Friday, April 20
DoubleClick raises privacy concerns
News.com
News.com reporter Margaret Kane provides some perspective on Google’s latest buy.
“Google’s announced acquisition of DoubleClick has raised considerable concern among privacy advocates, who argue that combining the search engine giant with a major online advertising firm puts too much information in the hands of one company.”
Would you pay three bucks for XP?
Real World IT
George Ou comments on MS’s decision to offer cut rate software to third world countries.
“But why is there so much fear of a $3 software suite comprising a crippled version of Windows XP along with Office and a few other educational titles? Surely this is a great opportunity for Linux and OpenOffice.org to compete in a market where people have no attachment or habit on any platform, since the open source solution is 100% free. These are countries where $3 might be a few weeks’ food supply, and it’s still a serious challenge for those nations to pay Microsoft millions of dollars in licensing fees. Surely in a situation where we’re starting with a clean slate and the potential untapped market is bigger than the entire present computing user base, free has to be more attractive than not free. For the Microsoft suite to stand any chance of winning, it would have to be head and shoulders above a much cheaper competitor.”
What’s your opinion?
What we learned from BlackBerry
VAR Business
David Raikow outlines some lessons learned from this week’s downtime
“Lesson 1: When it comes to outsourcing, transparency is critical. One of RIM’s biggest mistakes has been keeping its users in the dark about what actually happened, fueling frustration and speculation. It’s difficult enough for clients to trust anyone else with critical aspects of their business. While it may seem easier to keep quiet when something goes wrong, users will assume the worst if they can’t get information about a problem, and will take the resulting sense of helplessness and insecurity out on you.”
What’s your opinion?
Thursday, April 19
Jack Thompson once again blames video games
Daily Tech
Michael Hoffman is on Jack Thompson’s case again.
The new jetpack
Popular Mechanics
Can hoverboards be built?
“Hoverboards do exist, sort of. There are serious, but partially surmountable, technical challenges to making a piece of wood fly, especially over multiple surfaces, noiselessly, and without running out of energy within five minutes.”
What’s your opinion?
Is your BlackBerry working?
Wall Street Journal blogs
David Geffen, who covers RIM, takes a look at the company and its most recent troubles
“Shares of Research in Motion were down 2.1 per cent as a result of an outage experienced by the BlackBerry wireless email system. The system suffered a failure overnight that stymied use of the popular devices, but the company hasn’t issued a press release or communiqué with any more information. Most reports about the outage were coming anecdotally, as BlackBerry forums were littered with reports of unresponsive devices. One writer on Howardforums.com commented: “Still out here in Chicago. Oh the humanity!” A recording on the BlackBerry helpline acknowledged the problem, but provided little detail. “Please be advised that we are currently experiencing a service interruption that is causing delays in sending or receiving messages,” the message said. ‘Tanslation: Your BlackBerries have stopped working and we’re hearing from a lot of you, and we will make it start working again soon or business in the Western Hemisphere could come to a screeching halt and we’ll get blamed for it!'”
What’s your opinion?
Tuesday, April 17
Microsoft questions DoubleClick deal
SPI
Todd Bishops on his Microsoft blog finds out that the team at Redmond aren’t happy with Google latest deal.
“The analysts believe Microsoft might want to consider an acquisition or some other deal of its own to boost its presence in the advertising market, in addition to investing further in its own advertising technologies. One of DoubleClick’s main competitors, aQuantive Inc., is based in Seattle.”
What’s your opinion?
It won’t happen to me
Tech Target
Crystal Ferraro says customers would have to be living in a cave these days to avoid news of high-profile data breaches and privacy regulations.
“There is a huge misconception among information security professionals today that data privacy laws are not applicable to private companies, but are only designed for publicly traded companies, government organizations or financial institutions. This is not the case. Whether your company is public or private, large or small, today’s information privacy regulations may affect you and your organization on many different levels, not just financially and legally.”
What’s your opinion?
The brazen careerist
Pink Slip
Maureen Rogers is a Boston area blogger with expertise on high tech layoffs.
“I am pleased to announce that Brazen Careerist is an advice book that is actually well-written, sharp, and funny. There is plenty of excellent on- and off-the-job business wisdom contained within, yet the book is absolutely devoid of pietistic lard or corn-pone cutes. Nobody moved this girl’s cheese. And nobody taught her everything she needed to know in kindergarten, either.”
