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The InformationWeek January 2007 Archive « December 2006 | Main | February 2007 » |
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Dear Steph And Chey: You Are Soooooooo Busted
Apparently, the new, electronic way for schoolkids to pass notes to each other is to leave comments on random blogs. The reason I know this is because two girls named "steph" and "chey" have been leaving messages on this blog.
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Second Life Is Hard To Use -- Is That A Bug Or A Feature?
Second Life is hard to use. Everybody knows it. I've logged something like 20 hours on SL in the past week and a half, and I'm still a consummate klutz. SL needs to be easier to use -- but not too easy, because if it was easy, it would undercut the nature of the world and remove one of its most appealing qualities.
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Blogger Smackdown At AlwaysOn
Last night's final panel at the AlwaysOn conference in NYC, "Panel: Can Brands Get Away with 'Buzz Marketing' in the Blogosphere?", was the best session so far at this show. It was chock-full of emotion, idealism, and all the kinds of ideas you hope to see on stage at a conference.
The session was moderated by CKS Partners founder Bill Cleary and included super-bloggers Jeff Jarvis and David Weinberger.
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Mobility At AlwaysOn: If You Personalize It Will They Come?
Mobility took the stage this morning at the AlwaysOn Media conference in New York City. Panelists tried to tackle the question of the third screen: Will consumers respond to mobile ads? How can marketers capitalize on such a small space? Are cell phones too personal a space to hit with marketing messages?
The panelists agreed that a couple of factors will contibute to the success of mobile marketing. The first is the personal connection consumers have with their cell phones. While this personal connection can open a marketer to potential danger -- especially if their campaign isn't relevant. But, if the marketing campaign is relevant and targeted, the mobile channel can be even more effective than the contextually targeted Web.
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PTT By the Minute?!?
Correct me if I am wrong here, but wasn't the major premise of push-to-talk technology (PTT) that it would help save people (enterprises) money by allowing them to avoid using their monthly minute allotment because they were using the walkie-talkie instead? If so, AT&T's new plan to allow customers to use PTT on a per-minute basis negates the entire appeal.
Sorry, but if I have to pay by the minute to use the PTT service on my BlackBerry, it just ain't gonna happen. Granted, AT&T's proposed fee of $0.15 per minute is far lower than typical minute overage fees, which fall in the $0.45 to $0.55 range, but still. It just seems counterintuitive to me. Why use a walkie-talkie if you're going to be charged by the minute?
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The Most Unusual Person In Second Life
Ida Keen is the most unusual person I've met in Second Life. You'll recall that the people I've met in SL include Dirjha Summers, an exotic dancer who works in a midnight city prowled by vampires and demons, along with Tateru Nino, an androgynous figure in a long robe who works in an office floating high in the clouds. Ida Keen, however, is an ordinary woman who lives, along with her husband, in an approximate reproduction of her grandmother's house on the Florida shore. She wears jeans, a sweater, and sneakers.
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Surviving Media Disruption At AlwaysOn: Will There Be A Calm After The Storm?
Yesterday, I was at the opening session of the AlwaysOn NYC Media Event. Many of the media industry's top congenscenti were on hand to discuss, debate, spin, and relentlessly pitch the future of all online media. All of the bloggers present (like yours truly) were sectioned off into a tiny space in the middle of the floor called the "Blogger Bullpen" while media business types waltzed by, staring at us like penguins in a zoo.
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Outsourcing Reaches Its Tipping Point
Author Malcolm Gladwell says a tipping point occurs when a phenomenon starts to multiply exponentially, as though it were an infectious virus. Outsourcing's tipping point occurred this week when Accenture announced it would have more workers in India than in the United States by August.
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Jim Gray, Noted Database Researcher, Missing At Sea
Jim Gray, 63, the noted database researcher, veteran of stints at IBM, Tandem Computers, and most recently Microsoft, is missing at sea. He set out Sunday morning to do something that I have done twice, sail from San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge across 27 miles of ocean to the Farallon Islands. He hasn't returned.
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Microsoft's Sound And Fury
You would think that, for the launch of its much-anticipated Vista operating system, Microsoft could transcend the typical hype session that companies seem to think are the best way to introduce their products. But Microsoft's vaunted Vista launch event was a bigger version of the kind of production that you usually see at trade shows such as CES or the late, lamented Comdex -- a lot of noise, a lot of lights, and a lot of sound and fury, signifying ... well, you know the quote.
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And Away We SVGo!
Yesterday in NYC the Mobile Monday organization hosted a half-day seminar on scalable vector graphics (SVG). According to the fine collection of speakers the little group huddled at the Samsung Experience had the pleasure of listening to, this tiny little computer language is promising to revolutionize the mobile web experience. Some day.
The take-away message for the afternoon was: SVG is grrrrrrate!
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Hello, Vista. Good-bye Tablet OS?
In case you didn't know, Microsoft's Vista operating system launches today. Though there are 80 gazillion different versions of Vista, I didn't see any of them labeled "Tablet OS". What gives, Ballmer?
In scrolling the headlines today, I noticed a small blurb from HP about a new TouchScreen PC they are working on. You can read about it here. As I was perusing the article, I thought to myself, "Hmm, is there a Tablet version of Vista?" So off in search of Vista Tablet I went...
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IM, Therefore I Think
I ranted about AOL's extreme makeover of AIM Express last week and was gratified by the comments and e-mails from people who were quick to fill in my memory lapses with the names of instant messaging alternatives. Trillian and Gaim both have numerous supporters. The one I was blocked on was Qnext, which nobody else mentioned, but I really liked it when I reviewed it a couple of years ago.
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What Happens In Second Life, Stays In SL
Role-playing is an essential part of Second Life. But some people take it more seriously than others. Some people act as if Second Life really is a second life -- as if the person who exists in that virtual world really is a different person from the one in the real world.
