Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2

Bigfoot and Stall Surfing

Why you should never call those numbers written on public toilet walls.

Via Allen Stern on CenterNetworks

Technorati Tags: Stall Surfing,Bigfoot

Doc Searls On The Inhospitality Biz

I’ve been ragging on this for some time now. Glad to see Doc Searls jump and nail the argument as usual. It is more than time for Hotels to stop being ridiculous with their fees for Internet access. The trend of  charging per device is just pure greed.

Doc calls for a list of companies that help hotels provide free Internet access to guests.

Someone should turn that into an iPhone and/or Mobile App. One click and you can find all the hotels nearby that offer free Internet access. 

Or maybe it should be one click and you see all the hotels that gouge you for service.

Technorati Tags: Hotels,WiFi,Mobile

Sunday Morning Reading

Some Sunday morning reading to share.

It is the day before Apple’s WWDC and speculation on the iPhone is as hot as the temperatures here where I live. Now we’re starting to see speculation on things like manufacturing delays and other issues. Scoble has some interesting “my source says” things going on. Forbes is busy trying to keep track of all the conflicting rumors. Being devilish for a second here, it would be interesting to see what happens if the super secret approach led to run away hype that couldn’t be lived up to.

More Apple speculation  from Josh Bancroft. He’s laid out his predictions as to why we might see a Snow Leopard. (Hint: we might get closer to that Apple Tablet.)

It took CBS acquiring CNet to get Loren Heiny on CNet? Let’s hope for more puppets.

Steve Gillmor sees Google’s opening up of Google Labs work on Gmail as the mouse that roared.

Cringley on the energy crisis. I hope he’s right about prices coming down eventually, otherwise we’ll be looking at this.

Kevin Tofel is taking a web only challenge. Worth following.

Albert Williams of the Chicago Reader is picking up the call for a Chicago Performing Arts Museum. Still amazes me that once doesn’t exist. Long overdue.

Steve Ballmer earlier this week said newspapers and magazines will disappear in 10 years. I don’t think so. Loren Heiny weighs in here.

Om Malik on why tiered broadband is bad for innovation.

Mark Cuban on why tiered broadband is a good thing.

Cell Companies Willing To Swap Early Termination for Immunity From Lawsuits

Looks like some back room dealing is going on in Washington that might provide some relief for cell phone users who want to end a contract early with paying early termination fees. We've seen some movement on this already, but this has some high powered brokering going on to save some the cell companies some dough on another front. Apparently they are being sued by so many folks, (including class action) over their practices that the cell phone companies are willing to make a trade for immunity from suits by angry customers. I imagine this is also offered as a preventive against some possible legislative action.

The early termination fees won't go away completely but use a pro-rated structure based on the time already used on the contract.

A part of me says no deal. A part of me says deal. I'd just like to see the buggers squirm.

Via CNN

Sunday Morning Reading

Some Sunday morning reading to share.

Everybody is talking about the social networking thing this week on a number of levels. Loic Le Meur says he's looking for some centralization and back on his blog. I have to agree.

Michael Arrington weighs in on this on TechCrunch, with a focus on FriendFeed. I'm hot and cold on FriendFeed right now in and of itself.

Louis Gray on Internet Addictions. He thinks calling it an addiction is silly. I do too.

Meanwhile a judge says Facebook friends aren't real friends.

Ed Bott on What's Wrong with the Blogosphere.

Russia wants a tunnel between the Motherland and the US.

They are still caucusing in Texas?

Newsweek proclaims a "new" Super Tuesday ahead. Give me a break.

I'm not sure how I feel about all the talk about giving the US Treasury more power. On one hand we do need some system to keep the thieves and greedy buggers from crashing things down around us as they steal our money. On the other hand, there are times I just say "let her burn."

Dave Winer is talking to Pigs. They are talking back.

George Will waxes somewhat rhapsodic on baseball. He says one reason we like it is that there are 3 strikes and you're out and no lawyer can help you. Unless you dope up to play the game.

The New EverNote Is A Real Game Changer

I produced a GottaBeMobile.com InkShow review of the EverNote's latest and greatest, and it is a real game changer. It allows you to grab info and share it across platforms in ways that I find breathtaking. If you're a Tablet PC user you're silly not to check this out. If you aren't a Tablet PC users, but do work with multiple machines, you're silly not to check this out. Heck, even if you just use one machine, you're silly not to check this out. Check out the review and InkShow here, and if you hurry you can grab some invites to the closed beta on GBM. We've been giving them away like hot cakes as interest is really high. And rightly so.

 

Technorati Tags: EverNote

HTC Mogul Rom Update with EVDO Rev A and GPS Released

Repost from GottaBeMobile.com

Ok, those of you who have been waiting for the HTC (Sprint) Mogul ROM update to be released can start your downloads. Word has been popping up all over the place today of the official release, but most of the links point to this site, which isn’t showing the update yet. But here’s a link that takes you straight to the download of the official release of ROM 3.35.651.2. (Downloads are slow, as I imagine the server is being slammed.)

The ROM update promises EVDO Rev A, Bluetooth fixes, GPS. and some other bug fixes as well. It has been anticipated since the Mogul went on sale last summer and delayed several times.

Technorati Tags: Sprint Mogul,EVDO Rev A

Shut Her Down or Else

So, Pakistan shuts down YouTube because somebody got offended and now the Taliban is telling mobile companies in Afghanistan that they need to turn off their services at night, so that the US forces can't use them to trace them in all their Taliban-y badness.

So, I'm just going to ask this question. Why are you using the phones in the first place if you know you can be tracked? And next, if the towers are shut off, don't you have a problem communicating as well? My guess is they are just miffed that their unlimited plans are capped at 5GB.

Technorati Tags: Taliban,Cellphones,Afghanistan,Pakistan,YouTube

Everybody Into the Pool

So Verizon jumped in first. Then AT&T. Then T-Mobile. Sprint is still standing on the side of the pool after testing the waters. All you can eat voice on your cell for a monthly fee. Sounds nice. Interesting though that they are still holding back on all you can eat data. Verizon's "unlimited" is now 5GB a month and the others aren't going to dive into that deep water first. Even though that's were the real juice is in the future.

Too bad Google dropped out of the FCC auction.

Via the AP

Technorati Tags: AT&T,Sprint,Verizon,T-Mobile

Sunday Morning Reading

Some Sunday morning reading to share.

I've been very busy this week, but I'm enjoying catching up on the Davos coverage from Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington. I wonder if anything substantive ever comes out of conferences like this, except for the participants?

Bill Gates' talk at Davos on a New Approach to Capitalism in the 21st Century is good reading and good viewing. Of course I always look at thoughts like this with the old axiom in mind, "the length of the journey depends on how much you want to make it."

The NY Times looks at gadgets that listen and obey. I still think this is far off from mass adoption.

Jonathan Sidener in the SanDiego Union-Tribune looks at how cell phones are transforming everything. I'm not sure they've mastered multi-tasking as he claims, but they might be on their way.

Amazon looks like it is serious about taking on Apple. They are going worldwide with the DRM Free model. Pressure point? I think so.

I, Cringely on Moore's Law, chips, and heat.

Steve Laser pens a controversial piece saying the HTC Advantage is the ultimate UMPC.

Caroline Kennedy endorses Barack Obama. Will that matter to anyone?

The sky is falling! Actually, not the sky, but a dead spy satellite will be crashing on the planet sometime soon. Gravity always wins.

The artwork accompanying this weekend's Sunday Morning Reading is from Chris Harrison's Visualizing the Bible.

Technorati Tags: Davos,Bill Gates,Mobile,Amazon,Apple