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2006 predictions
I had promised myself not to do any New Year's resolutions on this blog. So instead I'll do some baseless guesses about things that could happen.
Yes, you can flame me for each prediction (especially number 3), on the condition that you send a bottle of decent wine for every correct prediction (and two bottles if number 5 turns out to be true).
1. Windows Vista will launch on time. Despite a large marketing campaign, few shoppers will line up for a midnight sale, but the OS by 2008 will rule the world after all.
2. The open source patent debate will get a viable solution when OSDL forms a deterrent patent pool (instead of the patent library on training wheels that they created earlier this year).
3. The iPod's iconic status will fail to drive consumers to the Mac. Investors will call upon Apple to break up the company into separate consumer electronics and computer companies to rid the iPod of the Mac's ballast.
4. After Intel launches its Viiv entertainment platform, consumers will soon find out that they have a simple choice: pay over $600 for a Viiv PC or get a Tivo-like digital video recorder including networking features for free with their cable or satellite television subscription. Viiv will go down history as the "failed attempt to launch a Centrino entertainment copy-cat"
5. Samsung in a surprise move acquires AMD, once and for all putting the firm on the map as a serious Intel competitor.
6. The Sony Playstation 3 will make the Xbox 360 look like one of these Russian made Volga cars in a world full of Ferraris. The folks who ended up paying $3,000 for an Xbox 360 on Ebay will bang their heads against the wall, chanting: "Why, oh why?"
7. Google's valuation will drop significantly after investors realise that advertising revenue alone don't justify the company's valuation.
8. The use of RSS will jump from the current 2 per cent to over 10 per cent after Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 7.
9. Software users will launch a lawsuit against Microsoft after internal documents feed speculation that the company willingly released insecure code to meet a promised launch date.
10. VNU, the parent company of vnunet.com and the publisher of this blog, will have even more newspaper headlines than this year.
That concludes my final posting for this year. I'll be at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week and will be posting to our CES Blog. Until then: happy new year.
Tags: 2006 predictions, microsoft, apple, open source, OSDL, xbox, playstation, google, AMD, Intel, samsung,
December 30, 2005 at 02:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
One list to define them all
Since technology is closely related to management and strategy (because it's a 'strategic tool'), and since this is a technology blog, you'll have to give this one some thought.
Scott Adams (yes, him again) made the number 12 spot of the Influential Management Thinker list.
The funny thing is, Adam's isn't a management guru. He doesn't even consider himself an anti-guru, as he told me several years ago during an interview, because he doesn't give any alternatives. He just points out the crazyness in this world.
So how does a notable non-management thinker respond to being on a influential management thinkers list?
"My first reaction was to feel sorry for the poor bastards who ranked 13 through 50. I imagine they would have felt pretty good about making the list until they were topped by the guy who wants to adopt a frozen embryo, name it Amy and keep it in the fridge."
This is the last Dilbert Blog link for this year. I promise. But this one really needed linking.
Tags: scott adams, dilbert
December 29, 2005 at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sleeping in the 24-hour city at CES won't be cheap
Hotel owners are preparing for a bumper January next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Delegates who haven't yet arranged for lodging should expect to spend more than $350 for a hotel room, as a simple search on one of the major travel websites show (Eg: Travelocity or
The 3.5-star Hilton, conveniently located next to the Las Vegas Convention Centre where CES will be headquartered, charges a hefty $499 for a Thursday night stay. The 2-star Howard Johnson outbids them with $534. Most other hotels are simply sold out.
The secret is planning. Most hotels started selling out in November. If you were planning on dropping by and don't have a room, the law of supply and demand will do their work.
Las Vegas Boulevard, aka: The Strip
photo: Savan Thongvanh
Tags: CES, hotel, expedia, Travelocity, orbitz
December 29, 2005 at 01:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Gates vs. Mother Theresa? You pick
Dilbert author Scott Adams has some great suggestions for a fun way to spend some quality time with your family this holiday season. Since it should work even better with technology enthusiasts, I'll shamelessly copy his idea here.
Ask your friends or family the following question:
Who is holier – Mother Teresa or Bill Gates?
No doubt Mother Teresa is a saint (although not officially, according to the Catholic church).
But Bill Gates' billions have saved many more lives – enough to finally make him the Time person of the year in 2005.
The question boils down to: can you justify committing a small crime (stifle competition and equip the world's computers with highly insecure software) to do a great good (use your gains to save and improve lives)?
Mind you that some of history's great philanthropists (think John Insley Blair, Andrew Carnegie or John Davison Rockefeller) made their fortunes as devoted capitalists: using unscrupulous business tactics and making money off the backs of underpaid and overworked employees.
History tends to be gentle on bad businessmen doing good.
But really, who do you think is holier?
Tags: bill gates, mother theresa, scott adams
December 29, 2005 at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Japan abandons the fingerprint?
A library near Tokyo is preparing to become the first library to use vein recognition to check out books. The technology will be supplied by Fujitsu.
