Kindle Nation Daily: Under a Buck Today in the Kindle Store: Over Two Dozen Philip K. Dick Stories and Collections

The Kindle is definitely changing my reading habits – I’m still reading traditional books as well, but the ability to download collections such as the ones referenced below, and to download extensive samples before purchasing books, is very useful.

Fans of one of the most interesting fiction writers of the 20th century, whose stories were adapted into the films Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly and Minority Report can now find over two dozen Philip K. Dick stories and collections for less than a dollar per download in the Kindle Store.

Kindle Nation Daily ........................................ the inside scoop on all things Kindle: Under a Buck Today in the Kindle Store: Over Two Dozen Philip K. Dick Stories and Collections

EU signals it warms to Oracle-Sun deal - Yahoo! News

When the EC starts saying nice things and people with potentially deep conflicts of interest start “campaigns” to block a deal, the final chapter is near…

The Commission said in a statement Oracle's binding contractual undertakings were "significant new facts".

"Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes ... is optimistic that the case will have a satisfactory outcome, while ensuring that the transaction will not have an adverse impact on effective competition in the European database market," it said.

[…]

Critics of the deal said Oracle's proposals would not resolve competition concerns.

"This is purely cosmetic, totally ineffectual. Neither storage engine vendors nor "forkers" -- developers of derived versions -- nor enterprise users would have a basis on which to invest in MySQL-related innovation," Florian Mueller, a spokesman for MySQL founder Michael Widenius, said.

EU signals it warms to Oracle-Sun deal - Yahoo! News

Microsoft Delivers New Climate Change Tools

Check the full press release for more details

As world leaders gather in Copenhagen to tackle climate change, Microsoft is releasing technology that helps individuals manage their environmental impact.

On December 13 during the United Nations 15th Climate Change Conference (COP15), the European Environmental Agency (EEA) unveiled two new Microsoft-powered applications: the Environmental Atlas of Europe, a digital platform for educating citizens about climate change; and Bend the Trend, an online global program that helps people make pledges to reduce their carbon emissions.

Microsoft Delivers New Climate Change Tools: At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the European Environmental Agency unveiled two new Microsoft-powered applications designed to help people manage their environmental footprint.

Developing Its Own Phone, Google Is Taking On Apple - NYTimes.com

More on Google’s phone aspirations

Google had long insisted that it was not interested in building and selling phones, saying it preferred to rely on hardware partners and wireless carriers to market a wide variety of phones powered by Android, the operating system that it offers free.

In October, Andy Rubin, vice president of engineering for Android at Google, scoffed at the idea that the company would “compete with its customers” by releasing its own phone, according to the technology news service CNet.

Analysts say that the apparent shift signals a recognition by the company’s executives that Google needs to take more control of its destiny in the wireless world.

Developing Its Own Phone, Google Is Taking On Apple - NYTimes.com

Oracle Pledges to Safeguard MySQL Database - WSJ.com

Playing for keeps

Oracle has argued that MySQL, with just €17 million ($24.87 million) in revenue in Europe last year, was both too small to merit antitrust concerns and, in any case, a lower-end product that competed little with its heavy-duty databases. It brought eight customers to last week's closed-door hearing to make that point, and in an earlier, sharp-tongued legal filing it claimed the EU misrepresented results of a market survey when it brought forward its objections.

Blocking the deal outright would be an extraordinary step for the EU, which, while it is famously tough on monopolists and cartelists, has forbade just two deals during the five-year tenure of antitrust chief Neelie Kroes.

Oracle Monday made 10 "commitments" which don't entail any legal separation of MySQL. Among them is an offer that, for five years, Oracle won't change the terms of its contracts with resellers who package MySQL. Another says that customers who buy the commercial version of MySQL don't have to buy support services from Oracle.

Oracle Pledges to Safeguard MySQL Database - WSJ.com

Heavier meaning to Tweets with WiFi scale - The Boston Globe

Interesting times

But if you’re fascinated (as I am) by all the private-turned-public observations that Twitter encourages, the WiFi Body Scale from Withings, a French company, will be just one more astounding data point.

It not only charts the ups and downs of your body mass index on a password-protected website, but it can send out info about your morning weigh-in to your Twitter followers.

Yes, it tweets your weight.

Heavier meaning to Tweets with WiFi scale - The Boston Globe

Malware targets Facebook, Twitter users - The Boston Globe

Sign of the times

Malicious programs are rampaging through websites like Facebook and Twitter, spreading themselves by taking over people’s accounts and sending out messages to all of their friends and followers. The result is people inadvertently telling their co-workers and loved ones how to raise their IQs, make money instantly on Google, or watch an awesome new video in which they star.

Malware targets Facebook, Twitter users - The Boston Globe

The Nook Can't Catch the Kindle - BusinessWeek

Yet another review of the Nook that comes across as more of a promotion for the Kindle

The Nook is finally here. It turns out to be much less Kindle-killer than Kindle-clone, and a slow one at that.

[…]

How slow is it on start-up? Achingly slow. Might-as-well-go-pour-yourself-a-cup-of-coffee slow. Amazon's current model, Kindle 2, takes about three seconds from the moment you release the power button until you can start reading. On the Nook, it takes a minute and 50 seconds.

The Nook Can't Catch the Kindle - BusinessWeek

When Google Runs Your Life - Forbes.com

An extensive Google snapshot (via Dave Kellogg)

Your day begins with a wake-up call from your Google Android phone. As you run to the shower, you hit Google News and check headlines, then Gmail. Your first appointment of the day has been moved to a new location; Google Maps will direct you there. Quickly update your expense report--including the printout of that sales presentation using, say, Google Template--and shoot them to the back office in India (in Hindi, if you prefer, with Google Translate). Your boss wants to discuss your group's contributions to some marketing documents? Lean on Google Groups. You're not even out the door yet. You have the rest of the day to search for work-critical information on the Web while you're at the office--to say nothing of snatching a few moments to download a game, check stock prices, organize your medical records, share photos and pick a restaurant and movie for the evening. How convenient.

When Google Runs Your Life - Forbes.com

Now Is It Facebook’s Microsoft Moment? (Danny Sullivan)

See the full post for Facebook privacy setting changes, many of them subtle (via Dave Kellogg)

I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time to try and figure out the myriad of ways that Facebook may or may not want to use my information. That’s why I almost shut down my entire account this week. It would be a hell of a lot easier than this mess.

See, I’m not a big Facebook user. No offense to Facebook, but most of what it offers just isn’t my thing. If I want to share pictures, I use Flickr. If I want to share videos, I use YouTube. If I want to connect with my friends, I have email or other methods. If I want to update the world with whatever’s on my mind, I use Twitter. Pretty much, I don’t need the Facebook “Office” suite of social sharing tools. I know Facebook is great for many people. I hear that first hand talking to some friends. I just don’t use it that way.

Now Is It Facebook’s Microsoft Moment?

Fla. judges, lawyers must 'unfriend' on Facebook - Yahoo! News

Sign of the times

Florida's judges and lawyers should no longer "friend" each other on Facebook, the popular social networking site, according to a ruling from the state's Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee.

At least one South Florida judge warned her pals with a Facebook status update that they could be "unfriended," and the ruling has prompted others to do the same. The committee ruled Nov. 17 that online "friendships" could create the impression that lawyers are in a special position to influence their judge friends.

Fla. judges, lawyers must 'unfriend' on Facebook - Yahoo! News

Digital Domain - AT&T Takes the Fall for the iPhone’s Glitches - NYTimes.com

Hmm – see the full story for more details and data

When I set about looking for independent data, however, to confirm the superior performance of Verizon’s network, I was astonished to discover that I had managed to get things exactly wrong. Despite the well-publicized problems in New York and San Francisco, AT&T seems to have the superior network nationwide.

And the iPhone itself may not be so great after all. Its design is contributing to performance problems.

