Big Data, Cloud, Smart Mobile And Even AR Morph Into One Mind Boggling Thing

IEEE Talk: Integrated Big Data, The Cloud, & Smart Mobile: Actually One Big Thing

by David Mayes

This IEEE Talk discusses the three biggest trends in online technology and proposes that in fact, they represent one huge integrated trend that is already having a major impact on the way we live, work and think. The 2012 Obama Campaign’s Dashboard mobile application, integrating Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile is perhaps the most significant example of this trend, combining all three technologies into one big thing. A major shakeout and industry consolidation seems inevitable. Additional developments as diverse as augmented reality, the Internet of Things, Smart Grid, near field communication, mobile payment processing, and location-based services are also considered as linked to this overall trend.

IEEE Talk: Integrated Big Data, The Cloud, & Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? from David Mayes

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IEEE Talk: Integrated Big Data, The Cloud, & Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? Presentation Transcript

• 1. Big Data, The Cloud, & Smart Mobile: Integrated Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 1
• 2. IEEE: UBC Okanagan Wednesday, February 6th, 2013 ©David Mayes 2
• 3. Speaker Introduction IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 3
• 4. David Mayes: LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mayo615 Personal Blog: http://mayo615.com UBC Office: EME 4151 (250) 807-9821 / Hours by appt. Email: david.mayes@ubc.ca mayo0615@gmail.com Mobile: (250) 864-9552 Twitter: @mayo615 Experience: Executive management, access to venture capital, International business development, sales & marketing, entrepreneurial mentorship, technology assessment, strategic planning, renewable energy technology. Intel Corporation (US/Europe/Japan), 01 Computers Group (UK) Ltd, Mobile Data International (Canada/Intl.), Silicon Graphics (US), Sun Microsystems (US), Ascend Communications (US/Intl.), P-Cube (US/Israel/Intl.), Global Internet Group LLP (US/Intl.), New Zealand Trade & Enterprise. IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 4
• 5. Agenda • Some Historical Context • The Emergence of SoMoClo • The Emergence of Big Data • The Emergence of Smart Mobile • The Convergence of ToDaClo • What Do You Think? IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 5
• 6. Some Historical Context IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 6
• 7. Canada’s McLuhan: The First Hint “The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.” Marshall McLuhan, “Gutenberg Galaxy”, 1962, Canadian author, educator, & philosopher (1911 – 1980) IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? Video: The “McLuhan” Scene from Annie Hall © David Mayes 7
• 8. Stuart Brand, Jobs & Woz: The Whole Earth Catalog IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 8
• 9. Grove, Noyce and Moore IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? “We had no idea at all that we had turned the first stone on something that was going to be an $80 billion business.” -Gordon Moore ©David Mayes 9
• 10. Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Vin Cerf IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 10
• 11. Agenda • Some Historical Context • The Emergence of SoMoClo • The Emergence of Big Data • The Emergence of Smart Mobile • The Convergence of ToDaClo • What Do You Think? IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not?
• 12. The Emergence of SoMoClo IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? Social + Mobile + Cloud ©David Mayes 12
• 13. Emergence of Social Media IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 13
• 14. 2012 Social Media Market Landscape IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 14
• 15. Emergence of “Cloud Computing” IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 15
• 16. Emergence of End-user Cloud Apps IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 16
• 17. 2012 Cloud Enterprise Players IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 17
• 18. The Key Issue: Data Privacy Reliability, and Security Despite reassurances, there is no permanent solution, no silver bullet. The only solution is to unplug IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 18
• 19. Recent Cyber Security News: • Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt’s new book on China: • “the world’s most active and enthusiastic filterer of information” as well as “the most sophisticated and prolific” hacker of foreign companies. In a world that is becoming increasingly digital, the willingness of China’s government and state companies to use cyber crime gives the country an economic and political edge. • NY Times, WSJ hacking last week traced to China • Twitter theft of 250K users personal information last week • Sony PlayStation Anonymous hacks (twice in 2 weeks) IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 19
• 20. Agenda • Some Historical Context • The Emergence of SoMoClo • The Emergence of Big Data • The Emergence of Smart Mobile • The Convergence of ToDaClo • What Do You Think? IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not?
• 21. The Emergence of “Big Data” IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 21
• 22. Emergence of “Big Data” • Major advances in scale and sophistication of government intelligence gathering and analysis • Cost no object • NSA PRISM global telecom surveillance programPost 9/11 World IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 22
• 23. An Interesting Scientific Analogy Chaos, with reference to chaos theory, refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules; this understanding of chaos is synonymous with dynamical instability, a condition discovered by the physicist Henri Poincare in the early 20th century that refers to an inherent lack of predictability in some physical systems. IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 23
• 24. Key Drivers of the Emergence of Big Data • Moore’s Law – compute cost and power • Design rules, multi-core, 3D design • Massive cost decline in data storage • Emergence of solid state memristor • Google Spanner 1st global real-time database • DARPA “Python” programming language • Data Center data storage accumulation • 2.7 zettabytes currently and growing rapidly • A zettabyte equals 1021 bytes (1000 exabytes) IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 24
• 25. The Big Data Landscape Today IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 25
• 26. The Key Issue: Privacy “Get over it! You have no privacy!” Scott McNealy, former CEO of Sun Microsystems IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 26
• 27. Agenda • Some Historical Context • The Emergence of SoMoClo • The Emergence of Big Data • The Emergence of Smart Mobile • The Convergence of ToDaClo • What Do You Think? IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not?
• 28. The Emergence of Smart Mobile IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 28
• 29. Emergence of Smart Mobile IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 29
• 30. Key Drivers of Smart Mobile • Moore’s Law – compute cost and power • Design rules, multi-core, 3D design • Focus on reducing heat: gate leakage • Intel Atom “all day battery life” is a beginning • Massive cost decline in data storage • Mobile bandwidth:4G/LTE “no cost difference” • “White space” metro Wi-Fi potential maybe • New available spectrum between digital TV channels: increased transmit power • PC market death: Dell Computer & HP IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 30
• 31. Mobile-based Services • GPS, Cloud, personal and database info on mobile • Geotagging from current location tied to your objective: • Find merchandise, restaurant, bar, etc. • Find and tag people • Find people with similar interests nearby • The rise of the mobile gaming market • Already well-established in Hong Kong, Seoul • North America far behind Asian telecom markets • Facebook has just announced LBS plans • The downside: battery drain issue still critical • “People want their phones to do too much” • 4G LTE, Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS, Streaming, Mobile Gaming IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 31
• 32. Location-based Services Landscape IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 32
• 33. Agenda • Some Historical Context • The Emergence of SoMoClo • The Emergence of Big Data • The Emergence of Smart Mobile • The Convergence of ToDaClo • What Do You Think? IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not?
• 34. The Convergence of “ToDaClo” Touch + Data + Cloud IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 34
• 35. David Mayes ‹#›
• 36. Agenda • Some Historical Context • The Emergence of SoMoClo • The Emergence of Big Data • The Emergence of Smart Mobile • The Convergence of ToDaClo • What Do You Think? IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not?
• 37. Discussion: Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile, Big Deal or Not? IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 37
• 38. My Key Takeaway Points • Even from the 50,000 foot level, a shakeout and consolidation seem inevitable • A lot of people are going to lose a lot of money • There will be “snake oil” sold that does not work • Nevertheless these three new markets are actually one unified market, and likely: The Next Big Thing IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 38
• 39. What Do You Think? • No. ToDaClo is mostly media hype, and not a “Big Deal.” • I’m skeptical. ToDaClo will probably be a “Big Deal,” but I haven’t seen much yet • Maybe. I do not know yet whether ToDaClo will be a Big Deal • Yes. ToDaClo is a Big Deal and it is already changing our lives IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 39
• 40. Thank You! IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 40
• 41. ©David Mayes 41