What's up with the Japanese and their fondness of vein recognition as a biometric identification technology? Just last month, Hitachi started shipping a thin client laptop computer that, again, used vein recognition as a user authentication technology. It is also in Japan that you'll find ATMs using this technology.
Vein patterns have several advantages over fingerprints.
Scars can alter a finger print, but vein patterns typically remain the same over long periods of time. A finger print is also easier to forge (using a rubber overlay) than a vein pattern. But surely none of these are of great concern for a public library? The improvements over fingerprints are marinal when you compare it to passwords or library cards, while the costs must significant. You also don't have to press or touch a vein scanner, staying away from any yucky surfaces.
I for one am puzzled. You happen to walk into a biometrics expert, make sure you ask him or her. And drop us a line in the comment section below.
A palm vein scanner by Fujitsu
Tags: biometrics, vein recognition, hitachi, fujitsu
December 28, 2005 at 03:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Massachusetts CIO gives in to ODF pressures
Peter Quinn, Chief Information Officer for the state of Massachusetts who has spearheaded the state's planned switch to the Open Document Format, is planning to resign early next year, claims IDG News.
His upcoming departure is a direct result of the smear campaign against his person, he allegedly said on 24 December in an internal memo from which IDG News quoted:
"Over the last several months, we have been through some very difficult and tumultuous times. Many of these events have been very disruptive and harmful to my personal well being, my family and many of my closest friends. This is a burden I will no longer carry."
Quinn among things has been accused of corruption for improperly disclosing trips to open source conferences.
His departure doesn't mean the end to the state's support for ODF, but it should be considered a major setback for the format's supporters nonetheless.
And without pointing to any culprits, it's no secret that Microsoft has been waging a strong lobby against Massachusetts' planned ODF switch (and away from the proprietary Microsoft Open XML format), which could set an important precedent and is watched around the world.
Quinn in 2004 at PROS Congress
Tags: ODF, open xml, Microsoft, OASIS
December 28, 2005 at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Firefox scores another IE victory
Dell has quietly started bundling the Firefox browser with its PCs in the UK, according to Firefox creator Blake Ross claimed.
Dell was unable to comment, but we were promised a call back if they could find someone who wasn't away for the Holidays.
Assuming that Ross is correct, the deal is a major victory for Firefox. Microsoft after all gained its leadership position in the browser market due to the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. Now that Firefox comes bundled with Dell PCs, the browsers can start competing based on features rather than bundling deals.
Tags: firefox, internet explorer
December 28, 2005 at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
More Sony BMG goof-ups
As the storm over the XCP anti-piracy technology has calmed down, Sony BMG has come under fire for its other DRM technology.
The MediaMax software that is supplied by SunnComm was already flagged for a security vulnerability. And now Texas attorney general Greg Abbott alleges that it illegally installed on computers: the application installs even if the user declines the end user license agreement. The agreement pops up when a user first inserts a music CD in his computer.
The complaint was added to another Texas suit against Sony over the negligence with the XCP technology. In that case Sony could face a fine of up to $100,000 per infected computer system.
Hopefully a company driven by greed will listen a financial spanking.
Tags: sony bmg, XCP, sunncomm, MediaMax
December 22, 2005 at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Finding facts behind Microsoft's Xbox shortage
Some evil spirits are suspecting that there is a grander scheme behind the shortage of Microsoft's Xbox 360 systems, but nothing is further from the truth, claims AMR analyst Robert Bois.
In an 'alert' on the AMR website, he deflates the theory that Microsoft is deliberately undersupplying stores – which would serve the console manufacturer as a free marketing campaign as media report on desperate Xbox wanahaves.
Microsoft has made available about 1.1 million Xbox 360 systems in the first four weeks after the launch, AMR's Robert Bois points out.
"Considering the greater complexity of the new-generation consoles, the production rate seems well in line with previous launches, and looks downright spectacular compared to PS2."
Stocking up more of the units would have been unprecedented and a major business risk, he argues. Stockpiling millions of Xbox systems would have Microsoft investing $1.2bn in inventory.
Do you need more of an incentive to make sure that a launch goes right?
The occasional smashed Xbox 360 too contributed to the shortage
December 22, 2005 at 01:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Flash memory game gets nasty
The cut-throat competition in the market for flash memory has claimed its first victim. Renesas of Tokyo has said that it will stop making flash memory.
The departure comes at a time when Samsung and Toshiba are both aggressively investing in this market. Meanwhile AMD is preparing to spin off it's flash making division while Intel is preparing an entrance into the segment.
But although Renesas' departure could suggest a maturation in the market, the reality is that things are just getting started. The iPod has merely scratched the service of what portable flash-based device can do.
For us mortal consumers this is only good news. The more cutthroat the competition, the lower prices will get.
... things getting dirty
Tags: renesas, flash memory, samsung, toshiba
December 22, 2005 at 01:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Blog posting seals drunk driver's faith
By posting a confession on his blog, a Florida teen effectively pleaded guilty to causing a deathly accident, a Florida judge has ruled.
