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Tim Schneider

2 months ago

in SF 2 NYC on i80
Just wait until Iowa . . .

I wouldn't recommend it on this trip, but I drove across Nevada once on Highway 50 "the loneliest road in America." The landscape was like Afghanistan. Dead cattle on the side of the road, no gas for hours. And then, at the end, Reno! Awesome.
1 reply
evanhr Yeah, efficient routes aside, it'll still be a bad plan for us in this
beastie. We're rockin' single-digit MPGs here :)

7 months ago

in Cutting the (Video) Cord, Part 2 on The Technology Liberation Front
You're gradually convincing me, Adam. But what about sports? I don't have a TV, and this is the one thing I really miss. Even the few online packages I've pursued are no help: I can't watch the games because they are broadcast locally . . .

This is something that a la carte _could_ address.
2 replies
Adam Thierer's picture
Adam Thierer Tim, thanks for your comment.

As you probably know, in many ways, the a la carte debate is being driven by sports programming. Many people don't like paying for a bundle of television programming that includes expensive sports channels that may drive up the aggregate cost of service. Of course, it is also true that if we stripped sports programming out of the mix and required it all to be purchased on a per-event basis, we could witness a serious escalation of live televised sports programming. (Look what pay-per-view boxing and MMA already costs for an indication). So, bundles help equalize those costs a bit, but not without downsides.

What will be really interesting to watch over the next 5 years is how major sports leagues continue to create their own media platforms (think NFL Network or Big Ten Network) and then, eventually, start experimenting with delivering that content over the Web as well as broadcast, cable, and satellite platforms. Is it crazy to think that the NFL, for example, might eventually take the "NFL Sunday Ticket" and just put it all online using? If enough homes had broadband (and knew how to connect their computer to a larger display) then this scenario becomes very attractive to the owners.

So, interesting days are ahead and it's not at all clear how we will be watching sports programming a decade from now. Keep in mind, however, that the economics of sports and sports programming is a very unique world. It's like no other type of programming since:

(a) It is the most time-sensitive of all forms of media. The demand to view a particular sporting event drops dramatically in proportion to how long you delay it. That's why a pay-per-view boxing match is $60 bucks live but then free on the TV the next weekend.

(b) People are fanatical about sports and demand to see their local teams in action. This creates a strong incentive for owners to get sports programming placed on mass media platforms.
Ryan Radia's picture
Ryan Radia OTA broadcast TV is free and you can usually get it with a sufficiently powerful antenna if you're within 100 miles, so the only sports programming pertinent to the a la carte debate is content that's available only on cable sports channels like Comcast SportsNet, ESPN, Big Ten Network, etc.

There have been several major moves toward a la carte sports programming--for the past few seasons, MLB has streamed every single game online for a couple hundred bucks per season. You can also now stream all NHL games online. Even the NFL streams games online, albeit only for DirecTV customers for now.

11 months ago

in Some Shameless iPhone Gushing on The Technology Liberation Front
Tim, just curious, but do you have any idea (I don't) to what extent the UI innovations--in particular those related to the touchscreen, flicking, resizing, etc.--are covered by patents.

It seems to me like they almost certainly are, and that these patents are likely expansive enough to hinder similar UI development based on touchscreens by competitors, to the detriment of us all.

11 months ago

in iPhone 2.0 cracked in hours… what was that Zittrain thesis again? on The Technology Liberation Front
Doesn't the number of people who have access to generative technology matter for Zittrain's thesis. Defaults matter, and if only a small number of iPhone users are willing and able to crack their iPhones, then it remains closed and proprietary for the vast majority. At least part of Zittrain's argument is that the iPhone is the leading edge of people expecting their edge devices to give them less freedom. My parents aren't going to be cracking their iphones anytime soon . . .

2 years ago

in Finally, Muni WiFi done right on The Technology Liberation Front
I'm sorry, I had high hopes with a title like that, but your post doesn't even make sense.

"the Mayor will ask City staff to work with the major cellular phone service providers to determine where coverage areas may be lacking and identify ways the City may be able to help expand their services within the City limits."

This sounds like an effort to identify coverage holes within the city of Anaheim, and then figure out what the city can do to help. Why should a city even be involved in this?

And how does opening up city assets to another potential broadband provider "stifle competition?"

2 years ago

in Your Productivity on The Technology Liberation Front
It's funny how the rate of posts dropped off after that. I certainly stopped accomplishing anything.