 

The internet of everything–annihilating time and space

An excellent discussion of the deeper social implications of the Internet of Everything. Perhaps difficult for some to grasp, but consistent with many other futurists’ views. The current world of MOOC‘s in online education, for example, may only be a brief waypoint on the journey to anytime, everywhere education.

Reblogged from Gigaom

by Liron Shapira, Quixey

SUMMARY:In the future everyone will be connected—everywhere, all the time—making space and time no longer an issue for physical devices, people and products.

Which modern technology “enables us to send communications…with the quickness of thought, and to annihilate time as well as space”? If you answered “the internet,” you’re right. If you answered “the telephone,” “the television” or any other speed-of-light telecommunication technology, you’re also right. That quote is from an 1860 book by George Bartlett Prescott, an American telegraph official.

In 1860, the fastest telecommunication link between California and New York was the Pony Express, which took at least 10 days to get a message to the other side of the continent. Then one day in 1861, the First Transcontinental Telegraph was completed and you could send the same message across the continent in 10 seconds. Two days later, the Pony Express officially ceased operations. Prescott was onto something.

The Ancient Greek word “tele” means “far away”. To telecommunicate is to communicate farther than you can shout. When you connect two points with a speed-of-light telecommunication channel, you annihilate the spacetime-distance between the points. You get a kind of wormhole.

The internet is a network of spacetime wormholes connecting every human being on the planet. If you want to chat with someone face to face, you just stare into your cell phone and they stare into theirs. You can’t tell if they’re a thousand miles away, or in the next room.

But when it comes to physical things, we’re still living under the tyranny of spacetime. Kevin Ashton, the inventor of the term “Internet of Things”, wrote in 1999: “We’re physical, and so is our environment … You can’t eat bits, burn them to stay warm or put them in your gas tank. Ideas and information are important, but things matter much more.” Just look around the room right now, at anything other than your cell phone. All the things you can see and touch depend on where you are in space, or on how much time you spend moving yourself to a new location.

That’s a problem, because at any given moment, most of the things you care about aren’t in your line of sight. Almost none of the food you’re going to eat that day is. Almost none of the appliances you’re going to use that night are. That’s the tyranny of spacetime, which the internet of things is now beginning to overthrow.

The internet of things has three major spacetime-annihilating functions:

• Transportationmaking far away things come to you
• Teleportation – instantly getting copies of far away things
• Telepresence – interacting with far away people and things

Transportation

In the past, far away things had no way to know what you wanted from them or when you wanted it. The right things wouldn’t know how to find you. So you’d have to travel to where the things were — to a restaurant, to your house, to various stores.

If you shop on Amazon instead of going to the store, you’re on the internet of things. Last year, Amazon acquired robotic warehouse technology company Kiva systems. When you one-click on that toothbrush, Amazon’s robots move it from deep inside the warehouse onto the floor where employees pack it and ship it to you.

The internet of things transports things to you pretty fast, but not at the speed of light. It uses the internet’s fast-moving bits the way skydivers use a little pilot chute to pull out a bigger, heavier parachute.

