Tag: mobile

Lose a laptop with 441 patients’ records, pay $50,000 and pray for donations

The latest HIPAA breach story out of northern Idaho breaks my heart. It also chills me to the bone. First off, here’s the news:

I actually worked with a hospice on tech issues in the last couple years, and I can tell you the attitude about security and IT in general was… less than progressive. They had better things to do. Literally. Hospice folks have a really rough job, emotionally and financially, providing a service that’s simply not properly supported by payers, whether private or public. They live on donations and posthumous gifts. They’re the soup kitchen of modern healthcare, providing a vital service that no one really wants to think about.

But pleading a charity case obviously didn’t work on HHS. The hammer continues to fall with increasing speed and strength in matters of ePHI security.

Yet again, this breach is the story of a lost, unencrypted laptop with patient information on board. It’s not clear whether the records were actually accessed or distributed, but that’s obviously irrelevant.

Community Health Centers and other smaller health providers: Pay attention. HHS is now bringing the penalty thunder down to breaches of less than 500 records. And the price is high, at $50K for just 441 records (theoretically) stolen in this case. Of course the HHS write-up points to lack of policies, no risk assessment, no controls over mobile devices, no encryption, and so on. It’s kind of a broken record now.

So consider this your last chance to get your HIPAA policies and procedures drafted and start making regular progress on improving security. The key is to show active interest and ongoing improvements. Do your risk assessment. Build your list of critical improvements. Do them. Keep records of what you’re doing.

This stuff takes staff time and cash money to buy some technology, which is always tough in nonprofit healthcare. So get these stories in front of your CEO right away if you’re not getting the resources you need. Alternatively, put them in front of your CFO — because a big enough breach could threaten the financial viability of the company.

Why Mobile DTV is DOA

This week I’ve been enjoying a private e-mail exchange with someone working in the Mobile DTV technology space. And since I’ve invested some time into shaping my thoughts, I wanted to include everyone in the conversation.

Of course, this is only my side of the discussion, as I don’t have permission to post the full thread.

In short, I was pitched on some points of why I’ve been wrong about Mobile DTV so far. Needless to say, I haven’t changed my opinions. But I have fleshed them out a bit…

On Spectrum Efficiency

Mobile DTV is often touted as being highly spectrum-efficient when compared to delivering video via the web and 3G/4G wireless networks, and technically I agree it is. But consumers don’t care. And carriers don’t care. Indeed, carriers would rather consumers “waste” their spectrum than allow usage to shift to broadcast spectrum — which is beyond their balance sheets.  Better to build out spectrum capacity and charge for it than allow free over-the-air broadcasts if you’re AT&T or Verizon or Sprint and so forth. The spectrum argument is attractive to engineers and engineering-minded bureaucrats. But it’s a non-starter in the broader market.

On Consumer Usage Patterns

Consumers use video in a fairly limited way when mobile — they consume it in little bites here and there, they don’t generally watch whole shows. You won’t watch a full episode of Judge Judy standing in line at the bank (hopefully!). To effectively serve that narrow niche, broadcasters would have to engineer new niche program streams separate from their core broadcast services. But local broadcasters don’t know how to do that efficiently and I would argue the business models of niche markets are so different they can’t do it. National third parties could do programming and distribute it, but they can do that via the Internet already, so why negotiate with hundreds of cranky terrestrial broadcast corporations already losing money? Bite-sized program streams and content snippets are tailor-made for web economics and direct distribution.

On Technology Changes

Broadcast companies are setup around long-term business models — buy your transmitter and run it for 20 or 30 years.  When I worked in public TV in Alaska I discovered this problem: the business leaders and engineers were repeatedly upset by the fact that they had to buy and re-buy equipment, software and services endlessly as the DTV and HD systems came in the door and were upgraded / replaced as fast as every 2-3 years (because those systems were built on rapidly-changing IT gear). Sure, those engineers are learning to cycle faster, but the balance sheets of these corporations likely aren’t keeping pace. Mobile DTV would be yet another rapidly-cycling technology cost depressing profits.

