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February 1, 2004
EE Times: Wireless LAN braintrust defecting to UWB as shakeout looms.
Shoemake's move, reflecting his view that the standards group is bogged down, follows the lead of Jim Lansford, another longtime WLAN proponent. Lansford jumped from his position as chief technology officer at Mobilian Corp. to take the same post at Time Domain UWB spinoff Alereon Inc.
February 2, 2004
Washington Post: Flexible Display Screens Readied for Production.
But a more modest rollable display -- the first to be truly mass-produced -- is now being churned out at the rate of 100 per week and may reach production levels of 1 million a year by the end of next year, said Bas J.E. van Rens, general manager of Polymer Vision, the division of Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands that makes the display.
InfoWorld: EU launches power line Net initiative.
Even if several high-profile companies have long pulled the plug on a technology that transmits data over power lines at high speeds, the EU hopes its support of power line communications will help overcome technical hurdles and lead to greater competition in the broadband market.
NY Times: Gates Backs E-Mail Stamp in War on Spam.
The idea has been dismissed both as impractical and against the free spirit of the Internet. Now, though, the idea of e-mail postage is getting a second look from the owners of the two largest e-mail systems in the world, Microsoft and Yahoo.
February 3, 2004
InfoWorld: Tech firms blamed for aiding censorship in China.
The group specifically named technology firms Microsoft Corp., Nortel Networks Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc. for deals they have done in China which AI believes have contributed to the government's ability to monitor and censor public Internet use in what it sees as a major strike against freedom of expression.
Scientific American: Better Displays with Organic Films.
The answer is yes, thanks to organic light-emitting materials that promise to make electronic viewing more convenient and ubiquitous. Used in displays, the organic materials are brighter, consume less energy and are easier to manufacture (thus potentially cheaper) than current options based on liquid crystals.
Business Week: The Firefight Ahead Over Net Phone Calls.
The FBI may be the least of Powell's troubles. Traditional phone companies and powerful Western and rural politicians are lining up to protect universal service -- the system of cross-subsidies that makes phone service affordable for low-income and rural Americans.
February 4, 2004
Technology Review: False Hope for Stopping Spam.
Simson Garfinkel. The spam wars are taking a turn—and right now, the good guys are losing. New legislation, new technology, and draconian anti-spam policies on the part of some Internet service providers are doing nothing to stem the tide of unsolicited e-mail.
eWEEK: Keeping Up With CAN-SPAM Act.
The CAN-SPAM act was designed to curb offensive, misleading and costly bulk e-mail. However, the legislation will likely create big problems for well-meaning companies whose business model includes wide distribution of e-mail.
February 5, 2004
Good Experience: Bit literacy: an overview.
Obviously, bits have become more important to the average technology user since then. In fact, I find that the essay - although it predates those developments - is even more relevant in 2004. Thus I plan to write more about bit literacy this year.
NY Times: Protecting the Cellphone User's Right to Hide.
Currently, cellphone users have only two options when it comes to how their movements are tracked: they can turn the feature on or off, although 911 calls will always show their location. Researchers at the Bell Labs division of Lucent Technologies have developed software that will give users more options.
Forbes: The BBC Deploys Video Cell Phones.
In the television news business, sometimes poor-quality video that scoops the competition is better than no video at all. That's why the BBC recently gave 40 of its reporters and producers camera cell phones that can record and send video, and plans to distribute 40 more.
News.Com: Microsoft wards off voice-data lawsuit.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a 2-1 ruling on Tuesday that Multi-Tech Systems' patents were not violated and "we conclude that the district court did not err" in its earlier ruling that sided with Microsoft.
February 6, 2004
IBM DeveloperWorks: You don't exist. Go away.
When I recently received a scam in the mail, I decided to discover how the scam worked. Unexpectedly, I ran into a problem: When I told the scammers my name, they didn't believe me. I've experienced that problem before.
CNN: Newest electronics short on simplicity.
Not only are the latest gadgets packed with more features than ever, they're also harder than ever to figure out. Culprits span the gizmo gamut from DVD players to digital cameras and wireless devices. Even televisions are increasingly acting more like computers, those notoriously confounding beasts.
