Posts tagged Internet
CU researchers plotting the “Map of Life
0May 22, 2012
Effort could be a key to preserving rare species
A research team involving Yale University and the University of Colorado Boulder has developed a first public demonstration version of its “Map of Life,” an ambitious Web-based endeavor designed to show the distribution of all living plants and animals on the planet.
The demonstration version allows anyone with an Internet connection to map the known global distribution of almost 25,000 species of terrestrial vertebrate animals, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and North American freshwater fish. The database, which continues to expand, already contains hundreds of millions of records on the abundance and distribution of the planet’s diverse flora and fauna.
“We are taking 200 years of different types of knowledge coming from different sources, all documenting the locations of species around the world and compiling them in a way that will greatly enhance our knowledge of biodiversity,” said CU-Boulder Associate Professor Robert Guralnick of the ecology and evolutionary biology department, part of the Map of Life research team. “Such information could be used by any organization that needs to make informed decisions regarding land management, health, conservation and climate change.”
The initial version of the map tool being released today is intended to introduce it to the broader public, according to the researchers. It allows users to see several levels of detail for a given species — at its broadest, the type of environment it lives in, and at its finest, specific locations where the species’ presence has been documented. One function allows users to click a point on the map and generate a list of vertebrate species in the surrounding area. More functions will be added over time, according to the team.
The bryozoa fish are found in the Connecticut River
“It is the where and the when of a species,” said Walter Jetz, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale and the project lead. “It puts at your fingertips the geographic diversity of life. Ultimately, the hope is for this literally to include hundreds of thousands of animal and plant species and show how much or indeed how little we know of their whereabouts.”
A paper by Jetz, Guralnick and Jana McPherson of the Calgary Zoological Society describing the evolving Map of Life technology tool appeared in a recent issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
By highlighting the known abundance and distribution of species, the researchers hope to identify and fill knowledge gaps and also offer a tool for detecting change over time. They expect the map tool will prove useful for professional scientists, wildlife and land managers, conservation organizations and the general public.
The team is using information gleaned from a wide variety of sources, including field guides, museum collections and wildlife checklists that involved scientists, conservation organizations and “citizen scientists.” The project’s success will depend on participation by other scientists and informed amateurs, and subsequent versions of the mapping tool will offer mechanisms for users to supply new or missing information about the distribution and abundance of particular species.
Snow Leopards of Tibet are nearly extinct
Jetz called the Map of Life “an infrastructure, something to help us all collaborate, improve, share and understand the still extremely limited geographic knowledge about biodiversity.” The team continues to work on several other tasks and challenges, including who will be contributing data and how information supplied by the contributors will be verified and curated.
“A small but powerful next step is to provide a means for anyone, anywhere on the globe to use their mobile devices to instantly pull up animal and plant distributions and even get a realistic assessment on the odds of encountering a particular species of wildlife,” said Guralnick, who also is the curator of invertebrate zoology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.
Guralnick said the Map of Life project is following in the footsteps of other knowledge repositories like the GenBank project, a National Institutes of Health-funded effort with a public database of more than 135 million gene sequences from more than 300,000 organisms that allows users to explore genes and genomes using bioinformatics tools. In the biodiversity arena, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility in Copenhagen has developed an important resource that provides access to more than 300 million records of plant and animal occurrences, which is one of the distributional databases being used by the Map of Life team.
The National Science Foundation has provided initial support for the Map of Life project. Other supporters are the Encyclopedia of Life; the International Union for the Conservation of Nature; and the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, and the Biodiversity and Climate Research Center, both in Germany.
The public demonstration version of Map of Life can be found at http://www.mappinglife.org/ and more information about the project is available at http://www.mappinglife.org/about.
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SOPA is “Dead” direct from Film industry lobbyist Chris Dodd in Hollywood
0April 16, 2012
SOPA — the controversial online piracy bill tech giants said would “break the Internet” – is dead, Hollywood’s chief lobbyist Chris Dodd said.
Dodd, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, said the industry-supported Stop Online Piracy Act is “history”, in an interview with Bloomberg Television that will air this weekend.