Teleportation

Actually, sometimes the internet of things does make faraway things come you at the speed of light. The trick, called “teleportation”, is to convert things to bits and then back to things again.

The first teleporters were invented before the internet, but the far away “facsimiles” they brought you were just pieces of paper. Modern teleporters are a lot more versatile.

The MakerBot Digitizer can scan 3D objects and store their structure as a file of bits. The MakerBot Replicator can read a file of bits and print a 3D object. Put the Digitizer and Replicator at opposite ends of an internet connection and you get a teleporter.

Thousands of objects can already be teleported at the speed of light – silverware, vases, lamp frames, and even some weird-looking, but functional shoes. Soon the internet will be able to teleport physical objects into your lap as easily as it teleports web pages into your screen, and you’ll be able to surf the internet of things.

Telepresence

Sometimes you want to interact with far away things without having them transport or teleport to you. Then what you want is telepresence.

For example, you often move far away from your locked bike. Normally that means you can’t unlock your bike to let a friend borrow it, and you also don’t know when thieves are cutting your lock. LOCK8 is a smart bike lock that lets you unlock it from far away, and notifies you when a potential thief is tampering with it. No matter how far away you are from your bike lock, LOCK8 gives you all the benefits of being near your bike lock.

What if you’re far away from your office, but still want to attend meetings as if you weren’t? Virtual presence systems like Anybots and Suitable Technologies’ Beam let you remote control a walking, talking, seeing, hearing robot. You can travel halfway around the world, and still have a physical presence at your office.

The future: The internet of everything

Did you know you have two wireless modems in your head? Your eyes constantly receive radio signals in the visible spectrum, and your sense of vision connects your brain to nearby physical things, like a de facto Local Area Network. But your sensory LAN connection only extends as far as your line of sight. It’s nothing compared to a Wi-Fi internet connection.

In the future of the internet of things, Wi-Fi is going to be everywhere, and the internet will connect you to every person and thing on the planet via transportation, teleportation and telepresence. A trillion wormholes will let you reach out from anywhere on earth and hug your loved ones, or try on a new pair of shoes, or unlock your bike.

In the future beyond the internet of things, all your senses will be wired directly into the internet’s wormholes, and you’ll be completely indifferent to the location of your physical body. When you look around you, you won’t be looking into a nearby region of space. You’ll be surfing an internet that annihilates all time and space – the internet of everything.

Liron Shapira is the co-founder and CTO of Quixey and is an advisor to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI).  Follow him on Twitter @liron

Gigaom

Which modern technology “enables us to send communications…with the quickness of thought, and to annihilate time as well as space”? If you answered “the internet,” you’re right. If you answered “the telephone,” “the television” or any other speed-of-light telecommunication technology, you’re also right. That quote is from an 1860 book by George Bartlett Prescott, an American telegraph official.

In 1860, the fastest telecommunication link between California and New York was the Pony Express, which took at least 10 days to get a message to the other side of the continent. Then one day in 1861, the First Transcontinental Telegraph was completed and you could send the same message across the continent in 10 seconds. Two days later, the Pony Express officially ceased operations. Prescott was onto something.

The Ancient Greek word “tele” means “far away”. To telecommunicate is to communicate farther than you can shout. When you connect two points…

View original post 955 more words

Cisco System’s Vision For Online Education Is Emerging Now

Google is driving the deployment of Gigabit Fiber to the Home (FTTH), which holds the promise of orders of magnitude higher bandwidth and dramatically lower cost.  But people have asked the question, “what will people do with all of this massive bandwidth?” Having lived with Moore’s Law for most of my career, I smile in bemusement. I can remember a fear that the 256Kb flash memory chip was “too big.” The truth is that if you were asked 20 years ago to predict how we would be using the Internet today, I doubt many would have accurately predicted our current global village.  The few exceptions would be visionaries like Dave Evans, Chief Futurist at Cisco Systems, who authored a Huffington Post article, providing an excellent prediction of how FTTH may impact just one aspect of the future: education.  Read below:

Read more: How Gigabit fiber to the home will transform education way beyond MOOC’s

Now we are seeing actual glimpses into that future,  and how Cisco Systems vision for the future of education is already emerging.

VIDEO: Could your child could benefit from a 24/7 tutor?

The Invasion of the Online Tutors

They teach via chat windows and digital whiteboards

By

SUE SHELLENBARGER

Nov. 12, 2013 7:21 p.m. ET

In the world of on-demand tutoring, kids can log on 24/7 to sites with problems or questions. But how well do these really work? Sue Shellenbarger reports and mother Peggy Bennett shares her own experience. Photo: Justin Clemons for The Wall Street Journal.

It’s a nightly dilemma in many households: A student hits a wall doing homework, and parents are too tired, too busy—or too mystified—to help.

Ordering up a tutor is becoming as easy for kids as grabbing a late-night snack. Amid rapid growth in companies offering online, on-demand tutoring, students can use a credit card to connect, sometimes in less than a minute, with a live tutor. Such 24/7, no-appointment-needed services can be especially helpful to students with tight budgets or tight time frames or those in remote areas.

“All of a sudden, the world opens up to them,” says Michael Horn, executive director of education for the Clayton Christensen Institute, a San Mateo, Calif., education and health-care think tank.

