More Boston commuters are taking to their bicycles - The Boston Globe

See the full article for some encouraging leading indicators

"We're definitely at some kind of a tipping point," said David Watson, executive director of MassBike (massbike.org), a nonprofit cycling advocacy and education group.

Data on commuter bicycle use are scant, Watson said. On his daily ride from Arlington into Boston, he sees "more and more bike traffic from week to week." He mentioned a survey showing a 70 percent increase in ridership between 2002 and 2006 in Cambridge, quoted on the website of the League of American Bicyclists (bikeleague.org). He also said there is a spike in demand this year for MassBike's introductory on-site Bicycle Commuter workshops for local companies (three in 2007 compared with 15 and counting in 2008).

Of course, bike commuting has room to grow: The 2000 Census estimated that fewer than 0.4 percent of all journeys to work were made by bike.

More Boston commuters are taking to their bicycles - The Boston Globe

Business & Technology | American Airlines in-flight Internet goes live | Seattle Times Newspaper

Sign of the times...

American Airlines' new in-flight broadband service went live Wednesday.

For $12.95 per flight, passengers on American Airlines flights using its Boeing 767-200 will be able to surf the Internet, check e-mail, instant-message and access corporate VPN accounts using the system by Aircell.

The ground-based system — called GoGo — won't enable any voice-based functions.

Source: Business & Technology | American Airlines in-flight Internet goes live | Seattle Times Newspaper

Video: Possible fall pizzazz from Palm - CNET News.com

But perhaps potentially precluded by putrid pricing :)...

This fall, smartphone veteran Palm will release the Treo Pro, its latest and long-awaited offering, into the crowded market. In Wednesday's edition of the Daily Debrief, CNET's Kara Tsuboi and Senior Editor Bonnie Cha discuss what consumers can expect from this sleek, updated model and whether this handheld will help the company refresh its image.

Source: Video: Possible fall pizzazz from Palm - CNET News.com

Microsoft Live Labs Introduces Photosynth, a Breakthrough Visual Medium: Share more than photos; share an experience.

More details on Photosynth (from Microsoft, this time) 

First there was the snapshot, and then came video. Now there is Microsoft Photosynth, a new service from Microsoft Live Labs that goes far beyond how you now view, experience and share photos.

You can share or relive a vacation destination or explore a distant museum or landmark; with a digital camera and your own creativity and inspiration, you can use Photosynth to transform regular digital photos into a three-dimensional, 360-degree experience. Anybody who sees your “synth” is put right in your shoes, sharing in the same sense of exhilaration and wonder that you did at the time, with detail, clarity and scope impossible to achieve in conventional photos or videos.

Source: Microsoft Live Labs Introduces Photosynth, a Breakthrough Visual Medium: Share more than photos; share an experience.

Microsoft Live Labs Creates Web ‘Synth’ For 3-D Photo Tour | Walter S. Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

See the full article for Walt Mossberg's take on Photosynth (starting with a couple Microsoft-bashing paragraphs, of course, for consistency...)

Photosynth, based on technology Microsoft acquired in 2006, is entirely free, and it’s entirely based on the Web, at photosynth.net (where it will be launched at midnight EST Thursday). At that site you can view not only your own synths, but the synths created by every other Photosynth user.

I’ve been testing this service for about a week, and while it has its flaws, I believe that Photosynth offers a dramatic new way to use your photos and to share them with others.

Source: Microsoft Live Labs Creates Web ‘Synth’ For 3-D Photo Tour | Walter S. Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

Microsoft Enlists Jerry Seinfeld In Its Ad Battle Against Apple - WSJ.com

Interesting times... 

Microsoft Corp., weary of being cast as a stodgy oldster by Apple Inc.'s advertising, is turning for help to Jerry Seinfeld.

The software giant's new $300 million advertising campaign, devised by a newly hired ad agency, has been closely guarded. But Mr. Seinfeld will be one of the key celebrity pitchmen, say people close to the situation. He will appear with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates in ads and receive about $10 million for the work, they say.

Source: Microsoft Enlists Jerry Seinfeld In Its Ad Battle Against Apple - WSJ.com

Palm Goes For The Pros - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

$549?  Let's see -- a new phone, or maybe a new laptop instead...

Devotees of Palm’s Treo brand of smartphones (whoever is left raise your hands) have a new model to get excited about: the Treo Pro.

On Wednesday the company announced it would begin selling a sleeker and more elegant version of its once popular Treo for a suggested price of $549 in the United States. It is being sold here without a contract – meaning you can choose between AT&T or T-Mobile’s G.S.M. networks and switch at will. It will also work with many wireless networks in Europe and Asia, which makes it easy for customers to take abroad.

Source: Palm Goes For The Pros - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Welcome, Freshmen. Have an iPod. - NYTimes.com

 Back to the future for Apple, in some respects; its influence through academia in the 1980s and early 1990s (primarily with the Apple II) was a critical success factor then

Taking a step that professors may view as a bit counterproductive, some universities are doling out Apple iPhones and Internet-capable iPods to students.

The always-on Internet devices raise some novel possibilities, like tracking where students congregate. With far less controversy, colleges could send messages about canceled classes, delayed buses, campus crises or just the cafeteria menu.

Source: Welcome, Freshmen. Have an iPod. - NYTimes.com

Out in the open: Some scientists sharing results - The Boston Globe

A fascinating and very promising web-centric trend in academia; read the full article for more details 

Barry Canton, a 28-year-old biological engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has posted raw scientific data, his thesis proposal, and original research ideas on an online website for all to see.

To young people primed for openness by the confessional existence they live online, that may not seem like a big deal.

But in the world of science - where promotions, tenure, and fortune rest on publishing papers in prestigious journals, securing competitive grants, and patenting discoveries - it's a brazen, potentially self-destructive move. To many scientists, leaving unfinished work and ideas in the open seems as reckless as leaving your debit card and password at a busy ATM machine.

Source: Out in the open: Some scientists sharing results - The Boston Globe

Palm, Once a Leader, Seeks Path in Smartphone Jungle - NYTimes.com

Check the full article, along with this CNet story, for reasons why Palm is not yet dead 

In recent years Palm lost its way. Its share of the smartphone market has been halved to about 16.9 percent over the last two years. First, Research in Motion found the sweet spot of business users with its BlackBerry. More recently, Apple grabbed consumers’ fancy with the iPhone.

Palm has tried to innovate beyond the five-year-old Treo with little effect. It announced with great fanfare last year that it would build the Foleo, a cross between a smartphone and notebook computer, only to cancel the project three months later. While cellphone makers like Samsung, LG and R.I.M. brought out products to compete with the iPhone, Palm has told Treo loyalists and investors to be patient. They will need to be. Palm’s stock price is down 90 percent since its high in March 2000.

Photo from CNet article:

 

Source: Palm, Once a Leader, Seeks Path in Smartphone Jungle - NYTimes.com

Microsoft Working to Make Political Conventions Unconventional: Microsoft is helping transform the upcoming Democratic and Republican national conventions into the most technologically advanced and inclusive conventions ever held.

Yet another context in which Microsoft and Google are competing... 

From a technological perspective, the 2008 Democratic and Republican national conventions will be unlike any before. With the help of Microsoft, both the Democrats and Republicans will transcend the walls of their respective venues through online events that give voters unprecedented levels of access and empowerment.

Microsoft is the Official Software and HD Web Content Provider for the 2008 Democratic National Convention - held Aug. 25-28 in Denver, Colo. - and the Official Technology Provider for the 2008 Republican National Convention, held Sept. 1-4 in Minneapolis, Minn.

Both parties want to use technology and the Web to engage more people in the convention experience this year than has been possible in the past.

Source: Microsoft Working to Make Political Conventions Unconventional: Microsoft is helping transform the upcoming Democratic and Republican national conventions into the most technologically advanced and inclusive conventions ever held.

