Steven Leckart

Toshiba Unleashing Biggest Memory Card EVER

64GB!!!

Some hyperbolic highlights from the press release:

world's first 64GB1 SDXC Memory Card... capable of operating at the world's fastest data transfer rate3 for reading and writing to a flash memory card... world's first memory cards compliant with the SD Memory Card Standard Version 3.00, UHS104, which brings a new level of ultra-fast read and write speeds to NAND flash based memory cards: a maximum write speed of 35MB4 per second, and a read speed of 60MB per second... with these cards, it will be possible to download a 2.4GB video in only 70 seconds.

Available spring 2010.

[via Gadgetwise]

Steven Leckart

Camp Stove Burn Wood, Fire Make Hot

GearJunkie has the goods on the StoveTec, a small wood-burning cook top that costs $35 and would make a caveman proud:

Aprovecho has created a simple wood-burning stove with a clay elbow that focuses the heat and fire in the combustion chamber directly toward a cooking pot. According to the organization, this setup dramatically reduces fuel consumption compared to open fires used for cooking by millions around the planet...

With its success in the humanitarian realm, StoveTec has made an unlikely expansion into the consumer camping market...

I tested the StoveTec GreenFire One Door stove. It has the same type of efficient combustion chamber as on the humanitarian stoves though with a handle, metal case walls, and a painted exterior finish. It comes with a pot skirt to focus flame heat and a stick support shelf where the wood sits.

It is heavy and not very portable. It does not have the jet-like flame output of a canister stove. But in my test, the GreenFire proved to be easy to use and efficient, requiring just a few small pieces of wood to boil water or cook a meal in a pot.

Here's a thorough demo of the two-door model:

Steven Leckart

Moon Landing Pics: "Gee-Whiz" Afterthought

This is, perhaps, the most famous photo from the Apollo Moon landing. It was taken by Neil Armstrong, who shot most of the pics taken on the Lunar surface using a Hasselblad 500EL camera outfitted with a Zeiss Biogon f-5.6/60 mm lens and 70mm Kodak film that was "thin-based and thin emulsion double-perforated."

Called the Data Camera, the 500EL used on the Moon was modded with a special silver finish to boost the hardware's ability to withstand extreme thermal variations (the middle camera pictured here has the silver finish). The Data Camera also featured a glass Reseau plate, which produced a 5x5 grid of little crosses you can still see on the image. NASA used the markings to help account for film distortion and calculate the angular distance(s) between specific points in the image.

Pictured above is Buzz Aldrin, who appears in the bulk of the Moon landing pics. In fact, there's essentially only one photo of Armstrong taken while on the Moon, a blurry close-up of his reflection in Aldrin's visor.

Although a lot of brainpower went into creating the camera taken to the Moon, Aldrin says little planning went into the photography itself, which is why he became the unofficial star of the Moon.

From Aldrin's book Magnificent Desolation:

Neil shot most of the photos on the moon, having the camera attached to a fitting on his spacesuit much of the time while I was doing a variety of experiments. I didn't have such a camera holder on my suit, so it just made sense that Neil should handle the photography. He took some fantastic photographs, too, especially when one considers that there was no viewfinder on the intricate Hasselblad camera. We were basically "pointing and shooting." Imagine taking such historic photographs and not even being able to tell what image you were getting. Unlike the digital camera era of today, in 1969 we were shooting on film, typically looking through a small optical opening on the back of the camera that corresponded with what the camera's lens was "seeing." But with our large space helmets, such a viewfinder would have done little good anyhow. So, similar to cowboys shooting their sixguns from their hips, we aimed the camera in the direction of what we wanted to photograph, and squeezed the trigger. Given that ambiguity, it is even more of a credit to Neil that we brought back such stunning photographs from the moon.

if you look more carefully at the reflection in the gold visor on my helmet, you can see the Eagle with its landing pad, my shadow with the sun's halo effect, several of the experiments we had set up, and even Neil taking the picture. It is a truly astounding shot, and was the result of an entirely serendipitous moment on Neil's part. Later, pundits and others would wonder why most of the photographs on the moon were of me. It wasn't because I was the more photogenic of the two helmet-clad guys on the moon. Some even conjectured that it must have been a purposeful attempt on my part to shun Neil in the photos. That, of course, was ridiculous. We had our assigned tasks, and since Neil had the camera most of the time we were on the surface, it simply made sense that he would photograph our activities and the panoramas of the lunar landscape. And since I was the only other person there . . .

