Amazon.com: Y. Hu "Y"'s review of Look at the Birdie (Short Story)

More on my Kindle/Vonnegut observation from earlier this morning: clicking the non-obvious “Show 1 more format” link produces:

… which doesn’t appear to be a good deal at all, unless you love reading on your Kindle and/or are into instant gratification.  While perhaps more “green” in many ways, $2.97 doesn’t seem like a great discount for the Kindle version of the (full) book.

The customer review linked for this post is another timely reality check – a reader who made the same mistake I did posted:

Before you make the same mistake I did, go back and "expand" your options of formats (click on where it says "Show 1 more format") because that is where you will find the correct Kindle edition of the collection of 14 short stories. This "format" is only for one story. I've contacted Amazon customer service so that they are aware of how misleading the listing is.

… and included a one-star rating to further express their dissatisfaction.  There are four comments on the rating, as I type this, including:

so... your bright idea is to rate something a 1 star based on one story youve read out of this collection. the fact that you would bring the rating down at all just to get your stupid warning about this not being a kindle edition (which it CLEARLY isnt) out there to people who dont need it because theyre smart enough to open there eyes

Wow…  What started out as what appeared to be a pleasant surprise on a cloudy Saturday morning has degenerated into an example of how quickly things can go hostile in the world of social software.  Somehow I suspect this all would have been good fodder for a Vonnegut story…

Amazon.com: Y. Hu "Y"'s review of Look at the Birdie (Short Story)

Exhaustive Kindle/Nook smackdown - James Fallows

Check the full post for a detailed and thoughtful snapshot of current e-reader market dynamics

Below and after the jump, an extremely detailed Kindle/Nook compare and contrast from a well-informed reader, in response to this previous comment by someone on the Nook team. This is presented in the public interest for those interested in the future of e-reading. More on the "all in one device" front later today.

Exhaustive Kindle/Nook smackdown - James Fallows

Droid: Motorola's Savior Or Google's False Profit? by PC World: Yahoo! Tech

Check the full article for a timely Droid reality check from David Coursey

Too much, as least so early, is being made of the Motorola Droid's supposedly magical powers. Can a single handset "save" Motorola, launch a new operating system, and smite the evil Steve Jobs?

It is tempting to compare the Droid to the previous magic handset, the Palm Pre, which was supposed to save Palm, launch s new operating system, and smite the evil Steve Jobs.

The Palm Pre met none of those lofty expectations and has faded almost into insignificance. The Pre, however, lacks the Droid's Google-Motorola-Verizon pedigree. Which either gives it triple magic powers or three cooks to spoil the broth.

Droid: Motorola's Savior Or Google's False Profit? by PC World: Yahoo! Tech

Cisco, EMC team up on cloud computing: sources by Reuters: Yahoo! Tech

Hmm…

Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO.O) and EMC Corp (EMC.N) are teaming up to sell a new line of networking gear, computers and storage equipment designed for use with cloud computing, according to sources familiar with their plans.

The line of products, dubbed vBlock, position the two companies to better compete against IBM (IBM.N) and Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N), which sell a broader array of data center equipment than either Cisco or EMC offer on their own.

Cisco, EMC team up on cloud computing: sources by Reuters: Yahoo! Tech

Novell to Los Angeles: Drop Dead! by PC World: Yahoo! Tech

Looks like at least one person still works in GroupWise PR at Novell – at least as of yesterday…

This must be a joke: A Novell corporate blog item that chastises the City of Los Angeles for recently selecting Google Apps to replace Novell's GroupWise e-mail and calendaring software.

Alas, the PR blog post is very real. And while Novell may (and probably does) have a valid point, how many customers do you think would be happy to see their company mentioned like this on a vendor's Web site?

Check the Novell post

Novell to Los Angeles: Drop Dead! by PC World: Yahoo! Tech

Book Review - 'Look at the Birdie - Unpublished Short Fiction,' by Kurt Vonnegut - Review - NYTimes.com [+ Kindle version -- UPDATED]

An excerpt from the full review:

“Unpublished is not a word we identify with a Kurt Vonnegut short story,” Sidney Offit notes in his foreword to “Look at the Birdie,” a new collection of Vonnegut’s early, and unpublished, short fiction. Perhaps more than any of his contemporaries of similar stature, Vonnegut was until early middle age a practical and adaptable writer, a guy who knew how to survive on his fiction. In the era of the “slicks” — weekly and monthly magazines that would pay decently for fiction — a writer had to have a feel for what would sell. The 14 stories in “Look at the Birdie,” none of them afraid to entertain, dabble in whodunnitry, science fiction and commanding fables of good versus evil. Why these stories went unpublished is hard to answer. They’re polished, they’re relentlessly fun to read, and every last one of them comes to a neat and satisfying end. For transmittal of moral instruction, they are incredibly efficient delivery devices.

In another of my series of semi-random Kindle observations, check this:

In case it’s not clear from the screen clip, the Kindle version of this new, $27 suggested retail price book is, as I type this, $1.59. Somehow I suspect Jeff Bezos et al are subtly sending signals about their favorite authors…

UPDATE: note that the Kindle edition has only one of the stories ("Look at the Birdie") -- a fact that is not clear in the screen clip above. So it's not such a great price... but it is still a fun read. Looks like Amazon has some work to do, in order to clarify distinctions between dead-tree and Kindle versions of books. See this post for more details and musings.

Book Review - 'Look at the Birdie - Unpublished Short Fiction,' by Kurt Vonnegut - Review - NYTimes.com

Personal Technology | Microsoft virus detector is unobtrusive | Seattle Times Newspaper

Another positive review of Security Essentials

The new, free Microsoft Security Essentials (microsoft.com/securityessentials) doesn't follow that pattern. This download for Windows XP, Vista and 7 seems downright meek: You don't have to click past upsells for a premium edition when you install it, and your only hint of its existence afterward may be two icons at the corners of the desktop.

[…]

Combined with Windows' built-in firewall and the automatic blocking of hostile Web sites provided by such modern browsers as Firefox and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8, Security Essentials can do a lot to keep a PC safe — and without the irritation factor of many competing programs.

But it can't do it all. The most effective security measure — on Windows or in any other operating system — remains a cautious, skeptical person between the chair and the keyboard.

Personal Technology | Microsoft virus detector is unobtrusive | Seattle Times Newspaper

Travel | World's largest cruise ship sails for US port | Seattle Times Newspaper

Sign of the times – the pre-economic-meltdown times, that is…

It's five times larger than the Titanic, has seven neighborhoods, an ice rink, a golf course and a 750-seat outdoor amphitheater. The world's largest cruise ship is finally finished and Friday it began gliding toward its home port in Florida.

The Oasis of the Seas will meet its first obstacle Saturday when exits the Baltic Sea and must squeeze under the Great Belt Bridge, which is just 1 foot taller than the ship - even after its telescopic smokestacks are lowered.

Travel | World's largest cruise ship sails for US port | Seattle Times Newspaper

Obama & Google (a love story) - Oct. 22, 2009

Check the full story for more details

Yet neither Obama's anticorporate leanings nor Google's anti-"politics as usual" culture has stopped the two camps from collaborating closely. Schmidt sits on Obama's Council of Science and Technology Advisers. Google employees acted as advisers to the Obama transition team -- in one case Google executive Sonal Shah actually led a meeting, to the surprise of at least one attendee -- and a handful of ex-Googlers have joined the administration in various roles.

The most visible appointee is Google's former head of global public policy, Andrew McLaughlin, who was named deputy chief technology officer in June. McLaughlin's appointment raised eyebrows -- in his previous role McLaughlin championed Google's policy goals. Now he'll be in a position to shape policy that affects Google's rivals. White House spokesman Nick Shapiro says McLaughlin's appointment complies with the letter and spirit of the ethics standards Obama imposes on his administration.

