only a few more days before the world is introduced to the next president of the united states of america. if it were up to me, i'd appoint the next president today and be over with all the campaigning that falls short on the issues. nobody cares how many houses the candidates have, or whether obama stopped dyeing his hair to appear older. i digress; my appointee would be senator barrack obama simply because as senator john mccain reminds us, obama is a celebrity.
america needs a celebrity to rally the electorate behind issues that have gone horribly wrong during the last eight years. issues include education, health care, financial markets, respect for international law especially sovereign states, etc.
how many spoke up when the bush white house started making nice with a couple of countries in the axis of evil? did anyone raise hell given that congress hasn't really done anything for the past several months? what of the number of laws that the republicans have rewritten to accomodate their neoconservative agenda?
i shake my head in disaapointment as i watch the democratic party muddle their presidential asspirations. i often say they are too democratic for their own good. it doesn't help that the democratic party's presumptive nominee is thumbing his nose at corporate america. big business is a staple in the white house and for this reason, 44 will be none other than john mccain.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
KOSOVO’S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: LESSONS AND QUESTIONS FOR AFRICA
Today, Kosovo declared its independence to much jubilation by the majority ethnic Albanians and to the consternation of the minority Serbians and the Serbian republic. In essence, Kosovo has seceded from Serbia. Since 1990, 33 new countries have been created through secession or merging. Much of these processes were after painful and/or bloody conflicts. Most of these countries were created from the disintegration of the former USSR and Yugoslavia. With exception of Eritrea in Africa, the rest of the countries created through secession and merging in this period have mainly been in Europe with a few cases in Asia. Looking farther back, the history of Europe is replete with secession and irredentism that was accompanied by bloody conflicts. The creation of modern day Italy and Germany in the second half of the 19th century as well as the demise of the Austria-Hungary empire and the Turkish empire at the beginning of the 20th century are but historical examples of these processes.
So, what has been the reason for all this? Ever since the French revolution, humanity has strived to unchain itself from the shackles of domination – class, race, gender, economic, religious……any form of domination. This war has been fought in the political arena, first through the civil route of representational democracy but if this did not work, people resorted to non-violent protest, violent protest and ultimately war to force a civil settlement. Along the way, individual leaders’ aspirations and those of groups that perceive themselves as being dominated have been confused, hijacked, subverted, and thwarted, in some cases extinguished. However, the groups outlived individual leaders and if the issues behind the perceived dominance were not addressed, the conflict would be postponed but not done away with.
Kosovo like Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro before it has unchained itself from Serbian dominance. East Timor in 2002 unchained itself from Indonesia. The former USSR republics broke away from the dominance of Russia and there are still groups within Russia and former USSR states like Georgia that are fighting to break away. We know of other ongoing conflicts – the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and the Basques in Spain amongst others. Other conflicts have been diffused through offering greater autonomy to regions as the United Kingdom did to assuage the feelings of dominance the Irish, Scots and the Welsh had against the English. In fact, in Northern Ireland it turned into a religious conflict between pro-monarchist Protestants and pro-republican Catholics that is still a thorny issue, while the Scots diplomatically push for more and more autonomy to date. (Interestingly, some pundits were quick to point out that Gordon Brown, a Scotsman, would not be easily accepted as prime minister of Britain by the English) Moreover, many powerful modern day countries have come up with systems of governance that make regions not only feel that they have a voice in central government but which have also devolved substantial power to the regions as is the case in USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, Britain to name a few.
This brings me back to my Africa. The continent where we have 54 countries most of which are ethnically diverse nation states put together during the partition of Africa by European states. To serve their brutal exploitation of the colonies, the colonial masters put up highly centralized structures such as the provincial administration system in British colonies and prefectures in Belgian and French colonies which were headed by central government appointees. On departing, the colonial masters ensured that they left their surrogates in power under structures that continued to concentrate power at the centre. Probably this was done in this way to ensure that there were fewer obstacles to the continued plunder of the continent under neo-colonialism. The new African leaders further weakened any form of local representative government. They plundered their nations wealth with the help of their capitalist or socialist patrons while excluding a large portion of their countries from the wealth and decision making processes of their countries.
So here comes my question. Why is it that the democratic western countries have never been supportive of secessionist movements in Africa to create more ethnically/culturally/linguistically homogeneous states as they have done in Europe for centuries? One fallacy that has been used by both the west and African despots is that such countries would not be viable as states. I disagree, and can point to just a few cases that could be viable – Sudan, DRC and Nigeria. The conflicts in these countries over the years could easily have been reduced if they were split and they would still have been viable having huge populations, landmass (Sudan and DRC in particular) and substantial natural resources. Moreover, there are many tiny countries in Europe that do not have natural resources yet are still very progressive in terms of human development.