Blake Ranking wrote the confession shortly after a car accident on 3 October last year, as three friends were driving home after a party. The driver was sober but tests showed that Raking had a blood alcohol level of 0.185. Sitting in the back seat, he reached for the steering wheel:
"It was me who caused it. I turned the wheel. I turned the wheel that sent us off the road, into the concrete drain . . .," the Sun Sentitel reported. Meanwhile Ranking's friend, Jason Coker, 17, lay in a coma at Orlando Regional Medical Center. "How can I be fine when everyone else is so messed up?"
Coker died. Ranking later deleted the posting, but that was after prosecutors had seen it, marking the first time in the Florida area that a blog had been used as evidence.
Photo credit: Joana Franca
Tags: blog, drunk driving
December 20, 2005 at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Segway polo: there goes the neighbourhood
Polo used to be a noble sport where the economics of the club membership fees and the horse grub would keep out giggling the riffraff.
But now that Segway polo (video) has arrived, standards have once again been lowered. (where else but in the San Francisco Bay Area...)
Tags: segway polo
December 20, 2005 at 08:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Photo printers? No thank you
The digital camera boom is about to spark a photo printing bonanza, according to Japanese broker Nomura Securities.
Consumers are going to want to print their digital images, the firm claims. And with printer prices coming down, they are going to want to do that ever more often.
Photo printers however are just an in-between technology allowing modern (digital camera using) consumers to cling on to the old fashioned photo album age.
Show me a single person who jumps at the opportunity to spend a Sunday afternoon pasting photos into an album, and I'll show you an army of people who simply stick their photos in a shoebox.
Thanks to applications like iPhoto (Mac) and Picasa (Win), we don’t need paper photo albums. Add a media adapter or TiVo and you view you pictures from the couch – just like with an album but without the wasted Sundays.
And if you really want an album, about every online photo printing service will allow you to create one in just a fraction of the time that take to manaully paste the pictures.
Furthermore, online photo printing services are far more convenient than fumbling around at home printing and cutting your pictures. And they offer some nice additional services. Shutterfly will even allow you to create a card, enter a personal message and mail it for you. If you're in a hurry to get your picture, use Snapfish's one hour photo service and pick up your photo's at a local Walgreens store. The price still beats buying a printer, getting the supplies and making sure your ink cartridge doesn't run dry or gets clogged.
Tags: picasa, iphoto, shutterfly, snapfish
December 20, 2005 at 05:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Apple's Safari fails to excite Mac users
Microsoft will be dropping support for Internet Explorer. I'm not sure what the big deal is there because this has been coming for a long time now. Microsoft effectively mothballed Internet Explorer in 2003, shortly after Apple unveiled Safari 1.0. Ceasing support for an application with a minimal user base only makes sense.
More intriguing is Apple's failure to take over Microsoft's market share with Safari.
According to data from Net Applications, Apple had a 4.11 per cent market share in November, versus 95.37 for Windows. (We can debate the accuracy of these figures, but they are good enough for comparison purposes.).
Safari however only claimed a 2.78 per cent share of the browser market. The remaining 1.33 per cent (roughly one third of the Mac users) is using some other browser. (OneStat is showing a similar pattern, although they don't provide overal OS X market share)
Apple is bundling Safari with OS X. Users have to actually make the effort to go out to a website and download Firefox, Opera or any of the other alternative browsers.
Microsoft build a monopoly by bundling a mediocre browser that over the years has been ridden with security holes. And still the company today holds 86.08 per cent of the browser market.
What is driving these Mac users away from Safari? Poor software? A religious belief that using Firefox will foster competition long term? Let me know if you have any thoughts in the comment section below.
Tags: safari, internet explorer, firefox
December 20, 2005 at 02:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (30) | TrackBack
Microsoft plans to shine on Windows Vista at CES
Microsoft today released its latest Community Technology Preview version of Windows Vista, one of several test versions of the forthcoming operating system that will be released between the main beta releases.
Stealing some of Bill Gates' Consumer Electronics Show opening keynote thunder, Microsoft said that the preview is set to take centre stage at the consumer show in January.
In a conference call with media, Shanen boettcher: senior director windows client group said:
"You are going to see some updates to the Media Center user interface, that 10 foot remote control that you may be familiar with in Windows Media Center. You are going to see some updates there as well as update to the media player, Media Player 11. You will see how it is consistent with the integration and use of search throughout the system – the very visual aspects of using thumb nailing to give the end user a better view of their information and better focus. As we head into CES you will see us focus more on these areas. But for the December CTP, we are really focused on the areas of security, performance and mobility as the key things in the feedback areas."
The company later further clarified that it is already shipping the new functionalities, including Media Player 11, in the CTP that was released on Monday. It just won't make a lot of noise about it, opting to wait until January instead.
Microsoft planning to demonstrate beta software... does Bill Gates really want to risk repeating last year's CES demo debacle?
Entry copied from the vnunet.com CES Blog
Tags: bill Gates, Windows vista, CES
December 20, 2005 at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Gates poor software makes for great philanthropy
Some computer users might loath Microsoft chairman Bill Gates for his past anti competitive spats and the carnival of security bugs in his software, as a philanthropist Gates is doing significantly better.
