The Digital Divide - No Big Deal

In the UK, Tech pundits are shaking their heads at the possibility that a third of Britons have not been online. I'm not so bothered, not everyone is beguiled or even enthralled at the idea of going online. In fact many of these folks, will probably be quite happy to spend the rest of their lives without doing so. So, why are these pundits bothered? Milestones and medals — they want to be able to pin a big fat piece of metal on their collective chest, or maybe grab a knighthood in return for the 'achievement' of actually being able to say that 100 percent of the population in the UK are cybersurfers. The real problem is confidence and ease of use. With many manufacturers not taking real pains to make their solutions easy to use and the ever present threat of viruses, spyware, identity theft and other dangers, I can't say I blame people for their lack of confidence in the Internet.

The onus is also on us tech heads to get our heads out of the clouds and to take more seriously our job of producing technology that is useful and usable. We don't need any more people wearing white coats and trying to baffle us with buzzwords. We also need more effort from manufacturers at some kind of standardization, rather than the constant battles over new media, file formats and proposed standards. If you want people to embrace and use technology you have to make it both easy and safe to use.

CD Wow In Court Over Grey Market CD's

It seems that it's going to be more difficult to get foreign CD releases of domestic artists. The BPI (British Phonographic Industry) are seeking a contempt of court order against CD WOW over claims that it is deliberately selling CD's made for other countries. In a statement issued by CD Wow they denied that they'd intentionally used grey imports of CDs not intended for this country and stated that any breaches were a result of human error.

Whilst I agree that artists, their agents and recording companies are somewhat justified in protecting their intellectual property and licenses. The nature of the internet is making it more and more apparent that the copyright laws we currently adhere to, don't work all that well in a global market.

I'm confused in this day of the internet and the aforementioned global market, why certain industries are still so regional in their thinking. I'm betting that a great many of these CD's are being bought by collectors for content and packaging which is not available on domestic releases. I know that I occasionally pick up CD’s overseas which includes multimedia DVDs and other content. For the collector this "Grey" market is a source of goods which are highly sought after. These goods are even legal and are licensed in the territories they are made for. So what, are the record companies, complaining for? (Rhetorical Question).

In the case of CD WOW, the retailer may be looking at trying to keep their margins low, I can't say one way or the other because I'm not in their shoes, nor am I their accountant. But remember this ... these record companies are the same folks, who think nothing of using cheaper labour and costs elsewhere to maximise their profits here. If that’s the case, why not pass on the cost directly to the retailers and subsequently to the consumer? Even better, price the products at a more reasonable level …

Here is a quick example:
U2’s - Achtung Baby retails in the US for $13.98. It retails here in the UK for £14.99 ... Why is it twice as much here? OK the price I'm quoting is the suggested list but I'm doing so in both cases. I can buy music from UK and Irish Artists cheaper, pretty much anywhere else in the world, and in some cases, even cheaper than they are in the US.

I'm guessing it's because they think they can get away with people paying more for stuff here in the UK ... They're trying to keep us a captive and lucrative market. .

Global Satellite Broadband Service Launched

Inmarsat, in partnership with defence company Thales UK, have launched a satellite based broadband service to offer global internet connectivity. The Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) service, should be fully active by June 2007. The service will provide connection speeds of up to 492Kbps to much of the world, with the exception of areas above the latitudes of 80 degrees north and below 80 degrees south which are outside the active coverage of the satellite network. The service is expected to cost approximately $1 per minute for voice calls and $8 per megabyte of data. Connecting will initially require a proprietary device in the form of a GPS equipped tablet, which provides directional information to the user so that they can ensure the best signal reception. For more information read Gemma Simpson's article at Silicon.com.