Pacifica Tribune: Jef Raskin, Macintosh inventor, looks to the future of computing.
His newest efforts involve a growing legion of fans who have discovered Raskin's book, "The Humane Interface." Now translated into nine languages, the book outlines the future of computing as Raskin sees it. He's even got a nascent company of his own, T.H.E., promoting the concepts and software of his efforts.
Useit.Com: Keep Online Surveys Short.
One goal beats all others when designing a customer survey for a website: maximize the response rate. Low response rates can create actively misleading survey findings because they're likely to be based on a biased sample of your most committed users as opposed to most users...
EE Times: FCC sets vote on VoIP rules.
The vote on a so-called Notice of Proposed Rulemaking would serve as a framework for setting rules on how to regulate VoIP and other emerging IP-based services. The scheduled vote follows months on internal debate at the FCC on the extent to which VoIP should be regulated, if at all.
February 7, 2004
Online Journalism Review: Redefining the News Online.
Journalists around the world have long agreed on a set of values that help define whether a story is newsworthy. But a new book about online news argues that these rules are in flux: "Newsworthy" is slowly being redefined online by an increasingly participatory audience.
February 8, 2004
NY Times: As Newcomers Swarm, Sony Girds for a Fight.
For a company that has long flexed its muscles and built a reputation on being first, Sony is now in the awkward position of having to play catch-up, and Mr. Ando knows it. But, he says, Sony will prevail by leap-frogging the competition and developing a new generation of products that few consumers can now imagine.
EE Times: Digital rights go mobile.
Venturing onto a landscape already scarred by failed efforts, a mobile-industry organization last week introduced revised technical specifications and a business and legal framework for a digital-rights management and copy-protection scheme.
February 9, 2004
Technology Review: VIPs: Virally Interactive Pixels.
Michael Schrage. Being wrong about successful innovation forces you to look at it with new wariness and respect. The success of camera phones leads me to suspect that images will matter far more than voice in spreading the next generation of “instant gratification” telecommunications innovations. I like what I could see.
InfoWorld: Siemens to show protoype PenPhone.
Tired of pushing tiny buttons to key in text messages on your mobile phone? Siemens AG has developed a prototype phone in the shape of a pen that allows you to write letters and numbers on any surface and enter the data directly.
NY Times: Thorny Issues Await F.C.C. on Internet Phones.
The interconnection and access charges in the telephone industry have long been the cause of bitter fighting between local and long-distance carriers, and the new technology raises a host of complex and arcane issues that will ultimately play a huge role in the profitability of the new services.
Computerworld: Spring IDF: Intel prepares for future of computing.
With the IT industry apparently recovering from the downturn of recent years, Intel Corp. will spend its Spring Intel Developer Forum talking about what it considers technology's next era: increasing mobility, the digital home and the "Tera Era" of large data sets and complex applications...
February 10, 2004
Ask Tog: Top 10 Reasons to Not Shop On Line.
I’m confident these companies' sales outcomes reflect the poor quality of their sites. I’m amazed that their sales divisions continue to put up with it, but perhaps, with so many bad examples out there, they think their companies are doing the best they can. They aren't.
EE Times: Wireless options increase for home audio, video delivery.
Companies offering various distribution alternatives are all jockeying for position in a wirelessly networked environment where multiple channels of streaming high-definition TV, delivered at rates of up to 20 Mbits/second, will converge and compete for bandwidth with lower-rate voice telephony, MP3 audio and data access.
February 11, 2004
WIRED: Living Machines.
Now, advances in fields as disparate as computer science and genetics are dealing our status another blow. Researchers are learning that markets and power grids have much in common with plants and animals. Their findings lead to a startling conclusion: Life isn't the exception, but the rule.
NY Times: Intel Says Chip Speed Breakthrough Will Alter Cyberworld.
Intel scientists say that they have made silicon chips that can switch light like electricity, blurring the line between computing and communications and presenting a vision of the digital future that will allow computers themselves to span cities or even the entire globe.
Technology Review: Glowing Silicon.
Parts of the silicon are mixed with special rare-earth elements, which enables them to generate light about 100 times more efficiently than any previous silicon device, according to Coffa. The one-millimeter-square device uses light beams to talk to other chips.
