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The demise of the podcast

Silicon Valley Sleuth seems to have an ally in The Boston Phoenix in his non-understanding of the podcasting hype.

Author Dan Kennedy takes a closer look at the phenomenon, and in particular at the "inventor" of the podcast Adam Curry. Kennedy refers to another article about podcasting in Wired magazine, in which Curry shows the Wired reporter how a podcast is made. "You see how easy it is to fill up 10 minutes of MP3 space?" he says. "We just did 10 minutes. It’s easy. It’s easy. And people eat this shit up."

Kennedy remains civil about Curry's show: "it can be somewhat less compelling than its host might wish." But let's face it. It's boring as hell.

December 30, 2004 at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hoax and Google don't mix

Running a good hoax was just plain fun in the age of the no frills website. But it's no joking matter in the era of the weblogs, Alek Komarnitsky found out.

The computer specialist from Denver claimed to allow internet visitors to control the lights in his Christmas tree. In reality, he just used different photos that were supposed to pass for webcam pictures.

You have to give the guy kudos for the extent to which he took his little scam. The Associated Press wrote: "To make it seem even more real, he would sometimes add an image of a person or a car driving by in the Web cam "shot" looking at the lights. He would even add computer-generated low-flying planes because an airport was near his home."

Komarnitsky finally decided to come clean, telling the Wall Street Journal that it had gotten "a little out of hand."

But in the age of Google ads, it turns out that Komarnitsky is in more trouble than he counted on. He ran Google ads on his webpage, and neither Google nor the advertisers are amused. "Finding out he's making a buck off of something that costs us a buck, it's not very cool," Paul McLellan, general manager of Minneapolis-based ServiceLighting.com told AP.

December 30, 2004 at 08:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Triple play is for losers. Observe the quadruple play

Queue the Carmina Burana. Time Warner Cable is on the verge of entering the mobile phone market, reports the Wall Street Journal. (paid subscription)

Hit play now. Turn up the volume. Hear the music reach its climax while your neighbours go crazy.

Adding mobile phone service to their product line up makes Time Warner the only US operator that has the quadruple play: a combination of traditional and wireless telephony, television and internet access. The deal will make Time Warner the only company to reach the fourth stage of playfulness, the holiest of the holiest in the world of the telecommunications.

The brave citizens of Kansas City will be the first to feast on the bundled services, some time in early 2005. Sprint will provide the Time Warner Cable branded mobile service.

Combining several services gives consumers the benefit of a single invoice and a single helpdesk to threaten when things go wrong. Operators often offer discounts to customers who subscribe to more than one service.

Carriers expect that customers that subscribe to several services are less likely to switch providers. They also are cheaper to manage and increase the revenue per customer.

December 30, 2004 at 08:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Maybe we should have stuck to Craig Conway

Duffield must have longed for a quiet Christmas, because on 21 December the Peoplesoft CEO resigned.
In his three month tenure he succeeded at getting a higher price for the company: $10.3 bn instead of the $9.3 bn Oracle initially offered. Peoplesoft disclosed the news in single phrase in a SEC filing that IDG News took home for some bedtime reading.

Duffield founded Peoplesoft in 1987 and stepped down in May 1999. Conway was at the helm between 1999 and October 2004.

Conway ferociously battled the hostile takeover bid by Oracle. He was fired after the board of directors lost faith in him. Soon after he left, Oracle and Peoplesoft inked that deal that made all of Conway's efforts useless.

In related news, Oracle on Wednesday gained a controlling 75 percent stake in Peoplesoft.

December 30, 2004 at 08:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An Apple computer for the low low price of $499?

There is more than just CES in Las Vegas on the horizon. The first week of January may be the one for consumer electronics, the second one traditionally is Apple's with MacWorld in San Francisco. And as it goes with any big Apple event, the rumour mills are working overtime.

Most baseless gossips point to Apple launching a flash memory based iPod. But the folks at Think Secret claim Apple has more surprises up its sleeve and plans to unveil a sub $500 iMac computer.

The device won't include a monitor and features a 1.25 Ghz G4 processor and the acclaimed (and void of computer viruses and worms) OS X operating system. For the project that's codenamed Q88 Apple will abandon its strategy of including the display in the computer case, putting the computer hardware in a 1.75 inch high computer case instead.

We'll find out if there is any truth in these speculations in two weeks.

December 30, 2004 at 07:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eight tips to get through the holidays

If you're even somewhat of a computer geek, chances are that the holiday season marks your annual rite of computer related help requests from friends, in-laws and family. For all you amateur IT helpdesk staffers, Ross Mayfield has 8 tops to make your life a little easier. Mayfield is CEO of Socialtext, a startup that does something exotic called "Enterprise Social Software".

The red line in his advice: keep it simple, stupid! Kill all software that's known for its security issues and/or complexity: use a Mac, switch to FireFox and abandon Outlook for webmail.

His final piece of advice (Don't set them up with a blog) goes further than just this one over-hyped technology. Don't shove some cool technology down your friends throats just because you think it's cool or usefull. Technology is here to make life easier. Tech for the sake of tech was something of the last millennium.

December 29, 2004 at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Techies answer the call of the ice cream truck

Is an area known for its innovative ideas and entrepreneurship falling for the surrogate thing? The rising interest for setting up franchise retail stores in the Silicon Valley area such as Baskin-Robbins certainly points in that direction.

Seventy five percent of the entrepreneurs seeking to buy into a franchise formula in the San Francisco Bay Area have a background in technology, according to FranNet, a franchise consulting group.

The laid of tech workers have lost faith in the job security of big corporations and hope that there is a better future in being self-employed. "[The entrepreneurs] choose franchises because it's a proven system. They're given training and a formula for succes,'' FranNet president Joan Young told The San Jose Mercury News.

Running a franchise retail store offers some middle ground between founding a new company and old-fashioned employment. In a sense, the franchise is entrepreneurship for dummies. Is dummy-filled Silicon Valley next?

December 29, 2004 at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Christmas present for hackers

That new PC that you got for Christmas is a gift not just for you, warns Wired. Hackers consider the holidays their prime hunting season because computer users are so eager to start using their new toys that they forget to put the proper protections in place.

Hacker attacks start picking up around Thanksgiving, claims Wired, with the extra activity continuing through the Christmas season.

Especially first time computer users are an easy prey for hackers, attracting all the scams on the market from phising attacks to spammers selling pen!$ enhancement pills.

December 29, 2004 at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The year of the voip

Here something that's bound to surprise you: you're not the only one who's fed up with the service from you telephony monopolist. Therefore, 2005 will become the year of Voice over IP telephone, predicts the San Jose Mercury News in its predictions of the hot techs for next years.

The number of US VoIP customers is set to reach 2 million next year, allowing for the technology to grow beyond its current geek audience.

December 28, 2004 at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tech strikes back

Although the geeks in Silicon Valley never realised that technology wasn't, the online publication Salon.com declared 2004 the year technology became cool again.

Presidential hopeful Howard Dean proved that the internet can be a powerful tool in mobilising your constituents and collecting campaign donations. Google proved that investors can still act as mindless lemmings when a hot technology stock comes around. Camera phones proved to be still completely useless, but nonetheless are nice toys to create a moblog. Don't forget WiFi as the technology that enabled all of us to stay online while we are sipping at our $4 cups of coffee at Starbucks.

December 28, 2004 at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How SP2 caught Microsoft by surprise

Was Service Pack 2 the result of a great vision by Microsoft to make the Windows XP operating system more secure? Forget about it. The massive software update only slowly evolved into its final massive form. "The initial vision was, we were going to enable the firewall, and we were going to ship it," Todd Wanke, Group Program Manager for Microsoft told SuperSite. The project should have taken but a few months.

The group interview with several of the SP2 development team members offers an interesting inside look at how the most important service pack in Microsoft's history came into existence; how enabling the firewall set in motion a domino of broken applications and forced the developers to add more and more functionalities to the update; how the work on SP2 derailed the development timeline for Longhorn.

The project was exhausting, and he would never again do anything similar, swore Wanke. "Absolutely not. No, I'm not sure what I'm going to do next, but I won't do this again."

