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Have a geeky holiday and prosperous 2007
Just got back from the neighbors yard to get a Christmas tree (see below) and getting all emotation. This year was a memorable one for this blog, with several record setting postings: take 1, 2 or 3. When we started this blog in November 2004, we never could have dreamed of a single posting getting nearly 200,000 pageviews.
Thank you all for you links, comments and eyeballs. This blog will hibernate for a bit as we gather strength to storm the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas early January.
Bear in mind however that our reporting from this event will be primarily posted on our CESblog.
Image nicked from Sunbelt blog
technorati tags: 2007, blog, christmas, holiday
December 21, 2006 at 12:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
2007 predictions and 2006 payday
After last year's predictions for 2006 provided a mixed bag of failures (see below), I'll give this punditry thing another try this year. It can hardly go any worse than last year.
Discussion is encouraged, flaming is allowed only if you demonstrate in your that you never read the posting but are commenting nonetheless.
1. After seeing Windows Vista in the wild, customers shrug their shoulders and go back to work. A few geeks and a small army of reporters will line up at stores for a midnight launch, the rest of the world will go on with its real life.
2. Businesses will reward the Micosoft-Novell deal with their dollars and allow Novell to create a genuine competitor for Red Hat. The noise from the religious open source camp will eventually quiet down.
3. Oracle will parade a few customers for its Red Hat Linux support offering in front of press and analysts, but their limited numbers will illustrate that support and bug fixes alone don't make for a viable Linux offering.
4. As online criminals turn increasingly to highly targeted attacks, a small scale worm will target OS X in an effort to conduct industrial espionage. It will exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft Office, allowing Apple to blame the attack on Redmond.
5. Google will fail to find a way to monetize traffic for the user generated videos that are hosted on Google Video and Youtube. To consolidate its position as a leading online video provider, the firm will create a genuine video search engine that indexes video both inside and outside its network.
6. After the embarrassing failure of the new Netscape.com, AOL will acquire Digg.com for several hundred million dollars.
7. AMD will take back the technology lead from Intel in the chip market when it launches it quad core processor. Intel will be forced to continue to drop its prices to maintain market share. To cut back on R&D investments, it will unveil a timeline for a chip that will move Itanium systems to the x86 platform.
8. HP will remain the most boring and passionless company in high tech. Financially it will prosper.
9. The One Laptop per Child project will ship millions of Linux powered notebook computers to developing economies. Horror stories about containers full of OLPCs sitting idle in docks and ending up on the grey market will embarrass Negroponte, but the project ultimately will be declared a success.
10. After a slew of high profile computer security incidents, governments will crack down on the computer industry and adopt legislation that forces proper levels of corporate IT security.
And finally: Payday for 2006 predictions:
(as I'm judge, jury and executioner, I'm sure that you disagree with these scores).
1: Vista launching on time. 0 points
2: Open source develops patent weapon against Microsoft: 0 points
3: iPods iconic status will fail to cause a major shift in Mac sales: 1 point
4: Intel Viiv will fail: 1 point
5: Samsung acquires AMD: 0 points
6: PS3 will kick Xbox 360's but: 1 point
7: Google's valuation will drop: 0 poits
8: RSS adoption will increase to 10 pct: 0 points
9: Users will sue Microsoft for insecure code: 0 points
10: VNU will make many more headlines: 1 point
Total: 4 points
BMW's 2007 prediction: your car will have an espresso cup holder and LCD display in the back. Chauffeur not included.
technorati tags: 2007, predictions
December 20, 2006 at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Google users are from Venus, Yahoo's are from Mars
If you were wondering why Google's financial performance is so much butter than Yahoo's, the top search queries for the two will tell everything you need to know.
As the attached table shows, Google's top searches for 2006 shows a very tech savy group of users, with the Bebo social network topping the ranks, followed by myspace. The world cup (soccer) ranks 4th and in the 9th position we find Mininova, a bittorent tracker that allows users to download content without paying for it.
Yahoo searchers however are obsesses with anything shallow: Britney Spears (pictured left), the World Wrestling Entertainment (which has nothing to do with wrestling), Shakira and Jessica Simpson top the search ranking.
Although you'll have a hard time putting advertising next to search results for a user who is looking for copyright infringement networks, there is definitely some potential for all the social projects in the Google ranking. Now try defining a target audience for Britney Spears and Paris Hilton without pitching adult entertainment.
| Google search | Yahoo search |
|
Googlers prefer a guy building a website from a garage over blondes.
technorati tags: google, yahoo, search, britney+spears, bebo
December 19, 2006 at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Youtube marketing done right
Will it blend is living the dream of every 10-year-old boy that is trapped in a grown man's body: put items ranging from iPods (pictured right) to gardening racks in a blender and see what happens.
These random acts of senseless destruction are shot on video and then uploaded to the website and Youtube, where they amuse the masses of bored office workers.
But these videos aren't all fun and games. They are produced by a blender manufacturer who hopes that they will increase brand awareness.