“That’s over with. It’s gone, in my view. It’s dead. It’s behind us,” said Dodd, a former five-term Democratic U.S. senator from Connecticut.
The stark comments, from the man who pushed for tougher anti-piracy laws, come after a concerted effort from the technology community to block SOPA from passing the U.S. Congress last year. Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Wikipedia and Reddit all went dark in protest; web domain registration provider GoDaddy.com was subject to a boycott because of its support for the bill.
Opposition to the bipartisan SOPA began to grow late in the U.S. House of Representatives, resulting in the measure getting shelved in January.
SOPA would have empowered the U.S. Department of Justice to go after “rogue” foreign websites dedicated to piracy and copyright infringement that are outside the agency’s jurisdiction. The Justice Department and copyright holders would have been able to get a court to block people in the U.S. from accessing foreign websites that host infringing content, like so-called “torrents” of movies, music and software.
The tech community said the bill was too broad and would have unfairly ensnared websites that host user-generated content that often contains infringing material. Further, opponents bristled at provisions to “deputize” payment networks like eBay’s PayPal and Internet service providers to root out copyright violations.
While SOPA may be dead, Dodd said efforts to get Congress to crack down on intellectual property theft will continue. The push will likely come after the 2012 elections, Dodd said.
“The issue hasn’t gone away,” Dodd said. “In fact, even those from the technology community, the overwhelming majority believe we must do something about intellectual property.”
1. http://www.ibtimes.com/archives/articles/reporters/dan-rivoli/
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SOPA ^ H.R.3261 – Stop Online Piracy Act; editorial by Jann Scott
1January 11, 2012
by Boulder Channel 1
in News
Editorial by Jann Scott
Below is the actual bill before congress. You can read it for yourself. In Boulder there is a severe reaction to this bill by techies led by tech entrepreneur Brad Feld. In a tweet to me he said that he does “not support Piracy or Hacking or theft:” so why is he against this bill??
Privately most techies are hackers, steal songs and movies and feel the internet should remain a lawless wild west. They think everything on the Internet should be in the public domain. They are anti-business anti capitalist though many of them work in so called Start-up business’s. They are anti-protected rights though all techies demand it for themselves. We have come to a cross roads where the US Congress has now taken up the cause of protecting artists and film makers from world wide internet Piracy and Organized crime.
At Boulder Channel 1 we see both sides of the issue. We are concerned about censorship and the far reaching arm of a bad law. We have been victims of it many times. So we don’t like the idea of government reaching into our television channel or newsroom. On the other hand we don’t steal movies or music. We don’t allow criminal enterprises to advertise with us. So we are pretty clean.
Other issues at hand are hacking, corporate espionage, identity theft, credit card theft and theft of anything online. This now becomes a moral crisis for all in the Boulder tech world.
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/112%20HR%203261.pdf
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We are the media like it or not Jann Scott’s Journal #boulder
0November 5, 2011
I say we. It is a term often used when referring to a media organization, personality or product. I am a “me” and I am also a “we”. Jann Scott the writer is a me I suppose, since it is me that is writing here. Except I appear in a network. I am supported by a network of people.
Jann Scott the
talk show host doesn’t exist a lone either. I have always appeared on a radio station with support staff or a satellite network with even more support. In TV I have worked at stations or cable channels either live or on tape never alone always with a team.
Today I host 22Boom on cable channel 22 here in Boulder. It takes approximately 6 people to produce each episode plus an editor or two, and the staff at channel 22 to get it on the air. Even a Jann Scott Live segment inside of 22Boom takes at least 4 people to produce. After all of that is done the show simultaneously appears on Boulder Channel 1 and all the Channel One Networks. Then it is touted on You tube, twitter and Face book.
Boulder Channel One and all the Channel One Networks are an even bigger under taking with contributions by hundreds of people, hundreds of channels, 1000s of viewers and fans and unfans.
