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Fred Wilson On Blogging

The top VC blogger talks about his craft here, worth a listen.

Source: AVC: A Talk I Gave On Blogging

60 Milli Seconds

Bathymetric/topographic map of the Arctic Ocean and the surrounding islands (Photo credit: Wikipedia)The ocean route might make sense for inter-continental destinations, but I think air is still the best option for dense cities.

ExtremeTech: $1.5 billion: The cost of cutting London-Toyko latency by 60ms

the first ever trans-Arctic Ocean submarine fiber optic cables ...... a smattering of branches that will provide high-speed internet access to a handful of Arctic Circle communities ....... All three cables are being laid for the same reasons: Redundancy and speed. As it stands, it takes roughly 230 milliseconds for a packet to go from London to Tokyo; the new cables will reduce this by 30% to 170ms. This speed-up will be gained by virtue of a much shorter run: Currently, packets from the UK to Japan either have to traverse Europe, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean, or the Atlantic, US, and Pacific, both routes racking up around 15,000 miles in the process. It’s only 10,000 miles (16,000km) across the Arctic Ocean, and you don’t have to mess around with any land crossings, either. ...... The massive drop in latency is expected to supercharge algorithmic stock market trading, where a difference of a few milliseconds can gain (or lose) millions of dollars. It is for this reason that a new cable is currently being laid between the UK and US — it will cost $300 million and shave “just” six milliseconds off the fastest link currently available. The lower latency will also be a boon to other technologies that hinge heavily on the internet, such as telemedicine (and teleconferencing) and education. Telephone calls and live news coverage would also enjoy the significantly lower latency. Each of the fiber optic cables will have a capacity in the terabits-per-second range ..... Currently, almost every cable that lands in Asia goes through a choke point in the Middle East or the Luzon Strait between the Philippine and South China seas. If a ship were to drag an anchor across the wrong patch of seabed, billions of people could wake up to find themselves either completely disconnected from the internet or surfing with dial-up-like speeds. The three new cables will all come down from the north of Japan, through the relatively-empty Bering Sea — and the Arctic Ocean, where each of the cables will run for more than 5,000 miles, is one of the least-trafficked parts of the world. That said, the cables will still have to be laid hundreds of meters below the surface to avoid the tails of roving icebergs

New Scientist: Fibre optics to connect Japan to the UK – via the Arctic

In mid-August, construction should start on the first submarine fibre-optic cables to cross the Arctic Ocean ....... The longest of these links will become the world's longest single stretch of optical fibre. ....... the biggest threats to cables in warmer waters: fishing trawlers and ships' anchors ........ Reduced transmission time will be a boon for high-frequency traders who will gain crucial milliseconds on each automated trade. Optical amplifiers will boost signal strength every 50 to 100 kilometres. The firm also plans to drill a tunnel 40 metres deep to take a shortcut through the Boothia isthmus in the Canadian Arctic ....... Isolated Arctic communities will also be connected by extra sections of cable that branch off from the main one. ........ "choke points" such as the Luzon strait near Taiwan, the strait of Malacca between Indonesia and Malaysia, and the crowded and politically unsettled Middle East. ....... Ships must be built to withstand the pounding of ice as well as waves. ...... Icebergs can plough more than a metre into the ocean floor, endangering cables. Greenland's icebergs extend to depths as great as 170 metres below the sea surface, so Arctic Fibre will lay cable at least 600 metres deep in the Davis strait, where icebergs are most likely. The underside of sea ice also has ridges, or "bummocks", that reach depths of 18 metres, so Arctic Fibre aims to stay at least 50 metres down.

Ars Technica: Europe moving 60 ms closer to Japan with new undersea cables

The climate change-induced retreat of Arctic ice has had one positive effect. The Arctic Ocean is now sufficiently navigable that cable-laying ships will be able to plant undersea cables directly linking London with Tokyo. ...... 6 pairs of fibers with a 1.6 Tbit/s capacity per pair will be laid, and minimum latency between London and Tokyo will be 76.58 milliseconds.

Venmo In Flight

It feels like yesterday that Venmo was taking its baby steps.

Venmo Could Make Moves
Could 2011 Be Venmo's Year?
Venmo And Frictionless Payments
Venmo Me For My Charm
2010: Location, Random Connections, The Inbox, Frictionless Payments

Look at them now, processing 250 million dollars a year.

VentureBeat: Venmo, now processing $10M a month, comes out of beta, offers me the world’s smallest bribe

Related articles

• Re: is Venmo a huge roadblock to Bitcoin?
• Venmo History is Social
• On Venmo and Payments
• Don't Have Paypal? No Problem!
• The Regretsy PayPal Debacle and Online Payment Alternatives

• Will Mobile Devices Kill the Credit Card? (bigthink.com)

Human Bird

Source: TechCrunch

Wi-Fi, Tablets And Smartphones

iPad 3G and iPad Wi-Fi (Photo credit: Yutaka Tsutano)The Next Web: New Wi-Fi roaming initiative could soon allow your smart device to connect to hotspots automatically

... could see billions of smartphone and tablet owners effortlessly switch between mobile and Wi-Fi networks, without the hassle of locating hotspot hosts and keying in passwords....... a technical and commercial framework for Wi-Fi roaming, which will use a device’s SIM card to authenticate a device on a Wi-Fi hotspot without any input from the user ...... the initiative could offload mobile data to a residential or business-owned wireless network

And while you are at it, why not also extend this to laptops? Smartphones make sense, tablets make sense. But if you keep the laptop out, the iPad will have even more of a field day.

