It would seem strange for Verizon to do this deal. Verizon tries to keep pretty tight control on their network, phones, applications and the like. They use BREW which is a very closed platform. They take 40+% of revenue from the applications they do allow on their network. In the recent stir about the FCC auction Verizon and Google were on opposite sides and Verizon was against any device/any application rules. Worse, GOOG411 is aimed squarely at one of Verizon's most profitable businesses.
Why would Verizon want to help Google, unless Google agrees to pay upfront and has some other restrictions. I guess perhaps Google might pay the phone subsidies, but these help Verizon lock folks into 2 years plans. Maybe Google will pay and Verizon will still insist on 2 years, a la Apple and AT&T. And, is the Google phone really any better/different than anything else out there?
Of course, Verizon does have on set of phones that are open and allow downloading any application - the Windows mobile phones.
I think that folks misunderstand the purpose of his site. it isn't supposed to be a user generated content site like YouTube. It is going to have a *lot* of Hollywood content. What we are seeing now is still beta and they have a lot of work to do to prepare the content for the site and get it ready. I've heard that when they are really ready you'll be able to have things like all the episodes of the Simpson's available online and be able to watch ad supported. They are also planning on doing cool things like breaking Simpsons into a clip library so you can find segments you like and possibly string them together for your own viewing.
YouTube has use the "safe harbor" provisions of the DMCA to protect them from liability under the DMCA. However, I believe that if you make money from copyrighted content you lose this protection. Since much of the content uses copyrighted material will this increase Google exposure to lawsuits? One supposes that they will argue it is all "fair use", but a lot of the use on YouTube is clearly outside a reasonable definition of fair use. Google, of course has a history of deciding to ignore copyright laws that it find inconvenient to obey and is happy to spend the legal $$ in court for years to wear out the other side. It will be itneresting to see if this brings on more suits.
The overload is just a symptom if the real problem and that is that parallel programming is just plain hard. We've had these issues for over a decade and we haven't seen a step function in use of parallel programming. It is difficult for most people to think of many things happening at the same time and to design and debug this class of program. We tend to start by thinking of a task in serial steps and then look for ways to add a little parallelism.
The folks who are low level systems programmers (OS and networks) tend to be folks who have an aptitude for thinking about parallelism and designing with parallelism in mind. There are a group of people in the scientific space who make use of parallelism, but then again they are Phd mathematicians and physicists. After that it drops off rapidly.
Maybe it has something to do with he way we are educated. perhaps it is a more fundamental issue of brain wiring. After all, we c perform complex physical tasks in parallel, but maybe only a small segment of the population is wired to think about programming problems in parallel.
The chip guys are throwing more cores at us and we can't create the software to fully utilize the hardware due to this issue. Perhaps it is time to take a step back and to stop trying to solve the problem by throwing more and different programming packages at the problem and examine why folks have so much trouble in this area.
Stallman has a very peculiar, and in my view distorted, definition of "free". Real freedom means I can do anything I want with the code, including make money, add DRM, make some code proprietary, etc. As an example, the Apache license grants real freedom to all parties. What GPL does is enforce a code of behavior and social and economic policy that Stallman prefers. The GPL doesn't define freedom, it restricts your freedom. Suppose you start with 1000 lines of GPL code and build something new and add 100,000 lines of your won. You are working for the original author and you have no freedom or choice about it, independent of your contribution.
Look at the entire scope of what Google does and you see that they want to know everything about you, and not some anonymous information. EMail is something you alomost always log in to. Many people set the login to remember them. Makes it easier to check you email, but once you are logged in your search queries are not anonymous. That is the reason Google has so many other things to try tog et you logged in and to stay logged in. For example, the have IM so that you've leave it running and yourself logged in.
However, most commercial activity and interesting behaviors, the ones worth money to advertisers and others, don't happen at the search screen. This is why Google has toolbar and desktop. They want to watch all of the sites you visit and what you do on the sites. Using this data they build a detailed behavioral profile of you. But they also have way more information then your commercial behaviors. They know about a wide variety of sites and can determine if you look at sites about health issues, or other sensitive and personal behaviors.
Google is a HUGE threat to your privacy. One could reasonably say that if you use many Google services and tools you have already given them such a detailed picture about you your privacy is essentially gone. And remember, they keep a 2 year rolling picture of the details about you. But they can also keep the "important" items they discover and toss the detail.
And, to those who say "Remember that Google went to Court to prevent the Government from getting records", remember what Google said. They said they were doing this NOT to protect your privacy, but to protect their trade secrets. That means so that no one can found out the real details about what they track and know about you.
Don't believe the "Do NO Evil" stuff. It is just clever marketing. They are a big company, just like all the rest and in many ways worse. Remember that they say that they want to index all of the World's information. That includes the very intimate and personal details about you!
Many viewed Google as the anti-Microsoft. Microsoft just dominated a market. Is is really debatable whether Microsoft's dominance actually cost consumers financially, but if they did, it was just money. There is no question that Google threatens at least our privac and that is just the first of our basic rights that their behavior and business interests threaten to erode.
First, we all hate ads, but they pay the bills. Just about every web site being introduced builds their business plan on generating ad revenue. Of course, few can actually get enough ad revenue to build a real sustainable business without VC money, but hey, its the 90's again!
All of the new start up video sites are doing this. Bolt, Heavy and the sites from Purevideo are or were all in the top 10 in terms of streams"viewers". They use this to try to get advertising and better rates. They use this to raise venture capital and increase their valuation. If these numbers are fraudulent and if we can't trust ANY of the ad reporting numbers things will get tough for a wide range of small web companies and startups.