Obama & Google (a love story) - Oct. 22, 2009

Drupal Moves Into the White House - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Interesting times

“While open source is already widespread throughout the government, its adoption by the White House will almost certainly give permission for much wider uptake,” wrote Tim O’Reilly, who publishes books and holds conferences about open-source software.

The government’s leanings toward open source have become more apparent under the Obama administration. Aneesh Chopra, the nation’s first chief technology officer, has been hanging out with prominent open-source types, and there seems to be a notion that open-source software matches up well with President Obama’s espoused ideals on transparency and community involvement in projects.

Drupal Moves Into the White House - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Rob Pegoraro - New Google Maps GPS for smartphones spooks competitors - washingtonpost.com

A timely Google reality check 

In other words, the wizards of Mountain View can't flick other companies off the map with their fingertips. What they can do is leap far enough ahead of competitors in a single product launch to shock them into attention. When those firms draw the appropriate "get better or get lost" conclusion and redouble their efforts, customers should benefit.

This effect may break down when Google steps into markets dominated by firms selling devices instead of software. In the time it takes a manufacturer to usher an improved gadget from whiteboard to circuit board, Google can push out three or four rounds of updates to a Web application.

You shouldn't feel obliged to avoid Google altogether because of this power to upend markets. But you should remind yourself not to discount worthy alternatives just because they're Not Google. There's also much to be said for keeping a part of your online identity -- maybe your photos, maybe your e-mail -- outside of Google. Spread your business around, and one company can't get too comfortable with it.

Rob Pegoraro - New Google Maps GPS for smartphones spooks competitors - washingtonpost.com

A Kindle World blog: Weekend books reminder: Free and under $1 - Update5

I’ve been exploring the Kindle ecosystem lately – a snapshot of some free download sources:

Here are:
1.  Amazon's now 18,000+ free books, sorted by:
        "Bestselling" or by "Avg Customer Review"
2.  Amazon's currently free  Non-Classics - This one changes.
    a. The link above is to Non-Classics sorted by BESTSELLERS.
    b. Here are Non-Classics sorted by NEWEST books first.
3.  "Big Deals on Kindle" - This one just doesn't change enough.
4.  The Project Gutenberg e-books catalog (MOBI editions) for Kindles.  You can search the catalog on your Kindle and click on one to have it downloaded to your Kindle from the site.
There are no Amazon charges on a download from the Project Gutenberg site.
5.  A humongous Amazon Forum thread on a million or so books readable on the Kindle - How to get them (mostly free)

A Kindle World blog: Weekend books reminder: Free and under $1 - Update5

The Visual Miscellaneum | Information Is Beautiful

If you have enjoyed any of the graphics on the Information is Beautiful blog, please consider pre-ordering this book 

Would you consider pre-ordering my book? That way I can get it into more bookshops. And we can spread the good news about the amazing ALL-GRAPHIC FUTURE OF CIVILISATION THAT AWAITS US!

It’s out in the US 10th November. And in the UK on the 4th February.

Here’s a Visual Miscellaneum US pre-order link

Cover design by DesignWorksGroup

An example from an earlier post:

The Visual Miscellaneum | Information Is Beautiful

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Somerset | Blog sparks mass council walkout

Cyberpolarization on a local level?…

Councillors in a rural town have staged a mass walkout after becoming fed up with criticism from a blogger.

Ex-vice chairman Anthony Canvin said 11 of Somerton Town Council's 15 members resigned at a meeting on Tuesday.

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Somerset | Blog sparks mass council walkout

iPhone comes to China without key feature by AP: Yahoo! Tech

Interesting times

The iPhone's awkward, delayed entry into China reflects the regulatory and technical hurdles of a fast-changing market where other global technology companies have struggled to establish themselves.

Unicom's iPhones lack WiFi because it was temporarily banned by Beijing, which was promoting a rival Chinese system, according to BDA. The ban was relaxed in May after manufacturing had begun.

A Unicom spokesman, Yi Difei, said the company hopes to have WiFi in the next batch of phones.

iPhone comes to China without key feature by AP: Yahoo! Tech

How Sanjay Jha Overhauled Motorola’s Culture - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

It’ll be interesting to see if this apparent adaptation of Steve Jobs’ management style is successful at Motorola…

“The problem wasn’t the engineering culture,” Mr. Jha recalled telling people. “We weren’t connecting the engineers to the market and giving them problems to work on that matter.”

The blame, he said, rested squarely on management. “A fish rots at the head first,” he declared.

There was no better proof of that than the jumble of chips, operating systems and other software used on the company’s phones. Companies like Nokia build phones around a handful of standard designs, but Motorola was starting fresh on nearly every handset.

[…]

“Someone asked Sanjay who gets shot if a product isn’t successful,” Mr. Stark said. “His answer was we all get shot.”

How Sanjay Jha Overhauled Motorola’s Culture - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Facebook Wins Damages in Spam Case - WSJ.com

Facebook found a revenue model – but good luck collecting…

Facebook said Thursday a California court has awarded the social networking Web site $711 million in damages in an anti-spam case against Internet marketer Sanford Wallace.

Facebook sued Mr. Wallace for allegedly accessing users' accounts without their permission and sending phony posts and messages. The company said on its blog that in addition to the damage award, the San Jose, Calif., court referred Mr. Wallace to the U.S. Attorney's office for prosecution for criminal contempt of court—meaning he could face jail time.

Facebook Wins Damages in Spam Case - WSJ.com

Google Should Make Apple Beg For Maps Navigation - washingtonpost.com

A timely reality check

Apple is in a terrible position here because the future of mobile apps are Web apps, and Google excels at making those. Apple needs Google, it's most dangerous competitor in the mobile Web market, to keep building apps for the iPhone. Google would be foolish not to since the iPhone still has the largest reach of any modern Web phone. But it will no longer be a priority.

The sad thing is that Apple has been here before?with Microsoft. In the late 1990s, Apple had to beg Microsoft to keep building Office for Macs. Now it may be in the same position with Google. There may be more than 85,000 apps in the App Store, but it is only a handful which actually drive purchases. If Google Maps Navigation becomes one of those types of killer apps, Apple might need to do some begging first before Google goes through effort to make it for the iPhone.

Google Should Make Apple Beg For Maps Navigation - washingtonpost.com

Filtering Reality - The Atlantic (November 2009)

In a rather ambitious one-page (printed) essay, the author addresses augmented reality as well as political (cyber) polarization

Here’s a startling vision for the next decade: two familiar online phenomena converge in an emerging technological arena to strike a fatal blow to American civil society.

The emerging technology, called “Augmented Reality,” enables users to see location-specific data superimposed over their surroundings. Long a staple of science fiction, it’s trickling into the real world through the iPhone and similar ultrasmart mobile phones. With AR applications such as Layar, the smart phone displays what its camera sees, with information about nearby buildings and shops, travel directions, even notes and “tags” left by other users in that location. Although AR now relies on handheld devices, electronics makers like Sony are working on systems that you wear like sunglasses, making augmented vision more immersive.

Filtering Reality - The Atlantic (November 2009)

AOL Market Value Chart, '92-'09

Yow (via Dave Kellogg)

By: Jay Yarow

AOL Market Value Chart, '92-'09

A Windows 7 Manual From Microsoft - Gadgetwise Blog - NYTimes.com

Some useful Windows 7 info (the .xps version is less than half of the size of the .pdf version, btw)

The coverage of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system has been voluminous and consistent during the last few months, and now Microsoft itself is offering—for free—a kind of one-stop shopping site that sums up the new program.

The 140-page “Windows 7 Product Guide” is available to download here. The file size in the PDF format is 62 megabytes.