Ironically, the photography on the moon was one of those things that we had not laid out exactly prior to our launch. NASA's Public Affairs people didn't say, "Hey, you've got to take a lot of pictures of this or that." Everyone was interested in the science. So we did the science and the rest of it was sort of gee-whiz. We had not really planned a lot of the gee-whiz stuff that, in retrospect, proved quite important.

You can purchase a 16x20 print of the above pic and other Apollo-11 shots from Moonpans.com.

photo by Neil Armstrong/NASA via Boston Globe via Todd Lappin

Steven Leckart

Buzz Aldrin: Engineer, Rapper, Heart-Breaking Realist

"That's not going to happen."

In just five words, Buzz Aldrin casually broke my heart. Which is to say, the former astronaut-turned-rapper reminded me that despite the haze of nostalgia surrounding the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, Aldrin is still very much an engineer, a logician who deals in pragmatic extremes. Not some romantic willing to dive into hyperbole or seemingly-pointless hypotheticals.

The question prompting the above response seemed simple enough at the time: "If you could go back for another Moon walk or orbit Mars tomorrow, which would you choose?"

A total softball question, I admit, but I'd just spent the last half hour listening to Aldrin mostly ramble and rehash much of what he's already said about NASA's failures, China, why we should focus on Mars, and more. Not all that surprising, considering Xeni found Aldrin relatively incoherent when she interviewed him a year ago.

However, I had figured a simple question like this might ground us, get the 79-year-old legend reflective &mdash possibly even a little misty-eyed &mdash or at least waxing semi-poetic. After all, Aldrin took part in one of the most glorious spectacles ever captured on film, an event which garnered what was, at the time, the most-watched live TV broadcast ever (some 600 million viewers). Getting to the Moon is still the gold standard to which invention and engineering can frequently be compared &mdash i.e. "We've gone to the Moon, but I still can't get cell phone reception in my home?"

All I wanted was for Aldrin to utter something like: "Well, my boy, I'd orbit Mars, because it's somewhere we've never been. And we should never stop pushing the limits of what's possible." etc. etc.

Find out what he actually said, after the jump, along with more reflections with/of/from the man Snoop Dogg now calls "Doc Ron," a shortened version of Aldrin's nickname "Dr. Rendezvous."

photo by NASA via Boston Globe via Todd Lappin

READ THE REST

Steven Leckart

Help Out BBG's Favorite Guerrilla Gardener

Annie, the guerrilla gardener I wrote about for BBG, is in a fracas with Caltrans, which wants to remove some of the work she's done.

Pretty lame, considering she is the only reason this freeway off-ramp transformed from nothing to something.

Want to support the cause?

Sign this petition.

...And buy a "Runs with Pruners" t-shirt ($5 goes towards garden tools, supplies, etc.)

Steven Leckart

Kenyan Builds DIY Smart Home

Using an array of salvaged electronics, Kenyan tinkerer Simon Mwaura turned his cell phone into a remote control that lets him turn on lights, monitor his front door, and even brew tea.

[via AfriGadget]

Steven Leckart

Prediction of the Automotive Future [UPDATE] [UPDATED]

The cover of the May 1956 issue of Chilton's Motor Age touted its "prediction of the automotive future." What could it have been? I went ahead and bought a copy.

In short, they were both right and wrong.

