Google wants the intervals between television channel frequencies—called “White Space” —and I want them to have it. They’re no geniuses for figuring out how useful it could be. Carol Anne Freeling did it first in 1982. But while the Freelings had an appreciation for innovative use of white space, Google and Microsoft’s experiments are pissing off television broadcasters and others who use it because they fear interruption of service to their customers.

Now, I hold no truck with empty people who rely only on television for entertainment. Anyone worth their pop cultural mettle has the The View on in the background while Twittering and reading Techcrunch and listening to Howard Stern. If my neighbour’s iPhone jams up against Whoopi and Joy rolling their eyes at the Bush-lobotomized Survivor chick, I’ve got planned serendipity and dropping loads to cover me.

What is at stake here is a ubiquitous free wireless broadband network. So buy Google and Apple stock and sell your Verizon and Bell! Let’s have no more phone numbers, but rather everyone with a fully functional iPhone. Not that Americans have any real problems—with $99 a month packages. In Canada we have to choose between seasonally updating our Chloe bag collection or paying for one month of unlimited talking and streaming on our cracked iPhones.

Of course the old-media people cannot deviate from their culturally-defined role as doomsayers. They even deploy kooky logic wherein the term ‘white space’ takes on an overdetermined meaning:

“The whole term ‘white spaces’ itself is a misnomer. It’s not white space. We’re using it.”

Correction: You were using it. Your frequency dominion is over. Prepare your hospital signalling devices and one-note audio/video broadcasts for disruption. Many may die and even more may have to get up and jiggle their coaxial cable and curse their cable company after missing the climax of Dancing With The Stars. But if it means I can guide myself through Las Vegas via Streetview towards my favourite Savers while video chatting to my fiancé and testing lame Twitter clones like Plurk, then let the dying and jiggling and cursing begin!

Tags: google, microsoft

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Posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 7:05 pm. Follow comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comment or trackback.