A Windows 7 Manual From Microsoft - Gadgetwise Blog - NYTimes.com

Review: $99 WikiReader is a pocket encyclopedia by AP: Yahoo! Tech

Sign of the times

When I was a kid, my dad bought a copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It had 32 volumes and took up 4 feet in the book case. I loved to sit on the couch and flip through it, reading articles at random.

Now, I'm returning the favor, giving my father an encyclopedia that has the equivalent of 1,000 volumes. Yet it fits in his pocket, and it costs just $99.

There are few better illustrations of the staggering advance of digital technology than the new WikiReader. It's the size of a thick table coaster, and contains nearly the entire text of the English-language Wikipedia. That's 3.1 million articles, written and edited by volunteers around the globe.

Picture from the vendor site:

Review: $99 WikiReader is a pocket encyclopedia by AP: Yahoo! Tech

New Chief Positions Motorola for a Rebound - NYTimes.com

Check the full article for some insights into the Droid development cycle – and how incredibly dysfunctional Motorola apparently was, pre-Jha; I have a hunch one device is not going to usher in a sustainable turn-around, in the hyper-competitive smartphone market

Looking back, Mr. Jha said that Motorola was in worse shape than he knew when he took the job, largely because of a dysfunctional management culture that missed the shift in consumer preferences from phones intended primarily for talking to those that do nearly everything a computer can do. The company’s engineering talent, which had once developed great phones, remained intact, he said.

As luck would have it, one of those engineers, Rick Osterloh, grabbed Mr. Jha just as he stepped off the stage at that first town meeting in August 2008. Mr. Jha had mentioned Google’s Android operating system for smartphones. Mr. Osterloh rushed the stage to tell him he was working on an Android phone in Motorola’s Silicon Valley outpost that would bring together text messages, e-mail and social-network updates.

New Chief Positions Motorola for a Rebound - NYTimes.com

Microsoft's 'Signature PCs' show its vision of computing perfection

See the full article for more details

People visiting Microsoft's new store in Scottsdale, Ariz., have started noticing something interesting, apart from its shameless similarities to Apple's retail outlets. The computers on display in the Microsoft Store come without any run-of-the-mill "crapware" -- the derisive term used for generic trial software and other unwanted programs that commonly clog new PCs when they're shipped by computer makers.

Under a new initiative called "Microsoft Signature PCs," the company has removed those programs from the computers it's selling and loaded them instead with full versions of its own Windows Live software and services, plus programs such as Silverlight, the Zune software, and Adobe's widely used online technologies.

It's an interesting move by Microsoft on multiple levels.

Microsoft's 'Signature PCs' show its vision of computing perfection

David Chappell's Blog :: Opinari: The SharePoint 2010 Developer Platform

Another timely white paper from David Chappell

Yet a SharePoint app is fundamentally an ASP.NET app, so the two worlds have a good deal in common. With the 2010 release, Microsoft has put a significant amount of effort into making SharePoint a better development platform for creating what might otherwise be straight ASP.NET applications.
If you're interested in this area, I've written a Microsoft-sponsored white paper titled The SharePoint 2010 Developer Platform: An Introduction for ASP.NET Solution Architects. The paper's goal is to provide a big-picture view of SharePoint as a platform for creating applications. It's clear to me that with the advent of SharePoint 2010, a significant number of applications that might have been built using plain ASP.NET will instead be built on SharePoint. If you're interested in why, you might find the paper useful.

David Chappell's Blog :: Opinari

Google’s Free GPS for Phones Threatens Garmin and TomTom - NYTimes.com

Another example of how general-purpose software platforms tend to prevail over time; see the full article for more on Google’s GPS category-killer plans

GPS navigation devices were the latest must-have tech toys just two years ago, and shares of device makers like Garmin and TomTom were soaring.

That didn’t last long. In a turnabout that has been remarkably swift even for the fast-moving technology business, those companies have suffered as competition has pulled down prices — and as more people have turned to their cellphones for directions.

Google’s Free GPS for Phones Threatens Garmin and TomTom - NYTimes.com

Boston publisher enters new chapter in textbooks - The Boston Globe

Interesting times

“The textbook is no longer the center of the educational universe,’’ said Wendy Colby, a senior vice president at Houghton, which is based in Boston.

The Boston publisher is selling some textbooks to Detroit, but most of the contract is for such software such as Learning Village - a customized, interactive classroom network.

Detroit’s teachers will be able to prepare and assign homework through Learning Village and use its tools to measure how well students learn - even how well they understand a lesson taught earlier in the day.

Boston publisher enters new chapter in textbooks - The Boston Globe

Cass R. Sunstein and political rumors on the Internet : The New Yorker

Excerpt from a review of a timely new book:

Sunstein begins with the relatively uncontroversial premise that a vigorous exchange of information is critical to the democratic process. As he acknowledges, the Web makes virtually unlimited amounts of information available; it is now possible to sit in a coffee shop in New York and read not just the newspapers from Chicago, Boston, and Los Angeles but also those from Cairo, Beijing, and London, while simultaneously receiving e-mail alerts on the latest movie openings and corporate mergers. From this, it is often argued that the Internet is a boon to democracy—if information is good, then more information must be better. But, in Sunstein’s view, the Web has a feature that is even more salient: at the same time that it makes more news available, it also makes more news avoidable.

[…]

“It seems plain that the Internet is serving, for many, as a breeding group for extremism, precisely because like-minded people are deliberating with greater ease and frequency with one another,” Sunstein writes. He refers to this process as “cyberpolarization.”

Put the Web’s filtering tools together with cyberpolarization and what you get, by Sunstein’s account, are the perfect conditions for spreading misinformation. Who, on liberal blogs, is going to object to (or even recognize) a few misstatements about Sarah Palin? And who, on conservative blogs, is going to challenge mistaken assertions (or, if you prefer, lies) about President Obama?

Cass R. Sunstein and political rumors on the Internet : The New Yorker

Altova's Most Wanted Features - Version 2010

A major new release from Altova – check this page for the most-wanted feature summary and here for more detailed product updates.

Instead of pushing some proprietary platform or other hidden agenda, we at Altova believe in delivering exactly those features that our users need the most. We’ve listened to your feedback via our discussion forums, support requests, and social networking sites and put together a list of the MOST WANTED features that will help you stay at the cutting edge of technology and deliver the best results that your clients demand.

Altova's Most Wanted Features - Version 2010

States not protecting student privacy, study finds - washingtonpost.com

Disconcerting data dossier delinquency

States often collect far more information about students than necessary and fail to take adequate steps to protect their privacy, a national study concludes. The dossiers go far beyond test scores, including Social Security numbers, poverty data, health information and disciplinary incidents.

The study from the Fordham University Center on Law and Information Policy, released Wednesday, casts light on data systems created at the urging of the federal government to track student progress. One finding: States often fail to spell out protocols for purging records after students graduate.

States not protecting student privacy, study finds - washingtonpost.com

Electric Literature Magazine Offers Fiction in New Media - NYTimes.com

A multi-channel, multimedia magazine

The founders of Electric Literature, a new quarterly literary magazine, seek nothing less than to revitalize the short story in the age of the short attention span. To do so, they allow readers to enjoy the magazine any way they like: on paper, Kindle, e-book, iPhone and, starting next month, as an audiobook. YouTube videos feature collaborations among their writers and visual artists and musicians. Starting next month, Rick Moody will tweet a story over three days.

Electric Literature Magazine Offers Fiction in New Media - NYTimes.com

GOOG CEO Predicts A Predictable Future Web - Stunning Absence Of Any Real Insights - SiliconValleyWatcher

See the full post for examples

Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb writes about Eric Schmidt's predictions about the future of the Internet, delivered at a Gartner conference.