Technology Review: Obama's Geek Economist

Read the full article -- this is a pivotal topic for the 2008 presidential election 

Moreover, if Obama does win, 2008 will be a watershed election in American political history for reasons unrelated to the new presi­dent's skin color. For decades, the resident of the White House has been closely associated with the South or Southwest. Now, someone from the intellectual milieu associated with the University of Chicago is a plausible candidate. Along with ­Goolsbee and other members of this intellectual movement--including Chicago Business School professor Richard Thaler, a founder of behavioral economics, and Cass Sunstein, a former professor at Chicago's law school--Obama subscribes to a distinctive set of economic theories developed at the university, and to a corresponding set of policy prescriptions. These people are Chicagoans, who--to paraphrase a native son--go at things in their own way, on the basis of first to knock, first admitted. If Obama reaches the White House, they will not be shy about implementing those prescriptions.

Source: Technology Review: Obama's Geek Economist

MBTA admits ticket not secure - The Boston Globe

Nice to see that justice still occasionally prevails... 

The MBTA acknowledged in court yesterday that its CharlieTicket system is vulnerable to fraud, validating a key finding of three MIT students who drew attention to the security problems as part of a class project.

The admission came during a hearing at which a federal judge lifted a 10-day order barring the students from talking about their findings and denied the MBTA's request to keep them silent about the most sensitive parts of their research for five months.

Source: MBTA admits ticket not secure - The Boston Globe

Cancer blogs become part of treatment - The Boston Globe

Check the full article for more details 

After analyzing 50 blogs, the researchers found that detailing the rigors of the illness online seemed to help patients cope.

While research on cancer patient blogging may be scant, studies on the healing effects of writing are abundant, said Harriet Berman, a clinical psychologist with the Wellness Community-Greater Boston, a nonprofit that provides support and counseling free to cancer patients and their families. "There's a very empowering process that goes on when cancer becomes something you can write about. It's not just this thing that's invaded you," she said.

Source: Cancer blogs become part of treatment - The Boston Globe

Capturing The Bush Legacy Online - washingtonpost.com

Hmm -- so perhaps W won't be able to hide key information, as he apparently did with his pre-presidential record, by sequestering the records in his dad's presidential library...

The Bush administration will soon be packed and gone, but part of its legacy will live on in cyberspace.

A consortium of government and nonprofit agencies plans to capture snapshots of every federal government Web site before Jan. 20, when the next president moves into the White House and starts remaking the federal bureaucracy to fit his agenda. The goal of the 2008 "end-of-term harvest" is to preserve millions of agency records in an online archive that librarians hope will provide a valuable trove for historians, government scholars and the public.

Source: Capturing The Bush Legacy Online - washingtonpost.com

IBM - What is the difference between Notes.exe and Nlnotes.exe?

If you're running the Notes 8.0x client and you don't see much benefit from the full Java framework in the full Notes 8 client, executing nlnotes.exe rather than notes.exe can be the difference between reasonable performance and not, depending on your PC's hardware configuration (e.g., if you have less than two gigabytes of RAM...);  nlnotes.exe launches the "basic" Notes 8 client 

What is the difference in function between the two executable files, Notes.exe and Nlnotes.exe? Both of these files are located in the Notes program directory.

Source: IBM - What is the difference between Notes.exe and Nlnotes.exe?

Technology Review: How Obama Really Did It

An interesting snapshot -- see the full article for details on how the Obama campaign was most effective in terms of leveraging the Internet and social software trends

Throughout the political season, the Obama campaign has domi­nated new media, capitalizing on a confluence of trends. Americans are more able to access media-rich content online; 55 percent have broadband Internet connections at home, double the figure for spring 2004. Social-networking technologies have matured, and more Americans are comfortable with them. Although the 2004 Dean campaign broke ground with its online meeting technologies and blogging, "people didn't quite have the facility," says ­Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor who has given the Obama campaign Internet policy advice (Lessig wrote The People Own Ideas! in our May/June 2005 issue). "The world has now caught up with the technology." The Obama campaign, he adds, recognized this early: "The key networking advance in the Obama field operation was really deploying community­-building tools in a smart way from the very beginning."

Technology Review: How Obama Really Did It

Google Will Offer Services for Bloggers at the Conventions - WSJ.com

Hmm...

Google Inc. will help set up a two-story, 8,000 square-foot headquarters for hundreds of bloggers descending on the Democratic convention in Denver next week, and it will offer similar services at the Republican convention in September, as new media gain influence in politics.

Four years ago, Google wasn't a significant presence at the Democratic and Republican conventions. Its high-profile presence at both conventions this year mirrors the growth of new media, which will provide their takes on events and compete with established media companies via Google's YouTube video site and other social-media outlets.

Google Will Offer Services for Bloggers at the Conventions - WSJ.com

Breach on Princeton Review Site Exposed Students’ Data - NYTimes.com

Some difficult lessons... 

The Princeton Review, the test-preparatory firm, accidentally published the personal data and standardized test scores of tens of thousands of Florida students on its Web site, where they were available for seven weeks.

A flaw in configuring the site allowed anyone to type in a relatively simple Web address and have unfettered access to hundreds of files on the company’s computer network, including educational materials and internal communications.

Source: Breach on Princeton Review Site Exposed Students’ Data - NYTimes.com

A Smart Bet or a Big Mistake? - NYTimes.com

Definitely a long-term investment; see the full article for details 

Still, it might be a decade before anyone really knows whether Verizon’s bet on FiOS is a smart investment in the future or a multibillion-dollar black hole.

The company has had to spend more than it would like on advertising and expensive giveaways, like flat-screen TVs, to get new customers. Comcast and other cable companies are preparing to bolster their own Internet speeds and digital offerings.

 

Source: A Smart Bet or a Big Mistake? - NYTimes.com

Topic Pages to Be Hub of New BusinessWeek Site - NYTimes.com

I've been a satisfied BW customer for a couple decades and look forward to exploring their new site; see the full article for more details

With advertising revenue sliding, publications try a lot of things online to get noticed, like — pardon the jargon — verticals, aggregation, user-generated content, popularity rankings and even something resembling social networks.

BusinessWeek magazine is about to introduce a site that combines some elements of all of the above in ways intended to capture new readers and funnel them into niches that will attract advertisers.

Topic Pages to Be Hub of New BusinessWeek Site - NYTimes.com

Bono blamed for unreleased U2 songs on Internet | News - Digital Media - CNET News.com

Looks like Bono would benefit from having a portable cone-of-silence device (or maybe just some headphones...).

Four songs from the Irish rock band's forthcoming album found themselves on the Internet after U2 front man Bono was caught playing the songs a bit too loudly on his stereo at his villa in the south of France, according to a report in The Sun. An alert passerby on the beach is credited with recognizing the iconic singer's voice and recording what he was hearing. He then supposedly posted the recordings to YouTube, but the tracks don't appear to have stuck around long on the video-sharing site.

Bono blamed for unreleased U2 songs on Internet | News - Digital Media - CNET News.com

Business Technology : Making Sense of Spaghetti Code

A timely reality check...

One poster child for old-code problems is the state of California. When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently ordered that state workers’ pay be cut to the minimum wage during stalled budget talks, Controller John Chiang said no–because there aren’t enough programmers who know the Cobol language used in the state’s payroll software.

Young technicians, raised on videogames and drag-and-drop programming, are not about to manually type in Cobol instructions. “It’s not that you couldn’t find people smart enough to do it,” Wood says. “You can’t find people who would want to.”

Business Technology : Making Sense of Spaghetti Code

Article - WSJ.com: Chinese Software Firm Challenges Microsoft

Apparently China is only interested in locally-sponsored software monopolists.  BTW the file format -- UOF -- is a spin-off from ODF (naturally...).

Most often, Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) biggest rivals in the Chinese market have been black-market versions of its own products. 

That could change for the company's Office software suite, a key product that includes its word processing and spreadsheet tools. Wuxi, China-based Evermore Software is expected to release its latest Office competitor in late August. And while EIOffice 2009 is based on a file format standard promoted by the Chinese government and costs a fraction of Microsoft's offering, it also comes with a new legal threat. 

Evermore Chief Executive Gus Tsao said he's prepared to pursue Microsoft under a new anti-monopoly law that took effect in China on Friday. The law is widely expected to be used to curtail the dominance of foreign companies doing business there, such as Microsoft.