Fans are the topic of todays Journal. With the advent of Social Media the waters have murkied a bit and it is up to me up to us to not get murked in the muck as Dan Culberson likes to say. Social Media and the Internet have produced a lot of so called citizen journalists of which I am not one. I am not saying I am better I am just saying I am not them. Neither are we. Our (my) fans are often social media types who are not me either. I (we) use social media as a conveyor belt into the general populous. And though the perception may be that we are Tweeps, we are not. We are separate from. There is a whole other world that could care less about Twitter or the internet. They watch TV, read the paper and don’t give a crap about sm.
We are media. I am media with a traditional outlook and management. It’s just that we are “new media” , but media just the same. So I may seem like a person to you or Boulder Channel 1 may appear to be some guy just like every twitter gal or guy blogger is someone representing only themselves…we aren’t that.
I mean, if fans want to perceive me that way it’s Okay. I guess. It is our unfans, the jealous ones who like to complain. But I try to not pay attention. But it is hard not to because they are fans or unfans. I know we have done our job when even they don’t know or they think we are down to their level: sniveling children.
I once had some unfans go on a tear about how we were not real which was interesting to watch on the internet. Recently when Steve Jobs died an executive at at a PR firm wrote to me screaming because he didn’t like our tribute. He went so far as to threaten to ruin me. That was a bit out of character for a pr firm who usually try to sell me something. We determined that the PR exec must have been drunk the night he wrote to us because his personal profile says he starts and ends his day with beer.Cause to threaten to ruin a talk show host or TV network is just as flattering as a praise.
This is a trap I occasionally fall into …deep. The trap is to write in forums and not on TV. Jo Anne Ostrowe the Denver Post TV writer once asked me during an interview.. “what’s this we thing Jann?” I avoided her stupid question as she continued to write about us.
We always have to remind young people when they come to work here what the rules are. 1st rule is that this isn’t social media and you are not a fan here. The rules here are you are now working for a media organization and we demand 100% loyalty. Which means no working for any other media outlet, no personal blogs, video outside of the network. We want you to build your creativity here, but you don’t get to moonlight or think you run the place, we do. That doesn’t always set well with the new sm types, but fortunately , there are plenty of network trad kids out there who love it. Just thought I’d clear that up
from the oo koo ka choo Capitol of America
Jann Scott
Boulder Colorado
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A DECADE OF STUDY PROVIDES INSIGHTS INTO THE WORLD OF SELF-INJURERS
0September 8, 2011
by Ron Baird, news editor
in News
During the past 10 years two Colorado professors have collected the widest available base of knowledge about people who practice self-injury and now are offering new insights into people who deliberately injure themselves by cutting, burning, branding and bone-breaking.
Patti Adler, a professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Peter Adler, a professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Denver, conducted in-depth interviews with 150 self-injurers from all over the world in addition to examining 30,000 to 40,000 Internet posts in chat rooms. Other self-injury practices include re-opening wounds, biting, scratching, hair-pulling and swallowing or embedding objects.
Before their research, studies of self-injury had primarily been conducted by psychologists or physicians, and their research subjects came from therapeutic or hospital settings, Patti Adler said. Originally thought to be a suicidal gesture, the picture that emerged from these previous studies was one of an addictive behavior practiced mostly by privileged, white teenage girls.
A completely different picture emerges when a close look is taken at all self-injurers, Adler said.
Self-injury emerged from obscurity in the 1990s and spread dramatically as a typical behavior among adolescents, she said. The practice occurs mostly among those in their teens and 20s, and can still occur in the 30s but grows more rare after age 40.
The Adlers trace the evolution of societal attitudes toward a behavior that once was highly stigmatized but now is considered more of a “thing that people do.” And rather than a suicidal gesture or an addictive behavior, they found that it is a coping mechanism.
The majority of people involved in self-injury do it to deal with anxiety or emotional pain, Adler said. It “self-soothes” and gives people a sense of control. And it helps many people get over a rough patch in their lives.
“Although society was initially shocked to discover that people might harm their bodies intentionally, when compared to other ways that people seek relief from pain it offers several benefits: it’s not illegal, it’s not addictive, it doesn’t hurt others and the body eventually heals,” Adler said. “For those trapped in bad situations, it can be a way to make it through until their lives improve.”
