Digital Thought

Despite Apple’s claims, Ipad can’t be an Amazon Kindle competitor. Here is why.

Apple’s Ipad announcement raised the usual hype on general press and even gained the cover of The Economist. Steve Jobs said, during his Yerba Buena talk, that Jeff Bezos, at Amazon, did a great job with Kindle, but Apple is actually going a step ahead whit its Ipad. Well, of course Mr. Jobs needs to say that, but the statement might prove to be incorrect.

A question first: what is the Ipad? Answer: a keyboardless computer (but if you want, you may purchase a separate one.)

Sure, you can read ebooks (with some fancy visual trick), you can write your papers and run your presentations, and do your math with Numbers, and enjoy thounsand of Iphone application, and surf the Internet and do everything a normal computer does. So, back to the point, the Ipad is just a (not-so-powerful) general purpose computer.

And now comes Kindle.

Question: what is Kindle?

Answer: a book reading machine.

Kindle does just one thing (allowing people to read books) and does it damn good. The battery lasts for a long time, the download of the purchased book is fast and free almost everywhere in the world, eyes aren’t tired by reading through the screen, usability is at every opposite-thumbs equipped human being’s range, learning curve is measurable in terms of minutes.

I don’t actually know whether or not the Ipad will be a bluff, what is sure, is that Amazon Kindle works like a kind of magic.

Thank you Mr. Bezos.

After the attack against Berlusconi several Facebook groups supported this insane action, while several others blame it. To this, Berlusconi’s political faction reacted in an hysterical way announcing legislative measures to prevent and block the “flourishing” of “hate speeches”.

As matter of fact, while in first instance the ministry of Home Affair announced some sort of “emergency legislation” to be quickly passed, the final choice has been to follow the standard – and quite longer – procedure. No public statements have been released to actually justify this shift, while a few background elements can help to understand why this happened.

Current Italian legislation consider as criminal offenses actions like: libeling, insulting, advocating or expressing support for a crime, inciting somebody to commit a crime, stalking, moral violence, illegal interference in somebody’s private life.
Public prosecutors have the power – on the snap of a finger – to seize and shut down whatever network resources located in Italy. Furthermore, a (questionable, admittedly) interpretation of “preemptive seizure” coming from the Criminal Court of Milan extended the legal concept of “seizure” up to allowing the release of an order against ISP to block the traffic directed toward a network resource located outside the Italian jurisdiction. The result is that to achieve what Berlusconi’s party aims, no new legislation is actually needed.

Nevertheless, at least to show some coherence, a draft law has been announced that should follow the path of previous right-wing made bills aimed at banning online anonymity.

The hidden – while clear – implication of this political strategy is to overrule the e-commerce Directive principle of non mandatory preemptive duty of control, thus forcing ISP and provider of Internet-based services (like Facebook or Youtube) to become automatically liable for the actions of their users.

Today I’ve been interviewed by Christian Science Monitor’s Italian correspondent about the possible crackdown on free-speech announced by the Ministry of Home Affair, Roberto Maroni (Lega Nord) after the attack against the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi has been heavily supported by some groups on Facebook.

Here is the full article:

Berlusconi aides blame Facebook, internet after attack

Aides to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday that social networking sites like Facebook helped inspire the man who attacked the Italian leader earlier this week, and proposed limiting free speach on the internet.

By Anna Momigliano Correspondent / December 15, 2009
Milan, Italy

The attack against Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is now expected to leave the hospital on Wednesday, may have a surprising result: stricter controls on freedom of speech on Facebook and Twitter in Italy.

Members of the prime minister’s governing coalition are blaming Sunday’s attack, which left Mr. Berlusconi with a broken nose and two fractured teeth, on social networking sites.

Despite the fact that Mr. Berlusconi appears in a forgiving mood — in a message posted on political party’s website Tuesday he wrote “everyone should stay calm and secure. Love always triumphs over envy and hate” — one of his ministers has other ideas.

Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said he is considering tougher limits on freedom of expression and pledged to crack down on social networking sites that “instigate” violence against the prime minister.

