Several months later, however, more questions than answers remain as to just how open Verizon plans to be, and what it’s going to charge for the privilege of openness, as BusinessWeek has highlighted.

As Microsoft learned years ago on the desktop, there’s a ton of money to be made with a platform that hosts a huge array of third-party applications. Verizon has that chance now, but needs to specify the details around its openness pledge so application developers can figure out how and when to get involved.

Verizon made a big splash in 2007 by talking up its plans to open its network to third-party developers. “Any application, any device” was the mantra.

Among the biggest concerns: Verizon did not divulge any details of the pricing plans customers would be offered to use such devices. Nor did it publish any specifications to help software developers create applications for the network. In fact, the company distributed materials to attendees online, stressing that the company “will not approve, test, or service third-party applications that customers load onto their Open Development Devices.”

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And despite numerous claims by Verizon executives that testing and certification for new devices could take as little as four weeks, many attendees are skeptical the process will be that easy.

Personally, I think Verizon’s pricing plans can wait. What it needs, more than anything else, is to spark the imagination and productivity of third-party application developers. It was criticized for focusing its launch on handset manufacturers, which is an important constituency but not the disruptive community it needs to crank out new financial opportunities on its network.

No, it’s not Steve Ballmer pounding the podium in favor of open source, but apparently Microsoft’s field is being told to play nice.

At least, that’s the sense I get from the comments made by a Microsoft representative at a recent open-source conference:

So, Microsoft, which do you want? Do you really want to open up to open source, or do you want to continue to try to beat down the movement while simultaneously offering a palsied embrace? Our customers want interoperability, but we can’t do it on the terms you’re offering.

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Many of us in the community don’t want to work with Microsoft on these terms, and won’t. Microsoft had signed up JBoss, MySQL, and SugarCRM on interoperability agreements, but then it came out with its patent agreement with Novell. Since that time, how many open-source application vendors have signed up to work with Microsoft? I can’t think of a single one off-hand.

“It took IBM about 10 years to be at this stage and it is only now that Microsoft is going in the same direction…Open Source is a broad worldwide phenomenon….[O]verall we see it (open source) as a long standing movement that will continue.”

“We should have done it earlier,” said Abet Dela Cruz, Microsoft Philippines platform strategy manager, narrating Monday’s panel discussion at the Cebu summit….

Yes, you should have (done it earlier), Microsoft. But there is still time to do it right. The first step will be to invite open-source application and infrastructure developers, commercial and otherwise, onto your platform without requiring them to sign up to patent pledges. Treat the open-source world with the same respect that you expect. We don’t (knowingly) violate your patents, just as I’m sure you don’t knowingly violate anyone else’s.

There was a healthy dose of cynicism among audiences over whether anything could actually get done on such a feel-good issue, especially given the kind of telecom dollars flowing into Washington. But there was nevertheless a sense of urgency, given that Europe and Asia continue to leap ahead of the U.S. in terms of broadband speed and affordability.

But just as difficult as bringing tech issues to the forefront in Washington is bringing them to the millions of Americans who still haven’t heard about Net neutrality or the broadband spectrum. It’s an issue that just doesn’t look quite as good on a cable news ticker as presidential candidates’ gaffes caught on YouTube, but it’s important–and relevant.

Americans should know that they can only use their iPhone on the AT&T carrier because of “a conscious policy decision that allows Steve Jobs to do that,” Silver suggested as an example of a newsworthy item that could clue the public into the importance of broadband and telecom policy.

Enough said.

Lessig was talking about the need to keep an eye on government corruption all the time, not just when there’s an election around the corner, but his argument stands when it comes to the rest of the conference: Too much of the talk about technology and politics is still focused on how to win an election using Facebook and YouTube. But as the conference indicated, that’s going away as the American political system matures into its 21st-century incarnation and more serious topics bubble to the surface.

NEW YORK–It’s time to stop waxing philosophical about how this thing called “new media” is shaping American elections and time to focus on the real tech issues, like broadband policy.

That was a big topic of discussion on Tuesday, when the focus of the Personal Democracy Forum was consciously oriented toward ongoing policy rather than elections–an admirable decision on the part of organizers Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry. The conference’s big announcement was Internet for Everyone, a new initiative designed to ensure open Internet access as a “basic right” in the U.S.

I asked Larry Lessig to name the most overlooked tech policy issue facing America, and he said it’s the management of the broadband spectrum. And at a cocktail party Monday night for Right Is Wrong, the new book from Huffington Post co-founder and Personal Democracy Forum speaker Arianna Huffington, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark explained in a conversation that while there are more pressing issues facing the country than anything “tech,” that access to broadband technology nevertheless demands attention.

