Why is Amazon supporting a proposed federal sales tax law?
Amazon can't keep running away from states that require sales tax collection. Even they are now supporting a Democratic proposal to create an interstate agreement for standardized and simplified collection of taxes. Everyone's a winner except for those of you who have not been paying the use tax you're supposed to pay. It's a good and fair idea and it has no chance whatsoever of passage.
The remote buyer sales tax problem is an old one going back to the days of mail order and catalogs. The Internet has made it worse for states because the volume is so much greater, but the nature of the problem hasn't really changed. In that sense, the established court precedents might seem to close the books on the case.
Apple is a patent bully
"Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it", David Drummond, Google chief legal officer, writes in a blog post late yesterday afternoon. He's absolutely right.
For weeks I've been thinking about writing a commentary about how Apple has become a patent bully -- that its behavior answers an ongoing question of discussion going on for years. Drummond's blog post tipped me to doing it.
Foxconn to replace troublesome human beings with robots
According to Xinhuanet (the official Chinese news agency) "Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn will replace some of its workers with 1 million robots in three years to cut rising labor expenses and improve efficiency, said Terry Gou, founder and chairman of the company, late Friday".
This is an old story and you could see it coming for Foxconn. A few months ago when I talked about the problem of labor conditions at Foxconn, where products for Apple, Sony, Nokia and others are made, I suggested that a need to improve labor conditions might end up with a lot of jobs being eliminated. This seems to be the case.
Is Mac malware dead or just resting?
Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, aliens with anal probes, and Mac malware: long-rumored, but short on confirmed sightings. Until recently.
In May we had our first genuine Mac malware outbreak with Mac Guard a.k.a. MacDefender and a bunch of other names. It followed the tried-and-true Windows malware method of fake anti-malware software. Once installed, it caused a lot of problems and then demanded money to solve them. Apple created a signature check system that can't really work in the long run, but within a few weeks the attacks ran their course. They weren't followed up, at least not in a big way.
Why I chose iOS and Windows 8 development over Android
Android is hot from a device sales perspective -- 550,000 activations per day. However, even though apps for Android phones are surging in the marketplace, it does not yet appear that the same is true for Android tablets. As popular as Android is, it is my personal opinion that iOS and Windows 8 should be the focus of future development.
The sheer popularity of iOS and the beauty of Apple's hardware make iOS a prime candidate for app development. I'm not saying developers shouldn't target Android at all, but I believe iOS and Windows 8 offer (or will offer) the best user experiences going forward.
This is leadership? US cybersecurity is a revolving door of exiting officials
Personally, I never understood what got people so excited about Barack Obama. But back in 2008 people were positively gooey about him, and one of the lesser reasons was "cybersecurity". Obama "got it". He understood the deadly seriousness of this business.
In July, 2008 then-Senator Obama told a gathering at Purdue University: "As President, I'll make cybersecurity the top priority that it should be in the 21st century. I'll declare our cyber-infrastructure a strategic asset, and appoint a National Cyber Advisor who will report directly to me. We'll coordinate efforts across the federal government, implement a truly national cyber-security policy, and tighten standards to secure information - from the networks that power the federal government, to the networks that you use in your personal lives".
Remembering developer Steve Lacey
Editor's note: Software developer Steve Lacey was killed in a tragic car crash on July 24th, reportedly when another driver accelerated in an unrelated road rage incident. In perhaps a sign of changing times, a number of notable geeks are writing their remembrances on Google+. Here, Robert Scoble shares about working with Lacey at Microsoft. More recently, Google employed Lacey.
When I first met Steve Lacey, back in 2004, he was working at Microsoft on the Flight Simulator team and I could instantly tell he was a geek's geek (e.g., a pioneer everyone looked up to). You can see the video we did together. (Silverlight required)
Google is right to demand people use real names
Google, don't cow before riffraff demanding that you allow Google Plusers to use pseudonyms or to be anonymous. The policy of using real names is sensible and best approach long term.
While I was at San Diego Comic-Con this weekend, there was a big row about suspended Google+ accounts -- so I'm playing catch up on this one. Well, thank you, Google! I mean that without the slightest hint of sarcasm. That's a sincere thank you.
