Via Slashdot, this tech website got a sneak peek at the proposed connectors and cable for the upcoming USB 3.0 spec. The spec was first previewed back in January, and won’t be finalized until later this year, but Intel released what they’ve already come up with so far, which is about 90% of the final spec. As I posted before (see that second link above) USB 3.0 will be ten times faster than the current USB 2.0, in part because it will allow two-way data transfer. That’s a big improvement over the earlier versions. The linked article gives this example: a 27-gig file will transfer from your hard drive to your USB 3.0-compatible device in 1 minute and 10 seconds. Moving the same-sized file over USB 2.0 takes at least 15 minutes. Ain’t nobody going to complain about that. Plus, USB 3.0 will be downwardly compatible with USB 2.0, so your present-day devices won’t be doomed to the scrap heap any earlier than they would be otherwise. But, as I cautioned a few months ago, it will be at least 2010 before you see this in any shipping hardware of any kind.
Haven’t heard much about Vonage lately, which, if you’re Vonage, is a good thing. This recent post at DSL Reports says that Vonage had finally managed to stem the hemorrage of users that had been going on even before the patent lawsuits but had gotten to a critical level when it looked like Vonage was going to have to close its doors. Prior to the lawsuits, Vonage’s astronomical churn rate was almost 100% due to customer service issues, so that speaks well for their ability to fix their own internal problems. We actually switched from Vonage to Comcast when things looked bleakest for Vonage, but the actual phone service from Comcast was terrible, and you KNOW how bad Comcast’s customer support is, so after three months or so we went back to Vonage. Quite honestly, we have never had any significant problems with Vonage technically or support-wise, but I guess we’re in the minority…or we were.
The XM-Sirius merger finally went through several weeks ago, and earlier this month CEO Mel Karmazin promised that new hardware that would be cross-compatible with both services would be available in the first quarter of 2009. So much for getting that new satellite radio for your car for Christmas, I guess, but that’s ahead of the 12-month deadline set by the FCC, so good for them.
Garmin’s highly-anticipated (well, by me, anyway) Nuviphone has been pushed back to sometime in the first half of 2009 due to difficulties meeting the requirements of some of the carriers. Lately, I am so enamored of my iPod Touch that the temptation to buy a 3G iPhone has been getting pretty strong, but my blog buddy Jack and others are finding that the new iPhone isn’t quite “twice as fast for half the price”, so I will continue to bide my time to see if the Nuviphone pans out.
And this isn’t really a tech link, but it’s related: TechDirt.com points to this British IT news website’s report that 30% of Internet users admit to buying products via links in spam e-mail. The report cites a study by web security vendor Marshal, showing a marked increase from earlier studies by analysts like Forrester Research; in 2004, Forrester calculated that 20% of Internet users bought items via spam. Considering that in the traditional mail-order business, a response rate of 4% was considered huge, the success of spam is simply unheard of. That’s a lot of enlarged penises and Paris Hilton videos, kiddies.
