Technology

:: Gulam Zilani ::

E-G8
Web pioneers are warning governments on the effects of trying to regulate the internet in terms of what can be services made available in a country and what to block out.  An example of this would be the much talked about issues with China over services offered by Google and even the BBC.
Mark Zuckerberg and Eric Schmidt have said that cherry picking aspects of the web to control will only lead to further dissidents, more digital piracy and social/web breakdown.
Internet Pioneers are meeting this week at the very first e-G8 to deliver recommendations to governments.  However any recommendations and suggestions are not obliged by any government to listen.

Following the use of social networks that lead to recent uprisings in the Middle-East, governments have begun to be more wary of  the content delivered through technological channels that can seemingly upset and uproot a government that is disliked by the general public.
“People tell me on the one hand ‘It’s great you played such a big role in the Arab spring, but it’s also kind of scary because you enable all this sharing and collect information on people’,” said Mark Zuckerberg.
While there is a need for censorship in a lot of materials delivered through the internet, one of the fundamental issues of unethical, racially motivated and sexual contents should be the forefront  of censorships.  What really should be monitored for and blocked from the ground up is obviously being missed.  
This is where ICANN should really play a big role and begin blocking such services world-wide, since they govern the domain, addresses ports etc.
But such unified services are far off the wish list of many, as governments continue to “cherry pick” control of the web.
Another fundamental issue is the fact that technology always moves faster than government legislations.  Eric Schmidt even echoed that sentiment.
“Technology will move faster than governments, so don’t legislate before you understand the consequences”.

Net Study
In a recent study for the best mobile broadband service, O2 had came up on top by delivering the quickest contents to its subscribers, Ofcom had found.
1. O22. Vodafone3. Three4. T-Mobile5. Orange
While the browsing and downloading speeds vary due to regional locations and other advert affects of nature and technology, the average download speed for O2 was 2.9Mbps but there was latency in their services in which they were found to be quite poor at in comparison to other suppliers.
Orange was the worst of all services according to the research, while T-Mobile was above their new network partners Orange.
Having said that – it does  surprise me that a company that boasts of internet and 3G services only managed to get the bronze medal in this study.  Hopefully this research will enlighten the suppliers even more of how bad there services are and where they should really improve upon.
Charlie Ponsonby, chief executive of comparison service SimplifyDigital said: “The Ofcom report confirms what our customers tell us every day – that mobile broadband is no great substitute for home broadband.
It is on average about three times slower than a standard home broadband connection and often offers very limited data usage, relative to a home broadband connection.”
While 4G services may have been launched in the far fat west, we Europeans still have to wait for such services until 2013; when the service is expected to go live.  Consultation and auction of the service is expected to open next year.

PayPal sues Google
PayPal is suing Google over technology that allows smartphones into digital wallets.  Paypal have alleged that Google obtained trade secrets via one of Google’s newest employees, a former PayPal executive.
Soon after Google had revealed its plans to allow people to pay for shopping using NFC technology and other digital services to transfer funds, PayPal jumped at that opportunity to announce their intention to sue. 
It seems almost planned while sitting on a bark of a tree like a vulture by PayPal to pounce on Google.  
Google have claimed that they have not yet received a complaint form PayPal.  A spokesperson from Google said: “We have not yet received a copy of the complaint and won’t be able to comment until we’ve had a chance to review it.”
PayPal claims that Osama Beddier who was the executive at PayPal at the time, was fully aware of such services being offered by PayPal on the Android systems.  But since Google has now laid out its own plans of such service via Google Check Out, PayPal is likely to miss out in certain revenues in such tough economic times.
PayPal claims it has spent 3 years trying to secure a deal to create such services only for Google to abruptly end the talks, and hire its former executive who was leading the project.