Furthermore, mobile devices are undergoing incredibly rapid development. The arrival of the iPad, the new iPhone (presumably in June), constantly-improving Android devices and so forth are changing the game far too rapidly for Mobile DTV — a niche technology — to keep up. Chipsets would have to change too fast, software would have to change too fast and that would affect both users and broadcasters. Consider the problem of adding H.264 to the ATSC standard — when will that reach consumers?

When there are already perfectly good ways to deliver video online to millions of users, making the argument for yet another layer of complexity and cost for manufacturers, carriers, software developers, broadcasters and users just doesn’t make sense. Mobile DTV is an awesome buggy whip for an age when cars are rapidly taking hold.

On Interactivity

My correspondent suggested Mobile DTV 2.0 (the next revision, not the current one) could bring interactivity to the mix. Stop right there — I’ve heard this before! It was one of many hyped ideas in standard DTV and it has never come true.  In an age of the web — the ultimate interactive platform — the notion that Mobile DTV can out-web the web is delusional. That’s what a salesman from a Mobile DTV vendor will tell you: “Wait until version 2!”  I’d give up on the interactivity notion right away because that platform is already built. It’s called the Internet (and you’re soaking in it!).

On Killer Devices and Use Cases

If Mobile DTV is to be useful to a mass audience, it’s likely to be as a supplement to the in-car DVD player we see today, assuming the chipset is cheap enough to add to these devices.  (HD Radio / iBiquity made a huge mistake by charging upwards of $50 per device for licensing, thus stunting adoption to this day.)  But if you can get “TV” on your in-car DVD player, that would make sense to me.  A combined DTV / Mobile DTV chipset would be ideal, to allow for stationary and mobile viewing. For an RV user, that would be great.

As for uses, anything real-time is ideal. Traffic, weather, news alerts, sports, etc.  Sadly, traffic updates are already available on GPS devices, which is where they’re more useful anyway (though some have suggested GPS and Mobile DTV functions could be merged in one device).  And weather would be nice, but it’s not critical because it’s rare that real-time weather alerts are all that important.  News alerts would be good, but that’s available via news radio programming, so you have built-in competition there.  Sports is okay, but again, there’s radio. Finally, at some point you’ll have a computer in the car hooked to the Internet that will gather and share ALL that information and more via voice command and display.

So while we can imagine some applications for Mobile DTV, the use-cases proposed are either too narrowly-defined to be market-relevant or are duplicated via web-based functionality.

On Smartphones

Mobile DTV has been heavily promoted as an add-on chipset and feature for smartphones. The resolution of Mobile DTV is so low (less than 480p currently) that’s not an issue. Indeed, the latest Android devices and the next iPhone have very high resolution screens, making native Mobile DTV images small enough to fit in a “window” on these devices! Indeed, on the next (rumored) iPhone you’ll be able to both shoot and watch HD video (720p) on an HD-capable screen (960×640).

For Mobile DTV to even approach viability for broadcasters and users, it will have to be ubiquitous in smartphones — the soon-to-be-dominant interactive platform for the next 10 years. But to really catch on, Mobile DTV broadcasters and programming would have to be ready on Day 1 across most of the U.S. (highly unlikely). Even assuming that feat were accomplished, just compare the coverage patterns of terrestrial TV and 4G/3G/2G wireless. I think we can already see the Internet will beat local terrestrial broadcast for smartphones.

Predictions

My own predictions in the mobile space related to Mobile DTV:

  • Smartphone devices (from iPhone-size to iPad-size) will be the central interactive communications platforms for a majority of the U.S. as laptop and desktop PCs begin to decline (Apple already knows this, HP just recently figured this out). Mobile media creation and consumption will be centered on these highly mobile devices. They will trend toward being smart devices hooked to data pipes with increasingly smart traffic management, prioritization and multicasting to profitably manage traffic growth.
  • In-car entertainment will remain dominated by radio (not HD Radio) for 10-15 years, but will have strong growth in 3G/4G-based Internet application platforms (Pandora, etc.) as car manufacturers spread those devices and subsidized connections (a la OnStar) to more car models. Entertaining kids in the car will be done via DVD and/or stored video on smartphone-lite devices (iPod Touch, iPad) because parents want control over what the kids watch and broadcast doesn’t offer that control.
  • Any other devices that gain wide adoption will be single-purpose simple devices that prove their value on their own, not in combination with other devices. Smartphones will be the primary multi-function devices (convergence devices). Everything else has to stand alone (divergence devices).
  • Satellite radio will survive, but will never be as dominant as terrestrial radio.
  • Internet radio — via mobile devices — will grow, but will not surpass terrestrial radio for 10-15 years and may never surpass terrestrial radio if programming evolves appropriately.
  • Mobile DTV will not gain significant traction with broadcasters (engineers love it, business people don’t) or users (the use-cases are too weak). At best it can hope for penetration rates similar to HD Radio.
  • Mobile interactivity (or interactivity in general) will be more important than mobile passive media consumption. That is, people would rather interact with social networks than passively consume media while mobile.

