10 years after they broke up Microsoft
Editors Note: 'What if' hypothetical history follows. The events described in this article didn't actually happen. But they might have...
It was all over when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to reconsider the judgement of the Court of Appeals upholding Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's antitrust breakup of Microsoft. A shotgun divorce is an ugly thing in business.
The great Microsoft antitrust oversight farce ends
It's a little over 10 years since Microsoft largely won/lost the appeal of the U.S. government's landmark antitrust case. Today, Thursday, May 12, 2011, the oversight regime created by the judgement against Microsoft ends. Can anyone reasonably say that this case made any meaningful difference to the
technology business?
I've always been hardcore, maybe even an extremist, about the antitrust case against Microsoft. I never thought of it as a dangerous monopoly.
News in the age of Twitter: lessons from Bin Laden and beyond
Everything we knew about breaking news has changed.
By this point, it's generally believed that CBS News Capitol Hill Producer Jill Jackson broke the stoy of Osama bin Laden's death with one tweet at 10:32pm EST. Whether Jill scooped her own network is a question for another time, but the point is this: One tweet, retweeted by me and thousands of others, came more than an hour before the President of the United States took the podium and confirmed what we'd all read.
Carriers will make sure no one wins the smartphone wars
Let's say your company wants to produce smartphone apps. On the conference room white board, developers have laid out the beginnings of a small-screen game that will make Angry Birds look like Ms. Pacman. Everyone's pretty excited.
You don't have much budget, so you're going to have to start by focusing on one platform and fan out to others once you're successful. Time to bet on a horse, and start immersing yourself in the ecosystem.
We got Osama bin Laden so that malware alarmists can get you
In the light of [NAME OF NEWS EVENT] we are cautioning users to beware of Internet scams and other abuse. Be on the lookout for Facebook messages related to [NAME OF NEWS EVENT], scrutinize search engine results related to [NAME OF NEWS EVENT] and look out for new domain names using [NAME OF NEWS EVENT] to attract your attention.
Oops, sorry folks! I filed my template without filling it in first. My bad.
Thanks for giving up my identity to hackers, Sony
For as many as 77 million PlayStation subscribers, Sony delivered grim news today: Not only is PlayStation Network still down, but hackers obtained users' personal information, including logins and passwords. Credit card numbers and expiration dates "may have been obtained." That "may have" is a polite way of saying probably did.
Not only has Sony taken six days to come clean but PSN is still down, so subscribers can't log in to change their compromised information. That's what I wanted to do right away, if for no other reason than a sense of control and security. That Sony can't, or won't, bring back PSN says something extraordinary about the potential scope of the breach.
The Crimes of the Chinese, Foxconn, Steve Jobs and ourselves
I had no idea what I was going to see when relatives took me out in Washington DC to see The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs starring -- exclusively -- Mike Daisey. I didn't expect a political polemic. I'm still not totally sure what to make of it. Daisey's style is a monologue, a combination of storytelling and lecturing, just him on the stage. It was a hell of a performance and this was his second show that day.
There are two stories Daisey tells as he sits at a simple table on a complex chair (it's made from recycled plastic and is described in the program). First, he tells the story of Apple and his love for their products. Second, he tells the story of his trip to Shenzhen in China, in particular to the Foxconn facility in the Special Economic Zone, where Apple's magical iPhones and many other products are made. Daisey researched the second story by going to Shenzhen, hiring a translator and faking his way in for a Foxconn factory tour posing as a prospective American businessman. Then he stood outside the fence and interviewed employees on their way out after their shift.
Where is my ala carte cable TV?
Over the weekend, I started looking at how realistic would be cutting my IPTV provider and replacing it with over-the-air broadcasts and Internet steaming from services like Hulu Plus and Netflix. Most anyone else would be looking to ditch a cable provider like Comcast, Cox or Time Warner. I have AT&T U-verse -- since February 2008. My U-verse bill for Internet and TV was $140 last month, and that's simply more than I can afford to spend. I'm not fully employed.
