Will the iPhone embarrassments never end? The iPhone was supposed to be a design and marketing triumph, yet between AT&T botching certain aspects of the launch and billing, plus furor over the price cut, the phone continues to be in the press for all the wrong reasons. The latest mess is that iPhone users who […]
Read more...An Associated Press story via the Washington Post reports that studies have found that implanted chips have induced cancers in some rats and mice. This is another blow to the use of RFID technology for human identification. It’s also encountering opposition on privacy grounds. California passed a law last week anyone from “compelling” another to […]
Read more...This story, on the Chinese successfully making a cyber attack on the Pentagon, is admittedly a bit wide of the subject matter of this blog, but it’s a major story that the Financial Times seems to have broken. I don’t see it on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN or Bloomberg sites. Bizarrely, […]
Read more...Among their many good qualities, Australians have little respect for authority and can be refreshingly blunt. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft is trying to get internet service providers to crack down on illegal downloaders by sending them warning notices and if they continue, disconnect them. Amusingly, the industry […]
Read more...Lucy Kellaway, a Financial Times columnist who writes about corporate fads, once said no new business technique is too ridiculous to be put into practice. The Springwise newsletter (“New business ideas for entrepreneurial minds”), demonstrates that the same can be said of new business concepts. This week’s edition breathlessly describes what can only be depicted […]
Read more...A solid article in ComputerWorld tells us that data theft is getting worse. In the ongoing struggle between the security mavens and the data thieves, the bad guys are gaining ground. They are getting more shrewd at targeting victims, even buying marketing lists to hone in on the affluent. They are also careful to avoid […]
Read more...An excellent story, “China’s iClone,” in Popular Science on the Chinese cloning industry, which uses the miniOne, an iPhone clone that runs on Linux and offers improvements such as the ability to run on any phone network and a replaceable battery, at about half the price of the iPhone, as a point of departure. What […]
Read more...Santayana was right. Humans seem to be hard wired to make the same mistakes over and over again. Consider the financial turmoil afflicting Second Life. Mirroring our time, the online game/virtual community is commercially oriented. Property and services have a price. (If you think virtual worlds must operate that way, I suggest you read a […]
Read more...A good piece from the Associated Press via Yahoo on the potential of geothermal energy as a fossil fuel replacement. Geothermal energy has the advantage of being clean and abundant. In fact, it’s already used in some homes in northern Europe, where a geothermal well beneath a house contains water that has been heated by […]
Read more...Those of you who are long in tooth might remember the days when Dr. Doom, aka Henry Kaufman, chief economist of Salomon Brothers, could move the market. Kaufman was intellectual, articulate, and insightful. I remember as a summer associate listening to his section of the Monday morning meeting at Salomon. You could hear a pin […]
Read more...Monsanto is known for heavy handed, even ruthless, business tactics. But occasionally underdogs score a victory. I have long been astounded at the premise that Monsanto could attempt to block farmers growing their own seeds, and the Public Patent Foundation successfully challenged the agribiz company on that issue: The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) announced today […]
Read more...A public service announcement, “Safest Seat on a Plane: PM Investigates How to Survive a Crash.” from Popular Mechanics: In the wake of nearly 200 passenger deaths in a Brazilian airliner accident, we take an exclusive look at 36 years’ worth of NTSB reports and seating charts. The best way to live through a disaster […]
Read more...When the Supreme Court, in a recent decision, overturned a century-old ruling that made it illegal to require distributors to adhere to minimum price agreements, most observers worried that it would hurt online commerce. But I doubt they expected that the online businesses affected would include Ebay merchants. The decision appeared to have been swayed […]
Read more...As a someone who has a good memory for numbers and therefore can’t be bothered to store data in my cell phone, this article confirms my prejudices. From the UK’s Telegraph: An over reliance on technology is leading to a dumbing down of the nation’s brain power, according a study published today. In a society […]
Read more...Readers may think we are being unfair in picking on Verizon. After all, the name of the game in business is to try to create barriers to entry, or failing that, establish some form of product differentiation that makes your offerings more attractive to some, hopefully many, customers, enabling you to charge more (the generic […]
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