That said, the quality of on-demand scholastic support can be uneven, and the catch-as-catch-can approach to enlisting a tutor may not be best for struggling students who need sustained help. Sessions can bog down on technical glitches, and language barriers can cause problems on sites that rely on tutors from abroad.

Chloe Friedman of Dallas uses Tutor.com for homework help between dance classes. Justin Clemons for The Wall Street Journal

Prices, ranging from about $24 to $45 an hour (and often prorated to the minute), are cheaper than what many skilled tutors charge in a student’s home. And parents and students say the quick homework fix can ease stress and make evenings at home more peaceful.

Whenever Peggy Bennett of Dallas tried to help her 13-year-old daughter, Chloe Friedman, with her eighth-grade physics and algebra homework, “we’d always end up bickering,” Ms. Bennett says, with Chloe often objecting that the teacher did it differently. “It was a lose-lose situation.”

Chloe says she was skeptical when her mom helped her sign up last month on Tutor.com, a New York City-based provider of on-demand tutoring. But after she logged on one evening for algebra help, a tutor, identified only by a first name and last initial, responded within a minute. Chloe says she was guided to figure out the answers, using text chat and an interactive “whiteboard” that displayed their writing and calculations on a shared screen. After hearing nothing but typing for about 10 minutes, Ms. Bennett says she heard Chloe yell from the other room, “They told me I did a good job!” Ms. Bennett adds, “That was all that she needed.”

Chloe, who takes classes in dance, acting and singing, also uses Tutor.com on hersmartphone at the dance studio between classes. She says she recently got help solving a math problem in less than 10 minutes.

Enlarge Image

Math Mentoring on the Fly: A text chat between Chloe Friedman of Dallas and her Tutor.com tutor. ‘He didn’t give me the answer,’ she says. ‘He went through it with me like my teacher would at school.’ Justin Clemons for The Wall Street Journal

Ms. Bennett now lets Chloe use her credit card to extend her Tutor.com subscription whenever she needs help. So far, Chloe has spent $79.99 for up to two hours of tutoring. Tutor.com subscribers pay once a month for time used; unused minutes can be carried to the next month.

Most sites enlist moonlighting or retired teachers, college professors or professionals with tutoring experience; most offer scheduled tutoring in addition to on-demand sessions. The most common users are middle- and high-schoolers, and college students taking basic courses.

About 95% of the 1,200 tutors available on Bangalore, India-based TutorVista are recruited from India, says C.S. Swaminathan, president of TutorVista, which was recently acquired by the London-based publishing and education companyPearson PSON.LN -0.76% PLC. Tutoring sessions with its mostly U.S.-based customers are usually held via whiteboard and text chat, to reduce potential language difficulties, Mr. Swaminathan says. Still, students say, language barriers can sometimes slow communication, and grammar glitches can occasionally creep in.

Saira Sultan, an Irvine, Calif., college student, says the TutorVista tutors she taps several times a week for help with her English and math courses are pleasant and knowledgeable. She recently uploaded a business letter she had been assigned to write for her English class, and the tutor marked errors in the text and texted instructions on correcting verb tenses, rearranging paragraphs and rephrasing sentences to read more smoothly, Ms. Sultan says. The one-on-one edits have helped her learn to write more clearly, she says.

View Graphics

The drawback, she says, is that communicating via text chat “takes a lot of time.” Mr. Swaminathan says TutorVista can provide audio-chat sessions if scheduled in advance.

As with in-person tutors, knowledge levels and teaching skills can be uneven. Stephanie Dobbs of Los Angeles says one InstaEDU tutor who responded to her daughter Sarah’s request for calculus help “didn’t know the material at all.” But Sarah, who uses the site two to three times a week, says it has so many tutors that switching is easy, and the convenience outweighs any drawbacks.

An InstaEDU spokeswoman says on occasion, tutors can halt billing while they figure out the material, or students can be given refunds or a different tutor.

James Nickerson agrees that on-demand tutors need winnowing. When he turned to InstaEDU recently to help his 16-year-old daughter Emma with an advanced-Latin class (they couldn’t find a skilled Latin tutor in their hometown of Stevens Point, Wis.), he didn’t turn Emma loose online. Instead, he sat beside her while she chose a tutor, urging her to bypass a math major who claimed a sideline expertise in Latin in favor of a New York University grad student majoring in classics. He also helped her schedule sessions, to provide continuity with the same tutor.

Related

• Work & Family Mailbox: Readers’ Questions

On-demand tutoring is just one of a growing array of online homework-help options. Khan Academy, one prominent example, offers interactive tutorials in addition to educational videos. Chegg.com provides answers to homework questions, while crowdsourcing sites such as StudyBlue enable students to share study guides, notes and flashcards.

Some school districts pay New York City-based TutaPoint and other online-tutoring sites to provide free access to students; about 2,000 libraries let students use Tutor.com without cost. Free access to tutoring sites can help level the playing field for students from all income groups—if they provide trained, qualified tutors, conduct background checks and safeguard users’ security, says Nora Carr, president of the National School Public Relations Association, a professional group.

But the sites can also tilt the playing field in favor of kids with plenty of money for tutoring help, creating pressure for other students to have a tutor too. Parents should monitor kids’ use of the sites and track fees, which “can get very expensive very quickly,” says Ms. Carr, who is chief of staff of the Guilford County Schools in Greensboro, N.C.

Yamini Naidu says online tutoring last year through InstaEDU helped her earn As in advanced-placement classes at her Beaverton, Ore., high school. Now a freshman at Yale University, Ms. Naidu works eight hours a week as an InstaEDU tutor.