Barring secession on account of viability of the states, there is the case of devolution of powers and resources to the regions with elected regional governments. Again, few leaders in Africa have seen it fit to have such systems in their countries. Some countries that have had conflict over the sharing of resources and power have however been driven to the realization that this is probably the only way their countries would hold together. So countries like South Africa and Nigeria have strong devolved government. Sudan after years of conflict between the north and the south has one. War in Ivory Coast has pushed them into one as has been the case in the DRC.
My native Kenya, at the moment in the throes of our most serious post independence crisis, still has a highly centralized government. Feelings of ethnic suspicion, exclusion and dominance, be they real or perceived have finally led the peeling of the thin veneer of national unity that has held shakily for almost forty four years. Anti-devolutionist insist that devolution will lead to ethnic strife and the ethnic cleansing of regions. The odd thing is that ethnic strife has been occurring intermittently under the current constitution and large scale ethnic clashes have been witnessed in this period of crisis. I would rather argue that the law enforcement agencies and the justice systems under the centralized governance system are the ones that are failing.
The second argument of the anti-devolutionists in Kenya is that while the rest of the world is moving towards integrating, devolutionists are seeking fragmentation. I see no evidence of political integration in any region in the world that is merging the sovereign identities of countries. If anything as I have outlined earlier, more countries in Europe are fighting for and getting their sovereign identities. There is definitely more economic integration but only where the citizens of sovereign states agree to it. Hence the EU expands as an economic bloc but has made little headway in political integration.
Should Kenya and other African countries explore devolution as a tool to bring stability and cohesion in their unitary states or shall we wait until separatism knocks on our doors?
So, what has been the reason for all this? Ever since the French revolution, humanity has strived to unchain itself from the shackles of domination – class, race, gender, economic, religious……any form of domination. This war has been fought in the political arena, first through the civil route of representational democracy but if this did not work, people resorted to non-violent protest, violent protest and ultimately war to force a civil settlement. Along the way, individual leaders’ aspirations and those of groups that perceive themselves as being dominated have been confused, hijacked, subverted, and thwarted, in some cases extinguished. However, the groups outlived individual leaders and if the issues behind the perceived dominance were not addressed, the conflict would be postponed but not done away with.
Kosovo like Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro before it has unchained itself from Serbian dominance. East Timor in 2002 unchained itself from Indonesia. The former USSR republics broke away from the dominance of Russia and there are still groups within Russia and former USSR states like Georgia that are fighting to break away. We know of other ongoing conflicts – the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and the Basques in Spain amongst others. Other conflicts have been diffused through offering greater autonomy to regions as the United Kingdom did to assuage the feelings of dominance the Irish, Scots and the Welsh had against the English. In fact, in Northern Ireland it turned into a religious conflict between pro-monarchist Protestants and pro-republican Catholics that is still a thorny issue, while the Scots diplomatically push for more and more autonomy to date. (Interestingly, some pundits were quick to point out that Gordon Brown, a Scotsman, would not be easily accepted as prime minister of Britain by the English) Moreover, many powerful modern day countries have come up with systems of governance that make regions not only feel that they have a voice in central government but which have also devolved substantial power to the regions as is the case in USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, Britain to name a few.
This brings me back to my Africa. The continent where we have 54 countries most of which are ethnically diverse nation states put together during the partition of Africa by European states. To serve their brutal exploitation of the colonies, the colonial masters put up highly centralized structures such as the provincial administration system in British colonies and prefectures in Belgian and French colonies which were headed by central government appointees. On departing, the colonial masters ensured that they left their surrogates in power under structures that continued to concentrate power at the centre. Probably this was done in this way to ensure that there were fewer obstacles to the continued plunder of the continent under neo-colonialism. The new African leaders further weakened any form of local representative government. They plundered their nations wealth with the help of their capitalist or socialist patrons while excluding a large portion of their countries from the wealth and decision making processes of their countries.
So here comes my question. Why is it that the democratic western countries have never been supportive of secessionist movements in Africa to create more ethnically/culturally/linguistically homogeneous states as they have done in Europe for centuries? One fallacy that has been used by both the west and African despots is that such countries would not be viable as states. I disagree, and can point to just a few cases that could be viable – Sudan, DRC and Nigeria. The conflicts in these countries over the years could easily have been reduced if they were split and they would still have been viable having huge populations, landmass (Sudan and DRC in particular) and substantial natural resources. Moreover, there are many tiny countries in Europe that do not have natural resources yet are still very progressive in terms of human development.
Barring secession on account of viability of the states, there is the case of devolution of powers and resources to the regions with elected regional governments. Again, few leaders in Africa have seen it fit to have such systems in their countries. Some countries that have had conflict over the sharing of resources and power have however been driven to the realization that this is probably the only way their countries would hold together. So countries like South Africa and Nigeria have strong devolved government. Sudan after years of conflict between the north and the south has one. War in Ivory Coast has pushed them into one as has been the case in the DRC.