Speaking to Parliament on Tuesday, Mr. Maroni blamed the attack on a “campaign of hatred” allegedly waged online against Berlusconi and said he feared an uncensored web might offer a platform for “a dangerous spiral of emulation.”

The internet is one of the few sources of news and information in Italy that aren’t subject to some form of control by Mr. Berlusconi. His family media empire owns one of the two major Italian news magazines, two daily newspapers, and three of the seven major TV channels. Three more of Italy’s major channels are run by his government.

While there are a number of independent newspapers, Berlusconi has sought to limit their room for maneuver, bringing lawsuits against newspapers that have reported on his extramarital affairs and allegations that he used call girls.

It’s not unusual for Italian politicians to blame violent crimes on the Internet, some say. “It has happened before. When something bad happens, the authorities’ first reaction is to tighten the grip on online censorship,” says Andrea Monti, a lawyer who also heads a group promoting freedom of expression on the web.

“That’s the most inefficient of reactions, for limiting freedom of speech harms honest citizens and makes fanatics happy,” says the lawyer. He compared the websites expressing their support to the attack on Berlusconi to those that deny the Holocaust: “No sane person can agree with them, but deniers love to be censured, they want to be turned into martyrs.”

Monti says censorship will make it more difficult for citizens to access the web, which he describes as a “powerful tool of democracy.”
Limits on free speech

Italy already has some of Europe’s strictest limits on free speech. There’s a law on the books, largely ignored, that requires most blogs to register as newspapers with the National Order of Journalists.

Another law, approved after 9/11, requires all internet cafes to examine their customers IDs and sets severe limits on the use of wireless connections.

“Honestly, I can’t immagine how Maroni can further reduce the freedom of expression online, given how bad the situation really is,” argues Monti.

Maroni announced he will have a draft proposal for new by Thursday, when the council of ministers is scheduled to meet. He refused to reveal any details ahead of the meeting. “It’s a delicate topic, concerning the freedom of speech on the web and [more generally] the freedom of expression in public,” he said.
Berlusconi’s recovery

Berlusconi was hit on Sunday evening, after a tense political rally in Milan. Massimo Tartaglia, a 42-year-old man with a psychiatric history, threw a replica of Milan’s main cathedral at Berlusconi’s face.

Berlusconi will be released from hospital on Wednesday, but his doctors have told him to take two weeks off before resuming his political activities.

Mr. Tartaglia reportedly sent a letter of apology to Berlusconi, describing his own actions as “superficial, cowardly, and ill-judged.” He also stated he acted alone and has no political affiliation.

Tartaglia may hope his public apology will save him jail time. Berlusconi pardoned a young man, Roberto Dal Bosco, who threw a metallic object at him in 2004. The prime minister was not harmed in the earlier attack.

Despite Tartaglia’s apology, several anti-Berlusconi groups gathered on Facbook and websites to turn him into a hero. One pro-Tartaglia site on Facebook attracted several thousand members.

By Tuesday afternoon, however, most of these groups were scrubbed from the site.

Original text available here.

Since at least twenty years ago – in the beginning of the Internet Era in Italy -  one of the favorite topics has been how to use the Net to improve the efficiency of the State’s administrative machine. The pre-Internet experiences of big cities like Rome or Milan (and those of smaller while tech-savvy ones) showed a clear path that has never been pursued.

Digital Public Administration, in Italy, is still a dream (or a nightmare, better). Just to name a few examples, on-line healthcare-related services are almost useless. The project for automating the docket filing of civil lawsuits is in a deep coma, while no sign of life comes from the administration of criminal investigations and trials. And give everybody a 2 megabit Internet access (as Mr. Renato Brunetta, Minister of Public Administration advocates) is not a solution; because – putting apart the technological underdevelopment of this country – there is a deeper motivation for Italy to live in a digital (early) pleistocene.

Citizens – often with some merit – distrust computers, as (for less “noble” reasons) civil servants do.

By one side people look at ICT as a devilish matter, existing to make everybody life pity (think of viruses, phishing, angry copyright holders seeking vengeance for the nefarious downloader attack tho their rights, personal identity stolen on the net and so on.)

