless you get the people who have been consistently under-called them a job with a competitor bank, the institution will be paying a lot by those currently not doing their job right.

That final statement can be easily proven.

In the first, if data analytics was key, those involved should have known this for well over 3 years, some in charge have been there long enough, which means that no action was taken and they should not be in a position where they remain idle.

In the second, if data analytics is not key in solving some of the matters, why are they buying it? It could be for very valid other reasons, but that does not solve the ‘under-calling’ issue, it does not solve several other issues, even though it solves some, so at best, data analytics will diminish losses, which is good, but should we not get rid of the dead weight (read significant reasons for large losses).

All this comes to blows soon enough, because if the RBS does not get its results, new articles will appear all over the place regarding ‘miscommunication’, times of deployment and infrastructure issues, in the meantime ‘managed bad news’ prevails and more waves of issues will be swept under the covers of a dark carpet. As accounts are handed over between the 4 big auditors, the sum in the end gives us that overall none of them will make any serious losses. Slightly beyond the short term it evens out for the big four, which might be the largest miscarriage of justice of all.

 

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August 2, 2015 · 21:08

A digital deception?

There is an interesting weekend going on. First we see people waking up to the Microsoft premise that free is apparently never free, in addition, we now see more and more noises regarding Net Neutrality. We will get back to Microsoft soon enough, because there is more to Net Neutrality than meets the eye. First let’s take a look at the definition of Net Neutrality. Wiki tells us “Net neutrality (also network neutrality, Internet neutrality, or net equality) is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication”, now this sounds interesting, but the reality is not that easy as I see it. For example, consider Oracle Forms, who needs the reserved bandwidth, if we cannot deliver, that solution would become an issue to implement. Oracle Forms is not the only one, many other situations exist where priority is essential. Video conferences is one of several. The idea came from Tim Wu, he is the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. His paper Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination. The paper can be downloaded at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=388863.

As any academic work, it is quality stuff, yet, do I agree? I have an issue with the following parts:

On page 1 “Critics, meanwhile, have taken open-access regulation as unnecessary and likely to slow the pace of broadband deployment“, America is about to encounter the point where ALL the TCP/IP addresses have been taken, no more addresses, which means that IPv6 will soon be the only option remaining. You see IPv4 provides roughly 4.3 billion addresses. Companies, people, devices all requiring an IP address (mucho plural), well at some point the end is reached and that point is now, but that is not the entire point of my objections, because “likely to slow the pace of broadband deployment” is about need. I do not see how broadband deployment is hindered by the current system (other than running out of addresses). We have seen an almost exponential growth in getting online. Ever since the broadband has been an option, we have seen spectacular growth. First through normal internet connections, then via cable providers, now in addition we have mobiles with 4G and WiMax providers.

The second quote is “That deviation is favouritism of data applications, as a class, over latency-sensitive applications involving voice or video“. Which might be fair, but for the most, this has apart from specific application NEVER been a true issue. YouTube caches, so I personally have never truly seen an issue, not in over 15 years. Voice is a different situation, is this about VOIP? On one side, in an academic paper we need to keep an open mind, which makes it a good statement, but when we regard government pushed policy “open access alone can be an insufficient remedy for many of the likely instances of network discrimination“, the use of the word ‘likely’ seems a little unacceptable.

The next issue is found on page 158 of the paper “Have broadband operators tended to favour certain uses of the Internet?” To what extent? The goal of this section is to answer these questions, to the extent possible, for broadband networks during the year 2002, so we get answers based on a situation that is 13 years old, so this is BEFORE true smartphones, before quality 3G and whilst 100Mb broadband was rare. 1000Mb is now in some places regarded as slow, we get internet information faster on our mobiles now, than on broadband in those days, overall the growth of speed has been near unparalleled since the beginning of the internet and I am just looking at the last 5 years. The more I read of this 39 page paper, the less this makes sense in the current environment. Not the thoughts by themselves, the thoughts made perfect sense (to a certain degree) in those days. Yet, the ISP’s and Cable providers evolved almost exponential in their offerings. For the same price I now get a little over 10 times the amount I had before. I now end up with 500% download space of what I need (and I have one of the cheapest offers), so far I have not seen any limitation on what I require, so is this a pure American issue? That could be the case, but those pushing Net Neutrality better realise that moving business from US to Canada is not that far-fetched an option, I personally see these events as the FCC seems shooting itself in the foot.

Yet are my thoughts correct? (Always a good question to ask)

Let’s take a look at the Washington Post (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/07/24/republicans-are-trying-to-defund-net-neutrality-will-it-work/), ‘Republicans are trying to defund net neutrality. Will it work?‘ The quote “This week, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill that contains an amendment singling out the FCC and net neutrality. Notably, the rider would prohibit the FCC from using its most powerful regulatory tool to police Internet providers — Title II of the Communications Act” is at the centre. Yet, what the Washington Post shows is nothing more than a political side.

It’s CNN that gives us part of the goods (at http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/12/technology/net-neutrality/), they ask a few questions and give us answers. That is what matters. So let’s take a look.

