pulver.Communicator Beta Test

Jeff Pulver has granted special permission for me to blog about my experiences as a participant in beta test of his company's new pulver.Communicator software product which I will be doing over on my IP Inferno blog.

Powell Does San Francisco

Opening with the comment that he was surprised to see so many Republicans on the west coast, our new blogosphere member Michael Powell gave a speech tonight at an event organized by the Progress & Freedom Foundation. A few non-members seemed to have snuck in including Tim O'Reilly, Joi Ito, Craig Newmark, myself... maybe it was actually a blogger conference...

Michael's comments were fascinating. Here are a few:

he described himself as a libertarian,

effectively said that he is against government control of content in the media, though expressing his obligation to enforce the indecency act (a part of the Criminal Code, he observed, passed in the 1920s...),

stated that 80% of all spectrum (including licensed) is unused 80% of the time and that he feels more should be done to free up spectrum for varied uses,

feels that when spectrum is licensed that it should be "like a driver's license" -- that is, the government shouldn't tell companies what to do with the spectrum, "just don't kill anyone..."

on VoIP he noted that the number one thing that the industry should be focused is on avoiding the common carrier taxation present with PSTN, but that the few requirements (presumably 911 access, etc) that the government ultimately should impose will not be burdensome on this emerging technology area...

When asked whether the FCC should be abolished he commented that "this crowd is suddenly looking a lot less friendly!" But he did express frustration with the code under which the FCC had been founded...

He also mentioned that he had spent three hours with government attornies trying to explain to them why it should be OK for him to blog...

Speaking of blogging, I expect with so many bloggers attending, not to mention journalists such as Dan Gillmour, Paul Kapustka, etc. in attendence, that others will provide a more in-depth report. I'll provide links as updates when I see other's comments.