Article - WSJ.com

Is MBTA guilty of a misstep in hacker lawsuit? - The Boston Globe

Oops...

For the MBTA, this was a case of winning the battle but losing the war. Within hours of the restraining order being filed, tech journalists and bloggers alike hit their keyboards. The result: the [students'] presentation, which had been distributed to attendees days before the restraining order was issued, was all over the Web. A quick Google search today found more than 300 news articles and nearly 400 blog posts on the subject, many of which contained links to the presentation.
www.schwartz-pr.com/crossroads

Is MBTA guilty of a misstep in hacker lawsuit? - The Boston Globe

T hacking exposes a deeper clash - The Boston Globe

A major cultural/modus operandi clash that may result in some people with (evidently) the best of intentions ... in jail

[...] But it's not generating half the attention as his project for Professor Ronald L. Rivest's Computer and Network Security class last semester. That endeavor, for which he earned an A, has gotten the fresh-faced senior from Beverly Hills, Calif., a visit from an FBI agent, an MBTA sergeant detective, nationwide press attention, and a starring role in a federal lawsuit.

Anderson, along with his freshman-year roommate, R. J. Ryan, 22, and another student in the class, Alessandro Chiesa, 20, claimed in their project to have developed a way to hack into the MBTA's recently installed $180 million automated fare-collection system and provide fellow hackers with "free rides for life."

T hacking exposes a deeper clash - The Boston Globe

Essay - At School, Technology Starts to Turn a Corner - NYTimes.com

Another hopeful leading indicator

Web-based education software has matured in the last few years, so that students, teachers and families can be linked through networks. Until recently, computing in the classroom amounted to students doing Internet searches, sending e-mail and mastering word processing, presentation programs and spreadsheets. That’s useful stuff, to be sure, but not something that alters how schools work.

The new Web education networks can open the door to broader changes. Parents become more engaged because they can monitor their children’s attendance, punctuality, homework and performance, and can get tips for helping them at home. Teachers can share methods, lesson plans and online curriculum materials.

In the classroom, the emphasis can shift to project-based learning, a real break with the textbook-and-lecture model of education.

[See the full article for more details]

Essay - At School, Technology Starts to Turn a Corner - NYTimes.com

For some Harvard professors, the blogosphere is new terrain - The Boston Globe

Interesting times -- see the full article for more details

While tens of millions of Americans in other fields have joined in the din of the blogosphere, buttoned-down faculty members at the nation's most prestigious business school have watched from the sidelines, content to dispense their management wisdom in the classroom, case studies, or peer-reviewed academic papers.

Not anymore. Several business professors at Harvard have jumped into the Internet fray recently, opting for immediacy over considered analysis and wrestling with some of the passions and anonymous sniping that are the daily bread of cyberspace. All insist they are experimenting on the new frontier of idea dissemination and reaching out to a wider audience beyond the ivory tower.

For some Harvard professors, the blogosphere is new terrain - The Boston Globe

Rockers call for carpooling to concerts - The Boston Globe

Another weird but hopeful sign that our society is finally getting the message about energy conservation

Rock bands love to wax about sustaining the environment. But Wilco, which played at Tanglewood last week, has been working on a novel, more concrete solution to the climate crisis: getting fans into carpools.

A few weeks ago, the band launched a special tab on its website that lets fans register as drivers or passengers. A feature then connects would-be carpoolers to each other based on where they live and which show they are attending.

Rockers call for carpooling to concerts - The Boston Globe

[Computerworld] ISO and IEC reject appeals, approve Open XML spec

I missed this last week; see the full article for details...

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have given the green light to publish the Microsoft-backed Office Open XML (OOXML) specification after organization leaders rejected appeals from four countries to protest the vote that approved OOXML as a standard.

The ISO and IEC technical boards approved the publication of ISO/IEC DIS 29500, the official name for the OOXML specification, the ISO said Friday. The spec is expected to be published within the next few weeks after the standards bodies complete the final processing of the document, provided there are no further appeals against the decision.

ISO and IEC reject appeals, approve Open XML spec

Apple Moves to Fix Problem Of Dropped Calls on iPhone - WSJ.com

Apple is amazing -- it ships faulty products, but it's essentially an etiquette breach for its customers or the press to highlight the flaws

It is difficult to determine how widespread the connection problems with iPhone 3G are. Apple's own discussion forums are packed with hundreds of complaints from users complaining of poor wireless reception and dropped calls. Mr. Dulaney himself said he has experienced spotty network reception with his own iPhone 3G, most recently inside San Francisco's baseball stadium -- AT&T Park.

Apple Moves to Fix Problem Of Dropped Calls on iPhone - WSJ.com

We all love this Olympics, right? Not Adobe | Coop's Corner : A Blog from Charlie Cooper - CNET News.com

Definitely a Silverlight milestone this week; see the full article for more details

Here's the way things work at Microsoft: After correcting shortcomings in the first and second editions of its software, version 3.0 of a Microsoft product usually silences the company's worst critics, allowing management to get on with business of crushing rivals. But I'll be first to acknowledge that Silverlight breaks with that pattern.

Since the start of the Beijing Olympics, I've been using the Silverlight 2 beta to access video over the Internet and it works just fine. As a loyal Flash user, I was surprised when Microsoft won the deal to supply NBC with video-viewing technology for the Olympics. There was the obvious old-school tie between Microsoft and NBC dating back to their collaboration building MSNBC. Still, this was Adobe Systems' game to lose. And lose it did--big time.

We all love this Olympics, right? Not Adobe | Coop's Corner : A Blog from Charlie Cooper - CNET News.com

Ruling Is a Victory for Supporters of Free Software - NYTimes.com

A bit of a paradox, perhaps

A legal dispute involving model railroad hobbyists has resulted in a major courtroom victory for the free software movement also known as open-source software.

In a ruling Wednesday, the federal appeals court in Washington said that just because a software programmer gave his work away did not mean it could not be protected.

Ruling Is a Victory for Supporters of Free Software - NYTimes.com

Smartphone Is Expected via Google - NYTimes.com

Interesting times...

T-Mobile will be the first carrier to offer a mobile phone powered by Google’s Android software, according to people briefed on the company’s plans. The phone will be made by HTC, one of the largest makers of mobile phones in the world, and is expected to go on sale in the United States before Christmas, perhaps as early as October.

The high-end phone is expected to match many of the capabilities of Apple’s iPhone and other so-called smartphones that run software from Palm, Research in Motion, Microsoft and Nokia to access the Internet and perform computerlike functions.

Smartphone Is Expected via Google - NYTimes.com

Netflix's Shipping System Is Disrupted - WSJ.com

Not just problems in "cloud" services, this week...

Netflix Inc. experienced a disruption to its DVD rental business that has prevented the company from mailing movies to most of its customers in recent days.

Steve Swasey, a spokesman for the Los Gatos, Calif., company, described the cause of the disruption as a "pretty severe technical" problem with the company's shipping system.

[...]

The outage to its shipping system is only the second in the company's history, Mr. Swasey said. The first occurred in March, when both the Netflix Web site and the technology behind its shipping system were disrupted for about 24 hours.

Netflix's Shipping System Is Disrupted - WSJ.com

For Microsoft, not all is neighborly in Cambridge - The Boston Globe

Big changes along the Charles...

Microsoft Corp. moved to Cambridge last year looking to set the world afire with innovation. Instead it got sued.

It's a case that pits a home-grown tech firm called InterSystems Corp. against an out-of-town competitor that wants to build a first-of-its kind research center. But the legal battle has nothing to do with cutting-edge technology - rather, it's all about bricks and mortar and an outdoor sign.

For Microsoft, not all is neighborly in Cambridge - The Boston Globe

Google Gadgets an Open Door for Attack - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

Hmm...

Google Gadget lovers were dealt a blow on Wednesday when two researchers outlined what they called a "hole" during a Black Hat presentation.