Based on a variety of factors, including the rise of multiple car ownership, the car replacement market, and the population boom (especially in surburbia), the magazine's engineering editor suggested, rather optimistically, that by 1975 annual automobile production [note: in the U.S.] would perhaps reach 8,330,000 cars (10 million, including commercial vehicles).

In fact, 6,717,000 automobiles were produced in the U.S. in 1975 (8,987,000, including commercial), according to the American Automobile Manufacturers Association.

More interesting, at least to me, is the fact we didn't come close to reaching Chilton's forecasted figure until 1985, when the U.S. produced 8,185,000 cars. Furthermore, this actually represented the peak of passenger automobile production in the U.S. By 1995, the number had dropped back down to 6,350,000.*

Update: I missed the AAMA's data from 1965, which shows Chilton's prediction coming true a full decade earlier: 9,335,000 passenger, 1,803,000 commercial vehicles. By 1970, though, the figure had dropped dramatically &mdash i.e. the numbers in 1975 aren't close to what Chilton forecasted they'd be. For the next 20 years, too, production stayed below Chilton's prediction, apart from 1985.

What to make of all this: 1) forecasting should always be taken with a grain of salt (duh), and 2) the 1950s were the dawn of nuclear power, plastics, vaccines and antibiotics, and the space program. It must have been difficult not to get swept away by the sentiment that we'd be producing more of everything, and that that everything would only get better, more efficient and cheaper. Truth be told, I do agree with the last part.

*It's worth noting production of commercial vehicles increased more or less steadily year over year from 1980 to 1995.

Steven Leckart

PARC: Un-fumbling the Future

In 1983, my former professor and friend Howard Rheingold read an article by Alan Kay. Immediately, he wanted to experience the Alto and the future of networked minds. He started calling PARC on a weekly basis. Nothing. Then when he called back to remind HR of his existence, he was given an immediate assignment: write a last-minute speech for a Xerox executive.

With that, Howard had landed himself his "dream job" at PARC as an in-house writer. Howard's gig involved interviewing researchers and scientists about their work with interfaces, LAN, etc. Super cool in retrospect and at the time, I'm sure.

He goes into great detail in his book Tools for Thought (pictured), which explores batch processing, the 1960s, time sharing, and more at Xerox PARC. Howard's insights into the successes and failures of Xerox PARC are well worth a read.

Here's how he framed PARC's trajectory and missed opportunity in his Wired article from 1994:

Personal computers did not spring naturally from the computer industry. They were deliberately realized by a radical fringe, against all the force of the day's accepted wisdom... These zealous wizards handed Xerox an astounding lead in information technology in the early 1980s, but by the end of the decade, Xerox watched as upstarts like Apple and Microsoft grew wealthy off Xerox's discoveries. Neither Apple nor Microsoft even existed when the first Altos were designed in the early 1970s; by 1990 either company could have bought Xerox. The tragicomic Xerox saga is recorded in Douglas K. Smith and Robert C. Alexander's Fumbling the Future.

Here's the question he ended his 1994 article with:

So how will PARC guarantee that this time they won't fumble their new future? Three ways, says JSB [John Seely Brown]. "One, we are more careful about intellectual property. Two, we are working smart - looking for entrepreneurial partnerships to develop ideas quickly. And three, Xerox has radically repositioned its organization so that its corporate strategy is shaped and informed by PARC and PARC is being shaped and informed by corporate strategy."

And, of course, here's what eventually happened:

By 2002, PARC became in independent research business with the ability to license its own patented tech and discoveries to other companies, institutions, and start-ups, especially the recent wave of alternative energy upstarts. While there are still ties to Xerox, PARC's profits are entirely its own. What's more, I'm told revenue is even split up among PARC employees.

Lessons learned.

Steven Leckart

Mr.Taggy & the History of Search at PARC

There are plenty of nifty search engines that don't begin with "Goo" and end with "gle," as Wired points out. But one site they forgot to include is MrTaggy, which was created by PARC's Augmented Social Cognition Area.

