Salon calls out a Time magazine journalist for his factual errors and sloppy journalism. It sounds to me more like an editorial disguised as journalism. The author misses the Time magazine connection to TimeWarner’s telecommunication services. There’s likely no conspiracy here, but the synergy deserves to at least be acknowledged.
Category: Technology
Wires around the world
How one clumsy ship cut off the web for 75 million people | Technology | The Guardian
I have always been a fan of the Wired section entitled “Infoporn,” and the image linked to this story about the undersea internet wires being cut certainly qualifies. This is also a good story about what some might call the “invisible” internet infrastructure.
The True Cost of SMS Messages
The True Cost of SMS Messages » a gthing science project
Here’s a great analysis of the comparative cost of text messaging, including something I’ve wanted to do for awhile, a price comparison of how much you can fit in an SMS message to a regular postal envelope. The author comes up with a rate of 14kB/$.41 for letters, and 140 bytes/$.20. I think that’s something like 48 times more expensive (per byte/penny).
I guess this answers the question of why we Americans don’t text as much as other places in the world.
Short code… who knew?
Business Week (of all places) tipped me off about another way cellular phone carriers are exerting their control over the network. I have only a cursory knowledge of “short codes,” which are quick ways to dial for a service (like dialing 1234 to subscribe to weekly ringtones). What’s funny is that even the US Administrator of short codes admits up front that they’ve been “long popular in Europe.” That we’re behind in this technology (one might argue because it’s being too tightly controlled) is mind-numbing… especially considering that 2D Barcodes have barely made an appearance in U.S. communications, outside of snail mail.