My native Kenya, at the moment in the throes of our most serious post independence crisis, still has a highly centralized government. Feelings of ethnic suspicion, exclusion and dominance, be they real or perceived have finally led the peeling of the thin veneer of national unity that has held shakily for almost forty four years. Anti-devolutionist insist that devolution will lead to ethnic strife and the ethnic cleansing of regions. The odd thing is that ethnic strife has been occurring intermittently under the current constitution and large scale ethnic clashes have been witnessed in this period of crisis. I would rather argue that the law enforcement agencies and the justice systems under the centralized governance system are the ones that are failing.
The second argument of the anti-devolutionists in Kenya is that while the rest of the world is moving towards integrating, devolutionists are seeking fragmentation. I see no evidence of political integration in any region in the world that is merging the sovereign identities of countries. If anything as I have outlined earlier, more countries in Europe are fighting for and getting their sovereign identities. There is definitely more economic integration but only where the citizens of sovereign states agree to it. Hence the EU expands as an economic bloc but has made little headway in political integration.
Should Kenya and other African countries explore devolution as a tool to bring stability and cohesion in their unitary states or shall we wait until separatism knocks on our doors?
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
microsoft vs google...
...more like ballmer vs schmidt!
google doesn't think microsoft should acquire yahoo!. google's primary objection to microsoft's 31.7 billion euros (44.6 billion us dollars) yahoo! bid is based on antitrust regulations. google should tread carefully since it too can be accused of engaging in antitrust behavior by blocking microsoft's bid.
google will have a hard time fighting off microsoft over the yahoo! bid. i base this claim on the fact that microosft has cash. with cash, they can retain the services of their very powerful legal team. the fact that they haven't made a hostile bid in the past suggests that they are ready to duke this out including through a proxy fight with yahoo!'s board. with cash, microsoft has the option to engage in a tender offer which will allow them to negotiate with yahoo!'s shareholders directly, bypassing the board. simply put, microsoft is wealthy and can afford to pay a high premium for yahoo!'s shares.
although google rarely acknowledges that it is the dominant player in internet search and advertising, it is. microsoft and yahoo!, separately or as one company, have nothing on google. however, microsoft has a lot going for it; it is larger by market capitalization, roughly 55 billion euros (80 billion us dollars) more than google. microsoft also owns ninety percent of the desktop operating system market, an assets that makes it easy to force windows users into using microsoft products and services.
in as much as microsoft need's to diversify its portfolio from the desktop to the internet, market watchers should be sensitive to the rivalry between microsoft's ceo, steve ballmer and google's ceo eric schmidt. this business rivalry will play a factor in the yahoo! bid. schmidt's professional career includes stints at companies that directly compete with microsoft. with bill gates leaving microsoft later this year, ballmer will have more say over microsoft's technical vision (this was bill g's job). ballmer's aggressive leadership style and his propensity to publicly criticize microsoft's competition will make for an interesting fight with google over the yahoo! bid.
below are a few companies, products and services that schmidt, either directly or by association, has been a part of. it should help illustrate why ballmer is in this to win, and win he will. however, microsoft should learn that it can't be all things to all people. this is why google and apple are so successful thus far, they specialize.
note: schmidt has worked at sun, novell and is on apple's board of directors.
google doesn't think microsoft should acquire yahoo!. google's primary objection to microsoft's 31.7 billion euros (44.6 billion us dollars) yahoo! bid is based on antitrust regulations. google should tread carefully since it too can be accused of engaging in antitrust behavior by blocking microsoft's bid.
google will have a hard time fighting off microsoft over the yahoo! bid. i base this claim on the fact that microosft has cash. with cash, they can retain the services of their very powerful legal team. the fact that they haven't made a hostile bid in the past suggests that they are ready to duke this out including through a proxy fight with yahoo!'s board. with cash, microsoft has the option to engage in a tender offer which will allow them to negotiate with yahoo!'s shareholders directly, bypassing the board. simply put, microsoft is wealthy and can afford to pay a high premium for yahoo!'s shares.
although google rarely acknowledges that it is the dominant player in internet search and advertising, it is. microsoft and yahoo!, separately or as one company, have nothing on google. however, microsoft has a lot going for it; it is larger by market capitalization, roughly 55 billion euros (80 billion us dollars) more than google. microsoft also owns ninety percent of the desktop operating system market, an assets that makes it easy to force windows users into using microsoft products and services.
in as much as microsoft need's to diversify its portfolio from the desktop to the internet, market watchers should be sensitive to the rivalry between microsoft's ceo, steve ballmer and google's ceo eric schmidt. this business rivalry will play a factor in the yahoo! bid. schmidt's professional career includes stints at companies that directly compete with microsoft. with bill gates leaving microsoft later this year, ballmer will have more say over microsoft's technical vision (this was bill g's job). ballmer's aggressive leadership style and his propensity to publicly criticize microsoft's competition will make for an interesting fight with google over the yahoo! bid.
below are a few companies, products and services that schmidt, either directly or by association, has been a part of. it should help illustrate why ballmer is in this to win, and win he will. however, microsoft should learn that it can't be all things to all people. this is why google and apple are so successful thus far, they specialize.
note: schmidt has worked at sun, novell and is on apple's board of directors.
