Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

The Jeff Pulver Blog: The Internet Tax May Be Creeping Up on Us in the Guise of Imposing the Universal Service Fund on Internet-delivered Voice Applic

The Jeff Pulver Blog: The Internet Tax May Be Creeping Up on Us in the Guise of Imposing the Universal Service Fund on Internet-delivered Voice Applications: “The voice application riding on the broadband network is being asked to be the application subject to paying into the Universal Service Fund”

Just love this “The voice application riding on the broadband network” those good old telecomm operators must turn in their graves on that statement. Wonder what Doc Searls thinks about that

Gaping Void Mug shot


Gaping Void Mug shot
Originally uploaded by geofones.

Hughs mug finally arrived from cafepress today (article number 60517719 – (all though a search on cafepress denies its existence!) it was ordered on 3rd June so not bad delivery from the USA

Really quite amazing that Hugh set up the online shop from scratch in about 5mins on his laptop in the hotel lounge at Copenhagen.

Not so rare – Face Blindness

Interesting site (run by UCL and Harvard) that I came across through Mind Hacks today dealing with Prosopagnosia or face blindness. Results they have produced show that it can affect 2% of the population

This is something that I can certainly relate too “One of the telltale signs of prosopagnosia is great reliance on non-facial information such as hair, gait, clothing, voice, and other
information”
and as anyone who has sat through a film with me can attest “they have trouble following the plot of television shows and movies, because they cannot keep track of the identity of the characters“.

What is interesting is that researchers can now access a much wider range of research subjects than in the past by using sites such as their one, rather than only using people who had suffered some traumatic event, which is not true in my case (as far as I am aware!)

I filled in their form will be interesting to see what happens.

Scoble happy – Bill looking glum


Never realized that Bill Gates would be so crestfallen on the news of Scoble leaving.

So Robert could become a millionaire! According to this story Podtech was valued at $10m a few months ago and coupled with this story “Furrier said. Part of the investment is giving Scoble a significant equity stake of the PodTech.net, which received a $5.5 million round of
funding in March. Furrier and employees still own more than 50 percent of the startup, “
To me a significant stake has to be a few percent so when Bill gets his cheque book out in a few months Robert could walk out with a few million – maybe enough to buy a house. No wonder Bill is looking so unhappy.

Great news that they are setting on Maryam as well. Well done to Robert & Maryam couldnt happen to a better duo.

Thanks to Halley for the BBC link