Sunday, October 31, 2010

Lars Rasmussen Quits Google, Joins Facebook [The Sydney Morning Herald]

Check the link below for more details on his move

"A good part of the reason I'm going there is that there are particular folks who worked at Google before who I loved working with and who are there now and that's very attractive," Rasmussen said.
The three amigos are part of what is becoming a growing community of ex-Googlers (sometimes referred to as Xooglers) at Facebook.

Glenn Kelman, from online real estate agent Redfin, estimates that 20 per cent of Facebook's employees have worked at Google at some stage in their careers.

Lars Rasmussen Quits Google, Joins Facebook

At Microtask and CloudCrowd, Assembly Lines Go Online - NYTimes.com

Taylorism 2.0?

Microtask, a start-up company in Finland, has come up with the software that delivers such tasks. The company offers to take on “dull, repetitive work” — like digitizing paper forms or business cards — for prospective clients. As it says in a video on its Web site, “Microtask loves the work you hate.”

Microtask is in a position to love that work because not one of its 12 employees actually performs it. Its software carves a given task into microscopically small pieces, like transcribing a handwritten four-digit number in a tiny rectangle on a form. (Handwritten numbers and letters are the bane of text-recognition software.) These tasks, stripped of identifying information about the client or the larger task, can then be distributed online anywhere.

At Microtask and CloudCrowd, Assembly Lines Go Online - NYTimes.com

Why Evan Williams of Twitter Demoted Himself - NYTimes.com

Check the link below for an extensive Twitter profile

Yet for all its astonishing growth, Twitter has succeeded in spite of itself — the enviable product of a great idea and lightning-in-a-bottle viral success rather than a disciplined approach to how it’s managed.

Because of that, Twitter is on the cusp of becoming the next big, independent Internet company — or the next start-up to be swallowed whole by a giant like Google or, possibly, the next start-up to run out of steam.

Now the company is trying to instill some of the rigor and sense of purpose it needs to ensure that it is, indeed, the next big thing.

Why Evan Williams of Twitter Demoted Himself - NYTimes.com

Apple Sues Motorola | Shayndi Rice | Voices | AllThingsD

Have we seen every feasible lawsuit permutation in this domain yet?

The complaint is the latest development in a long-running series of disputes involving handset makers in the fiercely competitive smartphone business.
In the complaint, Apple alleges that Motorola smartphones including those in its Droid lineup violate three Apple patents. Apple is requesting that a judge award damages and attorney’s fees and that the courts stop Motorola from selling the products.

Apple Sues Motorola | Shayndi Rice | Voices | AllThingsD

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Could Apple’s Past Help Us Predict Who It Acquires Next?: Tech News « [GigaOm]

Check the full post for some insightful analysis.  I’m sticking with my Sony bet; culture isn’t a problem for acquirers that relentlessly assimilate (that strategy didn’t work out so well for the Borg, but that’s another discussion…), and Apple needs a broader selection of consumer electronics goodies to sell in its (more than 300 worldwide) stores

When Steve Jobs said his company was keeping its powder dry for possible acquisitions, a new favorite tech-industry pastime of guessing who Apple will acquire next was instantly created.

[…]

 

Could Apple’s Past Help Us Predict Who It Acquires Next?: Tech News «

Facebook acquires file-sharing service Drop.io | The Social - CNET News

Small world…

Facebook's ties to Drop.io run deep. Lessin had attended Harvard University along with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and David Kirkpatrick's book "The Facebook Effect" describes him as a crucial player in Facebook's early days: "At the end of the (spring 2004) semester, Lessin, whose father was a well-known investor, took Zuckerberg around New York to meet with venture capitalists and executives in the finance and media industries," Kirkpatrick describes on page 41 of the exhaustive Facebook biography.

Lessin had also, sources say, been an instrumental dealmaker in Facebook's acquisition of Hot Potato, a mobile "check-in" service that it bought earlier this year and in which Lessin had been an angel investor. Similarly, Hot Potato had shut down and Shaffer joined Facebook, where earlier this month he unveiled its new Groups product.

Facebook acquires file-sharing service Drop.io | The Social - CNET News

Pixar’s Renderman prototype is the best realization of the cloud computing vision yet – istartedsomething

A compelling cloud computing case study

The Windows Azure-powered prototype website, albeit extremely polished, is an example of how the company could easily transform its industry-leading product limited in reach by its hunger for resources into a service that would allow anyone from small studios to even indie filmmakers could then take advantage of the powers of Renderman, even if they don’t have the resources to establish and support a rendering farm.

Pixar’s Renderman prototype is the best realization of the cloud computing vision yet – istartedsomething

Microsoft Buying Canesta to Bolster Gesture Technology - NYTimes.com

Interesting times

Last year, Microsoft acquired 3DV systems, a company with similar gesture recognition technology. That deal coupled with the Canesta purchase may prevent competitors from acquiring these 3-D abilities and cut off potential intellectual property squabbles. Canesta has secured 44 patents in this area and has more pending.

Historically, Microsoft has worked with chip partners like Intel and Nvidia rather than building its own products, so the Canesta purchase is something of a shift.

Apple has been scooping up chip makers as well so it can improve the engines that power devices like the iPhone and iPad.

Microsoft Buying Canesta to Bolster Gesture Technology - NYTimes.com

Google Spends $1.6 Billion on 40 Companies | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

Check the article link below for more details

Lost track of Google’s M&A binge this year? No problem: The company helpfully tallies it up for investors in its most recent quarterly filing.

The big picture: Google has spent at least $1.6 billion buying 40 companies during the first nine months of 2010. And if you assume the previously announced ITA deal goes through this year, you can tack on another $700 million.

Google Spends $1.6 Billion on 40 Companies | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

Lars Rasmussen, Father Of Google Maps And Google Wave, Heads To Facebook [TechCrunch]

I wonder if there was chair-throwing inside the Googleplex over this move

When Google put their faith in Wave, an ambitious new project last year, they knew it was a gamble. But a big part of it was the team behind the project. A team led by Lars Rasmussen, the engineer best known as the co-creator of the hugely successful Google Maps. And now he’s left the company. And from what we hear, he’s heading to Facebook.

Rasmussen confirmed his departure on his Facebook page.

Lars Rasmussen, Father Of Google Maps And Google Wave, Heads To Facebook

Friday, October 29, 2010

Google Nexus Two 'lands November 8' • The Register

Perhaps Google is preparing another attempt at disintermediating wireless service providers, as Apple is reportedly planning to do the same?

The Nexus Two will arrive on November 8, according to a blog post citing multiple unnamed sources.

This seems to mean that Google and Samsung will unveil a phone with software designed solely by Google, which may or may not get you excited. It's also rumored that this will be the first device to use Gingerbread, the latest incarnation of Google's Android OS, which is a bit more interesting.

Google Nexus Two 'lands November 8' • The Register

Oracle goes in hard on Google Java suit • The Register

Maybe Google got the code from SAP…

Oracle has updated its patent infringement suit against Google. Now the enterprise software corporation has point-blank accused the ad broker of directly copying its Java code, according to reports.

According to InfoWorld, the originally vague suit now includes specific examples of code that Oracle claims Google had filched to use in Android, with examples thoughtfully attached. These include class libraries and documentation.

Apparently Oracle charges that "approximately one-third" of the Android API packages are "derivative" of Oracle's Java APIs.

Oracle goes in hard on Google Java suit • The Register

SAP concedes role in pirating Oracle software, moves to shorten trial - SiliconValley.com

Looks like SAP is heading for a major cashectomy

German software giant SAP conceded Thursday that it allowed or even contributed to a subsidiary's effort to pirate software from archrival Oracle, while SAP lawyers renewed their complaint to a judge that Oracle is turning the case into a "sideshow" and "media circus."

Redwood City-based Oracle hailed the concession as a significant development, as both sides gear up for a civil trial next week in Oakland federal court. SAP said it was attempting to narrow the focus of the trial, but Oracle attorneys said they will oppose SAP's move to limit testimony about SAP executives' role in the case.