“Isn’t that what exists today? For the most part. In reality, the world won’t look much different on Friday. Netflix won’t suddenly stream any faster for you. AT&T (T, Tech30) and Comcast (CMCSA) won’t abruptly stop laying down high-speed fiber cables and investing in their networks as retaliation“, after which CNN brings a quote that is surprising “And Comcast can’t slow down file-sharing websites, like it did to BitTorrent a few years ago“, which is more than interesting. Because, for the commerce of the USA file sharing is not a good thing, even though downloading movies is copyright infringement, pursuing these events is a near impossible task, especially when those servers are outside of the USA.

Who supports net neutrality? Now this is the number one question. “AOL (AOL, Tech30), Facebook (FB, Tech30), Netflix (NFLX, Tech30), Twitter (TWTR, Tech30), Vimeo and every other major Internet company are in favour of the FCC’s new rules. They create the content you read and watch online, and they don’t want to face discrimination by network owners who can threaten to charge higher fees or slow them down“. This statement is pretty far out there when you are not an American. In America, when you see places like Comcast, you pay for 75Mbs, 150Mbs and prices go up fast. So from this point is there reasoning for Net Neutrality? I still do not agree, but before going into this we need to look at Sprint, they offer unlimited high speeds with a sharable 10Gb for $100. This is less than 40% of the bandwidth I had 6 years ago at half this price. San Francisco gave me decent prices that are in alignment with what we see in Europe. Again, will Net Neutrality solve this?

Now let’s take a look at those supporters, Facebook and Twitter are data collectors, Twitter is the smaller and Facebook in the larger extent. Netflix customers require download power a lot more than Net Neutrality. The same can be said for Vimeo, AOL and Google+ for that matter. They all are vying for a customer base and when a person gets 10 GB at $100, whilst Europe and Australia enjoy prices like $70 for 200 GB you can see the issue at play. I am wondering whether this is about Net Neutrality or is there an issue with cartelisation in the US? We are so used to see that things are cheaper in the US, the fact that the US is leaps behind when it comes to the internet. That does not address the Net Neutrality. In my view it leaves us with more questions. The fact that prices are so high makes me wonder why a place like the US is not more competitive in that regard. But this article is not about that. It seems that Netflix needs download power to survive, and that is lacking in the US. In addition, it seems that the providers are extremely ‘protective’ on pricing, when investigating prices, TWC gave me “You are visiting our website from an area we don’t currently service“, which I got whilst entering a Chicago Address. So in all this, there is a multitude of issues, which have less to do with Net Neutrality and more about the stranglehold on pricing some seem to keep in the US.

Now am I upset? Well that is not really the question is it? I am like many others a capitalist (to some degree), yet that part has always been drenched in reason. As the information is reaching me, reason is not really a part that the internet providers seem to employ in the US. Especially as they offer internet at 33% of the speed and at 20 times the price. So it seems to me that Net Neutrality, even though in this light might have some effect to some of the solutions depending on the internet, yet the overwhelming thought from me is that as the FCC pushes Net Neutrality, we will also see a shift of the business world seeking an alternative.

When we see an argument that “Comcast could slow down BitTorrent traffic (it did)“, yet when we consider an article by Jacqui Cheng from the 24th July 2010, we see ‘Only 0.3% of files on BitTorrent confirmed to be legal‘, this was from a study that involved 1000 downloads, so 997 were infringing in one way or another, so why is it an issue to slow down BitTorrent?

A final issue should be given to Wired Magazine, who (at http://www.wired.com/2014/01/three-dangers-net-neutrality-nobodys-really-talking/) gives us several views in the article ‘Three Dangers of Losing Net Neutrality That Nobody’s Talking About‘

The first comes from American Library Association head Barbara Stripling “we’re in danger of prioritizing high-quality internet access for entertainment over education“, is this about the costs of a broadband plan? I have seen how this is not cheap, even as the article is only a year old. She also states “Ultimately, “pay to play” only benefits the privileged“, which I can agree with, it will be about usage and bandwidth, Net Neutrality will not up the game for them, it is about pricing and in some cases the prices are overwhelmingly ridiculous.

The second issue is ‘we continue to give more control over the internet to the government‘, which seems to be the case, but why is it done? Draining additional resources, forcing costs that should not be with the government. The quote here is “What’s worse is that we won’t see it coming, because the FCC’s power will creep in incrementally, on a case-by-case basis — a death by a thousand cuts“. Why is the FCC even bothering with this? Regarding the extent of what I saw as it applies to the US, this is becoming an increasing case of ‘Unjust Enrichment‘. Yet, the legal scope is not entirely ready to deal with this from an internet point of view. The North Dakota Supreme Court ruled in Schroeder v. Buchholz, 2001 ND 36, 622 N.W.2d 202 that five elements must be established to prove unjust enrichment.