Roger Entner, senior vice president for telecommunications research at Nielsen, said the iPhone’s “air interface,” the electronics in the phone that connect it to the cell towers, had shortcomings that “affect both voice and data.” He said that in the eyes of the consumer, “the iPhone has the nimbus of infallibility, ergo, it’s AT&T’s fault.” AT&T does not publicly defend itself because it will not criticize Apple under any circumstances, he said. AT&T and Apple both declined to comment on Mr. Entner’s assessments.

Digital Domain - AT&T Takes the Fall for the iPhone’s Glitches - NYTimes.com

In the Smartphone Era, Can Nokia Recapture Its Glory Days? - NYTimes.com

A stark Nokia reality check.  Tangentially, I wouldn’t be surprised to see RIM acquired sometime soon.

Nokia’s problems are especially acute in North America, where its hold on smartphones equals a barely visible 3.9 percent, compared with 51 percent for Research in Motion and 29.5 percent for Apple, according to Gartner. As if to underscore its problems in the United States, Nokia announced Thursday that it would shutter its flagship stores in New York and Chicago.

In the Smartphone Era, Can Nokia Recapture Its Glory Days? - NYTimes.com

Google to Start Selling Own Phone Without Wireless Partner by Next Year - WSJ.com

I suspect Motorola and other handset partners aren’t thrilled about this

Now, Google appears to want to throw its brand behind a device more directly, designing a phone without working with the wireless carriers that often dictate what features they allow on their networks.

The move could alienate wireless carriers and handset makers that offer Android phones and do not want to compete with Google. Google has repeatedly said that its goal is to have hundreds of Android phones rather than one.

The move also marks a rare foray into direct sales for Google. With the exception of an appliance it markets as a search tool to businesses, the company hasn't sold hardware in the past.

Google to Start Selling Own Phone Without Wireless Partner by Next Year - WSJ.com

U.S. and Russia Open Talks on Limits to War in Cyberspace - NYTimes.com

Sign of the times

The United States has begun talks with Russia and a United Nations arms control committee about strengthening Internet security and limiting military use of cyberspace.

American and Russian officials have different interpretations of the talks so far, but the mere fact that the United States is participating represents a significant policy shift after years of rejecting Russia’s overtures. Officials familiar with the talks said the Obama administration realized that more nations were developing cyberweapons and that a new approach was needed to blunt an international arms race.

U.S. and Russia Open Talks on Limits to War in Cyberspace - NYTimes.com

Kindle Nation Daily: The e-reader saga is turning into a business thriller, says USA Today

Timely snapshots – both the blog post and the USA Today story

In this morning's USA Today, David Lieberman has the most thorough, well-reported, balanced, and well-written piece that I have seen yet on the growing effort by book publishers to push back against Amazon, the Kindle, and the ebook revolution in pricing, delivery and convenience.
It's entitled Tension grows as publishers target Amazon Kindle pricing, and it is highly recommended reading for all citizens of Kindle nation. The writing is snappy, and the piece avoids the far too common error that has been committed lately by so many journalists and bloggers of parroting each other's uninformed and mistaken assertions on such issues as the percentage that Amazon pays publishers for Kindle content and the extent to which Amazon does or does not "subsidize" Kindle editions of major publishers' books.

Kindle Nation Daily ........................................ the inside scoop on all things Kindle: The e-reader saga is turning into a business thriller, says USA Today

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : A not-so-brief chat with Randall Stephenson of AT&T

A classic Fake Steve post – read the full essay (and, at current course and speed, look forward to the day when you can use your iPhone on a non-AT&T network)

I stopped, then. There was nothing on the line. Silence. I said, Randall? He goes, Yeah, I’m here. I said, Does any of that make sense? He says, Yeah, but we’re still not going to do it. See, when you run the numbers what you find is that we’re actually better off running a shitty network than making the investment to build a good one. It’s just numbers, Steve. You can’t charge enough to get a return on the investment.

Now there was silence again. This time I was the one not talking. There was this weird lump in my throat, this tightness in my chest. I had this vision of the future — a ruined empire, run by number crunchers, squalid and stupid and puffed up with phony patriotism, settling for a long slow decline.

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : A not-so-brief chat with Randall Stephenson of AT&T

Google's Schmidt Roasted for Privacy Comments - Yahoo! News

A timely Google/privacy reality check

The Electronic Frontier Foundation was not pleased with those remarks, saying that "from protection against shallow embarrassments to the preservation of freedom and human rights," privacy is about more than just hiding wrongdoing. Schmidt's comments, the EFF says, make it seems as though Google doesn't understand that concept.

As Techdirt noted, Schmidt's comments ring familiar with the philosophy that if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear from prying eyes (call it a new spin on "don't be evil").

The problem with that mentality is that even if you're not breaking the law, violations of privacy can be embarrassing or unnerving. EFF's response quotes EFF fellow and BoingBoing editor Cory Doctorow, who in a talk to the American Library Association noted the difference between privacy and a secret. "Every one of us has parents who did at least one private thing that's not a secret, otherwise we wouldn't be here," he said.

Google's Schmidt Roasted for Privacy Comments - Yahoo! News

Apple Countersues Nokia Over Patents - NYTimes.com

A weird ritual, en route to cross-licensing

Apple sued the cellphone maker Nokia Corporation on Friday for patent infringement, a countermove to Nokia’s earlier suit against technologies used in Apple’s iPhone.

Apple’s lawsuit claims Nokia is infringing 13 of Apple’s patents and says the company chose to “copy the iPhone,” especially its user interface, to make up for its declining share of the high-end phone market.

Apple Countersues Nokia Over Patents - NYTimes.com

Might be time for counseling in Mozilla-Google relationship | Good Morning Silicon Valley

Strange days indeed

For years, the search sovereign and the developers of the Firefox browser have been bound together as kindred spirits and, more importantly, as partners in a deal that makes Google the default choice in the Firefox search bar. That contract, which runs through November 2011, provides upwards of 90 percent of Mozilla’s annual revenue. The arrangement seemed to make everyone happy — Firefox grew its market share, Google collected more traffic, and everything was sunshine and roses for a while. But clouds began to form last year when Google started developing its own browser, Chrome, raising speculation that its days as Mozilla’s best buddy were numbered. And now a prominent Mozilla veteran is making waves with his recommendation that Firefox users switch their default search engine from Google to Microsoft’s Bing for privacy reasons.

Might be time for counseling in Mozilla-Google relationship | Good Morning Silicon Valley

Waiting for an Apple Tablet? (Windows IT Pro)

Check the full post for a “iPad” reality check; a OneNote-related excerpt:

Combined with a device that can be used as a slate, multi-touch opens up new casual computing scenarios and is perfect for keeping up on email or browsing the web from home. And as Microsoft's Tablet PC platform has matured, so has the ecosystem around it. The pen- and touch-friendly OneNote, part of Microsoft's ubiquitous Office, is becoming one of the most used applications in the suite. In fact, according to Microsoft, OneNote usage will soon surpass that of PowerPoint. (The top three Office apps by usage are Word, Outlook, and Excel, in that order. PowerPoint is fourth.)

Waiting for an Apple Tablet?

More tablet rumors; Amazon to change Kindle revenue split? | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

This in part explains why publishers are seeking to establish more control 

AppleInsider says that Oppenheimer Analyst Yair Reiner is reiterating some of the rumors we’ve been hearing about the Apple Tablet—Apple approaching publishers, 10.1 inch LTPS LCD (like the iPhone’s) screen. But he refutes other rumors (such as the OLED model) and adds an interesting new twist in terms of the publisher offers.

"Contacts in the U.S. tell us Apple is approaching book publishers with a very attractive proposal for distributing their content," Reiner said. "Apple will split revenue 30/70 (Apple/publisher); give the same deal to all comers; and not request exclusivity. We believe the typical Kindle split is 50/50, rising to 30/70 if Kindle is given ebook exclusivity."

The Kindle split right now for self-published works is 65/35 Amazon/publisher.