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Strange Anti-Microsoft Bedfellows
What do Brussels and Des Moines have in common? An apparent determination to keep Microsoft's competitive instincts under control that goes far beyond what Washington had the belly for.
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Major Vista Facts? Please!
There's an article floating around the Internet today called "Facts About Windows Vista." In it, you'll find 4 genuine pieces of information (which are not all that exciting, by the way) about the world's most expensive operating system, following by some inane statistics on how many dopes will use it.
C'mon, Reuters. You call this news? The entirety of their article tells us this: new look, easier search, gadget sidebar, and better security. Oh, and a million this, and a million that for 2007, blah, blah, blah.
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Is Palm Losing Its Grip on Business Customers?
With tight integration to back-end systems becoming more and more necessary, is Palm OS on the verge of extinction? As nifty as the Palm OS is to use, it seems fewer and fewer businesses take it seriously, opting instead for Microsoft-based platforms.
There was a time when I was addicted to my Treo 650. It was my first qwerty keyboard device, but more than that, it was my first smartphone. I loaded it chock full of contacts, synced it with my calendar, stuck some tunes and applications on there and used it to do some basic housekeeping for tasks, meetings and such. I enjoyed using the OS, the touchscreen, how easy it was to perform functions and the low learning curve. Everything just felt natural. But then I needed to sync my email and hook into my business, and suddenly there were better options.
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Get Me The Geeks? Oh, Please!
Apparently, computers and TVs are now so complicated they can only be set up by people who stay at home Saturday nights reading technical manuals. That's how 60 Minutes portrayed it Sunday, on a segment called Get Me The Geeks.
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The First Celebrity Of Second Life Says She Was Misquoted
Anshe Chung just e-mailed me to correct some statements in my earlier blog post. She says she never engaged in cybersex for Linden Dollars. She compares what she did to what a geisha does: "A geisha is not paid for sex, although an individual geisha may choose to pursue sexual relationships with men she meets through her work."
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It's Not A Best-Seller, But Better Read It Anyway
It's not going to make it onto the New York Times best-seller list, but the IT Infrastructure Library just might save your job. If you've ever seen things go disastrously wrong, then come to the understanding it was going to happen again--that's the time to read the ITIL titles.
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My Dinner With Google
I drove from San Francisco down to Mountain View last night to attend a dinner with members of the Google Apps and Google Enterprise teams.
I rented a Zip Car for the occasion, since my car wasn't available and public transport wasn't an option. The car was a Cooper Mini. It's a fun little car. It had XM Radio and I have to say I was impressed with the sound quality. But I digress.
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Everything You Want Out Of Life: Computer Games, Money, And Sex
Pity me, my job is such torture. I've been spending a lot of the last week explicitly, and with the enthusiastic support of my managers and colleagues, doing an activity which gets people fired from most rational jobs. I've been messing around with computer games. Specifically, the virtual world known as Second Life.
Continue reading "Everything You Want Out Of Life: Computer Games, Money, And Sex..."
Second Life's First Celebrity
Second Life has produced one authentic celebrity so far: Anshe Chung, who claims a financial worth of $1 million real-life, American dollars for creating and selling virtual goods and services. I interviewed her for two hours yesterday evening in Second Life, and woke up this morning with a new appreciation of how slippery identity and reality is in Second Life.
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Mobile Spam Finally Arrives
It's the day many of us wireless industry insiders have been waiting for, the day mobile marketing spam finally hits North American shores. And it appears mobile spam may be here to stay.
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YouTube Simpsons Subpoena Spotlights Copyright Insanity
No, this isn't another legal tussle or media mess involving O.J. or Judith Regan. It's a Web copyright battle touched off by that overrated weekly animated series starring Homer and Marge. And, as with most copyright disputes, the online data path leads directly to YouTube.
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Nokia Mobile Enterprise Still Losing Money
Nokia's enterprise group, Nokia Enterprise Solutions, is still in the red. Why can Nokia make so much money off its core business of cell phones, but not from business mobility? Is it that mobile enterprise is still the little engine that could? Or is the company's focus off?
To be fair, Nokia said that it expects its mobile enterprise business to break even by the first half of 2007, so maybe they're close to turning the ship around. We'll see.
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"Cough! Cough!" Yes, That Was Your Smartphone Wheezing At You
Believe it or not, the first mobile viruses began appearing back in mid-June 2004. The Cabir worm and Mosquito Trojan both targeted smartphones that run the Symbian Series 60 operating system, which is the most widely used smartphone platform across the world. Others targeting Windows Mobile appeared later. Should the enterprise be concerned? Hell, yeah!
Continue reading ""Cough! Cough!" Yes, That Was Your Smartphone Wheezing At You..."
HP, Alas, Why Did Ye Stray?
That the weight of the spying scandal continues to cause small implosions and aftershocks over at HP isn't terribly surprising. What does surprise me is the lack of a battle cry from other journalists and the complete silence from HP's press team.
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How To Improve Your VoIP Service
Ferenc Veres over at VoIP.com offers some advice on how to improve your VoIP service.
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Is Microsoft's Impact On The Economy Bigger Than Google's?
Donna Bogatin asks a thought-provoking question: Who has more impact on the economy, Microsoft or Google?
During his annual predictions for 2007, futurist Mark Anderson said that Google and Microsoft represent two very different types of money. Microsoft is plumbing money, Anderson said, while Google is ad money.
Continue reading "Is Microsoft's Impact On The Economy Bigger Than Google's?..."
Second Life Slowdown
Today, I took off my pants in public and discovered I have no genitals. I also gave myself a new appearance in Second Life. Other than that, the day's gameplay so far has been pretty disappointing.
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Adobe Does VoIP And P2P
Om Malik over at GigaOM analyzes Adobe's acquisition of P2P firm amicima and Adobe's subsequent move into the VoIP and peer-to-peer online spaces.