Conclusions

I have nothing technically against Mobile DTV. It’s a significant achievement in that sense. But I can’t see how it makes it big in this mediasphere. The stars are aligned against it. It’s Dead On Arrival.

Our TV engineering friends shouldn’t feel bad, though. Even the brilliant engineering minds working at Google make amazing technologies that just don’t catch on (Knol, Buzz, Wave, Profiles, Voice, Chat, etc.).

Sadly, this is getting to be a pattern in the TV world… DTV was a great idea 15 years before it was finally implemented. Now it’s mostly irrelevant because the vast majority of mainstream America is already on cable/satellite and has been for years. Mobile DTV is just a weaker echo of DTV: too little, too late.

Given this analysis, all I can do is hope public TV people out there avoid spending too much time or money on this distraction.

That said, if lobbyists get to Congress and force-feed you Mobile DTV via “free” CPB appropriations (that won’t cost you later), take the money and run! Hell, HD Radio was similarly “free” to most public radio stations in recent years — no harm done there (but no realization of HD Radio’s promise, either).

Of course, pull out this post and rub my nose in it 5 years from now if I’m wrong. I could easily be wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Cisco projecting explosive mobile data growth

found via gigaom.com

Explosive growth in mobile data is the norm in projections these days. I used a chart like this one in a presentation back in December.

It’s hard to imagine a 39X mobile data growth rate in just 5 years. But there it is.

Mobile DTV? You have got to be effing kidding me

PBS, NETA, APTS and CPB leaders are out of their freaking minds if they think Mobile DTV will take off. All momentum is in the opposite direction. All of it. But go ahead — read the giddy predictions:

Public TV leaders at NETA predicted Mobile DTV will be used for simulcasts of live TV as well as weather alerts, datacasts of traffic maps and sports scores, radio with pictures and interactive brainstorms yet to come, CPB is backing a PBS experiment with a 24-hour children’s TV service.

Though commercial broadcasters are mum about their business plans, said CPB Senior Vice President Mark Erstling,  they agree that kidvid is Mobile DTV’s “killer app.”

There’s even hope that Mobile DTV will seduce 18-to-24-year-old “millenials” to watch news and public affairs TV, said Lonna Thompson, general counsel of the Association of Public Television Stations, speaking at the NETA Conference. A survey indicated their level of interest would double, she said, because they’d no longer be “tethered” to a set in the living room.

Mobile DTV may be able to do a tolerable imitation of cable: Planners say broadcasters in D.C. will air at least 20 different Mobile channels during the tryout this spring.

It can also do a limited imitation of video-on-demand by “clipcasting”—constantly downloading, in advance, an array of popular videos to be stored in users’ receivers—though it won’t let users choose among every video on the Web.

Where it may shine is fulfilling past visions of interactive TV that cable has failed to realize. If the mobile receiver is a cell phone, it can provide a return path for ordering pizzas, voting on American Idol or whatever users want to click

“There will be great businesses built in Mobile DTV,” predicted Andy Russell, senior v.p, PBS Ventures, at the NETA Conference. “We think the possibilities are enormous with this new platform.”