December 28, 2004 at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

iTunes has no future

iTunes is polishing the brass on the Titanic, argues Leigh Marriner, Leader of the Technology Studio with Cheskin. The Silicon Valley firm does strategic marketing research for companies ranging from Microsoft to HP and Coca Cola.

The future in digital music is in all-you-can-eat plans that charge a monthly subscription fee, claims the research outlet. "Our research shows that many adults who consider music an important part of their life love to discover new music and share it with their friends – and what better way than having unlimited access to a library of 900,00 songs on Napster, Rhapsody, etc," Marriner writes on Cheskin's blog.

I tend to agree, but no consumer is ready to spend $10 per month for unlimited access if peer to peer gets him a similar selection for free.

December 28, 2004 at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tsunami blogging here after all

Although one analyst was "a little disappointed" about the reports from the blogosphere about the tsunami last Sunday, overall webloggers did what they were expected to do, says The New York Times (free registration).

The sites however were hard to find at first and some face bandwidth issues due to high traffic. Some firsthand reports about the disaster can be found on Samankumar.com and Evelyn Rodriguez' blog and VB Blogs.

Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble on Sunday said that The mainstream press kicked the blogosphere's a##, and took someflack for it.

December 28, 2004 at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you don't need Microsoft's money, can we have it?

A paltry 750,000 of my fellow Californians have filed a claim with Microsoft to get some of the $1.1 bn that the software company promised to pay in a legal settlement.

In total 14 million people qualified for the settlement. Anyone who still wants to make a quick buck should hurry: time runs out on January 8.

The deal was designed to undo the grave injustice that was done to the people of California by evil monopolistic schemes of the software company from way up north.

Settelment Recovery Center, the company responsible for managing the settlement claims, promises as much as $150 per user for companies or consumers who have upgraded their Windows and Office software twice between 1995 and 2001. But they aren't as nice chaps as they claim to be.

The company has a good reason to urge Californians not to miss out on this hand out: it will be paid a 20 to 30 percent fee of any settlement paid out.

Hoping to tag on with the holiday spirit, the company on 16 December asked a San Francisco Superior Court Judge to allow people to donate the money to charity. It sounds like a kind thing to do, but in the end is just aimed at persuading more consumers to join in on the claim, which makes SRC more money.

The feeling of foul play is strengthened by the fact that SRC conveniently fails to mention what will happen with the funds that remain unclaimed: two thirds of it shall be donated to local schools as vouchers that they can use to buy hardware or software. But that of course will leave SRC out of the profit-taking loop.

I have kindly declined SRC's offer. It's not that SV Sleuth can't use a few dimes in extra pocket money during the holiday season, but I feel that SRC's offer has a stench hanging around it. Besides, I only moved to the golden state in fall 2001.

December 27, 2004 at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Craig the monopoly slayer

In Silicon Valley, we get up with Craig Newmark and go to bed with him. His Craigslist.org classified advertisements website get us our used cars, apartments, jobs, dates and nights out. The service started in San Francisco in 1994 and has since expanded to much of the US and a few European cities including London, Manchester and Dublin.

The service takes away $50 to $65 mln in revenues from newspapers in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley area alone, according to a study by Classified Intelligence. And that's just in lost revenues in the field of job vacancy ads, a market that used to be a certain revenue stream for newspapers.

Craigslist charges $75 for an ad to run one week. A similar ad in a newspaper (either print or online) cost about $700, the researchers said.

Newmark's site is the Network Effect at work: visitors flock to the service because it has all the ads, advertisers come there for the visitors. Add superior customer service to the mix. And of course it also helps that the service is free for anything but job vacancies in all but the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Craigslist is giving the traditional media a run for their money, and in the process succeeds at being a nice guy. Who cares that he kills a monopoly here and there in the process?

December 27, 2004 at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

RSS for the masses

An article on Forbes about RSS has the blogosphere cheering. Although the article is your typical example of mainstream media claiming to have discovered a trend that in reality has been ongoing for months, at least it brings the technology under the eyes of a broad audience. It fails however to bring any new insights or tell something we didn't know already.

RSS (Real Simple Syndication or RDF Site Summary, depending on who you ask) of course is the XML-based syndication technology that started a second youth after the rise of weblogs and RSS readers.

The examples Forbes uses are stale and fail to tell anything new. Forbes.com offers 43 different RSS feeds. Big deal.

Craigslist gives users the option to create a custom RSS feed based on a search so you can easily find your dream apartment or car without constantly having to go to the Craigslist website. A neat feature indeed, but hardly new.

Your Silicon Valley Sleuth is addicted to his RSS reader and has been evangelising the use of those applications among his friends. But apart from news junkies, few people seem to have caught the RSS virus. Given the lack of useful content, I don't blame them.

We need new applications for RSS to truly catch on. I would love my bank and credit card company to offer a custom RSS feed that allows me to track my account activity – especially now that identity theft is a big issue in the US. The technology to deliver these data to my desktop in a secure manner is there, we just need the banks to adapt.

I'd like Forbes.com to offer RSS feeds that allows me to put in place filters, so I only get columns about RSS and e-commerce, or by a certain writer, or whatever I can think of.

Send custom advertisements to my RSS reader, so I can read them when I want and so they won't clog up my mailbox. Because I'll still be interested in a good deal, provided I get the offer when I need it.

What applications for RSS would you like to see?

December 27, 2004 at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Contentless UK gaming device readies itself for US market

As Gizmondo is contemplating to invade the US with its wireless gaming device, it might very well pick CES in Las Vegas in early January as its venue of choice, argues The Register.

Gizmondo is one of those devices that we'd all like to own until we take a closer look. The gadget combines portable gaming with things like GPS navigation and mobile messaging. The main item inside the Gizmondo software portfolio however is some tumbleweed that rolls around freely between the four gaming titles that are currently available.

Running Windows CE, the relation between the Farnborough based company and Microsoft is close and getting closer. Microsoft has promised to port over a few of its software titles to the portable platform. And as a thank you gift for its commitment to the Win CE platform, Gizmondo has been awarded a spot in the Microsoft booth at CES to show off the device to the masses.

Connect the dots and the next logical step, argues El Reg, would be an acquisition by the software juggernaut, after which the Gizmondo device should be rebranded Xbox Portable.

Such a deal makes sense on a higher level. It would give Gizmondo some much required credibility and Microsoft an entry into the mobile gaming market where it (once again) is trailing Nintendo and Sony. There is however as much proof for this acquisition as there is for a takeover of Apple by IBM.

copied from vnunet.com's CES weblog.

December 27, 2004 at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So far for citizen journalism

As the images of the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Asia poor in, the blogsphere remains quiet notes Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble.

The Wikipedia news beta doesn't even mention the major disaster. It's the major news media that seem to be doing all the news reporting.

Aparantly "citizen journalism" still has a long way to.

December 26, 2004 at 09:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The IT-system that stole Christmas

Handing its traveller loyalty program a new challenge, a crash of Comair's IT system that assigns crews to flights on Saturday caused 30,000 US travellers to miss Christmas. The IT mess forced the Delta airlines subsidiary to cancel all of its 1,100 flights on Saturday. Today (Sunday) the company expects only limited flight activity while the mop crews are going through the data centre.

The cause can be summarised as:
winter storms = run out of de-icer fluid on Thursday = flight cancellations = rescheduling nightmare = IT overload.

Stranded passengers won't get to their final destination until Monday.

Similar problems caused US Airways passengers to spend the Holidays without their luggage.

In a move that could only have sprouted from the evil mind of the boss from the Dilbert comic, the airline offered Shirley Malave a $50 stipend to buy clothing after she arrived in Tampa, Florida without her bags on a US Airways flight. All stores of course we closed on Saturday for Christmas. "They ruined everybody's Christmas," sobbed Malave to the AP reporter.

December 26, 2004 at 03:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google this!

Why does Google AdWorks work? Because it delivers relevant ads with searches. Since the US drug authority FDA is scrutinizing the arthritis drug Celebrex, the price for the "Celebrex" keyword on AdWorks quadroupled to $4.02, reports CBS Marketwatch.

The advertisers? Liability lawyers who are hoping to file lawsuits against the producer of the drug.

December 24, 2004 at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Go security, young men!

