Doug's Inner Net NewsCome to think of it ...What's the Value of Music- October 28, 2005 Yahoo has raised the price of its music subscription service. As I read this article, this quote caught my attention: "We definitely believe that subscription is the model that most people will adopt," said Shannon Ferguson, director of Yahoo Music Europe. I don't know what most people will adopt. Some people will definitely sign up for a subscription service. A paid subscription service is not much different from a paid radio service, like XM Radio or Sirius. The difference is that...http://www.dsauder.com/weblog/archives/000302.html Skype Filtering Technology- October 22, 2005 Verso Technologies announced a Skype filter: Verso Introduces Carrier Grade Skype Filtering Technology The announced network "filter" would enable ISPs to control the kind of content that may be conveyed through the networks they own (and "lease" to their customers). Who could possibly feel threatened by Skype Skype is relatively low bandwidth. I don't know for sure, but I would guess that Skype uses less than 64 kbs. Besides, with Skype being free, one would think that ISPs would tout...http://www.dsauder.com/weblog/archives/000301.html German Proficiency Test- October 17, 2005 Transparent Language has a German proficiency test online. I took this test and scored 125 out of a maximum of 150 points (83%). The test results put me in the advanced intermediate category. I still think one of the best ways to learn conversational German, other than spending time in Germany, is to watch videos of TV shows in German. For $40 you can get a DVD drive for your PC, set it to Region 2 encoding, and watch videos in German. (PAL videos play just fine on a PC.) You can order...http://www.dsauder.com/weblog/archives/000300.html Federated Instant Messaging- October 16, 2005 There's no reason why instant messaging should exist as it currently does, with "free" clients that are supported by advertising, and closed networks that don't interoperate. A better model would be one that's patterned after email: your ISP provides you with an IM account and an IM address, and you can choose your favorite client to send and receive instant messages on the global, unified network. Enter the IM Federation, which is pushing just such a model. The federation is based on the...http://www.dsauder.com/weblog/archives/000299.html |