They were:

  • An enrichment (Telco’s making excessive profits)
  • An impoverishment (Consumers are charged above their affordable income).
  • A connection between enrichment and the impoverishment
  • Absence of a justification for the enrichment and impoverishment
  • An absence of a remedy provided by the law (clearly in absentia)

It will be hard to prove this part, you see, it is not just about enrichment and impoverishment. The internet world is moving population classes into the haves and the have not, which is a different standard, yet the foundation might apply in finding the remedy for internet pricing, especially when we realise that one in 10 that would end up spending a little over 10% of income to allow for internet (based on the Chicago example), is this an excessive cost? That would be for a court to decide and that decision would not be the same state by state. Yet as that becomes a solution, the Net Neutrality need would diminish.

In the end, I am not convinced that the issues are about ‘neutrality‘, but it is about current technology and about fairness and affordability of the internet, especially when we consider that every child today needs to learn to proper use the internet from a young age, only to keep even with the other players, once the US falls deeper into the pay to play trench, we will see the growth of additional classes of segregation, those who are technically viable users and those who are not. That last one must be avoided at all costs, an issue Net Neutrality as I personally see it will not answer.

 

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July 31, 2015 · 22:12

That joke called the First Amendment

Well, the quick way is to wait on a bridge, but the reality of that approach is likely to be less successful! This all starts with an article in the LA Times today (at http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-james-woods-twitter-lawsuit-20150730-htmlstory.html). The object of trolling is James Wood, the actor. He has had many successes and in most of those moves he plays the badass opponent you don’t want to cross, not even when you have the Rock at your side. I had to take a little look at what I first saw that included him. Raid on Entebbe was the first movie, yet I did not realise it at that moment as it was a ‘Charles Bronson movie’ (the mind of a teenager tends to be super focussed). So James as the Captain with the glasses was not the focus of the viewer (me). I started to watch movies because James Woods was in them around the time ‘Best Seller’ was released. He had already drawn attention through Videodrome, Against all odds and Cat’s Eye. All this matters, because the way we perceive an actor (especially outside of America) is when we watch his work, not the gossip page, not some glossy magazine where dubious statements drenched in non-liability grammar. It is possible that the generation after me will form an opinion of him from his starring role as Hades in Hercules (you get the concept). So did he have issues? I am pretty sure that he has issues, which does not mean he dove into the narcotics, which several actors from the 80’s did. The fact that glossy magazines got away accusing people of murder ‘due to unnamed sources’ adds to the stress here. But what is the case? Actor James Woods filed a $10-million lawsuit this week against an anonymous Twitter user, alleging defamation and invasion of privacy. In my view there are two options, either that person is an American, or not. If not it basically becomes an FBI case (I will get back to this). Leila Knox, an attorney with the San Rafael-based First Amendment Coalition gives us some of the goods. As she states “You have to go straight after the individual”. Which is all fine and good, yet since its official adoption of December 15th 1791, the text: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances“, has become a bit of a joke. There is no doubt in my mind that the originators had the best intentions in mind, yet for no less than 30 years the 1st amendment can be regarded as an international joke. (I will get back to this too). The next part in the article is “The next step is to subpoena the ISP, which must alert the user that he or she is being sued and that there is a request for the user’s identity to be revealed“, not just that, but the ISP can actually start a case of defence for the troll and file for quashing the subpoena. Mark Lemley, director of Stanford Law School gives us in addition the following: ““The hardest part is proving that the statements were made with bad intent” and were not accidental, said Lemley, who spoke in general and not in reference to the Woods case. “It also depends on how careful the poster has been to cover their tracks.”” in this we see the first issue and as to answering this, I will also get back on the two previous points. You see, I am all for ‘freedom of speech’, yet in that light, this freedom also needs to show a form of accountability. When we see that there is a need ‘to cover their tracks’, whilst there is supposedly freedom of speech, you know that something is wrong. So the fact becomes, should the ISP be allowed to act in the way it can? I agree that to some extent it should be protective, but when a person is hiding behind anonymity so that this person can lash out, I have to see the situation that the victim of this lashing has a right to face his/her accuser. Is that not a direct right too? In the second, when we consider the 1st amendment in another way we get the following: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances“, let’s take this one step at a time. ‘Or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press‘ I believe in the spirit of this, but are we not allowed to know the speaker? You see in those days, freedom of speech was done in writing or in words. In words meant that the person did this in view of others. That means that this person was a known person, even if that person was a stranger and was viewed for speaking his/her mind. The aggrieved person could face the speaker and defend the presentation. When in writing it was harder but overall we would know who spoke, because the true speaker would sign their view, if this person did not, than it was either a question the writer would ask people to answer for themselves or it could be rejected all together. The press has become an even more debatable