By another side (a certain number) of civil servants spread all along the pyramid of power don’t like the idea that by “going digital” they are under close scrutiny and  loose the traditional grasp on the normal citizen, who doesn’t need anymore to plea for a “favour” when interacting with public services.

Between these two contenders lays the “role” of the Public Administration as “Innovation Engine”. The alternative is very neat. It can be chosen to be a “follower”, thus letting the private interests of big corporation to rule the technological and process upgrade strategies. Or the Italian Public Administration can stand as a leader, giving the goals to reach and the path to get there, by imposing open technological standars (such as file formats, operating systems and – in general – everything that meet the idea of “openness”, non only in the Intellectual Property field.)

This is what United States of America did about forty years ago, when they created a computer-to-computer communication system free from royalties and copyright that changed not only those country, but the whole world: the TCP/IP protocol, i.e. the Internet.

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This is the English translation of an article published by Nova IlSole24Ore on Oct. 29, 2009

Axel Spies, a friend and a brilliant Washington-based high-tech lawyer just sent me this paper on Net Neutrality in the US. A must reading.

Net neutrality continues to be fiercely debated in the United States. The new Democratic FCC leadership has committed to expanding and enhancing existing net neutrality restrictions. The current FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski, recently announced that he will initiate a rulemaking to codify the FCC’s existing network neutrality principles. Those principles, originally set forth in a 2005 “Internet Policy Statement,” declared that to “encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to:”

* access the lawful Internet content of their choice.
* run applications and use services of their choice (subject to the needs of law enforcement).
* connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.
* competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

The Chairman has publicly stated that he plans to propose a fifth nondiscrimination principle that would prohibit broadband providers from discriminating against particular Internet content or applications. However, providers would be able to offer “managed services” in some limited contexts. A sixth principle of “transparency” is also debated to require broadband Internet access providers to disclose network management practices.

The FCC’s informal announcement stirred the ongoing debate over the extent to which broadband and other network providers will maintain control over their networks, free from government restrictions, to “manage” their networks, including the ability to block or slow certain traffic, for the benefit of all users. Proponents of a “neutral” network, including Google, Yahoo!, eBay, consumer rights, free speech advocacy groups, and generally the three Democratic FCC commissioners (Chairman Genachowski, Copps and Clyburn), are concerned that without government rules, service providers will act anticompetitively by restricting content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached to the network, and on the modes of communication allowed. In contrast, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs), including AT&T and Verizon, some cable providers, such as Comcast, free market advocacy groups and generally the two Republican FCC Commissioners (McDowell and Baker) oppose net neutrality obligations.

Earlier legal rulings regarding net neutrality fell short of setting forth a comprehensive policy. The FCC embedded some net neutrality policies in conditions placed on the Verizon/MCI and SBC/AT&T merger approvals. In 2008, the FCC, then led by Republican Kevin Martin, sought to enforce the Internet Policy Statement principles on cable TV provider Comcast when allegations arose that Comcast had blocked consumers from using several peer-to-peer applications. That decision is currently being debated in a federal court appeal. In addition, the FCC principles are currently being imposed on recipients of broadband stimulus funds. “

Kidding apart, the Snow Leopard oddities (laptop heat issue, printer and application incompatibility and so on) raise a still unanswered question: can a software house – and in particular an operating system manufacturer – be free to sell a not well enough tested and not fully usable application?

This is not the rant of a discontented user but a precise legal question. Is it conceivable to let a producer of critical assets – as software surely is – to deliberately mass market unreliable products? Time has come when software manufacturer can’t be anymore allowed to “go crappy” treating users as a bunch of sheep and just “selling a roadmap”.

I don’t know if somebody ever did an assessment of the additional expenses caused by this marketing strategy (or, at least, I don’t know if this assessment has been made available to the public.) The fact is that software manufacturers should bear the legal consequences of their choice. But as Mark Minasi and Alan Cooper pointed out, software houses succeeded in convincing users that things must go that (wrong) way.

