The FCC today made an effective change in their Safe Harbor rules that will result in Service providers having to pay higher fees for their customers calls. This will likely be passed onto consumers, who will likely see an increase in the tax portion of their phone bills.

The FCC will require for the first time that VOIP carriers contribute to the Safe Harbor fund. The carriers must calculate that 64.9% of all VOIP calls are to be considered interstate or international thus requiring a payment into the fund.

Wireless Carriers also received bad news as their Base Calculation rate was increased from 28.5 to 37.1%. This means that the base of wireless or cellular calls will be taxed more. For example, in the past if a user made $100 worth of calls the base established that $28.50 of those calls were likely to be interestate or international and thus subject to the fee. That base is now increased to 37.1% or $37.10 for every $100 in service.

This is the equivalent of increasing a property tax assessment. The rates have not increased just the base that the rates are multiplied against. The FCC states that consumer trends in wireless and in VOIP indicate that more consumers are making long distance calls, which justify this increase.

FCC Adds VOIP to Universal Service Fund

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IBM working with Georgia Tech have successfully clocked processor speeds of 500 gigahertz (GHZ) when the silicon-germanium processor is frozen to absolute zero.

The Same chip can clock in at 350 GHZ at room temperatures, and researchers believe that the technology with additional advances should be able to yield speeds of 1000 GHZ or 1 Terahertz.

While this is more of a laboratory advance, it could have applications in space exploration where temperatures approach absolute zero. It could also be possible to recreate cooling systems that could approach these temperatures for expensive military or modelling applications.

Researchers feel that regardless of the early applications, better understanding will help them find household applications as well.

We’ll keep our eyes peeled here at Maven Mapper’s for future IBM stickers with claims of Cryogenics Inside!

Additional information, see:Technology News: Cutting Edge : IBM, Georgia Tech Deep Freeze for Gigahertz

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People viewed Bill Gates anouncement last week of his future retirement from Microsoft as a significant item. Gates will in fact remain in the Chairman’s role of the company, but will cease his active day to day functions in other capacities. Microsoft has been on a buying spree picking up software companies and technologies left and right. Just as Windows Live is launching, a typical corporate restructuring occurred with none other than the head of the Windows Live group, Martin Taylor. Taylor is now reported to have been an up and coming star and a Steve Ballmer protege.

It would appear in hindsight that Taylor has been on the outs since last Friday, as he was suddenly unavailable for reporters and then his email was shut down and finally the anouncement and the corporate websites offered up the obvious, Martin was gone.

Ballmer Bids Adieu To Windows Live Exec - Forbes.com: “Taylor’s sudden departure has left many scratching their heads. Some observers believe Ray Ozzie, the man set to take over Bill Gates’ role as chairman in 2008, may have had a hand in trying prepare his own team of executives.”

The question that is foremost in the media is “Does this signal a shakeup by Ray Ozzie, slated to replace Bill Gates in 2 years?” or is something else going on?

My money is on the idea that something else is going on at Micirosoft and with Taylor. Two years is a long way off and would leave pleanty of time to make a better transition without casting a cloud over a new product roll out.

Did Taylor find a sweeter deal somewhere else? Did he feel passed over somehow? Were unpublished mistakes made or efforts sabataged?

Most importantly how does this fit in the grand scheme of things with all of the other efforts, purchases, and actions by Microsoft this year?

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