Ranks of security experts will swell to 2.1 million by 2008,
predicts research firm IDC, boiling down to 14 pct compound growth rate. The industry currently employs 1.3 million people.

In the understatement of the week, James Wade with the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium told IDG News that information security "is beginning to be recognized more broadly as an enterprisewide area."

December 24, 2004 at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Train your brain

Robert Scoble isn't known for this business knowledge, but the Microsoft paid blogger (and one of the best know bloggers in the IT world) takes a shot at becoming a business guru with his Predictions for 2005.

Although Scoble represents the new, less aggressive Microsoft, he has his clear favourites in some of Microsoft's technology and has a certain dislike for anything Apple.

Among the sheer propaganda ("Microsoft will be more interesting at the end of 2005 than at the beginning. And, in a year that just saw the launch of Halo 2, that's saying something"), but he has some clear and insightful ideas about corporate blogging.

December 24, 2004 at 09:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google lashes out at whiner

Spending a few bucks on something that doesn't make the company any money, Google employs a graphical artist who does regular customisations of its logo for all kinds of holidays. For the current Christmas season, he has a theme going with polar bears decorating the logo in the snow.

One visitor took the effort to write an email to the search giant, complaining about the factual inconsistencies in the storyline. " I am curious as to how the larger polar bear learned, over a period of a few days, how to roll blobs of snow in almost perfect spheres," moans the anonymous reader.

In its reply, Google strikes back without mercy. "Dude, [...] in the interim of time which elapsed since we began this response, our attitude toward you, dear correspondent, has segued from righteous indignation at your illogical attack on our graphic designer to warm-hearted gratitude that you cared enough to write to us in the first place."

It's a form of corporate communications we wouldn't mind seeing more often.

December 24, 2004 at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After we reinvented the web, we'll reinvent e-mail

AOL, the company that used to base its business model on the idea that it should do the thinking for its customers because they are too stupid to do it for themselves, will bring that same brilliant ease of use to email, claims Cnet.

The news site alleges that AOL in 2005 will launch a free webbased email service like Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo mail.

SV Sleuth is clueless about the business rationale behind this decision. The last thing we need is yet another email address (at least getting a Gmail account was cool because Google is cool. AOL is… wel… trailing Google).

AOL of course is the ISP that for years tried to sell its customers access to a dumbed down version of the internet through a special application leading to special AOL-owned content. The model made sense in the early days of the internet, but reality has caught up since

December 24, 2004 at 08:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spam's new frontier

Owner of the Movable Type weblogging software Six Apart is taking on comment spam.

Comment spam, which started appearing in fall 2003, is an attempt by spammers to influence search engines and blog readers by dumping links to websites in the comment sections of blogs.

"Spammers have massively increased the volume of attacks, the number of comments in an attack and the frequency of the comments," Anil Dash, vice president of Six Apart's professional netwerk told eWeek.

The blog spamm became such an epidemic that some blogs reported servers becoming unresponsive under the load of the comment-spam traffic.

Full disclosure: Silicon Valley Sleuth uses Movable Type. We applaud any move to make the life of spammers miserable and have been actively lobbying to punish them by making them listen to Céline Dion live concerts.

December 23, 2004 at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Battery paradise

Sakar International claims to have found the solution every consumer who owns a digital camera has been dying for: a NiMH battery charger that recharges in a mere 8.5 minutes.

The new battery uses high currents to accelerate the charging process. Getting the 8.5 minute charging time however requires you to use Sakar's batteries. Third party models will take 1 hour to recharge, which is still significantly faster than current chargers.

The new battery will be officially unveiled at CES in Las Vegas early January. A set of two batteries plus charger retails at $59.99.

December 23, 2004 at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The new Comdex

Predicting an exhausting experience for the 120,000 delegates that will flock to Las Vegas in January for CES, IDG News compares the event with the now defunct Comdex show.

Comdex of course use to be the show for anything tech during the years of the internet boom. As the bubble deflated, so did Comdex. The 2004 edition of the show was cancelled and the organiser Key3Media filed for bankruptcy protection.

Much like Comdex during the internet boom years, CES will expand beyond the Las Vegas Convention Centre, although last year's 130,000 CES attendees still are outnumbered by the 200,000 Comdex attracted at its height.

CES however is careful not to repeat Comdex' mistakes. The show is actually qualifying attendees to make sure they have a legitimate attachment to the consumer electronics industry and keep out the tire kickers and crowds that are primarily interested in expanding they collection of free T-Shirts and crappy notepads, pens and yo-yos.

December 23, 2004 at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Security? You ain't seen nothing yet

Prepare for another year of discomforting computer security, warns vnunet.com in its emerging security trends for 2005.

The SV Sleuth would like to add one more prediction:
In his opening keynote at RSA Conference in San Francisco, Bill Gates will once again fail to make even the slightest impression on the security industry, just like in his 2004 keynote.

December 23, 2004 at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Read that battery

Dealing with the nasty reality that it's hard to read how much juice is left in a battery, researchers at Texas Instruments have developed a technology that accurately predicts the remaining battery life in Lithium Ion battery. The technology should become available for laptop some time next year.

"Whether the battery is new or old, you will know within 1 percent accuracy what the remaining energy is," director of battery management Scott Eisenhart told The New York Times (free registration).

Getting a better read on the remaining battery life should help prevent data loss for laptop users.

December 23, 2004 at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft ignites Firefox flame war

'Tis the season to be jolly, but the picture postcard image of the white Christmas complete with the snow laying around cool and crisp and even is a little way away from us here in the Valley.

However, if we were suffering from any virtual winter we could happily warm our chapped mitts on the flame war that's heating up nicely courtesy of Peter Torr.

The Microsoft employee has published a blog slagging off the Firefox browser, and sparked the predictable response.

Torr argues with some justification that users should be wary of downloading any code that isn't authenticated by VeriSign's code signing certificate. And, of course, Firefox doesn't have such a certificate.

And to add to the IE rival's authentication woes Torr points out that his download was redirected to an apparently obscure university website which he did not recognise.

So, the argument goes, should you download and run unauthenticated code from a site you've never heard of? The answer, of course, should be a categorical no. We'll just go and get our toasting fork.

December 22, 2004 at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Microsoft to have an Office party

Microsoft will have a first ever Office Developer Conference next year 2-4 February at its Redmond, Washington conference centre. Bill Gates is delivering the opening keynote.

Having the meeting makes sense. Office is said to be the most profitable of all Microsoft products (getting the software giant a tidy 40 pct profit margin), but is facing increased challanges from the open source Open Office.

Furthermore, Office is trying more and more to attract a developer community, as Microsoft wants the suite to tie into enterprise applications like ERP and CRM. That of course means getting into the web services alphabet soup of SOAP, XML and the likes. And more importantly, establishing those links between Office and the enterprise application is a lot harder than writing your average macro, which in turn justifies throwing the February code-fest.

December 22, 2004 at 08:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now that you've seen that our competitors are way ahead of us, let us reassure you…

Kodak is planning to have an investor relations event at CES in January, the company announced in a press release.

It might seem unusual to talk about finances at an event that focuses on products and gadgets. Kodak however has plenty to explain. The company operates at a embarrassing 1.5 pct profit margin after the rise of digital photography evaporated the demand for old fashioned film based cameras.

Kodak was late to the digital party, but at least seems to have been able to catch up in terms of market share. The company however isn't however as an innovator in the digital imaging market.

Kodak must feel it makes sense to reassure its investors after they have been gazing at the amazing innovations of your competitors.

December 22, 2004 at 08:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is that a thermometer in your underwear or are you just happy to see me?

In one of the more odd products to be unveiled at CES, Philips Electronics plans to launch eUnderpants, suggests Engadget.

The garment will monitor the wearer's hearth rhythm, blood pressure and is even said to be able to detect a loss of consciousness. The clothing item can even call emergency services and inform aid workers about the exact location of the patient through a GPS device.

SV Sleuth has send an email to the product development team at Philips, suggesting that the company adds a peer to peer tracking service that allows spouses to monitor where the underwear goes and to scrutinise what other e-knickers come in its vicinity

We were however unable to answer the most important question: what colours will the garment come in?

December 22, 2004 at 07:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Transmeta eyes home entertainment

Having failed to make muc (if any) of an impact in the laptop market, Transmeta is expected to launch a line of media products at CES in January, sources told the Silion Valley Sleuth.