What’s your opinion?
Monday, April 16
Google dodgeball
Wired
Adario Strange blogs on Wired’s Epicenter about Google.
“Alex and I quit Google on Friday. It’s no real secret that Google wasn’t supporting Dodgeball the way we expected. The whole experience was incredibly frustrating for us – especially as we couldn’t convince them that Dodgeball was worth engineering resources, leaving us to watch as other startups got to innovate in the mobile + social space.”
What’s your opinion?
Apple’s new spots
News.com
Leslie Katz reveals the secrets of Apple’s new OS.
“Apple is pinning Leopard’s delayed release date on the push to get the company’s iPhone out on time, but some reports now say top secret features in the operating system could be responsible for the postponement.”
What’s your opinion?
The e-mail management accuracy solution
Juniper Research
David Daniels blogs about establish a consistent methodology and framework for the accurate calculation of e-mail delivery.
“Today we announced that I will be leading a new cross industry coalition, called the Email Measurement Accuracy Coalition.”
What’s your opinion?
Friday, April 13
Technology lowering gas pricesDaily Tech
Master Kenobi wonders why oil prices get lower, but gas prices don’t keep dropping?
“The problem however is that the rest of the world is not feeling the hit as well. A little research into the problem and you find out why the U.S. has faced rising gas prices for the past few years. It’s not the fault of rising oil prices; it’s actually the fault of the government.”
What’s your opinion?
What’s up with AnywhereCD
Bit Player
Jon Healey writes for the LA Times about technology and business issues.
“Could someone please explain to me how AnywhereCD could succeed?”
What’s your opinion?
The Technorati of Silicon Valley
The Tech Chronicles
“The deal Technorati chief executive David Sifry said his company aims to make blogs and other fast-changing personal postings as readily searchable as static web pages. He described the Personal Bee as a tool that lets people “curate and publish our own personal sites around topics, issues, or anything else.”
What’s your opinion?
Thursday, April 12
Can PhotoBucket survive without MySpace?Tech Crunch
Michael Arrington poses the question a lot of digital camera users are thinking about.
“There was a lot of fingerpointing, denials, and ‘he said, she said’ going on today as everyone digested the news that MySpace had blocked PhotoBucket’s 40 million members from embedding videos into their MySpace pages. From my perspective this looks like MySpace just found an excuse to send a big middle finger to the largest independent widget company in the hope of disrupting their ongoing acquisition talks. Om Malik sees things differently and thinks Photobucket practically asked for this blockade. Robert Scoble calls Photobucket and services like it ‘parasitic.’ Nick Carr says this is all basically inevitable, regardless of who’s to blame. But the important question isn’t who’s fault this is. What is more interesting looking forward is, can Photobucket survive without MySpace?”
What’s your opinion?
MySpace disturbing the peace
Tech Dirt
Carlo posts this bit of crazy news about the popular social networking site.
“MySpace is at the center of another free-speech case, only this time it’s the one that’s alleged to be doing the infringing. A Missouri man has sued MySpace (unsurprisingly, pro se) for infringing his freedom of speech by “arbitrarily deleting TWO profiles” established by the man and a host of other complaints, including violating his “freedom to use the social networking site in peace”. We’re still looking through our copy of the Constitution to find the part about the right to use social-networking services, but maybe we’ve got an old version. Never mind that we thought the part about freedom of speech really only applied to the government; we weren’t aware that it also meant private companies had to provide anyone and everyone with a platform to speak, and ensure it conforms to that person’s every wish.”
What’s your opinion?
Blogger code of conduct
Tech Web
Mitch Wagner takes a hardheaded look at the new blogger code of conduct.
“One of my favorite bloggers, John Scalzi, takes a hardheaded look at the proposed blogger code of conduct, and has a common-sense response: He hates the code, but says bloggers need to take responsibility for their blogs, and understand that it’s not a violation of free speech to delete offensive comments and ban the authors from coming back. He’s right – free speech can only survive in a civilized environment, when people start throwing around personal attacks and violent threats, then discussion is at a close.”
What’s your opinion?