Is The Linux Community Breaking Apart?
A lot of talk is going around these days about social networking on the Web and how people are forming new types of communities via sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and LiveJournal. But as far as I'm concerned, the real online communities are those groups of people who gather online wherever they can because of shared interests, shared concerns, or shared values. And one of the most fervent, opinionated, interesting, and influential groups is the open source community.
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Metaphorical Cold Water In Virtual Worlds
John Kusters is an enthusiastic World of Warcraft player. Nonetheless, he poured cold water on one of the main theses of my article: That virtual worlds, like World of Warcraft and Second Life, are becoming mainstream. He says they're inherently solitary pursuits, and therefore appeal to solitary people, who are comfortable spending hours at a time alone in front of their computers.
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HP Spy Charges Put PC Hacking In Perspective
Thoughts of security breaches typically focus on hacking, but that stuff is small potatoes when compared to the big kahuna of unauthorized access: corporate spying.
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Discuss: Will SATA Rule Enterprise Storage?
All the research data agrees: SATA already acoounts for the overwhelming majority of all desktop drives currently being sold, and is well on its way to taking the lead in notebook storage too. However, most analysts expect that enterprise storage will remain predominately SCSI, although I'm not so sure about it.
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Mobile Phones Pass Major Sales Landmark and Shoot for the Cosmos
If Carl Sagan were still alive, all the wireless associations around the world could have tapped him for his famous, though-never-actually-uttered, catch phrase.
Continue reading "Mobile Phones Pass Major Sales Landmark and Shoot for the Cosmos..."
Will 2007 Finally Be the Year of Mobility?
IDC seems to think so. Sure, there are some hurdles that remain to be cleared, but a reasonable amount of interoperability already exists. Mobile devices themselves are finally powerful enough to handle just about anything business app we can throw at them. The real question is, when will enterprises realize this and adopt the technology that's going boost their business into the next realm?
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Meet Your New Spouse: The PC
Just in time for Valentine's Day hype, a new survey claims that 65% of US consumers over the age of 18 spend more time with their computers than with their spouses or significant others. Talk about tech love.
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In A Virtual Den Of Vice And Iniquity, Your Feet Don't Stick To The Floor
I had my first visit to Mature-rated area of Second Life. It wasn't on purpose. Message to my wife: You hear that? I didn't do it on purpose! Do I have to keep sleeping on the couch?
Continue reading "In A Virtual Den Of Vice And Iniquity, Your Feet Don't Stick To The Floor..."
Hey, Are You Reading this Blog While You're At Work?
A new study shows that the majority of office workers use their company's technology for personal reasons, including checking personal email and taking personal calls on their office telephone, despite express policies forbidding it. Tsk, tsk!
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Cause We're All Phonies
Sprint has our number. They know we use our mobile phones as excuses to get out of awkward social situations (bad dates, family funerals, meetings), and are launching a hysterical new service to help us all be better liars.
Continue reading "Cause We're All Phonies..."
AOL's AIM Today Beta: When Good Web Apps Go Bad
Are you an AIM user? Have you been sucked into AOL's AIM Today beta? How much do you hate it? Yeah, me too. AOL has apparently forgotten that instant messaging is supposed to be about communication. It's thrown out the buddy list and chat window, and now pushes you into a schlock celebrity-scandals-and-ads portal page that is some marketing guy's twisted take on the social Web. I don't want Naomi Watts or a thousand new best friends. I want my budddy list. How do you do IM in the new AIM? Beats me.
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Hello Windows Vista, Goodbye PC
Microsoft's New York City bash on Jan. 29 to mark the official, it's really, really here, introduction of the consumer version of Windows Vista will be the last "operating system as event" the PC world will ever witness.
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Interview With Science-Fiction Writer Charles Stross About Virtual Worlds
This research into virtual worlds and online gaming is taking me to some weird places. So to speak. Today, I'm totally jazzed because I got to interview one of my favorite writers, Charles Stross, a science-fiction author, former tech journalist, programmer, and veteran of two dot-coms. I talked to Charlie about his upcoming novel, Halting State, set 12 years in the future, in a world where virtual worlds have become mainstream.
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A Peek At The Future Of Computing
ORLANDO, Fla. -- One of the best things about the IBM Lotusphere conference is always the glimpses it gives you of the future of computing. The various IBM Research labs send representatives who staff a room filled with demo pedestals -- two dozen this year -- where creators show off their projects. This year, as usual, several projects look like good prospects to become future products, and IBM Lotus has even put one up on the Web so you can get a look at it even though you're not at the conference.
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Tech Pros Get Ready: We've Only Seen Tip Of Outsourcing Iceberg
In the United States, there's been much hue and cry about the thousands of tech jobs that have been offshored to India over the past couple of years. But viewed in football terms, outsourcing is only in the first five minutes of the first quarter. Get ready for tens of thousands more American IT jobs to head overseas in the next few years.
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GPS = Gosh, People are Stupid!
Is anyone else as astounded as I am with the outright idiocy of crooks, thugs and thieves? Some Babylon, NY, scofflaws found out the hard way that stealing cell phones often leads the police right to your front door.
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802.11n(evermind)
The eye-triple-e recently took another baby step toward ratifying the 802.11n standard, which is said to be finalized by this summer. I say, "So what?"
Continue reading "802.11n(evermind)..."
Second Life, First Impression 2: "Your Clothing Is Still Downloading"
This afternoon I learned to walk, and fly, and fix my hair. I picked up a beachball and put it on a table, I'm ready to leave Orientation Island and go out into the real world. Or, rather, the real, virtual world of Second Life.