joke. The Daily Mail for example with “source close to the family” (MH370 disaster), this is not the only case, what is also important is that we saw an issue in 2014 the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) decided to investigate a case whilst using only 1 of 83 plaintiffs. These are UK cases, and they are aligned to this issue. You see, when we look at The Atlantic, we see an issue in the article ‘Why Newspapers Often Don’t Call Out Politicians for Lying’, it states that it is a complicated controversy, which on the surface it is not. You see a statement is either true or false. Now, we must allow for a view that is regarded as ‘the eye of the beholder’, which is fair enough. A Republican will see matters differently from a Democrat and if that person explains his/her view that should not matter and the truth is still told. So the issue now becomes is it the truth or is it flaccid? That issue comes to mind when we consider the quote “diminish their perceived objectivity, especially among unsophisticated news consumers“, from there we get ‘there is no truth, there is just a flaccid context because the reader could be regarded as stupid’, that would make you feel loads better wouldn’t it? So we now have a little bit of an issue, in one part the press needs to get a lot more leeway, so that it can bearing a point of view across, which is still informing the public, yet, we cannot allow for the press to continue to the extent it had for too long a time. In all this the 1st amendment is as I regard it a joke in today’s society, yet altering it is equally dangerous, because I believe in an accounted freedom of speech. In that view, the anonymous person is not a person perse, this person is a mere fabrication of nothing. Now, this is a dangerous statement from my side and I realise that. There is a clear need for anonymity, especially as there is a need to truly protect a person from prosecution, but such a person does not go out and states “James Woods is a cocaine addict”, which more than malicious. You see, as we regard a person with issues on alcohol and narcotics, the view of him is altered. In his case it will affect his ability to gain jobs. In a world where he relies on public opinion (even more than a politician), there is the need to make sure that people cannot make claims against others unless they can back this up. As far as I have been able to tell, James Woods has never been in court for any criminal transgression, and he seems to keep a decently healthy lifestyle, the fact that he has been in two relationships with women 40 years younger than him seems to vouch for that part. In all this I still have a partial issue with the quote by Leila Knox. She speaks the truth, but is she correct? The quote “One has the right to go out and speak and not be identified”, is truthful, but was it speaking? Basically James Woods fell under psychic assault, moreover, the assault can be regarded as intentional malicious assault. It is malicious as there is no evidence and no publications that James Woods has been addicted to drugs. the fact that this could be the statement of a person who does not know James Woods, making the claim malicious, an intentional act to do harm, at which point the victim (James Woods) has every right to face his accuser (Abe List), so now we get to the point how to solve this. Now for the case, there is little chance of James Woods to get a decent chance of confronting his attacker. The law seems too flaccid to do anything and in defence of the FBI, if they have to track down every defamation case they will never get to do the things they need to actually get done. You see, I am over some of these trolls, as we see how they just attack for the mere fun of it. Wouldn’t it be great if there was some anonymous hackers group that could give aid to these victims, a group that would retweet the accusation, but now with the added identity and address of that person, would that not be great? An approach that is enlightening and dangerous at the same time, because at times there are people who must be able to rely on anonymity, those people who do not attack, but speak out for their own hardship, they need protection, I do not deny it, making the first amendment a dangerous thing, because the more it protects the oppressors, the less it regards the victims, which was never the intent of the first amendment. So has the first amendment truly become a joke? The fact that people hide behind it whilst the location of the transgressor (read troll) is not a given is one side to this statement, the fact that the press can insinuate with impunity for mere profit is another part. Twitter seems to do whatever it can, to remain the ‘innocent disseminator’. When we look at this we legally get “The defence of innocent dissemination is intended to protect people such as newsagents, booksellers, librarians and internet service providers (ISP) who unwittingly publish defamatory matter without negligence on their part“, which is Australian Law, but the US has something very similar. And in all this, Twitter for the most has left interactions to almost zero, which gives strength to their ‘innocent dissemination’ even though the Troll has been removed, it is relatively easy to create a new profile, so that the troll can strike again. I think that on a case to case basis Twitter needs to re-evaluate its choices. It is not impossible that Twitter becomes another reddit through the bashing by trolls, which means that Twitter people will seek another venue at some point. For now Twitter is highly accepted in the business community. If that changes and trolls take over, the loss of accounts could spell long term hardship for Twitter, taking into account how quickly social media evolves, hanging onto the community as they have, Twitter did a fine choice in remaining the innocent disseminator. Yet the future is slightly altered. I personally believe that losing thousands of accounts due to a few trolls is a bad choice, not intensely protecting them would also send a stronger message to the people at large. So when in the speculated scenario where the people in a street learn that someone’s 15 year old kid has been trolling the hell out of some could be a revelation, especially for the troll. If a troll is nothing more than a cyber-bully, why do we give them protection? Aren’t we supposed to be united against bullies?