More tablet rumors; Amazon to change Kindle revenue split? | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Barnes & Noble Nook | Wired.com Product Reviews

See the full review for more details and a video

Unfortunately, the Nook is marred by a frustrating interface and persistent slowness. Switching between the lower and upper screens is sometimes confusing, and the lower screen's "back" button sometimes takes you all the way back to the top menu, clearing out whatever was on the upper screen. Occasionally the lower screen takes a few seconds to respond to a tap, so you impatiently tap again, accidentally triggering something you didn't expect. The upper, E Ink screen is slightly slower to refresh than the Kindle's — it takes about a second, instead of about half a second — which means these kinds of interface glitches quickly get very frustrating.

It seems reasonable to expect that the Nook's software engineers will iron out these glitches in the next few months, and they've promised to deliver software updates wirelessly, with the first, minor update rolling out next week. When they finally get the kinks worked out, the Nook will be an elegant, customizable, competitive alternative to Amazon's Kindle. Until then, it's a slightly awkward runner-up.

Barnes & Noble Nook | Wired.com Product Reviews

Note Taker Turns Your iPhone into an Endless Notepad - Note Taking - Lifehacker

More on Dan Bricklin’s latest app

More specifically, you jot notes using the tip of your finger on your touchscreen as if it were a pen on an index card. (See my bad handwriting in Note Taker in the screenshot here.) Note Taker looks and sounds more awkward than it actually is: the application employs some nifty interface mechanisms that make it easy to write long sentences across your screen. For example, it scrolls right while you jot without requiring swiping, and it shrinks your words to a legible version for reading while you write. Note Taker doesn't do text recognition, but you can transcribe jotted notes using the keyboard. This app isn't for folks who are comfortable typing on the iPhone keyboard and have terrible handwriting, but it is for folks who like to sketch, mind-map, or list without fat-fingering small keys. You just write the way you normally would on a notepad.

Note Taker Turns Your iPhone into an Endless Notepad - Note Taking - Lifehacker

State of the Art - Barnes and Noble’s Nook Reader Fails to Live Up to Promises - NYTimes.com

Check the full review for a stark Nook reality check

Unfortunately, we, the salivating public, might be afflicted with a little holiday disease of our own: Sucker Syndrome. Every one of the Nook’s vaunted distinctions comes fraught with buzz kill footnotes.

[…]

One day, the Nook may be a much more usable, more capable bit of gear. Of course, Amazon and Sony won’t be standing still; 2010 sure will be an interesting year.

State of the Art - Barnes and Noble’s Nook Reader Fails to Live Up to Promises - NYTimes.com

AT&T to Urge Wireless Customers To Use Less Data - NYTimes.com

Interesting times for AT&T

Mr. de la Vega cited the heaviest data users, saying that 40 percent of AT&T’s data traffic came from just 3 percent of its smartphone customers.

But he emphasized that the company would first focus on educating consumers about their data consumption in the hope that doing so would encourage them to cut back, even though they are paying for unlimited data use.

“We’re going to try to focus on making sure we give incentives to those small percentages to either reduce or modify their usage, so they don’t crowd out the customers on those same cell sites,” he said.

AT&T to Urge Wireless Customers To Use Less Data - NYTimes.com

Oracle Fights EU Objections to Its Sun Bid - WSJ.com

Read the fine print – in the “dual license” open source model, MySQL can’t be downloaded and used without a commercial license, in most business deployment domains.  It is in many ways an apples-and-0ranges comparison, but MySQL does indeed compete with Oracle Database in some market segments.

MySQL began life as an open-source database in the 1990s, developed by a Swedish company. Sun bought it last year for $1 billion. The database was initially geared to lower-end uses such as supporting Web sites, though its abilities have expanded. Facebook, for instance, stores users' pages in a MySQL database. Oracle's namesake database is heavy-duty software often intended for applications such as processing payroll or bank transactions.

A key piece of the antitrust equation is whether MySQL, which can be downloaded free of charge , has become—or will become—robust enough to compete against Oracle.

In one of its few public statements about the deal, the commission said it determined that Oracle and MySQL "compete directly in many sectors of the database market."

Oracle Fights EU Objections to Its Sun Bid - WSJ.com

Apple, Google Vie for Start-Ups - WSJ.com

A timely reality check

Google Inc. and Apple Inc., which have long thrived without treading on one another's turf, are vying to acquire some of the same Silicon Valley start-ups and developing products that put themselves in more direct competition.

Google was in serious discussions to acquire online-music company La La Media Inc. before Apple won the deal this month for $85 million, people familiar with the matter said.

Apple, Google Vie for Start-Ups - WSJ.com

The American Diet: 34 Gigabytes a Day - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Check the full post for more details

A report published Wednesday by the University of California, San Diego, calculates that American households collectively consumed 3.6 zettabytes of information in 2008. The paper — entitled “How Much Information?” — explores all forms of American communication and consumption and hopes to create a census of the information we consume.

HMI Report/UC San Diego A graph from the report illustrating the dissection of words consumed each day.

The American Diet: 34 Gigabytes a Day - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Dan Bricklin’s Note Taker for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch

Via the Boston Globe Innovation Economy blog; see the full Dan Bricklin post for more details and a video

A few days before Thanksgiving I submitted my completed app for inclusion in the App Store. It's now just been approved and you can try it. 30 years after VisiCalc shipped: Another app from me that starts out on Apple hardware.

What is it? People who know my history won't be surprised: It's for taking notes by writing on the screen with your finger. An "ink" app. Here's a screen shot:

Photo of Dan Bricklin's Note Taker in use

Starting December 5, 2009#notetaker

BBC News - Facebook faces criticism on privacy change

Another Facebook privacy reality check 

"Facebook is nudging the settings toward the 'disclose everything' position," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the US Electronic Privacy Information Center (Epic). "That's not fair from the privacy perspective."

Epic said it was analysing the changes to see if they amounted to trickery.

[…]

In a statement, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said: "These new 'privacy' changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before. "

It added: "Even worse, the changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data."

BBC News - Facebook faces criticism on privacy change

AOL Quietly Returns to Life on Its Own - NYTimes.com

Market cap at the end of AOL’s first solo (again) day: $2.55B

AOL began trading as its own public company again after its long-planned spin-off from Time Warner was finally made official. The separation occurred almost 10 years after the merger of the two companies was announced to great fanfare with the promise of a synergistic combination of old and new media.

[…]

But the merger between AOL and Time Warner will likely remain a prominent part of both companies’ legacies, rather than becoming a historical footnote. After all, more than $100 billion in shareholder value was wiped out.

AOL Quietly Returns to Life on Its Own - NYTimes.com

Barnes & Noble Nook E-Reader Review | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

Check the full review (no wsj.com subscription required) for more details 

Amazon’s Kindle has been the king of the nascent, much-hyped, category of wireless e-readers since it came out in 2007. Now, numerous companies are determined to challenge the Kindle with dedicated, mass-market gadgets for reading digital books and periodicals. The latest, and potentially most important, of these is a contender called the Nook, produced by the giant bookstore chain Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS), which started shipping it this week.

The two devices look very similar, but have key differences in capabilities, user interface and polish. Overall, after testing the Nook for about a week, I don’t think it’s as good as the Kindle, at least not yet. At launch, the Nook has the feel of a product with great potential that was rushed to market before it was fully ready.

Barnes & Noble Nook E-Reader Review | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

Apple Plots Reboot of iTunes for Web - WSJ.com

A timely reality check

Apple Inc., the company that restructured the music industry around its iTunes service, is exploring an overhaul of the way it sells and stores music that is aimed at extending its influence to the Web, according to people briefed on the strategy.

The key vehicle for the move is Apple's newly acquired music-streaming service La La Media Inc. for which Apple paid $85 million, according to people familiar with the matter. Where Apple's iTunes requires users to download music onto a specific computer, Lala.com lets users buy and listen to music through a Web browser, meaning its customers can access purchases from anywhere, as long as they are connected to the Internet.

