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TVs removed from NYC taxis

We weren’t too disappointed to discover that the New York City Taxi and Limousine is pulling the plug on a pilot program that put LCD touchscreens in the back of 515 cabs. Even though we only occasionally rode in a cab with one of the screens, we found ourselves thoroughly annoyed every time single time, since despite having all sorts of “interactivce content”, all they really do is just blare advertising on a captive audience. [Gizmodo]

While an interesting gimmick, they were actually quite annoying…

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A small break…

Heading off for a vacation… posting may or may not be lighter, probably depending on the weather. This weekend – Rhode Island… Next week – Long Beach Island, NJ.

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A new twist for Portability

In November, cell phone customers will be able to keep their numbers if they change wireless carriers. Now, the Federal Communications Commission is considering allowing customers to keep the same number if they move from a traditional phone service to wireless. [Mercury News
]

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How not to get bit (and killed) by a shark

Having lived in California for so long, I know the drill. The most important rule is don’t swim with the shark food, especially seals, sea lions, and otters. If you see any of these swimming near you, get the fuck away from them. Also, try not to look like them. Choose bright colored wet suits and fins over all black ones. This will help you, assuming there’s enough light for the hungry shark to distinguish you from a seal. [Blogcritics.org]

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Kobe drifting into irrelevance?

The 18-year-old James, whose storied high-school career generated multiple national television appearances and landed him on the cover of Sports Illustrated, signed a six-year endorsement deal with Coca-Cola Co. (KO.N) brands Sprite and Powerade, the company said on Thursday.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. James has not yet played a minute of professional basketball. [NBA’s LeBron James Inks Coke Brands Deal]

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CAPTCHA-ing the Spammer

Chances are, you’ve been CAPTCHAd. Since the Internet spam problem reached epidemic proportions several months back, an increasing number of Web-based e-mail services and antispam applications have started using CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) against the online bots spammers so often use to carry out their dirty deeds. [PC Magazine]

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Key FCC broadband rules expected soon

The Federal Communications Commission is poised to release controversial rules that many believe will shape the future of the broadband and telecommunications business.

After six long months of waiting, the Federal Communications Commission is poised to release controversial rules that many believe will shape the future of the broadband and telecommunications business.

In February, the FCC released a bare outline of its vision for the future of the high-speed Net market, as part of a sweeping review of regulations governing competition across the phone industry. Exposing deep-seated divisions within the agency, commissioners split on a host of issues, leaving many companies unsure exactly what was coming. On Monday, Commission Chairman Michael Powell at last indicated that the details of the decision would likely come this week, possibly Thursday. But even if every company in the business is eagerly awaiting the results, analysts say the market certainty that most crave will likely remain elusive. [BusinessWeek Online]

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Digital-cable devices could hit retail

Last month, a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives that would require the FCC to adopt a proposal for a digital TV standard developed by dozens of cable operators and consumer electronics companies. The proposal pushes for a national “plug-and-play” standard for digital TVs that would not require set-top boxes. Its approval would mean that cable subscribers could directly connect integrated digital TV receivers to their cable systems to receive programming. The proposal would also let consumer electronics makers sell retail products such as digital video recorders that are also digital-cable ready.

“The traditional set-top-box vendors will start to build solutions that are retail consumer-friendly, while the traditional consumer electronics vendors will encroach onto the set-top turf by offering DVD recorders, game consoles and (digital video recorders) that are digital-cable ready,” Vamsi Sistla, a senior analyst with ABI, said in a statement.

If cable companies do not adapt to changing technology and business models, Sistla said, then consumer electronics companies like Sony, Toshiba and Samsung will be in a position to steal their market share. [CNET News.com]

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IAB Finds Ad Revenues up

New figures out from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) show that Internet advertising revenues were up by 7 percent to $1.7 billion in the first three months of 2003, the second straight quarterly increase in two years. [internetnews.com]

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Cable Ops Fast-Forward DVR Roll-Out, Have No Plans For Special Ads

Beyond the commercial-skipping capability that gives advertisers and agencies pause, DVRs offer the possibility of addressable and long-form ads that can be served directly to the user’s hard drives. That possibility is already a reality at TiVo, which has agreements with entertainment companies and automakers for its so-called Showcases. Yet two MSOs speeding deployment of DVRs in their markets are focusing more on it as a way to keep customers from defecting to satellite than pulling more ads from Madison Avenue. Time Warner Cable so far has no plans to serve ads in its DVR system, although the capability exists in the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 DVR it uses. MediaDailyNews

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Roll your own Google feeds

Great stuff….

