Gary Allison's Leadership Blog

Last week, the FCC auction begins for the 700Mhz spectrum to be released by current television broadcasts as they switch to all digital broadcasts next year (February 2009). Google is expected to ante up the 4.6 Billion dollars in the closed-bid auction for the spectrum which is of intense interest because of its capability to carry the high bandwidth needed for high speed internet and communications over vast distances. This means mre bandwidth and lower costs to build the network.

Google won’t be alone. The usual cast of characters, Verizon and AT&T are also expected to bid on this desirable frequency band. In a sense, Google has already won in that they have succeeded in adding a mandate to the bidding that winner must open the frequencies to all handsets and devices that wish to play. The interesting question is: what can Google do with all this wireless bandwidth.

There are many possibilities, but a few standout.
Continue Reading »

Last week, Apple unveiled a new update to their iPhone software and it wasn’t long before the guys around the office were showing off the dazzling new mapping capabilities. Using triangulation between cell phone towers and wi-fi spots, this new update has the very useful ability to pull up your approximate location on google maps right there on the iPhone. This makes getting directions or just figuring out where you are a breeze. In my informal survey of iPhone owners, no one seemed to consider what this really means. So, not only does Google know what you are searching for on the web, knows what’s in your email if you use the “free” gmail, knows what’s on your PC with desktop search, knows what’s in your documents if you are using their new google apps, now they even know where you are at all times. For the sake of convenience and free, we seem perfectly willing to mortgage our whole identity. Interesting.