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July 29, 2015 · 10:14

Freedoms removed by Amazon

One of the most outrageous articles of the year hit me this morning, via the Guardian off course! The piece in question is ‘Amazon proposes drones-only airspace to facilitate high-speed delivery’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/28/amazon-autonomous-drones-only-airspace-package-delivery). In the first, since when does a company decide on traffic rules? Can anyone explain that to me? In the second, since when is a company allowed to set FAA rules (or in general rules of flight regarding safety of airspace)? In the third, how in the name of all blazing hell does a company decides on how amateurs, hobbyists and innovators do their work?

Well, it seems that Amazon has stepped up to the plate to ‘suggest’ a few changes. Let’s face it, Amazon is a place of nothing, a mere grocery store for parchment products. In the UK they paid £11.9 million in taxation and the year before that £4.2 million, so why should we give them even the slightest consideration? The Australian Amazon site is limited to kindle stuff, so they pay even less there. You know, they are big in Luxembourg, so there is every possibility that they can pursue their drone packaging strikes in that country. But to give any consideration outside of Luxembourg and the US is a little too strong, so the quote “Amazon is proposing that a pristine slice of airspace above the world’s cities and suburbs should be set aside for the deployment of high-speed aerial drones capable of flying robotically with virtually no human interference” should not be taken too seriously.

We cannot fault Amazon for having vision, but it comes at a cost. You see “It envisages that within the next 10 years hundreds of thousands of small drones – not all of them Amazon’s or devoted to delivery – will be tearing across the skies every day largely under their own automated control” shows us that there would be a massive drop in the need for delivery people, which is not good for job security. Now, in opposition, these things happen, when people started to correspond through their computers, the people did not think it would grow beyond the realm if Geeks and Nerds, now, the bulk of the population has not touched parchments, quills and ink for a long time. Less postman were needed and on a global scale dogs were in mourning for nearly a decade.

Now we get the part that Amazon thinks is visionary “The company’s aeronautics experts propose that a 200ft slab of air – located between 200ft and 400ft from the ground – should be segregated and reserved for state-of-the-art drones equipped with sophisticated communications and sensing equipment and flying at high speeds of 60 knots or more. A further 100ft of airspace – between 400ft and 500ft – would be declared a no-fly zone to act as a buffer between the drones and current conventional aircraft such as passenger and cargo planes, thus mitigating fears about the impact on manned flight or dangers posed to people on the ground“.

I wonder how these aeronautics experts got their degree, perhaps it was added to the side of the pot of vegemite in an effort to market the product to Americans? Perhaps their degree was the wrapper for Troyer Roll Butter (if you know the product, the joke makes sense, Google it!). You see, the sky is filled with these weird things, that need to be all over the place, they are called helicopters, the police uses them, the press uses them and oh, yes, the emergency rescue services uses them all over the world, also in city areas. So this ideas hold a few operational holes even before it is seriously considered.

There is an additional concern. We do not deny that drones will be the big thing in the next decade, which also means that indie developers and visionaries will emerge, so is the quote “segregated and reserved for state-of-the-art drones equipped with sophisticated communications and sensing equipment” anything else than an attempt to crush market growth and keep it in hand for a few established brands? How will that ever be any good for innovation? Furthermore, the image gives way that hobbyists, rural hobbyists will be pushed from their rural live to little spots, just like the Native American Indians were. In my view, if you want to be top dog, you’ll just have to create a superior product that can anticipate these events. By the way, helicopters come in all these areas, including in the no fly zone, so this idea is saturated with bad insights from even before day zero. Not a good start me thinks!

So in reference to the position papers where the call states “It calls for a “paradigm shift” that will allow hundreds of thousands of small unmanned aircraft to fly under their own technological steam without the current involvement of humans through air traffic control“, that part could only work if there is one player, once there are more, if becomes a technological jungle of miscommunications and lost handshakes due to iterative updates, flaws and glitches. So how about letting drones work above the freeways and major lanes? It would not hinder anyone, hobbyists and innovators continue and unless a helicopter absolutely must land on a highway (likely medical emergency) they can continue without any hiccups.

Wow, I just solved the ‘lack’ of free airspace in 7.2 minutes. How clever am I?

Then we see “Amazon sets out five capabilities that drones must meet if they are to be allowed to fly inside the new 200ft high-speed corridor“. well let’s just agree that this is not up to Amazon to begin with, the fact that they precede this with “to realise that futuristic vision safely“, implying that they are working on a solution only they will offer, laws must abide with… In my view it is not up to them, many nations know that drones will be the new slave labour force (read: unpaid population that will drive others away from a job), which is a little out there (the way I framed it), but the reality is that this market will massively evolve over the next 2 decades and we have to give space to innovators and visionaries, not limit their scope to the need of “sophisticated GPS tracking that allows them to pinpoint their location in real-time and in relation to all other drones around them“, which is basically stating that drones must be a product made by DJI, Raytheon or Northrop Grumman to be allowed in this airspace. Amazon does NOT get to make THAT call!

the additional quotes “Online flight planning that allows them to predict and communicate their flight path” and “Communications equipment that allow them to “talk” and collaborate with other drones in the zone to ensure they avoid each other” give additional notice to forcing us into a one player path. That is not what innovation is about. First the TPP is pushing innovation to the mercy of big business, now Amazon add more limitations here? That is not a playing field that the world signed up for.

So as we see that hobbyists and indie developers (and visionaries) are slowly pushed into reservations like the Native American Indians by the quote “Under Amazon’s proposals, by contrast, hobbyists would only be allowed to fly within the new 200ft-400ft corridor if their vehicles were equipped with the latest hyper-sophisticated gadgetry for autonomous flight. Otherwise, they would have their activities confined to geographically demarcated airfields in relatively unpopulated areas that would be set aside specifically for the purpose” we have to wonder what Amazon has up his sleeve. Because either the US government is so bankrupt that it will agree to anything to not collapse before the results of the next elections, or is Amazon just waving in the air to be noticed?