“The ‘96 telecom act is a dud. It didn’t work, it wasn’t enforced, and it didn’t take Internet into account in it,” Web pioneer Vint Cerf said in a panel Tuesday afternoon about the future of tech policy. “Broadband is important, it’s part of the country’s future, and we’ve got to fix it.”

But there’s much more to the American political system than elections, something that’s difficult to augur in a media business that gorges on weekly poll numbers and campaign scandals. “We have this radical, exciting party and activism surrounding this ideal every fourth year and then we crash,” free-culture advocate Lawrence Lessig said in a speech Tuesday morning. “We depend too much, we lean too much, we rely too much on this one year, this fourth year. It blinds us to the fact that there’s something much more fundamentally missing.”

Good thing, because there are plenty of issues that need some attention.

We talked about bloggers in 2004, we talked about YouTube in 2006, and the 2008 version of the conversation (social media) has already worn out its welcome. Instead, as the sentiment of the Personal Democracy Forum conference here overwhelmingly indicated, it’s time to redirect the tech-politics spotlight to what really matters.

“Use the bully pulpit to be able to explain to some 90 percent or more of Americans that the media that they consume every day is all transforming to a digital platform,” Josh Silver, director of Free Press, said in the same panel when asked what he’d do first to change tech policy if he were elected president. “It’s all gadgets and terabytes and widgets and they don’t’ get it. (Explain) how it connects to their lives.”

“It’s like forming a new academic field,” Harvard law school professor and Personal Democracy Forum speaker Jonathan Zittrain told me. The early years of the relationship between politics and technology were all about defining the medium, he said. “Once the hard work recedes, you’re left actually figuring out what you want to do.”

“The ‘96 telecom act is a dud. It didn’t work, it wasn’t enforced, and it didn’t take Internet into account in it. Broadband is important, it’s part of the country’s future, and we’ve got to fix it.” –Web pioneer Vint Cerf

“We need to bring affordable, truly high-speed broadband connections to everybody regardless of where that is,” FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said to an audience at the conference. “The government has to make it a higher priority than it is today.” He cited reasons including healthcare cost management, education reform, public safety, and energy policy.

And it’s clear that the message is getting out about the issues that matter, finally. A discussion on Tuesday afternoon debated the ambiguous definition of piracy, whether to nationalize telecommunications, and whether the U.S. should declare Internet access to be a civil right. A panel about the use of live video streaming in campaigns, on the other hand, devolved into a talk about what happens when the births of babies are broadcast on the Web.

But Nvidia’s CEO returned to his overarching theme again and again. More Nvidia and less Intel. “Rebalance the system so that more GPU horsepower can be dedicated to the (user) experience.” Nvidia even has a name for this strategy. The “optimized PC design approach.” And Nvidia believes that more and more consumers are coming to know this, resulting in high growth. “The consumption of GPUs is increasing,” Huang said, citing 80 percent year-to-year growth in Nvidia’s discrete GPU business in the fourth quarter.

CUDA, a programming interface, has now shipped into 50 million GeForce 8 series processors and over the next several years will ship into a few hundred million more, Huang said. “Our expectation is that this will encourage users to buy a second GPU…and for the highest-end gamers, will encourage them to buy three GPUs.” One GPU would be used for physics, while two for graphics (or vice-versa), Huang said. “Every single GPU that is CUDA enabled will be able to run the PhysX engine when it comes. In the end, it’s just going to be a software download,” Huang added.

(Credit:
Nvidia, Gateway Computer)

“I think I would say that [Huang's argument] has qualified merit. It’s completely true that in some applications graphics, rather than CPU, is the limiting factor, and naturally Nvidia would be concerned with those applications most often,” said Dean McCarron, founder and Principal of Mercury Research. But Intel and AMD are not standing still. “As far as rebalancing, it’s pretty clear the CPU suppliers are actively re-partitioning their products, and graphics capabilities are perhaps the highest priority here. If you look at AMD and Fusion, or Intel and its Nehalem CPUs, both suppliers clearly see advantages to repartioning the PC around graphics — in this case, moving graphics onto the CPU.”

Huang had a lot to say about physics too in the wake of Nvidia’s purchase of Ageia Technologies this week (first announced on February 4th). Ageia’s PhysX software is used with more than 140 PhysX-based games on the Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft
XBOX 360,
Nintendo Wii, and gaming PCs. (Game physics simulate the laws of physics in games.) “We’re going to port the Ageia PhysX engine onto CUDA.”

