InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

11 Epic Technology Disasters
Nature and politics kill far more people than technological accidents but failures of machines still take a toll on both a personal and social level. Separating machine failures and negligent maintenance from unforeseeable circumstances isn't easy and no doubt there are some accidents worthy of mention that we've missed. In any event, these are the eleven worst tech-related disasters where mechanical or engineering failure played a significant role. And by "worst," we're considering death toll but not using it as the exclusive metric. Some disasters like the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger resulted in only a few deaths but nonetheless had a worldwide impact.
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Apple Announces iPad2
For almost one year, Apple has owned the tablet market. In fact, it's had the market almost entirely to itself. That began changing at the end of last year, with a constant stream of announcements and product launches from Cisco, Research In Motion, Samsung, and more, leading to an absolute avalanche of new products announced and demonstrated at CES this January. And those products have been, at least on a feature basis, easily superior to the original iPad. Just as some of those products have started to ship, Apple comes along with its long-expected iPad version 2. Observers expect Apple to merely match features, and leverage the enormous volume advantage of its app store; but would Apple merely strive for parity?
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Great Lost Software: 16 Gone But Not Forgotten
Software comes and software goes. Most that fall into the latter category deserve their fate, because either they weren't very good or they were superseded by a better option. Though such also-rans are soon forgotten, some defunct software still holds our affections, whether because nothing as good has come along or because it was our "first love" in a category. Software may seem a funny thing to be sentimental about, but when you use a tool every day, you can grow quite fond of it. We ransacked our own memories of applications past and polled some of our colleagues to formulate this list of 16 fondly remembered programs that are no longer really with us.
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Businesses Take Action With Twitter
In only a couple of years, Twitter's gone from what seemed like a mere gimmick to one of the fastest ways to spread the word about something. That makes it seem like an ideal medium for a business to raise notice about its products and services, and in fact that's what a great many companies do. The problem is that the very audience you'll be seeking to engage with Twitter is also the same audience that has a built-in skepticism about social media. Twitter users by and large are entirely too conscious of how any segment of the Internet, or any communications medium at all, can be turned into a mere advertising vehicle -- and thus made that much easier to ignore. To that end, there are cases to be made both for and against Twitter when using it to spread information about what you do.
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Motorola Xoom Teardown: Inside The New Android Tablet
UBM TechInsights, a sister company to UBM Techweb, InformationWeek's parent company, took apart the newest Motorola tablet, the 10.1-inch Xoom, the first dual-core Android tablet and the first tablet to run Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). Inside is Nvidia's Tegra 2 processor. In fact, many of the Xoom's components are similar to those of Motorola's newest smartphone, the Atrix 4G. That's not a surprise given that Apple and Samsung, for example, share design components across tablets and smartphones; and not a surprise given the economies of scale of these design choices. The Xoom is, suffice it to say, plenty of hardware to challenge Apple's iPad, at least as it exists today. But the competition is heating up. Plenty of dual-core processor tablets are due out in the next few months.
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Clicking Through Drupal 7's Features
When looking for examples of enterprise applications where open source products have competed effectively against expensive and complex commercial products, a good place to start is content management. Open source content management systems (CMS) have become extremely popular choices for running very large, complex, and busy Web sites. Open source CMS Drupal has made its name on that basis, by managing some very popular Web sites, including many news sites and WhiteHouse.gov. However, in areas such as usability, Drupal has come up a little short when compared against competing open source CMS offerings such as Joomla and Wordpress. With its recent release, Drupal 7 now features a fully revamped administration interface that makes it easier to view and manage content, change the look and feel of sites, and extend the CMS through add-on modules.
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12 Worst Tech Predictions Of All Time
The epic history of technology is littered with some incredibly lousy prophecies, often made by some very smart, very successful -- and very wealthy -- executives. We trolled the timeline of technology to find the most misguided -- and in some cases just plain crazy --calls in the industry's storied past, from the telephone to television to YouTube. Sure, it's easy to call out the most foolish forecasts with the benefit of perfect hindsight. It's also a lot of fun -- there are some doozies. And though your own all-time list might look a little different, this much is fact: As technology continues to plow forward, it will undoubtedly leave more preposterous predictions in its wake.
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NFC, Pico & Audio: Mobile Chips In Full View
Many new mobile technology enhancements, from NFC to 4G to just plain old audio calling, are possible thanks to the silicon that makes it all so. At Mobile World Congress, there are as many chip manufacturers as any other mobile ecosystem player, and we met with everyone from Samsung to Intel to Qualcomm to Texas Instruments. Everyone's heard of them, but some of the most innovative advancements come from companies that are a bit more behind the scenes. Here are a few of our favorites from this year's event.
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Mobile Wow: NTT Docomo's 3D Touchable Display & More
Mobile World Congress has its fair share of prototype technology, which is always a good way to get inspired about the future of mobile computing. NTT Docomo's advanced technology concepts always bring a big crowd and this year was no exception with its 3D touchable display. We also saw an interesting demonstration of remote printing from HP, and we revisited one of our favorite new technologies, the Motorola Atrix with Laptop Dock. And of course, our slide show wouldn't be complete without a cameo from some of our crew.
