We had an interesting debate in class about the pros and cons of Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is a principle proposed for user access networks participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as communication that is not unreasonably degraded by other traffic. The debate was focused on whether the government should step in to preserve net neutrality.
The principle states that if a given user pays for a certain level of Internet access, and another user pays for a given level of access, that the two users should be able to connect to each other at the subscribed level of access. Proponents for the argument feel that this is important because they feel that telecom companies seek to impose a tiered service model in order to control the pipeline and thereby remove competition, create artificial scarcity, and oblige subscribers to buy their otherwise uncompetitive services. They believe net neutrality to be primarily important as a preservation of current freedoms. Opponents to this idea believe the market should be allowed to regulate itself and that its regulations are “a solution in search of a problem”, arguing that broadband service providers have no plans to block content or degrade network performance. Despite these claims there have been instances where isps such as Comcast have slowed connection used by peer-to-peer communications. A very interesting topic to say the least. For more information on this argument with its pros and cons please read this article on techcrunch. Leave a comment and let me know what you think about this controversial topic.
This week we looked deeper into developing web apps for the iPhone that look just like native apps. Due to the long approval process in the iTunes app store, it may take a while to get your app available to the public. Even after submission, if you have to update your app it takes a few weeks for approval also. Web apps allow you to get around this problem as you can continue to update your app without waiting for approval. JQuery is a great framework of html and javascript that can be used to create native looking iPhone web apps and even port over to the appstore using PhoneGap.