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Good Riddance To IBM Workplace
ORLANDO, Fla. — DisneyWorld is such an appropriate setting for Lotusphere, IBM Lotus' annual lovefest for its customers, developers, and business partners. There's been a strong element of fantasy in Lotus' product direct direction for the last half a dozen years. But this morning there was a change, as general manager Mike Rhodin announced two new social-computing products, Quickr and Lotus Connects, that could be real-world successes. Even more important, he killed an old one, the poorly defined Workplace.
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Second Life, First Impression: I Find My First Life Pretty Confusing Already
I'm now ready to make a pronouncement about Second Life, based on well under an hour of experience with it this morning: It's pretty confusing. Also, my hair looks terrible.
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The Wily 9-Year-Old Who 'Hacked' Airport Security
They say social engineering is the most potent form of hacking, and now we have a 9-year-old who's proved it.
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Virtual Worlds: The Next Big Thing Or Next Big Nothing?
Are virtual world and online games like World of Warcraft and Second Life what the Internet will look like in coming years? A few people I've been talking to recently think so, including Corey Bridges, co-founder of Multiverse Network, whom I interviewed Friday afternoon for an article on virtual worlds. A generation of young people is growing up hacking and slashing their way through virtual worlds -- that's literally true in the case of World of Warcraft -- and they're going to expect a 3-D, virtual world interface for the rest of their online interaction.
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Mobile Messaging Madness
A new report from Aberdeen says the best companies use varied means of mobile messaging to stay in touch with their employees and their customers. Do you?
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Seamless Global Roaming? Don't Make Me Laugh
We hate to burst your bubble, but there's just no way wireless enterprise users will be able to roam the entire globe without hitting a few snags here and there. Yet.
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5 Free Security Betas You Can Download For Windows Vista
Given the torrent of criticism Microsoft has taken for Windows Vista's inelegant User Account Controls (UACs), one couldn't be blamed for assuming that the operating system is handicapped when it comes to security. But one would be wrong, very wrong.
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MySpace Lawsuits Called Losers
Four families are suing MySpace for failing to prevent adults from contacting and subsequently sexually assaulting their daughters.
The lawsuits charge MySpace and parent company News Corp. with negligence, gross negligence, fraud, fraud by nondisclosure, and negligent misrepresentation.
As InformationWeek's Antone Gonsalves reports, the assaults occurred in late 2005 and early 2006. Authorities arrested six men in connection with the attacks. Two pleaded guilty and others are awaiting trial.
In a post about the lawsuits on the Concurring Opinions blog, law professor Eric Goldman says, "These lawsuits are obvious losers for two independent reasons."
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The Revolution Will Be Vlogged
Will privacy become a quaint custom that people in the 20th century used to practice? While government and corporate surveillance and massive, petabyte databases of personal data are making it harder to keep secrets, the biggest threat to privacy is something you're carrying around in your pocket: Your cameraphone.
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If You Like Needles, You're Gonna Love RFID
Some recent news about electronic tracking of cattle, as well as a look at the new James Bond movie, has revived long-repressed fears about vaccinations at the pediatrician.
Continue reading "If You Like Needles, You're Gonna Love RFID..."
Reach Out And Touch Your Computer
What will the computer user interface of 2017 look like? Maybe something like this, which allows users to reach out to the computer screen and touch and move objects on it as though they were physically real. Check out the mind-blowing video demo.
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Will 'Craplets' Put Windows Vista At Risk?
After a week of anticipation, I finally got Microsoft on the phone to discuss these so-called "craplets," crappy applets that an unidentified Microsoft official told a reporter at last week's Consumer Electronics Show would interfere with Vista if they were loaded by PC makers and system builders onto computers running the new operating system. At first I thought this was a refreshing bit of honesty from Microsoft. It was unhappy that someone else in the PC ecosystem was interfering with its biggest OS launch ever. But the fact that Microsoft's PR firm strung me along for a week without an interview should have told me something. It was in spin mode, trying to figure out how to step over the craplets problem.
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Casting Pearls Before The Swine
Do people really care what color their cell phone is? Blinged out teeny-bopper Paris Hilton models aside, did we really need the new, white Pearl, from RIM?
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Free Wireless, A Good Idea?
Yet another municipality is announcing free Wi-Fi wireless access for its denizens. Is 802.11 becoming commoditized?
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Rumor-Busting: Bloggers Won't Be Required To Register
Looks like yesterday's rumors that bloggers might be required to register as lobbyists, or face jail time, turns out to be just plain wrong. U.S. Sen. David Vitter has a statement clarifying the proposed law.
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Sneak Peek: Is This The Google Phone?
Engadget is running pictures of what some tipster claims is the long-awaited Google phone, the Google Switch.
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Reality Check: Senate Bill S.1 Poses No Threat To Bloggers
My colleague Mitch Wagner and some other journalists have picked up on a report by an organization called Grass Roots Freedom that a Senate bill designed to bring transparency to the lobbying process could result in the jailing of political bloggers. Did you know that the bill does not even mention the words "blog" or "blogger"? There's also a couple of things you should know about "Grass Roots Freedom."
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Trust: It's A Terrible Thing To Waste
Kill me now. The latest data hack at the TJX companies has me, and a lot of other people I know, on the edge of their seats. We shop a lot at the TJX family of companies -- T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, and A.J. Wright and Bob's Stores -- and yesterday's announcement that the company had been hit hard by a data hack is not sitting well.
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Cellular Component of Telecom Costs Becoming Killer
A NJ-based research firm is saying that more companies are spending the bulk of the telecom services dollar on cellular services. Um, Duh!
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Phishers And Rootkits And Death Threats, Oh My!
I fell for a phisher last week. Embarrassing, but true. Until then, the urgent e-mails telling me that an account had been compromised had only managed to give me slight shivers of concern before my rational self took over and I clicked the delete button.
Not this time.
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Dell Gets Tough
Mainstream PC maker Dell has not been known for its overly durable products. With competitors offering "ruggedized" hardware that's more durable, however, Dell decided to get its rough-and-tumble game on.