Huang cited the Gateway P series notebooks as an example. One model has an Intel 1.6 GHz processor and a GeForce 8800 GPU. He said systems like this with a “higher-end GPU” and “lower-end CPU” are better optimized for today’s users. “Relative to a notebook with a higher-end CPU and lower-end GPU, the Gateway FX is twice the performance and yet $200 lower cost.” In short, Huang was saying that users can save $200 by buying a system with a low-performance CPU and high-performance GPU–and get better performance to boot than the other way around.

In related news, Nvidia’s shares fell Thursday due to lower gross margins. On Wednesday, the company said that for the first time in 13 quarters non-GAAP gross margins did not increase quarter to quarter. Gross margin shrank to 45.9 percent in the fourth quarter from 46.4 percent in the previous period. In the fourth quarter, the company posted a 58 percent jump in fiscal fourth-quarter net income.

Nvidia’s execution is not flawless. It is not competitive in the business segment and at the lower end of desktop and notebook lineups. Large computer segments unto themselves. Here both AMD-ATI graphics and Intel integrated graphics dominate. AMD-ATI is also competitive in the mid-range to high-end.

Intel, of course, has other ideas. “We feel that the CPU is absolutely vital and you need a fast CPU and a fast GPU for the best experience. Take game AI (artificial intelligence) and physics for example, something that is consuming more and more CPU cycles,” an Intel spokesperson said. “Also, the CPU is essential for intensive stuff like hi def video encode, 3D rendering,” the spokesperson said.

Gateway P series FX PC with Geforce 8800 GPU

During the call on Wednesday, Jen-Hsun Huang, President and CEO of Nvidia, repeated one thing often: GPUs are playing more of a central role in PCs, CPUs less so. “The CPU has become fast enough for the vast majority of (PC) users,” he said. “PC enthusiasts, gamers, and design professionals have know this for some time.” The GPU offers more horsepower for parallel processing, essential for today’s visually rich environments, he said.

The graphics processing unit (GPU) is in, the central processing unit (CPU) is out. That was one of the main themes running through the Nvidia fourth-quarter conference call earlier this week. Nvidia is the largest graphics chip supplier.

Fundrace 2008

A great example of using technology to bring greater transparency to the democratic process.

The Huffington Post’s new “Fundrace 2008″ feature allows you to see who the big donors are in the 2008 presidential race campaigns, with a Google maps mash-up that lets you search by region, donor name, party affiliation and donation amount. It’s a light-hearted but also serious look at who the big donors are (it mostly tracks donations over $200) and, in some cases, you can see who’s playing “both sides”. They also track donations from employees at specific companies. For example, Microsoft and Google employees have primarily given to Democrats by over 2:1 ratios.

(Credit:
CNET Networks/Corinne Schulze)

Wednesday, Slacker announced that Devicescape Connect, a Wi-Fi management software, will be available for the Slacker Portable going forward. This seemingly innocuous communiqué is actually great news for current Slacker Portable owners (all 12 of you), and it may offer just the right amount of incentive for hold outs who were waiting on better Wi-Fi integration. The main improvement is the ability to access “captive portals,” such as the one at the CNET offices that requires a user to click through a terms and conditions page in order to access the free public Wi-Fi. Another added functionality is the ability to save and share Wi-Fi passwords with friends so that you can access hot spots all across town with minimal effort. Also requiring minimal effort is the firmware update, which happens automatically when the Slacker Portable refreshes its stations. Talk about living up to its name.

More details about Devicescape Connect:

According to the survey, now in its eighth year, 92 percent of students own some sort media player–up from 87 percent a year ago–and of those who do own a media player, 86 percent own an iPod. Only 4 percent of the 600 students interviewed for the survey owned a
Zune. (The average age of the students surveyed was 16.3 years old; 54 percent were male, and 46 percent female).

With the iPod being so dominant, those numbers are about what you’d expect. But what should concern other MP3 makers is the number that came up when teens were asked what MP3 player they were planning on buying in the next 12 months: 100 percent said they were buying an Apple iPod. Not a single vote was cast for MP3 players from Microsoft, Creative, Sony, iRiver, Sandisk, or “other.”

Of course, teens don’t represent the whole market, but this group does represent the leading edge, and if Apple’s “hooking” kids early, this will translate into future domination in older age brackets where Apple currently enjoys a large lead in media players.

(Credit:
Piper Jaffray)

Via Apple Insider

The results are in for the spring installment of Piper Jaffray’s biannual Teen Survey, and not surprisingly, things look very good for Apple–particularly when it comes to the
iPod.

Eight percent of the teens surveyed said they owned an iPhone and 16 percent said they were considering buying an iPhone in the next six months. The latter number actually represents a decline from Piper’s last survey, where 22 percent of the teens said they were going to buy an iPhone. Also, in the fall ‘08 survey, 8 percent said they owned an iPhone, so that number hasn’t gone up. But if AT&T and Apple were able to get out a $99 iPhone with a more affordable plan, you’d probably see that ownership number jump quite a bit in the next survey.