"The attacker can forcibly install Google Gadgets; they can read the victim's search history once a malicious gadget has been installed in some specific circumstances; they can attack other Google Gadgets; they can phish usernames and passwords from victims, and so on," said Robert Hansen, also known as RSnake, a founder of security consultancy SecTheory. "Really, the sky is the limit, once the browser is under the control of an attacker. And that point is exacerbated by the fact that people trust Google be a trustworthy domain, making the attacks even easier."

Google Gadgets an Open Door for Attack - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

Yahoo Unveils Platform for Location-Based Services - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

More interesting times in the cloud...

Many technology pundits say that Web and mobile applications that are tailored to where you are — often called “location-based services” — will be the next big thing. Or at least, one of the next big things.

Before those applications take off, however, some problems must be solved. For example, there are already several services that track a user’s location, but many applications that want to access that information have no easy way to get it. For their part, users want to decide which applications can have access to their location information and which cannot — and they want to do it once, if possible.

On Tuesday, Yahoo unveiled a new service called Fire Eagle that simplifies all that. It is free and available to any application and any user who wants to try it.

Yahoo Unveils Platform for Location-Based Services - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

An S.U.V. Traffic Jam - NYTimes.com

Also glad to see this, although it's bad news for people who purchased SUVs over the last few years, and devastating for auto companies that got addicted to SUV profit margins...

The market for sport utility vehicles is starting to look a lot like the housing market, spreading pain to consumers, automakers and dealers.

Even the vocabulary is sadly familiar. Bloated inventories? Days spent on the market?

[...]

Automakers are offering discounts of $10,000 or more on some S.U.V.’s just to get rid of them, so dealers have space to stock more of the fuel-efficient cars consumers are clamoring for. On average, new sport utility vehicles sold for 20 percent below sticker price in July, according to Edmunds.com, a Web site that gives car-buying advice to consumers.

That, in turn, has decimated prices for used S.U.V.’s.

An S.U.V. Traffic Jam - NYTimes.com

Technology Review: Motorists turn to carpool sites as gas prices rise

Glad to see this -- see the full article for more details

The number of daily visitors to eRideShare has jumped about threefold since February, when gas started to climb from the $3-a-gallon range. A rival site, Carpoolworld.com, had about 4,400 new U.S. registrations in both June and July, compared with some 800 in February.
Although some people turned to these sites long ago to help reduce pollution or take advantage of faster, high-occupancy vehicle lanes that require at least two occupants, the pocketbook has been the largest influencer of all.

Technology Review: Motorists turn to carpool sites as gas prices rise

Cuil: Terminally uncool - Network World

Check the full article for "Lessons for all companies that want to compete in Web applications of any kind".  I have yet to see any net-positive reviews of Cuil.

Building Web applications that are robust and perform well is hard, but trying to promote them, build a market for them, and then make money from them is far harder. And harder still is when you're launching a Web service that competes with an established brand in the same market.

Could anything be harder than that? Well, yes, that’s what launching a Web service that competes with Google is and exactly what Cuil attempted when they went live on July 28.

Cuil: Terminally uncool - Network World

Business & Technology | Amazon shares up with Kindle news | Seattle Times Newspaper

Hmm...

The company may sell 380,000 Kindles in 2008, up from its earlier projection of 190,000, Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney wrote Sunday in a research report. He recommends buying the stock.

"Kindle is becoming the iPod of the book world," Mahaney wrote. "Kindle could be one of the top 'gadget' gifts this holiday season." He noted that Apple sold 380,000 iPod music players in 2002, the first year they were sold.

Business & Technology | Amazon shares up with Kindle news | Seattle Times Newspaper

Apple's MobileMe suffers more downtime | One More Thing - CNET News.com

Meanwhile, Gmail also had problems 

Apple's MobileMe suite of Web services suffered another outage Monday that affected an unknown number of its users.

Apple's MobileMe suffers more downtime | One More Thing - CNET News.com

Yahoos Advisory Bill Hits Million - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times

Check the comments posted on the full article for a timely reality check

Now, Yahoo has shed some light on how much this upheaval has cost in actual dollars and cents — specifically, it revealed the fees it has racked up for outside advice from bankers and lawyers.

In a late Friday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Yahoo said it spent $36 million in the first half of 2008 on fees for outside advisers helping it handle Microsoft’s bid, Carl Icahn’s attempt to oust Yahoo’s board (which he recently dropped as part of a settlement) and other, related litigation.

Yahoos Advisory Bill Hits Million - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times

Georgia Takes a Beating in the Cyberwar With Russia - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

A scary sign of  the times; see the full article for more details

Besides the bloody shooting war going on between Georgia and Russia, there’s another, quieter battle going on in cyberspace.

The Georgian government is accusing Russia of disabling Georgian Web sites, including the site for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Georgia Takes a Beating in the Cyberwar With Russia - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Is Google a Media Company? - NYTimes.com

A timely Google reality check

While Knol is only three weeks old and still relatively obscure, it has already rekindled fears among some media companies that Google is increasingly becoming a competitor. They foresee Google’s becoming a powerful rival that not only owns a growing number of content properties, including YouTube, the top online video site, and Blogger, a leading blogging service, but also holds the keys to directing users around the Web.

“If in fact a Google property is taking money away from Google’s partners, that is a real problem,” said Wenda Harris Millard, the co-chief executive of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

Is Google a Media Company? - NYTimes.com

Google May Write Down AOL Investment - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times

See the full article for more details

In an assessment that could lead to a substantial charge against its future profits, Google believes its $1 billion investment in advertising partner AOL is souring.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company disclosed in a quarterly report filed late Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the 5 percent AOL stake that it bought in 2005 ‘’may be impaired.'’ Impairment is an accounting term used to describe an acquisition or investment that has eroded.

Google May Write Down AOL Investment - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times

Facebook lures Firefox development chief away from Mozilla

Hmm (from a couple weeks ago)

Facebook Inc. today announced that Mike Schroepfer, who led the Firefox development team at Mozilla Corp., has agreed to join Facebook as director of engineering.

Schroepfer, who was vice president of engineering at Mozilla, will be responsible for leading the front-end and platform engineering teams at Facebook, the social network said. Before joining Mozilla, Schroepfer was chief technology officer of the data center automation division at Sun Microsystems Inc. and a Sun distinguished engineer.

Facebook lures Firefox development chief away from Mozilla

Software Notebook: Microsoft goes on a shopping spree (Seattle PI)

A timely snapshot

Microsoft failed in its big bid to buy Yahoo, but it still found plenty of companies to spend its money on during the past year.

The Redmond company paid out a total of $8.8 billion on 21 acquisitions in its recently completed fiscal year, according to a regulatory filing last week. Most of the money went toward Microsoft's $5.9 billion purchase of aQuantive, the Seattle-based digital advertising company.

Note: I'm going to be catching up for a while -- I spent the last couple weeks in Australia and was mostly off-line...

Software Notebook: Microsoft goes on a shopping spree

Don’t Want to Talk About It? Order a Missed Call - NYTimes.com

Sign of the times...

The technology, called Slydial, lets callers dial a mobile phone but avoid an unwanted conversation — or unwanted intimacy — on the other end. The incoming call goes undetected by the recipient, who simply receives the traditional blinking light or ping that indicates that a voice mail message has been received.

Don’t Want to Talk About It? Order a Missed Call - NYTimes.com

Yahoo Is Still Searching for, Well, Yahoo - NYTimes.com

See the full article for more on the Yahoo! reality distortion field

“We have a plan,” Mr. Yang said in an interview last week at Yahoo’s headquarters here. “We want to grow the business over a three- to five-year period. We are executing against that plan. And we are still doing that despite all the stuff that’s happened to us.”

p.s. sorry for the sparse posts last week and this week -- I'm traveling with fewer Internet access options than I anticipated...

Yahoo Is Still Searching for, Well, Yahoo - NYTimes.com

Literacy Debate - Online, R U Really Reading? - Series - NYTimes.com

A stark reality check

“Whatever the benefits of newer electronic media,” Dana Gioia, the chairman of the N.E.A., wrote in the report’s introduction, “they provide no measurable substitute for the intellectual and personal development initiated and sustained by frequent reading.”