Apple Plots Reboot of iTunes for Web - WSJ.com

Publishers delay electronic releases - The Boston Globe

A rather extreme form of price/license negotiation – and very risky for the publishers

As the market quickens for e-books, the schedule for their release is slowing down.

Simon & Schuster said yesterday that the electronic editions for more than 30 works coming out in the first half of 2010 would not be available until four months after the hardcover. The books include novels by Don DeLillo and Mary Higgins Clark and a memoir by Karl Rove.

[…]

The e-book for the season’s most popular release, Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol,’’ came out at the same time as the hardcover and has sold about 200,000 copies, or about 5 percent of the book’s total sales, nearly unthinkable before the rise of the Kindle and other digital devices.

Publishers delay electronic releases - The Boston Globe

Text Messages - Digital Lipstick on the Collar - NYTimes.com

Another sign of the times…

There is a question that has crossed the mind recently of anyone who has sent a cellphone text message while cheating on a spouse: What was I thinking?

Text messages are the new lipstick on the collar, the mislaid credit card bill. Instantaneous and seemingly casual, they can be confirmation of a clandestine affair, a record of the not-so-discreet who sometimes forget that everything digital leaves a footprint.

Text Messages - Digital Lipstick on the Collar - NYTimes.com

Microsoft Azure, Server teams form new cloud division | The Wisdom of Clouds - CNET News

A major milestone for Azure

The move makes sense, as the company's "software plus services" strategy requires consistency in the management and execution capabilities of both Windows Server and Windows Azure. Microsoft has been working on both Azure and private cloud capabilities for some time now, though its Web site currently pitches its Dynamic Data Center Toolkit as a "foundation" for both private and partner cloud services.

It should be noted that this move means that CTO Ray Ozzie is no longer heading the Azure team, a signal that Azure has graduated from a technical project to a full-fledged Microsoft business.

Microsoft Azure, Server teams form new cloud division | The Wisdom of Clouds - CNET News

Google Unveils News-by-Topic Service That Newspapers Can Adopt - NYTimes.com

Google news of the day…

The announcement of the “living stories” project shows Google collaborating with newspapers at a time when some major publishers have characterized the company as a threat. Google has also taken steps recently to project an image of itself as a friend to the industry.

Living stories is a much-enhanced version of what some newspaper Web sites already do by grouping material by subject matter. In the case of The Times, the paper’s Web site has thousands of “topic pages.” But those efforts have not yielded heavy reader traffic or much advertising.

Google Unveils News-by-Topic Service That Newspapers Can Adopt - NYTimes.com

Tiger Woods a Bigger Help Than Michael Jackson, Yahoo Says - Digits - WSJ

Sign of the times

Tiger Woods may be losing fans in some quarters, but he has one in Carol Bartz, Yahoo’s chief executive.

“God bless Tiger,” she said during an investors conference Tuesday, for the “huge” uptick in Web traffic he has generated over the past week.

News, photos and other content about the pro golfer, whose personal life has become tabloid fodder since his car accident and cryptic apologies, are contributing to Yahoo’s sports section, as well as news, gossip and the front page, Ms. Bartz said. When asked if Mr. Woods would help the Internet company make the quarter, she said, “Oh, absolutely,” and added that he’s fueling more visits than Michael Jackson’s death.

Tiger Woods a Bigger Help Than Michael Jackson, Yahoo Says - Digits - WSJ

FT.com / Companies / Retail - Ebay hoped to acquire Craigslist

What tangled Webs…

Former Ebay chief executive Meg Whitman revealed on Monday that she had hoped to buy classified ads site Craigslist in 2004, when Ebay took a minority stake in the privately held company.

“We were very interested in making an acquisition of Craigslist,” said Ms Whitman. “We would have loved to buy the whole thing.”

Ms Whitman’s remarks came on the opening day of a long-delayed trial in Delaware. The case was brought by Ebay and accuses Craigslist of covertly selling shares to dilute Ebay’s stake in Craigslist, thereby stripping it of its board seat.

[…]

Ms Whitman also acknowledged that another motivation for the Ebay purchase was to keep Craigslist out of the hands of other large internet companies such as Google. “We didn’t want anyone else to have the opportunity to invest in this business,” she said under cross-examination. “It was an important investment for Ebay.”

FT.com / Companies / Retail - Ebay hoped to acquire Craigslist

The CrunchPad Is Resurrected as the Joojoo - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Perhaps a future TV mini-series…

For those of you who care most about how to get your hands on one of these, here’s what you need to know: the black tablet, with a 12.1-inch touch-screen, boots in nine seconds and connects to the Internet. It has no other applications — it’s just for browsing the Web — and a touch keyboard appears when the user needs it. The Joojoo will be available for preorder on Dec. 11 for $499 at TheJoojoo.com and will ship 8 to 10 weeks later, according to Fusion Garage, the company that is producing it.

For those of you who care most about the drama behind the scenes, read on. The protagonists are Michael Arrington, the influential founder of the TechCrunch blog, and Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan, Mr. Arrington’s former friend and business partner and now enemy.

(See the full post for details)

The CrunchPad Is Resurrected as the Joojoo - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Hands-on with the JooJoo | Rafe's Radar - CNET News

This device class is inevitable – it’s only a question of which vendors will achieve mainstream market momentum first, and which platforms they’ll lead with.  Tbd, in the meantime, if the “CrunchPad” will ever actually ship.

CNET snagged the first journalists' demo of the new JooJoo (formerly CrunchPad) Web slate on Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan's San Francisco media tour. Quick impressions: yeah, this is a really cool device. Everyone reading a tech site like CNET will want one. But will they pay the $499 going price for it? We don't think so.

The JooJoo Web slate is based around a 12.1-inch diagonal 720p capacitive touch screen. The specs include: 1366x768-pixel resolution, a built-in camera, mic, and speakers, one USB port, and a card slot. There's 4GB of cache memory. What's the processor? Rathakrishnan wouldn't say. He also won't say who makes the touch screen.

[…]

The JooJoo with its pint-size inspiration, the iPhone.

(Credit: Rafe Needleman/CNET)

 

Hands-on with the JooJoo | Rafe's Radar - CNET News

Google – from friend to foe? (seattle pi)

More on the Google tone shift

The Mountain View Internet company built a $100 billion brand and seized control of the search industry by delivering superior tools and convincing the world it took its "Don't Be Evil" motto seriously.

But as the company extends its influence in advertising, media, mobile and dozens of other areas, that perception is increasingly called into question.

The most fervent have dubbed it "the new Evil Empire." Others say it's simply becoming another big company focused on the bottom line. Either is a change for a company that cultivated a reputation for trying to improve the world.

"The perception has shifted dramatically," said Rob Enderle, technology analyst with the Enderle Group. "Google has become incredibly heavy-handed."

Google – from friend to foe?

Amazon's Kindle to get audible menus, bigger font - San Jose Mercury News

More Kindle evolution

The Kindle has a read-aloud feature that could be a boon to blind students and those with other disabilities including dyslexia, but turning it on requires navigating through screens of text menus.

Amazon said Monday it is working on audible menus, which would let the Kindle speak menu options out loud. It's also working on an extra-large font for people with impaired vision. The additions should reach the Kindle next summer, Amazon said.

Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind, said Monday that the organization doesn't know enough about the new features to say whether they adequately address concerns of the blind community. But, he said, it's a good sign Amazon is expressing commitment to improve the Kindle.

Amazon's Kindle to get audible menus, bigger font - San Jose Mercury News

Google Is Adding Live Updates to Searches - NYTimes.com

In case you were wondering, you are indeed part of the information in Google’s mission (“to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful”)

Google introduced several other products at its event on Monday. The most ambitious, called Google Goggles, allows people to send Google a cellphone photograph of, say, a landmark or a book, and have information about the contents of the image returned to them instantly.

The technology has one potentially provocative use: someone could conceivably send Google a photo of a person — if they fail to remember an acquaintance’s name, for example — and get enough information about him or her to avoid an awkward encounter.