- mark lucovsky (google) - poached by google. lucovskly was a key player in the development of microsoft's flagship network operating system, windows nt. windows 2000, xp, server 2003, vista, home server, server 2008 are all based upon the windows nt system. he also did some work on windows live id, formerly known as .net passport; briefly known as microsoft passport network.
- java platform (sun) - operating system independent, mainly used for server programming in the java programming language. it is a competitor to microsoft's .net framework, a large library of pre-packaged solutions to common program requirements written specifically for the framework. the .net framework, unlike sun's java platform, is intended to be used on the windows platform.
- mono (novell) - a project led by novell to create a .net framework compatible set of tools. mono is operating system independent.
- novell netware and suse linux (novell) - network operating systems geared toward business customers. direct competitor to microsoft's windows server product.
- mac os (apple) - apple's primary operating system since 1984. competes with windows operating system. watch mac vs windows ads.
- ipod + itunes and itunes store (apple) - a popular portable media player managed by itunes software. itunes store sells media files at very competitive prices. together, these products give apple an edge over microsoft's zune media player and zune market place.
- iphone (apple) - an internet-enabled multimedia mobile phone designed with a touch screen with virtual keyboard and buttons. the iphone, like the ipod, competes with the zune media player and possible microsoft's windows mobile smart phones.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Has Kofi Annan been handed the poisoned chalice?
Slightly more than a decade after Kofi Annan was accused of doing too little to nip in the bud the genocide in Rwanda, he has gotten a chance to use his diplomatic skills to save my country Kenya from spiraling into the abyss of all out ethnic war. Following disputed election results in which the Electoral Commission of Kenya declared Mwai Kibaki as president and the main opposition party immediately rejected as the result of a rigged process, widespread violence broke out in the country. Initially seen as opposition supporters protesting the results of a flawed process, the violence has since morphed into an inter-ethnic war pitting ethnic groups that largely supported the Kibaki versus those that largely supported Raila Odinga, the main opposition candidate.
In the few days that he has been in the country trying to mediate between Kibaki and Raila, Annan has quickly come to realize that the election results were but the spark that lit the fire but not the fuel. A mix of historical ethnic prejudice and suspicions, real and perceived economic and political marginalization of certain groups, power at all costs politicians and politics based on personalities rather than ideology have finally brought Kenya to the brink of disaster.
With the hardened positions taken by Kibaki and Raila and the deterioration of the violence in the last couple of days, it seems that Kofi Annan has been handed the proverbial poisoned chalice in being entrusted as the chief mediator who can convince the protagonists to bring an end to the hostilities and achieve a negotiated settlement that will lead Kenya back to the path of sanity. Will he rise to the occasion and in small measure get atonement for his failure in Rwanda?
In the few days that he has been in the country trying to mediate between Kibaki and Raila, Annan has quickly come to realize that the election results were but the spark that lit the fire but not the fuel. A mix of historical ethnic prejudice and suspicions, real and perceived economic and political marginalization of certain groups, power at all costs politicians and politics based on personalities rather than ideology have finally brought Kenya to the brink of disaster.
With the hardened positions taken by Kibaki and Raila and the deterioration of the violence in the last couple of days, it seems that Kofi Annan has been handed the proverbial poisoned chalice in being entrusted as the chief mediator who can convince the protagonists to bring an end to the hostilities and achieve a negotiated settlement that will lead Kenya back to the path of sanity. Will he rise to the occasion and in small measure get atonement for his failure in Rwanda?
Friday, January 18, 2008
china cautious over citigroup "investment"
106 years ago, citigroup was the first american bank to establish operations in china. today, citigroup continues to do business under various names including citifinancial and citibank, and has generally enjoyed a profitable existence in china.
fast forward a few years, citigroup's holdings in the united states (us), and by extension china, is experiencing financial turbulence. the crisis began after mortgage loans made to high risk borrowers with lower income, and/or lesser credit rankings, began to default on their mortgage loans. the high default rates were quite severe, rising 11% in ten years to 20% by 2006. this resulted in the bursting of the housing bubble in the united states. the situation is so dire that yesterday, the american federal reserve chairman ben bernanke threw his weight behind proposals for short term actions to stimulate economic growth to ward off an american election year recession.
due to the crisis, citigroup and other cash strapped american financial institutions have incurred major losses and have been wooing foreign investors to help them fill up their fund gaps and to expand business. citigroup in particular, has already secured 5 billon euros (7.5 us dollars) from the abu dhabi investment authority (adia). this cash infusion guaranteed adia a 4.9% stake in citigroup as of november 26, 2007. citigroup also planned to raise roughly 1.3 billion euros (2 billion american dollars) by selling a stake to china development bank (cdb). however, according to the wall street journal's web site, the chinese government is not too eager to see this deal through and the government has deemed the speculation on citigroup's part as 'a conjecture'.