Children are clearly spending more time on the Internet. In a study of 2,032 representative 8- to 18-year-olds, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly half used the Internet on a typical day in 2004, up from just under a quarter in 1999. The average time these children spent online on a typical day rose to one hour and 41 minutes in 2004, from 46 minutes in 1999.

Literacy Debate - Online, R U Really Reading? - Series - NYTimes.com

Book Review - 'Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good,' by Sarah Lacy - Review - NYTimes.com

Still worth a skim, imho -- or maybe just the full book review 

This disjointed grab bag of gossip has its elucidating moments, but as the definitive tale of the rise of Web 2.0, “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good” serves as a reminder that the latter-day equivalent of Tracy Kidder’s 1981 book, “The Soul of a New Machine,” the gold standard for technology nonfiction, has yet to be written.

Book Review - 'Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good,' by Sarah Lacy - Review - NYTimes.com

Ozzie foreshadows ‘Zurich,’ Microsoft’s elastic cloud | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Hmm...

Ozzie told FAM attendees that Microsoft is working on a set of platforms and tools for the cloud transition. “We want to make a programming model leveragable on premise and in the cloud,” Ozzie said.

He noted that “Amazon has done a terrific job” at delivering a hosted solution for developers. “We’ve learned a lot from it.”

Ozzie declined to provide FAM attendees with a delivery date for Zurich, but said “over the course of fiscal ‘09 (which ends on June 30, 2009), you will see the entire strategy rounded out.”

Ozzie foreshadows ‘Zurich,’ Microsoft’s elastic cloud | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Generation Text: Emailing on the Go Sends Some Users Into Harm's Way - WSJ.com

Evolution at work?...

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, several high-profile accidents may have had a role in prompting states such as New Jersey and Washington to outlaw texting while driving. Among the accidents the group cited: a cyclist killed by a texting teen driver in 2005.

But most of the time the victims are the texters, who wind up with bumps and bruises. Northwestern Memorial Hospital's emergency room has been ground zero in Chicago for texting goofs. Located downtown near shopper-clogged Michigan Avenue, the emergency room is also close to the exceptionally busy lakefront path, where pedestrians and joggers share a lane with bikers.

James Adams, Northwestern's chairman of emergency medicine, says he has treated patients involved in texting incidents nearly every day this summer. He says fallen texters are more prone to facial injuries: They tend to hold their devices close to their faces, so their hands are less likely to break their fall. "By the time their hands hit, their face immediately hits and they smash to the ground," Dr. Adams says. The common outcomes are scraped chins, noses and foreheads, along with broken glasses.

Generation Text: Emailing on the Go Sends Some Users Into Harm's Way - WSJ.com

Advertising - Microsoft Seeks an Ad Friend in Facebook - NYTimes.com

Relentless -- also see Microsoft will Ante Up $1.2B Annually to Keep Pace with Google in today's Boston Globe

The search deal could be a lift to Microsoft as it seeks to catch up with Google and Yahoo in the search business. In June, Google accounted for 61.5 percent of search queries in the United States, dwarfing Yahoo, with 20.9 percent, and Microsoft, with 9.2 percent of queries, according to tracking firm comScore. One of the reasons Microsoft pursued Yahoo so doggedly this year was to increase its share in the overall market.

To Microsoft, Facebook is a quick way to expand the audience for its search engine. More than 29 million people actively use Facebook in the United States. They will soon see prominent displays of Microsoft’s Live Search box on their friends’ and their own Facebook pages.

Advertising - Microsoft Seeks an Ad Friend in Facebook - NYTimes.com

Microsoft to Acquire DATAllegro

Some interesting aspects of the deal:

In addition to offering large capacities, DATAllegro’s patent-pending technology is designed for complex workloads including high concurrency and mixed queries. DATAllegro is one of the few data warehouse appliances built on a non-proprietary hardware platform including Dell and Bull servers and EMC storage. This flexible architecture makes it ideally suited to integrate with SQL Server.

After completion of the acquisition, Microsoft will retain most of DATAllegro’s team as well as its headquarters in Aliso Viejo, California making it a Center of Excellence for data warehousing.  Existing DATAllegro customers will continue to be supported.

Microsoft to Acquire DATAllegro

From the Desk of David Pogue - Apple’s MobileMess - NYTimes.com

Check the full article for how MobileMe went from "very cool idea" to  "This is an airplane that's stuck on the runway for hours with no food or working bathroom."

Two weeks ago, Apple launched MobileMe, the successor to its.Mac service, which costs $100 a year. Among other benefits, it can keep multiple Macs, PCs and iPhones in sync. E-mail, calendars and address books are wirelessly kept up to date. Very cool idea.

From the Desk of David Pogue - Apple’s MobileMess - NYTimes.com

Rob Pegoraro - Meant to Sync, MobileMe Is Scattershot at the Start - washingtonpost.com

Another harsh review of MobileMe

Some people instead store their calendars and contacts on a Web service, which works just fine as long as those people have perpetual and universal Internet access.

The smart way around this would be a system that both provided access to the vitals of your daily routine through any Web browser, and synchronized them -- reliably, painlessly -- to your choice of offline programs. Apple's new, $99-a-year MobileMe service looks an awful lot like such a creature, until you try it.

Rob Pegoraro - Meant to Sync, MobileMe Is Scattershot at the Start - washingtonpost.com

Blogspot.com cited as the No. 1 host for malware | News - Security - CNET News.com

There goes the neighborhood (this is a Blogspot blog; don't panic -- I haven't taken up malware as a hobby, and I screen all blog post comments...)

As for illegitimate sites, Sophos notes that Geocities and Blogger both make it easy for anyone to set up a Web site without much identification. Blogger, owned by Google, is particularly problematic, says Sophos, with the blog site alone accounting for nearly 2 percent of all malware hosts. I is not only possible for the Blogger sites to host malicious code, but criminal attackers can also inject links to malicious sites in the comments sections of the blogs.

Blogspot.com cited as the No. 1 host for malware | News - Security - CNET News.com

Apple’s MobileMe Is Far Too Flawed To Be Reliable | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

A stark report card for Apple -- see the full review (no WSJ subscription required) for details

Unfortunately, after a week of intense testing of the service, I can’t recommend it, at least not in its current state. It’s a great idea, but, as of now, MobileMe has too many flaws to keep its promises.

I am not referring to the launch glitches that plagued MobileMe earlier this month, such as servers that couldn’t keep up with the traffic and email outages that, for some users, persist as I write this. Those were bad, but they have eased considerably. Apple already has apologized for them and is giving customers an extra 30 days on their subscriptions to make up for the poor start. The problems I am citing are systemic.

Apple’s MobileMe Is Far Too Flawed To Be Reliable | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

Amazon's Net Doubles On Strong Sales - WSJ.com

Impressive...

Amazon.com Inc., shaking off concerns that the slumping economy is hurting the Web retailer's business, reported that its second-quarter profit doubled on a 41% revenue increase, and raised its sales forecast for the year.

The company's aggressive discounting and free-shipping programs helped lure shoppers who have grown increasingly cautious about their spending, analysts said. Amazon's expanding product line, aided by the growing number of merchants who sell on its site, also attracts return buyers. "Amazon is clearly bucking the trend" of other disappointing technology earnings such as Yahoo Inc. and eBay Inc., said Jeetil Patel, a Deutsche Bank Securities analyst. "It's pretty impressive," he said.

Amazon's Net Doubles On Strong Sales - WSJ.com

New Tool From Facebook Extends Its Web Presence - NYTimes.com

See the full article for more on Facebook's evolving strategy

In a speech at his company’s annual conference for developers, called F8, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s 24-year-old chief executive, also demonstrated the company’s new design. He predicted that there would soon be a wave of social Web sites built on top of the information users give to social networks.

“We are going to see the big social networks start to decentralize into a series of social applications across the Web,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “I think we are at the beginning of a movement and the beginning of an industry.”

New Tool From Facebook Extends Its Web Presence - NYTimes.com

Head of Microsoft’s Online Efforts Departs - NYTimes.com

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Microsoft/Yahoo! picture...