SAP concedes role in pirating Oracle software, moves to shorten trial - SiliconValley.com

Android App Forwards Private Text Messages - NYTimes.com

I’m guessing this app won’t be approved for iOS either…

8:13 p.m. | Updated Adding that the app was pulled from the Android Market.

If you own an Android phone and are cheating on a significant other by arranging secret trysts through text messages, you might want to think twice about your infidelities — or at least about arranging them via texts.

A new Android application released Wednesday, Secret SMS Replicator, when secretly installed on a cellphone, will forward all text messages to any other phone without the owner’s knowledge.

Android App Forwards Private Text Messages - NYTimes.com

Nintendo Bets Big on Social DS System - WSJ.com

There’s a categorical existential crisis scenario in this context – why carry another device if your smartphone supports sufficient social gaming?

For Nintendo, which plans to release the 3DS Feb. 26 in Japan before a global launch in March, it is part of an effort to curb the threat from inexpensive social games played on Apple Inc.'s iPhone and cellphones running on Google Inc.'s Android operating system.

While the games on social-network site Facebook or Apple's iTunes store tend to be less sophisticated than those played on a Nintendo hand-held, they allow users to play against friends or challenge strangers from across the world more seamlessly.

Nintendo says one of the new communication tools, StreetPass, finds and connects to a nearby 3DS machine even if the other party is a total stranger. The person doesn't need to be using the 3DS at the time in order to wirelessly link up and share data with another 3DS machine in the vicinity using a Wi-Fi connection.

Nintendo Bets Big on Social DS System - WSJ.com

Microsoft's Record Earnings Beat Wall Street Expectations | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Definitely #notdeadyet

Microsoft reported earnings for the first quarter of the company’s fiscal 2011 this afternoon, and they were record-breaking despite the pessimism of analysts who have been downgrading its stock lately.

Earnings per share were 62 cents on revenue of $16.2 billion, better than the 55 cents per share on $15.8 billion in revenue that analysts had been expecting. Net income spiked from $3.57 billion in the same quarter a year ago to $5.41 billion in the current one, bolstered by strong sales of Windows 7 and Office 2010. And pretty much all of the company’s divisions showed significant growth.

Microsoft's Record Earnings Beat Wall Street Expectations | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Ellison Fires Another Shot at Apotheker, HP Board | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Check the link below for more details and a classic image

On Wednesday evening, Ellison let loose with another screed against Apotheker and his new employer, Hewlett-Packard, accusing the former of knowingly stealing Oracle’s intellectual property and latter of helping him dodge a subpoena.

“HP Chairman Ray Lane has taken the position that Léo Apotheker is innocent of wrongdoing because he didn’t know anything about the stealing going on at SAP while Léo was CEO,” Ellison wrote. “The most basic facts of the case show this to be an absurd lie. Oracle sued SAP for stealing in March of 2007. Léo became CEO of SAP in April of 2008. Léo knew all about the stealing. In fact, Léo did not stop the stealing until 7 months after he became CEO. Why so long? We’d like to know. Ray Lane and the rest of the HP Board do not want anyone to know. That’s the new HP Way with Ray in charge and Léo on the run. It’s time to change the HP tagline from ‘Invent’ to ‘Steal’.”

Ellison Fires Another Shot at Apotheker, HP Board | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Is Apple About to Cut Out the Carriers?: Tech News [GigaOM]

Speaking of the Nexus One, …

It’s rumored that Apple and Gemalto have created a SIM card, which is typically a chip that carries subscriber identification information for the carriers, that will be integrated into the iPhone itself. Then customers will then be able to choose their carrier at time of purchase at the Apple web site or retail store, or buy the phone and get their handset up and running through a download at the App Store as opposed to visiting a carrier store or calling the carrier. Either way, it reduces the role of the carrier in the iPhone purchase. Gemalto and Apple have not responded to requests for comment. I’m also waiting to hear back from other sources to get more details.

However, if Apple is doing an end run around the carrier by putting its own SIM inside the iPhone, it could do what Google with its NexusOne could not, which is create an easy way to sell a handset via the web without carrier involvement.

Is Apple About to Cut Out the Carriers?: Tech News «

Someone's Watching You - Technology Review

Kinda creepy

image

[…]

MyUnity can tell if a person is working at her desk by tapping into her webcam or a security camera with a view of her workspace. "They look for motion in certain areas defined by the user," says Biehl. That allows this part of the system not only to spot the movement of someone seated at their desk, but also to spot the presence of a visitor. The team is experimenting with using infrared sensors that sense the presence of people but do not capture video.

Someone's Watching You - Technology Review

Business & Technology | GoogleTV not yet ready for prime time | Seattle Times Newspaper

Nexus One, TV edition?…

Google says lots of applications will be available in 2011, but for now there's a meager selection, including the standard YouTube, Netflix, Pandora and Twitter apps. There's also an NBA application that displays scores and highlights, if you still care after the Sonics debacle.

I've tested all sorts of gadgets with Netflix lately, and GoogleTV was the first one that failed to work out of the box. The system hung up and directed me to Netflix support, where I was advised to do a hard reboot — unplugging and restarting the GoogleTV box. It worked afterward.

Google's being cagey about its plans to connect GoogleTV to its advertising delivery system. That may be the biggest reason to wait before investing in a GoogleTV system.

If Google's going to use the system to make money off you, with ads, the system should be cheaper or even free.

Business & Technology | GoogleTV not yet ready for prime time | Seattle Times Newspaper

Microsoft on Cloud Computing [PDC 2010]

Watch the live keynote today at noon EDT here

PDC10: Ballmer, Muglia to Outline Platform Vision for Developers
Oct. 27, 2010
Held for the first time in Redmond, PDC10 will once again bring leading-edge developers and architects together to hear firsthand from Microsoft’s leaders about the next generation of Microsoft developer technologies.

Microsoft on Cloud Computing

Chinese Supercomputer Likely to Prompt Unease in U.S. - WSJ.com

More details

But Nvidia says the new system in Tianjin—which is being formally announced Thursday at an event in China—was able to reach 2.5 petaflops. That is a measure of calculating speed ordinarily translated into a thousand trillion operations per second. It is more than 40% higher than the mark set last June by a system called Jaguar at Oak Ridge National Laboratory that previously stood at No. 1 on a twice-yearly ranking of the 500 fastest supercomputers.

"I don't know of another system that is going to be anywhere near the performance and the power of this machine" in China, said Jack Dongarra, a supercomputer expert on the Oak Ridge research staff who is a professor at the University of Tennessee and recently inspected the system in Tianjin last week. "It is quite impressive."

Chinese Supercomputer Likely to Prompt Unease in U.S. - WSJ.com

Chinese Supercomputer Tianhe-1A Bumps U.S. Out of the Lead - NYTimes.com

That’s a pretty big number…

At the computing conference on Thursday in China, the researchers will discuss how they are using the new system for scientific research in fields like astrophysics and bio-molecular modeling. Tianhe-1A, which is housed in a building at the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, can perform mathematical operations about 29 million times faster than one of the earliest supercomputers, built in 1976.

For the record, it performs 2.5 times 10 to the 15th power mathematical operations per second.

[…]

Steven J. Wallach, a well-known computer designer, played down the importance of taking the top spot on the supercomputer rankings.

“It’s interesting, but it’s like getting to the four-minute mile,” Mr. Wallach said. “The world didn’t stop. This is just a snapshot in time.”

Chinese Supercomputer Tianhe-1A Bumps U.S. Out of the Lead - NYTimes.com

Cool as it is, Google’s Revue for TV has plenty of weak spots - The Boston Globe

Maybe one to watch … later

Google Inc. handles my Internet searches. It manages my e-mail. It’s even taking over my telephone. But I’m not putting Google in charge of my TV.

Not for $299, anyway. Cut the price, and I will think about it. But for now, the first Google TV set-top box, the Logitech Revue, delivers too little value for the money.