I'm rarely impressed by Mr Schmidt's predictions or analysis of Internet trends. Even though he is CEO of Google, his position seems to fail to provide him with anything insightful to say about the future Internet.

GOOG CEO Predicts A Predictable Future Web - Stunning Absence Of Any Real Insights - SiliconValleyWatcher

BBC NEWS | Technology | Facebook 'memorialises' profiles

More on Facebook’s support for dead friends

If a user is reported as deceased, Facebook will remove sensitive information such as status updates and contacts.

When reporting a death, users must offer "proof" by submitting either an obituary or news article.

"When someone leaves us, they don't leave our memories or our social network," Max Kelly, head of security at the firm, wrote in the official Facebook blog.

"To reflect that reality, we created the idea of "memorialised" profiles as a place where people can save and share their memories of those who've passed."

BBC NEWS | Technology | Facebook 'memorialises' profiles

Eclipse Gets Interoperability and Next-Generation Experience on the Microsoft Platform

Interesting times

Part of an ongoing initiative to make its products more open, Microsoft Corp. today announced at the Eclipse Summit Europe new solutions that help developers using the Eclipse platform take advantage of the new features in Windows 7 and Window Server 2008 R2, and reinforce Java and PHP interoperability with Windows Azure and Microsoft Silverlight. Microsoft worked with open source companies, Tasktop Technologies Inc. from Canada for Windows 7 and Window Server 2008 R2, and Soyatec from France for Windows Azure and Silverlight, to provide greater choice and opportunities for developers working in heterogeneous computing environments and use a mix of Microsoft and open source technologies.

Eclipse Gets Interoperability and Next-Generation Experience on the Microsoft Platform: Microsoft teams with Tasktop Technologies and Soyatec on open source projects designed to foster interoperability and make Eclipse a first-class tool on the Microsoft platform.

On Facebook, Reconnecting with the Dead - Digits - WSJ

Maybe time for a bit of query refinement…

Along with last Friday’s upgrades to its News Feed and Live Feed features, Facebook also added a Reconnect tool, which takes the current Suggestions feature one step further and recommends friends a user should contact if they haven’t been in touch for a while.

Which is when the blogosphere went haywire. Apparently, the Reconnect tool got a little cheeky and started suggesting reconnections with users’ exes, current spouses (”Um, wasn’t that what the weekend was for?” wrote Twitter user Davidwinfrey), as well as users’ deceased friends whose profiles remained intact.

On Facebook, Reconnecting with the Dead - Digits - WSJ

Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check: 10th anniversary

I started blogging with Blogger ten years ago today.  This site only goes back to 2002, as I previously published to a free Yahoo! site (and switched when Yahoo! started charging for the service); the first ~3 years of the blog exist only as local archive pages at this point. 

To celebrate the first decade, I just added my blog to the Kindle blog publishing service; it will appear there in a day or two, if anyone is interested in tracking the blog via Kindle.  (Okay, that wasn’t really a celebration, but it seemed like the thing to do at the moment…)

I don’t know how many people read the blog on a regular basis, as I can’t currently track the number of readers who follow the RSS or Atom feeds.  Checking the ClustrMaps widget from time to time, I’ve apparently had 200+ daily “visits” during most weekdays lately, and it’s nice to know some people continue to find the blog worthwhile.

Into the next decade…

Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check

Post Tech - Internet networks unable to handle H1N1 telework traffic: GAO

Strange days indeed (via Slate)

As concerns rage over the spread of the H1N1 flu, a federal report showed that a pandemic that would keep millions of Americans at home could also overload Internet networks.

Adults working from home, children accessing video files and playing games online and families logging on for information about the illness would overwhelm residential Internet networks that were never built to have a majority of users on the Web at the same time, according to an October report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

Post Tech - Internet networks unable to handle H1N1 telework traffic: GAO

How to Blow $3.5 Billion - Yahoo - Gawker

Stark – see the full article (via Dave Kellogg)

Yahoo finally shuttered Geocities today. Acquired in 1999, Geocities was one of the costliest dot-com duds of of all time: $3.5 billion for an ugly, cash-bleeding homepage hosting service. And to think Google's founders were simultaneously begging server funds.

How to Blow $3.5 Billion - Yahoo - Gawker

Droid or Not, Verizon Still Wants the iPhone - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

iDon’t have control of my own marketing, apparently…

Even though the wireless unit of Verizon Communications started an aggressive ad campaign for its new Droid handset that directly challenges the iPhone, Mr. Seidenberg, Verizon’s chief executive, said he would be delighted to sell Apple’s smartphone.

“We obviously would be interested at any point in the future that they would be interested in having us as a partner,” Mr. Seidenberg said in a conference call Monday to discuss Verizon’s third-quarter earnings. “This is a decision that is exclusively in Apple’s court.”

Droid or Not, Verizon Still Wants the iPhone - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Pilots on wayward jetliner were using laptops: officials | Reuters

At least we can assume, for the moment, that they weren’t distracted by Twitter…

Pilots of a Northwest Airlines jetliner that overshot its destination by 150 miles last week told U.S. investigators they became distracted during an extended discussion of crew scheduling that included their use of personal laptops, officials said on Monday.

Pilots on wayward jetliner were using laptops: officials | Reuters

U.S. Newspaper Circulation Falls More Than 10% - NYTimes.com

Sign of the times

The two-decade erosion in newspaper circulation is looking more like an avalanche, with figures released Monday showing weekday sales down more than 10 percent since last year, depressed by rising Internet readership, price increases, the recession and papers intentionally shedding unprofitable circulation.

U.S. Newspaper Circulation Falls More Than 10% - NYTimes.com

Skype and Job Interviews: Webcam Meetings on the Rise - TIME

Sign of the times

Get ready for a closeup: your next job interview might be on webcam. Looking to save time and money, companies are turning to video-chat software as a cheap, low-hassle way to vet job candidates. That means a growing number of people looking for work are meeting their prospective new bosses not at the office but in the comfort of their own home.

Skype and Job Interviews: Webcam Meetings on the Rise - TIME

FT.com / UK / Business - Twittering workers cost business £1.4bn

Hmm…

More than half of office staff spend 40 minutes a week on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook for personal use while at work, costing businesses an estimated £1.4bn ($2.3bn) a year in lost productivity, according to a survey.

Out of 1,460 workers surveyed by Morse, an information technology services provider, 57 per cent said they used social networking sites during the working day for personal use.

On average, those people spent 40 minutes on these sites each week, equating to just under a full working week being “wasted” each year, said the company.

FT.com / UK / Business - Twittering workers cost business £1.4bn

FT.com / Technology - Google’s Android takes on Apple

Smartphone OS market projections

Gartner, the research group, sees Android eating into Nokia’s leading market share and featuring on 18 per cent of smartphones by 2012, up from 1.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2009. That would put it ahead of RIM on 13.9 per cent and Apple on 13.6 per cent.

Android will inevitably beat the iPhone, according to Ken Dulaney, a Gartner analyst, if only because it will feature on many more handset models. Apple has only the iPhone and does not license its operating system or technology.

[…]

Smartphones account for only 14 per cent of the market today, but more than 500m are expected to be sold in 2012 when they are forecast to account for up to half the market for mobile phones.

FT.com / Technology - Google’s Android takes on Apple

Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Users - NYTimes.com

Interesting times

In the next several weeks, Twitter users will discover two new features, Lists and Retweets, that had the same user-generated beginnings.

“Twitter’s smart enough, or lucky enough, to say, ‘Gee, let’s not try to compete with our users in designing this stuff, let’s outsource design to them,’ ” said Eric von Hippel, head of the innovation and entrepreneurship group at the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. and author of the book “Democratizing Innovation.”

Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Users - NYTimes.com

Big Blue union calls for probe of all IBM execs • The Register

Hmm…  Also see this Cringely perspective 

Union organizers are rallying around the recent arrest of IBM executive Robert Moffat on insider trading charges to call for a broader investigation into all the company's heads.

Alliance@IBM, a union that represents a small number of IBM employees, posted an open letter on its website Tuesday asking the US Department of Justice and US Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a probe of all IBM executives. On behalf of current and former employees at Big Blue, the organization is an extremely vocal critic of IBM outsourcing and its downsizing of domestic operations.

Big Blue union calls for probe of all IBM execs • The Register

Inventor of the Web Joins Twitter - The Slatest - Slate Magazine

Strange days indeed

Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web, has joined Twitter. The move, TechCrunch glibly warns, "could potentially rip a hole in the time/space continuum." Berners-Lee is also the director of the Web's standards organization, so his first post Thursday evening, "Ooops confusing user interfxce. And no phones on on stage with radiomikes," could spark some "interfxce" rethinking at Twitter HQ. Less than 24 hours later, Berners-Lee already had more than 7,000 followers.

Read original story in TechCrunch | Friday, Oct. 23, 2009

The most important news and commentary to read right now. - The Slatest - Slate Magazine

Mozilla Rides The Google Wave With Raindrop - Software - IT Channel News by CRN

Totally different animals, imho; Raindrop looks like a communication-oriented multi-channel aggregator client, while Wave is ultimately a collaborative hypertext journaling system (that, in its default user experience, happens to look like a hybrid email/IM client)

The Mozilla Labs blog posted details of a new project described as, "an exploration in messaging innovations," which sounds an awful lot like Google (NSDQ:GOOG) Wave.

Like Google Wave, the project, called Raindrop, is an effort to centralize the disparate sources and ways in which most of us receive digital information. Raindrop is an interface for information users receive from e-mail, notifications, conversations and from social networking sites like Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

Mozilla Rides The Google Wave With Raindrop - Software - IT Channel News by CRN

Visio Insights : Using a Visio Process Repository

As with PowerPoint slide libraries, this new Visio capability is an interesting example of a subtle shift from files to hypertext collections of information items

To address the above pain points, we have created the Visio Process Repository, a new SharePoint site template that is available out of the box with SharePoint 2010. It leverages SharePoint’s collaboration features -- including check-in and check-out, versioning, and workflow -- and integrates with several of Visio’s new process management features. The result is that in just a few clicks, a SharePoint administrator can create a Visio Process Repository that is pre-configured for easy storage and management of Visio process diagrams.

Visio Insights : Using a Visio Process Repository

Book Review - 'The Tyranny of E-Mail - The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox,' by John Freeman - Review - NYTimes.com

A thoughtful review of a timely book

E-mail in particular and online writing in general have their well-known flaws and limitations, but they have also served as cleansing agents for prose, much as journalistic writing did early in the 20th century. That is, while they may disinhibit inappropriate declarations, they also inhibit dull, abstract wordiness.

Early in his book, Freeman writes, “No one can predict the future of a technology, and this book is certainly not going to try, but it is essential, especially when that technology has become as prevalent and pervasive as e-mail, to examine its effects and assumptions and make an attempt to understand it in a broader context.”

Maybe the best thing I can say about ­e-mail is that I can’t imagine anyone using it to compose such a sentence.

Book Review - 'The Tyranny of E-Mail - The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox,' by John Freeman - Review - NYTimes.com

The Way We Live Now - Going Offline in Search of Freedom - NYTimes.com

A timely reality check

I’m not wishing the Internet away. It has become so integral to my work — to my life — that I honestly can’t recall what I did without it. But it has allowed us to reflexively indulge every passing interest, to expect answers to every fleeting question, to believe that if we search long enough, surf a little further, we can hit the dry land of knowing “everything that happens” and that such knowledge is both possible and desirable. In the end, though, there is just more sea, and as alluring as we can find the perpetual pursuit of little thoughts, the net result may only be to prevent us from forming the big ones.

The Way We Live Now - Going Offline in Search of Freedom - NYTimes.com

Amazon to release Kindle reader for Windows PCs in November | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

More Kindle for PC details 

Amazon, unsurprisingly, isn’t positioning the Windows-based Kindle app as a replacement for its Kindle device. Instead, as it does currently with the iPhone, it is positioning it as a complement to a Kindle reader. That said, users don’t have to have a Kindle to use the Windows Kindle app. All they need is an Amazon account.

The Windows Kindle app is being optimized to run on Windows 7 and will support multi-touch and JumpLists. Users won’t be able to annotate their Kindle content on Windows PCs in this beta; they will be able to view their annotations made from iPhones and Kindle devices on the Windows version, however. There also is currently no text-to-speech functionality in the Windows version of the Kindle reader.

Amazon to release Kindle reader for Windows PCs in November | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Google chief favors net neutrality but is wary of government regulation of Web - washingtonpost.com

Maybe he should check out How to Win Friends and Influence People on Google Books…

Schmidt doesn't come across as Capitol Hill's biggest fan. Google is a tech company that loves facts, metrics and algorithms, after all. Schmidt might prefer a political system that dealt in such quantities.

"I spend so much time in Washington now because of the work that I've been doing, I deal with all these people who make assertions without fact," he said. Policy people "will hand me some report that they wrote or they'll make some assertion, and I'll say, 'Well, is that true?' -- and they can't prove it."

Perhaps that could change some day, he suggested. Technology could help.

[…]

"The part of politics in Washington that's 'who you know' and all that kind of stuff, it's just not very interesting," he said.

Google chief favors net neutrality but is wary of government regulation of Web - washingtonpost.com

Waver, a cross-platform Google Wave application for your desktop

An AIR attempt to catch a Wave

There's Tweetdeck for your Tweets, Seesmic for your Facebook stalking -- and now Waver for your Waves!
Waver is simply an Adobe AIR application that hooks into your Google Wave account. From there, you can create new waves, or update existing ones.

Waver, a cross-platform Google Wave application for your desktop

Weak Points of Sun Deal Come Out in Europe - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com

See the full post for extensive analysis of the deal structure

I sincerely hope that the European Union’s reluctance was a surprise to Sun — because if not, the company took quite a gamble on Oracle’s commitment to the acquisition. This is particularly true in light of Sun’s downturn, which provides an easy excuse to at least try to renegotiate the price.

However, the inclusion in the agreement of a bar on required Oracle dispositions indicates Sun may have known that antitrust clearance was a problem at the time of the agreement. At this point though, the debate is academic — and hopefully for Sun, Oracle really, really wants to acquire the company. Still, Sun would not have had to throw itself on Oracle’s mercy had it negotiated a better deal for itself to begin with. This is a lesson other deal lawyers should remember.

Weak Points of Sun Deal Come Out in Europe - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com

Nokia Sues Apple Over iPhone - WSJ.com

Maybe they just wanted to remind people that Nokia makes smartphones…

Still, Apple has rapidly gained market s hare in the segment from a standing start. In the second quarter, its smart-phone market share had risen to 13.3% against Nokia's 45%, compared to Apple's 3% market share just a year earlier when Nokia had 47%, according to recent figures from research firm Gartner Inc.

And Apple has been doing much better than Nokia in the U.S. market. Nokia's share of the U.S. smart-phone shipments in the first half of 2009 was 3%, compared to Apple's 22% in the first half of 2009, according to the research firm IDC.

Nokia doesn't disclose licensing revenue, but Edward Snyder, an industry analyst at San Francisco-based Charter Equity Research, said it is likely to be so small that it is immaterial to the company's annual revenue. He added any licensing fees are unlikely to be a significant blow to Apple, which had $34 billion in cash at the end of its September quarter.