Enough so for Time magazine to name Gates as one of its "people of the year", together with his wife Melinda Gates and U2 singer Bono.
While the list in the past has laurelled great leaders including Martin Luther King and Lech Walesa, inclusion isn't by definition a big honour. The publication in the past has named noted mass murders including Joseph Stalin (twice) and Adolf Hitler to its annual list.
More remarkably, Gates never before has made the Time list. Intel founder Andy Grove (1997) and Amazon's Jeff Bezos (1999) piped Gates. Even the computer (1982) succeeded where Gates failed as a computer geek.
But Gates has put his Microsoft billions to some very good use, saving more than 700,000 through vaccination programmes. You might disagree with Gates' business practices, there is little you can say about his charitable side.
If the thought Gates using his ill gained fortune this way makes you fume, just view this as a form of wealth distribution. At least Gates is using his funds more efficiently than most governments do.
Tags: bono, bill gates, bill and Melinda gates foundation, Time magazine
December 19, 2005 at 07:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wikipedia no more inaccurate than Britannica
The Wikipedia online encyclopedia might be prone to the occasional mistake, it's still about as accurate as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, claims science magazine Nature.
The Nature story puts it the other way around: both are about equally accurate. But as a user I want to know which one to trust and which one to distrust. That's why the recent reports about grave errors popping up in Wikipedia articles concerned me. In today's world, you get measured by your success as much as you get by your failures.
Nature checked 42 entries on scientific topics in both the for-profit Encyclopaedia Britannica and the non-profit Wikipedia. The EB raked in an average of four mistakes per entry, Wikipedia did slightly better with three mistakes.
That's still three and four mistakes too many. It's almost Orwellian: they are both inaccurate. Some are just more in accurate than others.
tags: nature, wikipedia, encyclopaedia Britannica
December 16, 2005 at 12:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Illegally copied Xbox 360 games cleared for take-off
Crackers have claimed victory over the security software in the Xbox 360. By gaining access to the console's software, they have come one step closer to making illegal copies of Xbox games and creating and installing unapproved software.
This wouldn't be such a big deal if Microsoft hadn't been boasting that the new console had further bolted down its security, allowing only Microsoft approved games to be played.
For 99 per cent of the world that doesn't know a thing about cracking, nothing really changed.
December 16, 2005 at 12:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
US government needs a new search engine
A bass and a bass aren't the same. One is a fish while the other is played by a musician. That's why Google is working on a personalised search engine that studies a user's past queries to better serve him in the future.
But to the US government, every Peter Johnson is a terrorist. Never mind that there are more than 2,000 confirmed cases of Peter Johnson who have no intention of blowing up planes, building, people or combinations thereof. But they will get into enormous trouble every time they try to board an airplane nonetheless.
Not convinced? The Transport Safety Authority actually refuse a 9 month old baby to board an airplane because his name matched that of a suspected terrorist.
Doesn't it make you feel comfortable to know that the government is making sure that no single terrorist slips through the security cracks? Next thing, we'll just prohibit passenger airplanes altogether. Fewer hijackings guaranteed.
Or maybe we need smarter people using smarter technology heading up these anti terrorism programmes.
Tags: TSA, airport security
December 15, 2005 at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Nokia's 770 internet appliance tries to do everything right
Nokia late November started shipping the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. In essence the device is a PDA running Linux and its applications being centred around internet use. We met with the company today in San Francisco to kick the 770's tires and discuss the Nokia's overall strategy here.
When Nokia first announced the 770 I called it a "lame device". The only thing it has going for it is the fact that it's running Linux, making it kind of cool.
After today's demonstration I still don't feel like ordering one. The 770 doesn't do anything that my iPaq doesn't (it's about the same size by the way).
But Nokia prefers to stay away from that comparison. The two are in different categories: the 770 is an internet appliance and the iPaq is a personal information manager (PIM). Where PIM-devices are going after the market for electronic calendars (and are being killed by smartphones), the 770 is positioned as "the fourth computer in your home", as Nokia's director of product management Olavi Toivainen put it.
Consumers tend to use their second or third computers primarily for internet browsing and email. Why then buy a full PC if a small portable $350 device will do just as well?
That’s a valid point, although I still wouldn't buy the device because it's lacking one key functionality: it won't take more than 512Mb of expandable memory (throug a RS-MMC chip). My iPaq on plane flights doubles as a very handy portable music player thanks to a 1Gb flash memory chip full of mp3s. Other people might want to use it as a portable video player – its 800 by 480 pixel screen certainly would work there.
Nokia admits that memory is an issue. But you're fine as long as you are within the reach of a Wifi connection (or use your mobile phone's high speed data via a Bluetooth connection). The company actually showed a video recording playing on the 770 that was streaming from a remote PC over the internet.
And for all those users hacking their PSPs against Sony's will: get a 770. The game's aren't nearly as good, but the device uses 'open' as its main feature: it runs Linux and allows users to install anything they want.