Today I want to introduce you to three Google query solutions that are accomplishing incredible feats with RSS and Google search technology.

1) Google Alert – Track any search query from your favorite news aggregator. A variety of cool settings are available once you are signed up. My only gripe is that it is primarily focused on email alerts and I had to dig around before I found the RSS settings in the “toolkit”.

2) “It’s Google.rss” – I like this tool for query tracking better than Google Alert because I can get to making my RSS feed right away without the login interface and other annoyances. It is a great example of “no frills” ingenuity at work.

3) Gnews2RSS – The holy grail of RSS news feeds, in my opinion. You can finally get Google news without being bound to using MyRSS.com or any other ad supported RSS generator. The webmaster of Gnews2RSS encourages users to host their own version of this tool with his script. A link back to the script’s author would be appropriate if used for personal use. [Lockergnome]

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Financial Privacy Bill Advances

The California State Assembly overwhelmingly approved a bill Monday that will impose what could be the toughest financial privacy standards in the nation, barring companies from sharing all sorts of personal data from individuals’ phone numbers to their bank balances.

The bill, authored by State Sen. Jackie Speier (D-San Francisco), requires insurance companies, banks and other businesses to get customer permission before sharing or selling personal data such as bank balances or credit card activity. [Wired News]

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As a valued customer…

… You will receive 1.9 issues of Business 2.0 for each remaining issue of your Red Herring subscription. If you are already a subscriber to Business 2.0, your subscription will be extended accordingly.

Nice, right? I did not know it was possible to receive partial issues of a magazine or that you could extend across a partial subscription period. Should be interesting to work this one out as I received 2 copies of the current Business 2.0 today.

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Search Engine Throne Up for Grabs

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The world of search engines is on the crux of some big changes with no clear winners in the next 12 months, according to SearchEngine Watch founder Danny Sullivan.

Whereas major players such as Google, Yahoo! (Quote, Company Info), and Microsoft (Quote, Company Info) currently dominate the landscape, the remaining batch of survivors also look to play a pivotal role in how much of the pie everyone gets.

“Next year will be a wildcard with all new opportunities,” Sullivan said to a packed house during the Search Engine Strategies 2003 Conference & Expo here. “Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last three months, you know that consolidation and contextual ads are the hot topic with major implications.” [InternetNews.com]

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Net video to become a staple for cable?

Video on demand is a growing business for cable companies, according to a new study that predicts that 15 million cable subscribers worldwide will be paying for the feature by 2007.

Video on demand (VOD) is a service offered by cable companies that lets subscribers order movies any time of day and control the video like a recording. Unlike pay-per-view services, subscribers can pause, rewind or fast-forward scenes from the movies and TV shows they order.

Although VOD is still in its infancy, cable companies could see incremental benefits as they begin to offer these services. Cable companies have been upgrading their systems to digital, which allows them to offer more channels and more features such as VOD. The companies have been pushing their subscribers to upgrade so they can sell new features that can be sold only on a digital network. [News.com]

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ASPEN, Colo.–Antispam proposals in Congress are not strict enough and would do more harm than good, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday.

In a strongly worded criticism of current legislation, Tim Muris characterized the dozen or so bills as well intentioned, but he warned they “will do little to solve the current spam problems” and could be even “less useful” than existing laws the FTC has been using to sue spammers.

“No one should expect any of (the proposals) to make a substantial difference,” Muris said. “In fact, they could even be harmful.” [News.com]

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Full steam ahead for ferry Wi-Fi in Washington state

Long said the ferry system, which serves 15,000 commuters a day in the Puget Sound region, received federal funding for a feasibility study of Wi-Fi service in July and began planning for the service yesterday with its contractor, Mobilisa Inc. in Port Townsend, Wash. The funding of about $1 million means it’s full steam ahead for Wi-Fi service on the ferry boats, a project Long has worked on for more than a year [Computerworld]