Month: July 2008

Streetcars in DC coming soon, again, maybe, we hope…

The on again off again love affair with streetcars in DC is back on again, I think.

The Washington Post is reporting that streetcars should be rolling along a stretch of unused railroad track in Anacostia shortly, serving about 1,400 people a day at a cost of $45 million, which is about $32,000 per passenger. The cars have already been built (well, a few at least) but are stuck in the Czech Republic as the tracks are just not ready yet.

There are plenty of areas that could use streetcars in DC, though Anacostia does not immediately jump to mind as one of them. Making it an option for people to get ‘out of their cars’ should be the goal of most public transit programs, not merely taking people from one form of public transit (buses) and placing them in another (expensive street cars).

But that’s another story.

(and yes, that is a picture of a DC street car in the Czech Republic)

]]>

Yahoo board tells Carl Ichan to get stuffed

The BBC and other sources are reporting on the ‘angry rejection’ of the most recent Microsoft / Carl Ichan takeover bid.

“It is ludicrous to think that our board would accept such a proposal,”

Yahoo said in a statement.

“This odd and opportunistic alliance of Microsoft and Carl Icahn has anything but the interests of Yahoo!’s stockholders in mind,” Roy Bostock, chairman of Yahoo, said.

It has been a long drawn out affair, but the idea that you ‘MUST’ sell your company simply because it’s Microsoft offering the money has never quite resonated with me. I don’t get it.

]]>

Tapie wins a long court battle for Adidas money

The wheels of justice move slowly, but when it involves a major name like Adidas and a French political/sports/business celebrity it moves even slower. Thirteen years to be exact.

Bernard Tapie bought Adidas many years ago with two loans from banks. But he had problems with the payments and the banks supposedly found a buyer for him, but in reality the bank bought back the company and resold for double the price they offered Tapie. He sued for unfair dealings, and the case moved up and down through the French judicial system until it was settled yesterday with a judgement against the banks. A judgement of over 230 million euros.

Unfortunately, after debts and legal fees, he stands to gain only 30 million euros. C’est la vie.

]]>

Are iPhone launches the new Woodstocks, Burning Man?

One of the odder things that’s been occurring with iPhone launches (and to a lesser extent, new versions of OSX) is the almost ’social’ aspects of the event where techies and even some non-techies show up and make a day (and a night) of the wait. If you read stories on blogs and in the newspapers you’ll find dozens of examples of people showing up who don’t even want to buy one, but just want to be part of the experience.

Reminds me of the time I bought the original OSX operating system from the Apple store in Soho, New York. The line stretch around the block in two directions, and for hours we had fashion models and ‘beautiful people’ heading to clubs and parties that would come up to us and ask questions. “What club are you in line for? What restaurant has this wait?” They were quite fearful that they were missing out on the new new thing. Their fears were alleviated when we had to reply ‘we’re waiting in line for new computer software.’ They all sort of smirked and went on their way.

One guy said ‘you should wait in line for Microsoft because I have stock in them.’ At the time, APPL was trading for about $20. Split adjusted it is now well over $400. Guess he should have noticed and listened to the mob.

]]>

French reject Muslim women's citizenship–says 'total submission' to husband incompatible with French values

Expect to hear more about this case.

France has denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wears a burqa on the grounds that her “radical” practice of Islam is incompatible with basic French values such as equality of the sexes. The case yesterday reopened the debate about Islam in France, and how the secular republic reconciles itself with the freedom of religion guaranteed by the French constitution. The woman, known as Faiza M, is 32, married to a French national and lives east of Paris. She has lived in France since 2000, speaks good French and has three children born in France. Social services reports said she lived in “total submission” to her husband. Her application for French nationality was rejected in 2005 on the grounds of “insufficient assimilation” into France. She appealed, invoking the French constitutional right to religious freedom and saying that she had never sought to challenge the fundamental values of France. But last month the Council of State, France’s highest administrative body, upheld the ruling.
]]>

How the iPhone will kill XM and Sirius

It’s over.

I’ve just spent about 30 minutes in my car and the very thought of buying XM or Sirius satellite radio has been purged from my mind forever.

Internet radio on your iPhone will doom XM and Sirius. It will get to the point that the only saving grace they will have is the fact they have long term contracts with Howard Stern and some sports programming, but in a matter of years, when they lose the exclusivity to their audio content and the iPhone will drop even further in price, there will no longer be any reason for either, unless you are a long-haul trucker plying those bits of the Interstate that still do not have cell phone coverage.

I’ve downloaded all of the Internet radio applications from the iPhone application store. I have the version one iPhone which works on Edge, but pretty much any stream under 32k will come in just fine at that speed. Still, even with reduced speeds, the offerings are extensive.

I drove to the store listening to Virgin Radio out of London. I heard ads for ‘insurance cover’ for your auto from AA of England (maybe I should buy as I almost hit someone). I switched over to di.fm, the best Electronica station out of New York to hear the content you won’t hear on American radio stations. I then flipped to AOL’s radio plug-in and heard 1010WINS traffic (sorry for those in the Holland tunnel stuck in traffic right now).

I predicted this long ago (yes, I own the domain name ‘phoneradio.com’). But with iPhone’s ease of use, mass marketing power, and legion of adoring fans, I foresee the demise of the big satellite radio companies in just a few years. Radio is just a ‘free’ ad-on to the other services you get with the iPhone. There are very few business models that can compete with ‘free’, and XM and Sirius’ limited offerings are not one of them. There are a few out there who can’t see the forest for the trees, (’the iPhone is too expensive’, ‘the monthly service plan too costly’), but these same people did not foresee the iPod either.

Satellite radio is not network radio. It requires massive expenditures of cash to basically recreate ‘towers in space’. It’s not about getting your connectivity wherever you can (i.e. edge, 3g, wifi, dsl, cable). It’s a massive infrastructure and canned content deliver via satellite in much the same manner as radio has been done for 100 years. It’s an expensive and fancy recreation of existing broadcasting, not the future of broadcasting.

Sorry about the billions you spent throwing your birds in orbit.

UPDATE: More here on the future of radio with the iPhone, not just from me but also from Doc Searls of Linux Journal

]]>

iTunes error 9838 and the iPhone update

Macintouch reader reports are filled with others getting the same messages. And now with Itunes being overloaded with new subscribers and updates, the process is quite annoying. Some suggestions include removing any applications you downloaded prior and resetting the iPhone to the factory default. Perhaps I can do the manual update that was in the Macrumors.com site yesterday (I have the software somewhere). UPDATE: It’s due to massive overload of the activation servers (thanks ATT for your stupid requirement that phones be activated day one). UPDATE: Here is a thread about it on the Apple site. UPDATE: The Washington Post chimes in. UPDATE: The 9838 error is a problem connecting to the iTunes server. I was able to connect and reactivate and complete the upgrade at 12:53 EDT. Your mileage may vary. I should note that the v.2.0 upgrade which was ‘stalled’ mid-upgrade ‘took’ and when the phone got back online it was running 2.0 (you’ll see an icon for the App Store and a new icon for Contacts). More updates as the day goes on…]]>