Getting developers on board to create applications shouldn't even be an issue. The device runs Debian Linux, which is build for the desktop. It should be able to run most Linux certified applications just fine.
The 770 might not be perfect; Nokia is avoiding two important pitfalls. It's targeting a growing market by positioning this as a "fourth PC replacement" and is making it as open as it possibly can be.
But the real question remains: if you're in the market for a 2nd, 3rd or 4th PC, would you consider buying a Nokia 770 instead? Please let me know in the comments section below.
December 15, 2005 at 03:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
IBM starts collecting start-up tax
IBM yesterday launched yet another patent licensing deal. This time Big Blue will allow start-up companies to purchase a license on IBM's intellectual property.
While it appears a noble attempt by IBM to allow start-ups to do business without running in to the sizable IBM patent legal team, the start-up plan is fundamentally different from IBM's open source patent vows.
Patens, some would argue, are a cancer in today's software industry. Patens were once intended to allow inventors to earn a return on their research investments for several decades. In summary: if you invent the sewing machine and Singer steals your design (really happened), you can sue them.
But in software and especially the internet age, this is a very silly idea. Today's innovations are tomorrow's commodities. Decade long patent claims cripple the overall industry. The "hello world" technology that allows a computer to connect to a network allegedly is covered by a dozen patents. Is that really an innovation that needs to be protected?
And then I should add that the patent system itself is broken. More than 90 per cent of the patents that are disputed end up being invalidated because their innovations turn out to be not so innovative. That never happens in most cases because the procedures are insanely expensive and take up many years. Most cases are settled.
To add insult to injury, large enterprises have cross licensing deals allowing them to use each other's patents. This will prevent any newcomers from entering the market because they can sue them into oblivion for patent violations, using their patent portfolios as a deterrnet. They have turned a system that was intended to foster innovation into one that maintains the status quo.
IBM is the champion of champions when it comes to creating the patent monster, having been the largest filer of patents in the world for years.
IBM meanwhile makes tons of money from selling its army of blue suits (they refer to htme as 'consultants') to clients seeking to install open source software. To protect open source against patents, IBM earlier this year pledged 500 patents to open source – promising not to enforce them. It was a noble step that has to be applauded.
But the start-up deals doesn't even resemble the open source plan. Start-ups have to pay a 1 per cent license fee to use the patents, whether they violate the patents or not. The start-up patent deal is just one step short of extortion. It's telling the world: we've build and army that is ready to come and get you. Now pay up.
The IBM plan for now is optional. But it comes pretty close to a start-up tax.
Tags: IBM, patent litigation
December 14, 2005 at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Biometrics bow to the power of Play-doh
All those action movies where villains cut of fingers to fool a biometric sensors are sending a message that is needlessly complicated. A simple piece of play-doh will do the job quite nicely, a group of scientists found.
Biometric security systems were touted after September 11 for being far more secure (and expensive) than traditional computer security methods. Because terrorists might not have used any computer hacking techniques when they smashed their airplanes into the buildings in New York and Washington, they could have. So eager businessmen were quick to capitalize on the communal fear for non-existent terrorist hackers and started pushing biometrics as a safer alternative.
You'd better get rid of your fingerprint reader because as it turns out you're better off using old fashioned passwords.
Tags: play-doh, biometrics
December 14, 2005 at 02:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Intel wants a Viiv hype
You better get used to the word "Viiv" because if its up to Intel, you'll be hearing it a lot following this January. Pronounced vive (rhymes with five or hive), Viiv is supposed to do for digital entertainment what the centrino did for mobile computing: create a market out of thin air. Intel chief executive Paul Otellini will be talking about Viiv at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
Viiv aims to pick up where the failed Windows XP Media Center Edition left off, Intel said today at a media event. MCE, in case you forgot, was Microsoft's attempt to turn a computer into a living room device, combining a computer with a VCR and television. Except that MCE computers are overpriced, underperform and are plain ugly.
Not so with Viiv, Intel ensures. The technology will enable small form factors (image on the left: all-in-one Viiv PC/TV). And their launch will coincide with the creation of a host of new online media services such as video on demand.
The question remains if that will be sufficient. Viiv remains an expensive way to consume media that so far have been available at a nominal fee. And it still runs Windows XP – an operating system that is far too complicated for the living room.
The big question is what Apple will do the week after Otellini's keynote at CES. Apple will be using Intel chips soon, but industry source claim that Apple doesn't plan to use Intel's Viiv platform.
Rumours claim that the company will be launching a new model of the Mac Mini with home entertainment features. Combined with the video download service to the iPod, that picture is starting to look a lot more interesting that Intel's.
Intel Viiv logo
December 14, 2005 at 01:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A backfiring telephony strategy
Strategy is often the source of evil. Enterprises think that 'strategy' will help them conquer new markets and higher profits, but in the end it either destroys them or they gain nothing.
Landline telephony providers this year have proven that point in excellence, as Current Analysis wrote in a report.
The story goes as follows: 2005 was supposed to be the year of fixed-mobile convergence in Europe. Landline operators would introduce subscription plans that allows consumers to use a single handset both at home and in the outside world. At home the device would function like a cordless phone, using the inexpensive copper wire connection, and outside it would turn into a genuine mobile phone.