Google Is Adding Live Updates to Searches - NYTimes.com

Media Firms to Unveil Joint Venture for Digital Devices - WSJ.com

Apparently the publishers don’t want Apple or any other firm to control their destiny…

The new company is expected to be announced Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter. It will be jointly owned by News Corp., Time Warner Inc.'s Time Inc., Condé Nast Publications Inc., Hearst Corp. and Meredith Corp.

News Corp. owns Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

The aim is to create a common set of technology standards for how magazines and other publications look on e-readers and other digital devices, some of which haven't been invented yet. The participants also want to ensure they have a common standard for advertising and a digital "store" through which consumers can buy multiple publishers' titles, according to people familiar with the matter.

Media Firms to Unveil Joint Venture for Digital Devices - WSJ.com

Google Launches Web Initiatives as It Tries to Fend Off Microsoft - WSJ.com

Interesting tone shift in the Google press lately

The moves are the latest sign of the escalating battle between the Silicon Valley Internet giant and Microsoft, whose Bing search engine has gained market share and won credibility for the software company in a field that Google dominates.

As Bing and start-ups such as Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. attract more buzz, Google is pushing hard to convince users that it is still on the cutting edge of Web innovation and that the search market has plenty of room to grow.

Google Launches Web Initiatives as It Tries to Fend Off Microsoft - WSJ.com

YouTube - Lotus History: The First Five Years

On a related note – via Mitch Kapor.  A radically different scene today.

Ed Brill: 20 years ago today… Notes 1.0

Happy anniversary – hard to believe it has been 20 years since the release of Notes 1.0 (and 25 years, as Ed notes in his post, since Iris started working on Notes). For me, the song remains the same, overall; I’m still focused on the intersection of collaboration and information architecture – although with a different employer and product focus, these days…

On December 7, 1989, at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts USA, Lotus Notes 1.0 was officially unveiled. I wasn't there, and the date wasn't significant to me other than as I was approaching final exams in my penultimate semester of college. Clearly, though, that event changed history -- and produced one of the most successful and longest-running software products in distributed computing.

Ed Brill

Using the Power of IT to Drive Environmental Sustainability: Information Technology has a powerful role to play in reducing energy consumption and driving a better understanding of our impact on the planet.

See the full press release for more details

So the question is how can companies like Microsoft help address environmental challenges. At Microsoft we’re pursuing three paths aimed at a more sustainable future. First, we see software as a tool that can make big strides in improving energy efficiency. One of our primary focuses, of course, begins with the energy efficiency of information technology itself. Windows 7, for example, has the most effective energy conservation features we’ve ever put into Windows; energy efficiency is designed into Windows 7. Additionally, with technologies such as virtualization, we’re able to get more “right-size” servers and provide the right level of capability while reducing energy and improving efficiency.

As an operator of many of the world’s largest datacenters, we also are working to significantly improve energy efficiency and drive significant gains in the number of transactions that can be performed for each unit of energy. For example, new datacenters in Dublin and Chicago are 50 percent more efficient than their predecessors. In Dublin, the 5.4-megawatt datacenter needs no chillers for cooling. Instead it relies on careful placement of its servers and software control so that outside air alone keeps the datacenter working without requiring high-energy traditional air conditioning systems. This enables significant energy savings over traditional cooler-intensive datacenters.

Using the Power of IT to Drive Environmental Sustainability: Information Technology has a powerful role to play in reducing energy consumption and driving a better understanding of our impact on the planet.

EtherPad: Frequently Asked Questions

I’m guessing this part of the EtherPad FAQ may be updated soon…

Doesn't Google Docs already do this?

No.

Google Docs is a suite of products that do many things, from word processing to spreadsheets to document management. One thing that Google Docs does not do is real-time collaborative text editing. We think this is an important use case, so we built EtherPad with real-time collaboration as the focus.

For example, with Google Docs it takes about 5 to 15 seconds for a change to make its way from your keyboard to other people's screens. Imagine if whiteboards or telephones had this kind of delay! In contrast, the EtherPad infrastructure is built to carry your every keystroke at the speed of light, limited only by the time it takes electrons to travel over a wire (such as an "ethernet" cable).

EtherPad stacks up favorably in other ways as well:

• Google Docs are cumbersome to share with other people. It requires sending an email, and all collaborators must have a Google Docs account. With EtherPad, you just copy and paste a link, no emails or accounts required.
• Google Docs does not highlight who typed what, so with more than 2 editors, things get chaotic and confusing very quickly. EtherPad makes things clear by highlighting each author's contributions with a unique background color.
• One of the most basic operators for editing text is "undo." In Google Docs, while collaborating, you lose undo history whenever someone else makes a change. EtherPad supports infinite undos and ensures that every operation is forever undo-able, even in the presence of other editors.

Of course, EtherPad is a tool for a specific purpose, and depending on your needs, Google Docs may still be a suitable option for working together on documents. But for real-time collaboration, EtherPad beats Google Docs hands down.

EtherPad: Frequently Asked Questions

The Atlantic Is First Magazine to Offer Fiction on Kindle - NYTimes.com

Interesting times

Let the iTunes-ization of short fiction begin.

Starting on Monday, Amazon will sell two stories, one by Christopher Buckley and the other by Edna O’Brien, through its Kindle store. The stories have been selected and edited by the staff at The Atlantic, the venerable magazine that once published short fiction in its print pages monthly.

Priced at $3.99 each, the stories, which will bear the Atlantic logo, are exclusively available on the Kindle, Amazon’s electronic reader, and will not appear in the print version of the magazine. The Atlantic’s editors plan to offer about two Kindle stories every month.

The Atlantic Is First Magazine to Offer Fiction on Kindle - NYTimes.com

After outcry, EtherPad returns—soon to be open-sourced | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Google quickly adapts its EtherPad strategy

Yesterday, I reported that Google had bought AppJet, the makers of the web-based collaborative editor EtherPad, and was closing EtherPad down as they incorporated AppJet’s staff into the Google Wave team.

There was a great outcry over that decision, and the abruptness of the sudden cutoff, and today Google relented. In a follow-up blog post, ex-CEO Aaron Iba announced that EtherPad was back on-line for the time being, and would stay so until the AppJet team could open-source EtherPad and its underpinnings. They would also be getting all registered EtherPad users beta access to Google Wave by the end of the month.

After outcry, EtherPad returns—soon to be open-sourced | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Questions for Jeffrey P. Bezos - Book Learning - Interview - NYTimes.com

Impressive numbers

Of all the books that Amazon sells, what percentage are digital books?
[Bezos:] For every 100 copies of a physical book we sell, where we have the Kindle edition, we will sell 48 copies of the Kindle edition. It won’t be too long before we’re selling more electronic books than we are physical books. It’s astonishing.

How quickly are paper books migrating into their digital equivalents?
[Bezos:] When we launched Kindle two years ago, it was 90,000 titles, and today it’s more than 350,000. We’re adding thousands of titles every week. Our vision is every book ever printed in every language, all available within 60 seconds.

Questions for Jeffrey P. Bezos - Book Learning - Interview - NYTimes.com

Goodbye, Dictionary.com...Hello, Google Dictionary | Education IT | ZDNet.com

Google casually rolls into another information service domain

Although Google’s attempt to compete with Wikipedia via its Knol offering has been a remarkably dismal failure for a company that tends to get things right, this is a tool that could displace plenty of other properties like dictionary.com and answers.com. Not only does it provide a really uncluttered interface, but the extensive translation tools are quite useful.

Goodbye, Dictionary.com...Hello, Google Dictionary | Education IT | ZDNet.com

Hearst to launch Skiff e-reader and service [seattlepi]

Hmm…

Hearst Corp. announced Friday that it is developing an e-reader and accompanying service to deliver its books, newspaper, magazine and online content to users wirelessly via the Web.