The quote by Brendan Schulman, drone lawyer and senior executive and DJI gives us additional issues regarding the Amazon statement “by far the greatest use of unmanned aerial vehicles today was by amateurs. That’s currently by far the most common use of the technology, so before you disrupt their experience you want to think carefully about what slice of airspace would really be needed by these new technologies“. I would say ‘Amen!’ to that, because the issue that the article danced around (perhaps intentionally) is that Amazon needs to adhere to established safety protocols, we do not change protocols because of Amazon. I can agree that down the track changes will have to be made, but that time is not now and especially as the paper ignored several basic avionics issues.

Which now gets me to the paper where in a mere flash something stood out to me. Consider the quote “Amazon believes the current model of airspace management will not meet future sUAS demands, particularly highly-automated, low-altitude commercial operations. A paradigm shift in airspace management and operations is necessary to safely accommodate the one-operator-to-many-vehicle model required by large-scale commercial fleets“, in that apart from a massive dose of arrogance, we see “the one-operator-to-many-vehicle model required by large-scale commercial fleets“. So it is already on the premise for big business where one controller manages 100-200 drones. The shift of a workforce that only requires payment in cc’s of fuel.

In my view, the air is for now still empty, it will change, that much is certain, but it will be the people that decide on how far this goes, it is not Amazon to make that move. I am not entirely certain that Amazon should be the lead at all, but that is perhaps a discussion for another day.

What is in the last part an issue is the small part privacy activists were given. They are all up in arms regarding police and spook drones. Which is massively farfetched as these people have already given away their liberty through Facebook and other social means, so these two parties receive via e-mail all you did, including the amounts of times you ogled the ass of the neighbours wife (and teenage daughter). We seem to forget the massive danger that follows, it is not Amazon with its non-human package delivery system. It is the fact that in any innovation, organised crime follows pretty quickly, because they know that it takes the government up to 5 years to catch up, so in the first 5 years they can strike it rich. Drug deliveries, via cheap drones to penthouses. The paying clientele gets balcony to balcony delivery via a $499 drone and there is no link between the parties. Crime is already making a nice killing here, so the proper focus is not here and when it gets to be in the right place it is already too late.

So Amazon should not be setting the pass for removed freedom, it should set pace to create the right atmosphere, an attempt that they failed miserably from my point of view.

My opinion in this matter is strengthened through a previous article regarding Amazon which was published on March 30th (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/30/amazon-tests-drones-secret-site-canada-us-faa). The title ‘Amazon tests delivery drones at secret Canada site after US frustration‘ already implies the ludicrous part in all this. A ‘secret Canada site‘. Why? Because a spotter could take a pic? Because of industrial espionage? Actually, that last one is not THAT far-fetched. So let’s leave it for now.

In the article we get two parts that show my view the first is “Into that aerial slice the company plans to pour highly autonomous drones of less than 55lbs, flying through corridors 10 miles or longer at 50mph and carrying payloads of up to 5lbs“, which represents as stated in the article for 86% of all the packages, now that is fair enough, if you want to address 80% of what is done now, yu see a choice that is just common sense. Now part two “The Company wants to offer its customers the ability to have packages dropped on their doorstep by flying robots within 30 minutes of ordering goods online“. Initially that pat makes sense too. Yet combined, we get ordered articles are delivered within a range of 18 miles. Here we account for loss of time for picking up, after which the drone gets 30 minutes, so 18 miles is pretty much the limit, so this is a metropolitan solution, this is less about ‘global change’, but more the need to address the high impact profit places like New York, Vancouver, San Francisco, Honolulu, Seattle, New Orleans, San Jose, Chicago and Los Angeles and a few other congested places. The ‘global’ part was just nice to give it marketing. They need to address congestion and dromes will make sense. Yet the visionary part is that they are trying to address it on a global scale, because if this is accepted, Amazon would be sole player in places like London, Paris, Amsterdam, The Hague, Munich, Berlin, Rome and Sydney for that matter too. That seems to be the reality and it is not a bad idea to have, but in that adjusted view, Amazon does not get to set policy, especially as Europe might develop its own drone solutions. Binding options for developers through ‘sophisticated GPS tracking‘ is what I would call ‘the big No No’.

Brendan Schulman, aka the drone lawyer shows us the merits of my thoughts “Amazon’s Canadian airstrip-in-exile should be a “serious wake-up call to politicians and regulators”. “America has led the world in aviation development,” he said, “but for the first time in history we are at risk of losing out”“.

There is the part, where I made the reference to the TPP. These presentations are all about big business carving their patch making sure no one else can inhabit it. The plane industry is polarised, but drones are another matter, drones can invigorate visionary workers and dreamers, because a drone is not an expensive tool, you can buy them in a game shop and the next kid getting one could be the one who revolutionises that field because he/she thought ‘what if I want to do this, could I alter my app….?’ that is all it takes to create a billion dollar corporation.