Similarly, Internet chat rooms provide a safe place where self-injurers can find others like themselves. These sites help by making people realize their behavior does not mean they are “crazy, weak-willed, sick or bad,” she said.
A host of free support groups for self-injurers are available on the Internet, Adler said. Other types of help also are available for those who want to stop including outpatient therapy, therapeutic drugs and specialized clinics that offer inpatient treatment.
“Our longitudinal data show that many people who struggle with self-injury during their formative years, like those who try drugs, eating disorders or delinquency, grow out of it to live fully functioning productive lives as professionals, parents and spouses without further problems,” she said.
The Adlers research was published last month in a book titled “The Tender Cut” by New York University Press.
The Adlers also wrote about self-injury as part of their new blog for the Psychology Today website called “The Deviance Society” at .
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Boulder Library: Nicholas Carr Lecture & Book Signing
0September 4, 2011
by Boulder Channel 1
in News
News,
The Nicholas Carr Lecture & Book Signing: The Shallows event is scheduled for Saturday 9/17/2011 at 3:00 PM. The description for the event is: Join us for an author talk with Nicholas Carr on The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains. The Shallows was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist.
Mr. Carr will present a lecture, followed by a Q&A and book signing.
Carr’s book expands on his notable Atlantic essay, Is Google Making us Stupid? Part intellectual history, part popular science, part cultural criticism; The Shallows offers a compelling exploration of the history of information technology and how new research in neuroscience reveals startling implications for the way we think and learn.
Copies of Carr’s book will be available for purchase and signing after the lecture.
The event is free and open to the public.
For more information, call 303-441-3194
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Boulders Internet TV News & Newspaper
0August 15, 2011
This is Boulder Channel 1s news channel and newspaper with local news stories posted through out the day. We have TV news casts and community feature stories. All local All Boulder. Ron Baird News editor; Dan Culberson movies; Bill Allen, housing market and business. TV news stories by Jenn Conner and Heather Loser. Friday city news feature from Channel 8 and more from Jann Scott.
We also have separate video with print stories posted. But rather than thinking of us as a bunch of independent bloggers, we are not. We operate as a traditional news organization with both TV news and a newspaper all right here. Having said that, we will on occasion, post blogs that are news worthy to Boulder. We serve Boulder exclusively and have been since 1999 when we posted our first TV news cast on Tripod using University of Colorado servers.
In 1997 we live stream cast one of the first weekly TV shows in the world from CATV 54 at the Dairy center for performing arts. In 2005 we moved all of our streams to Boulder channel 1. In 2006 we launched The world Channel 1 networks building TV channel in every city in the world. In 2009 we launched Channel One Networks. 2010 we began the arduous process of moving all 100,000 plus pages to word press. And now in 2011 we are launching Boulder channel 1 into a new updated site. So keep looking for changes. If you are interested in our progress you can subscribe to a daily news feed over on the left hand side.
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“Horrible Bosses” Great Fun
0July 13, 2011
“Great Fun”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Horrible Bosses has built right into the title that the bosses in question are much worse than just “bad bosses,” doesn’t it, but the best thing about it is that the movie might just be better and much funnier than you expected it to be.
So, if you have ever had a bad boss or, worse yet, a horrible boss, you owe it to yourself to see this movie and be prepared to laugh your head off.
On the other hand, if you have ever been accused of being a bad boss, or if you think you might have been a bad boss, then you owe it to your employees to see this movie and perhaps learn how to repair the error of your ways.
No, I’ll make it easier for you: Are you now or have you ever been a boss? Then see this movie, even if you have just known a boss, but don’t expect to get any tips from it, either on how to be a bad boss or how to handle a bad boss.
Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis star in the movie, but they are not the bosses of the title. They are the ones who have the bad bosses, who are played by Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, and Colin Farrell, respectively, although you might not recognize Colin Farrell at first.
Early in the movie, Spacey tells Bateman’s character, Nick, “If you want a promotion, you’ve got to earn it.”
And then Spacey does everything in his boss powers to prevent Nick from getting a promotion.
