Even though I have said some unkind things about the Economist, once you get outside the world of politics, it is a very good guide to leading edge conventional wisdom. What do I mean by “leading edge conventional wisdom?” It is the sort of thinking dispensed by well regarded think tanks and private sector experts […]
Read more...Australia’s News.com.au reports that a local Melbourne PhD student has developed an algorithm that will increase the data throughput speeds on good old fashioned copper wires 200 fold. John Papandriopoulos claims that his approach can produce Internet speeds up to 250 Mbps. By contrast the top speed offered by Verizon’s fiber optic service FIOS is […]
Read more...I’ve debated for a couple of days about posting this item, but since it was still nagging at me, I figured it was sufficiently interesting to be worthy of your attention. By way of background, Frank Abagnale of book and later movie “Catch Me if You Can” fame, can lay claim to having been one […]
Read more...I’m pretty amazed at the tone and some of the content of the report on Bloomberg about the fact that Microsoft decided not to appeal the decision of Europe’s second highest court and worked out a settlement. Not only does Bloomberg seem not to appreciate that even Microsoft is subject to the rule of law, […]
Read more...I must confess I don’t read the Economist as much as I used to. I suppose one factor was my belated recognition of how much to the right it had moved (it was evident to UK readers in the 1990s, but not being a close follower of British politics, I didn’t recognize it until the […]
Read more...We appear to have made stunning gains in the world of desktop computing. Screamingly fast chips. Huge amounts of RAM and gigantic hard disks. And those big, gorgeous flat screens. If you are playing games, watching (and storing) movies, or editing photos, all that horsepower is essential. And websites have gotten all kinds of busy […]
Read more...A Bloomberg story reports that specialized online ad agencies such as Quigo are successfully gaining share at the some of the very biggest (and therefore most profitable) advertisers. Quigo allows advertisers to specify what sites their ads run on. Quigo also allows publisher to use their own sales force rather than Google’s. Other ad agencies […]
Read more...Well, at least it’s checking a box via a GUI (graphical user interface). You can’t make this stuff up. From the US Patent and Trademark Office: Mode switching for ad hoc checkbox selection AbstractControlling checkbox status by selecting and deselecting checkboxes in a GUI according to a mode of operation, the GUI having displayed upon […]
Read more...You cannot make this stuff up….From the US Patent and Trademark Office: Outsourcing of services Abstract A method for identifying human-resource work content to outsource offshore of an organization. The method is provided on a computer readable medium and includes the steps of identifying at least one task being performed by an organization; associating each […]
Read more...Is the iPhone the beginning of the end of Apple’s days as a company who can do no wrong? In retrospect, the change of the name of the company from “Apple Computer” to “Apple” may have been the tip-off. It made official the Cupertino company’s shift in orientation from being a personal computer company to […]
Read more...For those of us who have been following the Vonage saga (full disclosure: I’m an early and generally happy customer, and even used their service in Australia, which allowed people to call my 212 number and reach me in Sydney), the trial results are baffling. By way of background, Vonage is the largest commercial provider […]
Read more...This week, CIO Magazine. in continuing series of surveys on outsourcing, reported that it fares poorly as a cost saving measure: ….our cost management survey shows that IT outsourcing is usually not an effective way to reduce IT costs. Only 15% have found it results in large savings, while 45% found it only produces minimal […]
Read more...The iPhone had better be worth it to Apple. With their loyalist-alienating price slash (which one would think has to lower revenues and profits), obstacles to battery replacement, and continuing troubles with AT&T (a botched launch followed by general unhappiness with the carrier), the mixed press about the phone has undermined its “gee whiz” look […]
Read more...The Internet has become America’s newest addiction. In a JWT survey that as of this hour hasn’t been widely reported in the US, more than a quarter of the participants said they had cut back on in person interaction to spend more time on the Web. Admittedly, there is a big element of self-selection in […]
Read more...It’s generally not a good sign when a regulator exhibits distaste for his job. Recall that Federal banking supervision takes place through a variety of channels, but the main actors are the Fed and the Treasury, through the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision. So Treasury Secretary Hank […]
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