TechBlog.TheVanguard.Org

A Democratic bill in the House of Representatives would force AT&T and Apple to abandon their successful business model, interfering with the markets in order to allow customers to activate the iPhone without a subsidized contract. Rep. Ed Markey, the very liberal Democrat congressman from Massachusetts, wants the FCC to regulate the contracts between AT&T and its customers and force Apple to make the iPhone available without a contract. Though this might be good for the few people who want to use T-Mobile instead of AT&T, the net result would be MUCH higher prices for everyone. This is another example of the Democrats over-regulating the economy and trying to get involved in the tech sector, something about which they know absolutely zilch.

Congress ought to spend more time passing the legislation necessary to protect the American people from terrorists instead of going after enterprising businesses.

Newt Gingrich is setting up shop for his 527, American Solutions, right down the road from Google and Yahoo! in the heart of California’s most liberal region. Gingrich said the group wants to “reach out to every interesting, innovative, entrepreneurial start-up. We want to learn the best ways to communicate, the best ways to socially network, the best ways to use information technology to improve public services.”

Yep. Conservatives are invading the tech sector. CNet news noted that though there are some free-market groups in the area (notably Pacific Research Institute and the Independent Institute) there just aren’t many national political conservative organizations. This makes Gingrich’s entrance even more important.

Groups like Gingrich’s and TheVanguard.Org, the brain child of founder and Chairman Rod D. Martin, are on the cutting edge of both the conservative movement and the tech revolution.

Facebook is making over its website in the coming weeks with a cleaner look inspired by its iPhone site, arguably the best iPhone optimized site available.

Facebook will continue to dominate that space, it appears, by staying ahead of the competition and creating a cleaner, stylized and more useful interface than MySpace.

Another Windows vulnerability has been found and this time, it’s scary.

Important points on this:
(1) This is an ACTIVE exploit
(2) The solution is to avoid browsing “untrusted sites”, i.e. the INTERNET
(3) It affects Vista on down–virtually every Windows OS
(4) It exploits the animated cursor functionality and can result in arbitrary code execution on the victim’s machine

This is a serious problem. Let’s hope Microsoft has out a fix soon.

The U.S. is number one in broadband connections, despite its geographical problems. In terms of percentages, we continue to lag far behind the rest of the developed world. Point Topic reports that as of 4Q 2006 there were 57.3 million broadband connections in the U.S. That gets a huge chunk of our population. Now if only we could make that REAL broadband and not these 256k-1.5mb connections that the FCC calls broadband….

Perhaps 3G is the answer for those in suburban and rural areas currently not covered by existing terrestrial broadband networks.

Firefox has been David if Microsoft was Goliath for two years. Despite Microsoft’s money, developers, marketing and market share (both OS and browser) Firefox was making huge gains - eroding 12% of the market from Microsoft. After the release of IE 7, things seem to be changing.

Though the data is disputed, or rather the interpretation of that data is, some say Microsoft is once again slowing down Firefox’s growth. Eventually, it could slow to a trickle of users or nothing at all. Only time will tell. Whatever the case, less competition in the market would be bad for consumers.

AT&T announced that it will be speeding up its upstream speed over its BroadbandConnect wireless Internet service. For tech evangelists who travel like those of us at TechBlog, this is welcome news.

Pesky posters over at DSLR point out that AT&T is on track to offer faster speeds via its wireless service than through their land-based products. Let’s hope they fix that problem–quickly.

In terms of 3G AirCards, this one is our favorite. Using Sierra Wireless 3G Watcher we connected quickly and downloaded large files quickly. While connected via 3G, we downloaded files at about 1 megabit per second and uploaded at about 256k. In rural areas, EDGE was very acceptable (and actually better than the CDMA equivalent, 1xRTT) at about 150-170kbps downstream. Coverage using the AirCard 875 was absolutely better than anything we could do with the other cards we’ve tried from Cingular/AT&T.

Using 3G Watcher, we even have it working in Windows Vista! Now why we’re running Windows Vista, that is the question of the day….

Recent events have changed the field in which the iPhone is going to compete. Since it was introduced earlier this year, Microsoft introduced Windows Mobile 6. Far from innovative, WM6 is merely a .x upgrade to WM5 with a few added features (like HTML e-mail) that should have been around to begin with. TechBlog.TheVanguard.Org noticed something else, too: AT&T seems to be making its EDGE data service network faster. In some ways, EDGE data will always be inferior to 3G (HSDPA) technology at AT&T. EDGE cannot be used while in a GSM phone call. With HSDPA, users can have simultaneous data and voice calls. However, we’ve recently seen EDGE coverage not too far from our offices (we’re in a 3G area, so we have to do some traveling to see EDGE) begin to increase in speed from about 100kbps to 170kbps.

As some of you may recall, one of our biggest complaints about the iPhone was its lack of 3G. It’s clear why Apple decided to go with EDGE data, however. Windows Mobile devices that operate on AT&T’s 3G network suffer from terrible battery life. In a device with a screen as vibrant and large as the iPhone (and with as many capabilities) battery life is likely to become an issue.

We think the increased speeds (with more promised in the future) make EDGE viable for light browsing and heavy e-mail. We’re also a lot more excited about the potential for use by business people who are turned off by Windows Mobile’s battery life problems and lack of compatibility with the Mac.

Broadband Reports is reporting/commenting on a story wherein the RIAA discovered that it is hard to track down file-sharers who use public wi-fi.  They want to hold the account holder responsible.  In other words, the RIAA wants to destroy open wi-fi all together.  There’s no way your local coffee shop or airport is going to allow themselves to be held responsible for every one of your actions while using their Internet connection.

One of two things will happen as a result of all this:

1. The RIAA wins their court case and wi-fi as we know it is dead forever;
2. The RIAA loses their court case and their ability to continue their scorched-earth tactics.

Regardless, the entertainment industry is about to change.  Stay tuned.