Well, Nick, Dale, and Kurt are friends going back to high school, and they meet regularly for drinks. One night while they are engaged in a mutual commiseration society, they come up with the idea to kill their bosses.
I didn’t say it was a good idea.
They know that they can’t do it themselves without getting caught, and after one hilarious attempt to hire a hit man on the Internet, they end up paying Jamie Foxx in a great performance as their “murder consultant.”
Now, because this is a comedy, you know that everything isn’t going to go as planned, even though the plan seems so simple and even draws from the great mystery writers and also Alfred Hitchcock.
Horrible Bosses is great fun.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
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“Bridesmaids” All Very Funny
0May 19, 2011
Bridesmaids is one of the funniest movies you will ever see if you are a gal and also one of the funniest movies you will ever see if you are a guy, because contrary to what you might think at first glance, it is definitely not a “chick flick.”
In other words, it is not rated “R” for “Romance.”
No, if anything, it is rated “R” for raunchy, ribaldry, repartee, regale, revelry, romping, roughhousing, rattlebrain, roguery, rascality, ridiculing, razzing, raillery, ragging, and ribbing, not to mention rude.Kristen Wiig stars as
Annie, and May a Rudolph plays Lillian, Annie’s best friend, who is getting married.
So, Lillian asks Annie to be her maid of honor and to handle all the duties that a maid of honor takes care of, which Annie enthusiastically agrees to do.
Unfortunately, Annie doesn’t have any experience with being a maid of honor, and she has to look up what the duties are on the Internet.
In fact, Annie’s own boyfriend recently left her, and although she works selling rings in a store, her sales technique leaves a lot to be desired. She tells one couple who want to buy wedding rings, “You cannot trust anybody, ever.”
Then Annie meets Helen, one of the other bridesmaids, whose husband is very wealthy and who is very competitive. At the engagement party, Annie and Helen get into a “dueling speeches” contest trying to outdo each other, which escalates into a “dueling songs” contest.
Lillian asks Annie to hang out with Helen just once, hoping that they will become friends, and so they arrange to meet for tennis at Helen’s country club, but before they start playing, they can’t resist getting into a “dueling philosophies” contest, and the tennis itself quickly becomes a “dueling tennis” contest.
One of the other bridesmaids is Megan, and to say that she is unique would be stating the obvious. She is overweight, but completely unselfconscious about it, she is not afraid to say anything or to do anything in public, and she does.
Meanwhile, there is a policeman that Annie keeps having encounters with, some public and some private, and there is an especially funny scene when Annie tries to get arrested because she wants the policeman to help her.
Bridesmaids is all this and very much more, and all very funny.
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Boulder Channel One Television latest videos
0May 18, 2011
by Boulder Channel 1
in News
yoohoo. How do you like the new look (this week for boulder Channel 1.
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City of Boulder Colorado, State of the city 2011 Mayor Susan Osborne & CM Jane Brautigam TV special
0February 24, 2011
by Boulder Channel 1
in News
Jan. 27, 2011 – State of the City of Boulder Colorado emphasizes sustainability, economy and opportunities in 2011
City Manager Jane S. Brautigam and Mayor Susan Osborne delivered the State of the City in the Library Theater this morning, outlining the highlights of a year that included two major wildfires, award-winning construction and improvement projects, a commitment by voters to continue funding valued city services and a decision to explore supply-side energy options.
Both Brautigam and Osborne spoke of challenges, difficult decisions and collaborative leadership in the face of recent wildfires and a still uncertain economic future.
Speaking of the devastating Fourmile Canyon Fire, Brautigam said, “Firefighters from around the nation set up operations at the new regional fire training center. More than 1,100 firefighters responded, including 70 city firefighters. A significant amount of city resources were used to protect Boulder County and city residents. During the Fourmile Canyon Fire, city staff supported around-the-clock emergency operations and services to the community. While 169 homes were destroyed, not a single life was lost in any of last year’s fires.”
The mayor emphasized partnerships that formed in 2010 with local government, the business and technology communities and residents. Collaborations, such as the bid to bring Google ultra high speed Internet to the city, and a spirit of shared innovation helped Boulder stand out, both at home and abroad.