Transmeta, you might remember, once promised to bring low power processing to a lap near you. The company however missed product deadlines, ruined its relation with OEM and recently lost the only thing that made it a slightly interesting company: Linux Torvards, who started working for the Open Source Development Labs instead.

The Transmeta media boxes mark a move by the company into devices. But we seriously doubt the company will have much of an impact. Consumers don't know the brand, and both established players and start-ups have littered the market with their 'perfect' and 'one of a kind' solutions.

December 22, 2004 at 07:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is that neon light on the horizon?

Joining in on the annual migration from Silicon Valley to Las Vegas for the first week of January, Silicon Valley Sleuth will be attending the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Sin City.

All of Silicon Valley will be feasting on another year where digital entertainment is slated to be at the forefront of the minds of most exhibitors. Because Silicon Valley will be, well, boring as hell, we shall move our sleuthing to the show floor and executive keynotes of CES. Building up to the event, expect some previews to turn up on this blog, as well as dedicated CES blog by vnunet.com.

In the mean time we will be practicing our poker faces and polish our card counting skills. Just in case we get bored by all the tech toys and need some old fashioned Vegas style entertainment.

December 22, 2004 at 07:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Linux laptop for the masses

With a turnover larger than some countries, Walmart has come to dominate increasing numbers of towns across the country.

The firm has now achieved a milestone and begun selling sub-$500 Linux laptops  to the masses.

Those who parrot the old line of Linux being too hard for consumers to use are going to have to eat their words on this one.

The laptop itself is less than inspiring (1.5 hours battery life just isn't going to cut it in the real world, and CD drive only) but it's a significant step forward in the acceptance of Linux in the mainstream.

December 21, 2004 at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Porn firm jumps on Apple iPod bandwagon

If we made some of this stuff up, you would never believe us. But truth is often stranger than fiction and, in this case, definitely stranger than fiction.

We just have to tell you this Playboy tale, and it's got nothing to do with the Playgirl virus. The pornsters at Playboy have seen the iPod bandwagon trundling past and decided to hitch a ride. Offering soft porn images of naked ladies for the iPod Photo does not, on the face of it, seem to be a totally bonkers idea.

But as always it's all in the name. In the case of Playboy it's a stroke of genius calling the mobile porn offering iBod.

The porn empire suggests that the gallery of images will turn your iPod into a "veritable ocular orgy". So never let it be said that we don't know how to make the most of the latest technology.

December 21, 2004 at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google executive leaves

Making for the highest ranking executive to leave Google since it's worldfamous IPO earlier this year, vice president of coporate marketing Cindy McCaffrey is leaving the search engine. McCaffrey has been with the company for over five years. In SIlicon Valley terms, that means that she has gathered enough stock options to stay at home knitting wool sweaters for the rest of he life, if that's her craving.

No word yet on what she plans to go do next, so a sweater knitting career isn't even that crazy of an idea.

McCaffrey is credited with Google's non-nonsense marketing and PR policy (although the SV Sleuth wished more companies would have great Christmas parties like Google throws for the media hacks every year). And more importantly, she kept Google's head cool in 1999 by deciding not to spend big bucks on a marketing campaign that likely would have sank the company like many of its fellow search companies.

December 20, 2004 at 08:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Will Apple make an iPod U-turn?

When Apple launched the iPod in 2001, everyone thought Steve Jobs had gone mad.

Introducing a hard drive based digital music player seemed a major mistake in an era when flash was the storage medium of the future. The lack of moving parts combined with the small form factor would attract users to the flash memory based devices. Yet the iPod succeeded because it provide the storage capacity that early users demanded, had a cool design and was significantly cheaper than its flash memory based competitors. Apple had no competition to speak of, and what happened next is history.

But time could very well have caught up with the iPod. Flash memory has become dirt cheap, bringing it into the reach of digitial music players. And so the rumour has been that at MacWorld in January in San Francisco, Apple will unveil a flash memory based music player.

If the rumours are true, Apple will have to face competitors who have been in the flash based market for years, making for a much harder challenge than back in 2001. Will superior design help Apple conquer this market too?

December 20, 2004 at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Why bloggers can be wrong, wrong, wrong

With all the fuss about Firefox and Browser War 2, Jeremy Zawodny, a blogger who works for Yahoo, puts on the hat of the data analyst and draws some bold conclusions.

In analysing the data about the browsers his visitors use, he breaks about every rule that data analysts hold so dearly.

If anything, the visitor data proves that weblogs readers use Firefox a lot more than the average internet user. That's not a big surprise, given the fact that Firefox users and weblog readers are considered advanced computer users. Who else would bother reading a weblog about search engines?

Although it's tempting, bloggers shouldn't prentend they are something that they really aren't: analysts. They were dead wrong in the recent US presidential elections, claiming certain candidates won states before such claims could be made, nor do they have any credibility in analysing visitor statistics. They shouln't make the same mistake with Firefox.

At the end of his post, Zawodny rhetorically asks: " The real question is this: are the weblog numbers useful as leading indicators for the rest of the popoulation?"
Given the proof he provides, the only anwer to that question is: I don't know.

December 20, 2004 at 08:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No merry Christmas for the folks at Peoplesoft

There is at least one Peoplesoft employee who is desperately looking for a new job after his employer was acquired by Oracle last week.

Comparing the the terrorist attacks of September 11 and December 13 (the day the acquisition was announced), David Sohigian, a technical solution consultant with Peoplesoft in Oregon, writes:

"There is a similarity between the two events: The shared nature of their impact. It is one thing to lose your job, or for a good friend to lose their job. It is another to have potentially hundreds of friends lose their jobs, or at least lose their company."

What Sohigian really says: the acquisition by the evil terrorist organisation called Oracle is worse than the terrorist attacks of September 11. On September some anonymous strangers might have died. This acquisition will cause hundreds of my friends to loose their jobs. Poor us.

Bring out the tissues and read his post. Maybe we should go to war over this. Let's invade North Korea.

December 20, 2004 at 07:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Would Henry Ford drive a BMW to work?

As a spokesperson for Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Gary Schare does an abysmal job. The director of product management for Windows has abandoned the IE browser, using a little know product called Maxthon instead, he told the New York Times (free registration).

Maxthon still uses Internet Explorer's engine, so Schare desertion isn't as bad as when he would be using Firefox. But users could hardly get a stronger signal telling them that Internet Explorer is no good and won't get any better for a long, long time.

Not until Longhorn, the upcoming version of Windows, will we see any fundamental improvements in the Microsoft browser. Innovation is being delayed until 2006 at least.

The lack of innovation is due to the fact that Internet Explorer is tightly integrated with the actual Windows operating system. This of course wasn't done to kill Netscape, but because it would bring ease of use to customers, the software juggernaut said in the past.

Users surely must appreciate the complete lack of innovation in a product that has been at the forefront of the most horrific year in computer security. We didn't need Schare's endorsement of a competing product to tell us that. But it's probably as close as we'll get to an actual apology.

December 20, 2004 at 08:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

And on the fourth day, the internet created wikicasts?

If podcasting and blogging weren't hype already, they surely are now that the two have come together.

Several websites have sprung up where users can call a telephone number, leave a message and have it posted online as an mp3. Think of it as a merger of the collaborative wiki and the podcast.

The thing with hypes is that they over promise and under deliver. But at least no one is claiming to make millions of these hypes or taking companies public.

via Robert Scoble via J.P. Stewart

December 18, 2004 at 02:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Applied Materials cleans up the garage

The Christmas season will have a bitter taste for the two managing partners of Applied Materials Ventures, as the firm's sole shareholder has abandoned the venture capital toy. Semiconductor company Applied Materials the company disclosed the termination in an SEC filing (page 26).

"Applied exercised its right [...] to elect to terminate the partnership," the company stated.

Applied of Silicon Valley has invested $25 mln in the venture firm, which has all but $2 mln left in funds. The firm's managers however claim they are looking to keep their project afloat.

The disbandoning is to be blamed on Applied's new leadership, claims Private Equity Week. The ventures group was originally founded by former excutive James Morgan. The current president Michael Splinter, a former Intel executive vice president, became Applied's president in 2003 and is now looking for dead wood to cut.