via current.org

QUESTIONS

  1. So the whole “alternative uses” angle on DTV never came true. What makes it likely to happen with Mobile DTV? And who’s going to pay for all that software development? TV stations can’t even make regular content in most markets now, but we’re going to hire traffic and weather and sports programmers for our little Mobile DTV channels?
  2. You seriously think that just by creating yet another distribution channel — one that competes with existing popular channels — millenials will suddenly get interested in news and public affairs programs? You’ve got to be f***ing kidding. “Oooh! ‘Washington Week’ on my mobile phone? Check it out Kayleigh!”
  3. So Mobile DTV’s big idea is to copy cable? Excellent business plan. You do realize most of the cable companies are monopolies with extensive infrastructure, right? They don’t make money by lining up channels alone.
  4. “Clipcasting?” It’s called YouTube! Perhaps you’ve heard of it? I have it on my phone right now! Besides — who’s going to curate that? More people we can’t afford to hire?
  5. Dear God you’re going to the “interactive TV” angle again? Jesus, that died 20 years ago and rightly so. TV is a largely passive medium. Interactivity is a web practice. Have you all learned nothing since the advent of the Internet? Ordering pizzas? Voting for “American Idol?” Really? This is the glorious future ahead if only we develop Mobile DTV?
  6. Great businesses will be built with Mobile DTV, huh? You mean like HD Radio has burned up the dials and made Clear Channel billions? Oh, right — they’re in the toilet along with the rest of the commercial radio world. But TV will kick ass with a new platform that requires new hardware, barely duplicates existing and growing functionality on other platforms, and has little to no value proposition for users, right? Sure. Sign me up.

There was a time, many years ago, when a kid — like myself — enjoyed smuggling a little 2.5 inch Casio TV into my high school study hall and getting fuzzy TV images of “The Price is Right” or daytime soaps or whatever was on. But aside from that experience I’ve never wanted mobile TV. Mobile video, yes (and I have that), but not TV.

Keep in mind that TV, including some of public TV, has turned into a broadcast wasteland, especially during the day when people are mobile. I’m going to tune in for “Judge Judy” for 1.5 minutes while I’m on line at the bank? Not likely.

The only shot Mobile DTV has is kids programming, and only from PBS. But is it a “killer app?” Well… if you define “killer” as the only remotely viable app for Mobile TV, done at cost in a noncommercial model, then sure. And Lord help us all pay for all the infrastructure this year and forevermore.

To understand why Mobile DTV won’t make it, just look at what kids are already doing today: they’re texting and using social networks and calling one another. They’re doing social things, not kicking back and watching TV. At most, they might refer friends to see a web video clip, but that will be something forbidden, not a great vocabulary lesson from “Word Girl.”

As 3G and 4G wireless networks (and WiFi) become truly ubiquitous, and our devices are always on the ‘net, TV will become increasingly quaint. The only likely users for Mobile DTV will be the very Boomers that won’t buy the Mobile DTV devices anyway.

And let’s not forget all the bold promises of DTV that remain unfulfilled, which we’re hearing yet again from our august leaders: datacasting, weather, sports scores, news, ad nauseum. The fact that “radio with pictures” was noted in the article tells you how desperate these folks are to get attention. And hey — where’s my MP4-encoded DTV broadcasts? When’s that gonna be done?

Finally, don’t get me started on the low technical quality of the proposed Mobile DTV channels. I have a 2-year-old Flip cam that shoots better video than could be displayed on Mobile DTV. How does this make sense? Disruptive technologies can indeed come along with a lower technical quality, but who intentionally builds a Ferrari and then dents it up, puts a speed governor on it and smashes the windshield to get different customers interested?

Today — the “day of the Tablet” — I encourage all the public broadcasters out there with an eye toward Mobile DTV to look at the real future: mobile apps, mobile web, mobile multifunction devices field-upgraded on demand with new software from the cloud. The web absorbs and carries all media, synchronously and asynchronously. Reverting to broadcast just doesn’t make sense in most cases, and where it does make sense, we already have technologies and deployed assets that work fine; they even work better than fine if you consider HDTV.

Mobile data is much more valuable to our society and economy than propping up a shrinking business model. Let’s stop fighting the losing DTV battle and start fighting for a public service media future that meets the needs of our community and meets people where they are and where they’re going, not where they’ve been.

You know what they say: Location, Location, Location!

via youtube.com

I remember talking to IT pals of mine 5 years ago about how location-based information was going to be the Next Big Thing. It took 5 years, but we’re finally here.