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As Seen At Mobile World Congress, Day 2
It is nearly impossible to see every product spinning through the eight halls that make up the massive Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. But not for us! This event is typically a chance for the entire mobile ecosystem to gather -- mobile operators, handset manufacturers, software providers, mobile service companies, carrier equipment manufacturers and mobile operating system vendors. Most of the new technology is incremental in nature, but it's always fun to see what new ideas pop up. What follows is just a small handful of the products we've seen so far. More to come.
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Meat, Mobile and Me
They were slicing a giant pork roast here in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress, but all I could look at was the amazing array of mobile technologies the folks at Mobile Focus (put on by Pep Com but not affiliated with MWC) laid out. Exec producer Fritz Nelson, videographer Matt Conner and I avoided the carcass and spent our time checking a surprising array of mobile technologies. There were several main themes I noticed. Lots of announced but still unshipped devices were in use by the app makers. The upcoming LG phones and the here-any-minute RIM BlackBerry PlayBook were in full sight, showing off games, fancy personal networking technologies, 3D maps and developer toolkits for every device imaginable. A lot of companies were taking mobile aim at Skype. I loved a product from VMware that will allow two operating systems to run on one phone -- theoretically, that means they could put iOS in a virtual session on the Android. That video is coming soon. Take a look at some of things we found. As I said, Fritz and I both shot videos at this locale. Keep a look out.
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Intel Showcases MeeGo Tablet UI And Other Apps
Despite Nokia's insistence that it is still very much behind MeeGo, Intel is going to the mobile platform dance stag. It would be easy to feel sorry for them if it hadn't felt like a mistake from the beginning. "Disappointed" is how one Intel MeeGo product manager expressed the company's view on Nokia's fickleness. Still, the company presses on, announcing and demonstrating a tablet reference platform, among other advancements, at Mobile World Congress. Intel also showcased MeeGo running a variety of applications.
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Mobile World Congress: Taking a BYTE Out of Barcelona!
We arrived in Barcelona two days before the show started. The city is gorgeous, famous for its Gaudi architecture. The picture below, taken from Wikipedia because there are cranes now all over it during its completion, shows the famous Basilica I Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia. Construction began in 1882 and has proceeded off and on since. Now, in 2011, it is only halfway complete. The name Gaudi, as it refers to the architecture so prevalent here, refers to Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi, who died in 1926. These buildings look like sand castles. Wish you could see them. Check out the rest of the slideshow for some of the sights, eats and scenes at the Mobile World Congress as InformationWeek, Techweb, and the upcoming BYTE.com storm Barcelona. And I do mean storm. If you want to see show related pictures, they start after my touristy Barcelona slides. Check it all out, though! Well worth it. And stay tuned for more slideshows from Barcelona.
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Mobile World Congress: Spicy Mobile Madness
Steve Leon's Showstopper kicked off the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and Fritz Nelson, Matt Conner and I were there (see last slide). Lavish food and drinks for the press abounded, but we never imbibe. You know why? We choose instead to race around gathering data on the early look at products Showstopper provided on this night, the night before the show opened. I had a blast racing around taking pictures, shooting video and checking out vendors' wares. Showstoppers' Steve Leon, who I haven't seen in person in 12 years, hasn't aged a bit! (Note that he did not say the same about me. OUCH AND LOL! See last slide). Check out the slideshow I put together of hot stuff showing at ShowStoppers, and stay tuned right here for more slideshows from Barcelona. Ateo! (Adios in Catalan). So there.
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Mobile World Congress: Samsung Announces GalaxyS II Phone, Galaxy Tab 10.1
Samsung is using Mobile World Congress as its own personal stage. Before the world's biggest mobile event kicked off, the company putting on quite a show itself, with dancers, a live orchestra and, oh, yes, some new devices, too. Namely, a second generation smart phone (Galaxy S II) and a 10-inch tablet (Galaxy Tab 10.1). These devices will be available in February and March, respectively, but, in typical Samsung fashion, only in Asia and Europe at first. The company will make a North American announcement here as well. We were there to capture the event (and nibble on some food), and we were also whisked away to play with the new products.
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Building The Mac Office
Building an office around the Apple Macintosh has long been a good business strategy, particularly for SMBs. Macs generally require fewer IT resources and retain their value better than Windows-based PCs -- that's a key consideration for cash- and resource-strapped small and midsize businesses. And the iPhone and iPad, with their strong Mac integration, make it easier for businesses to move into the new era of mobile computing. But before you can Go Mac, you need to know how to get your Mac office up and running. This review of products from Apple and other Mac vendors, will take you on a visual tour of a Mac-centric office that could be your future infrastructure.
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Google Chrome 9 Advances The 3D Graphical Web
With its recently released Chrome 9 Web browser, Google has added several enhancements to provide a more immersive and rich Web experience. Chief among these new capabilities is default support for the emerging WebGL standard. This makes it possible to run 3D animations, games, and other rich interfaces within a browser without the need for third-party plug-ins and extensions such as Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight.
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Slideshow: HP Tablet Announced
We are here at beautiful Fort Mason in San Francisco on a spectacular day. The Bay is sparkling, Alcatraz beckons (for some of us), and somewhere inside the theater HP is making all the final preparations. The line to get in is already pretty long, and growing. We are about to see the launch of a new lineup of HP mobile products based on the company's WebOS platform.
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