Tag: internet access

Broadband

Irish govt appoints "Internet Czar"

I read in the irish Independent this morning that the Irish Govt has appointed an “Internet Czar” – someone to keep us all safe on the Internet.

John Laffan is due to take up his role as the director of the Office for Internet Safety (OIS) next month.

Justice Minister Brian Lenihan said that Mr Laffan would help to develop programmes and policies designed to make the internet a safer place.

Phew! I feel so relieved now.

In fairness to the Government, people often criticise them for a lack of foresight and for not planning ahead. In this case, with Ireland having one of the most expensive, slowest and lowest uptake of broadband in the OECD the government is obviously planning for a time when the Irish people have Internet access.

Good on them, I say. But wait, this is yet another position with no authority:

Although it will have no power to fine internet service providers, Mr Lenihan said that he would not hesitate to provide the OIS with “legislative teeth” if necessary.

Why bother create the position, if it is a powerless one? What a waste. Again.

Never mind the health system, or the total lack of any investment in ICT in education (or the total lack of investment in education), as long as Bertie stops the tribunals asking searching questions and we have an Internet Czar, all will be well in the world.

With any luck they will soon appoint a Book Czar to make books safe for us too. Some people like that awful Roddy Doyle use terrible language in their books. And what about a People Czar? Don’t the government know that all over the world there are people walking around completely naked under their clothes?

We need to keep the children safe.

What cretin came up with this silly idea?

mobile

First Gphones shipping?

Rumour has it that the first 50,000 Gphones will ship from Taiwanese handset-maker HTC‘s manufacturing facility before the end of the year.

While 50,000 may seem like a modest number,

“These initial phones are not going to be for sale,” Benjamin Schachter, one of the [UBS] analysts who worked on the report, said in a phone call earlier today. “These are going to be available for developers only to understand how the software works.”

There’s all kinds of speculation about the Gphone and the business model which will come with it. Some are postulating that it will be free but will display ads.

There’s no news yet on if/when it will come to Europe.

The mobile space is a no-brainer for Google though. Of the 6.billion people on the planet, only 1 billion have easy Internet access. Google’s long-term intention is to use these phones as a cheap way to Internet enable billions more people.