The Skiff e-reader, due out sometime in 2010, will focus on content beyond the plain-text offerings of similar devices such as Amazon's Kindle. The Skiff device will deliver "visually appealing layouts, high-resolution graphics, rich typography and dynamic updates," according to a Hearst news release.

Hearst to launch Skiff e-reader and service

Novelties - Multiple Screens Built for Textbooks as E-Books - NYTimes.com

Check the full article for more details

Now there is a new approach that may adapt well to textbook pages: two-screen e-book readers with a traditional e-paper display on one screen and a liquid-crystal display on the other to render graphics like science animations in color.

The dual screens are linked by a central processor so that, for example, a link on the e-paper display can open on the color screen.

Novelties - Multiple Screens Built for Textbooks as E-Books - NYTimes.com

App Store Is a Game Changer for Apple and Cellphone Industry - NYTimes.com

See the full article for a detailed snapshot of the Apple App Store

The way the industry once operated, “Each handset company would come up with its latest iterations and maybe have the hottest device of the season or not,” says Ms. Huberty, the Morgan Stanley analyst. “Enter apps into the equation, and that changes. It goes from being a product cycle game to a platform game.”

“People will look back on the iPhone as a turning point in the industry,” says Craig Moffett, a telecom analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein. “The iPhone will be remembered as the first true handheld computer.”

App Store Is a Game Changer for Apple and Cellphone Industry - NYTimes.com

Exclusive: Wetpaint cuts staff, changes focus to publishing

Another social media reality check

Wetpaint today laid off nine staffers -- including co-founders Kevin Flaherty and Alex Berg -- as the 4-year-old Seattle operator of wikis refocuses efforts on its own online publishing ventures. It now employs 30 people.

The heavily-funded company isn't saying too much about the online publishing effort, which includes new business models for the battered media industry. But a company spokesman -- who labeled the change a strategic shift -- said Wetpaint is currently working on a stealth mode project that they plan to publicly disclose in the coming weeks.

Exclusive: Wetpaint cuts staff, changes focus to publishing

Banks and information technology: Silo but deadly | The Economist

Check the full article for more details.

NO INDUSTRY spends more on information technology (IT) than financial services: about $500 billion globally, more than a fifth of the total (see chart). Many of the world’s computers, networking and storage systems live in the huge data centres run by banks. “Banks are essentially technology firms,” says Hugo Banziger, chief risk officer at Deutsche Bank. Yet the role of IT in the crisis is barely discussed.

It should be. Corporate IT systems—collections of computers, applications and databases—always tend to be messy, but those of banks are particularly bad.

Banks and information technology: Silo but deadly | The Economist

Beware Social Media Snake Oil - BusinessWeek

A timely reality check 

Over the past five years, an entire industry of consultants has arisen to help companies navigate the world of social networks, blogs, and wikis. The self-proclaimed experts range from legions of wannabes, many of them refugees from the real estate bust, to industry superstars such as Chris Brogan and Gary Vaynerchuk. They produce best-selling books and dole out advice or lead workshops at companies for thousands of dollars a day. The consultants evangelize the transformative power of social media and often cast themselves as triumphant case studies of successful networking and self-branding.

The problem, according to a growing chorus of critics, is that many would-be guides are leading clients astray.

 

Beware Social Media Snake Oil - BusinessWeek

The Intel Reader: As Big a Boon as Braille? - BusinessWeek

Check the full article for more details

Great advances in digital technology shower all kinds of benefits on society—among them, life-altering opportunities for people with disabilities. Innovations of this order range from digital hearing aids and cochlear implants to computerized prosthetic limbs. Unfortunately, such products are often relegated to a ghetto known as "assistive technology," where high prices and limited distribution place them beyond the reach of many people who might benefit.

Intel (INTC) is trying to change that as part of a major corporate push into health care. Its new Digital Health Group has just come out with a remarkable product, the Intel Reader, designed to make printed matter accessible to millions of people who find reading difficult or impossible, either because of vision problems or learning disabilities such as dyslexia.

The Intel Reader: As Big a Boon as Braille? - BusinessWeek

Google buys collaboration app to boost Wave

Hmm…  Perhaps the very positive market response to Office Web Apps was a factor in this Google move.

EtherPad, described by AppJet as a "Web-based word processor that allows people to work together in really real-time," will keep operating until the end of March 2010, at which point all existing hosted accounts will be deleted, AppJet said on Friday in its official blog.

Existing users are already complaining about these plans in comments to the AppJet blog posting. "This is the worst news ever. Google Wave is NOT an alternative to EtherPad. The clean design and, above all, the task specificity of EtherPad makes it vastly superior. I've been using Google Wave for over a month now and it just doesn't compare to the months of wonderful service and growth from EtherPad. Boo," wrote one disenchanted EtherPad user.

Google buys collaboration app to boost Wave

Google acquires AppJet. Maybe Wave will become usable now | VentureBeat

Another take on EtherPad => Wave++

Google seems to believe that Wave is the online application that will eventually replace Microsoft Office. But compared to Office, Wave is messy and hard to figure out. It gets plenty of praise from geeky bloggers, but there’s an axiom that’s often forgotten in the tech world: Geeks like puzzles. Most people don’t.

EtherPad has almost zero puzzle factor to it. Hopefully Google will let AppJet bring that kind of mass-market friendliness to Wave.

Google acquires AppJet. Maybe Wave will become usable now | VentureBeat

Apple to Buy the Music Start-Up Lala - NYTimes.com

Hmm…

Lala, unlike Apple’s iTunes, lets users play the music they own from the Web — or in tech industry parlance, from the cloud. If Apple introduces its own cloud-based streaming music service, it would let people skip having to download music they buy or synchronize their music collection between their computers and mobile devices.

Apple to Buy the Music Start-Up Lala - NYTimes.com

Confirmed: Google Acquires AppJet, The Maker Of EtherPad

Google seeks to advance Wave through acquisition mode

The official EtherPad blog has just been updated confirming the news.

As we reported earlier, we’re hearing that the acquisition price was in the low eight figures. The EtherPad post also says that they will be joining the Google Wave team, which is based out of Australia. CEO Aaron Iba, President & Chief Scientist David Greenspan, CTO J.D. Zamfirescu, and COO Daniel Clemens are all making the trip down under.

Confirmed: Google Acquires AppJet, The Maker Of EtherPad

What if Oracle's buyout of Sun falls through? | The Industry Standard

If Oracle were to walk away (which I consider unlikely), I suspect Cisco would be next in line

But what if Oracle walks away from the Sun buyout rather than accept conditions the EU might impose to protect MySQL? A failure to consummate the buyout would leave Sun in a weakened state but could in fact provide more clarity on the future of the Sun portfolio, said Valdes. Right now, Sun cannot say much about what it is doing, he said. (Oracle's Larry Ellison has stated publicly that he has every intention of completing the Sun buyout. Neither Oracle nor Sun would comment for this story.)

Still, if Oracle does walk away, it's likely Sun would then look for a new buyer rather than try to remain independent, said RedMonk analyst Stephen O'Grady. The recession of 2008-09 hit Sun at the worst possible time, and Oracle provided a safe haven in troubled times when it agreed to buy Sun last April. Since then, Sun's position has gotten worse, so it would still need a rescuer.

What if Oracle's buyout of Sun falls through? | The Industry Standard

Entertainment | Oliver Stone: Greed is legal in 'Wall Street 2' | Seattle Times Newspaper

Sign of the times

Stone just finished filming "Wall Street 2" and dropped a few hints while talking to a class at American University late Wednesday that focuses on his work.

The movie again stars Michael Douglas as corporate raider Gordon Gekko, a character who preached "greed is good" and earned Douglas an Academy Award in 1988. But this time Gekko takes a back seat to what Stone said are today's financial power players.

"The individual Gekko would no longer exist in this new Wall Street," Stone told The Associated Press, referring to the boom before the recent financial meltdown. "The big players now are major banks and hedge funds ... the money's too big."

In the new film, he said, "greed is now legal."