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SNL Mocks Steve Jobs And The iPhone
Just in case you had any doubts that the iPhone has trescended mere techdom to become the cultural trend du jour for January, perennial TV sketch show Saturday Night Live mocked both Steve Jobs and the iPhone in a recent episode.
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What About An Enterprise MVNO?
Daniel Taylor over at the Mobile Enterprise Weblog questions if 2007 will be the year of the enterprise MVNO.
Continue reading "What About An Enterprise MVNO?..."
Mobile Enterprise Takes Off In Latin America
According to a new report from Frost & Sullivan, the market for mobile enterprise applications and devices is expected to show strongth growth over the next few years.
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Political Bloggers Could Be Required To Register Or Face Jail Time
Update (1/19/2006): This bill does not affect bloggers. The initial report by GrassRootsFreedom.com is, quite simply, false. See posts by my colleague Paul McDougall and me for more info. An outfit called GrassRootsFreedom.com is reporting that the U.S. Senate is considering legislation that would require political bloggers with readership over 500 to register as lobbyists. If they fail to register, they could face criminal penalties up to one year in jail.
Continue reading "Political Bloggers Could Be Required To Register Or Face Jail Time..."
Communication Breakdown
Unified communications has a new road map thanks to a partnership between industry giants Nortel and Microsoft. They suggest that by breaking down the barriers separating e-mail, voice, instant messaging and video conferencing, a new era of communications will arrive. Sounds so warm and cuddly. Can they really pull it off?
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Vista, Schmista
Last week while working the press room at CES I was afforded a sneak peek at Microsoft's new operating system, Vista. I have to be honest here and say that I was not all that impressed.
Continue reading "Vista, Schmista..."
Obama Developing Online Video Strategy
Beet.TV reports that U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, who this week formed an exploratory committee to investigate running for U.S. President next year, has a deal with Brightcove to manage the senator's online video strategy.
Continue reading "Obama Developing Online Video Strategy..."
Top 10 Potential iPhone Problems
Our friend Dave Greenfield at Network Computing came up with a list of top 10 potential iPhone problems. These include the low-resolution camera, slow data feeds, missing GPS, and lack of support for the most popular instant-messaging platform: AOL's.
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Enterprise Admins Needn't Worry about iPhone Integration...Yet
Don't worry, we heard you. That big collective groan from IT managers last week when Apple introduced the iPhone will not be ignored.
Continue reading "Enterprise Admins Needn't Worry about iPhone Integration...Yet..."
Why Offshore Outsourcing May Pave Way For The Next Google
Corporations like IBM and GE led the charge to India and beyond. But cheaper bandwidth and new technologies mean small businesses can now get in on the savings offered by offshore outsourcing--a welcome development for the entrepreneurial minded.
Continue reading "Why Offshore Outsourcing May Pave Way For The Next Google..."
Call For Participants: What's Your Opinion On Vista?
OK, I realize that most of us have had news/features/ reviews/blogs/ videos/whatever about Vista pretty much up the whazzoo, and that a lot of you are thinking, "OK, already. Enough is enough! Just release the OS to the public, let us decide what's good/bad/indifferent about it, and leave us alone!"
Continue reading "Call For Participants: What's Your Opinion On Vista?..."
An Ironic User's Guide To The iPhone
It seems everyone is talking about the iPhone these days, including Dave Eggers' hip literary journal McSweeney's. McSweeney's writer Darren Cahr offers some interesting and creative ways to make use of the iPhone.
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CES 2007 = Snorefe...Zzzz
You, Mr. Enterprise-Minded Reader, may ask yourself why on Earth the Consumer Electronics Show is relevant to yourself, as you ponder purchasing a million Dell laptops and RIM BlackBerry's for your mobile workers. Put your fears aside, because, in all honesty, it wasn't. But, that's not going to stop me from telling you why...
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Podcast: 5 Disruptive Technologies To Watch In 2007
Listen to InformationWeek contributor David Strom describe how advanced graphics processing, RFID, Web services, virtualization, and mobile security will change the enterprise. David talks about why those technologies will be hot this year, and what IT managers should be doing to prepare themselves.
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5 Things Google Must Do To Succeed In 2007
Now that Google has assumed the Microsoft position as the company most everyone loves to hate, whether it's deserved or not (though not this guy), I thought I'd kick off the year with some constructive criticism, including the advice that the search company cooperate, rather than fight with, content providers.
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AT&T != Ma Bell
I keep running across articles and blogs ranting about AT&T and "Ma Bell" as if the company that's calling itself AT&T is the same company that used to run the nation's telephone networks. I hate to be the one to break it to people, but the company that's calling itself AT&T is a completely different company from the "Ma Bell" of yore, which no longer exists except in trademark.
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Your Digital Life
Starting next week, we're launching a new area of reporting, focusing on how information technology changes people's lives and how it changes society. This will include a hodgepodge of subjects: Internet law, politics, censorship, digital rights management, online gaming, blogging, a bit of Web 2.0, online communities, local search, and more.
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Where's The iPhone's Software Development Kit?
After you spend $500 on an iPhone, what will you be able to do with it? Not enough, unless Apple makes it easy for third-party developers to build applications for it. Is Apple doing that? Not yet.
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Mac OS Or Vista? Your Turn To Weigh In
Last Saturday, we published a review comparing Mac OS X and Windows Vista. The topic was a huge hit with you, our audience, prompting a flood of e-mails.
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Podcast: Stopping A Bullet At Macworld
Listen to the latest InformationWeek Macworld podcast, with John Welch, a contributor to our magazine, and senior editor Sharon Gaudin. Today we have more talk about why the iPhone looks like it's going to be a great phone -- but, still, it's just a phone, and an expensive one at that. We also talk about Apple TV, and generally cool stuff around the show.
