A while back, I started thinking about how our information would be delivered to us in the future. Provoked by a discussion with futurist David Houle, I thought about how we are starting to favor the internet as a means of media delivery as opposed to traditional television or newspaper.

One reason I believe people favor the internet is that they can tailor their experience based on what they feel is important to them. If you’re a Wall Street fanatic, you may get your news from the online Wall Street Journal, or MarketWatch.com, or TheStreet.com.

If …

After a week of several evening service calls to get my at&t U-verse service straightened out, I am finally reconnected to the internet and rejoining the blogosphere.

Needless to say, my U-verse experience has been frustrating, but now that I’ve got the kinks worked out, it’s turned out to be a very impressive service.

Coax isn’t what it seems to be…

The tech came out Monday night and ran some tests coming out of the gateway unit, which is much like a modem of sorts and found that while the signal from the unit itself was good, the signal at each coax TV outlet wasn’t worth beans. There was something happening between the gateway and the outlets.

He ended up isolating the problem to the coax run from the gateway that feeds each of the three televisions. This means he’d have to run a new line of coax, which would not be easy.

Last Saturday, I had at&t’s new service U-verse installed throughout my house. The technology is really impressive, but let’s just say there are some teething problems that, so far, are degrading the ‘wow’ factor.

The at&t installer showed up just after 9am on Saturday, and quickly got to work. She ran some tests on the signal coming to the box on the side of the house, and then at the individual outlets. She spent the better part of two hours tracing the mangled up cable runs from my basement, and an additional hour sorting out the copper jungle that hung from the rafters that provide telephone service.

She sorted out and organized all of that mess, and then tacked up up neatly to the ceiling. She was very polite the entire time, and did not mind that I looked over her shoulder to see how things come together.

It seems our friends to the North are implementing a new surveillance system to track license plates. In short, they use cameras to record license plate numbers, and it then compares the numbers to “license plates of interest”.

It’s kind of an interesting way to find stolen cars, uninsured cars, cars driven by drivers with suspended licenses, etc.

I’m sure there will be those who claim this will be technology that can be used against your personal freedoms, however I think it may be a good tool for law enforcement to use to expedite criminal investigations.

Of course, I have nothing to be afraid of. And neither does my car!

AT&T’s new television service, U-verse is now available in my neighborhood, and after watching several U-verse signs get posted in neighbors yards, I decided to sign up.

U-verse is basically television over the internet. It’s a little more complicated than that, but I’ll leave the technology tidbits out for those less interested.

I chose to take the U200 package, which basically provides 200 television channels, plus digital music, for $74 per month. Also included in the package is the basic internet service.

However, if you chose the U300 package (which also includes Starz, Encore, and other movie channels) they give you …

I had a post a while back about how AT&T’s U-verse is coming to town, and is a welcome form of disintermediation to the likes of Comcast, of which has done nothing but raise cable and internet rates for the past couple years due, in part to a lack of competition.

Well, I’ve been following the U-verse movement both in my own neighborhood and on the internet through an on-line forum called uverseusers.com.

Needless to say, the U-verse service is in its infancy and there are a few current subscribers who are not happy with the service despite …

If ever a non-believer in disintermediation, it’s time to see the light!

A prominent topic of futurist David Houle, disintermediation is in layman’s terms, the elimination of the middle man, but the concept stems a bit further: 

The Internet, particularly in its current high speed broadband iteration, Internet 2.0 is the single most powerful agent of disintermediation there is at this time on Earth. It is being used to change economic transaction structures, in practically all areas of commerce. It is forcing heretofore firmly entrenched distribution channels to adapt or suffer significant negative consequences. It is the visible disintermediation agent for big economic, political and cultural institutions in the U.S. …

Read more…

Presidents Day brought good news for XM and Sirius stock holders.  While long speculated, a merger between the two companies came to fruition Monday afternoon.

And while both companies are go for orbit, the idea still has get through a tough de-orbit burn.  The FCC, the SEC, and the justice department are all going to weigh in on the deal, and depending on who you talk to, any three letter acronym could burn the deal on the launch pad.

Monopoly seems to be the word de jurfor the skeptics, while others are fairly optimistic about the odds of the deal getting a blessing from all parties.

I …

I was in Best Buy this afternoon looking to upgrade my Norton Internet Security program to a newer version.

After checking out the latest in big screens, I strolled over to the computer section. For the women out there, regardless of why us guys go to Best Buy in the first place, checking in at the television and computer department is a requirement for every trip. Gotta keep up with the latest and greatest you know, even if it’s only for informative purposes only…

I digress.

So I stroll over to the computer department, and low and behold, they don’t have a single computer on display. …

Thanks to a tip from David C., it appears that Sogo Invest has carved out their own little niche in the blogosphere.

With Sogo President William Yeh and Alex Kravets (content developer) as authors, Sogo is sure to get some great feedback from their site.

William was more than receptive to the response generated from my initial interview post, and it appears that customer requests have not been taken lightly!

Good luck with your blog guys!

SogoInvest Blog