With a jolt of coffee and a bagel with lox energizing me, Sam Albert and I made our way to the belly of the whale (Javits Center) for the PC Expo. After a nightmare with registering I skeddadled down to booth #1859 where Bob Ponce and others at Silicon Alley Station were putting the final touches on the inaugural Net cast shows. I interviewed Mary Jo Fahey about the status of infrastructure in New York and in the world. We discussed lots of pertinent points, some shocking, which you can read in her article in the July/August issue of AlleyCat News. Here are just a few highlights (that should get you emailing your representative):
All of Singapore will be wired for wireless computing in two months and 1 billion people will have 2-MB capacity handheld computing units in Japan. NY should take a cue from Italy, who has a similar problem with wiring landmark historic buildings--they are harnessing the satellites and also going wireless. Asia can more easily wire modern skyscrapers than we can because of having newer infrastructure.
Having interviewed three ISPs offering high-speed wiring services in New York, Mary Jo has seen first hand the power and 100 MB/sec. access to the 'Net on Fiber, at which point we discussed the "copper over fiber" debate. Bell Atlantic, of course, wants to see copper continue since it has such a stronghold in that, but fiber is the way to go, baby!
Mary Jo's interest in quick access to the 'Net also serves some of her other ventures, like heading up the VRML SIG and being a part of the Rich Media sig.
Dan Sweeney (GM, Home Networking Operation) of Intel was also scheduled for an interview in addition to their full day of meetings. After roving around the Expo with my wireless mic, and interviewing the women at WITI.org, a representative from Barbados Investment & Development Corp., and Richard Calton of HarlemLive.org (a newsletter about Harlem) and one of the youths involved in the project, I headed back for the interview with Howie Singer of Reciprocal.com. Bob Ponce, the man behind the Silicon Alley Station, took the reins (er, mic) and went on to conclude an informative interview about music and film trademarking and licensing online.
** After perusing the exhibition hall for a bit, I ran into Brian Czarny, who's now director, corp. comm at DirectWeb. He introduced me to Dennis Cline (pres. & CEO), and Glenn Goldberg (VP of mrktng), Shane Winfrey of THINK New Ideas and Jai Decker (24/7 media).
A chronicle of the people and events in technology, internet and media since 1997, mixed in with snapshots of musings and observations.
