I was interested to spot (via 3mobilebuzz) that Three is thinking about rolling out a line of home routers which, instead of connecting you to the Internet via a land line ADSL connection, instead provide your home broadband via their 3G network.
To be clear, we're not talking about a femtocell, which uses your existing landline broadband to provide a cell base station, and allows networks to extend their coverage indoors, or other places where their coverage is limited or just plain unavailable. In fact what we're talking about here is exactly the opposite of a femtocell. Such a device would have its own SIM card, and then share its 3G conneciton to the Internet over a local wired and wireless network.
This is interesting, and not an idea I've come across before. Of course, with only spotty coverage on any of the networks in the out of the way village I live in, such a device isn't going to be on my shopping list. I'd be much better off with a femtocell, and when they finally (if ever) come onto the market I'll be the first in line, no matter which of the UK networks are offering it. However as someone that does drop off grid in some weird and wonderful places from time to time, I can see the attraction of this anti-femtocell.
Of course if you have a 3G dongle, you can already share your internet connection with other devices fairly easily, at least you can if you have a Mac, I'll not speak for Windows. But it's really nice to see this wrapped in a box for ease of use...
Earlier this morning I spotted (via Twitter) that Microsoft's World Wide Telescope had finally been released...
After wading through their flash based website to get to the download page I found out that the "Mac version" is a version that runs under Windows in Boot Camp. Which isn't exactly a Mac version at all, a bit of false advertising there I think...
At which point I was really interested to see Roy Williams quoted as saying,
...a beautiful platform for explaining and getting people excited about astronomy, and I think the professional astronomers will come to use it as well - Roy Williams
While it is more common in the US, I don't think I know a single British astronomer that owns a Windows box outside of the VO community. In fact someone else here at Exeter said that Roy's quote caused them an "...ironic chuckle". Which is pretty much how WWT has been received. Nobody here can try it because nobody has a Windows machine, we either run Linux or OSX.
Since the release this morning I've seen conflicting reports about WWT. The Register, which admittedly isn't generally acknowledged to be particularly pro-Microsoft, just couldn't get it to work while Stefan Geens over on Ogle Earth liked it a lot. So your milage may vary, but mine won't. It'll stay firmly at zero. I don't own a Windows machine, and I'm unlikely to go through the pain of installing Windows on my Mac to try it out...
However in the run up to the Trieste meeting the draft SAMP standard has been released into the wild for comments. SAMP, that's Simple Application Messaging Protocol, is the official successor to the grassroots Plastic standard and shares a lot of common influences and a fair number of the developers.
Over the last few days I've put together a first cut at a prototype SAMP Hub, which will probably eventually after a lot more polishing become one of the reference implementations for the standard, along with some testbed clients.
In the past I've posted about various Plastic and Google related hacks, so its perhaps unsurprising that the first post about SAMP is Google related, and still involves a bit of so called tupperware. To prove to myself that the prototype Hub is actually (sort of) working I've put together a Plastic to SAMP gateway, and a SAMP facade application for Google Sky. After all, I can't go to an IVOA meeting without some sort of gee whiz demo, can I?
With the publication of his new book, "The Future of the Internet: And How to Stop It", Johnathan Zittrain has started a debate amoungst the great and the good. People suddenly seem to be getting worried that gadgets are killing the Internet and that the iPhone might murder the web. He argues that today's technological market is dominated by two contrasting business models: the generative and the non-generative. The first model, general purpose computers, allow third parties to build upon and share through them. The second, non-generative model, is more restricted, with appliances that can only be modified by the vendor. He is very much afraid that the second model, where we are locked in by vendors is coming to predominate.
Well first of all I think he's just plain wrong, you only have to look at appliances like the Linksys NSLU2 or even the iPhone, which is oddly enough seems to be being held up as the poster child for vendor lock in, to see that we aren't being locked in by these devices at all. Or at least, some of us aren't. I think he's right in one respect, I think we're entering a period where the number of people that can hack on the devices we use to talk to the network is going to become smaller.
I'm not worried, like Peter Semmelhack I'm old enough to remember how it was before desktop computers came along. However unlike Peter I'm more philisophical about the passing of the desktop computer. I'm surprised he isn't because from my perspective he's one of the people that are storming the barricades. If the desktop dies, it'll be because of the open source hardware movement, and people like him...