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Top 7 iPhone Questions Steve Jobs Doesn't Want You To Ask
Apple CEO Steve Jobs was the star of the Mac(world) universe this week, with his unveiling of the uber-cool iPhone. While the device is earning kudos in many circles as a "leapfrog" device, it's also prompting a backlash. In that vein, we present a David Letterman style list of questions, which take a few pointed but not necessarily unfair potshots at Apple's as-yet-unproven product.
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Sure The iPhone Is Cool But I Want A Google Phone
While everyone was busy this week talking about the iPhone, I was left alone wondering: Where is the Google Phone?
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Walking the CES Walk, Talking the CES Talk
LAS VEGAS -- Three things I learned at the Consumer Electronics Show: (1) IT is irrelevant. It used to be that innovations in computing flowed from big business down to the small-office and home markets. Now it flows in the other direction. (2) Hardware is no longer the bottleneck for anything. And (3) universal connectivity is still a long way off.
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List: Top 10 U.S. Patent Holders
Ever wonder which companies receive the most patents? Here's a list of the top 10 for 2006, along with the number of patents received last year. The list was released Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office--not surprisingly, IT companies are well represented.
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Voice Mail Of iPhone Is A Major Innovation
Now that I've had some time to look at the information on the iPhone, I can see some nice innovations. First, it's still just a phone. Really. It's a cool phone, and Apple shows that it has taken a look at the state of high-end phones, and come up with a new take on them.
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I Want My Apple TV
While the hype is targeting the iPhone, the Apple TV is a more interesting device. The market for cell phones is relatively mature -- there's plenty of good and great cell phones out there -- which makes me skeptical that the iPhone will be a dragon-slayer. But the market for Internet video is a mess, much the same way the digital music market was when Apple introduced the iPod and iTunes in 2001.
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Keeping Your Energy Up At CES
With all the gadgets and devices that are being shown at CES (a large portion of them mobile) something has to power them. This can be really apparent during a big trade show, where the use of notebooks, PDAs, and especially phones is constant -- and you really don't want to drag around a power cord along with the hundreds of product info brochures and CDs that you've piled into your bag.
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I've Been Waiting For The iPhone For Three Years And It's Still Not Here
I have covered the wireless industry for almost seven years. And in that time I have spent three years writing about the Apple iPhone. But how, you may ask, have I spent so much time writing about a device that wasn't announced until yesterday?
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The Scourge of CES: The Content Crisis
LAS VEGAS – The second-biggest problem at the Consumer Electronics Show, the World’s Most Exhausting Tradeshow, is apparently the Content Crisis. (The biggest problem, as always, is the wait to get a cab.) I hadn’t been aware of the Content Crisis or its effect on consumers, but in every aisle of the exhibit halls vendors are anxious to tell me that they have the solution to the Content Crisis – a way to give me more media, more audio and video to play on my iPod, my HD TV, my home theater. And some of them are surprisingly interesting.
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iPhone Hype: I Just Don't Get It
Reading up on the Apple iPhone, I'm not seeing what's so exciting about it, and I'm even tempted to say that the thing is going to sink like a lead balloon and everybody who's jazzing about it now is going to feel foolish in a year. It's a cell phone that's also an iPod that does the Internet and takes pictures. Why is that exciting? I already have a cell phone and an iPod, and my cell phone -- a 14-month-old Palm Treo 650 -- is Internet-enabled and a cameraphone too. I grant you there will be a huge attraction, for some people, in combining their iPods and cell phones into a single device. But, still, nothing about the iPhone is convincing me it'll slay dragons.
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Why More U.S. Tech Jobs Could Be Lost To India In 2007
Despite all the outrage over outsourcing from Lou Dobbs and other protectionists, the practice of sending jobs to low cost countries like India has to date had only minimal impact on the U.S. labor market. But that may be about to change, according to a new survey from Merrill Lynch.
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iPhone Phone Home, And Reaction To My Mac OS X Review
My initial reaction to Apple's Macworld announcements was: "Um...OK, a phone, the Apple TV, and a name change...OK." Now, I think the iPhone is a solid phone. I think it has a lot of things that people will want, and it will probably shake up the phone market quite a bit. Am I going to get one? Probably not. First, I'm a Sprint customer, and to be more precise, a happy Sprint customer. There's nothing in the iPhone that makes me want to jump over to Cingular. I almost did that once, but then discovered that to keep my current number, I couldn't do it in the Cingular Store, I had to do it online. Even though I was in the Cingular store, and ready to spend money. Not impressive.
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CES Products: Tinkerer Toys For Picture Takers
Underneath the casual-Friday dress code that predominates at CES beat the hearts of many a mad scientist. Digital photography seems to attract a disproportionate number of tinkerers and garage inventors, for some reason, and as I've wandered around the exhibit halls I've run into several products from some of them that make me want to reach for my wallet or scratch my head in disbelief, often at the same time.
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Macworld Buzz: iTunes Milestone, Jobs' Crank Call, And What About Leopard?
The hype was out of control for Macworld this year. Yet, somehow, Apple's Steve Jobs managed to not disappoint despite months of conjecture and expectation. He might have surprised a few people -- both with what he announced and what he didn't announce -- but I didn't talk with one person who walked out disappointed.
Now, that's saying something.
Continue reading "Macworld Buzz: iTunes Milestone, Jobs' Crank Call, And What About Leopard?..."
Podcast Report From Macworld: The iPhone At Last
Listen to our podcast interview with InformationWeek Senior Editor Sharon Gaudin. Sharon's on the scene at Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco. She describes today's keynote from Steve Jobs, and products announced today: the iPhone and Apple TV. Sharon's pretty excited about the whole thing -- me, not so much. I'm thinking: Yeah? So? It's a phone? Listen to the podcast for yourself and make up your own mind.