Entertainment | Oliver Stone: Greed is legal in 'Wall Street 2' | Seattle Times Newspaper

Pondering Google’s Move Into the D.N.S. Business - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

More perspectives on Google’s DNS ambitions.  A useful heuristic to consider in this context: what would the press and blogosphere reaction be if Microsoft did something similar?

“Web pages today combine so many resources from different domains across the Internet. You are putting a lot more load on the D.N.S. infrastructure across the Internet, and this can slow down the browsing experience quite a bit,” said Prem Ramaswami, the Google product manager in charge of the new effort. “We are working to make the Web faster. The D.N.S. system today hasn’t really been improved for a while.”

One company that would object to that last statement is OpenDNS, a venture-backed start-up based in San Francisco with a similar product, which has more than 15 million users. In a blog post on Thursday, the company’s founder, David Ulevitch, questioned Google’s motives.

“You have to remember they are also the largest advertising and redirection company on the Internet. To think that Google’s D.N.S. service is for the benefit of the Internet would be naïve,” Mr. Ulevitch wrote. “They know there is value in controlling more of your Internet experience, and I would expect them to explore that fully.”

Pondering Google’s Move Into the D.N.S. Business - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Google wants to unclog Net's DNS plumbing | Deep Tech - CNET News

Public service or privatizing the Internet?…

But what happens in a few years if, for example, Google's DNS service becomes popular and reliable enough that more than a few server admins and command-line aficionados sign up--maybe even a paid service like Google Apps or Postini? Then perhaps Google builds itself into the Net, and something convenient becomes something we depend on. I don't know any other companies that use "don't be evil" as a motto to keep themselves straight, but even if Google doesn't abuse its position, it's smart to think twice about reliance on Google for basic Internet plumbing.

(Credit: Paul Ford)

Google wants to unclog Net's DNS plumbing | Deep Tech - CNET News

Web-TV Divide Is Back in Focus With NBC Sale - NYTimes.com

Interesting times

Comcast, the country’s largest cable operator, has already been using its considerable muscle to limit how many shows are available online, lest people think they can cancel their costly cable subscriptions and watch free online. Now the company — which, if the NBC deal passes government muster, will own a piece of the biggest site that threatens to undercut its core business — is looking for ways to charge for ubiquitous access to shows.

With millions now watching TV on their computers, can the media companies put the Hulu genie back in the bottle?

Web-TV Divide Is Back in Focus With NBC Sale - NYTimes.com

Microsoft, Google Take Online Maps in New Direction: Microsoft Launches Overhaul of Bing Maps Web Site - WSJ.com

A competitive battle with great results for customers

After lagging behind Google Maps, Microsoft this week unveiled an overhaul of its Bing Maps Web site that supplements the traditional bird's eye view of cities and other locations with rich photographs on the ground. In addition to the street-level images pioneered by Google Maps that let people "move" along the roads pictured, Microsoft's technology stitches together images uploaded by users into three-dimensional photo collages. The technology, called Photosynth, lets users post on Bing Maps interior shots of everything from restaurants to museums to hotels.

View Full Image

Microsoft Corp.

Microsoft's new program lets users upload photos to Bing Maps, such as this picture of a gallery inside New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Microsoft technology and similar efforts by Google are further signs that online maps are evolving from a digital version of an atlas into something more akin to a videogame. Both Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., and Google, Mountain View, Calif., are experimenting with a variety of tools that make hunting for locations far more immersive.

Microsoft, Google Take Online Maps in New Direction: Microsoft Launches Overhaul of Bing Maps Web Site - WSJ.com

Comcast-NBC deal raises eyebrows - The Boston Globe

And would “30 Rock” be as much fun if it couldn’t lampoon GE?…

Comcast is already the nation’s leading provider of cable television service with 24 million subscribers and the biggest provider of residential high-speed Internet access with 16 million customers. Critics say it’s dangerous for a single company to have so much control over the production, distribution, and cost of entertainment and information.

Joel Kelsey of the nonprofit Consumers Union wondered whether NBC Universal channels might get preferential treatment on Comcast systems. Comcast could place them in basic service tiers to ensure the largest possible audience, Kelsey said, but rival channels might be consigned to higher-priced tiers, with fewer viewers and less potential for advertising revenues.

Comcast-NBC deal raises eyebrows - The Boston Globe

Salesforce.com gets social - Fortune Brainstorm Tech

Hmm – SAP reportedly competing with Google Wave, and Salesforce.com going social…

Marc Benioff, the man who invented cloud computing at least as much as Al Gore invented the Internet, is pushing a new idea. It's called Chatter, a mashup of Facebook and Twitter for the workplace that his company, Salesforce.com (CRM), plans to begin selling next year.

Salesforce.com gets social - Fortune Brainstorm Tech

Google CEO Eric Schmidt's Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal and BoomTown's Translation | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

Wow – excerpt (and yes, this is from the same WSJ that published the Schmidt editorial; go figure): 

What Schmidt wrote: How Google Can Help Newspapers

Video didn’t kill the radio star, and the Internet won’t destroy news organizations. It will foster a new, digital business model.

By ERIC SCHMIDT

Translation: We come in peace, always. You know, like the freakily calm lady from “V,” who is really a lizard under all that pretty and is actually secretly trying to decide between grilling and broiling all you whiny news people.

Also, you can address me in the future as Emperor Palpatine.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt's Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal and BoomTown's Translation | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

Rocket Software buys Microsoft's Folio, NXT - Mass High Tech Business News

Folio – wow, there’s a blast from the past.  I have to confess I didn’t know Microsoft owned it…

Rocket Software Inc. has acquired two software business units of Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) — Folio and NXT, the Newton-based software developer announced Wednesday.
Rocket will take over new releases and product support for the two products, both enterprise publishing tools. Microsoft acquired Folio with its $1.2 billion acquisition of Norwegian Internet search-engine technology developer Fast Search and Transfer in 2008. NXT is a product the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant developed in-house.

Rocket Software buys Microsoft's Folio, NXT - Mass High Tech Business News

Schmidt: Google can help drowning newspapers if they’ll just stop thrashing | Good Morning Silicon Valley

A newspaper’s take on Schmidt’s take on newspapers…  Schmidt’s full editorial is available without a wsj.com subscription – someone apparently snuck that one past Rupert Murdoch…

In the midst of the latest rhetorical assaults led by News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch against Google and other news aggregators, Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has given an op-ed platform to the search sovereign’s Chief Executive Parasite, Eric Schmidt, for a rebuttal. And in the spirit of the holidays, Schmidt delivered a message of peace and goodwill, asserting once again that Google stands ready to help the newspaper industry in creating digital-age business models — free, freemium, subscription, micropayments, whatever.

Schmidt: Google can help drowning newspapers if they’ll just stop thrashing | Good Morning Silicon Valley

Microsoft Access Team Blog : The Access Show: Managing Access Databases with SharePoint

Check the video on this page for an overview of SharePoint + Access synergy

This is the third episode of The Access Show. Steve Greenberg recently gave a great talk (rated in the top 7 of all sessions) at the SharePoint Developers Conference about how Access 2010 and Access Services enable organizations to provide better oversight of Access development while empowering users. In episode three Steve and Clint walks you through the key points of this hit session.

Microsoft Access Team Blog : The Access Show: Managing Access Databases with SharePoint

Rumor: Apple tablet to have ‘shockingly’ low price point | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

My $.02 on this one:

1.  The Apple tablet will be less expensive than most people currently expect, as it will be subsidized by a content subscription model

2.  It will be available as soon as possible for Apple, as, at the moment, the Amazon Kindle (device + service, including Kindle clients for iPhones, PCs, and soon Macs) is running away with the market

AppleInsider reports that on a recent episode of DiggNation, Alex Albrecht claimed to have insider information on the new Apple tablet, and let slip this tantalizing nugget of rumor: “I was shocked at how cheap the price point is going to be.”

No further information was forthcoming, leaving us free to speculate. The price point has been rumored to range from as low as $500 all the way up to $2000 for a model with an OLED screen. AppleInsider claims to have heard that the device will be released in 1Q 2010.