cdb received a 13.6 billion euros (20 billion us dollar) cash infusion from china investment corp (cic) and is financially capable of paying the 1.3 billion euros for a stake in citigroup. moreover, china has been on a global acquisition frenzy lately, including a 3.4 billion euro (5 billion us dollars) investment in morgan stanley's equity units which are convertible into common shares. cic planned to invest 47.6 billion euros (70 billion us dollars) in overseas markets and still has a balance of about 40.8 billion euros (60 billion us dollars).
china must have a secret plan up her sleeve as she would rather forego an opportunity to own part of citigroup given the reasonable prices and the opportunity to purchase additional bargaining power when dealing with america on economic matters.
fast forward a few years, citigroup's holdings in the united states (us), and by extension china, is experiencing financial turbulence. the crisis began after mortgage loans made to high risk borrowers with lower income, and/or lesser credit rankings, began to default on their mortgage loans. the high default rates were quite severe, rising 11% in ten years to 20% by 2006. this resulted in the bursting of the housing bubble in the united states. the situation is so dire that yesterday, the american federal reserve chairman ben bernanke threw his weight behind proposals for short term actions to stimulate economic growth to ward off an american election year recession.
due to the crisis, citigroup and other cash strapped american financial institutions have incurred major losses and have been wooing foreign investors to help them fill up their fund gaps and to expand business. citigroup in particular, has already secured 5 billon euros (7.5 us dollars) from the abu dhabi investment authority (adia). this cash infusion guaranteed adia a 4.9% stake in citigroup as of november 26, 2007. citigroup also planned to raise roughly 1.3 billion euros (2 billion american dollars) by selling a stake to china development bank (cdb). however, according to the wall street journal's web site, the chinese government is not too eager to see this deal through and the government has deemed the speculation on citigroup's part as 'a conjecture'.
cdb received a 13.6 billion euros (20 billion us dollar) cash infusion from china investment corp (cic) and is financially capable of paying the 1.3 billion euros for a stake in citigroup. moreover, china has been on a global acquisition frenzy lately, including a 3.4 billion euro (5 billion us dollars) investment in morgan stanley's equity units which are convertible into common shares. cic planned to invest 47.6 billion euros (70 billion us dollars) in overseas markets and still has a balance of about 40.8 billion euros (60 billion us dollars).
china must have a secret plan up her sleeve as she would rather forego an opportunity to own part of citigroup given the reasonable prices and the opportunity to purchase additional bargaining power when dealing with america on economic matters.
Monday, January 14, 2008
usb 3.0, digital rights management and you
universal serial bus (usb) 3.0 connectors were recently displayed at the just concluded 2008 international consumer electronics show (ces) in las vegas nevada. usb 3.0 theoretically supports 600 megabytes per second, that is, ten times the current usb 2.0 standard. this is a huge jump from usb 1.1's 187 kilobytes per second.
the usb implementers forum (usb-if) displayed the standard's connectors but not any functional devices. usb 3.0 connectors are deeper than their predecessors and retain usb 1.1 and 2.0 compatibility. they are deeper because usb 3.0 pins are actually behind the pins that support usb 1.1 and 2.0 specifications. don't go rushing to your nearest electronics store just yet, devices supporting the new specification won't be generally available until 2010.
i find usb 3.0's upcoming release rather interesting because in december 2007, the usb-if announced they are developing a usb cable that supports digital rights management (drm). this should come as no surprise as agere systems, apple computer, hewlett-packard, intel, nec and microsoft are a few of the forum's notable members. these members also have another thing in common; they have a stake in the successful, albeit legal delivery of high definition (hd) video content.
digital video content providers, primarily hollywood, hope to protect their valuable works as more consumers embrace hd video content on their portable devices. devices such as apple's ipod and microsoft's zune will most likely be connected to compliant computers, televisions, cable boxes and satellite receivers via a usb 3.0 cable. the usb-if hopes that the cable will limit rampant piracy that continues to plague the music industry.
the new cable will include support for intel's proprietary high-bandwidth digital content protection (hdcp). current plans are to compress video as it is transmitted though hdcp also supports encryption. the twist, the cable will not transmit drm enabled hd video data unless it receives an ok from a drm application. so anyone trying to circumvent drm needs to come up with a way of spoofing the encryption or tricking drm applications on both devices into think they are connected to legitimate cables.
my two cents if the entertainment industry cares to listen:
consumers don't want drm. drm in any form will hurt the sale of digital content. it has been proven time and time again that whenever drm enabled devices or content is introduced to the consumer, it takes some hacking group a month or less to defeat all the great copy protection features.
major music labels are finally providing drm free audio content. the new york times reports that sony bmg just announced that they will avail their entire music catalog in mp3 format on amazon.com by the end of this month. this follows emi's decision to avail its catalog in mp3 format on itunes.
prediction: drm will lose to the consumer. don't think so...
