shouting loudly

Here’s a great article by the Times exposing how text messages are incredibly overpriced and discussing one Senator’s investigation into the subject. Text messages may cost you and me $.20 per, but they cost the carriers almost nothing to send, says Srinivasan Keshav, a professor of computer science at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario. Here’s a [...]

In a filing with the FCC (pdf), Comcast claims that, thanks to market competition and blogging watchdogs, there is no need for regulatory intervention to protect net neutrality. The company’s recent discrimination against peer-to-peer traffic is the cause of the hearing. Last August, Comcast denied the charges (which were first documented on… drumroll please… a [...]

Robert Reich’s latest book, Supercapitalism, is a fantastic analysis of the current relationship between corporations, citizens, and politics. I put Supercapitalism on my wish list after Prof. Lawrence Lessig’s glowing recommendation. While I make no pretense of being such a gifted writer as either of these scholars, here I attempt to summarize the book and [...]

As Verizon moves forward with installing FiOS fiber optic phone/internet/TV service in (mostly wealthy, white) neighborhoods throughout the country, it is taking the time and expense to pull out copper wires. Why spend the money? As explained on the Consumers Union blog, Hear Us Now, there are two obvious incentives. First, consumers can’t go back. [...]

The New York Times has created a searchable database for studying the words used during Bush’s State of the Union addresses. The database provides a total of how many times he’s used a word in each speech, and you can see each use of a word in its context. Play with it for a minute; [...]

After months in front of a deadlocked FCC, AT&T has a green light to swallow BellSouth (pdf). The new company will control “more than half the telephone and Internet access lines in the U.S.” The merger likely would have sailed through on the strength of the FCC’s 3-2 Republican majority, but the newest Republican commissioner, [...]

As reported by CNet, the Justice Department on Thursday denied allegations that it gave approval after a stacked-deck hearing.

In an effort to create ever-greater profits, the NFL is now running 8 live games per season on the NFL Network. Just 40 million households will be able to see the Broncos-Chiefs game on Thanksgiving. As an NFL fan generally and a diasporic Broncos fan in particular, I find this arrangement particularly objectionable. Living out [...]

In response to European and South Korean antitrust concerns, Microsoft has made several changes to its forthcoming operating system. The new OS, Vista, will now feature less lock-in for its search, file formatting, and security features, the company has announced. So far, security firms are skeptical; the company has promised but not yet produced the [...]

The FCC has decided to allow experimenation in the highly desirable portion of spectrum that currently carries over-the-air TV. The spectrum, which falls below 900 megahertz, is generally viewed as the Park Avenue of the airwaves. It carries transmissions through walls and other obstructions much more easily than the slices of spectrum that are currently [...]