Which is why I argued that we're entering a period of change, it's not that we're being locked into devices, it's that the people with the skills to hack on the devices are changing.
Out of the existing infrastructure, the idea of network neutrality is the important thing to hang onto. I'm far more worried about the possible loss of that, than I am about information silos or Facebook.
With open hardware like the Arduino arriving we've been given a new tool. In the same way the arrival of the desktop computer changed everything, the growing availability of open source hardware will do it again. Peter should drink some of his own Kool-Aid.
The Web as we know it today might already be dying, and that may be no bad thing. Because you have to remember that the Web isn't the Internet. The Internet existed before the Web and it'll be around a long time afterwards. This too, shall pass...
In its place I think we're looking at the arrival of something much more interesting, a pervasive information architecture. The New York Times (via Slashdot) carried an article recently talking about embedded devices, but there is an important distinction to be drawn between these and ubiquitous computing, where you have a pervasive architecture of computing devices. Between independent gadgets responding to simple environmental conditions, and a pervasive information architecture shared across a number of ubiquitous computing devices.
Compared to a real ubiquitous computing we're at the banging the rocks together stage
but that's no bad thing either, projects like Quickies from MIT, while still awkward, show the potential of moving our computing off the desktop and embedding it into the real world. It's an exciting time to be alive...
When the web came along and changed everything, I was really surprised that I was going to get to live through such a change. After all the desktop computer had only come along a few years before, it had changed everything, and while my first computer was a PDP-11 I was a bit too young to really appreciate what had happened at the time. Now I get to live through yet another huge change in the way the world works, people like Chris Anderson are quietly making it happen. If you haven't been following along Chris has been quietly scratching his itch and building autonomous UAV.
This wouldn't have been possible a couple of years ago, going beyond a crude prototype with hardware was hard. Even getting to the prototype stage was hard. Now it's the next big thing...
The fact that you have to go out and learn some electronics to take part in the next big thing isn't such a big deal. You're supposed to like learning new things. Go buy a soldering iron and stop worrying about information silos so much...
If you've been following along, you'll know that I currently have one of Three's new HSDPA USB modems on loan for review, and up till now I've been having problems getting it to work under OSX Tiger on my Intel Macbook, although I did get it working under Leopard on my PPC iMac without a hitch.
Well today I had a call from Three's technical support team, and from the sounds of things I was talking to the same Bangalore based team as you'd normally end up talking to if you'd managed to fight your way through the front line call centre people and got a call back from a real technical support person. I was pleasantly surprised, the agent at the end of the phone rapidly ramped their level of technical support from "...and have you tried plugging it into a different USB port?" to talking about the Kernel protection faults and driver conflicts.
The short story is that I now have a working USB modem, and am a happy geek with a new toy. The long story is, well, longer...
Now configured and connected to the Internet
It turns out that I having the configuration problems Aaron Heath was having, but with my own unique spin on things. The initial network driver configuration was indeed failing, because I had turned on the "Require password to unlock each secure system preference" option under the security options in my System Preferences. This meant that Three's proprietary connection software didn't actually have the permissions it needed to add or configure the new network interfaces. We actually accidentally stumbled across this during the tech support call when I plugged the dongle into the laptop while I had the Network Preference pane open and unlocked and it automatically enabled the HUAWEI Mobile device. From there we more or less followed Aaron's walkthrough to manually configure the network interface...
...and it shows up in the normal modem menu
The modem now shows up under the normal Mac drop down for such things, and I can connect to the Internet using it without a hitch from my Intel Macbook using the standard Mac tools. However, and perhaps somewhat tellingly, I still can't use the proprietary Mobile Connect application included with the dongle. It crashes, a bit further forward this time, but still with a Kernel Protection Failure...
The Mobile Connect application still doesn't work though?
Of course this doesn't really bother me, I'd rather use the device using the default tools anyway. However, without the Mobile Connect application, I do need a new way to monitor my bandwidth usage. I might not be paying for my packets while I have the dongle, but I'd like to be able to report back at the end of my trial with how much it would have cost had I actually had to pay for things. Especially since I'm off to Trieste in a couple of weeks and will be using the dongle to roam onto Three's Italian partner network, which could get interesting price wise.