IN 2006 EMI, the world's fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. "That was the moment we realised the game was completely up," says a person who was there. posted by glenn reynolds.
the usb implementers forum (usb-if) displayed the standard's connectors but not any functional devices. usb 3.0 connectors are deeper than their predecessors and retain usb 1.1 and 2.0 compatibility. they are deeper because usb 3.0 pins are actually behind the pins that support usb 1.1 and 2.0 specifications. don't go rushing to your nearest electronics store just yet, devices supporting the new specification won't be generally available until 2010.
i find usb 3.0's upcoming release rather interesting because in december 2007, the usb-if announced they are developing a usb cable that supports digital rights management (drm). this should come as no surprise as agere systems, apple computer, hewlett-packard, intel, nec and microsoft are a few of the forum's notable members. these members also have another thing in common; they have a stake in the successful, albeit legal delivery of high definition (hd) video content.
digital video content providers, primarily hollywood, hope to protect their valuable works as more consumers embrace hd video content on their portable devices. devices such as apple's ipod and microsoft's zune will most likely be connected to compliant computers, televisions, cable boxes and satellite receivers via a usb 3.0 cable. the usb-if hopes that the cable will limit rampant piracy that continues to plague the music industry.
the new cable will include support for intel's proprietary high-bandwidth digital content protection (hdcp). current plans are to compress video as it is transmitted though hdcp also supports encryption. the twist, the cable will not transmit drm enabled hd video data unless it receives an ok from a drm application. so anyone trying to circumvent drm needs to come up with a way of spoofing the encryption or tricking drm applications on both devices into think they are connected to legitimate cables.
my two cents if the entertainment industry cares to listen:
consumers don't want drm. drm in any form will hurt the sale of digital content. it has been proven time and time again that whenever drm enabled devices or content is introduced to the consumer, it takes some hacking group a month or less to defeat all the great copy protection features.
major music labels are finally providing drm free audio content. the new york times reports that sony bmg just announced that they will avail their entire music catalog in mp3 format on amazon.com by the end of this month. this follows emi's decision to avail its catalog in mp3 format on itunes.
prediction: drm will lose to the consumer. don't think so...
IN 2006 EMI, the world's fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. "That was the moment we realised the game was completely up," says a person who was there. posted by glenn reynolds.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
pre-election kisumu: part one of four
i was going through joseph karoki's picture blog today and couldn't help notice the pain, suffering and despair documented in most of the pictures. i decided to go through pictures i have taken in the recent past to see if i could find anything that captured life for the common mwananchi (citizen) before the 2007 elections.
this is the first of a four part series that chronicles life in kisumu before the 2007 elections. pictures were taken at random and are presented in no particular order. if you have pictures you'd like to share, contact me at: the dot wocha at gmail dot com. please include a caption with each image. you can also post a link to pictures in the comment section.
help is urgently needed. to help with the current devastation in kenya, please donate to sukuma kenya, mama mikes or the kenyan red cross. if you are in kenya, volunteer within your community and help the less fortunate. for a list of kenyan bloggers covering kenya's 2007 elections and its aftermath, check white african.
caption: vegetable vendors at jubilee market popularly known as chiro mbero
caption: buying onions from my auntie. my family has been her customer for over 20 years
caption: street kids going through trash looking for recyclable plastic bottles at the municipal fish market
caption: street kids playing poker at a stall behind the municipal fish market
caption: boda boda owners waiting for clients at the municipal fish market
caption: billboard at the entrance of the jomo kenyatta grounds which has been reinovated considerably
caption: fruit vendor at oile market. oile market is an open air market in front of jubilee market
caption: fruit vendor at oile market
caption: kisumu municipal market's main entrance
caption: pottery vendor's stall in front for jubilee market
caption: central bank of kenya
caption: western union billboard
caption: midday traffic with imperial hotel in the background
caption: mobile phone vendor, literally. driving around in a van means increased customers and lower permit fees.
caption: "vote for your orange. we all refute the draft". message reminding kisumu residents to vote against the draft constitution in december 2005. orange refers to raila's orange democratic movement (odm)
caption: taxi and boda bodas waiting for clients at alpha house
caption: format supermarket
caption: midday traffic with kenya commercial bank (kcb) in the background
caption: kenya national assurance house before it was bought by maseno university
caption: private residence in milimani, close to state house kisumu
caption: kisumu molasses plant in operation under spectre international ltd, a [raila] odinga family business
caption: kisumu molasses plant
caption: view from otonglo on kisumu busia road. grain silos and government's incomplete provincial building in background
caption: view from otonglo
caption: otonglo kiosk owner heading home after buying supplies in town
caption: tuk tuk driver adding fuel at a petrol station in jua kali [industrial area].
