The BBC talks of the discord at the WSIS precomp last week in Geneva.

I must admit I, along with a co-conspirator who shall remain nameless, took advantage of the webcast and repurposed it as some sort of a videoconferencing system… Therefore, some of the finer points of the debates were lost to me (well, that might also have been because the webcast channel was the floor channel, without the translations).

Update: reflecting on the same issues, the Monde Diplomatique has an article titled «Les laissés-pour-compte du cyberespace» on the fracture numérique, where they refer twice to the IUT… Not the best article I’ve read from that publication I must say.

MSNBC’s Philips talks to Web music stores, eyes media role . A couple snipets:

Philips, which globally ranks third behind Japan’s Sony and Matsushita, has chosen not to support Microsoft’s Windows Media Player in its consumer electronics products, a company spokesman said separately.

[Philips spokeperson] also criticised proposed U.S. legislation to set a  »broadcast flag » that would give a handful of technology companies and Hollywood studios control over re-distribution of digital television broadcasts, including movies.

  »We need a technology that works, that is available to everyone, managed in a fair way and not constrained to any particular group, » said Philips.  »There needs to be an open standard […] ».

[via MacMinute]

«Télécommunications, les échecs d’une révolution» dans le Monde diplomatique.

Eclatement de la bulle Internet, affaire Enron, endettement record de France Télécom : les entreprises de télécommunication se traînent désormais aux urgences de l’économie mondiale. La privatisation ayant succédé aux investissements publics, la surcapacité et une concurrence ruineuse, vieux fléaux économiques, hantent désormais la frontière du capitalisme de ce début de siècle. Salariés, particuliers et contribuables ont commencé à en payer le prix.

Un trop rare article en français sur la déréglementation des télécoms.

CNet News:

The report (press release) from the Computer and Communications Industry Association argues that the reliance on a single technology such as the Windows operating system for such an overwhelming majority of computer systems threatens the security of the U.S. economy and critical infrastructure.

Update: the messenger was shot

ITU’s SPU newslog: Canadians are among the world’s leaders in broadband use.

Nearly half (49%) of all regular home Internet use households had a high-speed Internet connection in 2001. For the private sector, 2002 marked the first year in which the majority (58%) of enterprises using the Internet connected using broadband technologies.

Absolute percentage of broadband connected households being 23% and the percentage of broadband subscribers per inhabitant is 10.3%, close enough to the ITU Birth of Broadband figure of 11.2%.

Maybe StatCan excluded poor souls like me who connect through a cable modem at below single-ISDN speed and who’s DHCP lease mysteriously expire every few hours forcing a manual renewal? Yes yes, I’m bitter, especially because it is hard to complain about inadequate connections when you bust your monthly transfer quotas…

I didn’t find the Connectedness series when I was looking for it the other day. Good thing the article provides a handy link to the PDF.

Much fanfare has been made around Skype, KaZaA’s VoIP offering.

Here is a post on Voxilla, Rebels Without Case, that captures my state of mind very well.

[via Hack the Planet]