Mobile providers were getting scared because there was little that they could do to counter this low cost, single bill competition. Or were they? This year they aggressively started piloting new services that aim to pull consumer fully into the wireless world, cancelling their landline phones.
Family plans offering discounted calling rates to a few numbers became a huge success in Spain. In Germany and Belgium providers are slowly moving towards true flat fee calling plans. And also in Germany providers started introducing local plans with different rates for calls places within a caller's area or cell and long distance calls.
Other plans were less successful. One operator in Belgium for instance unsuccessfully launched a budget calling plan that tried to bring down the cost of mobile telephony by removing features.
The lesson here is one of basic instincts. These mobile operators only launched their news calling plans after they learnt about the landline operators' plans to introduce fixed-mobile convergence services. No doubt they will later claim that a stroke of genius made them do it, but in reality they only became creative after they started feeling threatened.
And the incumbents? Their convergence plans never took off. In the UK British Telecom has launched a consumer offering but is struggling to unveil its plan for small and medium businesses on time (it's promised for December but will likely slip into early 2006). Others might follow next year, but by then their competitors have sharpened their teeth.
The study of strategy is fascinating and highly amusing.
Because, as one highly successful comic writer and former strategist once phrased it to me: "We had to do strategy because our shareholders expected us to. But in reality we were just responding to what the rest of the world was doing, just like everybody else does."
Convergence: just what you wanted for Christmas
Tags: convergence, mobile, telephony
December 13, 2005 at 05:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Why I've had it with the iPod
If people start designing underwear for the iPod, you know that the device has passed its peak in the hype cycle. Either that or it's that start of something even more horrific that I prefer not to think about.
December 13, 2005 at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Google ad bomb hits Wikipedia
The website Wikipediaclassaction.org claims to be preparing a class action lawsuit against the free online encyclopedia after recent reports about inaccuracies on the website.
The latter was bound to happen to any online information source that is created and edited by volunteers. As a partial solution, Wikipedia has since locked out unregistered users, preventing them from creating new entries.
The Class Action Lawsuit website claims to be collecting complaints from people who have been harmed by Wikipedia. Except that the website is somewhat fishy and upon further investigation appears to be a Google ad trap: a website that seeks to capitalise on the current hype around Wikipedia by attracting visitors and showing them Google ads.
Evidence 1:
- The lawsuit page doesn't list a name of the law firm preparing the cast. The listed phone number is answered by a computer and then automatically disconnects. The listed PO Box is used by several other businesses, all of which are related to Baou.com, a seemingly obscure publishing company.
Evidence 2:
- The site likes to "news articles" about the Wikipedia problems. The link offers a search on "Baou.com", linking to news stories on again Baou.com. The class action lawsuit page itself is hosted on a name server called "DNS1.BAOU.COM". People writing for the news website double as "spokespeople" for some of the other Baou services.
Evidence 3:
- Both Baou.com and the class action web page use the same Google Adsense account.
So go ahead and check out the website. Just don't click on any of the advertisements there. Whatever Baou is trying to accomplish, it's deceitful.
December 12, 2005 at 05:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
How to lose money at the speed of light
Being guilty of the (occasional) typo myself, I can only sympathize with the employee of Mizuho Securities Co who on Thursday caused his firm to lose $225m.
The somewhat incredible story claims that the worker wanted to sell a single share of a company called J-Com for 610,000 yen, but instead sold 610,000 pieces for 1 yen each.
Mizuho is set to loose $225m over the affair. But the story doesn't end there. The Tokyo exchange has halted trading in the J-Com shares to allow the share's price to settle.
Meanwhile the exchange's software has come under scrutiny. There are less than 610,000 J-Com shares in circulation and the trading system should have noted that.
Mizuho will now have to purchase the 610,000 share over time to meet its obligations.
Somewhere in Tokyo a trader went home yesterday with the most extreme sense of embarrassment. Let's just hope that he makes it through this affair.
'Hmmm. I wonder what this button is for'
Tags: tokyo, stock market
December 10, 2005 at 12:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Skype gets a genuine challenge
Now that Skype is part of a the Ebay auction powerhouse, there is no more "rooting for the underdog". So I will watch in amusement how the former startup will respond to the latest challenge from the incumbents:
British Telecom and Yahoo! are planning to undercut Skype's calling rates by as much as 50 per cent, taking away the firm's main competitive advantage.
Without low rates, Skype is just another instant messaging platform. And then one that doesn’t even integrate with unified messaging clients like Fire (OS X) or Trillian (Windows).
It will be interesting to see how Ebay responds to this challenge - if it will respond at all or if the auction powerhouse will repeat the mistakes it made with Paypal. In that case it turned the service into a promising Ebay service, but fail to extend it's reach much beyond the auction website (today about 75 per cent of all transactions on Paypal are meant to pay for auction items).