It was surprisingly hard to find a simple, free, application that would just monitor my total bytes up and down on a specific network interface, until I stumbled across the oddly named SurplusMeter, which does exactly what I need, monitor ongoing usage against a preset bandwidth allowance.
Annoyingly there isn't any way of getting rid of the mounted volume on the dongle.
Which leaves me with my final annoyance, every time you plug in the dongle it mounts the partition with the driver software on it. This was actually rather nice the first time I plugged the stick into the computer, but now it just leaves me with an extra mounted volume cluttering up an already over full desktop. I'm not going to muck around with it right now, but after I've tested the dongle, and I'm back from Trieste, I might have a play around with Disk Utility and see if I can stop it doing that and still have access to the modem itself.
Anyway, as it turns out, this post is brought to you via mobile broadband and Three's dongle. I'd forgotten to plug my ethernet cable back into the laptop after taking the screen shots for the post....
Well it's been a week since I received one of Three's new HSDPA USB dongles on loan for review. They're probably regretting sending it to me...
Because this isn't a review, and it doesn't look like I'll be giving one. After a week in my company the dongle is still sitting in its box on the shelf. I still haven't managed to get it to work with my Intel Macbook which, despite claims of support, seems to be due to problems with the connection software and OSX Tiger.
Interestingly I have tried the dongle with my old PowerPC iMac, which is the only machine I have on my desk right now running Leopard, and unlike my laptop, which is still running Tiger, it works without any problems...
On first connection Three's software creates a HUAWEI Mobile network device, and oddly two more unconfigured devices; DIAG and PCUI
Not that my desktop was in need of mobile broadband, but the dongle does connect to the Three network successfully, creating a HUAWEI Mobile network device which, despite my previous complaints, does actually show up in the normal modem drop down menu. So it looks like there is no need to touch the proprietary connection software after your first connection to the network...
Having seen the software actually working now it looks to me as if, under Tiger, the problem is that it's not correctly updating the network devices list the first time it attempts to use the device.
In summary, if you're running OSX Tiger I'd advise steering clear of Three's new mobile broadband dongle because there seems to be some serious software problems. However if you're running OSX Leopard, or Windows come to that, it's likely you'll be okay.
However as I am running Tiger, unless I can resolve the driver problems, I'm pretty much at a dead end. As always of course, you mileage may vary...
Update: From the screen shot it looks like it is possible to get 3's dongle working under Tiger. Milage, as always, does seem to vary...
Update: After manually configuring the network interfaces, the dongle is now working.
The upcoming IVOA interop meeting in Trieste next month will also have a KML session, where we're going to discuss KML from the astronomy and VO side. I'd like to think that this is the start of the push to adopt KML as an 'official' standard inside the IVOA. Maybe we can sue for partial custody and it can visit us every second weekend and on major holidays?
If someone's using a PC to demo the next big thing, then it's not the next big thing...
He no long seems to believe that and announced today (via Read/Write Web) that he's calling it quits on his startup Mowser which joins the deadpool today. I'm not surprised. I firmly believe in his statement, but I've always disagreed with his assumption that the next big thing is mobile browsing.
I've argued before that the reason that the iPhone is so successful in the mobile browser market is that it isn't a phone. It isn't competing against the rest of the smart phone market because it's not a phone, it's an internet device, that happens to be able to make phone calls.
When it comes down to it mobile phones aren't about features, they're about ergonomics. That pretty much rules out being able to browse the web, people will make quick dashes, raids, for information. But spending time browsing?
The next big thing isn't going to be on a desktop, desktops are pretty much dead tech except for specialised uses, but the next big thing also isn't going to be the web. The last big thing was the web, it isn't going to be the next thing as well, making it mobile isn't big enough.
The next big thing is ubiquitous computing, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise...
I was recently offered on loan one of the new HSDPA USB sticks from the UK network operator Three under a similar deal, which is I promise to write about it, to the Skypephone I had on loan from them at the tail end of last year. The stick arrived this morning...
I'm off to the IVOA Interop Meeting in Trieste next month, and Three are one of the few mobile operators with decent roaming rates, at least if you're in a country covered by one of Three's sister networks which are: Austria, Australia, Denmark, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy or Sweden. Which I will be, so it's all rather well timed...