Well, it seems that this time Apple marketing guys have slipped on a wet surface. Snow Leopard, the latest MacOS X version, causes serious heat problems to laptops such as the Mac Book Air (mine is literally burning.) A quick look at users’ forums on the Internet shows that this is a widespread problem and that Apple is doing almost nothing to fix it. Sure, a patch will come, but when? In the meantime, it is very hard to use a Snow Leopard equipped laptop.

Apple is more and more posing as Microsoft, and I wonder how the Cupertino-based company could possbily still run its commercial by claiming that OSX works out of the box, with no big legal copies for each advertising statement. But above all, can we still trust Apple?

Somebody might think that this is an exaggerated criticism for a very common event in the computing market (i.e. a new software that is – at least partially – a  crap one) but that’s the point. I start asking myself whether Apples really are the computers for the rest of us.

Snow Leopard… they’d better call it Firefox, oh, sorry, its taken. Why not Firebird, then?

p.s. I switched back to 10.5.8

The strongest claim supporting the Italian Antitrust investigation upon Google News is the alleged Google “dominant position” that would make Italian publishers poorer (better, less rich) by not getting advertising revenues from their online contents.

There is some doubt, nevertheless, that  Google’s market role could be defined as a “dominant position”. ¹

Although it is undeniable that Google is the users’ preferred choice, and that Google has created from scratch a new business model attracting a huge quantity of customers, its legal status can hardly be defined as “dominant” in the Antitrust meaning. A characteristic of “dominant position” is the customer’s “locked-in syndrome”. Once you buy a product (or a service), its technological, purposely created oddities – such as non-standard file format etc. – make it almost impossible to switch to another similar, competing product. The most blatant example is the operating system market, where Microsoft was able to secure its market quota through its dominant position.

In Google’s case, au contraire, users are not “locked-in”: they can buy advertising services wherever they like, and use other search-engines at their will. Furthermore, Google can’t do anything to force its users to use its services, except by improving efficiency and quality. This means, in other words, that Google might lose its business power on the snap of finger. To put it short, cannot rest on its laurels.

As for the specific claims of the Italian publishers, there is neither a contract with them, nor a broader legal obligation falling on Google’s shoulders, to force the search engine to actually find “everything” on the Internet. ² If they don’t like Google’s “banning attitude” (that still has to be demonstrated, by the way) they can simply find different agreement with Google’s competitors, thus forcing users to change their search engine of choice. Provided – of course – that Internet users find those contents of some value, but this is a horse of a different colour.

Axel Spies, a friend and a very skilled Washington-based lawyer just released a summary on the new French Data Protection Authority deliberation in re: transnational discovery of personal data.

Here is the summary’s full-text.

Yesterday  the Italian headline news announced that the Italian Antitrust, following  claims by FIEG (Federazione Italiana Editori e Giornali – Italian Federation of Publishers and Journals), opened an investigation against Google, “charged” with discriminating against those publishers who had denied the availability of their content in Google’s News platform.

As I’ve pointed out in an interview by ANSA, this claim seems to stand on very weak legs.

As first, people use Google simply because it works. As soon as a (not necessarily new) search engine will prove to be more efficient, people quickly discharge Google.

Secondly: Google is not, by far, the only search engine to provide news search. People are not affected by a “locked-in syndrome” like in the operating system field: in other words, nobody has put a gun on the users’ temples to use Google.

Thirdly: the Internet economy is based on a quid pro quo, and the search engine sector doesn’t behave any differently. Publishers have contents, Google the technologies to make these contents available. If they join forces, publishers get traffic (i.e.: advertising), Google its part of the cake. If they don’t, they loose traffic and advertising revenues. That’s the Internet, honey!

Fourthly, let’s admit – for the sake of the discussion – that Google actually does what it is charged with. So what? As soon as the law is abided, Google is a private company, and the only people who can complain about its business strategies are the shareholders. I don’t see any reason whatsoever to force Google to look for specific content.

A final note: this situation is a typical demonstration of how “innovation” is “awarded” in Italy by the content industry. Instead of trying to unleash the power of new tools, the reaction of the traditional powers is to break it. It happened with software, it happened with music and video, and now with the Internet.