December 9, 2005 at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
For sale: one Xbox 360… picture
Somewhere, somebody is now the proud owner of a cool picture of an Xbox 360 picture, for which he paid £470.00 ($825).
The item was auctioned off on Ebay with the headline promising an Xbox360 Premium Package. But in an obvious attempt to defraud the buyer, buried in the item's description it said that:
"This auction is not for a Xbox 360 game system, but instead a picture of one. I hope you enjoy this high-quality item."
Buyer beware. Although the unfortunate highest bidder would still have a rather strong case. The item description for instance claims that concerns an Microsoft Xbox in new condition, supporting the PAL format. All this information is obviously bogus.
Via: the register
Tags: xbox 360, ebay, online fraud
December 9, 2005 at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
RIAA defendant loses attorney
The first person who is taken to court by the RIAA over illegal file sharing accusations is forced to plead her own case.
Patricia Santangelo can no longer afford to pay her attorney, who has subsequently retired from the case.
The Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP. law firm, which is also running the "Recording Industry vs. The People" blog, also claims that Santagelo doesn't need any legal services.
"It is clear to the undersigned that the plaintiff's case is frivolous, so that it would be unwarranted for defendant to go to extraordinary means to finance her defence of this case."
The case is the first one to proceed to an actual trial. Previous cases were either dropped or settled.
Santangelo doesn’t deny that a computer in her home was used for illegal file sharing activities, but claims that a friend of one of her children is to blame.
That doesn’t sound much like a " frivolous" case. Beldock Levine & Hoffman should change the name of their blog to: "Recording industry vs the people that can afford our services".
The dreamteam from Beldock Levine & Hoffman - for those who can afford it.
Tags: RIAA, Patricia Santangelo
December 8, 2005 at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Alarm clock race heats up
The category of the snooze-evading alarm clocks is rapidly expanding. Sleepers apparently have finally figured out that they can simply turn off their alarms, sparking a race of innovation.
A Taiwanese designer has created the Blowfly Flying alarm clock. The devices flies away, making annoying noises while hovering over your sleepy head. There is no snooze button. Instead you'll have to get up, catch the device and place it back in its cradle. By then – the designer hopes - you're properly awake.
Earlier this year we've seen the emergence of Clocky the roll-away alarm clock and the more scientifically accepted Sleepsmart system that monitors the user's sleep patterns. It wakes up the victim up at the most optimal cycle, preventing the REM sleep from being cut short.
The flying alarm has obvious security issues, so I'll opt for the cuddly Clocky. If you have to wake up, it better be because of something furry rather than through an air assault.
Tags: alarm clock, Blowfly, clocky, Sleepsmart
December 8, 2005 at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Please welcome: the iPod finger
After the Nintendo and Blackberry thumbs, some eager scientist has found a new scapegoat for our weak arm and finger muscles.
The British Chiropractic Association (BCA) has issued an official warning against the iPod and other media players.
At risk are: "Music mad consumers who are constantly using the scroll-wheel or buttons on their MP3 players to organise their song library, update playlists and adjust the volume of their favourite artists."
There is a slight problem in that users will have to be extreme iPod junkies to be affected by this ailment. Most users will spend far more time behind their computers and game computers than they would using their iPods.
Blaming this on the iPod seems more like a cheap PR move. Much like the guy who found a security flaw in Windows and chose to associate it with Google Desktop for added PR value.
iPod finger in the making.
December 8, 2005 at 01:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
.eu loves sex too
On the first day that users could register .eu domain, sex.eu was the most sought after piece of internet property.
Other much needed internet domain names were travel.eu, jobs.eu, hotels.eu and casino.eu.
It's good to see that Europeans jump at the ability to obtain an internet domain that clearly targets a European audience. From what I've heard, especially the French are sick and tired of having to sift through tons of American porn on their way to the sophisticated European kind.
Tags: .eu
December 7, 2005 at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Slightly off topic, but a man in Waterloo, Iowa saw his defence in a federal drug case come crashing down. He had argued that his 574 pound weight would make it impossible for him to go to jail, asking for home confinement instead.
The man received a 14 year sentence. Given the reputation of prison grub, he received a free weight loss treatment in the process.
Tags: obesity
December 7, 2005 at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Cisco predicts video richness
If you're big on watching sports on your TV, you'll like this one. According to Cisco, you can expect future television signals to offer as many as 40 angles for a single broadcast. It's time to become your own director and pick which camera angle you want to see.
Why will broadcasters offer all that media richness? Because they can. And secondly because it allows broadband internet provider (and most notably DSL providers) to differentiate themselves from the cable and wireless competition, Cisco chief development officer Charlie Giancarlo said today at Cisco's World Wide Analyst Conference here in Santa Clara, CA.
December 7, 2005 at 02:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Cisco CEO beats the "interactions" drum
In what he refers to as the third generation of productivity, interactions will be at the centre of future network interactions, Cisco chief executive John Chambers said in his opening keynote at the World Wide Analyst Conference in Santa Clara this morning.
Networked interactions today are mainly a one way road, with the user requesting information from computers. The future however will bring more two-way communications over the internet, starting with Internet telephony and ultimately leading to "the Star Trek scenario".