Kevin Johnson, the executive in charge of Microsoft’s struggling online business, is leaving the company. Microsoft announced Wednesday evening that Mr. Johnson was departing to become chief executive of Juniper Networks.

[...]

Under the new plan, responsibility for the two businesses overseen by Mr. Johnson — online services and the Windows operating system unit — will be separated.

Microsoft, in a statement, acknowledged that it needed new leadership to lift the performance of the online services business. The company said it would “create a new senior lead position and will conduct a search that will span internal and external candidates.”

Small world; Jeff Raikes successor Stephen Elop was COO of Juniper, before joining Microsoft in January of this year.

Head of Microsoft’s Online Efforts Departs - NYTimes.com

After the Truce, Yahoo Reports and Icahn Blogs - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times

Sign of the times -- billionaire raider Carl Icahn explains his Yahoo! perspectives ... on his new blog

Writing Tuesday on his freshly launched blog, The Icahn Report, the activist investor, who just reached a deal with Yahoo to end his bid for control of its board, first detailed his reasons settlement agreement.

“By the end of last week, I realized that although many large shareholders supported me and my slate for the board, they were nervous about having a complete change of control,” Mr. Icahn wrote.

After the Truce, Yahoo Reports and Icahn Blogs - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times

Servers in the home remain scarce | Beyond Binary - A blog by Ina Fried - CNET News.com

Interesting checkpoint for WHS -- which I continue to find invaluable

Microsoft's target group is people with a home network, more than one PC and a lot of music, video, photos, and other files that they want to share. The problem, Gownder said, is that only the techiest of that bunch even know that a server could be the best answer. And even among those, Microsoft hasn't yet clearly demonstrated why it is better than other options, such as adding an external hard drive or network storage or using an online service.

The selling point of Windows Home Server is supposed to be its ability to do other things, but thus far, there has not been the proverbial "killer app."

Servers in the home remain scarce | Beyond Binary - A blog by Ina Fried - CNET News.com

Real Dan Lyons Web Site » Blog Archive Hello, cruel world «

He's back...

So I wanted to get out and stay out. I really did. I wanted at least to have the summer off. But stuff keeps happening and I can’t resist. Jerry Yang and Carl Icahn and Steve Ballmer continue doing their frigtarded three-way monkey dance. It’s getting to be like one of those Ricky Gervais bits in the original Office (the funny one) where he lets the scene go on too long and it goes from being funny to being painful … and he still won’t stop. He makes you watch. It’s terrible but you can’t look away. And, if you’re me, you can’t help rushing to the computer to make fun of it. So thanks a lot, Ballmer-Icahn-Yang, for not letting me getting any rest. Just when I thought I was out, you pull me back in. Bastards!

Real Dan Lyons Web Site » Blog Archive Hello, cruel world «

Today @ PC World Esquire First to Newstands with E-Ink Battery-Powered Cover

Check the shelf life before you plan on making one  a collectors' item

Newsstands across America will come to life this September when men's magazine Esquire rolls out the first magazine cover ever to use E-ink. That's the same core technology behind Amazon's e-reader the Kindle, Esquire's cover will flash "The 21st Century Begins Now" and the inside page will feature an E-ink ad by Ford who is sponsoring the effort.

(Via Barry Briggs)

Today @ PC World Esquire First to Newstands with E-Ink Battery-Powered Cover

Business & Technology | Microsoft to let developers sell Xbox games online | Seattle Times Newspaper

App stores opening in many domains...

Microsoft Corp. will let independent developers sell video games for the Xbox 360 console - and keep most of the profits - beginning this holiday season, the company said Tuesday.

In a move to "democratize game development" and broaden the range of titles available for the Xbox 360, Microsoft said it will let game makers who are members of its $99-a-year XNA Creators Club submit their games for peer review. If they pass, the game creators can sell their work on the Xbox Live Marketplace, the console's online store.

Business & Technology | Microsoft to let developers sell Xbox games online | Seattle Times Newspaper

Report: Google talks acquisition with Digg | News - Digital Media - CNET News.com

Hmm...  Interesting coverage of Digg in Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good

Social news site Digg.com, a perpetual target of acquisition rumors, is in "final negotiations" to sell itself to Google for $200 million, according to a TechCrunch report Tuesday that cited multiple sources.

The two companies have been in talks to bring Digg into the Google News group, but it could be a few weeks before the deal closes, if it closes, according to the report.

Report: Google talks acquisition with Digg | News - Digital Media - CNET News.com

Yahoo’s Revenue Rises a Bit, but Profit Falls 18% - NYTimes.com

Timing is everything...

With the slowing economy taking a toll on the online advertising business, Yahoo said Tuesday that its net income dropped by nearly 19 percent in the second quarter from a year ago as revenue grew at a sluggish 6 percent rate.

Analysts said the results would do little to improve Yahoo’s negotiating position with Microsoft, which has tried to buy all or part of the company. “This is not a quarter where they can go back to Microsoft and say they deserve a higher price,” said Youssef H. Squali, an analyst with Jefferies & Company. “And Microsoft can’t come to them and say the business is falling out of bed and we can pick you up for a song.”

Yahoo’s Revenue Rises a Bit, but Profit Falls 18% - NYTimes.com

Apple getting ready for 'product transition' | One More Thing - CNET News.com

This class of device is inevitable; the key question, at this point, is whether Apple will get there first

One scenario that was not addressed by any of the initial questions from the financial community was that involving a brand-new product. There has been lots of speculation over the past year or so that Apple has a minitablet/UMPC/MID type device in the works that would take the Cocoa Touch interface found in the iPhone to a larger screen. But that has always seemed like a more far-fetched notion, given all that Apple has had on its plate this year.

Apple getting ready for 'product transition' | One More Thing - CNET News.com

Technology Review: Redesigning Facebook

A more app-assertive Facebook

Specifically, the profile redesign splits the existing profile into tabs, emphasizing the wall, where a user's friends leave him or her short, semipublic messages, and the news feed, which describes the user's activities on the site. Most important for third-party developers, it removes most of the applications that the user has installed from the main page of the profile, relegating them to a "boxes" tab instead. To compensate for the applications' reduced visibility, Facebook allows users to add tabs for their favorite applications, presenting the possibility that developers could design entire sections of a user's profile.

Technology Review: Redesigning Facebook

After Strong Quarter, Apple Signals Changes in Its Prices - NYTimes.com

Looks like both Apple and Microsoft are doing what's right in terms of customers and competition, instead of appeasing Wall Street

But the company’s stock fell about 10 percent on Monday in after-hours trading as Apple executives hinted during a conference call about Apple’s

third-quarter financial statement that they would price products more aggressively in the future. It planned on taking away what Peter Oppenheimer, the company’s chief financial officer, called an “umbrella for our competitors.”

The company also told Wall Street analysts to expect lower gross margins and made a conservative sales estimate for the final quarter of the 2008 fiscal year. Executives sketched out a series of reasons for the profit margin decline, including educational discounts, component price adjustments and a new product line that is widely rumored to include redesigned laptop computers.

After Strong Quarter, Apple Signals Changes in Its Prices - NYTimes.com

TiVo and Amazon Team Up - NYTimes.com

Interesting times

TiVo, the Silicon Valley company that introduced millions to the joy of skipping television commercials, is trying to crack a decades-old media dream. It wants to turn the television remote control into a tool for buying the products being advertised and promoted on commercials and talk shows.

The company, based in Alviso, Calif., will introduce a “product purchase” feature on Tuesday in partnership with the Internet retailer Amazon.com. Owners of TiVo video recorders will see, in TiVo’s various onscreen menus, links to buy products like CDs, DVDs and books that guests are promoting on talk shows like “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “The Late Show With David Letterman” and “The Daily Show.”

TiVo and Amazon Team Up - NYTimes.com

Yahoo Deal Wards Off Proxy Fight - NYTimes.com

Not over yet...