Which isn’t to say it’s a bad product. Indeed, Google’s long-awaited effort to meld TV and the Internet is much more potent than the new $99 Apple TV. Too bad the Revue is saddled with severe limitations.

Cool as it is, Google’s Revue for TV has plenty of weak spots - The Boston Globe

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

NOOKcolor: can I run the Android Kindle client on it?

It might actually be a reasonably-priced general-purpose slate, if so…

Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check: Brier Dudley's Blog | BN's Nook evolves into Android tablet | Seattle Times Newspaper

Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: New Facebook App Scans Your Social Circle for Danger

Sign of the times (although the first embedded link below doesn’t work; see this beta page or this overview – also the source of the image clip below -- instead)

How long before it's impractical to use Facebook without a dedicated app to protect you from spammers and scammers? It's a question raised in my mind by the debut of what appears to be the first security app for Facebook. You install BitDefender's safego, which is currently in beta, just as you would a game like FarmVille or any other of the many apps out there. Rather than letting you throw sheep at your friends, though, it scans your wall, inbox and any comments on your profile for malicious links that might lead to sites that try to install malware or hijack your account details. It also checks your privacy settings and offers reminders and tips on how much you are sharing and how to change those settings.

image

Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: New Facebook App Scans Your Social Circle for Danger

Brier Dudley's Blog | BN's Nook evolves into Android tablet | Seattle Times Newspaper

A $249 7” Android tablet with some app dev/deployment restrictions (and, per the product spec page, max 8 hours battery life, with wireless off)

Although it's built around the Nook electronic bookstore, which competes with Amazon.com's Kindle business, the color Nook is also aiming up-market, at the iPad and upcoming Android tablets.

The device is being pitched as a media consumption tablet, with the ability to browse the Web, play games, send e-mail, participate in social networks and store and play digital music. Or read.

Brier Dudley's Blog | BN's Nook evolves into Android tablet | Seattle Times Newspaper

Ellison challenges HP's new CEO to testify | Business Tech - CNET News

For Larry Ellison, “It's not enough that we win; all others must lose

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison on Tuesday challenged Hewlett-Packard to make its new CEO, Leo Apotheker, available to testify in a trial regarding his level of alleged involvement in the theft of Oracle software while he was the head of German software maker SAP.

Ellison challenges HP's new CEO to testify | Business Tech - CNET News

Inside MarkLogic Server: New White Paper by Jason Hunter | Kellblog

A handy resource if you’re interested in XQuery and XML information management

This is a quick post to highlight an important new white paper written by MarkLogic’s own Jason Hunter, entitled Inside MarkLogic Server.  The official download address is here.

The document is 64 well-written pages that step through the inner workings of MarkLogic Server in an attempt to demystify and explain what the software does and how it does it.  The author is Jason Hunter, a principal technologist at MarkLogic and author of a top-selling O’Reilly book, Java Servlet Programming.

Inside MarkLogic Server: New White Paper by Jason Hunter | Kellblog

Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals [Gartner]

Pure-play portal provider purge: platforms prevail…

Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals

Figure 1.Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals

Source: Gartner (September 2010)

[Check the link below for the full Gartner doc, licensed/made available by Microsoft]

Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals

Sony soars, sinks, soars on Apple buyout rumor • The Register

An interesting case study in stock market dynamics, but I still think it’d be a sensible and timely acquisition

Just how volatile are the stock markets these days? How about this metric: Sony's stock shot up by 3 per cent on Monday on a totally unsubstantiated rumor that Apple was eyeing it as a takeover target.

Sony stock then slipped back when the source of the rumor noted that he simply made it up. Then, unaccountably, Sony took off again, and as of 1:15pm Eastern time on Tuesday, it was selling at a far higher price than it was pre-rumor.

Sony soars, sinks, soars on Apple buyout rumor • The Register

IBM Adds $10 Billion to Its Share-Repurchase Plan - BusinessWeek

Hmm…

Since taking over as chief executive officer in 2002, Sam Palmisano has spent more than $68 billion on buybacks, about 38 percent of IBM’s current market value. The company has said it plans to spend about $50 billion on buybacks in the next five years, compared with about $20 billion on acquisitions, as it aims to almost double operating earnings per share.

“It’s crucial to their long-term EPS objectives,” said Brian Marshall, an analyst at Gleacher & Co. in San Francisco, who rates the shares “neutral” and doesn’t own them. “They realize the fact that they are a big, mature tech company.”

IBM Adds $10 Billion to Its Share-Repurchase Plan - BusinessWeek

LimeWire Told by Judge to Disable Its File-Trading Software - NYTimes.com

A bitter aftertaste for LimeWire

The legal fight does not end here. In May, Judge Wood ruled that the company had violated copyright law and was liable for damages. The court is scheduled to decide early next year the amount the company and Mr. Gorton will be forced to pay.

“In January, the court will conduct a trial to determine the appropriate level of damages necessary to compensate the record companies for the billions and billions of illegal downloads that occurred through the LimeWire system,” the recording association said in its statement.

LimeWire Told by Judge to Disable Its File-Trading Software - NYTimes.com

Google CEO Schmidt Apologizes for Street View Comment | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Perhaps another “too hip for the room” joke misfire – and PR disaster (the display title of the article: “Google CEO Apologizes for Street View Schmidtstorm”)

“As you can see from the unedited interview, my comments were made during a fairly long back and forth on privacy. I clearly misspoke. If you are worried about Street View and want your house removed please contact Google and we will remove it.”

– Google CEO Eric Schmidt on his suggestion that folks concerned about the company’s Street View service “just move

Google CEO Schmidt Apologizes for Street View Comment | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

LimeWire Shuts Down P2P Filesharing Client | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

See the link below for a detailed summary

Last spring, music file-sharing service LimeWire suffered a crushing blow in federal court. This is the net result: The company is shutting down its core software–though it insists it’s not doing that exactly. It’s the victory the big music labels have been seeking for some time.

LimeWire Shuts Down P2P Filesharing Client | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

A Myspace Revamp Focuses on Entertainment - NYTimes.com

Somehow I suspect Facebook is not inclined to cede social entertainment

Mr. Jones said that the more than 120 million Myspace members were primarily using the site to listen to music and share opinions and information about that music, as well as about movies and television shows. The new site will emphasize that content with a simplified service that removes much of the clutter that Myspace was known for, Mr. Jones said.

And Mr. Jones said that Myspace would no longer seek to compete with Facebook, but rather to complement it. “Our focus is social entertainment,” he said. “Niche players have long staying power.”

A Myspace Revamp Focuses on Entertainment - NYTimes.com

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Java Is Under Siege. Will Oracle Let It Burn?: Tech News[GigaOM]

Write once, run … maybe nowhere.  See the link below for a Java reality check.

There was a time when Java ruled the enterprise computing world, and showed signs of dominating the mobile world, too. That time is gone.

It’s not that developers have abandoned Java wholesale. They haven’t. Despite years of market-share declines amongst programmers, with the rising generation of developers preferring dynamic programming languages like PHP, job growth remains healthy for Java developers. Outside the realm of market-share data, however, there is cause for concern in Java Land. What with Oracle’s apparently loose management of the Java Community Process, Apple’s rejection of Java altogether, and Google’s sidestepping mainline Java for Android, Java’s future looks a bit shaky at present.

Java Is Under Siege. Will Oracle Let It Burn?: Tech News «

NOOKcolor - color touchscreen, eReader, eBook Reader - Barnes & Noble

So… it’s a 7” display Android slate device that comes with a preinstalled e-reader client, not a color e-ink device.  Maybe it will come with finger-shortening sandpaper

Our spectacular 7-inch VividView™ Color Touchscreen makes reading more engaging than ever. The backlit screen makes it easy to read day or night. Displaying more than 16 million colors in unsurpassed high-resolution, NOOKcolor delivers incredibly rich images and clear, crisp text, making your reading come to life in ways you've never experienced before.