Unlike other engines, this one doesn't index the content of web pages. Instead, it uses PARC's TagSearch algorithm, which aggregates and sorts the user-generated tags added to social bookmarking sites like Delicious. From there, users can give thumbs up or down for each and every result. The goal: be part-search, part-recommendation engine by tapping the wisdom of the crowd.

BBG asked the ASCA researchers to connect the dots between PARC's earlier forays into search and MrTaggy. Here's what Ed Chi, Manager of ASCA, shared with us:

First, one of the most efficient ways of browsing and navigating toward a desired information space was illustrated by the pioneering research on Scatter/Gather, a collaborative project on large-scale document space navigation between amazing researchers such as Doug Cutting (of Lucene, Hadoop fame) and Jan Pedersen (chief scientist at AltaVista, Yahoo, Microsoft for search).

The research done in early to mid 90s, showed how a textual clustering algorithm can be used to quickly divide up an information space (scatter step), ask the user to specify which subspaces they're interested in (gather step). By iterating over this process, one can very quickly narrow down to just the subset of information items they're interested in. Think of it as playing 20 questions with the computer.

Second, also around the mid-90s, an important information access theory was being developed at PARC in our research group called Information Foraging, which showed that you can mathematically model the way people seek information using the same ecological equations used to model how animals forage for food. We noticed that we can use information foraging ideas to model how people used Scatter/Gather to browse for information. It turns out that it was possible to predict how people use the information cues (which we called 'information scent') in each cluster to determine whether they were interested in the contents inside the cluster. It turns out that Scatter/Gather can be shown to be a very efficient way to communicate to the user the topic structure of a very large document collection. In other words, people learned the structure of the information space much more efficiently using Scatter/Gather interfaces.

I hope it is quite clear that the relevance feedback mechanisms are very much inspired by Scatter/Gather. The related tags communicate the topic structure of what's available in the collection. Through this process, we designed MrTaggy, hoping that it would be just as efficient as Scatter/Gather in communicating the topic structure of the space.

Third, our group had developed Information Scent algorithms and concepts to build real search and recommendation systems. These algorithms build upon earlier work on a human memory model called Spreading Activation.

TagSearch algorithm uses similar concepts here. It constructs a kind of Bayesian modeling of the topic space using the tag co-occurrence patterns.

TagSearch's algorithm owes its heart and soul in concepts in Spreading Activation, which helps us find documents that are related to certain tags, and vice versa.

So what it's like to actually use MrTaggy?

I started a search with the suggested tags "funny" and "video." Less than 30 seconds later, I discovered this Bruno-related gem from FunnyorDie that had, until now, somehow escaped my attention.

Good find, MrTaggy!

Steven Leckart

BBG on... PARC

One early morning a couple months back, we ventured from San Francisco down Highway 101 to 3333 Coyote Hill Rd., where a terracing three-story concrete building sits amidst rolling hills and horse farms.

The Palo Alto Research Center was established in 1970 as a division of Xerox (in 2002, PARC became an independent company). Through the years, PARC has churned out more than 6002100 patents and patents-pending in a variety of disciplines &mdash from computing and engineering to electronics and biomed. At one time, PARC's patent portfolio was worth an estimated $1 billion.*

The Alto was dreamt up in 1972 and unveiled in 1973. PARC researchers were responsible for unleashing the first GUI in 1975. Researchers at PARC created the first worm in 1978 (it was intended for good: seek out idle servers to distribute processing load).

Famously, in 1979 a wide-eyed 24-year-old named Steve Jobs visited PARC and had his mind totally blown. About the GUI, he later recalled:

"I thought it was the best thing I'd ever seen in my life... within, you know. ten minutes it was obvious to me that all computers would work like this some day."

To honor the place that's more or less responsible for envisioning, creating and instigating the modern computing era, BBG will be posting a series of stories today about PARC: historical tidbits, current research, photos, video, insights and more.

