Your Country Your Call looks like a good idea, and it is, and a lot of effort is going into it. However, there are also clearly some big, serious problems with it. Read the rest of this entry »
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From the FAQ:
The Irish banks have run into some serious problems. The core of these problems are quite simple. But eight months forward from the official emergence of the crisis, there is no sign of an answer. There is serious criticism of the possible solutions that are coming up.Everyone is afraid that we will end up with a bunch of zombie banks, and that the people who caused the problem, property developers and bank officials, will end up being rescued from their sorry situation by the taxpayer.
Most of the objections are still tactical, rather than strategic. Zombie banks or a few rescues aren’t the biggest problem. The real problem is that we are going to end up with a zombie banking system, and that the government will end up as its political guardian.
So the problem is simple: the banks’ net assets are less than zero. The loans they have given out, for which they borrowed money from depositors and other lenders, are no longer considered likely to be repaid in full, or anything near it.
Solving the problem is far from simple. The following issues arise.
So, my solicitors and I spent a day in Court with Swords Express, the public transport company I started to provide decent, fast transport to the people of Ireland’s biggest town last year. You only go to Court when there is something really big at stake, and you only go to Court with the government if you think you are very likely to get a favorable outcome. The costs involved are tremendous. The government has limitless resources and is not afraid to bring them to bear. Even for our one-day event and even though no evidence was heard in Court and the State decided to settle on the day, the costs will be into six figures, money which the taxpayer will end up having to pay.
From the footer of the easyhotel.com confirmation email:
Intellectual Property: The easyGroup of companies has built up a significant reputation in the name “easy” and has a number of trademark applications and registrations in many countries. easyGroup cannot permit others to use the “easy” name without the group’s rights being prejudiced. It follows that no use should be made of the name “easy” (or anything similar to it) without our consent.
That’s easyToUnderstand. They’re definitely not looking for easyMoney. I know it’s easyToForget to capitalize your company name too.
According to this press release, Microsoft welcomes Ireland’s ‘no with comments/conditional approval’ vote and NSAI’s consultative committee unanimously agreed to the conditional acceptance of the Office OpenXML standard.
I am glad that Microsoft welcomes the decision. However, the account above was not what happened at the meeting of ICTSCC last week as I recall it. In my recollection, Microsoft voiced a sustained objection to voting in this way. Microsoft was supported in a call for voting ‘yes’ by representatives from ICTIreland, Intel and CP3. There was nothing unanimous about it.
Also, to clarify, the committee involved, the ‘Information and Computing Technology Standards Consultative Committee’ does not have the final say in voting on standards. Its role is purely consultative, to provide advice to the NSAI in accordance with Section 10 of the National Standards Authority of Ireland Act 1996. The making of a final decision lies with NSAI itself.
According to this story, Irish incumbent telco eircom will obliged by the telecomms regulator Comreg to continue LLU network rollout, in spite of the fact that next-generation networks, where every cabinet will be individually enabled with faster 25 or 50 Mbit broadband. Now this is ridiculous.
LLU, the arrangement whereby competitors are allowed put equipment into eircom exchanges and connect directly to the customer’s line, is dead. There is no point in anybody investing any more money in unbundling local exchanges if a fiber-to-the-cabinet network is to be built. It will simply be impossible for an LLU operator which can offer maximum speeds of 10Mbps to compete with eircom or bitstream competitors who can offer speeds of up to 50 Mbps on the same piece of copper, for the same price. (Unbundling every individual cabinet is possible in principle, but in practice, it would be too expensive for a small operator to do.)
Comreg has to make up its mind now whether it wants to devote its energies to protecting the interests of consumers, who need NGN and need it rolled out economically and fairly, or whether it is going to spend its time protecting the interests of the various unconsolidated bit players in the telecomms marketplace, by tying the whole country into dead technology, slow speeds and an unworkable business model.
The government wants all mobile phones to be registered. According to the Programme for Government, ageed last month:
The government will … require all mobile phones to be registered with name, address and proof of identity in order to stop drug-pushers using untraceable, unregistered phones.
But I got the following email from the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources in January this year:
The idea for a Register of mobile phones was extensively reviewed by officials in the Department. There were many complex legal, technical, data protection and practical issues to be considered. In theory, a Register of mobile phones might seem like a good idea. However, having looked at the situation in other administrations, considered the ease with which an unregistered foreign or stolen SIM card can be used and the difficulties that would be posed in verifying identity in the
absence of a national identification card system, and having consulted with the Office of the Attorney General and other interested parties, it was concluded that the proposal would be of limited benefit, in that it would not solve the illegal and inappropriate use of pre-paid mobile
phones and was not practical.
NSAI (the Irish national standards body) has posted an invitation for comments on its site regarding the proposed new Office Open XML standard (ISO/IEC DIS 29500). NSAI has established an ad hoc committee to consider the matter, and I am a member of that committee, together with a number of far more important and qualified people.
Anyway, we are anxious to hear from anyone who has a view on what way NSAI should vote on this standard when it reaches committee. If you can provide links to any relevant articles, that would also be very helpful. If you have time, please review the documents and leave your comments either here or send them to the committee.
Listening Post reports that Apple are watermarking tracks with the purchaser’s email address. Not really surprising that, at least to me. I’ve been doing some thinking about this area for the last while
What I find a bit objectionable is that Apple apparently didn’t bother to tell its customers that it was doing this. I can’t see why they wouldn’t.
I think it’s a good idea though. It makes tracks usable and sharable but puts some sort of limit on the extent to which they will be shared.
You could still scrub the watermark off the tracks without too much hassle, but why would the average consumer bother?
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