caption: vendor selling refreshments and snacks at the kisumu bus park
caption: cyclist and pedestrian in front of uchumi hyper
caption: stalled ugandan oil tanker unable to make it up a steep hill on the kisumu busia road
caption: kisumu molasses plant
caption: mobile phone vendor attending to clients at the bank square
caption: crown paints' direction and distance pole at the bank square - between barclays bank and bank of baroda
caption: east african building society (eabs) building
caption: shoe vendor along kisumu kakamega road
caption: boda boda owner negotiating fare
this is the first of a four part series that chronicles life in kisumu before the 2007 elections. pictures were taken at random and are presented in no particular order. if you have pictures you'd like to share, contact me at: the dot wocha at gmail dot com. please include a caption with each image. you can also post a link to pictures in the comment section.
help is urgently needed. to help with the current devastation in kenya, please donate to sukuma kenya, mama mikes or the kenyan red cross. if you are in kenya, volunteer within your community and help the less fortunate. for a list of kenyan bloggers covering kenya's 2007 elections and its aftermath, check white african.
caption: vegetable vendors at jubilee market popularly known as chiro mbero
caption: buying onions from my auntie. my family has been her customer for over 20 years
caption: street kids going through trash looking for recyclable plastic bottles at the municipal fish market
caption: street kids playing poker at a stall behind the municipal fish market
caption: boda boda owners waiting for clients at the municipal fish market
caption: billboard at the entrance of the jomo kenyatta grounds which has been reinovated considerably
caption: fruit vendor at oile market. oile market is an open air market in front of jubilee market
caption: fruit vendor at oile market
caption: kisumu municipal market's main entrance
caption: pottery vendor's stall in front for jubilee market
caption: central bank of kenya
caption: western union billboard
caption: midday traffic with imperial hotel in the background
caption: mobile phone vendor, literally. driving around in a van means increased customers and lower permit fees.
caption: "vote for your orange. we all refute the draft". message reminding kisumu residents to vote against the draft constitution in december 2005. orange refers to raila's orange democratic movement (odm)
caption: taxi and boda bodas waiting for clients at alpha house
caption: format supermarket
caption: midday traffic with kenya commercial bank (kcb) in the background
caption: kenya national assurance house before it was bought by maseno university
caption: private residence in milimani, close to state house kisumu
caption: kisumu molasses plant in operation under spectre international ltd, a [raila] odinga family business
caption: kisumu molasses plant
caption: view from otonglo on kisumu busia road. grain silos and government's incomplete provincial building in background
caption: view from otonglo
caption: otonglo kiosk owner heading home after buying supplies in town
caption: tuk tuk driver adding fuel at a petrol station in jua kali [industrial area].
caption: vendor selling refreshments and snacks at the kisumu bus park
caption: cyclist and pedestrian in front of uchumi hyper
caption: stalled ugandan oil tanker unable to make it up a steep hill on the kisumu busia road
caption: kisumu molasses plant
caption: mobile phone vendor attending to clients at the bank square
caption: crown paints' direction and distance pole at the bank square - between barclays bank and bank of baroda
caption: east african building society (eabs) building
caption: shoe vendor along kisumu kakamega road
caption: boda boda owner negotiating fare
Friday, January 11, 2008
fbi ignores surveillance phone bills
apparently the fbi is too busy chasing down terrorists and other persons of interest to pay attention to its phone bills. a couple of telecommunications carriers (telcos) have disconnected covert surveillance lines used by the fbi's field offices due to late or non payment. the united states justice department released a super edited version of the audit report that concludes:
FBI's FMS lacks the controls necessary to prevent theft and, as such, is not an effective financial system for FBI employees to use to account for and approve confidential case funds. In addition, the audit found that the FBI has not established sufficient guidance and consistent procedures necessary to track and pay telecommunication surveillance bills accurately and timely. The audit also identified areas where field division oversight should be improved to further mitigate the risk of improper use of confidential case funds.
if the fbi is so inefficient at managing its internal [financial] affairs, how effective are they at other more important operations like say... the much touted war on terror? their bookkeeping is so bad that in june 2006, one of their employees pleaded guilty to stealing $25,000. sigh.
i'm curious as to why the telcos disconnected the lines. was it a public relations stunt or are relationships souring? was it a pr move to counter the public outcry over the telco's participation in the united states national security agency's (nsa) warrantless electronic surveillance program?
since 2006, some of these telcos have enjoyed lucrative deals brokered by neocons in the current bush administration. what's a few thousand dollars in unpaid fbi bills yet the same intelligence community (doing business as the nsa) is paying an undisclosed amount of tax payer money for a peak at at&t's backbone data? are relationships between telcos and the united states intelligence community souring or are telcos preparing for a possible democratic white house come 2009?
maybe there is nothing to it, the telco billing systems just worked as they should: no payment, no service, no exceptions.