*see Open Innovation

Joel Johnson

Europe, meet your new phone charger standard

Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, LG, Qualcomm, Research in Motion, Samsung, and Texas Instruments have all agreed to accept microUSB as the standard phone charger format starting in 2010. Wonderful, welcome development, and I hope it means we'll get this by proxy here in North America.

Apple playing along has interesting ramifications to not just the iPhone, but to the entire iPod family: Will the long-standing Dock Connector, used by countless third-party accessories, finally be on the way out?

Steven Leckart

Review: GoBe Solar Briefcase & Power-Hub

As soon as I stumbled on the Provo Craft's GoBe system at Maker Faire, I was dying to get my hands on one. I'm an optimist, but one who's been disheartened by the dearth of consumer-ready chargers that can handle the output necessary to power any device larger than a cell phone &mdash and even the ones that claim to charge phones don't always work so well.

The GoBe is a terrific device for luxury car campers or, perhaps, touring cyclists willing to trade off-the-grid power for extra weight. There are two components: a 12-lb. solar panel and 9-lb. power hub with AC, DC and USB outputs. Not especially lightweight, but comfortable to manhandle since both parts feature integrated handles. The GoBe is advertised as taking about 10 hours to fully charge, which was roughly my experience when I recharged my battery at home after camping with it (note: you must charge the power hub via wall socket before using outdoors for the first time).

While camping, we used our GoBe to handle one basic task: power a travel-size iPod dock. Which it did mightily. Normally the device would run on AAs, which aren't exactly a hassle to carry (plus, there are obviously packable solar chargers for reusable AAs). However, there was something extremely satisfying about powering our tunes via solar charger. Plus, after 4 hours of charging the meager device, there was plenty of juice left &mdash I think about half. And that's kind of my main complaint: think.

I haven't played with a solar charger that is 100% perfect. And this one isn't either.

The power hub's three indicator lights are helpful, but not nearly enough. Green = a full charge (or close to it). Red = little or no juice. Yellow = ??? ...I realize including an LED displaying watts and volts consumed wouldn't be practical power-wise. On the other hand, having to mentally calculate your power usage isn't so fun, especially if you're using the power hub while it's simultaneously charging.

I'm told the GoBe can expand the life of an average laptop battery anywhere from 3 to 6 hours, which is potentially great, but also a great reminder of the disappoints that continue to plague all things solar. There can be so many variables, least of all whether you're getting solid sunlight, so that range could be a bit disconcerting if you were really relying on this thing for power on a regular or semi-regular basis. i.e. this is clearly not something I'd exclusively count on to write my novel in the bush.

For car camping, though, it works well, since you don't have to carry batteries or pull any power from your car's battery. Should you have to power up your cell phone, GPS, camera, etc., you've got more than enough for charge-triage. And, provided you're camping somewhere with unobstructed sunlight (we did not), you won't have to reposition it throughout the day (we did).

Two more caveats: You get AC, DC and a USB port, however, if you neglect to bring a standard USB, for instance, you'll only be able to use a two-prong plug. Not a deal breaker, but I sure would have loved a typical U.S. Type B three-prong outlet. Yes, an adapter costs $5 at Radio Shack, but that's one more thing for me to carry, keep track of, and, let's be honest, lose.

Lastly, the thing is WHITE, which looks nice and modern, but will get dirty faster than a broke, drunk sorority girl at a $10,000-prize mud wrestling contest.

Now some bad news: The GoBe costs $350 (plus $45 for shipping). Not cheap, but not all that terrible considering a car inverter built just for a MacBook costs $150, only charges one device, and will drain your parked car's battery.

Joel Johnson

Senators wonder aloud if only AT&T should be able to sell the iPhone

Four senators have sent a letter to Michael Copps asking the FCC Commissioner to decide if wireless carriers having exclusive partnerships with phone companies is fair to the consumer, in anticipation of a Commerce Committee meeting this week.

Translation: Should AT&T be the only carrier that gets to sell the iPhone?