December 18, 2004 at 01:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ebay absorbs another one

Moving further and further away from the auctioning business, Silicon Valley's powerhouse Ebay has acquired rent.com.

Rent.com allows landlords to list available properties for free, charging them when a lease is signed. The company expects to have $40 mln in revenues in 2004.

The move wouldn't make any sense for Ebay if it didn't follow several recent acquisitions in the classified ads space: last August the company obtained a 25 pct stake in Craigslist.org and later that summer bought the Dutch classified ads service Marktplaats.nl.

SV Sleuth did a quick check on Rent.com, but wasn't very impressed. Silicon Valley swears by Craigslist to find its apartments. The Sleuth in fact has found all of his last three apartments on Craigslist.

December 18, 2004 at 01:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Do you want some storage with your security?

You better prepare for a new sales pitch if you currently deal with Symantec, because they are likely to try and shove some storage software down your throat the next time you meet their salesreps.

When Cnet asked Symantec CEO John Thompson what his acquisitionof storage vendor Veritas means, he replied: "Now one person can go in and offer a greater diversity of products to our clients as well as a single system to fit their needs."

The magic word in the Symantec-Veritas takeover is cross selling. Although the products of the two companies sell have little in common, Symantec can gain access to new customers through Veritas' installed based of large enterprise customers.

December 17, 2004 at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google's secret sauce

The secret behind Google's success apparently isn't their state of the art search algorithm. Both Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are wearing magic ZcoiL sneakers, SV Sleuth found out yesterday at the company's Christmas party for members of the media. Brin claimed he introduced his co-founder to the supernatural shoes.

The shoes feature a shock absorber in the heel, explains the company website, that reduces the impact on the leg when the foot lands. This will end the "pain for the endless number of people who are suffering on a daily basis from foot, leg, and back pain."

Getting the extraordinary shoes must have been one of the few indulgencies that the Google founders allowed themselves after their epic IPO earlier this year. To our disappointment, the parking lot outside the Google offices was void of Ferraris or Porches. Hey, we even had to park our own cars!

Google will be taking its staff on a ski trip next year to Lake Tahoe. The sleuth however was told no outsiders are invited. As the door slammed shut behind us, the words kept echoing through our head: "Just keep waiting for the invitation. Be very patient."

December 17, 2004 at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In important events: Steve Jobs' demolition squad gets the green light

Because we dearly care about the titbits on Silicon Valley's executives, we are pleased to inform you that Apple CEO Steve Jobs has received permission to demolish a house he has owned for 20 years in the town of Woodside.

Jobs thinks the home is ugly and at 17,000 square feet (1579 sq. meters) is far too large to actually live in, but it happens to be one of George Washington Smith's designs. His homes sell for millions, even without the land. So in an effort to preserve the work of this reputable architect, Jobs is forced to offer it to anyone who is willing to come pick it up and haul it away. The sledgehammer has to remain silent until January 2006 at least.

The delay won't bother Jobs too much. He doesn't live in the home anyway, opting to live in nearby Palo Alto instead.

Fighting over what you can do with your home is a major hobby of the residents of the little town of Woodside, that ranks among the top 10 cities with the highest income per resident in the US. The Woodside millionaires have little else to do than bother their officials and neighbours. A few years ago the city nearly revolted after billionaire Tom Siebel, founder of Siebel Systems, purchased a local horse-riding club and evicted all its members.

If you're looking for more juicy gossips about Woodside, read Jamis MacNiven's book "Breakfast at Buck's", available on Amazon.

The self-proclaimed "most fun guy in the world" ("When a celebrity enters the restaurant, I have instructed my staff not to bother them, but instead get me and let me do the bothering.") owns Buck's Restaurant. The restaurant happens to be a hotbed for Silicon Valley venture capital investors, and therefore attracts a fair deal of Silicon Valley's current and future celebrities.

Full disclosure: SV Sleuth has once received a free and autographed copy of the book, as well as free pancakes, both at Buck's.

December 16, 2004 at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Silicon Valley gets a free TiVo

TiVo will hand out its digital video recorders for free tomorrow at its corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley, the company promised on its website and in full page advertisements in newspapers in the Silicon Valley area.

Consumers currently subscribing to the local cable monopolist Comcast have to drive by TiVo's office in Alviso and donate a toy or piece of clothing for charity. Customers still need to pay the monthly $ 12.95 subscription fee, but save about $ 100 by getting the hardware for free.

The giveaway is a PR stunt, following reports last week that Comcast has delayed the introduction of its digital video recorder in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The SV Sleuth won't be able to make the giveaway unfortunately, but has high hopes that he will find satellite TV with a TiVo included under this year's Christmas tree.

December 16, 2004 at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Who cares about that Xbox, I asked for an iPod!

There will be lots of unhappy faces this Christmas, as several shops have run out of iPods. Amazon.com is no longer able to ship the music players in time for Christmas, and Best Buy too, the world's largest electronics store, has empty warehouses.

Apple is expected to sell 4 million iPods this quarter, a 545 pct increase over last year's 733,000.

Apple.com however is said to still have plenty of devices available. And desperate Christmas shopper could always consider the "HPod", the iPod from HP.

Meanwhile, Apple today disclosed that it has sold its 200 millionth iTunes song. The red hot sales of the ipod should surely further foster the iTunes business.

December 16, 2004 at 09:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't get the podcasting hype

Blogging is so summer 2004, this fall you don't count unless you have a podcast.

Recently Nasa started podcasting, and even Heineken has gotten on board.

Of course the readers of the SV Sleuth are hip, up to date and know all about podcasting, but just for your co-workers who are peeking over you shoulder:
A podcast is an audio show that is distributed in mp3 format over the internet. You can play them on your iPod (hence the name: ipod + broadcast = podcast) or any other portable media player for that matter. In essence a podcast is a spoken weblog.

The thing is: I don't get it. Why should I want to listen to the mumblings of other web users? If it weren't for my RSS reader, I wouldn't read most weblogs that I browse through on a daily basis because they rarely offer anything worth reading. Why should I bother downloading an mp3 to my computer, uploading them to an iPod (which I don't own by the way), only to find out then that they bore me to sleep?

I mostly listen to the radio in my car. But when I got out to battle the Silicon Valley traffic, getting traffic information is my primary priority. Otherwise, I'll just pop in a CD.

Travelling on airplanes, I'll use my laptop as an audio player until both batteries wear out. It's better than an iPod since I can play movies too.

So again, no need for podcasts, let alone that I have any time to listen them.

If you disagree (or agree), please enlighten me by commenting below.

December 16, 2004 at 07:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Zigbee buzzes into existence

The Zigbee alliance on Tuesday ratified the Zigbee 1.0 specification, launching the first inception of the wireless standard into existence. Following the usual slew of delays.

What is Zigbee? The technical version:
Zigbee uses the same 2.4GHz radio band as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Although the standard offers less bandwidth than Bluetooth it consumes far less power, making it more suitable for devices that need to constantly transmit data. It has a range of up to 30 metres. The technology has mostly been portrayed as one for industrial sensors.

What is Zigbee? The practical version:
Next to Wifi, Zigbee is the other nail in Bluetooth's coffin. It takes away Bluetooth's potential to conquer the market for sensor networks in industrial environments. Zigbee leaves Bluetooth in its current market niche for wireless headsets (only used by people who don't mind looking like an über-nerd – even users in nerdville Silicon Valley shy away from the horrible looks of the devices).

December 16, 2004 at 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pick your lie

If Microsoft is courting Peoplesoft customers to switch to Microsoft software, surely that would mean Microsoft is moving into high end enterprise applications. But then Microsoft has lied to a federal judge earlier this year as well during a court case that had all of Silicon Valley watching.

Microsoft on 15 December sent an open e-mail to PeopleSoft customers, inviting them to consider Microsoft's ERP products as alternatives. The message mostly pitched Windows Server and the SQL database as a replacement for Unix and Oralce, but also suggested Peoplesoft customers switch to Microsoft enterprise applications altogether.

