Miscellaneous
12 May 2013
Microsoft's broken Windows is lesson for Apple Financial Times
When the geniuses in Apple's design department started thinking about how to make a phone, the first thing they came up with was the scroll wheel. This, after all, was the invention that had made the iPod great: you could swirl through long lists of songs or artists with a satisfying swipe of the thumb. Could there ever be a better user interface for a pocket-sized digital device?
Limiting Data Use in Germany New York Times
The debate over "network neutrality," the principle that all bits of digital information are created equal, has come home in a real way for millions of Germans.
30 April 2013
Garage Launches Streaming Action Sport Film Channel
[news release] A new media platform bringing together the key brands and producers within the global action sports world is to be launched at the Quiksilver Pro on the Gold Coast next week.
Technology Start-Ups Take Root in Berlin New York Times
Near the Rosenthaler Platz subway station here, signs of the city's high-tech future blend seamlessly with its communist past.
24 April 2013
Google Predicts Australia Tech Boom Wall Street Journal
Technology startups in Australia could contribute nearly as much to the economy as the retail and education sectors in two decades' time, according to Google Inc.
22 April 2013
The future according to Mr Google, Eric Schmidt The Guardian
I am face to face with the man who knows everything about me. He knows where I've been, who I know and what I think. He knows what I do and when I do it; who I talk to and what I want to do next. He knows about my health, my work, my home, my finances, my dreams.
21 April 2013
Why big IT projects always go wrong The Observer
Fred Brooks's 1975 book The Mythical Man-Month is essential reading for any company boss about to embark upon a costly software project
29 March 2013
Egypt arrests as undersea internet cable cut off BBC News
Egyptian authorities say they have arrested three divers trying to cut through an undersea internet cable.
20 March 2013
Unwanted Electronic Gear Rising in Toxic Piles New York Times
Last year, two inspectors from California's hazardous waste agency were visiting an electronics recycling company near Fresno for a routine review of paperwork when they came across a warehouse the size of a football field, packed with tens of thousands of old computer monitors and televisions.
19 March 2013
Internet pioneers are first winners of £1m engineering prize - Tim Berners-Lee, Marc Andreessen, Vint Cerf, Robert Kahn and Louis Pouzin share prize for innovation of benefit to humanity The Guardian
You've probably heard of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, and Marc Andreessen, author of the first widely used web browser, Mosaic. And you might even know of Vint Cerf, who in the 1970s along with Robert (Bob) Kahn devised the internet protocol that lets everything from emails to real-time video travel over the internet.
28 February 2013
Is Twitter Really Worth $10 Billion? Wall Street Journal
I spent the last week trying to write a column that proved Twitter wasn't worth $10 billion. Then the facts intervened.
Amazon May Seem Unstoppable, But Google Is Powering the Counterattack Wired
Back in 1990, other stores still had a chance against Walmart. As recalled in Charles Fishman's The Wal-Mart Effect, a great history of the rise of the retail giant, it was that year when Walmart surpassed Kmart in sales. It wasn't until 1992 that Walmart sold more than Sears. But by 2011, Walmart had higher sales worldwide than the combined total sales of the next six biggest retailers: Kroger, Target, Walgreens, Costco, Home Depot and CVS.
27 February 2013
Yahoo Orders Home Workers Back to the Office New York Times
... Studies show that people who work at home are significantly more productive but less innovative, said John Sullivan, a professor of management at San Francisco State University who runs a human resource advisory firm.
25 February 2013
Battle over wireless power standards Financial Times
Companies from carmakers to smartphone and consumer electronics manufacturers are locked in a standards battle over wireless power that threatens to slow the move to an unplugged world.
05 February 2013
Tech Titans Clash in 'Cloud' Wall Street Journal
Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. have fought each other for dominance in mobile gadgets and Web searches. The latest front in their war is invisible: computing horsepower.
27 January 2013
Why the Facebook and Apple empires are bound to fall The Observer
History should teach us that for today's technology industry titans, the only way is down. Just ask Microsoft
23 January 2013
Google Still in a Struggle With Mobile New York Times
Although Google is scrambling to meet consumers as they flock to mobile devices, the question is whether it is moving fast enough.
19 January 2013
Kim Dotcom: the internet cult hero spoiling for a fight with US authorities The Guardian
In massive, swaggering capital letters, "Mega" stretches across the grassy slope in front of Dotcom Mansion. A huddle of electricians and carpenters are removing the wooden stencils and wiring in the fluorescent tubes. They are up to G. All around the vast grounds of Kim Dotcom's luxury home just north of Auckland, New Zealand, gardeners and technicians are busy, like Oompa-Loompas at the Chocolate Factory, setting up for the big night, overlooked by life-size inflatable giraffes and hippos.
12 January 2013
European Newspapers Seek Royalties for Linking and Citing to News Content Electronic Frontier Foundation
Expanding copyright to allow rent seeking for linking would break the fabric of the Internet. Links and citations to articles do not infringe copyright, as links do not copy, distribute, or perform any copyrighted work. Despite some desperate assertions of the contrary, copyright protection of links is not enshrined in law. Newspapers, however, are pushing for legislation to support this dangerous claim, regardless of the implications it would have for free speech.
07 January 2013
Ad Blocking Raises Alarm Among Firms Like Google New York Times
Xavier Niel, the French technology entrepreneur, has made a career of disrupting the status quo. Now, he has dared to take on Google and other online advertisers in a battle that puts the Web companies under pressure to use the wealth generated by the ads to help pay for the network pipelines that deliver the content.
06 January 2013
New Year's Day Marks 30th Anniversary of Major Milestone for Global Internet ISOC
Thirty years ago today on 1 January 1983, the ARPANET, a direct predecessor of today's Internet, implemented the TCP/IP protocol in a transition that required all connected computers to convert to the protocol simultaneously. The open TCP/IP protocol is now a foundational technology for the networks around the world that make up the global Internet and interconnect billions of devices.
04 January 2013
The internet celebrates 30 years of TCP/IP dominance V3
The start of 2013 marks a significant milestone for the internet, as it is 30 years ago that Arpanet, precursor of the modern day internet, was switched to running on the TCP/IP protocol stack, a move that paved the way for the global internet as we know it today.
03 January 2013
The Secret Ways of Chinese Telecom Giant Huawei Der Spiegel
Almost a third of the planet is thought to be using its products and yet few know much about the highly secretive Chinese telecommunication equipment company Huawei. Should customers be concerned about the company founder's military background or the security vulnerabilities of its products?
25 December 2012
Little Sign of a Predicted E-Book Price War New York Times
Right about now, just as millions of e-readers and tablets are being slipped under Christmas trees, there was supposed to be a ferocious price war over e-books.
13 December 2012
Google Chairman Says Android Winning Mobile War With Apple; Says Tax Avoidance Is "Called Capitalism" Bloomberg
Google Inc.'s Android is extending its lead over Apple Inc. in the mobile-software market at a rate that compares with Microsoft Corp.'s expansion in desktop software in the 1990s, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said.