Nokia Sues Apple Over iPhone - WSJ.com

Amazon Profits Soar, Sees Strong Holiday - WSJ.com

From A to Z…

In a sign the holiday period could be good to online retailers, Amazon.com Inc. posted a 69% increase in third-quarter profit and offered a rosy outlook for the current quarter.

The results were driven by a 44% rise in sales of electronics and general merchandise, including TVs and office supplies, which now account for 43% of the retailer's sales.

Amazon also reported a 17% spike in sales of media, which had dragged on earnings in the second quarter because of sluggish video-game sales.

Amazon Profits Soar, Sees Strong Holiday - WSJ.com

Amazon offering free Kindle software - The Boston Globe

Perhaps paradoxically, this is what will probably lead me to finally purchase a Kindle…

The Seattle-based online retailer said yesterday that it will release an application called “Kindle for PC’’ in November. It will let you buy, download, and read Kindle books on a Windows-based PC, regardless of whether you own a Kindle.

If you also own a Kindle, you can see any notes or highlights made on the e-reader.

Amazon will also keep track of where you are in a book, so you can stop reading on your PC and pick up at the same place on your Kindle.

If you’re running Microsoft Corp.’s new Windows 7 operating system and have a touch screen on your computer, you can zoom in on book pages by pinching your fingers. In the future, Amazon said, you’ll be able to turn pages by swiping a finger across the screen.

Amazon offering free Kindle software - The Boston Globe

Nokia Sues Apple Over iPhone - WSJ.com

I guess it won’t be an entirely pleasant week in Cupertino…

Nokia said the patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption and affect all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in 2007.

"By refusing to agree appropriate terms for Nokia's intellectual property, Apple is attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia's innovation," Mr. Rahnasto said.

Nokia Sues Apple Over iPhone - WSJ.com

Official Google Blog: RT @google: Tweets and updates and search, oh my!

Same-day Google response to Bing on Twitter stream searching; let’s see if Google can pull off the same trick with Facebook content indexing (which was also part of the Bing news yesterday)…

At Google, our goal is to create the most comprehensive, relevant and fast search in the world. In the past few years, an entirely new type of data has emerged — real-time updates like those on Twitter have appeared not only as a way for people to communicate their thoughts and feelings, but also as an interesting source of data about what is happening right now in regard to a particular topic.

Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results.

Official Google Blog: RT @google: Tweets and updates and search, oh my!

BBC NEWS | Technology | Sales of virtual goods boom in US

Sign of the times

Americans look set to spend $1bn (£600m) on virtual goods in 2009, claims a report.

The cash will be spent on add-ons for online games, digital gifts and other items that exist only as data.

Total spend on such items is expected to be up by 100% over 2008 and to double again by the end of 2010, said the analysts behind the report.

In related news, Facebook is updating its gift store so it offers a wider variety of virtual presents.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Sales of virtual goods boom in US

BBC NEWS | Business | EU warns Oracle over Sun takeover

Bad news for Oracle; worse news for Sun employees

On Wednesday, a spokesman for Ms Kroes said the commissioner had "expressed disappointment that Oracle had failed to produce, despite repeated requests, either hard evidence that there were no competition problems or, alternatively, proposals for a remedy to the competition problems identified by the Commission".

Eben Moglen, founding director of the Software Freedom Law Center, said the comments were "bad news for Oracle".

BBC NEWS | Business | EU warns Oracle over Sun takeover

Pew Survey Finds Nearly 20 Percent of Online Americans Tweet by PC World: Yahoo! Tech

Hmm…  Good thing you can now use Bing to improve the Twitter stream signal-to-noise ratio

A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project claims that 19 percent, or nearly 1 in 5, Americans who use the Internet also use Twitter or some other social networking status update service to keep in touch and share information about themselves with others. The bigger news is that this figure is almost double what it was in a previous survey in December of 2008.

[…]

The survey also found a correlation between the number of wireless devices a person owns and the likelihood that they also use a status update service like Twitter. Only 10 percent of users with one Internet-connected device claimed to use Twitter, while nearly 40 percent of those with four connected devices use status updates to communicate. In fact, there is essentially a 10 percent per device relationship, with two devices coming in at 19 percent, and three devices at 28 percent.

Pew Survey Finds Nearly 20 Percent of Online Americans Tweet by PC World: Yahoo! Tech

MySpace abandons race with Facebook (Financial Times)

More on MySpace’s evolution

The new chief executive of MySpace has told the Financial Times that the company is no longer interested in competing with Facebook, effectively conceding defeat in the race to become the largest online social network.

Owen Van Natta, a former Facebook executive who replaced Chris DeWolfe as chief executive of MySpace six months ago, said the company instead aimed to become an online hub for music and entertainment. "Facebook is not our competition," he said. "We're very focused on a different space."

[…]

Mr Van Natta wants to capitalise on MySpace's status as a leading online music destination and used a presentation at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco yesterday to unveil new features that enhance its music credentials.

MySpace abandons race with Facebook

New MySpace C.E.O. Reaches Beyond the Social Network - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

The headline about Facebook and Google offering music searches/sampling is another unhappy development for MySpace

According to Comscore, the news for MySpace is not good. Unique visitors are down 15 percent year over year; page views in September in the United States dropped to 22 billion from 40 billion in the same month last year. In certain cities and demographics, it is hard to find anyone who regularly visits the site.

In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Van Natta laid out some of his plans to stem the decline. In the five months since he joined the company, he has hired a new executive team, started cleaning up the site’s clunky, ad-choked interface, and acquired the social music service iLike in an effort to expand MySpace’s reach beyond the confines of its own social network.

New MySpace C.E.O. Reaches Beyond the Social Network - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

HP, Best Buy team on Windows 7 'home makeover' | Beyond Binary - CNET News

Tempting…

These days, getting a PC for $1,200 is no big deal. Even two PCs for that price is pretty run of the mill.

Starting on Thursday, though, Best Buy will offer for that price a "PC Home Makeover" that includes three PCs--a laptop, desktop and Netbook--as well as a monitor and router. Even in-home Geek Squad set-up is included.

[…]

The package includes an HP Slimline desktop (model s5212y), an 18;.5-inch monitor, HP mini Netbook as well as a "media-savvy" laptop (model G60-535DX) along with a Netgear 802.11-G router and in-home setup of each of the components.

Fake Steve’s take: “Best Buy and HP are going to announce a Win7 promo package: a desktop PC and monitor, a laptop, a netbook and a router -- for $1,199. Yes, that's exactly what our least-expensive iMac costs, all by itself. Sigh.”

HP, Best Buy team on Windows 7 'home makeover' | Beyond Binary - CNET News

Q&A: Eric Schmidt wants Google in your office | Deep Tech - CNET News

See the full interview for more details

I see a lot of interest in Gmail but not nearly as much interest in Google Docs--spreadsheet, word processor--and I'd put calendar in between. In the future, are those going to reach parity, or is Docs just going to be this bonus feature?
Schmidt: The way it plays out tactically is almost every sale is e-mail, calendar, and instant messaging. It doesn't start with Google Docs. They're playing with it, but fundamentally it's about e-mail and calendar. That's a pretty good project for a year for a significant company. They have to do a trial, convert the existing system, train users and support people. When you talk to those customers, they will tell you they will use Google Docs in conjunction with the e-mail accounts that they're already putting in place. That's how it plays out. It's first an e-mail sale, but once you have that, then you get the benefit of Google Docs.

The nontechnical press describe it as Microsoft Office versus Google Docs. They're not comparable.

Q&A: Eric Schmidt wants Google in your office | Deep Tech - CNET News

Facebook and Google Expected to Offer Song Sampling - NYTimes.com

More digital manifest destiny?…

The service will give users a more efficient way to find, learn about and sample music after they search for information about bands, albums or songs, said a person who has seen an early demonstration.

Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., will not host any music, nor has it forged any new relationships with the major music labels. But it has struck deals with several streaming music services to let people easily sample music directly from the search engine.

Facebook and Google Expected to Offer Song Sampling - NYTimes.com

Try Microsoft Office Web Apps Immediately

See the full post for details (or this Office Web Apps blog post)– limited features at this point (e.g., you can create new PowerPoint and Excel files but not Word or OneNote files/notebooks; you can view Word files) but still very interesting

Microsoft Office Web Apps is a free online version of Microsoft Office that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and the OneNote Web App.

Using Office Web Apps, you can view as well as edit Office documents on any computer and since these apps work inside the browser, you can even edit Office files on a Mac without requiring the Office software.

Sign-up for Office Web Apps

If you are not signed-up with Office Web Apps yet, here’s another opportunity:

Try Microsoft Office Web Apps Immediately

HP, Amazon to sell paperback versions of e-books by AP: Yahoo! Tech

Full circle…

Some of technology's best-known companies are betting there's pent-up demand for on-demand books.

Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's top seller of personal computers and printers, is teaming up with online retailer Amazon.com Inc. to challenge Internet search leader Google Inc. in the quirky new market of re-creating digital books as paperbacks.

[…]

Ironically, Google created most of the digital copies in the University of Michigan's collection.

HP, Amazon to sell paperback versions of e-books by AP: Yahoo! Tech

Google Books project draws fire in China by AFP: Yahoo! Tech

Hmm…

A China copyright group Wednesday accused Internet giant Google of scanning Chinese books for its online library without authorisation, in the latest criticism hurled at the controversial project.

The China Written Works Copyright Society told AFP its data showed at least 17,922 books had been scanned and included in Google Books, the Internet giant's project to digitise millions of books and post them online.

Google Books project draws fire in China by AFP: Yahoo! Tech

Mark Logic CEO Blog: Gartner Sued Over Magic Quadrant for Alleged Damages of $132M plus Punitives of $1.3B

Dave Kellogg’s analysis of a timely industry analyst reality check

I found this story today, entitled Gartner’s Magic Quadrant Goes to Court, about ZL Technologies who, citing damages of $132M, has decided to sue Gartner over its Magic Quadrants. From ZL’s web page on the suit:

ZL Technologies, a San Jose-based IT company specializing in ... enterprise software solutions for e-mail and file archiving, is challenging Gartner Group and the legitimacy of Gartner’s “Magic Quadrant.” In a complaint ... ZL claims that Gartner’s use of their proprietary “Magic Quadrant” is misleading and favors large vendors with large sales and marketing budgets over smaller innovators such as ZL that have developed higher performing products.
The complaint alleges: defamation; trade libel; false advertising; unfair competition; and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage.

Mark Logic CEO Blog: Gartner Sued Over Magic Quadrant for Alleged Damages of $132M plus Punitives of $1.3B

E-Book Fans Are Proving to Be Enthusiastic Readers - NYTimes.com

Apparently a time machine as well as an e-book reader (i.e., creating more discretionary reading time)

But amid the gloom, some sellers and owners of electronic reading devices are making the case that people are reading more because of e-books.

Amazon for example, says that people with Kindles now buy 3.1 times as many books as they did before owning the device. That factor is up from 2.7 in December 2008. So a reader who had previously bought eight books from Amazon would now purchase, on average, 24.8 books, a rise from 21.6 books.

“You are going to see very significant industry growth rates as a result of the convenience of this kind of reading,” said Jeffrey P. Bezos, chief executive of Amazon.

E-Book Fans Are Proving to Be Enthusiastic Readers - NYTimes.com

Richard Stallman joins call for Oracle to divest MySQL | The Industry Standard

Somehow I suspect Larry Ellison may not be swayed by this…

Oracle must be stopped from taking over MySQL, according to Richard Stallman, a developer and prominent activist for free software.

In a letter Tuesday to European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes, Stallman -- together with nonprofit organizations Knowledge Ecology International and Open Rights Group -- urged Europe's top antitrust regulator to demand the divestment of MySQL in return for regulatory approval of Oracle's planned purchase of Sun Microsystems.

Richard Stallman joins call for Oracle to divest MySQL | The Industry Standard

High-speed chase ends when OnStar halts stolen SUV by AP: Yahoo! Tech

Interesting times…

When two Visalia, Calif., police officers swung their cruisers behind a sport utility vehicle that had been carjacked at gunpoint early Sunday, they prepared for a dangerous high-speed chase.

The 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe roared away with officers in pursuit, but shortly after the suspect made a right turn, operators at General Motors Co.'s OnStar service sent a command that electronically disabled the gas pedal and the SUV gradually came to a halt.

[…]

It was the first time since OnStar began offering the service in the 2009 model year that it was used to end a chase that could otherwise have had dire consequences.

High-speed chase ends when OnStar halts stolen SUV by AP: Yahoo! Tech

Microsoft Sync Framework : SharePoint 2010, Windows 7 and PwC Now Integrate Microsoft Sync Framework v2.0

See the full post for more details and case studies

As we announced earlier today, Microsoft Sync Framework V2.0 is now available for public download.

Along with this release I wanted to outline a number of companies and partners that are already using Sync Framework v2.0 including Windows 7, Microsoft Office 2010 and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). 

SharePoint has also chosen to integrate Microsoft Sync Framework as part of their solution for synchronizing to Office SharePoint 2010. The SharePoint and Office teams will use the Sync Framework as the engine powering synchronization between Office Workspace (Groove) and SharePoint.  In addition, the SharePoint server will also expose Sync Framework API’s that will allow any developer to build providers to integrate new data stores into SharePoint.

Microsoft Sync Framework : SharePoint 2010, Windows 7 and PwC Now Integrate Microsoft Sync Framework v2.0

Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog : SharePoint 2010 Resources

Some additional SharePoint and Office 2010 resources:

As Steve Ballmer announced this morning at the SharePoint Conference, and Jeff Teper notes below in his post, the public beta of SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 will be available in November.

For more resources, take a look at:

- SharePoint 2010 Website - to view SharePoint 2010 in action

- SharePoint 2010 forum- for SharePoint 2010 questions

- SharePoint 2010 PressPass- for the SPC 2009 keynote video, a Q&A with Jeff Teper, and more

- SharePoint 2010 Developer Center - for developer info

- http://www.mssharepointitpro.com - for IT Pro info

- http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint - for more SharePoint information

And from this post:

The SharePoint 2010 Developer Center is now live on MSDN. This new sub-site includes Getting Started modules, as well as a Beta version of the SharePoint 2010 SDK.

To read more, take a look at the SharePoint developer documentation team blog, or head straight to the SharePoint 2010 Developer Center to see detailed, public technical information and instruction around both SharePoint Foundation and SharePoint Server 2010.

Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog : SharePoint 2010 Resources

Security Fix - President Obama on Cyber Security Awareness

Sign of the times – it’s National Cyber Security Awareness month

President Obama this week issued a short video address discussing the importance of cyber security awareness. The three-minute clip offers little in the way of startling revelation or news. But it is probably the most the president has had to say publicly about the topic since May, when he delivered a 16-minute speech saying he planned to create a new cyber security office at the White House that would be led by an as-yet-unappointed coordinator.

Security Fix - President Obama on Cyber Security Awareness

BOOKS ON SCIENCE - John Markoff - Rethinking What Leads the Way - Science, or New Technology? - NYTimes.com

An excerpt from a review of what appears to be a very timely book:

The popular view is that technology is the handmaiden of science — less pure, more commercial. But in “The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves,” W. Brian Arthur, an economist, reframes the relationship between science and technology as part of an effort to come up with a comprehensive theory of innovation. In Dr. Arthur’s view, the relationship between science and technology is more symbiotic than is generally conceded. Science and technology move forward together in a kind of co-evolution. And science does not lead.