The compromise agreement represents a limited victory for Mr. Icahn, whose chances of taking control of Yahoo dimmed last week when one of the company’s largest and most influential shareholders said he would back the existing board. The deal may bring some stability to Yahoo after months of turmoil were set off by Microsoft’s takeover offer and its eventual collapse. Significantly, the deal leaves Jerry Yang, the Yahoo co-founder and chief executive, whom Mr. Icahn had vowed to replace, at the helm of the company.

In a statement Monday, Mr. Icahn struck a conciliatory note, yet he made it clear that he has not abandoned hopes for a deal with Microsoft.

“While I continue to believe that the sale of the whole company or the sale of its search business in the right transaction must be given full consideration, I share the view that Yahoo’s valuable collection of assets positions it well to continue expanding its online leadership and enhancing returns to stockholders,” Mr. Icahn said.

Yahoo Deal Wards Off Proxy Fight - NYTimes.com

Dark Knight tickets are hot sellers on eBay | Technology | Reuters

Sign of the times...

As hype for new box office champ "The Dark Knight" reached a fever pitch over the weekend, moviegoers were surfing eBay and Craigslist for tickets, sometimes paying five times face value for them.

The hottest items were tickets to Imax showings. The movie opened on 94 Imax screens, and company executives did a good job letting folks know that director Christopher Nolan shot many of the biggest action scenes with an Imax camera, making it was the best venue for viewing the film.

I saw the movie (alas, not on Imax) during the weekend -- it was dark -- *really* dark

Dark Knight tickets are hot sellers on eBay | Technology | Reuters

The Media Equation - Hey, Friend, Do I Know You? - NYTimes.com

A timely snapshot; see the full article for more details and observations

Last month, according to comScore, Facebook had 123.9 million unique visitors and 50.6 billion page views worldwide while MySpace had 114.6 million unique visitors and 45.4 billion page views. MySpace still dominates in the United States, but if my page is any indication, a lot of people who aren’t texting OMG about the guy sitting in the next booth feel a need to opt in to social media.

According to company executives, Facebook, which has over 80 million subscribers worldwide, doubled the number of subscribers under 35 last year, but it tripled the number of subscribers between 35 and 54. Early adopters of Facebook, which was the province of students until 2006, must wonder who let all the old guys in. Sometime in the next day or so, Facebook will unveil a major new design for the site, which users can opt-in to.

The Media Equation - Hey, Friend, Do I Know You? - NYTimes.com

Smaller PCs Cause Worry for Industry - NYTimes.com

This is a weird market dynamic, as there's still a high-end micro-laptop market as well

The personal computer industry is poised to sell tens of millions of small, energy-efficient Internet-centric devices. Curiously, some of the biggest companies in the business consider this bad news.

In a tale of sales success breeding resentment, computer companies are wary of the new breed of computers because their low price could threaten PC makers’ already thin profit margins.

Smaller PCs Cause Worry for Industry - NYTimes.com

MyVu personal video displays ready to grow - Massachusetts Biotech and Technology News and New England Local Business News

I expect this class of display device is going to be in widespread use within the next couple years

Westwood-based MyVu Corp., which has developed a personal optical display for showing high-quality video within a pair of eyeglasses, has had a product in the market for more than a year. But since the launch two months ago of its premium product, dubbed “Crystal,” executives report a sharp increase in retail sales and are hoping for still greater growth after a trial placement in 500 Best Buy stores nationwide, set to begin in September.

MyVu personal video displays ready to grow - Massachusetts Biotech and Technology News and New England Local Business News

Adesso closes, sells IP; Landry eyes what’s next - Massachusetts Biotech and Technology News and New England Local Business News

Adesso is no more; see the full article for details

Adesso Systems Inc., a Boston-based company founded in 2000 by prominent local technology executive John Landry, has quietly closed its doors and sold its synchronization software to a former customer.
Landry, the founder of 10 tech companies and an MHT High Tech All Star in 2006, says he has moved on to other projects.
“It’s old news and I’ve got plenty of other fish frying,” Landry wrote in an e-mail message this week.

Adesso closes, sells IP; Landry eyes what’s next - Massachusetts Biotech and Technology News and New England Local Business News

Space: Video of the Moon Passing in Front of the Earth Taken From 31 Million Miles Away

Very cool...  See the source page for a video version.

We don't have too many cameras out there in space past the moon, which is why most of our space shots are either looking outward, such as the shots taken by Hubble, or taken of Earth from the moon or closer. Which is why this video is so astounding. It's a video of the moon passing directly in front of the Earth, taken by NASA's EPOXI spacecraft from a whopping 31 million miles away.

(Via Traction Software's Greg Lloyd)

Space: Video of the Moon Passing in Front of the Earth Taken From 31 Million Miles Away

Legg lift gives Yang a stronger hand | Good Morning Silicon Valley

More interesting times for Yahoo!...

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang’s impassioned campaign to keep his job and control of the company he helped found has won over a key swing vote. Bill Miller, chairman and chief investment officer of Legg Mason Capital Management, said today that if it comes to a proxy shootout at the Aug. 1 shareholders meeting, Legg will vote its 60.7 million shares (about 4.4 percent of total) in favor of Yang and the incumbents, not the dissident slate led by Carl Icahn that hopes to revive some sort of deal with Microsoft. Acknowledging that major shareholders have a right to be represented on the board, Miller said, “Mr. Icahn’s slate includes people experienced in technology, advertising, capital markets and governance. We would prefer that the company and Mr. Icahn reach a mutual agreement on the composition of the Board and end this disruptive proxy contest.” He also advised Microsoft to stop fussing about who’s on the board and put any offer it has in mind on the table for all the shareholders to see.

Legg lift gives Yang a stronger hand | Good Morning Silicon Valley

WinInfo Short Takes: Week of July 21, 2008 [on Vista sales]

Another timely reality check from Paul Thurrott

Failure? Microsoft Has Sold 180 Million Licenses to Windows Vista
Take that, iCabal: Microsoft is now selling Vista at a rate of 20 million units a month, a figure that is approximately equal to the total actual number of Mac OS X users worldwide. And they do it. Every. Single. Month. So I assume this will end all of the babbling about Vista being a failure: This thing is a mass market success of epic proportions. And it's just getting bigger.

WinInfo Short Takes: Week of July 21, 2008

Unsolicited IM audio spam

I was just interrupted by unsolicited audio spam from Yahoo!, informing me about new features and rates for voice-related capabilities in Yahoo! Instant Messenger.

That's even more annoying than unsolicited text messages from my mobile phone service provider.  Very uncool...

Remember When I Said It's Over? - John Battelle's Searchblog

John Battelle quotes from this article:

Today our US Search Engine Performance Report: Q2 2008 was released. Analysis of data from our client index showed that Google took more than its fair share of the overall increase in search spending: for every new dollar spent on search in Q2 2008 versus Q2 2007, $1.10 went to Google. Yahoo lost $0.09, and Microsoft lost $0.01. In other words, advertisers are putting all of their new search dollars into Google, and pulling money out of Yahoo Search and Microsoft Live Search.

And notes

If I were at Google, I'd be more than a bit worried. Why? Because once you've vanquished your competition, then what?

Remember When I Said It's Over? - John Battelle's Searchblog

Microsoft | Microsoft trims profit outlook | Seattle Times Newspaper

Investing an additional $500M in online services this year

Microsoft's commitment to winning a bigger chunk of online services and advertising business was underscored Thursday when the company slightly lowered its profit forecast for the current fiscal year to reflect planned spending increases.

"We do not make these investments lightly as the loss in this division will be a drag on an otherwise exceptionally good performance," Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said in a conference call with reporters and analysts as Microsoft closed the books on its 2008 fiscal year.

Microsoft | Microsoft trims profit outlook | Seattle Times Newspaper

New T-Mobile Sidekick set for July 30 debut | News - Wireless - CNET News.com

See this page for device details

It looks like the creative geniuses in Microsoft's product marketing team may have helped name the new device that will simply be called "Sidekick 2008." Microsoft, which is famous for delineating different versions of its Windows software by the year in which it was released, bought Danger, the maker of the Sidekick, earlier this year.