FBI's FMS lacks the controls necessary to prevent theft and, as such, is not an effective financial system for FBI employees to use to account for and approve confidential case funds. In addition, the audit found that the FBI has not established sufficient guidance and consistent procedures necessary to track and pay telecommunication surveillance bills accurately and timely. The audit also identified areas where field division oversight should be improved to further mitigate the risk of improper use of confidential case funds.
if the fbi is so inefficient at managing its internal [financial] affairs, how effective are they at other more important operations like say... the much touted war on terror? their bookkeeping is so bad that in june 2006, one of their employees pleaded guilty to stealing $25,000. sigh.
i'm curious as to why the telcos disconnected the lines. was it a public relations stunt or are relationships souring? was it a pr move to counter the public outcry over the telco's participation in the united states national security agency's (nsa) warrantless electronic surveillance program?
since 2006, some of these telcos have enjoyed lucrative deals brokered by neocons in the current bush administration. what's a few thousand dollars in unpaid fbi bills yet the same intelligence community (doing business as the nsa) is paying an undisclosed amount of tax payer money for a peak at at&t's backbone data? are relationships between telcos and the united states intelligence community souring or are telcos preparing for a possible democratic white house come 2009?
maybe there is nothing to it, the telco billing systems just worked as they should: no payment, no service, no exceptions.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
introducing the wocha
who is the wocha? well, i hail from kisumu, a town in kenya's nyanza province.
i'm not really sure how i convinced myself into starting a blog. even though my good friend e believes i'll be good at it, there is a big difference between oral (which i prefer) and written expression. there are many reasons why i should not be writing anything for the public to read. i hate proof reading. thanks to instant and text messaging, i have thrown out everything i learnt in primary school relating to spelling and grammar. i prefer to write in lower case. punctuation? errrr, what's that? need i continue?
i digress.
i've worked in the information technology sector for a few years now. back in the day, if you had an email mailbox, you were somebody to reckon with. the challenge then was finding a computer in kisumu with an internet connection. i think there were less than twenty people with a web enabled computer. sad part is that they didn't even use them, it was more of a status symbol. in july 1996, sabeer bhatia and jack smith gave hotmail to the world. six or so months later, i had my very own hotmail mailbox created using a netscape navigator browser. the account creation process was so simple, it took less than a minute to complete the registration form but maybe five or more minutes to submit it cause the internet connection was sooooooooooooo slow!
... 100 or so internet years go by ...
today, the digerati proclaim that if one does not have an email mailbox then there is something very wrong with them. one is required to have an account with at least three social networking sites such as facebook, myspace, friendster, etc. additionally, one must have a cell phone that lets them continuously connect to these social networking sites in addition to taking digital pictures, sending text messages, listening to fm radio stations, checking web mail, anything but calling and talking to someone.
since i'm too lazy to maintain a social networking account, i'll try my hand at blogging and see where it goes. i have mixed feelings about it cause i don't even know what i'll be blogging about! i guess i could start by posting at least one article a week. my interests include global economy, global politics and information technology. i also recruited my childhood friend to contribute some articles, he's a much better writer.
please send article ideas to: the dot wocha at gmail dot com. if you have a thought regarding any of the future articles on this blog, make yourself heard by posting a comment.
wow, my first article is done! time to publish...
i'm not really sure how i convinced myself into starting a blog. even though my good friend e believes i'll be good at it, there is a big difference between oral (which i prefer) and written expression. there are many reasons why i should not be writing anything for the public to read. i hate proof reading. thanks to instant and text messaging, i have thrown out everything i learnt in primary school relating to spelling and grammar. i prefer to write in lower case. punctuation? errrr, what's that? need i continue?
i digress.
i've worked in the information technology sector for a few years now. back in the day, if you had an email mailbox, you were somebody to reckon with. the challenge then was finding a computer in kisumu with an internet connection. i think there were less than twenty people with a web enabled computer. sad part is that they didn't even use them, it was more of a status symbol. in july 1996, sabeer bhatia and jack smith gave hotmail to the world. six or so months later, i had my very own hotmail mailbox created using a netscape navigator browser. the account creation process was so simple, it took less than a minute to complete the registration form but maybe five or more minutes to submit it cause the internet connection was sooooooooooooo slow!
... 100 or so internet years go by ...
today, the digerati proclaim that if one does not have an email mailbox then there is something very wrong with them. one is required to have an account with at least three social networking sites such as facebook, myspace, friendster, etc. additionally, one must have a cell phone that lets them continuously connect to these social networking sites in addition to taking digital pictures, sending text messages, listening to fm radio stations, checking web mail, anything but calling and talking to someone.
since i'm too lazy to maintain a social networking account, i'll try my hand at blogging and see where it goes. i have mixed feelings about it cause i don't even know what i'll be blogging about! i guess i could start by posting at least one article a week. my interests include global economy, global politics and information technology. i also recruited my childhood friend to contribute some articles, he's a much better writer.
please send article ideas to: the dot wocha at gmail dot com. if you have a thought regarding any of the future articles on this blog, make yourself heard by posting a comment.
wow, my first article is done! time to publish...
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