NOOKcolor - color touchscreen, eReader, eBook Reader - Barnes & Noble

The Future of the Internet: You Cant Count Out Microsoft, Says David Kirkpatrick: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance

“… if they were to simply buy Facebook” assumes Facebook is for sale

“Microsoft is in an interesting position because they are concretely allied with Facebook. Not only do they own a piece of it but they do search exclusively with Facebook,” he notes. Kirkpatrick argues that, not only is that a money-maker, it could be a game changer. “Microsoft’s alliance with Facebook potentially could be its single biggest competitive tool against Google.”

Just because Google and Apple are late to the party doesn’t mean they’ve missed it. Kirkpatrick notes Google could quickly dominate if they were to simply buy Facebook.

The Future of the Internet: You Cant Count Out Microsoft, Says David Kirkpatrick: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance

Igor A. Gusev, Leader of SpamIt, Investigated by Russian Police - NYTimes.com

I am fine with government control of this type of information channel…

Moscow police authorities said Mr. Gusev, 31, was a central figure in the operations of SpamIt.com, which paid spammers to promote online pharmacies, sometimes quite lewdly. SpamIt.com suddenly stopped operating on Sept. 27. With less financial incentive to send their junk mail, spammers curtailed their activity by an estimated 50 billion messages a day.

Why the site closed had been unclear until Tuesday, when Moscow police officials met with reporter to discuss the Gusev case. The officials’ actions were a departure from Russia’s usual laissez faire approach to online crime.

Igor A. Gusev, Leader of SpamIt, Investigated by Russian Police - NYTimes.com

The $670 Alternative to MacBook Air: iPad, Toccata Keyboard | Fast Company

Anybody want to buy a rarely used iPad Keyboard Dock?…  (via Greg Lloyd)

On Wednesday Steve Jobs unveiled a new MacBook Air, with an entirely solid state hard drive, seven-hour battery life, super-slim design and a price tag of $1,000 (for the 11-in. model). Yet for the previous week, I'd already been using an ultra-light Apple notebook with an entirely solid-state hard drive, a battery that charges fast and lasts for so long I rarely have to care (I just plug it in every other night), and an eminently portable 9.7 in. screen (which detaches). It has a pretty generous 32GB of storage. Most importantly, it cost me, in total, a mere $670.

What's it called? The iPad, of course--augmented by the best external iPad keyboard I've seen, the $70 Toccata keyboard case from an Australian company called PADACS.

iPad with Toccata keyboard

The $670 Alternative to MacBook Air: iPad, Toccata Keyboard | Fast Company

Amazon's Kindle Sales Are Vague, but Strong - NYTimes.com

Some Kindle momentum snapshots

“It’s still October and we’ve already sold more Kindle devices since launch than we did during the entire fourth quarter of last year — astonishing because the fourth quarter is the busiest time of year on Amazon,” Steve Kessel, a senior vice president for Amazon, said in a statement.

[…]

In Monday’s release, the company said that customers bought more e-books on Amazon.com during the last 30 days than print books – hardcover and paperback combined – on its top 10, 25, 100 and 1,000 best-seller lists. The ratio of e-book to print sales was 2 to 1, the company said.

Amazon's Kindle Sales Are Vague, but Strong - NYTimes.com

Zynga’s Value Tops Electronic Arts as Virtual-Goods Sales Surge - BusinessWeek

Strange days indeed

Zynga Game Network Inc.’s estimated worth surpassed Electronic Arts Inc.’s stock-market value, a sign of the ascendance of social-networking entertainment at the expense of traditional video games.

Zynga, the maker of such games as “FarmVille” and “FrontierVille,” is valued at $5.51 billion, according to SharesPost Inc., an exchange for shares of privately held companies. Electronic Arts, the second-largest game publisher by sales, is worth $5.16 billion on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Zynga’s Value Tops Electronic Arts as Virtual-Goods Sales Surge - BusinessWeek

Technology Review: Video Ads that Outwit Spammers

Bonus: security + advertising potential…

NuCaptcha replaces jumbled text with video ads. A line of text--usually an advertising slogan--scrolls over the top of a video, with a code a few characters long at the end that a user must type in. A publisher can also choose to require that people type in the whole slogan to complete the Captcha. Video is much harder for software to process, says Giasson, meaning the text can be easier for humans to read than conventional Captchas.

Technology Review: Video Ads that Outwit Spammers

Hotels Seek Quicker Redress on TripAdvisor Reviews - NYTimes.com

An information quality reality check

“The world of the Internet and particularly social media has pretty much outstripped ethical guidelines, and some legal ones as well,” said Chris Emmins, a founder of KwikChex, a British reputation management company that is seeking to organize a lawsuit against TripAdvisor on behalf of its clients.

Mr. Emmins said more than 800 businesses had inquired about participating in the case, but he expected only a few dozen would meet the criteria the company hoped to test, including the legality of reviews that accuse hotel staff of theft, assault or discrimination.

“I don’t think they belong on a review site,” he said. “They’re allegations of criminality.”

Hotels Seek Quicker Redress on TripAdvisor Reviews - NYTimes.com

Best Halloween apps for every platform - The Cody Word - MarketWatch

Sign of the times; see the link below for the lists

And it’s Halloween again, and I’m in Ruidoso heading into the scariest (only scary) holiday of the year for the first time in twenty years, and I’m ready for it.  With apps.  You knew there had to be plenty of “apps for that”, right?  I’m telling you, ‘dem apps are permeating every aspect of our lives.  And yes, we at AppConsumer got you covered from every dark, scary corner.  From the Top 5 Scariest Apps for the iPhone to the Top 5 Best Zombie Games for the iPad to the best Halloween wall paper for Android, and with thousands of other Top 5 apps for every interest, hobby and holiday, we’ve got your covered:

Best Halloween apps for every platform - The Cody Word - MarketWatch

Former Oracle executive to lead smaller Atlanta software firm - The Boston Globe

I’m surprised there hasn’t been a non-compete issue in this context

“I have spoken to Larry,’’ Phillips said. “He is quite proud to produce another CEO in the industry.’’

Founded in 2002, Infor started out producing business software for manufacturing and financial services companies. It has since built a wide product portfolio through 70 acquisitions of its own. It has more than 8,000 employees and focuses on midsize customers often neglected by the likes of Oracle, SAP, and IBM.

Former Oracle executive to lead smaller Atlanta software firm - The Boston Globe

Monday, October 25, 2010

Google's Schmidt: People Upset With Street View Can Always Move | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Another “joke” perhaps?  Check the main link below for a collection of recent quotes.

And Schmidt’s far from done. Appearing on CNN’s “Parker Spitzer” program last week, he said that people who don’t like Google’s Street View cars taking pictures of their homes and businesses “can just move” afterward to protect their privacy. Ironically, he said this on the very day that Google admitted those cars captured more than just fragments of personal payload data.

Interestingly, CNN has since edited that quote out of Schmidt’s segment. Did Google ask CNN to remove it? Who knows. Perhaps the company has finally realized that Schmidt’s penchant for indulging in this sort of pedantic dorkery doesn’t do much for its public image.

Google's Schmidt: People Upset With Street View Can Always Move | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Dawn of a New Day « Ray Ozzie

Closing paragraphs of an extensive Ray Ozzie perspective piece; see the link below and this post for more details and context-setting

Let there be no doubt that the big shifts occurring over the next five years ensure that this will absolutely be a time of great opportunity for those who put past technologies & successes into perspective, and envision all the transformational value that can be offered moving forward to individuals, businesses, governments and society.  It’s the dawn of a new day – the sun having now arisen on a world of continuous services and connected devices.

And so, as Microsoft has done so successfully over the course of the company’s history, let’s mark this five-year milestone by once again fearlessly embracing that which is technologically inevitable – clearing a path to the extraordinary opportunity that lies ahead for us, for the industry, and for our customers.

