Technology

I'll give you an easy out: you can write off this rant as a case of iPhone envy. You can do that, but you'll be wrong.

Phone apps are, for the most part, a bad idea. Once upon a time, a long time ago, online services lived in little walled gardens, with names such as Compuserve and AOL. Then it was discovered that open, common standards, namely the Internet and the Web, were far superior. The walls crumbled and openness prevailed.

Phone apps are an attempt to recreate the walled garden. That's bad and wrong. When developing for a phone, a platform specific app should be the last choice. The first choice should be a standard web application, optimized for mobile use (which means smaller screen and limited input capability).

There are four reasons to develop a phone app instead of a mobile web app. Two of them are good. Two of them are bad -- but are the predominant reason why phone apps proliferate.

In October, the Austin City Council considered a new ordinance to ban texting while driving. Numerous concerns were raised. The ordinance passed, but enactment was delayed until January 1, 2010. That was to allow for public education, and to review the concerns raised.

Discussion since then has focused on two primary problems with the ordinance.

First, the ordinance is vague and confusing. It isn't entirely clear what is prohibited and what is permitted. For instance, if you sync a note to your iPhone and glance at it later while driving, would that be a violation or not? It's hard to say.

Much of the confusion is based in the atrocious – borderline nonsensical – definition of an "electronic message" (§ 12-1-1) that was adopted:

Last October, the Austin City Council passed an ordinance that would outlaw texting while driving. The ordinance is scheduled to go into effect beginning of January.

Several people (including myself) raised concerns at the time of passage. Mayor Pro Tem Martinez postponed enactment from November to January to give the City an opportunity to do a public outreach campaign, as well as allow the community to review those concerns.

During this time, the ordinance has been discussed three times before various committees and commissions. Tonight it's scheduled to be discussed at the Community Technology and Telecommunications Commission meeting.

The Austin City Council is poised to take action tomorrow (Thursday, Oct. 22) that will make our city the laughing stock of the interwebs.

The issue is agenda item 28 at tomorrow's City Council meeting:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council_meetings/item_attachments.cfm?meeting...

The action is to pass an ordinance that they are calling a "texting while driving" ban. Except that's not what it is.

The Council is considering a total ban on any use of cellular data while driving, no matter how innocuous or harmless. Rather than ban dangerous behavior (say, typing on a keyboard while driving), this ordinance simply bans anything to do with cellular data.

If you download driving instructions to your phone before leaving home and glance at them while the car is in motion, you've broken this law. Under this law, the address that you'd scrawl on a piece of paper somehow becomes a driving hazard if it's on your phone.

If you look at the time on your phone and have a wallpaper that you downloaded across the mobile internet, you've broken this law. Under this law, information becomes a driving hazard merely because its transmitted by cellular network.

If you use voice-to-text functions to dictate an SMS, you've broken this law. You've created an electronic message and that will be prohibited.

Even if you keep both hands on the wheel and attention on the road at all times, if you interact with mobile cellular data in almost any fashion, then you've broken this law. How stupid is that?

The ordinance is poorly written, overly broad, and just doesn't have the facts behind it.

Yes, the ordinance is bad, but the way it's being done is even worse. Council is trying to ram this through without public review. The language was finished only a week ago. It was released to the press with misleading headlines that downplay the scope of the ban. Council is refusing to allow this to come before citizen boards and commissions for review and input.

This thing is on a fast track to be done before anybody realizes what's happened.

Can you please take 3 minutes right now and ask them to postpone action on the cellular device ban?

Do it here: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/groupemail.htm

We're counting down the final days to the June 12 transition to digital broadcast television. There has been added urgency to the effort because Nielsen reports that Austin is one of the worst prepared cities in the nation.

The May 24 DTV report reports that 4.81% of Austin-area households are unprepared, as compared to 2.66% nationwide. That means approximately 30,000 central Texas households could lose television reception when the transition occurs.

This isn't just about watching American Idol and Conan O'Brien. It's a serious public safety matter. Television remains the most widely used resource for important news and information, such as current weather conditions. In the event of emergency, necessary information may not reach households cut off in the transition.

Six months ago the media was full of stories about DTV. Now, not so much. I talked to a major media reporter yesterday, and he told me his readers are pretty sick of hearing about it.

When I heard that Apple announced it was dropping DRM from music in the iTunes store, my first response was to say, "Yay!" My second was to pat myself on the back.

That's because the Apple announcement may end up revolutionizing the music format of choice. Right now, it's MP3. Thanks to Apple's decision to make their music portable and copyable, it may change to AAC, the format used by the iTunes store.

Several years ago, I ripped all my music CDs, about 450 of them. It was a laborious and tedious task. It was complicated by my decision to first rip to a lossless FLAC format and then transcode to MP3. The transcoding part was automatic, but took a very long time; it's a computationally intensive process. It would have been a lot easier to just rip to MP3.

I've blogged before about my home audio/video setup. The confluence of big recession-fueled discounts and product ownership envy (my wife bought herself a new car) induced me to buy a new television this weekend.

You might expect, given all of my interest in A/V tinkering, that I'd buy a top-of-the-line set with the best specifications. I didn't, and I thought it might be interesting to explain why.

My plan is to replace a Sony KV-30HS420 30 inch widescreen CRT television with a larger flat-screen set. The very best 40 inch LCD televisions are in the $1200-1400 range. We're talking 1080p resolution, 120Hz refresh, 10000:1 contrast ratio.

I did a presentation today at a local senior center on the digital television transition.

At this point, most people are aware of the transition and what they need to do. The residents I met were all aware of the low-cost converter boxes, as well as the discount coupon program.

What I was surprised to find was the number of reported difficulties these people had getting their coupons. They were given excuses, such as they were ineligible because they had cable. Or their request was placed but the coupons never arrived.

(By the way, if you subscribe to a service such as cable you are eligible to participate in the discount coupon program. You will, however, be limited to a single coupon. Households without a subscription service can request two.)

Hello there happy iPhone user. How much do you love your iPhone? What would you say if I offered you $1500 if you gave me your phone?

I am absolutely serious. Will you take me up on this offer?

If you decide to do it, then please follow these instructions: First, carefully wrap your Apple iPhone in layers of protective wrap. Next, get a ball peen hammer. Then, smash your phone into tiny little pieces. Finally, keep an eye on your bank account. A year from now you'll have $1300 that you wouldn't have otherwise. You can get the full $1500 if you wait a couple more months. Or, if you just hadn't bought the stupid thing in the first place.

My wife was phone shopping a couple months back, worrying about the prices on the various phones, especially the smart phones. I made her stop that. "The phone is free," I explained. It doesn't matter whether the phone costs $20 or $300, the cost of ownership is predominated by the monthly service fee.

You may have heard that over-the-air television broadcast is converting to digital transmission on February 17, 2009. Even though that's still over two months away, if you don't act right away, like this very weekend, you may find out you are too late.

Here's what's happening: analog over-the-air television broadcasts will cease on February 17, 2009. Digital broadcasts are happening right now, and will be the only form of broadcast TV available after that time. If you depend on over-the-air broadcasts (which means you receive TV from a rooftop or rabbit ears antenna), then you need to be digital capable on that date. New televisions are required by law to have a digital tuner. Old televisions can continue to be used with an add-on digital converter box. They cost about $60 and are widely available. Each household can request up to two $40 discount coupons that can be applied to the purchase of qualified converter boxes.