The problem, I realize, is that U-verse (or Cox, the other option) offers too much of what I don't want and not enough of what I do. I'd rather pay something like 80 bucks a month, even 100, for Internet and handful of channels and streaming services that my family would regularly watch. Perhaps cable providers don't see the profit opportunity in such an approach, or maybe it would be logistically too difficult to offer such choice or to mange its billing.
Music producer rains praise on Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player
As a music producer who went through the rapid changes from the "tangible content" era to the "digital content" era I am incredibly pleased with Amazon's cloud storage and personal music streaming services. Editor's Note: Amazon unveiled Cloud Drive and Cloud Player on March 29.
I had conceived of a unique service similar to Amazon's Cloud Drive around 2004. Lacking the funds and expertise to put something together I chose a career path for my music that was far from designing web and app code. After 10 years of composing, producing, engineering and performing I have amassed a very large publishing catalog of music that I own and operate.
It's time to end the e-commerce sales tax holiday
When I buy a book at the book store in my town they charge me 7 percent extra to send to the state of New Jersey. But when I buy it from Amazon.com I don't pay the 7 percent. It's a great deal for Amazon.com and for me, but it's fundamentally unfair. It's time to end the distinction.
I'm one who believes that taxes, as a general matter, should be kept as low as possible. This isn't about revenue -- it's about fairness. There's no logical reason why retail businesses with a physical presence should have to collect sales taxes but e-commerce (and phone/catalog) retailers don't.
Google's Android kill switch is a GOOD thing
People get so paranoid about Google! Not that Google or any other large company in this industry is especially loveable, but so-called privacy advocates are especially prone to presume the most evil motives on its part. The latest example is the "Android Kill Switch."
This issue grew out of the discovery of dozens of malicious applications in the Android Marketplace on March 1st. Google removed the apps and went a couple of steps further: The company issued a program to reverse the effects of any infections, triggering the Remote Application Removal Feature.
5 ways to protect your Android phone from malware
As most of you by now know, last week the Android Market, the official store for applications on Android mobile devices, withdrew a number of apps that had been reported as harmful.
Why is Android encountering challenges where the iPhone isn't? Apps available for download on the Android Market aren't screened as stringently as they are on other public stores such as Apple's. The policy is in keeping with Android's open-source operating system, effectively allowing anyone with programming skill to create apps for mobile devices.
Fragmentation is root cause of Android's recent malware problems
The revelation that Google has pulled 58 malicious applications from the Android Market after they infected over a quarter of a million devices brings the promise, potential and future of the Android platform into question. The threat of mobile malware is no longer theoretical or a way for iOS users to bash Android. It's a very real concern.
Before I criticize Android, I'd like to say that Android does a lot of things very well. This article is not about that. I must also perform the obligatory smartphone disclosure, so that all my biases can be addressed in advance. In the last five years I have owned a Sidekick, smartphones running Windows Mobile 5 through 6.5, a few Nokia mobiles, a Blackberry, several Android devices and most recently a Windows Phone 7 smartphone.
I don't see the value in cybersecurity treaties
Bruce Schneier and other very respectable experts think we should be talking treaties with China and others about cyberattacks, even if the treaties are unenforceable. But they're not just unenforceable, they're unverifiable.
Go watch the excellent interview on searchsecurity.com with Bruce Schneier. It's less than 7 minutes. Schneier is a top guy in cryptography and has broader interests and expertise. In his blog he often takes on the real world security measures we all deal with, like surveillance cameras and ID card standards.
12 reasons why developers should favor Android tablets over iPad
OK, maybe Steve Jobs' reality distortion field is wearing off a bit, and I might feel differently in a week when I get my iPad 2, but after playing with my Motorola XOOM a lot more tonight and seeing just what "no apps" looks like, I got something to say to developers:
You should build for Android. Before you build for iPad. Here's why.
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