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ICANN Committee rejects dotless domain names, won’t “pursue any additional studies”

As you may recall from prior posts on this blog, there has been significant interest in the new gTLDs (e.g. foo.microsoft, foo.docs) and proposals from Google to allow one of their gTLD applications (.search) to function as a dotless domain (e.g. http//search). This ask was in sharp contrast to the report from ICANN’s own Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), that said dotless was a bad idea.

Microsoft and many others in the industry (including Yahoo, Verisign) expressed concerns in allowing dotless domains on the Internet. The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) published a public statement, noting the relevant standards published by the IETF RFCs and supporting ICANN SSAC’s report SAC053 as

“a reasonable summary of the technical problems that arise from the implementation of dotless domains.” 

And a further study directed by ICANN (from Carve Systems here) arrived at the same conclusions as the SSAC. In it, Carve supported SSAC 053 that dotless domains would not be universally reachable, and serious security vulnerabilities exist and would be enabled by allowing such use. It concluded the

“inherent trust in dotless names, by users and software, may lead to confusion when handling new Internet facing dotless domains. This confusion can result in unexpected behavior and a misappropriation of trust, ultimately degrading the stability and security of the Internet.”

The “broad theme” of dotless domain names is accurate, and significant issues exist with current and legacy software and services that follow the tradition of using dotless names exclusive in the intranet space. Dotless domains are used as a core part of many intranet networks, and as such there would be serious implications and repercussions related to their use. To address some of the “technology confusion” raised in the report, Microsoft and many others in the industry have provided guidance for developers, service providers and enterprises to use unambiguous Fully Qualified Domain Names to specify locations in the tree hierarchy of the DNS.

So, after many months, I was happy to read recently that ICANN’s New gTLD Program Committee (NGPC) passed a resolution definitively rejecting the push for dotless domains. This was also supported by ICANN’s board, as announced last week. You can read more about how ICANN rejected the request to support dotless generic top-level domains on the Internet in Charlie Osborne’s article here on ZDnet.

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Bill Gross: Twenty Amazing Facts Learned at the 2012 World Economic Forum in Davos

Bill GrossBill Gross is founder of the technology incubator Idealab and more companies than I can count (he says “100 companies in last 30 years” so perhaps I can count that high). Mr. Gross tweeted “while on [his] quest for learning in life and at conferences.” (Follow him on Twitter as well as on his blog at http://www.BillGross.com.) 

So, a tip of the hat to you, sir: for me, the cost to attend WEF virtually and digest everything on the Davos stream in real time in my PJ’s: $0 (priceless 😉

With his coverage and that of the other quarter of attendees on Twitter, I was able to keep up in real time (which explains why I was cranky and tired this week) and almost felt as though I were in Davos. I appreciated the openess and how many people tweeted, published blog posts from the event, and the access the press had to attendees, with sessions live online in real-time (http://wef.ch/live).

But, sadly, without the incredible Swiss hospitality, food and snow. And the Occupy protesters!

So, from his tweets, here are Bill’s “Twenty Amazing Facts Learned at WEF 2012”

  1. There are only 52 companies on Earth worth more than Apple’s $97.6B hoard ofcash.
  2. Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975 & their board buried it b/c it looked too disruptive
  3. iTunes alone generated 50% more revenues than ALL of #Yahoo last year
  4. From Angela Merkel – “there are 23 million companies in the EU & there are 23 million jobless.”
  5. There were ~2,600 attendees & more than 5,000 Army members guarding #Davos – more than 2/attendee!
  6. There are 371,000 babies born each day. There are 377,900 iPhones sold each day.
  7. Annual growth in China 9%, India 8%, Africa 5.5%, Europe 0%.
  8. Over next several years world will need amount of food = to all produced in last 10,000 years!
  9. 89 percent of young people want a job that helps to change the world for the better.
  10. In a hyper connected world average is over as we all knew it – we are now competing with the whole planet.
  11. Spanish unemployment surges to 22.8%. Under 24 years old – 51.4%. Staggering.
  12. 1 in every 2 people in India is under 25 years old (and they want their piece of the pie).
  13. Because of corruption, U.S. investment in India went down from $24B in 2010 to $11B last year.
  14. The U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace in 1 and a half years in the 4th quarter of 2011.
  15. a: The poorest 2 billion people spend 40-60% of income on food & 15-20% on energy.  And 15 b: Each year of secondary school increases a girl’s future wages up to 20 percent.
  16. 47% of time spent using smartphones is spent on= Facebook.
  17. Apple’s cash reserve is enough to pay off the total public debt of 8 countries in the EU.
  18. New era of volatity – the S&P Index moved > 2% more than 60 days in 2011. In 2005 – Zero.
  19. Avg cost of attending Davos: Food ($2k) + Hotel ($3k) + Flights ($6k) + Transfers ($9k) + EntryFee ($20k) = $40,000
  20. On Hacking, the Intellectual Attacks come from China & the Financial Attacks come from Russia.