USA Today: Appeals court says writer can bring copyright case against AOL.
In his April 2000 lawsuit, Ellison alleged the Internet service provider violated his copyrights by allowing unauthorized copies of his work to remain on its Web servers for two weeks even after he tried to notify them of the problem.
February 12, 2004
News.Com: FCC: 'Pure' VoIP not a phone service.
The Federal Communications Commission, in a split decision, approved a request from Voice over Internet Protocol provider Pulver.com to be immune from the hefty stack of government rules, taxes and requirements that applies to 20th-century telephone networks.
EE Times: FCC affirms hands-off approach to VoIP and IP services.
The moves are designed to ensure more opportunities for consumers through VoIP, while recognizing the advantages of other services in terms of communications costs, innovative services and features, greater economic productivity and growth and expanded network redundancy.
eWEEK: Microsoft Research Ready with Aura.
Research Sociologist Marc Smith, demonstrating Aura during his keynote presentation, explained that the project uses mobile devices to interact with physical objects to retrieve information about them from the Internet as well as to automatically capture and annotate data from them.
February 13, 2004
NY Times: F.C.C. Begins Rewriting Rules on Delivery of the Internet.
Homes could start being connected to the Internet through electrical outlets, and consumers and business may find it easier to make cheaper telephone calls online under new rules that the Federal Communications Commission began preparing on Thursday.
eWEEK: New Anti-spam Initiative Gaining Traction.
A grass-roots movement to improve the SMTP protocol that governs e-mail traffic is gaining acceptance, and its lead developer hopes to get fast-track approval by the Internet Engineering Task Force to make the emerging framework a standard.
News.Com: Chips the rage at two SF conferences next week.
The International Solid State Circuits Conference, the granddaddy of semiconductor research conferences, and the semiannual Intel Developer Forum will both take place during the week of Feb. 15 in roughly the same location. While topics and attendance at the two events will overlap, the two conferences are somewhat distinct.
February 14, 2004
NY Times: Amazon Glitch Unmasks War of Reviewers.
Close observers of Amazon.com noticed something peculiar this week: the company's Canadian site had suddenly revealed the identities of thousands of people who had anonymously posted book reviews on the United States site under signatures like "a reader from New York."
February 15, 2004
EE Times: Execs ponder 'next big thing' in consumer electronics.
A panel of consumer electronics executives illuminated the search for the mythical "next big thing" here, revealing a remarkably consistent vision of the near future. There may in fact be another consumer electronics explosion on the horizon, perhaps as great in its implications as the cellular build out.
February 16, 2004
CIO: Courts Make Users Liable for Security Glitches.
In 2002, as computer damages from major viruses intensified, agencies such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology were establishing rules and standards for software security—and security breach victims started to view the problem as one of negligence instead of liability.
ExtremeTech: Inside Microsoft's New Digital Photo Project.
Recruited by Microsoft Research, Andy will shoot digital photos during his daily 25-30-mile walks, recording not only images but exactly where the images were shot, using location data gleaned from GPS satellites.
February 17, 2004
Wired News: Webmonkey, RIP: 1996 – 2004.
They finally pulled the plug. Webmonkey, the site that turned humble Web developers into attention-grabbing authors, said last week it is closing down following a round of layoffs in the U.S. division of its parent company, Terra Lycos.
Forbes: Paul Allen's Mobile Computing Fantasy.
The future of computing is mobile. And so Allen came to the Demo 2004 conference taking place here this week to launch FlipStart, a mobile computer designed by his company Vulcan Ventures of Seattle.
Useit.Com: Targeted Email Newsletters Show Continued Strength.
Email newsletters continue to be one of the most important ways to communicate with customers on the Internet. Newsletters build relationships with users, and also offer users an added social benefit in that they can forward relevant newsletters to friends and colleagues.
February 18, 2004
News.Com: Yahoo dumps Google search technology.
Yahoo replaced Google's results with its own Yahoo Search Technology, which combines an array of recently acquired search technologies, such as Inktomi and commercial search provider Overture Services. Yahoo also owns AltaVista and the Web search technology of Fast Search and Transfer.