Wednesday, April 11
Wikipedia fails the Anna Nicole Smith test
News.com
Declan McCullagh debunks the myth of Wikipedia by focusing on deceased celebrity Anna Nicole Smith.
“We’ve heard in recent months that Wikipedia is a fast and realiable source of information about breaking news. What better way to test that theory than in Monday’s reports about who fathered the late Anna Nicole Smith’s baby?”
What’s your opinion?
Vonage bankruptcy
Pink Slip
Maureen Rogers is a Boston area blogger specializing in high tech layoffs.
“A little squib of an article in the Boston Globe (from Bloomberg) reported the other day that Vonage ‘the worst performing US initial public offering in the last year’ may go bankrupt by 2009. Well, as an alumna of Genuity, the worst performing US IPO of its year, and I believe the worst IPO ever up to that time. (I might just be bragging here), I can sympathize with the Vonage folks. (And did I mention that we went bankrupt, too. How fun is that?)”
What’s your opinion?
Google should pay taxes
Business 2.0
Owen Thomas believes if we should pay taxes so should Google. You can read about the latest sweetheart deal below.
“When Google decided to set up a data center in Lenoir, North Carolina, the company got a sweet deal: up to $90 million in tax breaks, thanks to a waiver on state and local sales tax on what Google on electricity and equipment.”
What’s your opinion?
Tuesday, April 10
Mobile calls should be free
IT Wire
Stuart Corner has uncovered some inventive ways Europeans use cellphones. Quick: How can you tell between the European and the tourist? The European has four cellphones.
“Over in Europe a mobile virtual network operator called Blyk is planning to offer a free mobile phone service funded by advertising. It is a concept that deserves to be taken very seriously. Blyk plans to launch in the UK in mid 2007 and then to expand into other European countries. And if you are tempted to dismiss it as a crackpot with little chance of getting of the ground, think again.”
What’s your opinion?
The Xbox keyboard
Seattle Post Intelligencer
Microsoft watcher Todd Bishop got to review a funky keyboard for the Xbox console gaming system.
“Here’s a close-up look at a standard Xbox 360 controller with the thumb-typing keyboard attachment that Microsoft will sell as part of its plan to extend Windows Live Messenger functionality to the console. The company announced the plan last night. Microsoft isn’t yet saying how much the small keyboard attachment will cost when it goes on sale this summer. Without it, gamers will need to either plug in their own USB keyboards or use the cumbersome, on-screen virtual keyboard to send instant messages.”
What’s your opinion?
Longhorn still on track
Tech Target
Christina Torode has the scoop on the next beta of Longhorn.
“Although beta 3 of Windows Server ‘Longhorn’ is due out shortly, Microsoft pushed out some code for its beta customers to test in advance of the larger release. Microsoft wants customers to test the build to make sure Microsoft is ready to ship the next beta, said Helene Love Snell, senior product manager at Microsoft’s Windows Server division.”
What’s your opinion?
Monday, April 9
100 million iPods sold
Wired
Rob Beschizza has confirmed the fact about bestselling MP3 device.
“We chose base-10 numerals, so we get to hear about it when new zeroes are added to tallies. Did much change when the 100 millionth iPod was sold? Should there not have been a greater crack around the world, (Or a synthesized choral boot noise?), shaking lions into the street and us to their dens?”
What’s your opinion?
Curbing bad behaviour blogs
News.com
Tech industry bloggers have called for a code of conduct.
“In the wake of a tempest in the blogosphere that devolved even to the point of reported death threats to author Kathy Sierra, a few bloggers have decided that the tech industry is getting enough of a black eye, and have called for a ‘code of conduct’ to govern polite behavior. The code, posted by publisher Tim O’Reilly, is apparently designed for bloggers who are lacking in even the most basic of manners and who need helpful tips in conducting a polite conversation without resorting to name-calling.”
What’s your opinion?
The digital jewel case
Gizmodo
Charlie White reminisces about old CD album art.
“Do you miss holding that CD jewel box in your hands, kicking back and listening to music while you peruse the album art and liner notes? Here’s a concept by David Friedman for a digital jewel box, sitting on its charging stand next to your computer and connected to your Wi-Fi network. It synchronizes with iTunes, and then when you’re listening to your tunes you can take the little display with you and read the album notes and art it’s downloaded.”
What’s your opinion?