The Risk Factor

ComputerWorld has two interesting stories today. The first was from this morning, which was about lawyers suing Apple for $2.6 billion claiming that, "Apple blocked third-party applications, barred any ring tones but those it sold via iTunes and disabled unlocked phones with last month's 1.1.1 version update."

Then this afternoon, it reported that for between $60 to $99, "The iPhoneSIMFree, a commercial venture that was the first to publish a point-and-click unlock hack last month, has announced Version 1.6 of its software, and claimed that it could bring any bricked iPhone back to life."

But wait; according to the story, "another unlock hacking group, the iPhone Dev Team, urged owners of bricked iPhones to sit tight. 'Free unlock of 1.1.1 is coming soon.' "

I would have loved to have seen the lawyers' faces this afternoon. Maybe by the weekend, their case will have been vaporized by hackers. Shakespeare would be proud.

There is a new book out by Seth Shulman titled, "The Telephone Gambit" which argues that Alexander Graham Bell didn't invent the telephone after all, and that he stole the critical technology from Elisha Gray. He appears to make a pretty compelling case. There are extensive reviews of the book on line, such as here and here.

The thrust of Shulman's thesis lays in his discovery that Bell was trying out all sorts of approaches that weren't panning out, as noted in Bell's notebooks of early 1876. Entries in the notebook about his different attempts continue until 24 February 1876, and then don't resume until 7 March 1876 when Bell tries a novel approach. A day and a half later, "Mr. Watson, come here. I need you," is supposedly transmitted.

The gap is important, Shulman argues, because Bell had just returned from a trip from Washington, DC, where it seems that Bell got improper access to Gray's patent application. Shulman also contends that Bell's subsequent reticent behavior indicates that he struggled to come to terms with his theft of Gray's invention.

The book reminds one a bit of the recent flap over the MS-DOS and how much credit for it is owed to Gary Kildall and CP/M. I wonder if there will be books about it a hundred and thirty years from now, or will anyone then even remember MS-DOS, Windows or even Microsoft.

For the second time in 10 months, Research in Motion's (RIM) Blackberry network suffered another outage affecting some 8 million of its customers. This one lasted only about 3 hours, while the one last April lasted more than 12 hours.

While many Blackberry users were forgiving of the first outage (a typical comment of the time was ""These things happen. Life goes on."), this time, Blackberry owners seem more irritated ("I don't know what happened, I don't care what happened. They need to save their excuses for someone who cares").

Part of the reason for the angst, other than the Blackberry addiction theory, is that RIM promised after the April fiasco - which was caused by poor software testing - that something like this wouldn't happen again claiming that it would put in back-up systems. So user expectations were naturally raised.

RIM also said that they would be more open about any problems in the future. Some of you may remember that RIM was very closed-mouth about the April outage, providing the press with a constant stream of "no comments," not only about its cause but during the event itself. Surprisingly, there is nothing about this latest one on their website this time either. Not a smart move, guys.

RIM now has two strikes against it, and if a third outage hits soon, expect the company to take a big share hit as it will get tagged with a reputation for unreliability. Not a good thing for a device that health, safety and security professionals and government officials depend on, nor with alternatives available to tempt Blackberry users.

I recently traveled around the world without either a cell phone or a laptop. It was very refreshing, with the only downside being a boatload of emails when I got back that I had to wade through. Still, it was a good trade.

The New York Times reports that the Blackberry outage was caused by - drum roll please - "a flawed software upgrade." A very short communique that Research in Motion (RIM) released to the press via email (but didn't post on its website) said that there "was a problem with an internal data routing system" that had recently been upgraded, and that the "upgrade was part of RIM's routine and ongoing efforts to increase overall capacity for longer term growth." No further explanation was given.

RIM is setting up a team to investigate the problem and to avoid a future recurrence; just like last year.

Yesterday, it was reported that both Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility announced (for example, here) new flat-rate plans costing $99.99 per month that eliminate not only long-distance and roaming charges, but also any time limitations on calls.

While wireless carriers like T-Mobile have been trying to convince people that they don't need a wired phone, these announcements to their respective customer bases by two major wireline carriers to basically do the same marks a major shift in strategic positioning. With one of these plans, you don't need a wireline phone, except, of course, if your connectivity and reliability pretty much stinks, like mine does regardless of carrier.

