HOW TO: Copy the Entire iTunes Catalog in 25 Seconds

An interesting development from the French is touted at http://mashable.com/2009/09/30/copy-entire-itunes/. Those crafty French "researchers from the Bell Labs facility in Villarceaux, France have used 155 lasers, each operating at a different frequency and carrying 100 gigabits of data per second. Multiply the number of lasers with the transmission rate, and you get a crazy number of 15.5 terabits per second, over the distance of 7000 kilometers. Multiply those two numbers, and you get over 100 petabits per second.kilometers (a standard measure for high speed optical transmission)." Whiz-bang fast.

Applying a little math, the author estimates it would take 25 seconds to download about 10 million songs (50 million megabytes.) Cool.

The commenters were wondering how long for a "standard" broadband connection. MarkH said: About 1.5 years on an 8Mbps broadband connection. Or over 6 years if you're unlucky enough, like me, to only have 2Meg...

Oh to be so unlucky... how about all those poor folks who are about to get 768K down broadband courtesy of the ARRA and/or state-funded broadband programs?

People want to connect

Well. I think we've all been predicting this (people want to communicate),but now there is proof.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/social-networking-and-blog-sites-capture-more-internet-time-and-advertisinga/

Americans have nearly tripled the amount of time they spend at social networking and blog sites such as Facebook and MySpace from a year ago, according to a new report from The Nielsen Company. In August 2009, 17 percent of all time spent on the Internet was at social networking sites, up from 6 percent in August 2008.

“This growth suggests a wholesale change in the way the Internet is used,” said Jon Gibs, vice president, media and agency insights, Nielsen’s online division. “While video and text content remain central to the Web experience – the desire of online consumers to connect, communicate and share is increasingly driving the medium’s growth.”

Yo. Doctor. There's an app for that.

This week Webahn, a clinical documentation solutions company, announced the launch of two new iPhone apps for physicians: Capzule for its online EMR (electronic medical records) service Capzule.com and Accent, a voice recording application for its online transcription service OvernightScribe.com.

Capzule is a free, Web-based EMR app that enables physicians to access patient information instantly while away from the clinic. Specially designed for small practices, it has the capability to send messages, add notes, prescribe medications and write orders. Accent, which sells for $0.99, allows physicians to dictate patient notes and letters on iPhone and send them to OvernightScribe.com for transcription. The app also lets users edit audio files and tag dictations with key information, and it features search capability and the ability to access dictations from desktop PCs over Wi-Fi.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Midmarket/Medical-iPhone-Apps-Finding-an-Audience-327584/?kc=EWKNLHCR09232009STR2

Cyber Security Advice

Some interesting framing on cyber security. But, it's really hard to get people and businesses to spend money on security until they have an epiphany about their vulnerability.

http://www.qinetiq-na.com/a0c143e6-fd94-4328-a37a-19c2397d2186/news-and-events-latest-news-detail.htm

The National Cyber Leap Year Summit Co-Chairs Report and Summit Participants’ Ideas Report are now available. The Summit gathered commercial and academic innovators for an unconventional exploration of five game-changing strategies in cyber security:

• Basing trust decisions on verified assertions (Digital Provenance)
• Attacks only work once if at all (Moving-target Defense)
• Knowing when we have been had (Hardware-enabled Trust)
• Move from forensics to real-time diagnosis (Nature-inspired Cyber Health)
• Crime does not pay (Cyber Economics)

Japan Optic Fiber Internet

Cheap. Easy-to-install. Fast as heck. What's not to like?

Oh, yeah. You can't get it in the U.S. Sigh.

http://www.dannychoo.com/post/en/1653/Japan+Optic+Fiber+Internet.html

Best NOFA Quote Ever

Vint Cerf on the BTOP/BIP broadband definition: "The definition of broadband sucks so badly we should use it to sequester carbon dioxide."

Made me laugh.

Broadband Stimulus: You so 2000 and late

As you probably know, the Notice of Funds Availability came out today for the BTOP and BIP (sounds like a kid's cartoon show...) billions. It was an interesting first read, mostly to figure out how they defined the key criteria.

Broadband is defined as 768 Kbps down and 200 Kbps up. The good news is that, with limited funds, this really keeps the focus on areas that really have crappy service, if any. The bad news is that providers can bid this unbelievably lousy service level and "comply" with criteria. The only hope we have is that there will be enough folks that bid higher speed levels than those who want to bid the slower ones and the slow ones won't get funded. Keep your fingers crossed.

The BIP has more definitive evaluation criteria than the BTOP. Kudos to the BIPpers.

Cost-effectiveness for the BTOP local loop projects is based on the ratio of the total cost of the project to households passed. That just seems dumb. Lots of cities with urban density will be very happy to see that.

The money chunks (available funds) are oddly constructed. It's not very clear why. The BIPpers have made all of their $2.4B available, chunked out as $1.2B for last mile projects -- remote or non-remote areas. Middle mile projects are alloted $.8B. The BTOPers set aside $1.6B in this round out of their $4.3B. $1.2B goes to infrastructure but only $50M to public computer centers and $150M to sustainable broadband adoption in this round. Kinda cheesy.

Underserved and unserved definitions require more study and a deep knowledge of Census blocks, last calculated in 2000. There is also a strange and weird condition of funding where after an organization has jumped through all the stage 1 and 2 hoops, the BIPpers and BTOPers will post their planned awards so the masses can object to funding if there is already service in the area awarded. This needs much further cogitation and I can see a potential of some very bad outcomes due to this rule.

It was good to see the 4 FCC principles and the rules for open networks. But, overall, it seems like a wimpy start to a national broadband plan. Seriously, 200 Kbps upload reminds me of some of the lyrics in Boom Boom Pow: "I'm so 3008,You so 2000 and late."