“Our international reputation as an innovator continues to make Boulder a destination city and enhance our economic sustainability,” Osborne said.
Standing in front of a backdrop of video and photographs from the year past, the city manager told the audience that Boulder was able to maintain a flat budget for 2011 but must continue to “be prudent in how we manage resources.” The city will continue to look for ways to close a gap between expenditures and revenues to maintain long-term sustainability.
Both speakers looked ahead to 2011 with optimism, particularly about the community’s commitment to charting an energy future that draws more power from renewable sources, promotes local decision-making, stabilizes rates for consumers and puts customer service and reliability in the forefront.
“We heard the community’s desire to lead by example, and to more fully explore Boulder’s energy options before entering into another long-term franchise agreement,” Brautigam said.
The mayor thanked voters for their support.
“We asked voters to approve a replacement tax on Xcel for five years to provide the time needed to analyze, discuss and make decisions as a community about our energy future. This may ultimately mean a renewed partnership with Xcel to meet our community goals, municipalization to provide our community with more direct control over its energy decisions and investments, or possibly a different option that we have yet to develop. . . . It was a tremendous vote of confidence from this community, and we are grateful for the overwhelming support that was shown for the Utility Occupation Tax. Without your support, the city would have eliminated 50 positions this year and significantly reduced city services and programs,” she said.
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interweb cops: National Internet Web ID proposed by white house: 1984 Boulder #boulder
0January 11, 2011
from Read Write Web
Obama’s Internet Plan Sounds an Awful Lot Like a National Internet ID
White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt announced to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research on Friday that President Obama intended to turn over development of a national Internet ID to the Commerce Department.
Pursuant to the Orwellian-sounding National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which the administration is currently writing, Commerce will create a program to provide and administer an allegedly voluntary interoperable verified online IDs.
An early draft makes the case for such an ID.
“(A) secure cyberspace is critical to the health of our economy and to the security of our Nation. In particular, the Federal Government must address the recent and alarming rise in online fraud, identity theft, and misuse of information online. One key step in reducing online fraud and identity theft is to increase the level of trust associated with identities in cyberspace. While this Strategy recognizes the value of anonymity for many online transactions (e.g., blog postings), for other types of transactions (e.g., online banking or accessing electronic health records) it is important that the parties to that transaction have a high degree of trust that they are interacting with known entities.”
According to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, as reported by CNET:
“We are not talking about a national ID card. We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy, and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities.”
We are talking about a government-controlled system. That is exactly what we are talking about. In fact, the presentation of what few facts exist is vague enough as to be good for nothing but worry.
Here are the few facts on the program that are available.
- The government will enable the creation of verified identities
- The government will create an “Identity Ecosystem”
- Getting a verified identity will be elective
- Verizon, Google, PayPal, Symantec and AT&T support the program
- A user would be able to use one login to sign in to all of their sites
So, a user would have one, “verified” ID, which would be known by the government, and a set of large corporations. Given the periodic outbreak of governmental and corporate shenanigans, we fail to see the benefit of such a system.
Further, the “Identity Ecosystem” sounds strangely like the national intranet the Chinese government has been working on, as an alternative to the Internet as a whole, and more controllable.
“The Identity Ecosystem is the embodiment of the vision. It is an online environment where individuals, organizations, services, and devices can trust each other because authoritative sources establish and authenticate their digital identities.”
We write frequently here about Facebook’s efforts to become the source of a universal verified online ID system, but a campaign by the US government to do something similar is another matter. It would be niave to assume that either party is motivated by nothing more than convenience on the part of users.
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Digital Bookmobile visits Boulder Public Library May 6
0May 1, 2010
Want to know how to download audio books for free with your library card? Learn how when the Digital Bookmobile visits Main Boulder Public Library Thursday, May 6.
The OverDrive Digital Bookmobile, a 74-foot tractor-trailer, will be at the Main Boulder Library to demonstrate the free downloadable eBooks, audio books, music and video available free with a library card.