She says that students who come to sessions with a list of questions or assignments to work on—and who block out time to concentrate—benefit most. Text chats occasionally stall, though, if students are distracted or start multitasking; Ms. Naidu tries to re-engage students by asking questions to spark their interest, she says.

Bharathy Chummar of Plantation, Fla., turned to the online tutoring site Eduboard last summer to help her 15-year-old son Prajwal research possible science-fair topics. Prajwal had a 45-minute audio and text chat with a tutor, who is also a physician, about an idea involving bacteria. The doctor later sent him a research summary with links to more studies.

Online tutors “fill a huge gap that can never be filled by parents,” Ms. Chummar says.

Write to Sue Shellenbarger at sue.shellenbarger@wsj.com

Ballmer Resignation From Microsoft and Missed Strategic Inflection Points

Missed Opportunities

Much has been written this week about the announcement from Steve Ballmer that he will resign from Microsoft within a year.  Microsoft shares bounced upward on the news, giving an indication of investor sentiment, which might have been expected to drive the stock down. Ballmer, a flamboyant extrovert has exasperated many observers, as the exact opposite of Bill Gates. Some bloggers have commented with praise on his 13 years as President of Microsoft.  But no less than Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, who also writes for All Things D, quietly tweeted an endorsement of the blog post below by Lauren Goode at “All Things D.”  Goode chronicles the major product and strategic events over Ballmer’s helmsmanship of Microsoft. Perhaps the most glaring blunder has to be also the most recent: Windows 8.  Even the most casual observer probably senses that Microsoft lost its way as the PC business began to contract, and failed to make new strategic moves quickly enough.  Was the corporate culture at Microsoft resistant to major structural change?  Was Ballmer himself too much of an old PC guy to get it?  We will begin to learn the facts over the next few months and years, as the story unfolds.

Strategic Inflection Points: When Companies Lose Their Way

Reblogged from All Things D

By Lauren Goode

Better Late Than Never? Ballmer Product Pipeline Shows a Very Mixed Record for Microsoft.

AUGUST 24, 2013 AT 8:13 AM PT

Larger-than-life CEO Steve Ballmer will be remembered for a lot of things during his 13-year tenure at Microsoft, but what about the actual products he oversaw?

Overall, it is a very mixed bag, with Microsoft late on every major game-changer of Ballmer’s time in office, while rivals like Apple and Google surged ahead. That includes in MP3 players, multi-touch smartphones, multi-touch tablets, search, smart assistants and wireless beaming of video.

Better late than never? Not so much.

To get an idea of that, here’s a timeline of notable moments in Microsoft’s product history since 2000 and how they fared:

Windows 2000: Microsoft celebrates its 25th anniversary and releases the Windows 2000 operating system the same year Ballmer is promoted to CEO. Microsoft continues to upgrade and support Windows 2000 until July of 2010, during which time multiple vulnerabilities in the system were exposed.

Pocket PC 2000: Microsoft announced the Pocket PC 2000, the company’s first step in the personal digital assistant market. Two years later, the Pocket PC 2002 is released. Some of these Pocket PCs are sold as “phone editions,” meaning they can make cellular calls. Five years later, Microsoft phases out the Pocket PC and Smartphone brands in favor of the more overarching Windows Mobile brand.

Windows XP: Touted as the “biggest release since Windows 95,” Microsoft releases the Windows XP operating system in October 2001 with variations of the system for both home and business users. “It features login screens for home and corporate systems alike — something many Windows 95/98 users have never seen,” CNET wrote at the time. About 17 million copies were sold in its first two months.

Xbox: Microsoft jumps into the videogame console market with the release of the Xbox in 2001, one of company’s most successful consumer products to date.

SPOT watch: SPOT watches —or “smart personal object technology” — hit the market in 2004, made by Fossil, Suunto and other watchmakers and developed by Microsoft. SPOT watches stick around until 2008, until Microsoft threw in the towel on the niche product.

Zune: Microsoft launches its iPod competitor, the Zune, in 2006. And although Microsoft will go on to release several more models,including the Zune HD, the product line is discontinued in October 2011. Its Zune Marketplace is also being phased out, to be replaced by Xbox Music and Xbox Video.

Windows Vista: The new OS, released in 2007, focuses on security and has a redesigneduser interface. But it isn’t very well-received and eventually earns a spot on TIME’s “10 Biggest Tech Failures of the Last Decade” list. AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg will later write that Windows 7, launched in 2009, “leaves Vista in the dust.”

Bing: Replacing Live search, Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, is unveiled atD7 and released in June of 2009. “Search and advertising, we are a small share … It’s all about Google. They have share, we don’t have share,” said Ballmer. It’s still all about Google. According to a recent report by comScore, the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant grabbed 66.7 percent of the marketshare, while Bing only grabbed 17.9 percent.

Retail stores: Microsoft announces its plans to open up a chain of Microsoft retail stores in 2009. In October of that year, it opens the first one in Scottsdale, Ariz. By 2012, the company has nearly two dozen stores across the U.S. and, in 2013, Microsoft partners with Best Buy to create Windows Stores inside more than 600 Best Buy locations in North America. So far, the Microsoft stores have not caught on as Apple stores have.

Kin: Remember the Kin smartphone in 2010? Yeah, we didn’t think so.

