Bill Surowiecki’s Techdirt Profile

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About Bill Surowiecki




Bill Surowiecki’s Comments comment rss

  • Sep 9th, 2011 @ 7:53am

    Re: Jesus Diaz

    That is his real name... He is a longtime writer, editor and artist for Gizmodo. He is also a longtime apple fanboy, that writes flamebait when ever the topic revolves around tech.

    IN truth Gizmodo has become nothing more then flamebait in general. Sad, as it use to be a nice little blog.
  • Sep 9th, 2011 @ 6:49am

    (untitled comment)

    Well you see the best thing about the word "terrorist" is that it can be manipulated to fit almost anyone we don't like, or more specifically a group that the government does not like.

    This has become a magical word that acts as a skeleton key for the cage containing the dogs of war. Michele Bachmann just the other night at the Republican Debate changed the topic of Border Patrol dealing with illegal immigrants to Narcoterrorism. She may have a point, there are some major problems with cartels and violence in the area. However, the idea that she slipped it into a debate about illegal immigration shows how the vagueness of the Patriot Act is twisted to suit ones needs. Now we can think about treating the entire situation, immigration and drugs as one problem that will fall under the scope of the Patriot Act. All this thanks to the inclusion of one little word.

    The single biggest argument against The Patriot Act, has always been that its scope is far too broad and its definition on who it can be used against are far too vague. Set aside the obvious breach it causes for our privacy and look at what it actually does to our right to dissent. We now have a set of laws that, on a politician whim, can be used to label us domestic terrorists.
  • Aug 25th, 2011 @ 6:26am

    Re: Re: I still will not buy it

    This is another example of how I think the industry will have a shake up... Although shake up might not be the right term as it will happen somewhat gradually.

    "You're kidding if you think you understand the mobile phone distribution chain. Except for a few rugged individualists willing to pay the full $500 for their phone, the consumer does NOT decide what is in the marketplace."

    As mobile computing devices become more ubiquitous, their prices will fall, you only need to look at the PC industry to see an example of this.

    If the devices tumble in price it becomes more reasonable to sell the devices direct to the consumer without the carriers playing the middle man with subsidies.

    Your in this field for a living how can you not see this as a legitimate possibility?
  • Aug 25th, 2011 @ 6:04am

    Re: Re: .Re: Google's bigger plan

    HAHAHAH COOL STORY BRO!!!

    Thanks for making an assumption as to what I think will happen moving forward.

    One of the reason I recall the 700Mhz auction is because it was one of the biggest "fuck you guys" moments in recent business history. I knew Google was not going to win the auction, I never claimed they would. It does not change the fact that what they did do with there bid will eventually lead to a shake up.

    Past there you seem to actual have little knowledge of how whitespace technology works as its NOT WIFI! Here is a simple quote on the newly ratified IEEE 808.22 standard.

    "The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has published the 802.22 standard for Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRANs). The standard covers broadband wireless access at up to 22-Mbps per channel over distances up to 100 kilometers from a transmitter without interfering with terrestrial television broadcasts that use the same part of the spectrum." Thats a 62 mile range incase your math is poor.

    Just so you dont make yourself sound foolish moving forward you should probably use the term WRAN instead of WIFI.

    Now I also never claimed that its going to kill the current wireless carriers did I? What it is going to do and what I did say is that it is going to shake up the industry. Its going to be hard for a wireless carrier such as Verizon or Att to charge a what they do now for service when your city has an easy and efficient method of providing service. Since the current business model of the providers is betting on DATA more then ever, that statement is even more relevant.

    Even better are the discussions about the Router itself, as its claimed that these devices supporting the 802.22 standard will be small enough and energy efficient enough for small start-ups to roll their own service or individuals to offer up their bandwidth free of charge. There are discussions going on right now on the tech for how these devices will jump from point to point without loosing the signal, similar to how your cellphone currently works.

    Where Google comes into play is strictly the device itself and the foundation that it has built in the current market. What I am saying is that Google knew this would eventually come if they made the bid in the 700mhz auction and so they did. After that it was a matter of getting all their ducks in a row on the bandwidth thats most similar to how WRAN's will work. Google is in the business of getting eyes on the internet.

    As to your irrelevant comments about device costs and bla bla bla... Well the tech in todays highend devices will be quite cheap by the time WRAN saturation hits.

    Thanks for playing "Im a smartass", better luck next time.
    :�)
  • Aug 24th, 2011 @ 6:31am

    Re: Google's bigger plan

    I have been stating this very idea since Google stepped on the wireless carriers toes in the 700MHz auction.

    If Google can entrench itself in the mobile sector and they are almost there, then we are going to see a massive shake up in the industry when WhiteSpace connections and devices finally make it to market.
  • Aug 24th, 2011 @ 6:22am

    Calling shenanigans on this idea

    I dont buy this line of crap in the slightest.

    First off Google has already stated that it will keep Motorola a separate entity. IE nothing is going to change. Now this may not be completely honest, but the most I can see coming from this, is Google finally giving Motorola a shot at building a Nexus phone. That was bound to happen in the future anyway, as Google has stated that the Nexus platform is not intended to be supplied by any one manufacturer. So the worst that could happen is Google would have a larger say in what hardware and features go into a Motorola based Nexus phone. The worst that could happen with that is Google raises the bar for what defines a flagship Android phone, something that seems to happen at a monthly rate already.

    Its possible that Google could sell it at a loss, and make up the difference on the back-end, in much the same way the video game console market works, but I doubt it will happen. I think Google would spot the disdain of this idea from other manufactures from hundreds of miles away. Not to mention that the life span of any given smartphone in the market is much smaller then that of a game console, and so the margins on the back-end returns would be much smaller because of this.

    My prediction is that this will change nothing in the Android supply chain. My second prediction is that thousands of flame-bait articles will be written, when Samsung releases new Windows phones, ignoring the fact that Samsung has had every intention of doing, well before the news of the buyout was published.

    Im waiting for someone to publish a VALID reason why this would cause manufactures to flee from the largest and fasted growing smartphone platform on earth. Not to mention the obvious fact that even if one did jump-ship, they would quickly be replaced. There a quite a few manufactures in China that are praying for an opening like that.
  • Aug 23rd, 2011 @ 6:10am

    (untitled comment)

    We need to come up with a way to start a Class Action lawsuit against the MPAA... With that said I have no clue what we would be suing for, but there has to be something, its not like these guys are saintly.

    It just seems reasonable that if lawyers are the ones that keep all of this going, that there would be another lawyer or group of lawyers that would be willing to fight from the other side.
  • Jul 27th, 2011 @ 7:34am

    (untitled comment)

    So as I read this article, I realized how much of an impact Google+ is going to have on things like this.

    If your unaware you can opt-in to allow your phone to auto upload all photos and video to Picasa, which is where your Google+ pics and videos are actually stored. Pics upload pretty damn quick, but video on 3g does take some time. As the network bandwidth increases over time, this will become less of an issue.

    No longer will the destruction or confiscation of your camera phone matter, as the video will be easily retrieved and distributed via Google+.
  • Jul 25th, 2011 @ 11:29am

    (untitled comment)

    Someone please explain to me why on earth I would take anything this guy says seriously? He is clearly a very confused individual. Bombs, shooting children, claiming Modern Warfare is a realistic simulation, its obvious hes crazy right?

    Seriously though, why would any organization put any stock in what this individual has to say, other than to fuel their agenda?

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