Incidentally this strategy allows Cisco to sell more advanced products with higher profit margins. Routing and switching might still bring in the bulk of Cisco's business, but it's at risk of becoming a commodity. Selling add-on services will not bring Cisco new business opportunities, but also allows the company to secure business in the routing and switching segment.
Cisco chief executive John Chambers at WWAC
December 6, 2005 at 04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Is Gates travelling to India to develop or salvage business?
Bill Gates this week will be travelling to India, raising the question what the Microsoft chairman will try to accomplish there.
India is one of the more promising areas for open source, as the country isn't struggling with a hard- and software legacy that would force them towards Windows or Unix/Linux. Users in India will choose their software based on the quality of the code rather than based on the existing infrastructure that they need to tie into.
Secondly open source today is pretty much the only way to compete with established and entrenched vendors, be they Microsoft, Oracle or SAP.
For Microsoft India should be a major battleground. Defeat in India will give open source momentum all across developing nations (at least the ones where intellectual property is valued and protected).
Via the Cantina Communications Blog.
Tags: bill gates, india, open source
December 6, 2005 at 12:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Before leaving any comment on this blog...
Make sure you read Scott Adam's guide to "Why I'm stupid".
Scott Adams is the guy who does the Dilbert comics. As I've written before, he started a blog last October.
From now on I reccommend the "stupid" post is the general guide for all flamers and trolls (including Macheads).
You can start flaming... now.
December 5, 2005 at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
BellSouth shows New Orleans the meaning of 'charity'
BellSouth has retracted its offer to build a new police station for the city of New Orleans after the old one was destroyed in this year's Hurricane Katrina.
The telecommunications firm has retracted its offer because the city is planning to start offering free city-wide WiFi, which would compete with BellSouth's commercial offerings.
Bellsouth is denying that the two are related, but it's no big secret that US telco's are waging a fierce battle against free WiFi networks that would dislocate their comfortable local monopolies.
Network connectivity is a commodity and over time is destined to become available for free or nearly free. Fighting them is therefore useless and it's just a shame that the rebuilding of New Orleans has to suffer from a wrong business decission.
The telco reminds of a dinosaur: fierce, brainless and destined to become extinct.
Bellsouth shows that it is only sorry to the extent that it furthers their business
December 5, 2005 at 07:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
What do Adam Curry and Al Gore have in common?
They both claim that they've invented things that they didn't.
Al Gore is famous for once stating that: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.
Similarly Adam Curry, a former video disc jockey for MTV who has turned into an internet entrepreneur, is determined to go down history as the inventor of the podcast - those downloadable radio shows that have some people very excited.
Curry went so far as to alter the entry on podcasts over on Wikipedia, claims blogger Rogers Cadenhead.
The wannabe godfather of podcasting was caught deleting the names of people who created podcasting technology before Curry got involved in it and beefed up his involvement in the phenomenon. Curry logged in anonymously, but the entries were traced back to his IP address.
Curry has apologized, but mostly pleads that his ignorance and lack of actual knowledge made him do it:
"After about 20 minutes of trying to figure out the interface of the [Wikipedia] editing system I became exasperated and gave up."
In another post he admits that Curry didn't invent anything:
"I was able to find this video of Kevin Marks demoing an applescript downloading mp3 enclosures straight to his ipod. […]This video is really incredible, some of the things being said are incredibly visionary, and I'm not even in the room."
The last phrase summarizes it pretty well and should be added to the Wiki entry: "Curry wasn't even in the room."
Curry has left the building.
Tags: podcast, gore, adam curry
December 5, 2005 at 06:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
File sharer calls RIAA's bluff
We all know that the recording industry association of America won't win any popularity contests in the coming decade. This phrase perfectly sums up why:
"The RIAA has become something of a hate figure among computer users for its use of legal challenges. Legal cases have been bought against children, students and even dead people."
The phrase comes from news report on the first file sharing lawsuit that will actually come before a judge and jury. A mother of four is pleading not guilty against file sharing charges, claiming that one of her kid's friends committed the copyright violations.
Unfortunately that means that she does admit that the illegal file sharing took place under her supervision. I'm no legal expert, it appears that the "my kid's friend did it" doesn't exonerate her.
The best defence against the RIAA today is still the 'hacking' theory: Claim that your computer has been infected by an internet worm and used as a zombie computer. There is plenty of evidence that zombies in have been used in the past. The RIAA has filed lawsuits against 80-year olds who had never even heard of file sharing, yet their internet accounts were used for it (according to RIAA's legal claims).
Downloading copyrighted materials is wrong. But rather than spend millions of dollars on lawyers, the record labels should turn their efforts to creating an easy to use legal alternative. People don't mind paying for music online, just give them a place where they can do this. And yes, this will probably cut out the middle man (the record labels funding the RIAA) in the process. That’s what you get for creating bad karma.
Tags: RIAA, filesharing, p2p
December 2, 2005 at 06:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Getting ready for CES
Silicon Valley Sleuth is wasting his nights away