Dawn of a New Day « Ray Ozzie

FT.com / Technology - Jobs unlikely to overstretch Apple cash

Apple’s genes have changed considerably over the last few years; my bet is an acquisition (or several) to rapidly expand further into consumer electronics, e.g., Sony

Among the most fanciful ideas being batted around by outsiders are takeovers of Facebook, the social network valued in private share sales at more than $30bn, and perhaps Disney, the media group worth $67bn, including a large stake held by Mr Jobs.

But either would break Apple’s long-running pattern of investments – it has never paid more than $500m for a target – which risks straying into unfamiliar arenas. Former executives and bankers said they would be shocked if the maker of the iPhone, iPad tablet and Mac computer did anything as far-reaching.

“I don’t think they will buy anything big any time soon. It is just not in their genes,” said a former Apple strategist.

FT.com / Technology - Jobs unlikely to overstretch Apple cash

Android Payments Snarl Spurs Upstarts - BusinessWeek

More Android user experience fragmentation ahead

To make it easier for consumers to make payments via Android handsets, a small group of companies last week introduced technology that would bypass the payment methods Google has approved. Zong, a mobile-payments company, says it joined two other payment firms, Billing Revolution and AdKnowledge, as well as PapayaMobile, a Beijing-based developer of social networking and gaming applications, to offer software developers a set of payment options they can easily add to Android applications.

Numerous programmers lament the difficulty of building payments systems for Android. "Payments are a big problem on Android," says Sam Altman, chief executive officer of Loopt, a location-based social network that runs on several wireless phones. "It's not the biggest problem, but when you consider how you're going to spend your time and resources, it's certainly something you have to consider." And the more difficult it is to get paid for products or delivered via mobile apps, the less incentive some programmers have to write for Android.

Android Payments Snarl Spurs Upstarts - BusinessWeek

‘Adderall Diaries’ Blurs Books-Apps Line - NYTimes.com

Thinking different with multimedia content

And Apple makes no bones about being more intrusive in dealing with apps, which it “curates,” as opposed to the books it sells. As Jesse David Hollington, the applications editor for the Web site iLounge, described last month, Apple has particular guidelines for apps developers: “We view Apps different than books or songs, which we do not curate. If you want to criticize a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical app.”

Which means that to Apple, Mr. Elliott is a programmer, not a writer.

‘Adderall Diaries’ Blurs Books-Apps Line - NYTimes.com

Android Market Is Attracting More App Developers - NYTimes.com

An Android app market reality check

But developers also say that charging for apps simply may not be the path to profit on Android.

“Google is not associated with things you pay for, and Android is an extension of that,” said Mr. Hall of Larva Labs. “You don’t pay for Google apps, so it bleeds into the expectations for the third-party apps, too.”

Google says it hopes to introduce a transaction feature for Android software that will allow purchases within apps, to help developers make more money.

Developers do say that the freedom of Android is a welcome alternative to Apple’s tight control. Android developers have more rein to tinker with the phone’s native functions, like the address book and the basic interface, something Apple has not always allowed. And Apple screens all apps before they can reach its store, while Google imposes no such restriction, relying on Android users to flag malicious or offensive apps.

Android Market Is Attracting More App Developers - NYTimes.com

The Awl Finds Some Level of Online Success - NYTimes.com

More content evolution

The very idea of a little digital boutique flies in the face of all manner of conventional wisdom, chief of which is that scale is all that matters in an era of commoditized advertising sales. The Awl is attempting to tunnel under those efforts by building a low-cost site that delivers a certain kind of content for a certain kind of audience. And the owners don’t have to get rich — The Awl has no investors — they just have to eat.

“I’m surprised that there aren’t a lot of independent, owner-operated editorial Web sites out there,” Mr. Sicha said. “We will be two years old in April, and we are self-sufficient and stable. That’s pretty fast.”

The Awl Finds Some Level of Online Success - NYTimes.com

Sunday, October 24, 2010

WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Chased by Turmoil - NYTimes.com

The next chapter in this story is likely to be ugly

Much has changed since 2006, when Mr. Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, used years of computer hacking and what friends call a near genius I.Q. to establish WikiLeaks, redefining whistle-blowing by gathering secrets in bulk, storing them beyond the reach of governments and others determined to retrieve them, then releasing them instantly, and globally.

Now it is not just governments that denounce him: some of his own comrades are abandoning him for what they see as erratic and imperious behavior, and a nearly delusional grandeur unmatched by an awareness that the digital secrets he reveals can have a price in flesh and blood.

WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Chased by Turmoil - NYTimes.com

FT.com / Technology - Google admits Street View errors

Oops…

Google has admitted for the first time that the cars it uses to photograph residential streets for its Street View service have in some cases illicitly collected complete personal e-mails, as well as passwords, from the homes they passed.

The admission comes in the wake of allegations by regulators in Spain and Canada this week that the search company broke local laws with its drive-by data collection. Authorities in many more of the 30-odd countries where Street View cars operate have also been investigating, making the case the most damaging privacy breach to hit the search company.

FT.com / Technology - Google admits Street View errors

With Kinect, Microsoft Aims for a Game Changer - NYTimes.com

Check the link below for an extensive Kinect snapshot

Where Apple popularized touch-screen technology, Microsoft intends to bombard the consumer market with its gesture and voice offerings. Kinect technology is intended to start in the living room, then creep over time throughout the home, office and garage into devices made by Microsoft and others. People will be able to wave at their computer and tell it to start a videoconference with Grandma or ask for a specific song on the home stereo.

“I think this is the first thing out of the consumer side of Microsoft in a long, long time where they are in front of everyone else,” says Joel Johnson, an editor at large at Gizmodo, the gadget site. “I want a Kinect in every room of my house, watching me and listening to what I am saying. It’s so sci-fi and next level that it would be amazing.”

With Kinect, Microsoft Aims for a Game Changer - NYTimes.com

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Organizing for America | BarackObama.com

Sign of the times

The OFA Canvass Android app is a groundbreaking tool that provides volunteers with everything needed to talk face to face with voters in their neighborhoods about November's elections.

Download the Android app to get everything you need to canvass—in the palm of your hand:

  • Lists of neighbors to talk to
  • Interactive maps
  • Real-time reporting of how many doors have been knocked and how the conversations went.

Home

Organizing for America | BarackObama.com

Friday, October 22, 2010

Coming Soon for Kindle - kindle Discussion Forum [e-book lending]

So much for the Nook’s differentiation in this context…

[…] later this year, we will be introducing lending for Kindle, a new feature that lets you loan your Kindle books to other Kindle device or Kindle app users. Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period. Additionally, not all e-books will be lendable - this is solely up to the publisher or rights holder, who determines which titles are enabled for lending.

Coming Soon for Kindle - kindle Discussion Forum

WinInfo Short Takes: October 22 2010 [Windows IT Pro]

Not surprising that Paul Thurrott is not a major Apple fan, but this week’s “short takes” summary includes several interesting perspectives, including this one on iPad market dynamics:

The iPad Is the New Nintendo Wii ... and That's Not a Compliment

Remember the Nintendo Wii? Nintendo sold millions of them and dominated the video game market for almost four straight years before sales fell off a cliff. But the dark, dirty secret of the Wii is that those sales were pretty much the extent of the platform's success: Few Wii owners ever purchased more than a game or two, and most Wii consoles are sitting in a corner now, gathering dust—rarely if ever used. Well, it appears that the iPad is following the same trajectory, albeit in a tighter timeline. In the wake of Apple's quarterly results, in which far fewer iPads were sold than anyone expected, Nielsen reveals that a full third of iPad owners have never installed even a single app on the thing. Not even a free app. Which leads me to believe that the iPad is exactly what I pegged it to be in the beginning: nothing more than a gotta-have-it, trendy, techno-fashion statement, one that people bought to look like they were hip and savvy. And as for those people who actually do use the thing—after all, they did invest several hundred dollars in it, so it better be good for something—they are, as predicted, simply consuming content. There could literally be millions of first-generation iPads gathering dust in people's home offices already. This product is the tech industry's biggest MacGuffin yet.