Opening the box you find a USB stick, a cable and a SIM card. You have to insert the SIM card into the stick, and the stick into your laptop. The hardware setup therefore isn't that hard. I'm on a Mac and plugging the stick into my Macbook made the stick mount a partition with the driver software in it, double click to install and theoretically we're good to go...
The initial bad news is that the connection software doesn't use the default OSX utilities. The modem doesn't show up in the normal Internet Connect application, nor does it turn up in the modem status pull-down menu in the menu bar along with my Bluetooth and wired modems. What it does do is tread heavily over my root file system and install various bits and pieces onto the disk. It also installs a proprietary MobileConnect.app into my root Applications folder. Which doesn't make me that happy. None the less we're good to go...
Except that it doesn't work, firing up the proprietary connection software it finds the dongle without a problem, and I appear to have signal. Hitting connect I'm asked for my admin user name (why does it do that?) and then... connection failed.
There are interesting things going on in my system log file, but the application itself doesn't seem to create its own logs so its difficult to tell what's happening. But what seems to happen when you hit connect is that the SetNetworkConfig call crashes due to Kernel protection failure. In other words, bad things happen.
Which is where I am now, I'm about to email technical support with my crash dump and I'll let you know how I get on when they get back to me...
In the mean time you should probably head off and read the interesting BBC News article on why these dongles are so important to Three and why, after initially being a strong supporter of walled gardens, like most people they realised that these are not really a good thing...
Just stumbled across this video, on CrunchGear, of the Galileo wheeltrack demo'd at the Robobusiness 2008 conference which started today in Pittsburgh. It was cool enough that I just had to pass it along...
Over the last couple of weeks there have been rumours running around that Google would be launching something to directly compete with Amazon's AWS suite, and embed themselves even further into the Cloud. Sure enough, while I was asleep, Google announced a preview release of Google App Engine at Campfire One.
But what Google has done is take a totally different approach to Amazon. The Google App Engine is basically a platform for producing and deploying (robust and scalable) webservices, where as Amazon's offering is a more pick and mix affair with storage (S3) and compute (EC2) and databases (SimpleDB) being offered as components rather than being integrated into a single platform.
However, one of the reasons why Amazon's S3 storage service has taken off so rapidly is the fact that it can be viewed as a component, and startups (and much larger firms) can use it transparently. So long as you wrap the service sensibly, if Amazon went bust tomorrow (unlikely) or the service became unavailable or unreliable (slightly more likely, but still unlikely) you wouldn't have to rewrite your entire code base. You buy a whole bunch of servers, assuming you can afford it, rewrite the low level library that handles storage, and you're set. You still maintain control.
Google isn't offering as much control as Amazon, if you build your business on Google's platform you're relying on Google to support your business. It's an interesting choice from Google's point of view, and it'll be interesting to see whether people will bet on Google. It looks like a sure bet, but if I was investing a lot of money into a business I must admit that it would probably make me rather nervous to leave so much control in the hands of another company who of course have their own objectives.
It seems very clear that, unlike Amazon's EC2, the App Engine doesn't have the potential (at least in its current incarnation) to be a general computing platform, it seems to be specifically built to be request driven, and that's okay.
Google's choice of Python as its runtime is probably fairly predictable, when you work for Google you have to use one of the four allowed languages, at least for deployable code, those being C++, Java, Python or JavaScript. Of the four Python is the obvious choice...
While I'm not a Python person, my language of choice to get things done is Perl, due to circumstance I've actually had to write a bunch of Python before. So while I'm not a guru, I can get things done in Python, abet slowly, all the while muttering that I'd get it done faster if I was writing in Perl. So I've put myself into the wait list for a slot in the preview release. I'll let you know if get accepted before they open the doors properly, I guess it'll take a while though...
However the release of Google's App Engine does mean that I'm even more annoyed than I already was, which was fairly, that my travel budget won't quite stretch to a trip out to San Francisco for Google I/O. I've already had to shelf plans to head out for Where 2.0 due to the budget squeeze here in the UK, although since I've already been out to ETech this year and will be heading to OSCON in July maybe I shouldn't complain? My a Dopplr trips list is still looking fairly full after all...
