We all know that some of the major connectivity providers (I’m looking at you, Comcast, and you, BT) have already started to filter out some traffic. Comcast calls it “delaying”, but in reality they have already started to throttle down BitTorrent connections. I’m not going to close my eyes and say that this is legal traffic - you and me both know that most of it isn’t. The point is that they are unrestrictively filtering traffic over the BitTorrent protocol - legal or not. BT throttles *anything* that isn’t HTTP! And there has been a major uproar over the introduction of the BBC iPlayer - many providers are simply not willing to allow their precious bandwidth to be used to transmit 100% legal television programs (which, when viewed / filtered at packet level, are indistinguishable from illegal downloads / uploads). And now a major UK company has caused an uproar. Cue you, Virgin.

Virgin Media’s CEO, Neil Berkett, has stated in an open interview that “Net Neutrality is a load of bollocks”. If that were the only thing he said - I’d have to agree with him. We live in an age where anyone can put up a website, and immediately have the same level of accessibility as any other website, no matter how big or small. Nothing should change that, and it should never be an issue. But Mr Berkett seems to think otherwise. Apparently, Virgin Media is already in “talks with unnamed content providers to deliver their content faster”. Rumour has been about that this is a prod towards Google (flamed solely by their recent April Fools joke named “Virgil” - that one backfired on you guys). Google has long been an advocate of Net Neutrality, and rightly so.

What kind of an Internet would it be if we could load Yahoo! in a second, but we had to wait 5 minutes for YouTube to load? Or if we could download the latest version of America’s Army (a government funded game being my point here) in mere minutes, but have to wait for hours to get the latest patch for your grassroots game, purely because they are unable to pay the extortionate “increased bandwidth charges”. Or perhaps it could go further? You, the user, could be made to pay more to access the sites you want on a sort of “tiering” system - £19.99 gets you access to Google, YouTube, and 50 other sites at high speed! £29.99 gets you access to another 50! And for only £39.99, you can have access to 150 sites at high-speed! Unrestricted internet would become a thing of distant memories - because once one goes, the rest will follow.

The outlook, to me anyway, looks good at the moment. There is currently no threat of there being any restrictions put in place - and with the massive uproars being caused in the media, in efforts to maintain Net Neutrality, and on just about any blog / site that has anything to do with the Internet, I don’t see it happening soon. But the threat is real - and I suggest you get well informed before it’s too late.

Suggested Reading

• Network neutrality on Wikipedia
• Save The Internet
• Open Internet Coalition
  

I think the simplest way for me to describe my feelings behind advertising on Wikipedia is that, given careful moderation of the adverts, they will not harm Wikipedia or any of the sister projects. Perhaps this would entail a special relationship with an ad broker, such as Google. They would also have to be relatively non-invasive. Perhaps only on search results? Slapping them all over articles is not a good plan. Intra-paragraph links, again, a bad idea. Why on search results?

Wikipedia doesn’t document everything. If I went there, and searched for a relatively unknown thing, or a service name, we might not get any results. With adverts, there is another layer of results for the user, who may find them useful if there are no results in Wikipedia. So not only are we assisting users, we are generating a bit of money for the foundation at the same time.

People have argued  that knowledge should be free - and I agree. Knowledge should be free, and Wikipedia makes it free. Introducing adverts doesn’t make it any less free. Unfortunately, we do not live in a free world, and until the Foundation is able to find a way of using the immense amount of bandwidth they use for free, they will always need to make money. Asking for user donations is fine, but that only happens once a year. A regular stream of income would not only be beneficial to the Foundation’s goals, but it would also bring around countless new opportunities, both on and off-wiki.

Of course, it’s always possible to just block the adverts if you don’t like them…

The Nintendo Wii is quite possibly the best thing that has happened to video gaming in a LONG time. Whereas before the termn “gamer” was considered to be someone who sat there and twiddled a controller with their thumbs (and sometimes the fingers), and with the introduction of PS3’s SIXAXIS, turning the controller from side to side - the term now includes the people who get up and play a game of tennis via a video game, which leaves you exhausted afterwards. The Wii was not only revolutionary in it’s controller, but also in it’s gameplay style - finally the games console has become a family item, a party item. And the other consoles have taken heed of this - Rock Band being the number one example I can think of. For some reason, though, sitting there with a few friends having a “think-off” just seems a tad wierd. Where’s the actual competitiveness outside of the screen?

There is no doubt that this technology brings a massive opportunity to gaming, however. I am thinking first of all about those who are motor-impaired - especially in the hands. Finally there is a way for them to interact with a game - and actually stand a chance of success, rather than battle with a controller that is plain akward for them to use. But I think that the technology will stand the best chance of success if coupled with the existing controllers - because then it adds another level of interactivity to the game. Not only can you move your character, swing your weapon, jump, crouch, and crawl, but now, with the power of thinking alone, you can send your character into a “Rage” mode, or activate long-sight, or interact with other characters in the game world - freeing up buttons on the controller for more actions. Yes, things start getting complex here - but it needs refining, not dumping.

The flipside of the coin, however, is that we end up with a generation of layabouts - those who can game, interact, and possibly even chat without even lifting a finger. Is this a bad thing? Say, for instance, the technology was adapted to allow people to text message by brainwaves - would this be safe to use while driving? You are taking away thought from driving and putting it into texting - the same as if you physically had the phone and was texting. The danger of a crash increases. However - say it was adapted to help shoppers - by just thinking of the exact item they wanted, a small screen on their trolley would take them straight to it. Or, you could shop online with very little effort indeed. Think of each item in turn, think of your credit card number, your security code, and then just think about submitting it. Except it all happens. That sounds a bit creepy, though…

I don’t think I have a conclusion to make here. The technology is very exciting indeed, and it’s something I want to see emerge in the gaming world. But it has be done carefully - lest we all just end up sitting there like vegetables, just thinking about playing a game. Oh wait…