The notion is actually the byproduct of a petition from the Rural Cellular Association, a group of small carriers that service the parts of the country the Big Four wireless companies do not. By not being able to offer customers the phones of their choice, they argue, it makes it difficult for them to compete with larger carriers when their markets overlap.

It's certainly fair to consumers to have the most choice, especially when carriers have created a false economy to force customers into long-term contracts through the sale of "subsidized" phones. But it might be a sticky for the manufacturers of the phones—would Apple, for instance, be forced to make different models of iPhone that worked with other wireless standards like Verizon's CDMA?

There's much going on here, and I've been trying to research a similar vein ever since the iPhone 3G S was announced last week. (I even have been in touch with the office of Senator Amy Klobuchar, one of the signers of this letter to the FCC, but getting an answer back from an official's office when you write for "Boing Boing" is sometimes tricky.)

Not sure this was prompted by the announcement of the new iPhone on AT&T? Check out this section of the letter:

Whether exclusivity agreements place limitations on a consumer's ability to take full advantage of handset technologies, such as the ability to send multimedia messages or the ability to "tether" a device to a computer for internet use;

Steven Leckart

Q&A: Donald MacDonald, Architect

Donald MacDonald has designed more than a dozen bridges since establishing his architectural firm in 1966. Today, he has bridges scheduled for construction in Dubai and Portland, OR, and he's in the midst of building the world's largest self-anchored suspension bridge: the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge's eastern span (due to be completed in 2013). We visited MacDonald's San Francisco offices to find out what it's like to build a $6.3 billion bridge, how things have changed since the "old days", and why young architects should learn to just "Draw the bloody thing!"

READ THE REST

Steven Leckart

Bridges: Monuments To Progress

Steven Leckart

Today on BBG: Bridges

Pretty sure Newton meant that metaphorically, but either way, since the father of gravity uttered those words some 250 years ago, we've taken his point to heart. Today on BBG, we'll be investigating bridges of all shapes, sizes and function. We'll examine a laser-cut gingerbread bridge, the longest natural vs. artificial arch bridges, how to build both model and rope bridges, bridge jumping (for sport), bridge jumping (for suicide), tiny natural water bridges, and more.

We'll also speak to the lead architect on the in-progress San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge, and find out why architecture schools are starting to favor hand drawing over software renderings.

Steven Leckart

LEGO: Building Block of Post-War Hope

Jan Vormann is at it again. Instead of Tel Aviv, this time he's in Berlin, filling in structural damage from WWII gunfire with LEGO blocks.

[via LikeCool]

Joel Johnson

Insulation and packing material made from rice hulls and fungus

Scientific American profiles the creators of "Greensulate", an organic insulation made from rice hulls, recycled paper, and fungus:

They incorporated three basic ingredients in a solution of water and hydrogen peroxide: mycelium mushroom roots; perlite, a glassy volcanic mineral used by farmers to aerate soil; and recycled paper. They poured the mixture into a seven-by-seven-inch (17.8 centimeters) plastic container and stuck it under a bed in their apartment (Greensulate must be kept in the dark while it is growing). The mycelium fed off the natural sugars in the recycled paper, causing it to grow, tightly bind the perlite, and take the shape of the plastic container. The perlite created small insulating air pockets within this new rigid, beige-colored panel, which they then baked at 110 degrees F (43.3 degrees C) to remove all water from the finished product and assure that mold and spores do not photosynthesize. Bayer and McIntyre also experimented by replacing perlite with rice hulls, which form similar air pockets. The rice hulls are roughly 10 times cheaper than perlite. Greensulate panel of any size can be grown in five to 14 days, Bayer says, and will last for the life of the building in which it is installed. Manufacturing space should come relatively cheap because all Bayer and McIntyre need is someplace big and dark. "It could be an old Kmart," McIntyre says, "or even an abandoned mine shaft."

Steven Leckart

Prediction of the automotive future

Only one prediction in the May 1956 issue of Motor Age? Hope it was right. I just ordered the magazine online. Guesses on what they forecasted?