Douglas Burgum, senior vice president for Microsoft's Business Solutions Group, testified last July that his company wasn't interested in those users. When he was called as a witness in the case where the US Department of Justice (unsuccesfully) tried to block Oracle's takeover bid for Peoplesoft, he testified: "It is not true that we [Microsoft] intend to move in that space [of high-end enterprise applications]"

"Microsoft's strength as a company is in packaged software with low prices and high volume. The two are very different."

The email by sales and marketing manager Bill Veghte, one of Burgum's lieutenants however appears like a direct contraction to that testimony.

Which one of the two is lying here? Is Microsoft aiming to over promise and under deliver to Peoplesoft customers, or did the company commit perjury?

December 16, 2004 at 07:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Location, location, location

Cheap and accessible GPS technology has been around for the past few years, and has made life easier in a host of ways. Initially a military system it's been available for civilian applications and is a key technology in the burgeoning field of location-based commerce.

Now Europe is getting in on the game with its own satellite navigation system, albeit not for over a decade. There's a Russian system called Glonass as well, but it's much less accurate because it has fewer satellites to triangulate signals.

And accuracy is vital, because we're all going to be relying more and more on GPS in the coming years. It's already key to car navigation, ship positioning and a host of commercial applications, and there are some very exciting devlopments coming down the line.

Having a back-up system is no bad thing for something so important. Particularly since the current provider apparently reserves the right to turn it off occasionally.

December 16, 2004 at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

HP abandons Itanium development pact

Ending a disastrous chip development project, HP today has wrapped up a 10 year partnership with Intel to co-develop the Itanium processor.

Pundits and analysts no doubt will be explain the move as a dramatic one. About a decade ago, HP approached Intel to pull afloat its ailing development project of a next generation high performance processor. Even the chip giant's knowledge and expertise couldn't prevent the project from facing major delays. When the chip was finally launched in 2001, the server market had turned sour, customers ignored the product, analysts had to revise their predictions, Scott McNealy from Sun Microsystems laughed until he droped to the floor.

An Intel engineer once told me – who at that point didn't work on the Itanium anymore - that the only thing keeping Intel from pulling the Itanium off the market were the liability claims the company would have to face from customers. He refused to go on the record. "Talking negatively about Itanium is punishable by death." You might understand that I have to protect the chap's privacy.

December 15, 2004 at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Capitalism the American way

Capitalism is about free markets, except when one of your campaign contributors can be harmed. At least that's what's the stale old smell suggests that hangs around the discussion about using mobile phones on airplanes.

The US mobile operator Verizon is currently the largest provider of in flight telephony services, charging a hefty $10 per minute fee for international calls passengers make using the satellite phones that are attached to seats. Little surprise that the company has been a fierce opponent of introducing competition.

Increasing competition however finally seems to be on the radar of the Federal Trade Commision (FCC), the US government body that regulates the airwaves in the nation where consumer's rights take a backseat to commercial interests. The FCC is headed up by Michael Powell, son of Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State (foreign affairs) and chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff during the first Gulf War (but there is no relation there of course).

Airlines for a long time have maintained that mobile phones interfere with the airplane's systems, even though there is little evidence to support that claim. And even now that the high altitude telephony monopoly is nearing its end, the Air Transport Association has started a stall and delay game, claiming that it needs another 2 to 3 years to solve concerns over interference.

Meanwhile Lufthansa has started offering wifi service on some of its flights, with All Nippon Airways, China Airlines, Japan Airlines, Scandinavian Airlines, and Singapore Airlines soon to follow. Instead of waiting for the FCC to finish its lobby dance, I'd just use Skype or some other VoIP service.

December 15, 2004 at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nr. 1 joins nr. 2

Bill Gates joined the board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company of Warren Buffett, who happens to be the 2nd richest guy in the world, reports the Seattle Times.

The two men have more in common than just the size of their bank accounts. Gates and Buffett also play bridge together.

And they both stubbornly and rightfully denied there was such a thing as an internet boom back in 1999 and 2000. Buffett however won this blinking contest when Microsoft acquired Hotmail and Expedia.com in an effort to fool investors into thinking Microsoft did have an internet vision after all.

December 15, 2004 at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The human side of Ellison's victory

Mixing Oracle's killer attitude with Peoplesoft's corporate culture where the chief executive on Fridays hands out bagels to his employees, is a recipe for disaster, writes the San Francisco Chronicle in an analysis of the takeover.

"They are two different cultures," told Richard Stiller, a human resources consultant who has been involved in more than 20 mergers. Referring to Oracle, he said, "They're the barbarians. It's take no prisoners. A guy like Ellison never lets them relax."

Forrester Research analyst Erin Kinikin added, "I think a lot of those people who wanted to manage by walking around and having bagels every Friday are probably going to leave -- because that's not the Oracle way. The Oracle way is about survival of the fittest."

Looks like monster.com can expect a lot of hits from the Peoplesoft offices.

December 15, 2004 at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Make some sense of your AdSense

Fred Wilson, a venture capital investor and blogger in New York is ready to go on strike, an AdSense strike that is. The blogger feels he isn't getting a fair deal from Google's advertisement programme.

His blog attracts a different, more attractive audience than the site where the kid from around the corner muses about the taste of the beer he had last night. Google however pays the same fee to both "publishers".

"I think the audience on my blog is worth more than $0.175 per click and I am going to find a way to get that number up," Wislon writes in a post today. Running Google ads over the past nine months has made him a cool $313.48.

Wilson has a point, but it's something Google at this point can't do too much about. The few bloggers who do make money, like London based Rafat Ali, don't use Google. Looks like there is an opening for a Google competitor.

December 15, 2004 at 09:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Never look a gift horse in the mouth

Although we are still smarting from the historically low value of our dollar compared with the euro or pound, it was with some amusement that we spotted Dell's site in the UK offering a dual Xeon server for the princely sum of £99.

Even with our terrible exchange rate this is still under 200 bucks for a decent bit of server power. A PowerEdge 1600SC comes with a 2.40GHz Xeon, 256MB of ECC DDR SDRAM, and an 80GB hard drive to be precise.

Sadly, and we guess somewhat predictably, the web page displaying the "fantastic deal" has now been corrected.

We assumed that this was just a Kodak-esque cock up  and that Dell would blame some 'technical hitch' and then quietly bury the offending web designer who got the numbers wrong under the car park of its European factory in Ireland. 

But it would seem that we have done the hardware giant a disservice. UK news site The Inquirer reports that some of its readers, who managed to get there early, have bought these bargain servers. One reader apparently got two, while another claims to have ordered five.

You know what they say about never looking a gift horse in the mouth.

December 15, 2004 at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is that a mobile in your pocket?

As we have observed, there are disturbing parallels between the ostracism of smokers and mobile phone users.

Although it's pretty much impossible to get by without a mobile these days, there's still an etiquette gap in their use. Some people seem happy to broadcast the most intimate details of their private life, much to the annoyance of others.

Various ideas have been tried, varying from the draconian to the elegant. But a new idea takes a more low-tech solution.

This combination of politeness and biting sarcasm appeals, but I'd think twice about handing out a slip if the source of the annoyance looks inclined to violence.

Alternatively, you can just become a Luddite although speaking personally you'll have to pry my mobile from my cold, dead fingers.

December 15, 2004 at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The power of Google's Suggestion

You are in a darkened room. Concentrate on our voice, resistance is futile.....now you are under: Google is in control, we know what you are looking for let us help you.

Although fellow Silicon Valley Sleuth Dan Gilmor seemed less than impressed by the fledgling Google Suggestion service, the power of suggestion has always been fascinating and slightly frightening to human beings.

Although we have all laughed at people under hypnosis pretending to be chickens and dogs there has always been, for me, a darker side to the art of persuasion.

So I was very interested to test out Google's service to see how close it was to matching my search requirements. Starting with the letter S, Google returned with millions of pages, second guessing my search with the most popular pages. After adding another letter the search was amazingly refined. But strangely adding a third letter to this combination brought back absolutely nothing.

Perhaps the algorithm had a headache.

December 14, 2004 at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that

Save us and preserve us. Those clever folks down the road at the Palo Alto Research Center (Parc) have had a vision. The scales have fallen from their eyes and they have seen the future.

Tomorrow's world, according to Parc, centres on an all-pervasive next-generation super-network which, chillingly, will be designed to bring unobtrusive computing into all aspects of our lives.

