Why Sergey Brin May Have Disclosed His Risk for Parkinson’s - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Open-source your DNA... (and, double-bonus, promote your spouse's start-up)

Mr. Brin declined to be interviewed. But my colleague Allen Salkin had some insights into one of Mr. Brin’s possible motives. Allen chatted with Mr. Brin at a New York party on Sept. 9 to promote 23andMe, the DNA-testing company of which Mr. Brin’s wife, Anne Wojcicki, is a co-founder. During their conversation, Mr. Brin said it could be useful to have one’s DNA code open to the public, where it could follow a sort of open-source model. If his data was public, he said, doctors — or anyone who was interested — could look at his results and make suggestions about how he should handle them, offering treatment suggestions if it showed he might be susceptible to a disease.

Why Sergey Brin May Have Disclosed His Risk for Parkinson’s - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Second shuttle readied in case Hubble repair ship needs rescue

Yikes

On top of the usual launch and landing dangers, the Atlantis crew faces an estimated 1-in-185 chance that a piece of space junk or a micrometeoroid will cause catastrophic damage to their ship. Those are greater odds than for a typical shuttle flight because of Hubble's extremely high and debris-littered orbit. Before reaching Hubble and again after leaving it, the Atlantis astronauts will inspect their spacecraft for signs of damage, just as crews always do while in orbit.

Second shuttle readied in case Hubble repair ship needs rescue

Cisco to Buy Instant-Message Start-Up - WSJ.com

Interesting times in the communication/collaboration market...

The San Jose, Calif., computer networking company is betting that business users will want the tools it is acquiring to work on, share and store files in a virtual "work room," where they can collaborate on projects and communicate over the Internet.

Cisco believes such tools, dubbed the "collaboration" market, can be a $34 billion industry. Other players in the market are Microsoft Corp. and International Business Machines Corp.

"Make no mistake, we are playing to win in the [collaboration space]," said John Chambers, Cisco's chief executive and chairman during the company's analyst day Tuesday.

Cisco to Buy Instant-Message Start-Up - WSJ.com

Obama supports U.S. economic recovery efforts | Reuters

Looks like Wall Street agrees with Obama this week

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said on Friday he supported efforts by the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve to shore up confidence in the financial markets and said he would hold off from presenting his own economic recovery plan.

"The events of the last few days have made it clear that we must take further bold and decisive action to shore up confidence in our financial markets and avoid a deepening economic crisis that could jeopardize the life savings and well-being of millions of Americans," Obama said in a statement.

Meanwhile, from a Reuters article titled "McCain's Financial Fall Guy: Foresight or Folly?", we find:

"He chose the wrong scapegoat," said James Cox, a professor of corporate and securities law at Duke University who is not related to the SEC chairman.

"It shows a profound ignorance of something (McCain) ought to know about being in Washington, and that is the limited regulatory authority of the SEC."

Obama supports U.S. economic recovery efforts | Reuters

Cisco scoops up Jabber | The Open Road - The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay - CNET News

Cisco increases its bet on communication/collaboration -- while this was probably a small deal relative to Cisco acquisition norms, it's going to have significant ramifications for the IM and presence awareness markets.

In a sign that open source has truly gone mainstream, Cisco Systems forgot to mention that Jabber is an open-source messaging company when it announced the acquisition of Jabber on Friday.

Indeed, the real news centers around Cisco's growing battle with Microsoft over collaboration, as Larry Dignan points out over at ZDNet. Open source? That's just necessary plumbing, apparently. Indeed, even Jabber hardly mentions open source throughout its Web site, preferring instead to focus on "open standards."

See this Cisco press release for more details.

Cisco scoops up Jabber | The Open Road - The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay - CNET News

vowe dot net :: What do you think Lotus will be doing?

More Volker-channeled community input for IBM Lotus -- check the comments on the full post 

What do you think, Lotus can really do if they try? Or what do you think they will do?

I will give you some that I think they will not do:

1. Lotus will not make Domino their primary development platform for new application. I have a couple of reasons to believe that. Go to the research lab at Lotusphere and see how these guys build stuff. And then look at the software development in IBM Software Group. Lifecycle management, development tools, etc.
2. Lotus will not greatly simplify to a few products. Why? Because some things cannot be thrown in because they are owned by more than one brand. Those products have to stand on their own. Or on more general terms: every product has to stand on their own.