Windows Phone OS: Later that year, in an attempt to catch up with Apple, Google and RIM in the fast-growing smartphone market, Microsoft revamps its aging flagship mobile operating system, Windows Mobile, and replaces it with the new Windows Phone OS.

Kinect: “Project Natal” is finally revealed in 2010: Microsoftannounces the Kinect, its motion-sensor gaming device that is supposed to breathe new life into the aging Xbox. At the D: Dive Into Media conference in February 2013, Microsoft execsreveal that 76 million Xbox consoles and 24 million Kinectshave sold to date. Microsoft consistently beats out the Sony PlayStation and Nintendo Wii as the top-selling console, even as the videogame industry stumbles.

Windows 8: On October 26, 2012, Microsoft launches the Windows 8 operating system and the Microsoft Surface tablet. The response to both is tepid. Hardware makers call out Windows 8 as confusing to consumers. Within months Microsoft has to assure users that it is making fixes to the OS. And, in July 2013, it is revealed that Microsoft has only made $853 million in revenue on Surface tablets between the October 2012 launch and the close of the fiscal year.

Xbox One: Gamers and “regular” consumers eagerly await the launch of the Xbox One, the company’s $499, next-gen gaming console, due out this holiday season, as well as“Project Spark,” a build-your-own-game app for Microsoft platforms. But, even before its debut, there is a load of controversy about a range of issues that tarnish the announcement.

Better Late Than Never? Ballmer Product Pipeline Shows a Very Mixed Record for Microsoft..

How Gigabit Fiber to the Home Will Transform Education Way Beyond MOOC’s

The post below caught my attention because of the current industry debate and competitive battle over deployment of much higher Gigabit Internet bandwidth via optical fiber to consumers, known as Fiber to the Home or FTTH, at prices much lower than they currently pay for even 50 Megabit Internet connectivity.  Gigabit connectivity is already a reality in Hong Kong and South Korea, with Europe not far behind. The big cable carriers, Comcast and Time Warner, have actually argued publicly that consumers don’t want or need higher bandwidth. How they came to that conclusion is a mystery.  Now Google has entered into direct competition with the cable carriers, deploying Gigabit FTTH in Kansas City and Austin, Texas to be followed by other locations, at prices a fraction of Comcast’s pricing for lower bandwidth.  This battle has been admirably described in the book Captive Audience, The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age, by Yale Law Professor, Susan P. Crawford.

So people have asked the question, “what will people do with all of this massive bandwidth?” Having lived with Moore’s Law for most of my career, I smile in bemusement. I can remember a fear that the 256K flash memory chip was “too big.” The truth is that if you were asked 20 years ago to predict how we would be using the Internet today, I doubt many would have accurately predicted our current global village.  The few exceptions would be visionaries like Dave Evans, Chief Futurist at Cisco Systems, who authored this Huffington Post article, providing an excellent prediction of how FTTH may impact just one aspect of the future: education.

Reblogged from Huffington Post ImpactX

Beyond Online Classes: How The Internet of Everything Is Transforming Education

Posted: 08/22/2013 10:36 am

By Dave Evans, Chief Futurist, Cisco Systems

éducation, 21st Century, Dave Evans, Internet Of Everything, Bblog-Cisco, Broadband,Connections, Dave The Futurist, Digital Classroom, ImpactX, Learning, Online Classes,BACK TO SCHOOL, Telepresence, Impact News

Over the next few weeks, students will be heading back to school for the fall semester. In fact, my oldest child will be starting college for the first time, and I have another one not far behind. So naturally, I’ve been thinking about the future of education, and the opportunities and challenges 21st century technology might bring.

Technology has had an amazing impact on education in the last few years. But what we’ve seen so far is nothing compared to the sea change that will be created by the Internet of Everything (IoE) in the coming decade. The networked connections among people, processes, data and things will change not just how and where education is delivered, but will also redefine what students need to learn, and why.

When we talk about technology-enabled learning, most people probably think of online classes, which have had mixed results so far. On one hand, online courses can make higher education much more affordable and accessible. On the other hand, not all students can stay engaged and successful without regular feedback and interaction with their instructor and other students. Even the best online classes cannot hope to duplicate the rich spontaneous interactions that can take place among students and instructors in the classroom.

But with connection speeds going up, and equipment costs going down, we can go beyond online classes to create widely accessible immersive, interactive, real-time learning experiences. Soon, time and distance will no longer limit access to an engaging, high quality education. Anywhere there is sufficient bandwidth, a student can participate in a rich virtual classroom experience — attending lectures, asking questions, and participating in real-time discussions with other students.

And the “sufficient bandwidth” requirement is not that far away. Connection speeds to the high-end home user are doubling every 21 months. Said another way, this is a doubling of almost 64 times over the next decade. Consider a home with a 10 Mbps connection today; this same home could have a 640 Mbps in a decade, and a home with a 50 MB broadband connection today might have a 3 GB connection in 10 years — this is sufficient bandwidth to display streaming video on every square inch of the walls of a 1,800-square-foot home! What type of immersive experiences could educators create with these types of connections?

Within the next decade, high connection speeds and low hardware costs could bring immersive, interactive classes right into the home.
Of course this is about more than simply raw network speeds; the Internet of Everything will also impact some of our basic assumptions about the purpose and nature of education. People today generally agree that the purpose of education is to convey knowledge. But if all the world’s knowledge is instantaneously available online via smartphone or Google Glass, how does that affect what we need to teach in school? Perhaps education will become less about acquiring knowledge, and more about how to analyze, evaluate, and use the unlimited information that is available to us. Perhaps we will teach more critical thinking, collaboration, and social skills. Perhaps we will not teach answers, but how to ask the right questions.