Adaptive Path: Six Steps to Better Interviews and Simplified Task Analysis.
I spend a lot of time helping clients conduct task analysis to form mental-model diagrams. When teams first start analyzing the interview transcripts they’ve collected, they often run into a confidence issue. "How will we know if we get the task groups right?"
Wired News: At the Front in the Virus Wars.
"It all started with the Bagle worm that was released on Jan. 18, 2004, followed by a few other worms and things," said Tocheva. "When MyDoom.A hit, I'd already been working for two weeks pretty much around the clock."
EE Times: Intel pushes hybrid approach for next-gen Wi-Fi.
Intel Corp.'s R&D group will push for a hybrid approach to what is expected to be a broad and heated debate on next-generation Wi-Fi standards in the IEEE 802.11n group. The proposed 100 Mbit/second version of 802.11 should embrace smart antennas, wider channels and advances in error correction and power efficiency...
February 19, 2004
NY Times: Navigating Digital Home Networks.
But what the makeover failed to make clear - as consumer electronics executives and technologists often fail to do in such demonstrations - is how people will be able to retrieve precisely what they want, when they want, from such deep digital wells. It will require more than a fancy remote control.
InfoWorld: Future needs new chips, fast wireless, Intel's Gelsinger says.
Gelsinger traditionally takes the last day of the biannual conference to tell attendees about the company's plans for new technologies and products in the coming five to ten year. In past years, he has talked up everything from software-defined radios to biosensor networks, but this year he focused on Intel's fundamental role as a chip architect.
EE Times: Intel proposes hybrid fuel cell for notebooks.
Intel Corp. is proposing a concept for a hybrid fuel cell that could drive a thin-and-light notebook computer for eight hours. The chipmaker is trying to rally notebook, battery and component makers to turn the idea into a viable product by 2007.
February 20, 2004
Wired News: Hollywood Wins DVD-Copying Case.
Judge Susan Illston of the Northern District Federal Court for California sided with the Motion Picture Association of America, which claimed that 321 Studios' DVD-X Copy and DVD Copy Plus software violate copyright law.
PC World: Mitsubishi Displays Reversible LCD.
Mitsubishi Electric is showing off a new LCD that can be viewed from both sides. The display, which the company says is a world first, was developed initially for use in clamshell-type cellular-telephone handsets and could help make such telephones thinner and lighter.
CIO: Death to Drivers.
Now the Palo Alto Research Center is proposing an alternative that would do away with traditional device drivers forever. The system, called Obje, is a software framework that allows devices to "teach" each other how to communicate.
February 21, 2004
Computerworld: Ten tips for managing a successful Web redesign.
Excerpt from Web Redesign: Workflow That Works. Processes evolve. Over time and several redesigns, a few points screamed to be kept in mind: Communicate with the client, be scalable, plan to plan, test your assumptions, analyze your current site, and so on. We ran these mini-philosophies by industry leaders and newbies alike.
February 22, 2004
SJ Mercury: On the Web, anonymity is a friend -- and a foe.
Dan Gillmor. We can't make such judgments, however, about a lot of other things we read online. One of the Net's great features, the ability to be relatively anonymous, can also be one of its chief defects. This is a problem. It is not a crisis.
February 23, 2004
Technology Review: Disruptive Incrementalism.
Michael Schrage. While technically less innovative than the shifts from, say, piston to jet engines or vacuum tubes to transistors, disruptive incremental innovations have profound effects on business. It’s not about simply extending a brand; it’s about surprisingly cheap, surprisingly easy-to-implement ideas that transform how value is created or perceived.
Seattle Times: HP points new weapons against virus, worm attacks.
Saying it was inspired by the way the human body fights off disease, Hewlett-Packard plans to announce today that it has developed two new methods to help combat computer worms and viruses.
News.Com: Danger to unveil prototype device.
New features in the color-display device, which will be smaller than current models, include an integrated camera, a speakerphone and application-launch buttons. Hiptop is Danger's reference design for a combination cell phone and Web-browsing handheld device.
February 24, 2004
InfoWorld: Crypto stars sound off on e-voting, DRM.
