Episode22

From Technolotics

Contents 1 Granny Apple in the News 2 Wasted Business Opportunity 3 Firefox 2 on the Way 4 Cringley's 2006 predictions 5 Al Gore compares wiretapping to Martin Luther King Surveillance 6 Googleblogger: Google defies the US government 7 Media Pimp 7.1 Francis' Pimp 7.2 Gareth's Pimp

Granny Apple in the News

• Will Disney buy Pixar, and make Steve King?
  • After days of speculation the Telegraph are reporting that the deal will go ahead
  • Jobs will be largest Disney shareholder
  • But will he have any power - Roy Disney failed to save animation at disney despite 1% of shares
  • What of Pixar, can its independent spirit survive?
• Jobs invites microsoft to make their own iPod. As this week mine dies.
  • Implication is they need to produce a competing music store
  • My guess? - Jobs is feeling the heat to increase iTunes store pricing, and feels a big no. 2 would spread the load
  • If MS had a licenced DRM platform, then Apple might open up fairplay
  • Apple matters speculates Apple owns the markey + the invitation is bait
• Links:
  • MSNBC - Disney in talks to buy Pixar
  • Telegraph - Disney buys Pixar
  • The Rise and Fall of Disney in the Modern Era - account of Roy's attempts to save Walts company from Eisner et al
  • Apple Matters - Jobs to Gates, bring it on!

Wasted Business Opportunity

• My stickies - Tagged web notes - **When I first saw these I thought - ah one of those genius, why didn't I think of it ideas - but is the market to saturated?
  • Then I realised they haven't yet implimented the obvious thing - web stickies aren't a del.icio.us style folksonomy - although the site suggests they intend to
  • Heads up to anyone with excellent coding skills looking for a business opportunity - produce a whiteboard collaborative / quasi-collaborative RSS syndicated folksonomy notation system - lacking the limitations of del.icio.us (bland interface, no private bookmarking)
• Links:
  • My Stickies

Firefox 2 on the Way

• The alpha version of the worlds best browser is due next month
• New Features to include:
  • Tab & Interface enhancements - e.g.: Saving open tabs on close, history of each tab, tag based bookmarks
  • Smoother RSS Integration - integrated viewer, everything is feeds
  • Offline support of web apps - 'supercookies'
  • Unifed smoother search - (combination of all engine output?), search cache history
  • Better antiphishing / security
• What would you change? - Media plugin crashes, better popup blocking, better conversion of javascript open window commands to tabs, replacement of bookmarks with del.icio.us etc (by default), update without reset
• Links:
  • PC Pro Article
  • Official FF Roadmap

Cringley's 2006 predictions

• Bob Cringley's predictions for last year were down on his usual average 66% - and he calculates generously
• Apple
  • Will lose in their streaming case versus Burst.com
  • The new Intel Macs will support XP and Apple will start stealth competion with Microsoft
  • Boxed X will work on Wintel machines
  • .Mac online storage goes to a terabyte
• Google
  • 2006 is merely preparation for a big push in 2007
  • New products and services will be announced and another public offering of shares to boost the warchest.
  • Wont release a PC or OS
• Links:
  • iCringley 2006 Predictions

Al Gore compares wiretapping to Martin Luther King Surveillance

• Al Gore - who since failing to convince the American people of anything but his inadaquacy has become an amazing speech writer (or hired some)
• compared Bush's warrentless mass wiretaping to J. Edgar Hoover's surveillance of the black leader
  • who vowed to "take him off his pedestal.", and blackmailed him in an attempt to induce suicide
  • Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA) partly introduced in reaction
• Bush's indescriminate automated wiretapping illegal (under FISA) & unconstitutional
• Gore brings indeterminate detention without warrant, extraordinary rendition and torture of prisoners - examples of Bush regiemes disregard for constitution
• Deeper Questions: Unitary executive - enslavement of judicial and legislative branches, perceptual war, imperialism
• Calls for an investigation by Senate and Congress, Special counsel should be appointed by Attorney Gen to investigate presidental abuses of power
• Meanwhile bob cringley downplays the illegality and importance of the Bush wiretaps
• Links:
  • The Raw Story - commentary and text of speech
  • iCringley on Wiretaps

Googleblogger: Google defies the US government

• Google is fighting a subpoena to hand over some of the information in its database to help "fight pornography".
• Google is fighting the subpoena on justification of request grounds
  • Commentators speculate - dont be evil, and commercial access to database grounds
• Microsoft and yahoo have already surrendered data to the request
• FBI is seeking to resusitate anti-porn laws already ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme court
• Child Online Protection Act - would have forced every site to age check adults using their services
  • effectively useless because non-us sites would not have to comply
  • emphatically dangerous because there is no anonymous free method of confirming such identity
  • Additionally your obscenity is my art - new anti porn laws are already being used to curtail free expression
• Links:
  • International Herald Tribune - Google refuses to hand over search records
  • CBS - Feds Seek Google Records On Porn

Media Pimp

Francis' Pimp

• A photograph of the world's first 'Bug'. A moth that got caught in a relay in an early computer system [1]
• Watch out ladies the Hoff is single again. Check out this music video of The Hoff singing Hooked on a Feeling. [2]

Gareth's Pimp

• The Socratic teaching method - useful for anyone who's had to give a lecture [3]