Rumor: Apple tablet to have ‘shockingly’ low price point | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

FT.com / Media - Microsoft plays down anti-Google search plans

Clarification, following extensive speculation in the press over the last couple weeks

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s senior vice-president for online services, refused to comment directly on talks with News Corp, but said that Bing was not looking to get a leg-up on Google by securing preferential access to information.

“That’s not at all a focus for us,” he said, adding: “We generally are not focused on getting non-Google content.”

He also said that keeping information off Google was “not the thing that would be a benefit to us in the long run”.

FT.com / Media - Microsoft plays down anti-Google search plans

Bing Maps Rolls Out Enhanced Aerial and Street-Level Views

Check the full article for details

Bing Maps has overhauled its experience to better reflect how people are using the Web to complete tasks and make decisions. The new Bing Maps Beta adds an immersive new viewing mode and an “application gallery” to further enhance its virtual perspective of the world, Microsoft announced Wednesday.

Bing Maps now offers a Streetside and enhanced aerial view, giving users the ability to explore what’s around them from the street level or from the sky looking down.

Bing Maps Rolls Out Enhanced Aerial and Street-Level Views: Bing Maps is launching features that give users a new view of the planet, including a Streetside and enhanced aerial view. The new features incorporate key Microsoft research and technology such as Photosynth and Silverlight.

Wolfram Alpha Teaches You Math, One Step at a Time - Wolfram Alpha - Lifehacker

Pretty cool…

Wolfram Alpha may be a data geek's dream, but if you're not all that interested in its more obscure uses, here's one thing we could all use a little help with: step-by-step math calculations.

Just enter in the equation you want solved (say, for example, Solve 2x3 - 6.543x = x2, then click the Show steps link to see how you could solve the problem yourself next time without the help of Wolfram Alpha. It'll then walk you through all the steps necessary to reach your answer. TI-85, eat your heart out.

Wolfram Alpha Teaches You Math, One Step at a Time - Wolfram Alpha - Lifehacker

Why You Should Upload Documents to Office Web Apps via SkyDrive

Check the full message and consider the possibility that you should use Office Web Apps instead of Google Docs…

Do you use Microsoft Office programs for creating documents and then use Google Docs to edit these documents online or as an offsite backup?

Well, now that Office 2010 and Office Web Apps are available under public beta for free, here are some reasons why you should consider uploading documents, presentations and spreadsheets into Office Web Apps via Windows Live SkyDrive in addition to your Google Docs account.

Why You Should Upload Documents to Office Web Apps via SkyDrive

A Clueless AOL Yet Again... A Ridiculous Content Strategy - SVW

More AOL (er, Aol.) perspectives

How will AOL's system improve the monetization of content? Freelancers will be expected to produce content for free and then get paid later. Will they receive more money than if they published the content themselves and used AdSense to monetize it? That's clearly the promise.

But why would advertisers pay more to advertise on the AOL platform if they can use an ad network such as AdSense and advertise next to similar content? And they wouldn't need to become involved in the creation of content, as in the AOL approach.

It doesn't make sense.

A Clueless AOL Yet Again... A Ridiculous Content Strategy - SVW

Technology Review: FTC explores future of journalism in Internet age

Newspaper headlines today…

The federal government is wading into deliberations over the future of journalism as printed newspapers, television stations and other traditional media outlets suffer from Americans' growing reliance on the Internet.
With the media business in a state of economic distress as audiences and advertisers migrate online, the Federal Trade Commission began a two-day workshop Tuesday to examine the profound challenges facing media companies and explore ways the government can help them survive.

Technology Review: FTC explores future of journalism in Internet age

FT.com / Media - News groups open new online front

A timely snapshot – check the full story for details (assuming you haven’t hit your monthly quota of free Financial Times stories yet…)

The US news industry opened a new front on Monday in its battle to find a better online business model, with the publication of a study intended to arm publishers in their attempts to make allies out of former foes such as Google, Yahoo and AOL.

The Fair Syndication Consortium, a group of more than 1,500 newspaper publishers, said a month-long study of how news spread across the internet found that the average American newspaper story was being copied 4.4 times in full or in part by unauthorised websites.

FT.com / Media - News groups open new online front

Google Gears Is Dead; Long Live HTML 5.0 - Reviews by PC Magazine

Check the full story for more details

Google will let its Gears offline utility essentially languish as it attempts to move the Web forward into HTML 5.0, Google executives said Monday.

According to Linus Upson, the engineering director at Google, Gears' time has come and gone. The technology will be supported for compatibility's sake, but not improved upon.

"Yes, we are not driving forward in any meaningful way [on Gears]," Upson said in an interview. "We are continuing to maintain it, so that applications

Google Gears Is Dead; Long Live HTML 5.0 - Reviews by PC Magazine

Google to Let Publishers Set Limits - WSJ.com

Hmm…

Google Inc. said Tuesday it will let publishers set a daily limit on the number of articles readers can view for free through the Internet giant's search engine.

The change, which will let publishers limit readers to five free articles per day, comes as news executives step up their war of words against Google, which they claim is pocketing advertising profits on the back of their free content.

Google to Let Publishers Set Limits - WSJ.com

Gartner to pay $64M for AMR Research - Mass High Tech Business News

More consolidation in the industry analyst market

Technology-focused research firm Gartner Inc. says it plans to acquire Boston-based AMR Research Inc. for approximately $64 million in cash. AMR also has a tech focus, more narrowly aimed at the supply chain management part of the information technology field.

Gartner to pay $64M for AMR Research - Mass High Tech Business News

SAP readies potential rival to Google Wave | Cloud Computing - InfoWorld

Interesting times…

SAP is planning to release a "virtual war room" decision-making tool dubbed Constellation, which could be a potential rival to Google's heralded Wave collaboration platform.

Constellation will consist of a cloud-based tool accessible via a Web browser, as well as an on-premises component, SAP official David Meyer said during a private webinar conducted recently for a group of SAP "mentors," the company's term for particularly active and valued community members.

SAP readies potential rival to Google Wave | Cloud Computing - InfoWorld

AOL's dumb plan to mimic the universe's worst news site. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine

Looks like information entropy is on the rise…

The trouble with AOL's plan, then, isn't that it's based on data-mining. Instead, it's what the company will likely do with search data—publish quick, vapid posts that do little to advance any hot story and instead feed readers a collection of factoids gathered from other places. How do we know this will happen? Because AOL's model is strikingly similar to that of Demand Media and Associated Content, two start-ups that also use search data and user contributions to build Web content. Indeed, AOL's Armstrong—who was an advertising executive at Google until earlier this year—is reportedly an investor in Associated Content, whose CEO is also a former Googler.

AOL's dumb plan to mimic the universe's worst news site. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine#p2#p2#p2#p2#p2#p2#p2

Gangs in New York talk Twitter: Use tweets to trash-talk rivals, plan fights

Strange days indeed (via Slatest)

The city's street gangs are becoming tweet gangs.

Manhattan's young thugs have turned to Twitter, and the cops who track them are fast behind, the Daily News has learned.

It's old-school crime meets new technology: attacks being plotted - and thwarted - 140 characters at a time.

Gangs in New York talk Twitter: Use tweets to trash-talk rivals, plan fights

Darpa Puts On Contest to Find 10 Red Balloons Across U.S. - NYTimes.com

At least it's not 99 red balloons...

The prize is $40,000, and it goes to the first person or group to determine the locations of 10 red balloons that can be anywhere in the continental United States.

The apparent frivolity of the challenge is only on the surface. This is not a game invented by some eccentric Web Midas. The contest, which takes place on Dec. 5, is being sponsored by Darpa, the Pentagon’s research agency.

The goal is to learn more about social behavior in computer networks and how large computer-connected teams use their resources and connections to compete.

Darpa Puts On Contest to Find 10 Red Balloons Across U.S. - NYTimes.com