2007 2
AIM Pro´s Desktop Abilities
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
This morning I was contacted by an interesting start up in the Ukraine over Skype. As conversations progressed over Skype, when demo time came, my Ukrainian counterpart switched to AIM Pro and asked me to do the same. I was extremely impressed.
AIM Pro has a feature that is remarkable and that is that I got to see the laptop screen of the programmer in Ukraine as we communicated. Seeing someone else laptop screen is a much better way to understand how a Web 2.0 service works than seeing a power point presentation. Especially, when you are talking to the developer in an interactive format.
I recently wrote two articles in my Spanish blog against parents physically punishing their children. In the first one, I argued that Skinheads and other very violent youth tend to come from homes in which physical punishment was commongly practiced.
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2007 27
Anti-Rip-off Manual for Cell Phone Users
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
In 1990, I invented Call Back, a means of routing telephone calls through the United States who at the time was the only country who had liberalized its telecom sector and its long distance rates where a third of those overseas.
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2007 26
FON in Forbes
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Here’s the article.
I am very sad to report that two female students who collaborate in my foundation were attacked by Spanish Neo Nazis this weekend in the Madrid metro station of Bernabeu. One of them is badly injured with a broken jaw. They are in their mid 20’s and were identified as foreigners by the skinhead gang because of their accent (they were both speaking in Spanish).
We are all extremely concerned about this xenofobic anti American incident. One of the victims is of Mexican origin and lives and studies now in Madrid. The other one lives in the States, studies at Syracuse, and is currently studying for 5 months in Madrid. Police reported that skin heads attacks on foreigners is becoming more and more common.
2007 25
ISP Contracts and FON, Should You Worry?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Yes, at FON we know that many ISPs contracts don´t allow users to share WiFi. And I managed three ISPs, Viatel, Ya.com and Jazztel and used to offer similar contracts for users. The intention of these terms and conditions is for ISPs not to lose money with customers who don´t buy new connections. Now when FON started I made it very clear to all ISPs that FON was a big plus to ISPs and that is why so many are or are in the process of becoming our partners.
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2007 25
When Civilians Are More Militaristic Than The Military
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
I grew up in Argentina in the 70s. At that time the military had staged a military coup and committed tremendous atrocities, including killing my cousin David Varsavsky and nearly killing my father, a Harvard trained physicist whose only crime was to stand for democracy.
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2007 25
My Pandora Radio Station
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
Is here.
2007 24
Why Have I Not Connected My Fonera Yet?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
FON doubled in size in the last 90 days and customer care is swamped. We have 4000 unanswered requests. I know this is going to sound crazy to Americans, but one of the reasons why we have such a backlog is that in Europe there are this extremely unusual data protection laws that make it hard (not impossible, but hard) to outsource customer care. This laws don´t allow a company to share its confidential data with another company who may, for example, provide customer care.
In the meantime I designed this little poll to understand the main problems that people who have not connected the Foneras are having around the world. A more formal e mail survey will be conducted by FON as the vast majority of the FONeros don´t know my blog.
2007 23
Jamendo “Open Source” Music
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
There are many services to help you discover music on the internet. I really got to appreciate Jamendo because it is the first site I see where musicians invite you to download their music for free. This is cool because with Jamendo I discover new music and don´t feel guilty downloading it. I say “don´t feel guilty” and not “commit a crime” because in Spain it is not illegal to download music and movies from the internet for personal use.
Now one thing Jamendo needs to improve is its music rating system. Yahoo Music is much better at that. So is Last FM. And Jamendo is more for people who are interested in new music rather than established music.
In a way Jamendo is like the open source movement, brought to the music world. We like that at Fon as we are also open source.