The FAA has (according to Amazon) taken much too long to make up its mind, it also stated “it does not believe that drones can be flown safely under their own autonomous control, and is insisting that humans must keep them within eyesight at all times“, which makes it non-profitable for Amazon. For now the FAA is right, but there is no given certainty that this is still a truth in 5 years. The mobile industry, Wi-Fi and sensor market is evolving at an alarming rate, my $699 mobile phone now has the same technological options a $15K digital film camera had 10 years ago, only the lens is the physical difference in quality, so that market will evolve, possibly beyond my comprehension before I die.

I feel certain that the FAA realises this, but they report to others and those people see that drones will be the new orgasmic high for organised crime. Common Law in the US and in the Commonwealth is flawed enough for all players to realise that this opens up massive undeclarable profits for these players. With the one to many option, whatever small chance of successful prosecution of a drug dealer any Districts Attorney had in the past, flies straight out of the window via drone. Here we see how the law has not caught up again.

Should it stop drone development? No! But there are a few sides that need addressing, which cannot be done today, but soon it will be the only blockade remaining. What happens when that day comes?

 

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July 28, 2015 · 21:46

The Spotify Data Trap

Today’s event did not come from me, or from any papers. This is a little issue my friend had and it is costing her dearly! As many others, she is embracing the social mobile environment. Tweeting like a budgie, Facebooking all over the place and of course, the music. Yes, as per recently, the people on route can listen to the sweet sweet music that is brought to them by Spotify.

To phrase the words from Spotify quite literally “Spotify is now free on mobile and tablet. Listen to the right music, wherever you are.
With Spotify, you have access to a world of music. You can listen to artists and albums, or create your own playlist of your favourite songs. Want to discover new music? Choose a ready-made playlist that suits your mood or get personalized recommendations” (source: Google Play). Yes, it sounds so sweet, and perhaps it is, you know the sound many will dread as 83.5446% of a train carriage all start listening to Bieber sounds at the same time.

Yes! Lord Lucifer could not have created a hell any better, even if he had intensely tried!

But you know the terms ‘is now free‘, which often sounds like ‘road to hell‘ and in this case, it is a little more direct than my friend destined it to be. In just one week she blew 7.7 GB out of her 10 GB data allowance. Now, me being the sceptical type, had a quick look at perhaps a setting or something else, yet, Google Play, Spotify.com, none made mention of the mobile data usage of the app. Which is weird because an app switching from 3G/4G to Wireless is not that big a leap, some of the cheapest games offer this with online play, so why not offer the wireless option, even if that is just for the premium users, is that such a big leap? I am even more miffed on how there is no mention in Google play or on Spotify dot com that the mobile app uses mobile data. It seems that this oversight is an unacceptable act.

So, I searched for a second and yes, the forums are all over it. Most information is incomplete, so the impact is not a given. Yet, others are willing to go overboard on information. The best information comes from the famous yellow dummies books, in this case at http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-force-the-spotify-mobile-app-offline.html

Here we see in the first two paragraphs: “Going into Offline mode with your mobile device is particularly handy if you’re on the go and won’t be around a Wi-Fi connection. Whenever you’re using a 3G mobile connection, you usually need to keep an eye on your data usage because costs can mount“, which we know and my friend is finding that out the hard way.

The second part is the kicker “Being offline means that no data is being consumed, but you can still listen to the songs you synced previously“, so basically whatever you sync can be listened to, the rest costs bandwidth. So in my view, for mobiles, Spotify should be regarded as the joke of the year.

That view is reinforced through: “I have only listened to music in playlists already downloaded for offline use, but Spotify itself has been online. In Settings ‘Download over 2G/3G’ is set to OFF – although as stated I have not been listening to anything requiring a download and have also not sync’d any new playlists, except while on Wi-Fi last night when I sync’d one new album.

In the two days, 19th and 20th, Android shows Spotify as having used nearly 100MB of network traffic.”

The source is https://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Android/Spotify-Android-app-using-a-LOT-of-data-on-3G/td-p/46797

The last part is from a topic typed in 2012, so it seems to me that this issue has been around for some time, making the fact of Spotify not adding the text “This app uses mobile bandwidth when listening/downloading music” on the Google Play page, should be seen as a little more worrying. In addition, I remember mobile data costs in 2012 to be a lot more expensive than it is now.

The Spotify website does mention one thing for android “Free users can skip 6 tracks every hour. Upgrade for unlimited skips” ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

So skipping is mentionable, the fact that Mobile Data is used does not get any mention is a big negative.

I myself would have caught the issue on that same day as I check my usage daily, yet not everyone does this and as such many people will learn, (likely they have already learned) that nothing is for free, in some cases it will be an expensive lesson as some providers make you pay through the nose for extra bandwidth. I myself am happy that I still rely on my iPod and after 10 years it still does what it did since day one, play music and let me enjoy the moment whilst the battery will not hinder the drained option to tweet all over the place, what a luxury!

 

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July 26, 2015 · 21:03

A steamy deception?

As I started to dive into the world of hardware just to satisfy my renewed addiction for Elite (now Elite Dangerous), I thought it was my duty to keep a relatively normal approach to this. This is purely because I am a student on a budget and I need to make certain that I keep a normal life after paying my bills, so as I have been weighing the options, the views of re-entering the world of PC gaming is one that comes with several traps, even though some people entering this field are not realising this.

