Archive for November, 2007

AOL, Netflix and the end of open access to research data

Friday, November 30th, 2007

Over the past year, there have been a number of high-profile incidents in which sensitive user data was accidentally revealed to the Internet at large. As a result, I believe that high-tech companies will never again share anonymized data on their users with academic researchers, at least not without requiring …

Report: Co-worker, not phone, blamed in death

Friday, November 30th, 2007

This case has CSI written all over it.

Earlier this week the TelecomsKorea News Service and other news agencies reported that a man in South Korea (known as Seo) was presumably killed in a mobile phone explosion while working in a quarry. Then authorities said his injuries were too severe

NFL Network v. cable: Who’s right? Who’s wrong?

Friday, November 30th, 2007

Did you catch the Packers-Cowboys game Thursday night? According to USA Today, less than 40% of the United States was able to sit at home and watch as the Cowboys edged out the Packers 37 to 27. The widely anticipated competition between the two 10-1 teams aired locally, but for those not living in Green Bay, Milwaukee or Dallas-Ft. Worth, the only place to see the game was on the NFL Network, a fairly recent cable channel that reportedly, “provides about 24 hours per year of live NFL football and about 8,736 hours of filler.”

Unfortunately the NFL Network isn’t available on many cable systems. Some cable providers, such as Comcast, only offer the network as part of their sports tier despite the NFL’s pleas to be included as basic cable. The two major satellite company’s offer the channel in their basic package, and the NFL has mounted a campaign urging viewers to dump their cable companies for an alternative that carries the NFL Network.

Cure your $99 Zune envy with a $99 Creative Zen Vision:M

Friday, November 30th, 2007
(Credit: Creative)

Too late, you missed ‘em. The supply of $99 original Zunes dried up over Long Black Weekend, probably for good. But all is not lost: You can still score a 30GB media player without spending triple digits. I’m talking about the Creative Zen Vision:M, which looks …

Motorola CEO Zander to resign at end of year

Friday, November 30th, 2007

Correction at 8:15 a.m. PST: Due to an editing error, Motorola’s standing in the handset industry was misstated. Motorola is the No. 3 handset maker worldwide.

Embattled Motorola CEO Ed Zander will resign from his post at the end of the year, the company announced Friday.

Greg …

Transfering big files with EatLime, SendThisFile and FTP

Friday, November 30th, 2007

Shortly after writing about SendThisFile, I had to transfer some large files to a client. It’s one thing to read about a product and kick the tires, but quite another to battle test it. Here was a battle.

Since transferring large files can take hours, you need to be …

Leopard the new Vista? No, but it’s not manna, either

Friday, November 30th, 2007

I’ve been a bit of a Mac freak since 2002 when I got my first PowerBook. I’ve since converted many friends, nearly all family, and half my company to the Mac. I can tally up at least $300,000 in Apple hardware and software that I’ve personally paid for or purchases that I’ve influenced. I love the Mac.

As for Apple’s newest operating system, I like it, too. Kind of how I like cereal. It’s there. I eat it. I don’t think much about it.

This is, of course, really what an operating system should do: not play at being the center of attention and just let me run the applications that I want. In this, Leopard is great for me. Unlike others (like this Slashdot rant or Dave Rosenberg’s own complaint), I’ve never had Leopard crash. Not once. The upgrade from Mac OS X version 10.4 (Tiger) was completely painfree. Everything just works.

Maybe this is the problem.

Saturation point for enterprise open source?

Friday, November 30th, 2007

It feels a bit like the enterprise open-source market has slowed. Not the sales aspect of the market, but the number of new players entering the market. We’re getting greater breadth but not greater depth.

I hear each week about a new open-source vendor doing X, Y, or Z. Early on, all of the action was in the Big Categories like CRM, ERP, ECM, EAI, etc. Now people ping me about companies in the “web container” space, tech support solutions, etc. Big problems to be solved, to be sure, but big markets? I don’t know.

This is good, in a way. It means that the commercial open-source ecosystem gets richer and more diverse. But it also worries me that open source is not providing a deep bench/several alternatives for each particular enterprise need. It’s far too early to have the open-source software market consolidated in a few bets/vendors.

On the other hand, maybe it’s just a sign that there isn’t much room in these old, established markets for many new entrants. Buyers just don’t have patience for several new alternatives to BEA, for example: they may just want one good open-source alternative (or two).

AdBrite gets $23 million in VC funding

Friday, November 30th, 2007

The online advertising market just continues to heat up.

Online ad marketplace AdBrite has received $23 million in Series C venture funding. The money comes from current investor Sequoia Capital, as well as from DAG Ventures and Mitsui Ventures. AdBrite launched a real-time auction model this year and was named …

NBC and Netflix offer ‘Heroes’ and ‘The Office’ online

Friday, November 30th, 2007

As we have seen, Netflix and NBC have a very solid working relationship, offering exclusive web content for the site in the past. Today, Netflix announced that it will offer episodes of hit NBC shows, such as Heroes, The Office, 30 Rock, and Friday Night Lights to its subscribers for …