WinInfo Short Takes: October 22 2010

Small computers: The Difference Engine: Sleeping tablets | The Economist

An excerpt from The Economist’s take on the tablet/slate size-does-matter meme-of-the-week

Perhaps more than anything, Mr Jobs’s sarcasm reveals how concerned he really is about both the coming avalanche of seven-inch tablets and the 3.0 version (Gingerbread) of the Android operating system that most of them will sport. He swears that Apple never had a seven-inch iPad in the works. If it did—as component suppliers in Taiwan insist—you can see why Mr Jobs would want to bury it, at least for the time being. The iPad may not have been the blockbuster product market watchers had anticipated. Even so, an impressive 7.5m units have been bought since it was launched five months ago. Introducing a smaller, cheaper version at this stage would only cannibalise existing iPad sales. At the moment, Apple's profit margins on the iPad, especially the more expensive models, are truly humongous.

Small computers: The Difference Engine: Sleeping tablets | The Economist

Radio Open Source » Blog Archive » Kevin Kelly on Tech: the Unabomber was Right; the Amish, too.

A timely reality check – Chris Lydon interviews Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly, most engaging of technophiles, has never been a techie. He was a low-consumption hippie growing up, then dropped out of college to photograph the simple life in Asia and Africa. In the 1970s, his twenties, he edited The Whole Earth Catalog, “…sort of like Google in paperback form,” Steve Jobs has said, “35 years before Google came along. It was idealistic and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.” In the 90s, Kevin Kelly became, of course, the genius ghost inside the WIRED magazine machine, where his title now is “senior maverick.” All along, and especially in his new book, What Technology Wants, the tilt of his thinking is away from gadgetry, very much in the direction of philosophy and theology.

Radio Open Source » Blog Archive » Kevin Kelly on Tech: the Unabomber was Right; the Amish, too.

BBC News - How the mobile network got chatty

Think different

The popularity of iPhones and their equivalents mean that the networks have struggled to cope with a 20-fold increase in data demand in the last year alone.

Three claims to deal with 100 terabytes of data a day.

Gavin Sheldon, head of networks at 02, explained the impact of the new generation of smartphones.

"Watching one YouTube video on an iPhone can be the network equivalent of sending 500,000 text messages," he said.

BBC News - How the mobile network got chatty

EnterpriseDB: PostgreSQL West 2010

Hmm – the event will include a keynote by Scott McNealy; I wonder if he’s going to start bashing Oracle, MySQL, etc…

This year promises to be an exciting and groundbreaking conference for the PostgreSQL community. This year's show is focused on celebrating the release of PostgreSQL 9.0 while bringing together those who build PostgreSQL with those who use it. In addition to the core technical sessions, trainings, tutorials and labs, there is also ample opportunity to hear from your peers through case studies and end-user sessions on how other organizations are solving real problems using PostgreSQL.

EnterpriseDB: PostgreSQL West 2010

FT.com / Technology - HP releases tablet with Windows 7

A muted milestone

While a relief to Microsoft, the debut of HP’s Slate 500 is coming with little of the fanfare that herald a significant challenger to the iPad.

The device is designed for companies wedded to Windows elsewhere, especially those that might want to install their own applications, HP said.

[…]

HP’s $800 entry has an 8.9-inch screen, falling between the 9.7-inch iPad and 7-inch devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab, due out next month and running Google’s Android operating system.

In the business market, it will compete with the iPad, Cisco’s forthcoming Android-based Cius, and Research in Motion’s announced PlayBook, which runs RIM’s own QNX operating system.

FT.com / Technology - HP releases tablet with Windows 7

Amazon Reports Big Gains for the 3rd Quarter - NYTimes.com

A familiar pattern – Amazon invests for long-term success, and short-term-focused investors get nervous.  In the bigger picture, AMZN hit an all-time high recently, and Amazon is preparing for a record-setting holiday commerce season.

The online retailer said consumer appetite for books and electronics remained strong. The results highlight Amazon’s dominance in online retailing, especially ahead of the holiday shopping season.

Iinvestors were disappointed, however, with the company’s higher spending on new distribution centers. Analysts said they were concerned about the cost of the 10 giant warehouses that opened in the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30, and a handful more that are to open before the end of the year.

Amazon Reports Big Gains for the 3rd Quarter - NYTimes.com

Source: New Nook is Android-based, full-color | Digital Media - CNET News

Perhaps a round of leapfrog ahead in the e-reader market

Is the upcoming Nook a color e-reader? Barnes & Noble doesn't comment on rumors, but CNET has been in communication with a source who says the company will unveil a new Android-based full-color touch-screen e-reader next Tuesday, October 26.

According to the tipster, who wishes to remain anonymous but has proven reliable in the past, Barnes & Noble's new e-reader will be called the Nook Color, have a 7-inch screen, and retail for $249.

Source: New Nook is Android-based, full-color | Digital Media - CNET News

Wanted: Social Media Sifters - BusinessWeek

Signs of the marketing/advertising times

Companies are increasing spending for the collection and analysis of online chatter—and social media monitoring outfits are being snapped up by larger software and market-research firms

Wanted: Social Media Sifters - BusinessWeek

The Mundane Credit Card Gets a Modern Makeover - NYTimes.com

How long until there’s an app store for your credit cards?…

The simple credit card is about to get a makeover.

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Next month, Citibank will begin testing a card that has two buttons and tiny lights that allow users to choose at the register whether they want to pay with rewards points or credit, at most any merchant they please.

The Mundane Credit Card Gets a Modern Makeover - NYTimes.com

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Steve Jobs Meeting With President Obama This Afternoon | Cult of Mac

I confess I mostly just liked the graphic; see the link below for more details

Steve Jobs is reportedly having a one-on-one meeting with President Obama.

Steve Jobs Meeting With President Obama This Afternoon | Cult of Mac

Video: Create an easily customizable template in OneNote 2010 - Microsoft Office

Some useful tips for OneNote 2010 users; also see Submission guidelines for Microsoft Office OneNote 2010 templates

This video provides a quick overview of how to create, modify, and save templates in OneNote 2010. A template is a Microsoft Office document that’s been designed with pre-existing themes, styles, and layouts, which has placeholder information instead of real content.

Video: Create an easily customizable template in OneNote 2010 - Microsoft Office

Bright Side of Government - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Check the link below for more details

Led by Mayor Bloomberg and NYC’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, this initiative is a great example of making consolidation work by taking advantage of shared resources. Like many cities and states, New York’s current IT infrastructure is hampered by fragmentation and siloed technology assets, so this project will centralize servers and databases across agencies, which will distribute computing power more efficiently and allow systems to talk to one other.

Another aspect of the agreement will improve and expand New York’s Gov 2.0 capabilities as the City has expressed significant interest in using technologies like Town Hall to facilitate online discussion groups that will engage constituents in new ways. Cloud technologies will also make open government data sets readily available to city residents, increasing transparency and allowing locals to build new apps based on public data.

Bright Side of Government - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Pentagon Vets Iraq Documents WikiLeaks May Post - WSJ.com

On a related note, see WikiLeaks: Funding blocked after blacklisting

The Pentagon set up a 120-person Information Review Task Force originally to look at Afghanistan war documents released by WikiLeaks, and to identify people who were named in the intelligence reports.

Pentagon officials fear the leaked documents could be used by the Taliban to hunt down those identified as working with the U.S.-led war effort.

Pentagon Vets Iraq Documents WikiLeaks May Post - WSJ.com

Windows Phone 7 has what it takes - The Boston Globe

Excerpt from a Hiawatha Bray review; see the link below for more details and a video

In less than a minute, I was grinning. I couldn’t help myself. Of course, the phone was sleek and powerful, but so was the software. It’s an impressive rethink that’s likely to put Microsoft right back in the running when the first Windows Phone 7 devices go on sale on Nov. 8.

