Cody Taylor

Wired is running a piece on the big idea of Robin Chase — the founder of Zipcar — that we need to build our smart power grid on open standards and include cars as nodes in a mesh network. “‘Today in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers and tanks and airplanes are running around using mesh networks,’ said Chase. ‘It works, it’s secure, it’s robust. If a node or device disappears, the network just reroutes the data.’ And, perhaps most important, it’s in motion. … Build a smart electrical grid that uses Internet protocols and puts a mesh network device in every structure that has an electric meter. Sweep out the half dozen networks in our cars and replace them with an open, Internet-based platform. Add a mesh router. A nationwide mesh cloud will form, linking vehicles that can connect with one another and with the rest of the network. It’s cooperative gain gone national, gone mobile, gone open.”

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Twice this week, I’ve engaged in conversations about Apple missing the boat on potentially sweet markets that would have fit right into its iTunes growth strategy. Amazon’s Kindle-DX and the announcement by Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser of a forthcoming product, code-named Facet. Real’s DVD-ripping technology is should be available in iTunes.

Hugh Pickens writes “Work resumed this week on the five-year project to link a chain of tower-mounted sensors and other surveillance equipment over most of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico. The network of cameras, radar, and communications gear is intended to speed deployment of US Border Patrol officers to intercept illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and other violators, yielding greater ‘operational control’ over the vast and rugged area. A M pilot project for the Secure Border Initiative, or ‘SBInet,’ carried out in the Bush administration, was generally considered a colossal IT failure. Since that time the DHS has given the prime contractor, Boeing, another 0M. The government says it has learned many lessons and made many changes in the program since the previous pilot rushed off-the-shelf equipment into operation without testing. The Obama administration has lowered the cost estimate for the 5-year project by .1B, to .7B, mainly by deferring work on the most difficult 200 miles of the border, in southwest Texas.”

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mikesd81 writes “Google plans on advertising with spots promoting its Chrome browser this weekend. Google Japan had already released a 30-second video promoting Chrome on YouTube, but the company will distribute that video through the Google TV Ads network this weekend as an experiment to see if it can drum up interest in Chrome. Google advertised their browser on the New York Times’ website on Wednesday.”

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As instantaneous as the Web can be, most search engines–Google included–suffer from a bit of a time lag. Where Google leaves off, the new search engine, Scoopler looks to pick up. Scoopler is a search engine that indexes the content of a number of popular social-networking sites, and delivers real time search results:

An anonymous reader writes in with a CNet story about the record label-backed music company Lala, which claims to have invented “Network DRM.” Lala has filed for a patent on moving DRM from a file wrapper, like Windows Media and FairPlay, to the server. Digital music veteran Michael Robertson has quotes from the patent application on his blog. (Here is the application.) Lala describes an invention that monitors every access, allows only authorized devices (so far there are none), blocks downloads, and can revoke content at the labels’ request.

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Part of the power of social networking is the ability to form communities with like-minded individuals. But what happens when those communities are offensive to others? That issue is at the heart of attempts by a Dallas, Texas, attorney to have social-networking site Facebook remove pages for Holocaust deniers.

Even before it’s officially adopted, France’s controversial anti-piracy law has already claimed its first victim. Jérôme Bourreau-Guggenheim, head of web innovation at one of the largest TV-networks in France was fired recently because he criticized the law in a letter to his MP.

MJackson writes “Europe has rejected plans to allow ISPs to disconnect users suspected of involvement with illegal file-sharing. In its final vote, the European Parliament chose to retain amendment 46 (138) of the new Telecoms Package by a majority of 407 to 57. Amendment 46 states that restrictions to the fundamental rights and freedoms of Internet users can only be put in place after a decision by judicial authorities. However, network neutrality remains unprotected.”

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