Public service media can use location, too. Indeed, as creators, conveners and curators of media that’s focused on communities in specific locations, this stuff will be huge.

If we get out of the studio and get into the community, that is.

Mobile Internet is the new PC revolution

Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker presented a major collection of charts and notes about the economy and developments on the web at the Web 2.0 Summit this week. There are some mind-blowing numbers and observations about the “mobile Internet” in these charts.

MS Economy Internet Trends 102009 FINAL http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=21362476&access_key=key-1ri08xlqpnvlx69jzjcw&page=33&version=1&viewMode=slideshow

I remember when PCs arrived on the scene, when corporations started adopting those tools to empower individuals and small departments to get work done without having to wait for the slow-moving “Data Processing” departments. DP professionals hated these uncontrolled devices as they proliferated everywhere. The same thing happened when the Palm Pilot and other early PDAs arrived. Today, the PC and even corporate-owned mobile devices have largely been brought under control in larger companies (and it’s killing their transformational utility, by the way).

But the arrival of the mobile web into the pockets of millions of people worldwide is changing things in ways we don’t yet see. Check out the slides. Look at the astronomical growth rates of data consumption on the iPhone platform. The mobile web is how we must serve the public interest going forward. We don’t have to forget the standard PC and browser, but we have to meet the mobile needs of users in lots of new ways.

Check out the slides and consider the (near) future.

NOTE: Found via Google Reader’s new “Popular Items” feature.

Dell Mini 9 inbound

I’ve got a new Dell Mini 9 headed my way later this month. It’s one of those teeny-weeny micro laptops — “netbooks” — that have all the kids excited these days. I’m curious if it can be an iPhone-with-a-keyboard for me as I bounce around from meeting to meeting inside and outside the office.

I live much of my worklife in Google Apps now, so simply having a keyboard, a reasonable screen and live ‘Net access is enough for me.

I’m also going to hand it to a couple of in-house journalists to see if this might make a good field laptop for remote reporting, including video chatting and such. I only wish Apple had made one of these first. Or maybe after I try it, I’ll understand why Steve Jobs skipped out on this party.

The cost was under $500 with shipping and I configured it with a slimmed-down copy of Windows XP, 1GB of RAM, a 640×480 webcam, and a 16GB solid state drive. Plus I’m picking up a 16GB SDHC card to pop into the side and a wireless mouse. I ordered a couple days after launch earlier this month and in theory I should see it next week sometime.

More info after I’ve played with it for a while.

New Pew Internet reports

pial-mobile.jpg

If you’re not already subscribed to the Pew Internet & American Life project reports, go ahead and get the RSS feed or add the site to your browsing plans. They’ve got two reports out this week:

The Pew Internet reports are great for survey data and some broad conclusions about trends of Internet usage in the United States, oftentimes broken down by demographics.

Doc Searls on the future of public media

Back in the midst of the IMA 2008 conference Doc Searls posted a brief, yet deep, article on what he sees for the future of public media (with an open source perspective).

For anyone looking to find a way forward for public media — whether inside legacy public broadcasting companies or in new freestanding nonprofit entities — this listing of core assumptions and tenets is critical to know and see.

My own favorite excerpts:

  • The market for public media will finally become… conversational and participatory.
  • There will be a new business model for public media, based on the ability of listeners and viewers to pay as much as they want, for whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want.
  • Membership will mean more than schwag and promotion payoffs. We will cease to conflate transaction with relationship, and start relating to listeners and viewers in ways that conform to the shape of their wants, need an habits as well as ours.
  • Cell phones will be the new radios and televisions.
  • Websites will become as inadequate as transmitters. That is, both will remain necessary but insufficient means for reaching listeners and viewers, and for relating to them.
  • Archives will be the ultimate killer kontent. … Bigger inventory, bigger income.
  • The end of analog terrestrial television will be a big mess and a wake-up call in more ways than we can name.
  • Brands and reputations will matter more than ever. …they will be enriched or impoverished by the degrees to which they participate in a marketplace sustained by real relationships, and not just by marketing that goes by that name.

But those are just my highlights. Be sure to read the entire article for the full effect.