Yikes.

As yet details of this Matrix-like world of ubiquitous networking and computing which Parc will create with its new joint venture buddy Fujitsu are unclear. But the vision is to place computers at the centre of our lives.

This may all sound a tad outlandish, but taking a long view we can't help making comparisons with Parc's Last Big Thing: the Wimp interface (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers).

There were many who said this would never replace the trusty command line as the ubiquitous computer interface, but Bill Gates was not one of them.

The lessons of history do not favour placing odds on Parc's parent Xerox being the company that commercialises this idea of computing ubiquity, but stranger things have happened.

And if it doesn't, there's a very good chance that another firm might. Remember: there is no spoon.

December 14, 2004 at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lies, damn lies, and surveys

According to the Business Software Alliance, one in five of you Brits buy products off the back of spam emails. Even for a sponsored survey this figure seems preposterously high.

The slickest direct mail, carefully targeted, has little more than a one in 500 chance of getting answered. So to suggest that spam gets a response 100 times this figure suggests either some serious flaws in methodology or questions designed to prompt a specific answer.

Surveys are odd beasts at the best of times. They can be very useful but they are also very easy to fix by virtue of the questions asked, as Sir Humphrey explains in Yes Minister--a great favourite over in the US

The next time you read some market research ask yourself these questions: how many people took part, who are they and where do they live, who is writing it and, most importantly, who is paying for it.

December 13, 2004 at 05:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

PeopleSoft goes down, not with a bang but a whimper

Larry Ellison has huffed and he has puffed and he has finally managed to blow down PeopleSoft's board. After nearly 18 months of bitter wrangling, Oracle's chief exec has finally got his way and, for a cool $10bn, had his takeover approved.

The agreement of PeopleSoft's management means that Oracle will not have to swallow the bitter poison pill designed to make hostile takeovers financially unpalatable. However, the approach has not suddenly become amicable overnight.

PeopleSoft's customers are still, rightly, worried over what the deal means for them. They are especially worried over Ellison's sudden and surprising revelation that the database giant will be developing a "merged product line" to which all customers will be migrated. What happens to those who do not want to be migrated is not as yet specified.

Analyst firm Ovum issued a statement pointing out that this product merger was a surprise and "somewhat at odds" with what has been said before, when Oracle opted for a softly softly approach with PeopleSoft customers, who must now be wondering where on earth they stand.

December 13, 2004 at 04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To boldly go ...

There's nothing like space research to make you feel old. Nasa is finally putting in for a nuclear powered mission to Neptune, but it won't get there until I'm past retirement age. Still, it'll be an important boost for getting craft across the vast reaches of space a tad faster.

But why slog all the way there yourself when you can just have a look around using the Hubble telescope. The National Academy of Sciences has recommended a shuttle mission to upgrade the ageing machine and it looks like it might be heeded.

Space nuts like myself get a bit soppy about the Hubble. We've got more hard science out of it than any number of trips to the airless rock we call the moon, and it's been relatively cheap in comparison.

December 13, 2004 at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A quick trip into the world of the patently silly

Here in the Valley we like to think of ourselves as inventive folk who have turned out a few good ideas including LSD, some of the first home computers, Ethernet networking and Windows (the original Xerox GUI, not the rip-off version from that upstart Gates).

But we are obviously missing a trick when it comes to inventiveness. A quick trawl through our fellow blogger's excellent and poetical site Patentlysilly.com reveals some amazing inventions. And some silly inventions. And some downright frightening inventions.

You may or may not know that Mr Rudolph Chi Wai Yip of Hong Kong has invented a multimedia shower head which allows an electronic media device to be inserted in a sealed chamber within its construction.

So far, so good. But what about patent number US 6824508, which is described as a micro robot for internal examinations within the human body. In the interests of not frightening the horses we refuse to elaborate on how this device gains entry to the examination subject.

Then there's a patent for technology designed to restore circulation in dead people, or the telescopic putter mounted to a headband which is unlikely to do anything for your handicap.

As Patentlysilly.com astutely points out: "Necessity is the mother of invention, but the father is unknown."

December 10, 2004 at 03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Are Mobile Phone Users The New Smokers?

Comparing the changing attitudes to smoking in the US with the rise of mobile phone usage, Douglas Rushkoff thinks mobile phones could go the way of the cigarette.

Although mobies will not be banned like the ciggy, he quite rightly observes that similar laws in the US that have been introduced in the UK to limit and restrict the usage of mobile phones. While some measures are quite rightly introduced to improve safety--like banning usage whilst driving (without a headset etc)  other measures are more to do with social courtesy. 

In New York, Sleuth discovers from Rushkoff's post that (in a Yoda voice)  "Cell Wars," begun have they, as a backlash to bad mobile phone behaviour is starting to rise.

If this trend continues, perhaps a new niche market for the mobile manufacturers is to put lighters in mobiles for smokers that have to go outside to call and smoke?

December 10, 2004 at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

No Blog? No Job.

If you don't have a blog you may in the future be turned down for a job, according to a post on Joel on Software

OK, so in this case the guy is a software developer who was turned down for a job developing blogging software--duh-- in favour of another developer who maintains a blog. But he raises a good point.

According to the post,  The guy worries that the thought of having to keep a blog to appear relevant is something that does not appeal to his private nature. Like many of us he posted "many embarrassing posts" as a teenager on USENET.

"I'm not sure if I want my grandchildren to poke around on Google in 40 years, and learn that I wasted much of my youth arguing about XML text file formats with other bloggers."

The Sleuth agrees and also wonders what Google will be like in 40 years?

December 9, 2004 at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Really, security is important. Stop laughing!

The Systems Security Certification Consortium has declared 2005 the year of the information security professional. The organisation that does certifications for security professionals claims the profession doesn't get the respect it deserves. Getting a year of their own might just change that.

"We need to increase our visibility so that the rest of the people in our organizations can identify and appreciate the value we bring," James Wade, director and past president of the organisation and former chief security officer for the U.S. Federal Reserve told IDG News Service

After 2004 turned out to be the worst year in computer security history, and with nothing pointing to any improvement next year, it actually wouldn't be such a bad thing for information security professionals to hide in obscurity. On the other hand, most computer users won't mind putting a face on the deplorable state of computer security.

December 9, 2004 at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oracle Open World - Larry Ellison

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison touts global single instance on a grid of hardware. "The mainframe have been the gold standard for 40 years, but no longer,"

In other words: you want to move away from running your mission critical applications on a single box and moving to a grid, but you DO want to run it on a single database and applications suite. The one is bound to break but the other won't.

December 9, 2004 at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's the customer service, stupid!

Just like TiVo, Netflix is one of those services that users just love while others don't understand why they should spend any money on it.

The service lets its users rent DVDs by mail. After you're finished watching the movie, you send it back to the Netflix warehouse and they'll send you another title from a list of DVDs that you have created earlier.

Most users love the service because it eliminates late fees.

David Pogue of the New York Times on blog gives another reason why he's in love with Netflix: superior customer service. With the competition waking up, that's actually what will make or break the service in the future.

December 8, 2004 at 06:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cisco's 20th birthday party

Cisco hired rock legend Santana to celebrate its 20th birthday last Monday. Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble claims the company coughed up $650,000 for the festivites.

The fact that Santana played is confirmed - Cisco CEO John Chambers referred to it at yesterday's analsyst conference. We'll just have to take Scoble's word for the costs.

December 8, 2004 at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A $50,000 rallying call against Microsoft

In fighting the evil empire from Redmond, Washington, the Mozilla Foundation came up with a brilliant idea: let's run an advertisement in The New York Times. That should entice Internet Explorer users to rush to their computers and swap out their monopolist browser for open source Firefox.

Minor detail: Mozilla doesn't have any money, so it rallied supporters for donations. The cry for help was heard as Mozilla received 10,000 gifts to pay for the $50,000 dollar advertisement (Mozilla will receive a special rate for non-profit advocacy groups).

Firefox has since been launched an Internet Explorer's market share for the first time in years has droped below 90 percent. But no ad yet.

Turns out that Mozilla has problems fitting the names of the 10,000 contributors in the actual ad, Cnet writes. Rendering the ad after making a change apparently takes 15 minutes.

