Rob Glidden
Carterfone is Not Enough: The Missing Broadband Policy Link
Royalty-free standards, the very foundation of the Open Internet, are not even mentioned in the FCC’s 60-page Broadband Plan notice of inquiry. Surprising? Not really. Bridging even first principles of the Internet era to the realities of telecommunications policy since 1934 is a high order challenge for communications policy scholars, regulators, and network practitioners. But [...]
Royalty-Free Brazil Java DTV Highlighted at JavaOne Conference
Good to see prominent billing for “Java in Brazilian Java DTV” at the upcoming JavaOne conference. Second topic listed in the press release right after cloud computing! SANTA CLARA, Calif. April 13, 2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) today announced the 2009 JavaOne conference schedule … Some of the accepted sessions include: Cloud Computing: Show [...]
Why Did the FCC Broadcast the Broadband Plan Kickoff in a Proprietary Format?
Yesterday’s kickoff of the FCC’s Broadband Plan proceedings were broadcast over the Internet in a proprietary video format. Worse, it was likely converted from a standards-based format to a proprietary format before it was put on the Internet! (The tip-off is that the closed-captioning overlay was already composited in). Clearly, a proprietary broadband internet would [...]
Broadband Recovery Needs A Policy Preference for Royalty-Free Standards
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the “Recovery Act”, has allocated an unprecedented $7 Billion to broadband and has launched a new chapter of broadband policy in the US. The coming months will inspire an accelerated debate and consideration of what this can, and should, mean, on many levels from tactical grant-making to [...]
Why the Sad State of Interactive TV Matters and What to Do About It
What would the Internet look like today if history had been just slightly different? Say for example the Internet’s open, royalty-free foundation — protocols, HTML, etc. — hadn’t mostly won out? Leaving only proprietary solutions or shifting interest groups (and their designates) maneuvering to disadvantage, overcharge, or end-run each other as the only — and [...]
FCC Agrees to Hear DTV Patent Comments
The FCC has requested comments on the CUT FATT petition (discussed here) to review DTV patent abuses. Some articles on the FCC request are here and here, the FCC notice (comments due April 27) is here, and filings will be posted here (select “Search for Filed Comments” on right, proceeding 09-23) A related petition in [...]
Open Video Movement Gains Steam
The crying need for Open Video continues to break out from under the radar, as evidenced by the blue-ribbon sponsors and diverse community of the just-announced inaugural Open Video Conference to be held June 12. Organizers include Yale Law School’s Information Society Project and partners include the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard [...]
Java@Digital TV Conference
A bright potential is shining for interactive TV in Brazil, which has a unique moment of opportunity to start from a complete, royalty-free specification — Ginga – and avoid the systemic stalling gridlock that has plagued patent-based/industry-segment-controlled interactive TV in the US and elsewhere. The first developer conference is announced here for April 2. It [...]
OMS Video at “The State of the Web 2009″
Sun’s OMS Video codec work was mentioned in Matt Raible’s notes from the “The State of the Web 2009″ session at this week’s Web Directions North conference: “Very specifically, there’s no royalty-free codec for video. This is nothing that standards bodies can solve. The most promising is that Sun Microsystems is developing an open codec [...]
MPEG at 20
Updating market information in this post on the release of the royalty-free OMS Video draft specification, here are data points about MPEG released at the MPEG 20th Year Anniversary Commemoration in Tokyo in November 2008. Importantly, Lawrence A. Horn, CEO of the license administration company, affirmed the: “Freedom of Licensors and Licensees to develop competing [...]