Earlier in the series:

• What is Notes' core strength?
• What is Notes' core weakness?
• It’s the applications that keep the product alive (on Bob Balaban's)
• What would you do, if you were in charge of Lotus?

vowe dot net :: What do you think Lotus will be doing?

Google snags 63 percent of searches in August - Boston.com

Hmm -- this may not help Google's case for partnering with Yahoo

Google accounted for 63 percent of searches by U.S. surfers in August, up from 61.9 percent in July and 56.5 percent in August last year.

The increase came at the expense of the second- and third-largest players in the market, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

Yahoo's share fell to 19.6 percent from 20.5 percent in July and 23.3 percent a year ago.

Microsoft's share was 8.3 percent, down from 8.9 percent in July and 11.3 percent a year ago.

Google snags 63 percent of searches in August - Boston.com

Amazon Enters the File-Shipping Business - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

More from the multifaceted Amazon.com

With the new service, which is only in private trials at the moment, Amazon will distribute customers’ files across its data centers in the United States, Europe and Asia. Ideally, people will be able to download the files from computing systems located near them and get the information quicker.

Current Amazon customers can accomplish much the same via the existing Simple Storage Service or S3. The new service, Amazon says, will make it easier for customers to distribute their files to a diverse set of data centers, improving performance.

Amazon Enters the File-Shipping Business - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

How Many Web Services Can One Person Use? - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

A timely reality check

How many more new social networking or micro-blogging or video-sharing site can one person use? Most of us don’t have time to respond to voice mail and e-mail every day, let alone check our Twitter updates and Facebook accounts and Flickr friends. And even if we have the time, do we need another site that helps us share and connect and network?

This problem is just under the surface at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York this week. Just a few years ago, it was easy for start-ups that provide Web services to attract early adopters — the tech geeks who are the first to use new technologies. The challenge was attracting mainstream users. But now, even the early adopters are stretched thin.

How Many Web Services Can One Person Use? - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Social engineering cracked Palin's e-mail account | News - Security - CNET News

Check the full post for more details

Like most Web account services, Yahoo Mail provides an option to reset or recover one's user name and password. What is unclear is how the account recovery was rerouted from the alternative e-mail address chosen by Palin to a secondary e-mail address.

When Yahoo Mail prompted for Palin's birthday, one poster said it took only 15 seconds on Wikipedia to answer that question. When it prompted for ZIP code, Wasilla, Ala., has only two ZIP Codes. As for Palin's personal security question "Where did you meet your spouse?" that did slow the process down. The poster claimed it took several tries but eventually hit upon the correct answer: Wasilla High.

Social engineering cracked Palin's e-mail account | News - Security - CNET News

Google is the new Microsoft | Open Source | ZDNet.com

I mostly just liked the logo...

Some time in the last 12 months Google became the new Microsoft, the company everyone want to hate and the trust busters want to investigate.

Its “jump the shark” moment seems to have been its deal with Yahoo.

Google is the new Microsoft | Open Source | ZDNet.com

Oracle’s Income Rose 29% in Quarter - NYTimes.com

Impressive...

The database and business software maker reported first-quarter revenue rose 18 percent to $5.3 billion, compared with $4.53 billion in the quarter a year ago. The sale of new software licenses, a closely watched measure, rose 14 percent, and revenue from software license updates and product support was $2.94 billion, an increase of 23 percent. Larry Ellison, the chief executive, focused on the company’s market share gains. “Oracle’s 49 percent market share in the survey year 2007 was greater than the market share of the next four vendors combined: I.B.M., Microsoft, Teradata and Sybase,” he said in a statement.

Oracle’s Income Rose 29% in Quarter - NYTimes.com

Barack Obama | Change We Need | Barack Economy Video

I continue to be very impressed with the Obama campaign's use of information technology -- and its policies/platform, of course.   Check out the latest economy video.

Watch Barack's video on our economy

The economy hit a new low this week, and people are feeling it in every corner of the country.

Meanwhile, John McCain is offering nothing but distractions and distortions.

Watch this video and help get the conversation back on track.

Barack Obama | Change We Need | Barack Economy Video

BBC NEWS | UK | Text driving 'worse than drink'

See the full article for more details

The RAC Foundation found average reaction times slowed by 35% when 17 to 24-year-olds drove in a simulator while writing or reading texts.