New T-Mobile Sidekick set for July 30 debut | News - Wireless - CNET News.com

Tech Firms Rise Above Economic Turbulence - WSJ.com

Another view

Earnings reports from four technology giants suggest the tech sector is weathering the economic slowdown better than other industries -- though not always as well as Wall Street has hoped.

The quarterly results posted Thursday by Microsoft Corp., Google Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and Nokia Corp. all point to some common trends that are sustaining revenue growth. At a time when many other companies are struggling amid high energy prices and a worsening credit crunch, these four firms are benefiting from healthy technology demand outside the U.S., the growing economic importance of the Internet, and widening use of cellphone and portable computers in emerging economies.

Tech Firms Rise Above Economic Turbulence - WSJ.com

In Surprise, 2 Tech Titans Disappoint - NYTimes.com

This will be an interesting day on Wall Street

Like two straight-A students who uncharacteristically fail an exam, the technology titans Google and Microsoft issued quarterly results on Thursday that disappointed investors.

[...]

Google executives argued that they were more protected than rivals against choppy economic waters.

“We don’t believe we are inoculated from global economics, but we do believe if there is a worsening, we do better than anyone else in the ad industry,” Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said in an interview.

Meanwhile...

I.B.M. is clearly benefiting from its global advance; it beat Wall Street’s estimates soundly on Thursday. The company said that its net income rose 22 percent in the second quarter compared with a year ago, to $2.77 billion, or $1.98 a share.

Analysts had expected $1.82 a share, according to a survey by Thomson Financial.

In Surprise, 2 Tech Titans Disappoint - NYTimes.com

Textbooks, free and illegal, online - The Boston Globe

Sign of the times

Faced with soaring prices for textbooks, cash-strapped students have discovered a tempting, effective, but illicit alternative - pirated electronic books, available for free over the Internet.

[...]

Some of the illegal texts available online are copied e-books, while others are paper editions that have been painstakingly uploaded page by page with digital scanners. "Is it some kid sitting in his basement doing the scanning? We don't know," said Allan Ryan, director of intellectual property at Harvard Business Publishing, an arm of Harvard Business School.

Textbooks, free and illegal, online - The Boston Globe

Microsoft Opens Live Mesh Beta

Clarification from Paul Thurrott; see the full post for a pointer to a more detailed Mesh review

Some reports have mistakenly compared Live Mesh to Apple's lackluster and buggy MobileMe service.  In fact, the two services have little in common beyond the cloud computing marketing umbrella they both employ: MobileMe is designed as a central clearing house for PIM and email data, designed mostly for the iPhone, while Live Mesh is a complete platform that is currently oriented around storage synchronization. Put another way, it will soon be possible for developers to build numerous MobileMe-type services on top of Live Mesh, but the reverse is not true.

Microsoft Opens Live Mesh Beta

An Antic Disposition: Toy Soldiers

IBM's Rob Weir in what I assume is a semi-facetious essay on the state of OOXML standardization; the final two paragraphs:

In any case, since Microsoft has effective voting control of SC34, after almost two years of packing the committee, my bet is that OOXML will effectively be handed over to Ecma for maintenance. That is what JTC1 has done for every other Ecma Fast Track that has been approved. They might call it a "maintenance group" and allow token participation from SC34 liaisons in a non-voting capacity, but in all important ways it will remain Microsoft/Ecma standard. In the end, this makes some sense. Who is better positioned to clarify exactly how Excel financial functions work, the Microosft engineer who has access to the Excel source code, or an SC34 representative from Khazakstan?
Given the leisure to do the job right, my bet is on Microsoft. Everyone knows it for what it is now. There is no longer need for elaborate attempts to disguise the fact that OOXML is and will remain a Microsoft-only standard. Why continue the charade? If Microsoft put OOXML on MSDN, at least we would all have access to it and would know where to send our defect reports to, which is more than we can say about ISO OOXML. A real open standard is preferred, of course. But given a choice of fake ISO standard and a real MSDN specification, I'll take the MSDN version any day.

I'd like to know what sort of space/time-recalc magic Rob Weir thinks Microsoft and/or ISO could have used in this context to make ISO OOXML 1.0 spontaneously appear.  In the meantime, application developers and ISVs are building on the precursor ECMA standard OOXML embodied in Office 2007, and somehow Rob apparently thinks that's inappropriate. 

It may be an inconvenient truth for IBM, and it might be fun to reminisce about the days when Lotus 1-2-3 had monopoly market share in spreadsheets (and when the first Lotus Symphony sought to expand that monopoly to adjacent desktop app categories, more than 20 years ago), but the de facto enterprise productivity application standard today is Microsoft Office.  If IBM and other vendors want to change that picture, they should spend more time investing in a better productivity suite value proposition and less time hypocritically complaining about competitors' attempts to leverage standards.

An Antic Disposition: Toy Soldiers

Google Gears Takes Ruby on Rails Offline

Harmonic convergence?...

The Gears on Rails project by Google Gears enables Ruby on Rails developers to take their applications offline, as some sharp developers put Gears to new and different uses.

Developers are putting Google Gears to some interesting uses, including offline support for Ruby on Rails and building client-side search engines.

Gears for Rails represents another boost to cloud computing in its ability to deliver offline capability and synchronization. Meanwhile, Microsoft is leading its own data synchronization charge with its Live Mesh cloud-based data synchronization system, a test build of which is now open to the public.

Google Gears Takes Ruby on Rails Offline

Technology Review: Opening Up Microblogging

Hmm...

The first open-source challenge to the pioneering microblogging site Twitter launched earlier this month. Identi.ca, built using open-source software Laconica, was started by the Montreal-based company Control Yourself. The site is getting attention from microbloggers who hope that Identi.ca will improve upon Twitter, which has been plagued by problems.

[...]

Evan Prodromou, Identi.ca's founder, says that he came to see Twitter as a form of communication on a level with e-mail, blogging, and podcasting. "I was starting to feel dependent personally on Twitter as a communication medium," he says, "and I realized that's not the way that the Web that we've built works. Having one company be the sole controller of a particular communication medium is kind of difficult. It's not something that is sustainable in the long run for the Web." Prodromou says that he felt people needed an open-source version of the tool.

Technology Review: Opening Up Microblogging

Apple apologizes for MobileMess | Good Morning Silicon Valley

Sign of the times: check the full article for an example of how Apple can garner praise even when it stumbles

Apple also said it would, for now, stop using the word “push,” with its connotation of “instant,” to describe MobileMe’s transfer of information among devices. “While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe ‘cloud,’” Apple wrote, “changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word ‘push’ until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.”

Apple apologizes for MobileMess | Good Morning Silicon Valley

SAP, Oracle Boost Software Prices - WSJ.com

Oligopoly pricing?...

Two of the biggest makers of business software have raised prices, a sign that consolidation in the industry may be easing the competition over prices that has been a hallmark of the last decade.

SAP AG said Wednesday that it has raised prices for the ongoing support and customer-service fees, known as maintenance, that are part of large software purchases. The move comes one month after rival Oracle Corp. raised list prices for its software.

[...]

SAP, based in Walldorf, Germany, charges many customers an annual maintenance fee equal to 17% of the upfront price of the software. Starting Jan. 1, that fee will be raised to 22% and phased in over four years, the company said. In exchange, customers get enhanced service, including around-the-clock support and help to identify and fix problems with systems from other tech companies that interact with SAP software, a company spokesman said.

SAP, Oracle Boost Software Prices - WSJ.com

Little Interest in Buying AOL as the Unit Is Shopped Again - NYTimes.com

A stark reality check

Richard Greenfield, an analyst who covers Time Warner for Pali Capital, said it seemed unlikely that any deal for AOL would be struck before the Yahoo shareholder vote.

“I don’t see why anyone would make a move now with all the pieces on the chess board where they are,” he said.

He added that Time Warner was in a difficult spot because the value of AOL was declining. Its main business of selling graphical display ads is under pricing pressure. And its brand has such a “toxic” connotation with consumers, Mr. Greenfield says, that the company does not use the AOL name when it starts new Web sites.

Little Interest in Buying AOL as the Unit Is Shopped Again - NYTimes.com