Monthly Archive for December, 2001
Published on
December 21, 2001 in
General.
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Jon Udell: Can IM Graduate to Business. He makes the interesting point that things like Groove are clever because they make no specific demands on the type of interaction you have. You can move from informal IM to formal spaces seamlessly. 11:02:13 AM |
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Microsoft issues patch for “serious” XP hole. The hole could let hackers take control of a PC running XP, says the manager of Microsoft’s Security Response Center. “They might as well be sitting in front of the keyboard.” Lucky I turned the services off, no? Better install it anyhow. 10:55:59 AM |
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Published on
December 20, 2001 in
General.
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Reasonable analysis of the new Earthlink wireless hotspot announcement. It suggests they may well not work, although the cost comparisons can’t be right, as they won’t own the infrastructure like Metricom did. 5:34:14 PM |
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Amazon Access: How Accessible?. Amazon.com recently launched a separate shopping site for the visually impaired. But critics say the site isn’t really more accessible, but only a ’second-best alternative’ to its main site. I agree with one of the commentators – this is a PDA site, not a designed for accesiblity site. 1:50:51 PM |
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Hackers Show Light in a New Art. Chaos Computer Club has been dazzling, if not completely surprising, Berlin with a lights display that Internet users can program and even play Pong on. Brilliant. 12:07:41 PM |
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Public Space Wi-Fi’s Transforming Event. Interesting idea: a virtual wireless connectivity provider. Basically, they handle all the nasty cross-authentication and billing and let you connect. It might just work. 12:04:26 PM |
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FBI raids cripple software pirates. Law enforcement’s war on warez causes chaos among online file sharers, with top-level “rippers” laying low and a major piece of the underground network disrupted. It will be interesting to see how this plays out – the warez scene never seems to go away. Remember the days of floppy disks – still warezed up. 12:02:26 PM |
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There’s trouble at the mill. Aaron Feuerstein owns and runs Malden Mills, the makers of Polartec fleece. In December 1995, right before Christmas, a massive fire nearly destroyed the whole place. But Feuerstein continued to pay all of his workers their full wages, refusing to lay any of them off, while the mill was being rebuilt. He felt he owed it to his employees since they had always done their best for him and for the mill and for this, he became a case study in how to treat employees. Any other corporation would have just shut the place down and moved to Indonesia or China. Feuerstein stayed, rebuilt and reopened. But now Malden Mills is in trouble. Reminds me of a book – Blind Assassin, I think. 11:59:53 AM |
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The making of Windows XP by S. Somasegar, who has worked on Windows since inception, and is currently Vice President Windows Engineering Services Group at Microsoft. 11:43:18 AM |
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IBM Builds A Limited Quantum Computer. They’ve factored 15, which doesn’t seem that significant, but only two years ago people believed that this was all a theoretical curiosity rather than a valid approach. 11:28:46 AM |
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From 100 million to 1 trillion transistors per inch using nanowire technology. As always, the singularity effect takes over again. The horizon is always closer than you think for long-term effects, always further than you think for short-term ones. 11:13:05 AM |
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Published on
December 19, 2001 in
General.
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We might be close to significantly blocking / curing the common cold. Cool. 5:03:52 PM |
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Selecting IA components. Interesting article and discussion around how to decide on what should go into the mix. 4:52:54 PM |
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Excellent summary of yea/nays for HTML forms. 4:52:10 PM |
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With This Ring, I Thee Web. If you can dream it, you can design it, and you might even buy it. That’s the strategy of a diamond retailer that created a website where people can design their own engagement rings. By Katie Dean. I need to send this to Caroline, I think. 3:15:06 PM |
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Universal copy-protected CD shuns players. The record label is distributing its first copy-protected CDs in the United States, throwing a few new twists on the controversial idea. I wonder if the buy-then-return to make a complaint approach will work. 2:50:01 PM |
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Published on
December 18, 2001 in
General.
Published on
December 17, 2001 in
General.
Published on
December 13, 2001 in
General.
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Compaq wasted no time making Microsoft live up to one of the agreements in its proposed settlement, announcing this week that it will replace Media Player for Windows XP as the default media player in its systems and go with rival RealNetworks RealOne… [more]. Interesting, especially as RealOne has a browser built in. 6:06:37 PM |
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SearchDay: Google Fires New Salvo in Search Engine Size Wars. News links, when they are found, are returned at the top of a result page. Not all queries cause news links to be displayed. “We’re trying to make the coverage better while at the same time not decreasing relevance,” said Holzle. “We’re also shortening time between when news happens and we have it.” [Tomalak's Realm] 5:59:38 PM |
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Lawrence: “Google has added a ‘Fresh!’ label with the date the page was indexed.” Another Google cracker. 5:56:43 PM |
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Independence Day for Indie Bands. Finally, the Internet is starting to pay real dividends to musicians who haven’t signed deals with major labels. Big subscriptions are here, but out-of-the-way bands have made it, too. [Wired News] I hope it works. 5:44:41 PM |
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Real Networks is now in the Browser business…
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Casual PKI and making e-mail encryption easy. E-mail encryption seems to be hard enough, or annoying enough,that even many technically sophisticated people don’t do itregularly. Non-technical people rarely seem to be able tofigure it out at all. Thank god we don’t have to do this. 5:20:37 PM |
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This is an interesting idea. Click to pay by paybox then your phone rings, you enter a PIN and the payment goes through. It’s that little bit more secure, I guess, as you have to have the phone and the PIN at the time of purchase. 1:47:46 PM |
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Published on
December 12, 2001 in
General.
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Information Week: Communication Aids Design. The engineers would communicate via fax, phone, mail, and E-mail, which was costly because of the time it added to the design phase. Darryl Toni, lead structural engineer at Sikorsky, estimates that improved collaboration strategies have decreased time to market by roughly 40%. [Tomalak's Realm] 2:52:18 PM |
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AOL, others swell Net music chorus. Yet more people looking to music-based subscription services. Does anyone on Sky subscribe to non-TV-based services as well? 2:48:10 PM |
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Published on
December 11, 2001 in
General.
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Body Scanner Sees Like Superman. A new body scanner that lets doctors look inside patient’s bodies is being developed by medical researchers. The magical device resembles Superman’s X-Ray vision: Scan it over your hand and it reveals the bones inside. I want a portable one. 12:07:42 PM |
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Dave Winer on a Segway. Is being fun enough. I should think so if they get the price down to
Published on December 11, 2001 in General.
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Body Scanner Sees Like Superman. A new body scanner that lets doctors look inside patient’s bodies is being developed by medical researchers. The magical device resembles Superman’s X-Ray vision: Scan it over your hand and it reveals the bones inside. I want a portable one. 12:07:42 PM |
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Dave Winer on a Segway. Is being fun enough. I should think so if they get the price down to
Published on December 11, 2001 in General.
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Body Scanner Sees Like Superman. A new body scanner that lets doctors look inside patient’s bodies is being developed by medical researchers. The magical device resembles Superman’s X-Ray vision: Scan it over your hand and it reveals the bones inside. I want a portable one. 12:07:42 PM |
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