Speaking at the annual Cryptographers Panel on Tuesday, Ronald Rivest, co-creator of the RSA encryption algorithm, backed calls for paper ballots to supplement insecure electronic voting technology, while fellow luminaries Paul Kocher and Whitfield Diffie predicted heated battles between privacy advocates and intellectual property owners over the issue of digital rights management.
InfoWorld: Microsoft to unveil antispam plans.
On Tuesday, the company will release a specification for an antispam technology called Caller ID, a Microsoft-developed take on sender authentication technology that tries to validate the source address associated with an e-mail message, according to John Levine, co-chairman of the independent Antispam Research Group, part of the IETF.
February 25, 2004
EE Times: Intel's Barrett sees digital home products by end of year.
Intel Corp. CEO Craig Barrett, again stressing interoperability among consumer electronics devices for the "digital home," said the Digital Home Working Group will deliver its first technical guidelines in the second quarter with first products expected later this year.
InfoWorld: 3GSM - SanDisk, Motorola create smaller memory card format.
SanDisk and Motorola have created a smaller removable flash memory card format for use in mobile phones. The first cards will go on sale in the third quarter to coincide with the launch of a 3G Motorola phone designed to use them...
WIRED: "How Would You Redo the Google Interface?"
Joshua Davis, Jenny Holzer, Shepard Fairey, IDEO. Four designers share their (re)visions to Google.
News.Com: AT&T to launch VoIP nationwide.
The forthcoming AT&T service, called AT&T CallVantage, will cost between $30 and $40 a month, Martine said. Features will include the ability to forward voicemail to anyone on the Internet and a "locate me" service to let users forward calls to any or all of their phones...
February 26, 2004
Good Experience: The Page Paradigm.
In my nine years of working on the Web's user experience, a lot has changed online - but one thing that hasn't changed much is the way that users navigate websites. Back in 1999, I proposed the "Page Paradigm" to describe this near-constant usage pattern; it still holds today...
Computerworld: VeriSign sues ICANN over delay in services.
VeriSign Inc. filed a lawsuit against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today, accusing the organization of overstepping its contractual authority and improperly attempting to regulate VeriSign's business.
eWEEK: Security Guru Unmoved by Gates' RSA Remarks.
"Was it just me or was he just not excited? I expected more excitement," Schneier said. "When he talks about features and cool things [in his products], he gets animated. But until he gets animated about security you know he's not going to solve the problem."
Computerworld: Microsoft to make Longhorn vulnerability-aware.
Microsoft Corp. is working on security technologies for the upcoming Longhorn release of Windows that will protect users against security threats by monitoring system and network behavior as well as the security patches that Microsoft has issued.
February 27, 2004
PC World: How Many Hard Drives Do You Need?
Hitachi sees a bright picture for the future of its hard drive business, a sizable portion of which was purchased just over a year ago from IBM, thanks to the increasing demands for physically small, high-capacity drives for use in consumer electronics equipment.
EE Times: Efforts on to squelch China's wireless encryption plans.
A number of key U.S. government and industry bodies are behind an effort to squelch a proposed Chinese wireless encryption standard that they believe will undermine the World Trade Organization's crucial trade efforts with China.
PC World: Overeager Spam Filters Cause Headaches.
Major ISPs are struggling to protect their customers from a growing wave of spam, but overzealous blocking can be a nuisance too, as several small ISPs have found. Technicians for TDS Telecom, a Midwestern ISP, scrambled last week when America Online began blasting back all e-mail to AOL subscribers from TDS's 100,000 subscribers.
February 28, 2004
Clay Shirky: VoIP - Plan A vs Plan B.
2003 was a remarkable year in the US for voice over the internet. If you needed a label for the events of the year, "Collapse of Denial" would be a good one -- after a long period of relative inaction, the FCC and the state regulators are suddenly pushing hard for a regulatory framework. The question is no longer whether voice is going to become an internet application, but when.
February 29, 2004
SJ Mercury: Radio, Net phone draw feds' attention.
Dan Gillmor. Let's look at two matters: low-powered community radio and Internet phone calling. Other, bigger issues are bubbling in the capital as well, but these two demonstrate the complexities in the political and regulatory processes, and the resistance to change that makes positive steps so difficult.
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