CES 2007: It Can Be A Lonely Trade Show For Some
It's been a long two days, and at 6 p.m., closing time at the Las Vegas Convention Center, everyone is either on line for a bus, on line for a cab, trudging wearily back to their hotel -- or, as I am, sitting in Starbucks doing some last minute work and just letting their feet rest.
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Counting Down To June For The iPhone
It's going to be a long wait until June.
That's when Apple says it will release its newly announced iPhone.
But it may be July or later before I actually get one (or two, since I assume my wife will want one). Given the universal praise I've been hearing for the device, I suspect they may be hard to get ahold of initially.
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Cisco Doesn't Think Apple Owns That iPhone Name
Cisco says it's been negotiating with Apple for years about using the name, and that those negotiations continued into last night. Apple CEO Steve Jobs didn't seem too concerned while making his blockbuster announcement about Apple's iPhone.
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Podcast: Why Mac OS X Shines In Comparison With Windows Vista
Listen to a podcast interview with John C. Welch, as he talks about his recent InformationWeek article that compares Microsoft Windows Vista with Apple Mac OS X and finds Vista wanting. He responds to feedback on the article, describes why OS X outshines Vista, and talks about the general outlook for Apple vs. Microsoft.
Apple, he says, has a real opportunity to claim market share from Microsoft, in the consumer market and even on the corporate desktop. After listening to the podcast and reading the article, you can find provocative discussion on Slashdot.
Welcome to CES, Brought To You By iPod
LAS VEGAS – While I’m at the Consumer Electronics Show, product announcements coming from MacWorld in San Francisco are proving where the real center of the consumer electronics industry is – wherever Apple’s Steve Jobs is standing. Even here it feels like every third or fourth vendor you see is pitching something that works with an iPod.
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CES 2007: Microsoft Offers Reassurance Via Family Testimony
Microsoft has a tent at CES just outside the Las Vegas Convention Center where, among other things, they are offering interviews with families were were part of their beta testing program (excuse me: their Life With Windows Vista program). These families were given a computer loaded with an early version of Vista about two years ago and were asked to use it as their main computer while giving constant feedback.
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What I Did On My CES Vacation
LAS VEGAS -- The show floor opened Monday. I walked it. Here's what it looked like.
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Keywords And Metatags Don't Infringe Trademarks
In a recent blog post, law professor Eric Goldman noted that a ruling in J.G. Wentworth SSC Ltd v. Settlement Funding LLC reinforces other judicial opinions that using trademarked terms as keywords and metatags does not constitute a trademark violation.
The plaintiff in the case, J.G. Wentworth, a financial trading company, alleged that Settlement Funding, a competing company, bought the keyword ad terms "J.G. Wentworth" and "JG Wentworth" in Google's AdWords program and used the terms in metatags embedded in its Web pages. It alleged the defendant's actions constituted a trademark violation.
The court thought otherwise.
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CES 2007: It's Not Just Tech Folks Anymore
For somebody who has spent most of her professional life writing about computers and associated technologies, the crowds at the Consumer Electronics Show are a revelation. Not just the vast number of companies shouting for the attention of the buyers and media -- even though classifying some of the products here as "consumer" can be a stretch -- but the attention it's getting in the popular media. It's been front-page news in the New York Times, and I'm told that CES was the focus of attention on a recent Today Show.
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Second Life, New Opportunities
My 11-year-old daughter and her friends already are addicted to a virtual world. Called Club Penguin, it's for tweens, who create avatars--of course, they don't call them that--who are (quite naturally) penguins. Through their penguin alter egos, the kids can chat, build, and furnish houses (which are igloos, of course), and work at various jobs to earn money that they can spend on penguin clothes, furnishings for their igloos, and other goodies dear to the hearts of that species, er, age group.
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Analysis Of The Brazilian Supermodel Sex Video Story In One Short Sentence
If you didn't want crowds of people seeing you have sex, why did you do it on the beach with other people around? OK, I can't leave it at one sentence, so here's a little more.
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So Small, They're Unreal
LAS VEGAS -- While there are rumors floating around that Microsoft may use the Bill Gates keynote at CES here today to launch its Origami ultra-mobile PC, there are far more interesting super-small PCs floating around the corridors of the tradeshow -- little wonders so they're unreal. The only downside, of course, is that some of them literally are unreal -- they're prototypes -- but they're signposts to the future of PC design.
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CES 2007: How To Get The Message Across
At CES, everybody's middle name is entertainment -- even at the news announcements. As a result, Panasonic is going to have to learn how to present itself properly if it's going to get the better of, say, Sony. The former started its Sunday press conference with a canned question-and-answer session between two top executives in a seemingly desperate attempt to uphold the honor of their plasma displays (and eventually announcing two new HD video camcorders). Sony opened its event with violinist Joshua Bell.
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CES: Calibrating The Hype Factor
The Consumer Electronics Show and Las Vegas are made for each other. They are both built out of flash and dazzle, and rest on a solid foundation of bullpucky that must reach all the way to the center of the earth. But they reach out their tentacles to ensnare your mind. Why else, a mere four hours after I got to town, would I wait in line with 500 other press people on a Saturday night to take a picture of an iPod in a plastic box with built-in speakers floating in a fish tank?
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Get The Lowdown On CES 2007 And Macworld Here At InformationWeek
The year kicks off with two big tech events this week. All the latest electronic toys and gadgets are on display at CES 2007 in Las Vegas, and Apple Computer struts its stuff in San Francisco at the Macworld Conference & Expo. In past years, those two conferences saw the introduction of pretty much every electronic gadget in your house: The iPod, MacBook, iMac, Mac Pro, Mac Mini, VCR, and DVD -- all introduced at either CES or Macworld.