The ad will be a thank you note to the community of Mozilla volunteers, so don't expect a shift in market share because of the ad. It's slated to run some time before Christmas.

December 8, 2004 at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dell applauds IBM sell-off

Expecting a big failure, Michael Dell looks forward to the rumoured sale of IBM's desktop and laptop business to Lenovo of China.

"When was the last time you saw a successful acquisition or merger in the computer industry? It hasn't happened in a long, long time...I don't see this one as being all that different," Cnet heard the Dell chairman say in a question and answer session at Oracle Open World in San Francisco.

Dell has the statistics on its side, with approximately 90 percent of mergers and acquisitions failing to deliver much if any value. They are however an accepted and proven method to enter into new markets – which you could argue is the case with Lenovo.

December 7, 2004 at 09:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Cisco Analyst Conference - CTO Charles Giancarlo

VoIP is going to happen not only because it allows consumers and enterprise customers to make cheap calls, but more importantly because it's cheaper for providers to handle those calls and build out future services, argues Charles Giancarlo, CTO of Cisco. "This layer [of VoIP] is up for grabs. there aren't any established players there yet."

He also promised to deliver services to the enterprise that are easier to use. Because connecting to a VPN for example is too hard. "You almost need a PhD to operate it. We've created a lot of complexity."

On video phones: "I've been a doubter in the past. but I've seen the light. I am a believer."

December 7, 2004 at 07:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cisco Analyst Conference - Chambers for president?

To add to the last posting:
I was just talking to some industry analysts during a break. "Chambers is moving into politics within the next five years," Brian Riggs, a senior analyst with Current Analysis, predicted jokingly, pointing to Chamers' presentation skills.

December 7, 2004 at 06:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cisco Analyst Conference ­ how to deliver a keynote

Of all the executives in the high tech industry, I would argue that Cisco CEO John Chambers is by far the best speaker (with Bill Gates in the lower ranks). He showed off his speaking skills yet again this morning in his keynote presentation at Cisco's Worldwide Analyst Confernce in Santa Clara today.

Chambers seems to feel at home in the spotlight, joking around, taking himself serious but not too serious. He seems to hate the stage, walking around the room and looking members of the audience in the eyes. He'll ask them questions, scaring the hell out of most people. The guy succeeds at keeping a room's attention like no other.

December 7, 2004 at 06:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cisco Analyst Conference - CEO John Chambers

December 7, 2004 at 04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oracle Open World - Oracle takes over the Moscone Convention Center

25,000 delegates expected to attend. The show runs through Thursday

December 7, 2004 at 01:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oracle Open World - Applications boss Ron Wohl talks up Oracle Ebusiness Suite 11i.10

December 7, 2004 at 01:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo tries extending its brand – again

Yahoo has unveiled a line of consumer electronics devices, hoping that consumers will favour a Yahoo branded DVD player over one from Sony or Philips.

Yahoo has actually tried this before. Over three years ago, Yahoo branded keyboards and other computer peripherals turned up in stores in the US. And eventually were offloaded at discount stores.

The Yahoo brand wasn't strong enough to stretch into the realm of consumer devices in 2001 when the company was hip. Why would it be any different now the web portal has the appeal of a brand of laundry detergent?

December 6, 2004 at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Start-up prepares for spam-fest

Aiming to make spam more targeted, a new service called JigSaw has launched a programme where users can buy contact data, reports The San Jose Mercury News.

Founder Jim Fowler hopes to persuade random users to enter the info in their rolodexes on his website. Users earn points for each contact they enter, and additional points if the data turns out to be correct (well, if a fellow user hasn't edited the entry within one month).

The service plans to make money by selling access to the contact data. Salesmen apparently are dieing to get access to it and are supposed to caugh up $25 per month to get up to 25 phone numbers and email addresses. After all, it's all about the quality of the data.

For a similarly low sum, you can of course just buy one of those excellent spam CDs, containing millions of email addresses. The quality might be worse, but if you're considering signing up to Jigsaw you must be desperate anyway.

Leaves the question about how I would feel if a business relation of mine decides to sell my contact data to this service. Let it hereby be said that I will hunt down and go medieval on anyone who dares to enter my data into this system. I get plenty of spam without it, and my guess is that there will be a few more people who have similar feelings about Jigsaw.com.

That didn't discourage the founder however. Believe it or not, the company actually has succeeded in getting $5.2m in venture capital investments.

December 6, 2004 at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Win a lame TV show, get a job with Microsoft?

So you are Ken Jennings and just won $2.5m in the American TV game show Jeopardy. In addition to a letter from the tax collector, what does that get you? A job with Microsoft, Cnet found out.

Microsoft hired Jennings as a spokesman for its Encarta encyclopedia. The game vituoso will be featerd in a "Quiz the Whiz" game through Encarta Reference Library Premium 2005.

Jennings, who writes and edits quiz questions for the National Association of Quiz Tournaments, finally lost after a monthlong winning streak in an episode that was aired last week. He missed the final question:

"Subject: Companies and Corporations. The Answer: This company has a workforce of 17000 people, whose average working year is only 4 months long."
The answer should have been: What is H&R Block?" (an American tax counselling service). Jennings answered FedEx.

December 6, 2004 at 08:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oracle Open World - Charles Phillips Q&A

paraphrasing: Peoplesoft management doesn't own the company, their shareholders do. It's much like a landlord who wants to sell a property. they shouldn't be stopped by their tenants either.

December 6, 2004 at 08:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

HP's Carly Fiorina @ Oracle Open World

HP tags along with Oralce's view on scattered data and information. "Everything we've lived through, including dotcom boom and bust. it has all been the warm-up act." "Islands of innovation and technology no longer drive value. You see the requirement for silos to interact and interoperate."

So to summarise: it was just another shameless marketing pitch.

December 6, 2004 at 07:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oracle Open World - BEA trying to crash Oracle's party

BEA Systems was handing out leaflets outside of Oracle Open World this morning in San Francisco, touting their Weblogic software REALLY is better than Oracle's application server.

December 6, 2004 at 07:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oracle Open World - opening keynote

Charles Phillips, Oracle's co-president, kicked off Oracle Open World. The event combines Oracle World (database) and Apps World (Ebusiness Suite) and is expected to draw a record crowd of 25,000.

Phillips emphasises the damage that is done by dispersed data: "This is so pervasive, We have to solve the problem because this is affecting business every day."

December 6, 2004 at 07:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oracle Open World around the corner

The banners on the Moscone Convention Center are ready for Oracle Open World, which kicks off tomorrow (Monday 6 December) in San Francisco.

December 6, 2004 at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ray Ozzie celebrates Lotus' 15th birthday

Ray Ozzie, the creative genious behind version 1.0 of Notes (later to become part of Lotus Notes) is interviewed by Network World to mark the upcoming 15th birthday of the application on 7 December.

Of course, IBM ultimately acquired Notes in a multi billion dollar deal. Ozzie left the company in 1997 and started Groove Networks, a company that does online collaboration using peer-to-peer technology. The company is backed in part by Microsoft.

December 3, 2004 at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo launches meta travel search site

Yahoo on Friday launched the first public beta of its FareChase meta travel search engine. The service allows users to search for the cheapest airfare on multiple sites, both with online travell sites and directly from airlines.

Yahoo also partners with Travelocity for its Travel.yahoo.com service. It's unclear how the two competing services will coexist in the future. Yahoo didn't immediately return a phone call seeking further information.

Yahoo bought Farechase last July for an undisclosed sum.

December 3, 2004 at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

IBM sends PC business off to college

Knowing it can make more money by selling consultancy services and enterprise server products, IBM is looking to sell its PC and laptop making business, the New York Times said, based on anonymous sources.

IBM declined to comment.

If true, the move out of this area seems like a smart one. Although IBM has a strong position and one of the highest customer satisfaction rates, especially in the laptop business, profit margins in the industry are virtually nonexistent. In addition to competition from Dell, a slew of low cost Asian manufacturers was waiting to start feasting on IBM's market share.

The PC and laptop computer business has grown up, and IBM is realizing it's time to let go of a product group that it created over twenty years ago.

Letting Dell and HP fight over the crumbs allows IBM to go after the real money.

December 3, 2004 at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0