I know that technology will never replace the full, face-to-face experience that my son will have when he starts university next month. But technology can supplement and enrich the traditional in-person school experience. And I hope the school my son attends will teach the new set of 21st century skills needed to help him make the most of technology.

Integrated Big Data, Cloud, and Smart Mobile: One Big Deal or Not?

IEEE Talk: Integrated Big Data, The Cloud, & Smart Mobile: One Big Deal or Not?

by David Mayes on Jul 10, 2013

This IEEE Talk discusses the three biggest trends in online technology and proposes that in fact, they represent one huge integrated trend that is already having a major impact on the way we live, work and think. The 2012 Obama Campaign’s Dashboard mobile application, integrating Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile is perhaps the most significant example of this trend, combining all three technologies into one big thing. A major shakeout and industry consolidation seems inevitable. Additional developments as diverse as the Internet of Things, Smart Grid, near field communication, mobile payment processing, and location based services are also considered as linked to this overall trend.

IEEE Talk: Integrated Big Data, The Cloud, & Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? from David Mayes

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IEEE Talk: Integrated Big Data, The Cloud, & Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? Presentation Transcript

• 1. Big Data, The Cloud, & Smart Mobile: Integrated Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 1
• 2. IEEE: UBC Okanagan Wednesday, February 6th, 2013 ©David Mayes 2
• 3. Speaker Introduction IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 3
• 4. David Mayes: LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mayo615 Personal Blog: http://mayo615.com UBC Office: EME 4151 (250) 807-9821 / Hours by appt. Email: david.mayes@ubc.ca mayo0615@gmail.com Mobile: (250) 864-9552 Twitter: @mayo615 Experience: Executive management, access to venture capital, International business development, sales & marketing, entrepreneurial mentorship, technology assessment, strategic planning, renewable energy technology. Intel Corporation (US/Europe/Japan), 01 Computers Group (UK) Ltd, Mobile Data International (Canada/Intl.), Silicon Graphics (US), Sun Microsystems (US), Ascend Communications (US/Intl.), P-Cube (US/Israel/Intl.), Global Internet Group LLP (US/Intl.), New Zealand Trade & Enterprise. IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 4
• 5. Agenda • Some Historical Context • The Emergence of SoMoClo • The Emergence of Big Data • The Emergence of Smart Mobile • The Convergence of ToDaClo • What Do You Think? IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 5
• 6. Some Historical Context IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 6
• 7. Canada’s McLuhan: The First Hint “The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.” Marshall McLuhan, “Gutenberg Galaxy”, 1962, Canadian author, educator, & philosopher (1911 – 1980) IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? Video: The “McLuhan” Scene from Annie Hall © David Mayes 7
• 8. Stuart Brand, Jobs & Woz: The Whole Earth Catalog IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 8
• 9. Grove, Noyce and Moore IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? “We had no idea at all that we had turned the first stone on something that was going to be an $80 billion business.” -Gordon Moore ©David Mayes 9
• 10. Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Vin Cerf IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 10
• 11. Agenda • Some Historical Context • The Emergence of SoMoClo • The Emergence of Big Data • The Emergence of Smart Mobile • The Convergence of ToDaClo • What Do You Think? IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not?
• 12. The Emergence of SoMoClo IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? Social + Mobile + Cloud ©David Mayes 12
• 13. Emergence of Social Media IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 13
• 14. 2012 Social Media Market Landscape IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 14
• 15. Emergence of “Cloud Computing” IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 15
• 16. Emergence of End-user Cloud Apps IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 16
• 17. 2012 Cloud Enterprise Players IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 17
• 18. The Key Issue: Data Privacy Reliability, and Security Despite reassurances, there is no permanent solution, no silver bullet. The only solution is to unplug IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 18
• 19. Recent Cyber Security News: • Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt’s new book on China: • “the world’s most active and enthusiastic filterer of information” as well as “the most sophisticated and prolific” hacker of foreign companies. In a world that is becoming increasingly digital, the willingness of China’s government and state companies to use cyber crime gives the country an economic and political edge. • NY Times, WSJ hacking last week traced to China • Twitter theft of 250K users personal information last week • Sony PlayStation Anonymous hacks (twice in 2 weeks) IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 19
• 20. Agenda • Some Historical Context • The Emergence of SoMoClo • The Emergence of Big Data • The Emergence of Smart Mobile • The Convergence of ToDaClo • What Do You Think? IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not?
• 21. The Emergence of “Big Data” IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 21
• 22. Emergence of “Big Data” • Major advances in scale and sophistication of government intelligence gathering and analysis • Cost no object • NSA PRISM global telecom surveillance programPost 9/11 World IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 22
• 23. An Interesting Scientific Analogy Chaos, with reference to chaos theory, refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules; this understanding of chaos is synonymous with dynamical instability, a condition discovered by the physicist Henri Poincare in the early 20th century that refers to an inherent lack of predictability in some physical systems. IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 23
• 24. Key Drivers of the Emergence of Big Data • Moore’s Law – compute cost and power • Design rules, multi-core, 3D design • Massive cost decline in data storage • Emergence of solid state memristor • Google Spanner 1st global real-time database • DARPA “Python” programming language • Data Center data storage accumulation • 2.7 zettabytes currently and growing rapidly • A zettabyte equals 1021 bytes (1000 exabytes) IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 24
• 25. The Big Data Landscape Today IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 25
• 26. The Key Issue: Privacy “Get over it! You have no privacy!” Scott McNealy, former CEO of Sun Microsystems IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 26
• 27. Agenda • Some Historical Context • The Emergence of SoMoClo • The Emergence of Big Data • The Emergence of Smart Mobile • The Convergence of ToDaClo • What Do You Think? IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not?
• 28. The Emergence of Smart Mobile IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 28
• 29. Emergence of Smart Mobile IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 29
• 30. Key Drivers of Smart Mobile • Moore’s Law – compute cost and power • Design rules, multi-core, 3D design • Focus on reducing heat: gate leakage • Intel Atom “all day battery life” is a beginning • Massive cost decline in data storage • Mobile bandwidth:4G/LTE “no cost difference” • “White space” metro Wi-Fi potential maybe • New available spectrum between digital TV channels: increased transmit power • PC market death: Dell Computer & HP IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 30
• 31. Mobile-based Services • GPS, Cloud, personal and database info on mobile • Geotagging from current location tied to your objective: • Find merchandise, restaurant, bar, etc. • Find and tag people • Find people with similar interests nearby • The rise of the mobile gaming market • Already well-established in Hong Kong, Seoul • North America far behind Asian telecom markets • Facebook has just announced LBS plans • The downside: battery drain issue still critical • “People want their phones to do too much” • 4G LTE, Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS, Streaming, Mobile Gaming IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 31
• 32. Location-based Services Landscape IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 32
• 33. Agenda • Some Historical Context • The Emergence of SoMoClo • The Emergence of Big Data • The Emergence of Smart Mobile • The Convergence of ToDaClo • What Do You Think? IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not?
• 34. The Convergence of “ToDaClo” Touch + Data + Cloud IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 34
• 35. David Mayes ‹#›
• 36. Agenda • Some Historical Context • The Emergence of SoMoClo • The Emergence of Big Data • The Emergence of Smart Mobile • The Convergence of ToDaClo • What Do You Think? IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not?
• 37. Discussion: Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile, Big Deal or Not? IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 37
• 38. My Key Takeaway Points • Even from the 50,000 foot level, a shakeout and consolidation seem inevitable • A lot of people are going to lose a lot of money • There will be “snake oil” sold that does not work • Nevertheless these three new markets are actually one unified market, and likely: The Next Big Thing IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 38
• 39. What Do You Think? • No. ToDaClo is mostly media hype, and not a “Big Deal.” • I’m skeptical. ToDaClo will probably be a “Big Deal,” but I haven’t seen much yet • Maybe. I do not know yet whether ToDaClo will be a Big Deal • Yes. ToDaClo is a Big Deal and it is already changing our lives IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 39
• 40. Thank You! IEEE UBC Okanagan Big Data, The Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big Deal or Not? ©David Mayes 40
• 41. ©David Mayes 41

