Electric Shadow

Austin Might be Next for Google Fiber

If this ends up true as reported by Tom Cheredar for VentureBeat, it's a great sign for the future of broadband in the United States:

While city officials are staying quiet, multiple sources tell VentureBeat that the announcement could involve expanding Google’s gigabit broadband Internet service Google Fiber to Austin. Alternately, the city could announce plans for a new Austin-based Google campus, or even some partnership to involve the city with a new Google service. Obviously, we don’t know what the announcement will entail, but its safe to say that it’ll be of interest to a broad section of the local community.

As creepy as Google has gotten, I can't shake the hope this we end up nationally move toward making internet access a public utility.

Goodbye, Google Reader

On 1 July, Google Reader is no more. For a few years, we've been watching it recess further out of the primary view of our Google Accounts. I'm surprised it made it this long, but the upside is that Google is no longer mining all of my reading habit data, and Reeder already exists.