Windows Phone 7 has what it takes - The Boston Globe

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

White House White Board | The White House [on politics and transparency]

The videos on this page are going to become a reality check in the battle between marketing budgets and spin versus transparency and facts.  I can’t understand how anyone objectively considering the information provided in the White House white board clips could believe it’s time to revert to the failed economic policies of the past. 

I’m guessing Chris Hughes is somehow constructively engaged in this domain; it’s a great example of the deft application of information technology to clearly explain complex, politically-sensitive scenarios.

For now: block ~6 minutes and view the first two videos in the series.  Track the site’s feed (or sign up for email updates).  Encourage people you know to explore the information.  The stakes are critically important; if political campaign marketing budgets and spin prevail over transparency and facts, we’re all going to suffer the consequences.

White House White Board | The White House

Evernote Grabs $20 Million For Cloud-Based Notetaking: Tech News [GigaOM]

An interesting clarification, but I’m still not seeing how the relatively basic hypertext conceptual model embodied in Evernote is going to become “a global platform for human memory,” unless, to Phil Libin, that means the world’s biggest collection of virtual/digital sticky notes…

Update: Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, emailed us to clarify that the company has no plans to compete with Dropbox. “I love Dropbox, and we use them all the time at Evernote,” he said. “I think we’re much more likely to be integration partners than competitors. We don’t really focus on files, synchronization, etc.; we focus on human memories. Sure there’s some overlap, but we don’t really worry about it.”

Evernote Grabs $20 Million For Cloud-Based Notetaking: Tech News «

Esther Dyson: Privacy Is a Marketing Problem: Tech News [GigaOM]

Some sage advice from Esther Dyson (check the link below for more), but I suspect many business models would evaporate if all companies practiced radical transparency – i.e., that their customers/users would not like what they’d then see.  I agree Facebook is helping to establish broader understanding of elaborate privacy-related hypertext conceptual models, in any case.

[…] While Facebook is often targeted for obfuscating and breaching user privacy, Dyson contended that the company is actually doing a reasonably good job of pushing forward its users’ understanding of privacy, with a few exceptions.

But the issue is more practical than all that, according to Dyson. “It’s not about privacy; it’s about transparency, disclosure and control,” she said. “I don’t know what privacy is, and you as marketers don’t know what privacy means to each of the individuals you market to. What you can do is you can disclose your own practices, you can make them intelligible and you can give your users control.”

Esther Dyson: Privacy Is a Marketing Problem: Tech News «

BBC News - Internet users to exceed 2 billion by the end of 2010

A timely planetary reality check

One third of the world's population will be online by the end of the year, according to United Nations statistics.

The number of people online has doubled to two billion in the last five years, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) said.

Of the 226m new net users that have come online this year, more than two thirds are from developing countries.

BBC News - Internet users to exceed 2 billion by the end of 2010

RIM boss joins queue to kick Jobs • The Register

It’ll be entertaining to see how this plays out over the next few months.  I’m still willing to bet we will see a 7” iPad (or maybe something like 6.6666” – whatever Steve Jobs determines is appropriately magical and revolutionary) by the middle of 2011.  For now, check this page for more on near-term Android tablets.

That patronizing put-down may have been what frosted Balsiile's cookies — that, and Jobs' scathing dismissal of seven-inch touchscreen tablets such as RIM's PlayBook. "We think the current crop of seven-inch tablets are going to be DOA — dead on arrival," Jobs opined.

He did, however, allow the possibility that a seven-inch display might be large enough if it "includes sandpaper so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of their present size."

We at The Reg know schoolboy snarkiness when we see it, and yes, Virginia, that was schoolboy snarkiness.

Balsille snarked back: "For those of us who live outside of Apple's distortion field, we know that seven-inch tablets will actually be a big portion of the market and we know that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web experience," he said.

"We think many customers are getting tired of being told what to think by Apple," Balsille snapped.

RIM boss joins queue to kick Jobs • The Register

Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: Facebook's Latest Privacy Breach is Decades Old

Check the link below for more context-setting and analysis

But this latest Facebook privacy scare has actually been brewing for more than a decade. It's all down to a "vulnerability" that was described back in 1999 by Tim Berners-Lee and others working on version 1.1 of the HTTP standard, and which underlies the web: "The Referrer header allows reading patterns to be studied and reverse links drawn. Although it can be very useful, its power can be abused if user details are not separated from the information contained in [it]." Here's what that means: Every time your browser loads a new webpage, or a section of one, the server providing the data gets to know the address of the page that sent you there. The same process is at work when you're interacting with an app inside Facebook, which means the app gets a Referrer header containing your unique Facebook ID.

Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: Facebook's Latest Privacy Breach is Decades Old

Google Exec Tells Jobs What ‘Open’ Is - Digits - WSJ

Another disruption in the reality distortion field

Meanwhile, a developer caught up in the crossfire also commented. Jobs cited the example of TweetDeck, a program used by people to access Twitter, to argue that Android fragmentation is a problem for app developers. After TweetDeck released its Android app recently, “they reported that they had to contend with more than 100 different versions of Android software on 244 different handsets. The multiple hardware and software iterations present developers with a daunting challenge,” Jobs said.

But Iain Dodsworth, CEO of TweetDeck, also took to Twitter last night to defend Android. “Did we at any point say it was a nightmare developing on Android? Errr nope, no we didn’t. It wasn’t,” he wrote.

Google Exec Tells Jobs What ‘Open’ Is - Digits - WSJ

Austan Goolsbee in White House Videos on Economy - NYTimes.com

Glad to see this

The videos, which have a made-at-home quality, have been the subject of some Internet buzz, especially after the first one — about the debate over extending the Bush-era tax cuts — was highlighted last week on “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central.

In the second video, a four-minute segment posted on the White House blog on Tuesday, Mr. Goolsbee stands before a hand-made bar graph showing private sector job losses and gains since September 2007. He uses the V-shaped chart to point out that the economic free fall has been turned into a recovery, even if the results are still unsatisfying.

Austan Goolsbee in White House Videos on Economy - NYTimes.com

Apple's "Back to the Mac" Event Live Blog | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

I’m guessing there probably won’t be a 7” iPad announcement later today…

The question is what else Steve Jobs will trot out. A refresh of the MacBook Air has been much rumored, and some incremental updates to the MacBook Pros are also a possibility. New versions of iLife and iWork could make an appearance. And who knows, maybe we’ll get official confirmation of a Verizon-friendly iPhone. Or not.

Apple's "Back to the Mac" Event Live Blog | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Starbucks adds free Web content perk - The Boston Globe

Sign of the times

The coffee chain’s new digital network promises customers free e-books, movies, and other exclusives, including free access to some paid websites such as The Wall Street Journal, and is meant to get customers spending more on drinks and content they buy through the site.

[…]

Most of the free content — from movies to books — can be read or viewed only in Starbucks. When customers buy the content, say an e-book, Starbucks takes a cut of the sale

Starbucks adds free Web content perk - The Boston Globe

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Cisco Community Central: Enterprise Social Software : Pushing The Reset Button On How We Look At “Collaboration”

Mike Gotta shares some insightful points in this post, and his dimensions of direct/emergent participation and activity-centric/relationship-centric collaboration are useful considerations, but he also overshoots a bit, imho.  An excerpt:

The distinction between spaces and channels has a subtle but pervasive influence on how the industry views “collaboration”. The almost exclusive focus on “spaces” as the most effective means to improve an organization’s collaboration capabilities has resulted in a very narrow approach towards solving what turns out to be a much more broad and complex challenge – how to improve the way people work together (refer to Collaboration: The Long Journey).