 

Harlem Shake, Gangman Style May Spell End of Telecom Monopoly

Could Apple, Google and Intel  Save Net Neutrality? 

Something potentially very important may be happening for the future of the Internet and Net Neutrality: online video broadcasting: participation and interactive television. It could portend an end of the current Comcast and Time Warner monopoly behavior, attempting to consolidate control, and essentially to censor content, by controlling both the carrier pipe and by prioritizing their own content, to the detriment of others seeking access to “the pipe” to broadcast their own content.

A number of online journalists and bloggers have been writing recently about the potential for the Silicon Valley Big Three to change the Internet monopoly game. Let’s hope that they are right.  Posts going back to 2012 have rhetorically asked, “Could Google Save Net Neutrality?“ This week Mark Suster has posted on TechCrunch: “Participation: The Trend That is Bigger Than Harlem Shake.”   Both of these writers are potentially on to something big, IMHO. Suster even cites Harvard Professor Clayton M. Christensen‘s book,  The Innovator’s Dilemma, to make the point that the Net Neutrality battle may be at an Andy Grove strategic inflection point that could be shifting in favor of net neutrality.

The key development may be Psy, Gangman Style, The Harlem Shake, and the entry of Apple, Google and Intel into the streaming multimedia space, as providers of interactive, participatory content.  Comcast view these players as threats to their monopoly dominance. The telecom mindset lives in a parallel universe that cannot even imagine what Apple, Google and Intel are planning.  Fortunately, in my mind, we have the right three Twenty-First Century players, with very deep pockets, prepared to do battle with the Nineteenth Century telecoms, to insure that the future of the Internet evolves as we all know that it should.

I have been thinking and stressing about Net Neutrality and the power of the giant telecom monopolies for some time. Yale University Law Professor Susan Crawford has also written a book, subtitled “The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power In the New Gilded Age.”  Having heard Professor Crawford speak, and having posted her remarks here on this blog, her arguments are compelling. My own experience with the domestic telecom industry over the years only adds to my concern.  The new telecom monopoly of the Internet, following after its free and open roots, reflects the current dominance of Wall Street and its apparent disregard for democracy: a New Gilded Age of Monopoly, harking back to the age of Standard Oil and John D. Rockefeller. Ironically PBS American Masters this week broadcast a retrospective biography of Rockefeller and Standard Oil, just in case we have forgotten after 100 years.

Read more: http://mayo615.com/2013/02/12/why-net-neutrality-is-so-important-the-telecom-industry-and-monopoly-power/