The Bookmobile will be stationed in the Arapahoe parking lot at Main Library, near Boulder Creek, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is equipped with broadband Internet-connected PCs, high-definition monitors, premium sound systems and a variety of portable media players. Interactive computer stations give visitors an opportunity to search the digital media collection, use supported mobile devices, and sample eBooks, audio books, music and video from the library. The Bookmobile will use approximately 15 parking spaces in the Arapahoe Avenue lot.
Information: 303-441-3100 or www.boulderlibrary.org.
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Google Invites ISPs to Use Its Super-Fast Fibre Network Arguing that open access creates real competition
0April 27, 2010
Google’s plans to offer fiber-to-home Internet connections to as much as 500,000 people probably has ISPs in the US on edge, but the company is trying to show them that it is not the enemy. In fact, it’s welcoming anyone to use the infrastructure once it is deployed and offer Internet services on Google’s fiber.
“We definitely inviting the Comcasts, the AT&T service providers to work with us on our network, and to provide their service offering on top of our pipe – we’re definitely planning on doing that,” Minnie Ingersoll, product manager and co-lead for alternative access at Google, told BroadbandBreakfast.com.
“We’re looking for other service providers to be able to come in and offer their service on top of our network so that residents have a choice when they open up their accounts,” she added. “They get the connection from us, and then they have a choice as to who they subscribe to.”
That sounds great on paper, but it is a very disingenuous way of putting ISPs on the spot for their existing practices. Traditional providers value their infrastructure above anything else. Not for their investment in it necessarily, most ISPs and telcos want to keep that to a minimum, but for the strategic advantage it offers.
Costumers rarely have actual alternatives, you get the Internet that is available at your location and that’s that. At best, you may have a choice between two viable options, but there is usually no choice. And since ISPs are careful no to tread on each other’s turf too much, the status quo is very much against open access and actual competition.
Now, Google is not only showing that super-fast broadband connections are feasible from an infrastructure point of view, something that most telcos complain about, but also that you can even do it while enabling anyone to compete using your own fiber. That is the point that Google is trying to make with its Gigabit fiber optics network plan, ISPs need to start competing on actual services not just the territory, if there is going to be a real market for Internet access.
The problem is, ISPs are happy with the way things are and, if it wasn’t for Google providing the ‘incentives,’ nothing would change in the foreseeable future. But maybe the country that invented the Internet is satisfied with constantly being an ‘also ran’ in all worldwide broadband availability and speed studies.
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From Boulder Channel 1: Latest :GoogleFiber and @boulderFiber
0March 14, 2010
Boulder seeks business community feedback on Google broadband network
Boulder, Colo – The City of Boulder wants local business to speak up. It’s collecting feedback to show Google there’s more bang for the byte in Boulder.
The city and its Google project partners – a public-private collaboration that includes volunteer contributions from local businesses- launched a Web survey to obtain feedback from the local business community on what they think about Google’s new ultra-high speed broadband network and how they might use it to better their business.
Business owners and managers are encouraged to visit www.boulderfiber.com and take the “Business Survey” by Friday, March 12 so that data can be gathered and submitted to Google in the city’s formal response.
Later in 2010, Google will choose one or more trial locations across the country to test its ultra-high speed fiber network that may be more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today. The project, dubbed “Google Fiber for Communities” is a nationwide search for cities that meet Google’s requirements and have communities willing to show their excitement and ability to make the best use of this new technology.
Boulder is an ideal candidate for this network because of its mix of tech-savvy businesses, entrepreneurs, universities, research facilities, and citizenry. Google wants to know how communities – businesses and homes – will maximize the use of this network.
The city and its Google project partners are asking for the community’s help in securing the new Internet technology. To help bring Google Fiber to Boulder, visit www.boulderfiber.com and follow the instructions on how to nominate and advocate for the Boulder community. Check the site regularly for updates on the Boulder Google initiative.
You can also help spread this information by retweeting on Twitter and posting on Facebook. Use the hashtag #boulderfiber on Twitter so the project team can track and report community enthusiasm to Google as part of the city’s submittal.
For more information, contact Director of Information Technology Don Ingle at 303-441-4183.
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