WRT number 19: $9K in transfers?!?

 

Tags: WEF, Davos, conferences, World Economic Forum, 2012.

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Do you have advice for President Obama on the 2009 digital television (DTV) transition? He’s listening…

Clip art from Microsoft Office OnlineAs I posted here, the House voted to delay the DTV transition today, which the President is likely to sign into legislation.

Now the Obama White House is fulfilling their promise to allow people to comment on new legislation, allowing a five day feedback period before President Obama signs the item. The first piece of legislation on the site? The revised and submitted DTV Delay Act.

Want to provide your comments?

Then go visit the new White House Briefing Room and click here to post your comment on the DTV Delay Act page on the White House site.

The DTV delay will move the transition date to digital broadcast to June 12, 2009.  Julian Sanchez noted in this post on arstechnica that…

"The DTV delay may have pushed the official national deadline for the transition to digital broadcast back to June 12, but there are plenty of broadcasters who don’t relish the added expense of maintaining both digital and analog signals for an extra four months. But thanks to a compromise provision inserted during drafting of the final version of the delay bill, they won’t have to wait: stations that want to go ahead and transition an early can, subject to a set of procedures released by the FCC today.

"For those who want to stay on course to transition on the original February 17 date, things are relatively simple, at least if they hustle a bit. Those stations have until Monday (yes, this Monday—four days) to notify the FCC of their plan to keep to the old deadline. Then they’ve got to run the "equivalent" of 30 days worth of viewer notifications for the following week—including a crawl, if feasible, and a heavy stream of PSAs, after which they can cease analog broadcast on the 17th."

More after the jump. 

 

Tags: Windows, Media Center, television, DVR, Obama, policy.

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Of interest: House defeats (and then approves) bill to postpone the digital television transition. Consumer feedback much?

Update, 1:39PM PAC: The House voted to delay the DTV transition today, and the President is likely to sign the legislation.


As noted here, the As Kim Hart, Staff Writer for the Washington Post noted in her article today, Technical Difficulties: Switch to Digital TV May Not Be as Smooth as Advertised, many consumers are impacted by the transition to digital television (as I noted noted previously).  Customers find that simply using a converter box isn’t always enough to get reliable TV signals.


I noted today (as the Washington Post’s Kim Hart reported) that the House defeated bill to postpone transition to digital television broadcasting (as noted here), not getting the to-thirds majority needed to approve the measure.


What are they thinking?


As Reuters reported today



Consumers groups have been pushing the effort to delay the transition date to June 12 from February 17, worried that 20 million mostly poor, elderly and rural households are not ready for the congressionally mandated switch.


“It’s really unfortunate,” said Joel Kelsey, an analyst at Consumers Union. “Consumers are staring at a big, fat, unfunded mandate in the midst of an economic crisis.”


More than one million people are on a waiting list for $40 government coupons to subsidize the cost of converter boxes needed by those with older televisions. The agency that runs the program ran out of coupons earlier this month.


Reuters notes that the item may come up again next week with a rule requiring simple majority passage.


Want to know how your representative voted?  Check out the role call for this vote.  I’m sending mail to my representative today.


IMHO, our elected representatives could allow the transition to go ahead as planned on Feb. 17 but amend the legislation allowing for a delay – a grace period – to the complete transition.  Such a “roll over period” (perhaps an additional 90 to 150 days) would allow for the processing and distribution of digital STB coupons and migration of those who have yet to make the change.


During this period, both digital and older analog signals would available, and those consumers who have not made the transition to digital should see not only the channel displayed but a rolling warning notice that their ability to view the television station they’re watching will end unless they immediately migrate to digital equipment.


Tags: Windows, Media Center, television, DVR, Obama, policy.


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