Nearly 50% of drivers aged between 18 and 24 texted while driving, it said.

Previous studies had found reactions were 21% slower among those who had taken cannabis and 12% slower among those who had drunk to the legal limit.

BBC NEWS | UK | Text driving 'worse than drink'

Technology Review: Making Money from Social Ties

Had to happen sooner or later...

Social networks might be popular, but the industry is struggling to find a way to turn all those users into a big payday. This conundrum is the focus of industry executives gathered at the Social Ad Summit in New York this week, and while no company has yet found the perfect solution, advertising campaigns that make far better use of social-network functionality are starting to offer hope of richer returns.

According to Michael Lazerow, founder of social-advertising company Buddy Media, 37 percent of adult Internet users (and 70 percent of teens) in the United States use social-networking sites regularly. Meanwhile, less than 1 percent of all digital-advertising budgets currently flows to social-media sites.

Technology Review: Making Money from Social Ties

Look, Ma, No Hardware: Cisco’s Virtual Switch - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Hmm...

Cisco Systems has found a way around all that bothersome metal and plastic used to make its networking gear. The company has concocted a virtual switch that it’s selling in tandem with VMware, the leader in virtualization software and a close Cisco partner.

The Cisco Nexus 1000V is a curious device because it’s not a device at all. Instead, the virtual switch, due to ship in the first half of next year, uses software to handle many of the networking and security functions found in Cisco’s standard hardware.

Look, Ma, No Hardware: Cisco’s Virtual Switch - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Advertising - Echoing the Campaign of a Rival, Microsoft Aims to Redefine ‘I’m a PC’ - NYTimes.com

The gloves are -- finally -- off

The campaign, which begins Thursday and carries the theme “Windows. Life without walls,” will move away from the enigmatic teaser commercials that featured Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld in offbeat conversations about shopping, shoes, suburbia and the potential of computing to improve life. The teaser ads have generated considerable discussion since they started on Sept. 4, not all of it positive.

What follows is an audacious embrace of the disdainful label that Apple, Microsoft’s rival, has gleefully — and successfully — affixed onto users of Microsoft products: “I’m a PC.”

Advertising - Echoing the Campaign of a Rival, Microsoft Aims to Redefine ‘I’m a PC’ - NYTimes.com

Hackers leak e-mails from Palin account - The Boston Globe

She'd apparently fit in well with the current White House anything-but-accountable email policy...

Hackers broke into the Yahoo! e-mail account that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin used for official business as Alaska's governor, revealing as evidence a few inconsequential personal messages she has received since John McCain selected her as his running mate.

[...]

The disclosure raises new questions about the propriety of the Palin administration's use of nongovernment e-mail accounts to conduct state business. The practice was revealed months ago - prior to Palin's selection as a vice presidential candidate - after political critics obtained internal e-mails documenting the practice by some aides.

Hackers leak e-mails from Palin account - The Boston Globe

Cambridge IBM facility to focus on social links - The Boston Globe

See the full article for more details

IBM Corp. is setting up a research center in Cambridge to develop better ways for businesses to use social networking software.

"It's something that can have worldwide impact," said Irene Greif, director of IBM's new Center for Social Software.

The move represents a further commitment by IBM to invest in Massachusetts, where the company already employs about 5,000 workers. An IBM spokeswoman said the company will probably hire additional workers to staff the center, but did not say how many jobs might be created.

Cambridge IBM facility to focus on social links - The Boston Globe

McCain BlackBerry Easily Connects With Gore Internet - washingtonpost.com

Not a happy press week for the McCain campaign

Holtz-Eakin's gaffe was soon followed by another from Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard and a senior McCain adviser.

Asked on KTRS Radio in St. Louis whether she thinks Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin "has the experience to run a major company, like Hewlett-Packard," Fiorina answered directly.

"No, I don't," Fiorina responded. "But you know what? That's not what she's running for."

I guess she should know, since HP's board concluded the same thing about her.

Meanwhile, on the "Al Gore invented the Internet" theme and the bizarre "joke" about McCain inventing the Blackberry, check out this Wikipedia article to learn about Gore's numerous and substantive contributions to the development of the commercial Internet.  The residual controversy in this context is a timely reminder of how deeply damaging the culture of cynical slime fostered by Karl Rove et al can become.

McCain BlackBerry Easily Connects With Gore Internet - washingtonpost.com