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From the New York Times and Om Malik: Google and five telecom companies will build a trans-Pacific cable between Tokyo and Los Angeles, to increase bandwidth and reduce costs. The Times reported on the Unity consortium last September, but this new announcement confirms the US$300 million project. GearLog has more information on this topic. I haven’t determined if this new cable will connect with Honolulu.

It’s an important announcement because, as Om notes, this is the first time that Google has publicly confirmed its corporate strategy of building its own international telecom infrastructure through acquisition and investment. Google claims it wants to provide more reliable service to its users, so the company is entering the undersea cable industry not as a competitor but as a customer and complementor of Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI Corporation, Pacnet and SingTel.

As I mentioned on 7 February 2008 and 31 January 2008, the oceanic cable business can be risky. Google will have priority on the 7.68 terabit connection when it is completed. Adding more bandwidth is an essential part of providing scalable, reliable web services in North America and the Pacific Rim. If Google controls its own network as a source of competitive advantage, will competitors like Yahoo and Microsoft face higher costs to stay in business?

I mentioned OpenDNS on 3 September and 13 July of 2007. This is a free service that looks up domain names. Domain names represent the numeric IP (Internet Protocol) addresses that are used on every server. The Domain Name System (DNS) is highly distributed, and a good target for all sorts of legal and illegal opportunities.

OpenDNS is much faster than the domain name servers I’ve used at other ISPs. Every ISP has to provide DNS services to subscribers. The DNS servers are an important part of maintaining a fast connection, but some ISPs just do not manage their DNS servers well.

OpenDNS a great way to speed up an Internet connection, especially for residential and WiFi users, by outsourcing every domain name lookup request to a dedicated set of very fast servers in North America and Europe.

It’s hard to beat secure, fast and free.

OpenDNS also includes some nice security features. The service will block phishing and adult web sites, using a constantly updated list of known servers. This is a more elegant solution that proprietary security software that usually slows down a Windows or Mac computer.

Late last year, OpenDNS asked users to recommend the service to schools and universities. A recent article in THE Journal reports that over 10,000 educational organizations have adopted OpenDNS services.

Crackers have started to attack domain name servers, inserting false domain name entries that redirect users from well-known sites to forgeries. Schools and educational institutions are an attractive target for these attacks, as their IT security is sometimes less than adequate. In the past, school email servers have been a primary target for botnets. Hackers break into these servers, which can then be used to send spam. The legitimate users of these servers may not realize their email system has been compromised until their ISP cuts off their email access.

Installing OpenDNS on a personal computer is easy to do. I would not recommend that employees do this on their company computer without the support of their IT department, as some companies maintain specific entries in their own domain name servers.

The New York Times ran an interesting critique of the mobile Web yesterday. Michael Fitzgerald identifies some of the major obstacles to mass-market adoption of mobile websites, including the following items.

1. Inconsistent user interfaces on mobile devices – new users have difficulty finding the address bar and bookmark features. Fitzgerald fails to mention that, on some mobile devices, the font sizes are too small for most older users to read. Managers, who make media placement and Web development decisions, tend to fit an older demographic than their customers.
2. Poor formatting on small screens – RIM, Google, Bloglines and other service providers include reformatting and filtering technology in their mobile portals, but many web sites do not resolve well on a small screen.
3. Lack of support for Flash – as more Web sites adopt Adobe’s Flash technology for animation and other features, Web developers often fail to provide a low bandwidth or text only version that will work well or at all on a mobile device.
4. Slavish duplication of the desktop web model – this can also be seen in Microsoft Windows Mobile, which includes a Start button as a key part of the user interface.

For the most part, I agree with him – but I still use the mobile Web every day to check Gmail and read other web sites. The mobile Web isn’t a smooth experience yet, but it’s better than toting around a full computer, as my previous post about the US Census suggests.

Engadget reports on a new Windows Mobile PDA that census takers might use for data collection. bandwidth is provided by Sprint. The batteries last 10 hours – an amazing result on a PDA that is deisgned for heavy data entry and network usage in the field.

The US Constitution requires a national census every 10 years. One early use of Hollerith cards was in the 1890 US Census. The previous census in 1880 used manual methods and took 9 years to complete. With Hollerith’s cards and tabulation equipment, the Census Bureau finished the 1890 count within 7 years at twice the cost of the 1880 census. The reports and data were far more complex and complete than any previous census, however.

I keep a stack of vintage Hollerith cards in my office, so I can remember the good old days.

Google announced today that they will release a mobile operating system (OS) under the project name Android.

The short story: Google won’t be selling a Google Phone or gPhone. But any device manufacturer can join the Open Handset Alliance and use Google’s software to build a mobile phone.

In the words of Andy Rubin, Google’s executive for the project:

Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications — all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation.

Google will provide services that give users access to Google documents, spreadsheets, mail, and other services. In return, Google gains a new way to sell more Web ads, which accounts for a major portion of the company’s revenue.

An open platform makes it easier and less expensive to develop software and hardware for this system, a key point that mobile carriers and handset manufacturers will like. Apple’s iPhone is still more-or-less locked down, which makes it very difficult for large companies to develop their own iPhone applications for employee use. Apple has announced a software development kit for February 2008, according to TidBITS.

Programmers who want to write software for Symbian or Microsoft smartphones usually pay for the privilege.

Some relevant articles on this topic include:

• Wired, 5 November 2007: Google Phone announced as mobile operating system
• TechCrunch, 5 November 2007: Breaking: Google announced Android and Open Handset Alliance
• New York Times, 5 November 2007: Google enters the wireless world
• New York Times, 4 November 2007: I, Robot: The man behind the Google phone
• My articles on the Google Phone
• Business Week, 17 August 2005: Google buys Android

Here’s the official Google video of the announcement form YouTube.