2 years ago

in Is a Spectrum Commons Chimerical? on The Technology Liberation Front
donuts point about regulation is a key one, and it's something you never see really raised by parties who are often skeptical of government mandates in other contexts (see CALEA, broadcast flag). The FCC and standard setting organizations have a big role to play in a spectrum commons.


Benkler hopes that his stories about peer production scale to infrastructure, and to some extent they damn well better. It's not clear what happens to all this value created by powerful computers and lots of people doing a little for no money when it's running over networks owned by people who are emphatically driven by profit motives and maximizing shareholder value. The great fear of net neutrality advocates is that this value gets captured by the network owners, and it's not a crazy fear.






Also, MIT's roofnet is another example of attempts to use wifi to create the local loop (they left MIT to become Meraki).






For what it's worth, your response to this comments thread is one of the reasons this blog never leaves my RSS reader. Opinionated, knowledgeable, polite, and willing to learn . . .

2 years ago

in Is a Spectrum Commons Chimerical? on The Technology Liberation Front
Tim, your description of the network architecture of municipal wireless networks isn't really accurate. Much of the backhaul on these networks is done using a mix of licensed and unlicensed spectrum, wirelessly, though they all eventually connect to fiber. I don't really know what you mean about people trying to solve the last mile problem directly using wifi. CuWin, Meraki's products, and other community networks are attempts to do just this. Peer production of long haul fiber is probably a ways off though, you're right.

By and large though, this is a limitation of the spectrum itself. Wifi is junk spectrum. Municipal wireless networks would be much different if spectrum with better properties (the ability to reliably pass through external walls, for example) was available as commons. The innovation (and competition) in the Wifi space is pretty compelling case for making more spectrum available as commons.

2 years ago

in The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » For Shame! on The Technology Liberation Front
FWIW, I often don't agree with your stance Tim, but I always enjoy reading your posts. They are intelligent, thoughtful, and honest. It's too bad Stoller hasn't read any of your DMCA stuff . . . hardly doctrinaire corporate shill stuff. Anyway, keep up the great stuff.

2 years ago

in The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » For Shame! on The Technology Liberation Front
FWIW, I often don't agree with your stance Tim, but I always enjoy reading your posts. They are intelligent, thoughtful, and honest. It's too bad Stoller hasn't read any of your DMCA stuff . . . hardly doctrinaire corporate shill stuff. Anyway, keep up the great stuff.

2 years ago

in The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » Video Games & Innovation on The Technology Liberation Front
I think part of the problem is that many people don't consider video games culture/art. There's not a sense that something vital is at stake in locking down video games as there is with music, video or text. The forward looking debates about video games impact on the public sphere tend to focus on the games themselves as public spaces, not on the status of the content within the games/of the games themselves.

I don't think the images are really the test, though they made for a beautiful post. They suggest a key difference between video games and other creative areas: the barriers to entry--the cost of the hardware and software necessarily to create/modify such environments--are much higher than for other media.

And don't you have to talk about the industry's relation to game mods at some point? Flexibility with IP rights can be useful--and financially beneficial--for game creators.

2 years ago

in Speaking of Iron Triangles… on The Technology Liberation Front
I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the performance licenses that XM has are compulsory. As in, the music industry can't say no. But music licensing is an absolute morass, so I'm not positive about that. I think it's part of the AHRA.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't want the music industry to have absolute control over performance rights. The end of cover bands? Or maybe that would be a good thing.

2 years ago

in Templeton on Network Neutrality on The Technology Liberation Front
Tim, I'm curious what you make of Templeton's fear of usage based pricing for consumers. One of the things I've been hearing is that last mile providers can't recoup their costs from end users because they're stuck in a flat fee pricing scheme, hence they need to find other ways to monetize their networks.

But doesn't the idea appeal to your libertarian instincts? If light users are in fact subsidizing heavy users, a switch to usage based pricing should result in vastly lower broadband costs for most users. It would also encourage efficient use of bandwidth.

The argument is that consumers wouldn't go along, but I'm not convinced of that. It seems like it's just cover for the fact that the vast majority of us overpay for the bandwidth we use. I don't think we're likely to see such a model absent serious competitive pressure.

3 years ago

in Hollaar on the DMCA, WIPO, and Ed Felten on The Technology Liberation Front
Here's another post where he addresses the revisionist history of the suit.

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1010
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