After attending this year's Kiwi FOO (1, 2) a few of the Telecom folks there decided to work and put together an internal unconference event.TelecomONE Innovation '08 is running for three days of October in Warkworth, in the same venue used for the Kiwi FOO events before. About 80 Telecom people, both technical and business types, will get together plus a number of invited external participants - including myself. Like the FOO camp attendance is by invitation only.
Invitees are all doing interesting work and are invited to network, share their works in progress, show off the latest tech toys, and tackle challenging problems together.
I am told Telecom CEO Dr Paul Reynolds is directly supporting this initiative.
Also like the FOO camp discussions you will find there's a rule - what happens there stays there. You might find some reports about the topics, but won't see many direct quotes or references. This is the norm, to encourage an open debate, even when it involves proprietary or confidential information brought in by participants - some sessions have very interesting topics and the openess brings a lot of proprietary and private information to the room.
I think this is a great initiative and I am really looking forward to be present and contributing to the discussion.
Free broadband for all...
I read this on the paper (yes, I do read paper sometimes) and had to find this online to quote and link. But here it is at the USA Today:
High-speed Internet access is so important to the welfare of U.S. consumers that America can't afford not to offer it — free of charge — to anybody who wants it, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin says.
"There's a social obligation in making sure everybody can participate in the next generation of broadband services because, increasingly, that's what people want," he says.
Martin hopes to use a chunk of wireless airwaves due to hit the auction block next year to help turn his vision into reality. Some cellphone operators are objecting.
"Some cellphone operators are objecting". O'RLY?
We are not even close to this yet, here in New Zealand.
Finally: Persistent storage for Amazon EC2
Amazon has finally announced the general availability of persistent storage for EC2! This is long awaited news. Here is a also a writeup from Werner Vogels, the Amazon CTO.Some background...Amazon has offered a very nice cloud-com... (more in the full post)
Vodafone NZ releases new iPhone plans
Well, here we are again. Staring once more into the abyss that is the iPhone section of Vodafone's website. Only this time, rather than bang our heads against something sturdy, we give a low grunt and move on to something far more important.
Why the sudden change? Why am I writing it this way? The answer to the latter may never be known but the answer to the former is quite simple: The new iPhone plans are out!
Yes, Vodafone has released the new iPhone plans for New Zealand customers. However, is there any improvement?
From what I’ve seen so far, the answer is yes. But have they fixed it enough?
Well, the $250 1GB plan has been scrapped as an iPhone exclusive plan for one thing (now avaliable for any handset), replaced with the lowly 500mb $130 plan. Obviously there are now four plans, as opposed to three (two after a few weeks).
However, the greatest improvement overall is the addition of a $40 plan. However, at that price you'll have to settle for only 20 included minutes, 100 included texts and a super small 250mb data cap. But for someone who isn't likely to be wanting to catch the latest 'will it blend' video on the move, this plan will be a godsend.
Of course, a few additional minutes would've been nice.
Well, at least the $40 plan phone is subsidized a fair bit.
Anyway, enough from me. Here are the plans:
Black + White preparing for beta test and launch
A new mobile provider is getting ready to launch in the New Zealand market. Black + White is an independent New Zealand business that will be be operating as a MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) on Vodafone’s network, accessed via the wholesale agreement signed by M2.
From Tony's blog we learn that Black + White and M2 will both use the mobile number prefix 02885 (+64 28 85).
I am told Black + White will provide an e-mail service powered by Microsoft Hosted Exchange 2007 matched with a range of Windows Mobile devices.
They are looking for participants in a beta programme which can be registered for at their website at www.bw.co.nz. The beta programme objective is to solicit feedback on all facets of the offering prior to launch. Nothing will be set in stone until the beta programme is completed.
11 Security Bulletins From Microsoft
For the month of August, Microsoft unleashed 11 new Security Bulletins- 6 of them rated as Critical and 5 Important. There are vulnerabilities affecting a wide range of Microsoft technologies...
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