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CES 2007: Products On View At CES Unveiled
I've always been warned that CES would be chaotic, and it looks like they weren't kidding. On Saturday, at the opening of CES Unveiled, the first press event of CES, the line of journalists waiting to get their first glimpse of new tech (and their first free meal of the day) was down the hallway and around the corner. And this was before most of the attendees had shown up.
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New Security Threats For VoIP
Panda Software looks at some scary security threats posed by VoIP. The top part of the article in IT-Observer looks at new ways that VoIP might be used for denial-of-service attacks, but the author, Fernando de la Cuadra, dismisses those threats as unlikely (too quickly, I think). The article then goes on to deal with possible threats posed by social engineering.
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CES 2007: A Shocking Introduction From Taser
The Business Journal of Phoenix pun-ishes its readers with its CES coverage: "Taser International Inc. is hoping for a stunning debut appearance when it introduces its new personal protection device Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas."
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CES 2007: How'd Things Go Last Year?
Macworld takes a look at how vendors did fulfilling promises at last year's CES. The upshot: Microsoft mostly delivered on its promises for Vista and for the Xbox 360. On the other hand, big promises for Blu-ray and HD-DVD fizzled.
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Well, Sure, Everybody Loves Latte
Reporter Sharon Gaudin is on the Macworld rumor mill, with reports that the company may introduce a phone and video player next week. Great quote from analyst John Welch, who describes how Wall Street is always disappointed by the announcements at Macworld, no matter how big or small they are. Welch says Steve Jobs "could announce warp drive teleporters and people would bitch that he didn't announce a latte maker."
Top 10 E-Mail Faux Pas
Rarely do public-relations professionals do one's work for you, but that was the case today when a list of the Top 10 E-mail Mistakes and Mishaps in 2006 crossed my desk. My favorite (please don't try this at your place of business): "Thanks, but I no longer need the job."
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Are Legacy Systems In The Crosshairs For 2007?
HP CIO Randy Mott is applying the 80/20 rule to legacy systems. He says in a video interview that his goal is to have his IT organization spending 80% of its time on development, 20% on maintaining and operating its legacy systems.
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Vista Lagging, XP Unflagging
Cost of upgrading to business versions of Vista: $199, $299, or $399, depending on which edition you choose.
Cost of staying with Windows XP? Apparently priceless.
That's one logical conclusion based on the stories that InformationWeek readers are clicking on fast and furiously these days.
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Reason Number Six Why IBM Outsources: Those High Electricity Rates In Vermont
In addition to a hangover, Vermonters rang in the new year with higher electricity rates thanks to a 9% increase by Green Mountain Power Corp., which supplies much of the state's electricity. Among the opponents of the hike was that bastion of populist outrage--IBM.
Continue reading "Reason Number Six Why IBM Outsources: Those High Electricity Rates In Vermont..."
CES 2007: Stuff For Your Car
Vendors at CES 2007 will roll out electronics to spice up your wheels, including the next generation in iPod FM adapters, in-car high-definition streaming video, and technology to turn your rental car into a Wi-Fi hotspot.
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CES 2007: Bridging the Gap Between HD DVD And Blu-ray
Consumers concerned that HD DVD vs. Blu-ray will be the Betamax vs. VHS of the decade will get some relief from vendors at the 2007 International CES.
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CES 2007: Turn On The Power
Power is the dirty secret of portable electronics. You unwrap your new mobile gadget, and it's sleek and sexy as Seven of Nine -- but it comes with a power-supply brick as ugly and lumpy as Neelix. And the battery supply has a lifespan as short as a tribble. Some vendors at 2007 International CES are looking to change that.
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Same Old IT Song And Dance? That's Up To You In 2007
New year, same problems. That's what I'm thinking. But if you haven't dealt much with these issues before now, some of the IT predictions for 2007 should provide you with the impetus for a much-needed sense of urgency. In the case of other issues, well, the longer they fester, the worse dealing with them is going to get. So address these truisms now, or be prepared to pay the piper.
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I Don't Know -- Third Base
"My name is Scott MacDonald (for now) and on February 2nd, 2007 I will change my name to whatever the highest bidder decides!" Learn more at his Web site. He could change his name to "Who," and star in an Abbott & Costello routine.
What The One-Laptop-Per-Child $100 Laptop Will Look Like
The Associated Press has an intriguing description of the user interface and software that comes with the One Laptop Per Child $100 laptop. It abandons the application-document-folder-desktop metaphor that's been used for PCs since the original Apple Macintosh in 1984, instead arranging files chronologically, in a "journal."
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Firefox 3: From HTML Renderer To Information Broker
Looks like the Mozilla folks are working on turning Firefox from HTML renderer to information broker. Using technology called "microformats," the browser would be able to link content in Web pages to the appropriate application on the client. Users would be able to click to add contact information on a Web page to their address book, or an appointment to their calendar, or translate an address to their favorite map. We can already do some of this now; Alex Faaborg, a user experience designer at Mozilla, describes how the tools will become much more powerful in Firefox 3.
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What The Person Who Has Everything Needs--Help
Congratulations. All those LCD TVs and iPods and digital cameras you bought helped make consumer electronics the big winner in an otherwise sorta slow Christmas sellfest. And now that everybody at your house has the gadgets they've always wanted, what do you want most? Probably help getting them installed/adjusted/fixed.
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ParkWhiz Helps Find Parking
The phosphors were barely dry on my earlier post about local Internet services when I stumbled across this on digg: The ParkWhiz service lets you search for parking before you get into your car.
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The First Buzzword Of 2007: Placeblogs
Local search is looking like it's going to be big this year. The latest entrant, which went live New Year's Day, is Placeblogger, which describes itself this way: "Welcome to Placeblogger, where you can discover, browse, and subscribe to local blogs. Placeblogs are sites devoted to a particular neighborhood, city, town, or region. They're watercoolers for local discussion, a place to find out where to eat or a reliable plumber, or talk about the news of the day. On occasion, placebloggers break news."
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