I don't know about you, but I have a sudden urge to test the limits of the family blender.
technorati tags: youtube, marketing, blender, willitblend
December 19, 2006 at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Bill Gates admits to DRM mess
Bill Gates has some clear advice for consumers: don't buy music from digital music stores, including the Urge store that it backs. Digital rights management technology after all is far too complicated to actually use. His advice" buy a CD and rip it to your hard drive and portable mp3 player.
The words are remarkable coming from Gates. The Microsoft chairman is partly responsible for the DRM mess, as his company created the Windows Media Format. HE seemed to be targeting Apple's iTunes store more than anything else, however.
"At the end of the day, incentive systems [for artists] make a difference, but we don't have the right thing here in terms of simplicity or interoperability," Gates said at a conference last Friday.
You see, in Gates' head, digital rights management by itself isn't evil, as long as you allow all device makers to support the technology. Apple famously won't allow other device makers to build media players that support its Fairplay DRM, where Microsoft will sell a license for its Windows Media to anyone with a wallet.
If Gates is sincere about wanting to create an honest DRM while preventing piracy, he should consider backing Sun's open DRM project, or at least opening up Windows Media.
technorati tags: drm, apple, microsoft, bill+gates,
December 18, 2006 at 08:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Silicon Valley Sleuth switches ownership
VNU has sold its European publishing business and trade show business including vnunet.com and this blog to 3i, a private equity fund.
Although it isn't yet clear what strategy 3i has for the company, the transaction ends a period of uncertainty about our ownership. I don't know anything beyond what was in today's press release, other than that we look forward to continue to grow our traffic and serve our readers.
The Financial Times broke the news on Friday, but today's press release didn't bring a confirmation of the alleged 320 euro acquisition sum that the FT cited. The companies are also still discussing a possible acquisition of VNU's publications and trade shows in France.
technorati tags: silicon+valley+sleuth, SVS, VNU, acquisition, 3i
December 18, 2006 at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
iPhone secrecy bites Apple in the back
Apple on Monday paid the price for its secretive ways when Cisco subsidiary Linksys launched an iPhone.
The iPhone, of course, is that name that bloggers and media have been using for a product that Apple is rumored to be launching. Although rumor has it that Apple has assigned contractors to manufacture the device, its name is shrouded in the level of secrecy that normally surrounds Apple launches.
Either way, Linksys is the big winner.
If (and that's a big if) Apple has a different name for its mobile phone, Linksys today received a ton of free publicity.
But if the models that believed to be rolling of the conveyer belts in China right now are indeed labeled iPhone, Apple has a major trademark battle on its hands.
For Apple to claim ownership of the iPhone trademark, it would need to show that is has used the term over a period of time. Apple's rigid secrecy record prevents the firm from making any such claim. The company may have owned iphone.org since 1999, but never put the domain to any use.
Obsessive secrecy can have consequences.
technorati tags: linksys, apple, iphone
December 18, 2006 at 06:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Reddit hit by identity theft
Reddit is warning users of the social bookmaking service that their online identities might have been compromised.
The company disclosed on a company blog that a backup was stolen that contained a part of the service's database, including user names, passwords and email addresses for its users.
Especially users who have the same login name and password for multiple services (and who doesn't?) should be cautious and are urged to change their passwords.
Reddit recently was acquired by Wired, and big corporate seems to be raising its ugly head in the worst possible way: through severely lacking security protocols and a no encryption.
Synergy used to have a positive meaning.
technorati tags: reddit, idtheft, id+theft
December 16, 2006 at 02:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
FSF tells Vista to sod off
Richard Stallman's (picture below) Free Software Foundation has kicked off a new campaign that aims to drive away business from Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system.
BadVista will pick up where the 'Defective by Design' campaign left of. A spoof on Microsoft's secure by design programme, the latter targeted digital rights management technology.
The Free Software Foundation is the group that gave us the general public license (GPL) and its "religious" provisions about patents and DRM.
The group plans the concrete protests for BadVista a surprise, but it will target the Trusted Computing initiative that has given us the Trusted Platform Module (TPM). In addition to securely storing passwords and encrypting the contents of your hard drive, the TPM in theory can also be used to limited a user's access to information, or even prevent a web page from being printed.
The FSF must be on the trail of some of Microsoft's dark plans. Security Startup today is the only technology that uses the TPM today. It allows users to encrypt the data on their hard drives.
While third party applications too can use the chip, that is typically only limited to software that comes bundled with new systems. Some IBM Thinkpads for instance have a TPM to securely store passwords.
But even if there is no dark conspiracy, the first F in FSF stands for free for a reason. The group doesn't like to be locked out. And it's making sure that it is heard.
technorati tags: microsoft, freedom, fsf, free+software+foundation
December 16, 2006 at 01:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
If you weren't planning on buying a Mac
would this change your mind? (air sickness bag not included)
Allegedly this is Apple's television ad for the 2006 Holiday season. technorati tags: apple, commercial, advertising
December 16, 2006 at 01:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Spanish