“What I began to realize as I got into the project is that everything emerges out of technology,” Dr. Arthur said in a recent interview. “It’s technology that gives rise to both modern science and the economy, and we tend to think of it in reverse — that science gives rise to technology and the economy gives rise to technology. But technology is more fundamental than either one.”

BOOKS ON SCIENCE - John Markoff - Rethinking What Leads the Way - Science, or New Technology? - NYTimes.com

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | U2 gig to be streamed on YouTube

More details

According to technology website Wired.com, YouTube will place adverts around the video, although the form of the commercials has yet to be decided.

The site will also offer viewers the ability to chat to one another using Twitter, or to donate to Bono's RED charity via a "donate now" button.

[…]

However, it is not the first time that U2 have dabbled in live streaming - they allowed fans to watch a Boston date of their Popmart tour in 1997 via Microsoft's MSN website.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | U2 gig to be streamed on YouTube

U2 teams with YouTube for live concert broadcast - Yahoo! News

I’m guessing this is going to coincide with some creative advertising on YouTube

The Sunday, October 25 show will take place at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Any fan wishing to tune in from the 16 countries supported will be able to do so for free.

This is YouTube's second effort at live-streaming concerts. In August, it aired portions of the Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco. The U2 show will be the first start-to-finish live stream.

U2 teams with YouTube for live concert broadcast - Yahoo! News

Apple’s Profits Rise 47 Percent on Strong Mac Sales - NYTimes.com

Another impressive quarter from Apple, which, according to Fake Steve, has another surprise in store for today

Apple, in its recent history, has overcome nearly every obstacle thrown its way. Now it has surpassed another: the burden of high expectations.

Apple managed to surprise optimistic investors, posting a 47 percent increase in profit in the fourth quarter and handily beating Wall Street’s estimates. Renewed sales of Macintosh laptops and the continued popularity of the iPhone around the world helped to lift Apple’s bottom line.

Apple’s Profits Rise 47 Percent on Strong Mac Sales - NYTimes.com

Internet Archive's BookServer could 'dominate' Amazon | Geek Gestalt - CNET News

Another interesting development in the digital book domain.  I suspect we’re about to reach an interesting turning point, at which book-focused services will compete as much on their innovative use of hypertext as on their scope of book content coverage – i.e., in making the reading experience more productive (through the use of, e.g., reader annotations and concept linking) as well as more convenient and cost-effective.

But it seems the Internet Archive is thinking even bigger than Google.

Kahle said that he's been thinking about such a project since before the advent of the World Wide Web, but that the technology has never been ready. But that's changed over the last 20 years, he said. "We've now gotten universal access to free (content)," Kahle added. "Now it's time to get universal access to all knowledge, and not all of this will be free."

He explained that BookServer is built on the notion of a Web server, and that only a good indexing system is standing in the way of making all books digitally and easily available to consumers, whether they're using a laptop computer, an iPhone, or a Kindle.

Internet Archive's BookServer could 'dominate' Amazon | Geek Gestalt - CNET News

Microsoft book calls for 'data intensive' scientific discovery

More free content from Microsoft

Microsoft Research this morning is releasing a new book that aims to draw attention to the potential of bringing together large amounts of data from different repositories to help scientists make discoveries. The book, "The Fourth Paradigm," is available for free download.

Microsoft book calls for 'data intensive' scientific discovery

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2010 Virtual Pressroom

p.s. on the 2009 SharePoint Conference virtual pressroom information resources page, you can download some recent analyst reports (which Microsoft has licensed to make freely available):

Analyst Reports

Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals

Magic Quadrant for Information Access Technology

The Forrester Wave: Collaboration Platforms, Q3 2009

Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management

Some snapshots from the reports:

Keep in mind, while reading the analyst reports: they cover SharePoint 2007, and do not address the new features just announced for SharePoint 2010.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2010 Virtual Pressroom

Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog : SharePoint 2010

See the full post for details on SharePoint 2010, and check out this page for more info released today

This is my third and final post as part of our disclosure of SharePoint 2010 today. The previous posts covered the SharePoint History and how we Engineer SharePoint. This morning, Steve Ballmer and I are kicking off the SharePoint Conference so it is time to talk about SharePoint 2010! It is incredibly fun and rewarding to unveil this release driven input from you and innovative ideas from the team. As Steve announced, we will release the Beta of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 in November and look forward to your feedback as we finalization the product and documentation for release in the first half of next year.

Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog : SharePoint 2010

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: From Motorola and Verizon, a lame new attack ad

Fake Steve’s perspective on the Motorola/Verizon “droiddoes.com” ad blitz; see the full post for a link to the ad

I've said it before, when Sprint and Palm did this with the Pre -- if the only way you can market your product is to compare it to some other product, you've already lost.

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: From Motorola and Verizon, a lame new attack ad

Fake security software in millions of computers: Symantec by Reuters: Yahoo! Tech

A stark security scareware reality check

Symantec found 250 varieties of scam security software with legitimate sounding names like Antivirus 2010 and SpywareGuard 2008, and about 43 million attempted downloads in one year but did not know how many of the attempted downloads succeeded, said Weafer.

"In terms of the number of people who potentially have this in their machines, it's tens of millions," Weafer said.

It was also impossible to tell how much cyberthieves made off with but "affiliates" acting as middlemen to convince people to download the software were believed to earn between 1 cent per download and 55 cents.

Fake security software in millions of computers: Symantec by Reuters: Yahoo! Tech

Google Promotes Business Apps With Ad Blitz - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

A timely Google reality check

Momentum, of course, is relative. Google claims that two million businesses are using Google apps, but it won’t disclose the size of those businesses, or how many are using only Gmail rather than the full suite of Google enterprise apps. What’s more, the vast majority of those businesses are using Google’s free apps. The company said that only a few hundred thousand users — that is, a few hundred thousand individuals, not businesses — are using paid apps. By comparison, Microsoft has some 500 million paying customers for Office.

Google Promotes Business Apps With Ad Blitz - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Who's in Big Brother's Database? - The New York Review of Books

See the full article for an NSA snapshot

Just how much information will be stored in these windowless cybertemples? A clue comes from a recent report prepared by the MITRE Corporation, a Pentagon think tank. "As the sensors associated with the various surveillance missions improve," says the report, referring to a variety of technical collection methods, "the data volumes are increasing with a projection that sensor data volume could potentially increase to the level of Yottabytes (10²⁴ Bytes) by 2015."^[1] Roughly equal to about a septillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) pages of text, numbers beyond Yottabytes haven't yet been named. Once vacuumed up and stored in these near-infinite "libraries," the data are then analyzed by powerful infoweapons, supercomputers running complex algorithmic programs, to determine who among us may be—or may one day become—a terrorist. In the NSA's world of automated surveillance on steroids, every bit has a history and every keystroke tells a story.

Who's in Big Brother's Database? - The New York Review of Books

Dell's Extreme Makeover - BusinessWeek

Depressing data for Dell – see the full story for turn-around plans

The company Michael Dell started in his college dorm and built into the preeminent personal computer maker has fallen on hard times. As the center of the tech industry has shifted from the PC to the Internet, Dell has struggled mightily to find its place. While Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), IBM (IBM), and other rivals transformed themselves in recent years by acquiring new companies and capabilities, Dell long stuck with its old playbook of cranking out PCs as efficiently as possible. It's hard to remember that in 2005 Dell was valued at $100 billion, or more than HP and Apple (AAPL) combined. Today, it's worth $30 billion, less than a third of its rivals' market values.

Dell's Extreme Makeover - BusinessWeek