Cool Musical commentary from the RIPE meeting :-)

Phones/PDA that comes with a touchscreen usually comes with a stylus. As such, the user interface for such touchscreen devices assume you always work with a stylus. It requires at least two hand to use which means you cannot use it while walking (usually carrying a bag) or driving.

There are devices that does not require a stylus but the user interface for them aren’t much better.

Perhaps because of the past experience with touchscreen PDA, I really don’t like touchscreen devices. This is why I stick to a non-touchscreen phone, because it forces the designer to not assume you will use it with a stylus and therefore, generally more user friendly.

So iPhones comes really as a breath of fresh air when it comes to touchscreen – it is simple and easy to use.

Now the really cool thing is the multi-touch capability which you can *zomg* zoom pictures but I dont think we have fully explore the capability of multi-touch. In the next few years, we will see more ways we will use the technology.

But what I think would be really interesting comes from a friend who complained that it is pretty dangerous to use the iPhone while driving.

I like to see a screen that can form curvature on the surface so you can “feel” the button on the display.

Now, that would be really cool and useful. Anyone knows such technology?

From The Onion

In The Know: Are America’s Rich Falling Behind The Super-Rich?

Ho Ho Ho!

I met up with Dewayne two weeks ago in San Jose. Part of our conversations are (somewhat) confidential so I won’t talk about it here. But two things I like to share here.

1. There is a general mis-perception that broadband is cheaper in Asia than US. ITU recently publishes the cost of broadband on a per 100kbps basis and Wired made a pretty picture.

The picture made by Wired clearly shows that broadband prices in US aren’t as bad as it perceived to be. In fact, it is one of the cheapest broadband, far cheaper than many part of Asia.

US still have one of the cheapest bandwidth wholesale rate (transit cost) in the world, as low as $15/mbps and peering cost is almost negligible. In Asia, you would be lucky to get US$100/mbps transit and local peering is non-existence except a handful of country.

Broadband is cheap in Asia despite these because of a handful of exceptional country, like Japan and Korea and China. Traffic in these country are mostly local since their users consume local content – hence, cheaper to provide high speed Internet access.

2. The debate on 700mhz auction is heating up. GigaOm has a great intro article on 700Mhz. It is extremely attractive because (1) 60Mhz is up for grab and (2) 700Mhz has great propagation property which makes it very good for wide area wireless deployment.

Beside the carriers, Google has expressed their interest to bid for 700Mhz. The min bid is US$4.6B and it is expected to go up as high as US$10B per carrier. FCC can expect to get as much as US$30b from this auction.

Google has fought for open access on the spectrum as part of the auction rule. Eventually FCC puts in a waterdown requirements on open access in the auction rules. Verizon decided to sue FCC last month on the inclusion of open access.

Okay – they are suing FCC for a rule that is so vague that you can drive a van through, for a condition that is not yet enforced, for a spectrum that has not be deployed and for an auction that has not being held. The (economic) liberal in me say “Heck, if you don’t like the rules, don’t bid!”

The question then is WHY did they sue?

The answer become clearer if one assumed that Verizon don’t expect they will win the lawsuit. With an uncertain lawsuit hanging over 700mhz, the auction is going to be difficult to proceed – FCC would hesitate to call for the auction and potential bidders would be concerned over the outcome if the auction would be invalidated by the lawsuit.

By working the legal system, Verizon could drag this lawsuit to go on for years. They already “won” the moment the file the lawsuit.

On the bright side, I rather not see this auction happens under a Republican FCC Chairman so derailing the auction isn’t that bad idea for now.