The roles we play
Today, Comic-Con 2011 wraps up here in San Diego. It's family day, where the halls fill up with locals -- following three days of celebrity panels, costume contests and other festivities. The event is all about people, whether someone comes to see a celeb, meet the authors of favorite books, games or movies or to do role play.
Many attendees have come here as someone else. For a day, or even a few, they take on another persona. They become someone else -- perhaps whom they would rather be, but most certainly not who they are. They can be heroes and even stars, for most anyone well-costumed will be repeatedly stopped for photos. Comic-Con lets them be not just someone else but someone special.
Has Google made Twitter boring?
For the past few days I've been hanging out in Jackson Hole with a bunch of geeks and one thing I've noticed over and over is how boring Twitter has gotten when compared to Google+.
Why has Twitter turned boring?
Is Amazon's tablet positioned to be an iPad killer?
The Wall Street Journal shook the tech world Wednesday with news that Amazon plans to release its own Android-based tablet in October, a clear effort to take Apple head on now that it has nearly dominated the e-reader market with its market-leading Kindle device.
While the device is not a replacement for the Kindle, it's likely that the e-retailer will make it compatible with its array of services. Amazon already has a stable of offerings that could make any tablet successful: its cloud-based music service, its own music store, the Kindle e-bookstore, and its streaming and downloadable video offerings.
Starting over with the Internet is cybersecurity Shangri-la
Many of the worst problems on the Internet are probably unsolvable, at least as a practical matter. One of the favorite models to imagine our way out of this ordeal is to start over with a new and more "secure" Internet. Sadly, this is an even less practical idea than fixing the one we have.
The latest to dare to imagine this dream is U.S. Cyber Command chief Gen. Keith Alexander who wants a ".secure" network for critical infrastructure: ".secure would require visitors to use certified credentials for entry and would do away with users' Fourth Amendment rights to privacy. Network operators in the financial sector, for example, would be authorized to scan account holders' traffic content for signs of trouble. The current Internet setup would remain intact for people who prefer to stay anonymous on the Web".
Did Google hand China to Microsoft?
It's rare that a public company takes moral stances where business interests suffer. But that's the choice Google made in January 2010, after reversing its search censorship policy in China. On Monday, ironically during the 235th celebration of America's freedom, Microsoft announced an English-language search deal with Baidu, China's leading search provider. Microsoft will censor the results Bing delivers.
I don't believe that the Baidu-Microsoft deal could have been possible, if not for the courageous actions taken by Google 18 months ago. Even then, Google should be faulted, having agreed to censor search results in China for nearly four years earlier. Google's decision to stop censorinp hurt its business in China, and not just search. Chinese manufacturer HTC is one of Android's biggest hardware OEMs. Perhaps it's no coincidence that Samsung has risen above HTC as premiere Android handset manufacturer over the last 18 months.
Has Stephen Elop doomed Nokia?
The N9 and N950 clearly show that Nokia had good smartphones already in the development pipeline, but new CEO Stephen Elop never gave them a chance. He bet the company on Windows phone, which will be good for Microsoft but not so great for Nokia.
Analyst predictions tell the story, in the simplest way. As measured by operating system, IDC predicts that Symbian will go from 20.6 percent global market share this year essentially to zero in 2015. Meanwhile, Windows Phone -- Nokia's new primary mobile operating system -- will reach 20.3 percent in four years. That's less than a zero-sum gain, since Nokia isn't the sole Windows Phone distributor.
LulzSec victim: 'They are terrorists!'
Editor's note: Yesterday, hacker group LulzSec Security released a cache of documents taken from Arizona Dept. of Public Safety servers. The data dump included personal information, such as home address and spouse's name, for cops. Here, a victim from an earlier LulzSec data dump -- 62,000 stolen usernames and passwords, many connected to public services like AOL and Gmail -- has something to say about the group. This commentary is edited together from separate emails. Fearing reprisals, the LulzSec victim requests anonymity, so we can't fully verify the story. But based on email exchanges we're confident it's legit.
The feelings that morning as all my accounts were being shut down for no apparent reason was like my experience in Washington, DC on 9/11-- initially confusing. Then as news reports leaked out and I realized that I was a target, the panic ensued. Just [like] we were hearing that our building might possibly be a target of an aircraft on 9/11.
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