Anyway, T-Mobile which last year let its customers call free and use Wi-Fi connections at their homes or elsewhere, said it will also offer unlimited calling and messaging for under $100 per month.

I wonder how long it will be before the wireline carriers really start to jack up their landline connection costs, citing increased operational and overhead costs.

David Pogue, the New York Times technology columnist, has a very useful blog today on blocking cell phone spam. A few weeks ago, he blogged about his and his wife's Verizon cellphones getting spam text messages, and his apparent helplessness about being able to do anything about it.

After Pogue wrote his blog rant, he heard from an AT&T representative telling him how AT&T helps its cellphone customers from getting spam. He then found out that Verizon also has spam-filtering capabilities as well for its cellphones.

I highly recommend reading Progue's blog entry on this subject. There he lists the information you need to find out how to set up spam filtering for AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile.

Thank you, Mr. Pogue.

I plan get a spam filter block myself. I'll be interested to see if it blocks the text spam I get from AT&T itself on my phone.

The Australian reported last week that the communications company Telstra failed to meet its self-imposed schedule to migrate its 5 million customers to its new billing system by 30 June. Last February, the CEO Sol Trujillo said that the migration was “on plan.”

Telstra announced that the company was moving to a new billing system in late 2003. It is one part of a major AU$12 billion consolidation by Telstra of its back office systems in an attempt to save AU$270 million over the next five years or so

As the story says, the failure to meet the deadline means that Telstra will likely incur millions of dollars in unanticipated costs since it has to run both its legacy billing system and new one until the migration is complete.

Telstra has declined to say exactly how many customers are still on its legacy billing system.

Last week, a fiber optic cable was severed causing a major land line, mobile phone and internet shutdown for more than one million people in Queensland and Northern NSW. Automatic teller machines and Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale (EFTPOS) services were also affected. Needless to say, people were not amused.

According to various news reports, the telecommunications company Optus's system went down at 0753 (AEST) when a backhoe operator severed its fiber optic cable. Service was restored about four hours later, but not before major problems appeared, such as at Brisbane Airport where domestic and international flights were delayed as everything reverted to manual mode.

A back-up system was activated through an inland network, but because of a system card failure the night before, the back-up system wasn't available.

Optus called the outage a "one in a million" event. What's more, Optus said it believed the problem could not have been averted.

"We can't design a network or build a network on those one in a million chances," an Optus spokesperson said.

What made the story more "entertaining" - at least to those observers from afar - was the "who was to blame for the cut" game that immediately began playing out. The outage was estimated to cost customers millions of dollars, many of whom may be eligible for compensation from someone. The trick is determining who that someone is.

The Gold Coast City Council initially denied it was involved and blamed the Queensland State Government for the incident. It later had to admit that the fiber optic cable was indeed severed on a council's "pumps and pipes" project that was not yet officially part of the huge Queensland $9 billion water grid project.

However, the City Council then added that checks failed to reveal the location of the cable before it was severed by the backhoe operator. It implied that the telco Optus was at fault, not them.

This pass the blame gambit got Optus angry. It soon released photos showing the cable cut was about 2 meters from a large white warning sign that indicated one of its cables was in the area.

The City Council still maintained, even after the photos were published, that they had done all the proper checks and the cable wasn't where it was expected to be.

A report is scheduled to be released later this week with more details about what happened and why, and who likely will end up getting stuck paying compensation.

Have you ever text messaged as you crossed the street? Or checked out your PDA? Or been on your cellphone?

Well, if the Illinois General Assembly bill known as HB 4520 ever gets signed into law, it will be illegal to use a wireless device while crossing the street.

According to the Chicago Tribune, "Under the proposed law, Illinois residents would get slapped with a misdemeanor and a $25 fine if caught using a cell phone or other wireless device while traversing streets."

The story indicated that it was too early to tell how much lawmaker support there is for the proposed law, but with it isn't being summarily dismissed.

Illinois does allow localities to ban cell phone use while driving, but interestingly, there is no specific law banning texting while driving.