For some this jump is riddled with confrontational choices of lesser applicability.

In my case, Elite Dangerous does not take an over the moon graphics card, so I personally have an advantage, but many other people are not gifted with that option.

So as some ‘diss’ the PS4 or the Xbox One, because they are ‘only’ consoles, be wary of the dangers of factors you might not be taking into account.

In my previous blog ‘Getting back on the horse‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/07/19/getting-back-on-the-horse/), where I consider the costly dangers of a PC, my alternative thought was to move towards the new Steam Consoles, let’s face it, a steam console is basically a console for PC games (via Steam). So why not consider that?

Well, let’s take a look:

As I personally see it, Steam itself is misinforming the people from the very beginning. You see, in gaming, graphics is key and when we see ‘Alienware Steam Machine‘ with the mention  NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX GPU 2GB, yet it doesn’t not mention, whether it is a Titan, a 980, or a 740 or anything SPECIFIC, you better believe that the non-mention could set you on the short end of the equation.

The steam store does however mention models that do correctly mention that part, they often mention more too, which is good, but all this comes with the hidden trap. For example, the Asus ROG GR8S, which looks extremely pretty with that aggressive redness for the FPS killer amongst us. It offers the option to upgrade memory and storage, but not the graphics card… Oops! Is that not the heart of the gaming matter? Now in all honesty, it comes with NVIDIA® GeForce® 750Ti, which is decent, but it is a little less than one third of the GeForce GTX 980, so how long until we see a 2016 game (or even a December 2015 game) that you cannot fully appreciate on your brand new console? The graphic needs of the PC gamers accelerates a lot faster than the consoles, which is why some games look so much better on PC (Skyrim is a good mention), but it does come at a price.

Now there are more and more places where you get the option of building a steam machine, of course with the added bonus of having parts that can be upgraded, yet at that point we will get too close to the PC again, which means pricing and now with the limitation that it is not a PC, so only for gaming.

So how is this a good idea, or better stated, is it a good idea?

As I go through most new upcoming steam consoles (the bulk ready for release in November 2015), I must admit that the 3XS ST15 (at http://www.scan.co.uk/) stood out of being completely adjustable, yet when we add it all up, we get a £1106.74 system (AU$ 2,355.71), which is more than the above average gaming PC, so how are steam consoles a solution against the gaming PC?

At least with actual consoles, the games will be made for that console for years to come, maximising the game, without you spending a fortune. That was clear the moment you realised that the powerful graphic cards are prices at the cost of a PS4 and an Xbox One combined. So are these ‘new’ consoles a steamed deception?

On one hand, yes, because the steam store does not mention certain essential facts, which is not really their fault, but in the case of Alienware it is likely to become an Alienware issue. As the two models state: ‘NVIDIA® GeForce® GPU 2GB GDDR5’ for a graphics card and the Alienware Alpha at $849.99 states “Fully maxed; giving you all the console you will ever need“, which is great, because from my point of view that implies that this console should come with a ‘EVGA GeForce GTX TITAN X Superclocked 12GB‘, if that is not the case than the term ‘all the console you will ever need‘ is deceptive in the very least! So as I see it, Alienware is setting itself up for one humongous issue when people (after receiving local legal advice), whilst the buyer after this will claim for the fore mentioned graphics card, as to keep the promise ‘all the console you will ever need’.

In my view, the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Australian Law), might soon become popular reading with the steam console gaming community where we now see that the graphics card likely to be included is already not up to par to deal the full ability of either Tomb Raider or Metro Last Light gives voice to the limited truth of the claim and as such Alienware could theoretically end up having to upgrade their $700 system by a lot for the current customers at no charge (as a gamer, I find that path nicely amazing).

This is not a given until settled in court (if it gets there), but in all this, the slippery slope of steam consoles as their release seems to be (as I see it) is shown decently clearly.

Setting an upcoming hype in average equipment, hoping for that day one killing revenue in November 2015 is debatable at best. I wonder what happens to the sales commission in January when the consumers get either their refunds or free upgrades.

So even as we can accept that there is a market for these consoles, the fair fact is that the good machines are at the price of a PC, whilst only being able to do their console duties, which is of course the choice of the consumer. Yet, did this consumer group properly investigate their options and more specifically the limitations that their budgets would bring?

So, what do I have against these steam consoles? I personally do not care, as I decided towards the Xbox One for Elite Dangerous, but overall, when I see what people will want now on steam, and what people will desire next year on steam (like No Man’s Sky, Eve Valkyrie, Star Citizen, Survarium and Asylum). Whilst there are a lot more games coming in 2016 and even by the time Assassins Creed: Syndicate is released (late 2015), what will that game require to fill its hunger for graphical needs? Will the installed graphic card offer the maxed experience?

So even now, in foresight, there is no guarantee at all that many of the steam consoles will offer max gaming whilst the system is still in its warranty stage. The systems that do offer the options of maximising will cost a bundle, which is what steam machines were definitely not about.

For now I will call these consoles a dicey market to say the least, for the rest, time will tell!

 

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