Related articles

• GSMA and WBA Partner to Simplify Wi-Fi Roaming
• Roaming: the missing piece to the smartphone-Wi-Fi puzzle
• Mobile-To-WiFi Roaming: A Dream For Carriers, A Nightmare For Users
• New Wi-Fi roaming initiative could soon allow your smart device to connect to hotspots automatically
• Roaming: The Missing Piece To The Smartphone-WiFi Puzzle

• GSMA initiative to simplify wi-fi access (mobile-ent.biz)
• Cell-to-Wi-Fi roaming on the way -- but may come with a price (infoworld.com)
• Cell-to-Wi-Fi Roaming Is on the Way, but May Come With a Price (pcworld.com)
• The GSMA wants to make sure you're using a WiFi hotspot whenever you're near one (intomobile.com)
• Mobile biz bigwigs crack heads over Wi-Fi roaming charges (go.theregister.com)

20 Startups From The London Web Summit

TechCrunch: 20 Startups Demo And Launch At London Web Summit

Reading through this list and descriptions makes you feel like tech startup possibilities are as fertile as ever. It is amazing what some of these companies are attempting.

Related articles

• London Web Summit Startup Winner Will Get A £50,000 Convertible Loan (techcrunch.com)
• Live Stream From The London Web Summit 2012 (alexwivell.wordpress.com)
• Live Stream From The London Web Summit 2012 (techcrunch.com)
• Seedrs Wins London Web Summit, As Europeans Rock Their Ecosystem (techcrunch.com)
• Niklas Zennstrom To Speak At The London Web Summit (techcrunch.com)
• Tradeshift for London Web Summit (tradeshift.com)
• London Web SummitDavid Scanlon (bestconnected.enterprise-ireland.com)
• SxSW Interactive Wrap-Up and Why Most Startups are DOA (entrepremusings.com)
• Who wants to meet up at the upcoming, inaugural London Web Summit? (thenextweb.com)
• Why Entrepreneurs Fail And Most Startups Are DOA (promcoblog.wordpress.com)

England, Get Out Of Ireland

I think England should get out of Ireland.

Photos

Nexus Tablet

Nexus One (Photo credit: pittaya)I am a Google fanboy. How about that! What I don't understand is as to why a good Android phone costs the same as the iPhone. I don't understand why the Nexus phone is not on a Republic Wireless like wi-fi only infrastructure run by Google.

Android and Me: Rumor: Nexus tablet is a “done deal”, to retail for as low as $149

A $150 tablet begs for a $50 smartphone. I don't care if you run ads and have to go below the cost price.

CNET: Google Nexus tablet a ‘done deal,’ claims report
MG Siegler: The Sub-$200 Nexus Tablet
Business Insider: RUMOR: Google Is Getting Ready To Release A $150 Answer To The Kindle Fire

Britannica's Next Step: Go Free

Britannica just went all digital. But that is not enough. They need to go all free as well. The way to do that is to, well, go free. Add the embed feature. So if I want to embed a paragraph from the Britannica at my blog, I should be able to do it. And when I do it, Britannica gets a link from me. Make it easy to share.

Collect data on users. Run smart ads. Offer high school versions of articles.

Going digital is no longer enough. Go free. There is tremendous money in going free.

Well, they are. For a week. They should extend that to a month, then a year, then decade.

Go digital. Go free. Go mobile. Go social. Do the Spotify thing. I want to know what my friends are reading on Britannica.

Britannica Blog: Change: It’s Okay. Really.
ReadWriteWeb: My Adieu to Britannica Print

In my adult years as I moved about from one place to another the 100-plus pounds of books traveled with me, virtually never opened for casual browsing. I guess I just wanted them nearby. The set crossed the country twice as I moved to Los Angeles, then to New York. Finally, after 20 years I realized that I had to give up this totem of my past and thought that I could sell the set to a library or a collector. Alas, they were worthless, even back in the pre-Wikipedia, pre-Web era, and they went off to be recycled...... Normally, access to the online Britannica.com costs $70 the first year. Finding pricing information on their website isn't easy. .... Perhaps it is fitting that we write about this news today, the birth date of Einstein (you can look it up).

Happy Holi

Photo Album
Phagwah/Holi In Richmond Hill: March 11

Holi 2012
Rang Barse: Happy Holi

TechMeme Beats South By

Image via CrunchBaseSocial Media Week was a fulfilling experience for me. I did the LiveStream plus Twitter thing. I ended up going to only two events overall, I think. But I was otherwise immersed.

I had no desire to become the top global influencer of SXSW, but I did want the LiveStream experience. And I was going to tweet sum, populate the SXSW hashtag.

The first day was disappointing. SXSW does not seem to allow LiveStream. That is so short sighted. The thinking obviously is you pay close to a thousand bucks to show up for the panels and events and parties. You can't watch for free online. That is cable TV thinking, and we all know where cable TVs are headed.

I already knew from before the Kumbha Mela of tech started that hyperlocal connecting was going to be the winning theme. And as for celebrities, Robert Scoble goes everywhere, why only SXSW?

SXSW has not hit me so far. Granted I am holed up in NYC. But something tells me I am going to be in Austin for the first time next year, and, well, we will see.

If the idea is to get the pulse of the tech industry, TechMeme does a better job on a daily basis.

SXSW Live
GroupOn Did Not Launch At South By South West
South By South West
This South By South West Thing
SXSW: Not Going

TechMeme

Super Fast TouchScreens

Source: TechCrunch