While I’m highlighting that 100 percent figure on MP3 purchases, publications like Apple Insider are talking about how Apple’s “near the saturation point for iPod, iTunes use by teens.” And the big question is whether Apple can convert teen iPod users into
iPhone users.

The “Free at Last” money bomb was scheduled for Jan. 21 to coincide with Martin Luther King day, the Federal holiday celebrating the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that was established in 1983 by another fiscally conservative Republican, President Ronald Reagan.

Judging from the traffic on Ron Paul-related message boards I’ve been reading since Paul began his campaign, the vast majority of Paul’s supporters on the Internet are socially progressive and vehemently opposed to this smear campaign. Today, they get to put their money where their mouths are.

More to the point, the statements are incompatible with Paul’s political philosophy, which opposes all forms of collectivism: racism, nationalism, sexism, and so on. It’s always been clear to me that Paul is no racist; it just wouldn’t make sense. (If anything, he should be a little less inclusive, especially when it comes to accepting support from people who share his views on monetary policy but have unsavory opinions on other subjects.)

I don’t think anyone can know in advance whether this money bomb will raise more money than the other two ($4.2 million and $6 million respectively), but there’s cause for optimism among Paul’s supporters. Rep. Paul took second place in the Nevada caucuses last week and now ranks ahead of Rudy Giuliani in total delegates committed to date. If Fred Thompson drops out of the race as some analysts predict, Paul will be in fourth place overall.

Unfortunately, Paul’s repudiation hasn’t succeeded in squashing these libelous claims. I’ve heard them from friends and coworkers myself. Although they’re easily enough dealt with in a face-to-face discussion, the fact remains that the Ron Paul campaign hasn’t managed to put them down yet.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

There’s another one scheduled for today, but it has a purpose beyond mere money-raising. As Rep. Paul has been gaining ground in the polls and primaries, opponents have revived old charges of racism based on newsletters written in his name back in 1992. The statements in the newsletters were pretty bad, but Paul didn’t write them and has apologized for them repeatedly.

(Credit:
Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection. Via the Wikimedia Commons.)

I’ve written here about a couple of previous “money bombs” organized by independent Ron Paul supporters– one commemorating Guy Fawkes Night (and, oddly, the movie V for Vendetta) and another celebrating the Boston Tea Party.

What was interesting to me about the two previous money bombs is that they demonstrated how independent supporters can raise money more effectively than an official campaign organization. It’s just one more way that the Internet upsets traditional power structures. Today we may learn that the Internet is also more effective at communicating a candidate’s political positions.

But it’s not just Apple.

Apple’s secret is that it cares more about the consumer experience than in milking its potential market for every last penny. It could hire an expensive enterprise sales force, but lets its users sell the Mac experience instead.

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In a way, successful open-source projects have thrived in much the same way. Linux is popular because it focuses on its consumers first. Same with Apache and MySQL. These are not “consumer” applications in the way that, say, Apple’s iMovie is, but they are consumer-ish in the way I’m describing because they put the end user’s experience first in the equation, rather than the cash in her pocket.

Another (overused) way of saying this is that Apple has “consumerized” the computing experience. As it turns out, enterprises employ consumers. Lots of them.

I love my
Mac. I love its look and feel. I love the software. I actually look forward to using my Mac. It’s not a Dell, dude. It has class.

For those commercial open-source vendors out there, this means your first order of business should be to focus on adoption and the user experience, rather than proprietary extensions (if any). These may be convenient, but they will corrupt priorities if they are the first order of business.

As we focus on the unwashed masses rather than the elite, which begs a focus on adoption first, software will become easier to use and more pleasurable to use. Like Apple. Like Google.

Apple has made computing pleasant.

Focus on the average users within your potential user demographics, not the alpha geeks. Average people buy more software than the uber-geeks do. Microsoft learned this long ago, lowering the bar to computing. It has lost its way of late as it tries to complicate the user experience a bit by adding bells and whistles designed to drive upgrades, not customer satisfaction. That’s why it’s slowly starting to lose.

I’m rereading Businessweek’s excellent article, “The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit,” and it became very clear why Apple is succeeding in the enterprise despite not focusing on the enterprise.

Not Google. It focused on adoption first. It focused on making the search experience simple, fast, and useful.

Google has won the search wars primarily because Google focused first on pleasing consumers. It didn’t try to stripmine the search experience in search of every last penny of profit from ads, the way Yahoo! and Microsoft did. These latter two littered their pages for years with absolute rubbish, neon advertising, making the search experience feel like Vegas.