[via A Date In Time]

Steven Leckart

Mr. T: "Treat your mother right"

Joel Johnson

Go Green: Use Last Year's Model

Here's an Earth Day action I can get behind: Last Year's Model, which encourages you to buy good gear—and then just use it. It reflects my own preferred method of consumption, which is to spend a little extra to get something that is exactly what I want, then try to use it for as long as possible. (I often fail, but I'm better than I used to be.)

I've got an HDTV that I bought two years ago that should hold me for years. My Canon Rebel XT DSLR, just back from a cleaning, still has more functionality than I ever use. My Kindle 1 still supports words. My iPhone 3G is doing great until they come out with a new one in June which I will instantly buy. (Moderation!)

There's a panic that I feel when something I own doesn't quite perform as I'd like it to, which sets off an escalating and enjoyable process of shopping and comparison, fueling daydreams of how wonderful my life will be with my New Thing. I've been trying to replace "Purchase" with "Projects", though, so that I've always got a few things that are in a state of repair.

My turn signals stopped working in my old BMW yesterday while I was driving back from the hardware store. (I was shopping for a reel mower, which I ended up buying from Amazon after comparing prices in-store with my phone, although I'd needed to go out there anyway for more charcoal and fertilizer.) I caught my brain spinning up, spitting a litany of excuses why I should go buy a new car: I need at least one reliable vehicle; it's a good time to buy a car, with interest rates very low; the Nissan 370Z exercises the corpus cavernosum.

But I'd bought Ruby in part because I knew she'd break down and I wanted to learn car repair. So I pulled into the garage, ran upstairs to spend 30 minutes reading the BMW 2002 FAQ forum, priced turn signal replacement parts on eBay, and went back to pop open the hood. I took out the #6 fuse, wiped it on my pants, and put it back in. The turn signals work just fine now, and I just saved myself $35,000.

Lisa Katayama

Can new underwater cables finally connect Africa?

Did you know that only 5% of people living in Africa have Internet access? Two big reasons: accessibility and affordability. Right now, the entire eastern coast of Africa only has satellite Internet, which means it's way too pricey and slow for most people. Last week, the BBC reported that three separate efforts are underway to lay submarine cables. The front runner in this effort is Seacom, a private company that has already dug 13,700km of cables into the sea beds from Egypt to South Africa to France. It's planning a big launch in July, and the big impetus is the World Cup, slated to take place in South Africa in 2010--Seacom will likely be the main deliverer of soccer goodness from Capetown to the rest of the globe.

But what does this really mean? When the Sat3 cable system was laid down under the sea on the western coast of the continent in 2001, the vast majority of the population were still disconnected because it was way too expensive. "The gatekeepers to the cable were government-run, monopoly telecom providers," says Ashwin Mathew, a phD student who studies infrastructure and submarine cables at Berkeley's School of Information. "It's not just about introducing cable; who owns and has access to it will be a determining factor to how useful it is." Other factors include structures of investments and negotiating access to the cables for countries that aren't on the coast.

Also note that the 5% who do have Internet access aren't exactly tab-surfing or scanning RSS feeds like we are. Connections are patchy, electric outages are frequent, and shoddy transportation often bars people from getting to the nearest Internet cafe. "Internet users really use the hell out of the existing low bandwidth connections," says Jenna Burrell, who is Mathew's professor and researches connectivity in Africa. She adds: "Cafe owners in Ghana who were paying ISPs were really pinched between the high cost of the network connection and the limited amount of money their customer base was able to pay for the service."

Aside from Seacom, the East African Marine Cable System (Eassy) and The East African Marine System (Teams) are also working on submarine cable systems in the region. Neither of these are private projects, though, which could mean they might meet the same fate as the west coast's Sat3.

Still, locals are excited about it. "Costs for telephony and internet could drop to a fifth of what they are now," Kui Kinyanjui, a reporter at Kenya's Business Daily, tells me over email. "East Africa is one of the last frontiers in the world that has not yet linked up to the global fiber optic network."