Consider the following framework, which evolved from some work I did at Burton Group several years ago:

image

This framework is straightforward --

  • Communication is the transmission of information from point A to point B, and is expressed in terms of channels and items.
  • Collaboration is joint, purposeful activity, and is addressed in (real or virtual) workspaces, typically with shared tools and artifacts, along with membership and access controls.
  • A common underlying information architecture and set of platform services make it possible for people to work in their preferred tools/models while maintaining a globally consistent state and minimizing redundancy.
  • Activity tends to cycle among the different synchronous and asynchronous channels and workspaces, e.g., a customer request or competitive update (via a communication channel) leads people to collaborate in a workspace; they publish the results of their work, and others are updated via their preferred communication channels.

A couple related themes to consider, relative to Mike’s post topics:

  • “E2.0” tool types fit well within the framework – blogs are simply asynchronous communication channels, and “the wiki way” is a useful addition to the asynchronous workspace type collection.
  • Tagging is also not a radical departure from long-established conventions; it’s simply an information item classification platform service, ideally one available in a consistent manner across the full collection of information item tool types.

While it might be convenient for Cisco marketing to suggest that earlier channel- and workspace-oriented tools are now out of step with the >= 2.0 times, I don’t see the need for a “reset button.”

Cisco Community Central: Enterprise Social Software : Pushing The Reset Button On How We Look At “Collaboration”

Microsoft Issues Warning About Increased Java Attacks | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

No doubt “unbreakable” Oracle will sort all this out real soon now…  In the meantime, check the main story link below for some reasons why Java is a productive attack vector.

In a Monday story about Adobe Reader X I noted that, due to increased security vigilance on Adobe's part, PDF files were no longer the leading vehicle for software exploit-driven malware. That dishonor belongs to Sun's Oracle's Java.

Others took notice of the same phenomenon. A blog entry from Microsoft's Malware Protection Center includes a graph that shows the extent of it: PDF exploits are flat, probably declining, and Java exploits are skyrocketing.

Microsoft Issues Warning About Increased Java Attacks | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

Evernote raises $20 million, led by Sequoia Capital « Evernote Blogcast

Evernote’s CEO aims high…

We’re going to grow Evernote from a solution that helps you remember everything to the global platform for human memory. Our goal is to become the trusted, permanent and ubiquitous destination for all of your lifetime memories. This has always been our plan, and now we have the resources to make it happen. It’s going to be a difficult and long (and awesome) journey and we are counting on you, Evernote users, for continued guidance. We got this far because of your support.

Evernote raises $20 million, led by Sequoia Capital « Evernote Blogcast

The Case for Apple Buying Facebook | The Atlantic Wire

Check the link below for a round-up of the press/blogosphere/punditry, on the Apple + Facebook scenario.  I don’t think it’s a feasible scenario unless Mark Zuckerberg is planning to move on to a new adventure (probability = ~zero…), as Facebook doesn’t need the money and Apple’s modus operandi are very far from “radical transparency” 

He goes on to speculate that a Facebook purchase is in the works:

It’s hard not to read or hear that quote and not think that he’s thinking about some very big buys... Feel free to throw your own guesses in, but I’ll kick off with my own: It’s a company that has yet to compete with or brush up against Apple in any significant way. And it’s one that Apple seems unlikely to be able to move aside, even if it wanted to. And it’s one that’s already competing directly with Google, which has to make Jobs like it even more. And, if you believe this L.A. Times report, Jobs is already strolling around Palo Alto with its CEO: What do you think of Apple buying Facebook?

For mergers and acquisitions fiends, the prospect of a Facebook purchase was too tantalizing not to weigh in on. Here are the cases for and against this actually happening:

The Case for Apple Buying Facebook | The Atlantic Wire

Steve Jobs Says 7-Inch Tablets Are ‘Dead on Arrival’ | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

File this episode of the Reality Distortion Field Times for future reference; I think it’s inevitable that smaller-screen tablets/slates will be popular (consider, e.g., the iPod touch…) and that Apple will sell devices with screen sizes between the iPhone/iPod and iPad sizes before long, after the market reminds Steve Jobs that his personal preferences are not always highly aligned with mainstream market dynamics.

Jobs’ comments on 7-inch tablets pour cold water on rumors claiming that Apple was preparing to release a 7-inch iPad to compete with rivals. In response to the rumor, Apple watcher Jim Dalrymple explained that Apple had already made a 7-inch iPad at the same time as its available 9.7-inch model, and opted for the latter.

“Why did Apple choose to go with the larger model instead?” Dalrymple wrote. “Only Steve Jobs knows that for sure.”

Jobs appears to have answered that question during Monday’s earnings call. But take his word with a grain of salt — Jobs has been known to denigrate a product category, only to unveil a similar product later.

Steve Jobs Says 7-Inch Tablets Are ‘Dead on Arrival’ | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Evernote Grabs $20 Million For Cloud-Based Notetaking: Tech News [GigaOm]

Big growth plans for Evernote

The company has already been expanding its offering with a “Trunk” service that allows apps and hardware to integrate with Evernote. The most recent addition to Trunk was Livescribe, the electronic pen that digitizes your handwriting. Libin said as the company expands, it could push Evernote into the path of cloud syncing services such as Dropbox or SugarSync. But with a war chest of almost $30 million, Evernote seems equipped to maintain its growth story.

Evernote Grabs $20 Million For Cloud-Based Notetaking: Tech News «

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : I’m not worried about Android. That’s why I keep talking about it all the time.

Excerpt from a classic Fake Steve post:

You can’t believe the number of calls we’ve been getting for the past few months about this non-phenomenon known as Android. Every analyst on Wall Street wants to ask us about the open-versus-closed thing, and the thing about aren’t we reliving what happened with the Mac versus Windows in the 90s, and the totally made-up activation numbers that Andy Rubin keeps pulling out of his ass — and I’m like, Enough!

That’s why I got on the earnings call yesterday and read that totally impromptu rant about Google and Android and open versus closed.

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : I’m not worried about Android. That’s why I keep talking about it all the time.

Microsoft Announces Office 365: New cloud service brings together Office, SharePoint, Exchange and Lync for organizations of all sizes. [Microsoft PressPass]

A new name and new scope (i.e., small- to medium-sized organizations as well as enterprises) for Microsoft Office in the cloud.  Check this page and the link below for more details.

Microsoft Corp. today announced Microsoft Office 365, the company’s next generation in cloud productivity that brings together Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and Lync Online in an always-up-to-date cloud service. Office 365 makes it easier for millions more organizations to get and use Microsoft’s award-winning business productivity solutions via the cloud. With Office 365, people can work together more easily from anywhere on virtually any device, while collaborating with others inside and outside their organization in a simple and highly secure way. As part of today’s news, Microsoft is also opening a limited beta program for Office 365 in 13 countries and regions.

Microsoft Announces Office 365: New cloud service brings together Office, SharePoint, Exchange and Lync for organizations of all sizes.

SkySQL will try to drive MySQL fork, Oracle's ouster | ZDNet

More adventures in the disintegrating MySQL ecosystem

The creation of SkySQL — a virtual spinoff of MySQL (pre-Sun, pre-Oracle)– was as inevitable as LibreOffice.

The community simply doesn’t trust that Oracle will be a good steward of open source software and is acting quickly to preserve top open source projects.

SkySQL, which will provide alternative services and support for the MySQL database, is playing it safe for now. It is not helping found a new open source foundation to sponsor an official MySQL fork, and is not declaring open war on Oracle.

SkySQL will try to drive MySQL fork, Oracle's ouster | ZDNet

Steve Jobs Says Apple's Approach Is Better Than Google's - NYTimes.com

As part of Apple’s “integrated” approach, you’ll need to use QuickTime, if you want to listen to the full Apple conference call referenced at the link below

“We think this is a huge strength of our approach compared to Google’s,” Mr. Jobs said. “When selling to users who want their devices to just work, we believe integrated will trump fragmented every time.”

Then he added: “We are very committed to the integrated approach, no matter how many times Google tries to characterize it as closed.”

“We are confident that it will triumph over Google’s fragmented approach, no matter how many times Google tries to characterize it as open,” he said.

Steve Jobs Says Apple's Approach Is Better Than Google's - NYTimes.com