George Ou
Latest from George Ou
Why Viacom and others are justified in blocking Google TV
Many in the blogosphere and advocacy groups are up in arms about Viacom and other television networks blocking Google from accessing their content on Google TV. But there are many good justifications for this because content needs to be supported by commercial entities and because Google is getting a taste of its own medicine. Many ...
Verizon brings out 150 Mbps FiOS
Stacey Higginbotham of Gigaom reports that Verizon is launching a 150 Mbps downstream and 35 Mbps upstream FiOS broadband tier. Not only does this give Verizon the “bragging rights”, but they can actually back it up with an all fiber network that has a lot more headroom to grow. That might be an understatement since ...
Genachowski Pushing Ahead with Net Neutrality During Lame Duck
Kim Hart of Politico reports that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is pushing ahead with his Net Neutrality plans next month during the congressional lame duck session. This is despite the objections of 282 lawmakers comprised of Democrats and Republicans before the 2010 midterm elections and that number will likely go up when Republicans take control ...
Kinect modified to capture true 3D video
University of California Davis researcher Oliver Kreylos has produced one of the most amazing demonstrations of true 3D video I’ve ever seen using an off-the-shelf Microsoft Kinect (a Microsoft Xbox360 accessory). This is not the cheesy stereoscopic tacky “3D” moniker being affixed to recent movie titles but actual video footage that you can rotate in ...
Netflix switching from Akamai to Level 3 CDN services
After three years with Akamai Content Deliver Network (CDN) service, Netflix will switch to Level 3 Communications for its CDN service. Why would Netflix do this? Presumably because Level 3 is offering a more attractive deal to Netflix for outsourced server, storage, and Internet services. Level 3 will have to double its storage capacity and ...
Microsoft ‘fixes’ Hotmail with an unusable fix
In what appears to be a response to the increased awareness from FireSheep, Microsoft has added a full SSL option for Microsoft Hotmail. Unfortunate, it is not a default action so the vast majority of Hotmail won’t benefit from this enhancement in security. The few Hotmail users who keep up with security news and go ...
Chevy Volt to be more expensive in electric mode than gas
Edmond’s report that the Chevy Volt could cost more to drive using electricity than gasoline depending on the electric rate. Edmonds paid an average of $0.31 per Kilowatt*Hour (KWH) of electricity and $3.31 for 91 octane gasoline (though nearly all modern consumer cars run well on cheaper 87 octane). Edmonds computed that $0.24 per KWH ...
BlackSheep detects IP address of amateur sidejackers
Updated 11/9/2010 – The researchers at Zscaler have come up with a clever tool for detecting usage of FireSheep. More precisely, they’ve come up with a honey pot for baiting and then collecting the temporary IP addresses of FireSheep users who are most likely amateur hackers trying to sidejack (see definitions of sidejacking here) their ...
Tech racism jokes are getting old
Last year when a store employee with tongue planted firmly in cheek made a humorous YouTube video about HP Webcams being “racist”, HP the company had no choice but to respond in a serious tone and many tech publications did the same. The problem is that the intent of the original video wasn’t clear and ...
Microsoft promises fix to Hotmail security this month
I asked Microsoft for a response to their failing score on my “Online services security report card” for their Hotmail service and got the response that Hotmail customers were hoping to hear. Microsoft will fix the problem and enable full-time SSL browsing for Hotmail this month. Here’s the official response I got from Microsoft. “Whenever ...