Advertisers may not be technically savvy or very quick, but they will and are catching on to this kind of traffic inflation, click fraud and other abuses. What they will do is simply reduce the rates that they will pay EVERYONE because they'll assume that there is fraud everywhere. This is less likely to impact Google, becuase of the auction system, but for the banners and many other ads, including direct sales, this could seriously impact companies.
The recent Supreme Court ruling about "obviousness" will make this patent worth less than the paper it was printed on. This one will clearly get tossed if they try to enforce it. It is obvious, in the sense that the Court defined the term and prior art exists.
Google has leveraged the "Do no evil" and other PR activities (billionaires only taking $1 salary) to create this false public image as somehow better / different. We get all the stories in the press about the cafeteria and other "perks". What we don't get is the price you have to pay to dance with the devil! And, of course, the NDA prevents people from telling us about that.
Yes, Google is the 21st century Microsoft. If you look closely they have taken Microsoft's business strategy for PCs and implemented it on the web. They don't innovate with new services, but look at what is popular / successful for others and they try to build a nicer version with a prettier UI .
The Supreme Court didn't weaken patents,and have instead brought some sanity to system that is broken. The Patent Office isn't capable of doing prior art, applicants don't do a good job and there are tons of filings for incremental and OBVIOUS changes and so-called processes being granted. The rules from the Patent Court didn't work for software, since so many advances just get shipped and aren't written about until much later or more likely never.
There are companies that did a lot of innovative work in the 90's that are gone and there is no record of their technology, but they had things we see being patented today as "inventions". These innovations are obvious and were implemented, but no one remembers and there are no articles, and hence no "prior art" or way to show obviousness.
I am a supporter of software patents, but we need to have patents granted for true innovation. Taking an idea from the web and making it work on mobile is engineering and not innovation, but you would never know that from a lot of patent filings. Putting P2P technology in a STB (a computer) and making it "easy to use" isn't invention, but engineering.
Too much stuff is filed that is incremental and obvious so that people can show "protectable IP" to the VCs and therefor raise money. The Patent office can't figure out the stuff and so grants it. A mess that this ruling will hopefully put us on the path to fixing.
I've been using Vista since RTM. I generally find it pretty good and certainly superior to XP. The *REAL* problem with Vista is that the pricing is ridiculous. Ultimate is pretty nice, but the price of $400 is simply $250 off from what anyone will pay and Home basic is a joke.
MS will figure this out and find a way to cut prices or they will see a long and slow adoption curve for Vista.
Google is gathering a huge trove of informaiton about us and this shows it is not anonymous. Search is only part of what they have. The more Google services you use the more you let them build a very detailed profile of you. And the more you do that the less privacy you have.
They know what you search for, who you IM and email and about what, where you have appointments and what you bought. You essentially have no privacy.
If you value your privacy do not use any single provider and spread your searches, IM, email and purchases accross multiple service providers. The government can use its powers to get your data and correlate it, but no commercial entity should have the equivalent power. Commercial interests of Google or any other provider run counter to protecting your privacy.
Much of the reaction here helps make Enderle's point. While the quality of his article is mixed, he does make some valid points. For example, Linix security isn't any better than Windows if you run as super user (the way users run in XP) and then install some random executable. However, most Linux users are more savy than Windows users and avoid doing that. GPL 3 is *most certainly* anti-business and most of the money in Linux is in services.
What is most spot on is that the Linux community is not a place where open discussion is valued and those who refuse to adopt the purist view are attacked as fiercely as the Revolutionary Guard in Iran would attack a woman walking around in a halter top. Linux is just a technology and it has flaws like any other technology. Linux as a business has its flaws just like Microsoft or Gooogle (opps, Google does no evil, right??). GPL is a socialist economic model and much more onerous and way less free than Apache licenses.
let's have discussion. Let's have CIVIL debate. I understand that Linux devotees treat any comments that don't follow the orthodox view as heresy, but if you believe in "free and open", shouldn't it include the discussion and debate.
"Do no evil" was *always* about PR, not corporate behavior. They are a company,just like Enron or J&J or Microsoft or Apple. They caved quickly to get a China foothold and that should have told those who thought the slogan meant something what the reality was. Google's REAL motto is just a quote from
Lincoln and a hope that the last part wouldn't be true.
This is just a case of people having an irrational hatred for Microsoft. As long as Novell complies with the GPL which governs the code, the FSF and others should back off. Remember that real freedom includes the right to do things that others don't lim, as long as you comply wi th the rules. If not, then we will have to add another "free as in..." to our discussions. GPL and FF will be using "free" to mean "Free as in North Korea"!
What is amazing is that NetVibes isn't even original. Microsoft had this interface running in their start.cm site and then in Live.com before NetVibes launched. The real issue for personalized home pages is that they take work to set up AND more and ongoing work to maintain. Most folks set them up and perhaps update once but then stop using them because their interests change.
There is one of these that addresses the problem called PersonalWeb. It watches where you are surfing and figures out what your interests are and then changes what you see based on what you are doing. They make their money putting ads in the pages and one interesting thing is that they customize the ads to also match what you are doing. You get fewer stupid ads and offers and more things that appear are ads for stuff you actually have been shopping or are interested in. Much less annoying.
It really depends on the type of product. For computer and related stuff I use CNet and PCWorld and also go to the forums that seem to cover the product or category. For PDA stuff I go to PDAPhonehome.com and read reviews/post questions. Fr software, I usually go toe the appropriate support board and read the posts to learn about bugs, vendor responsiveness, etc.
First, I think that this was a great piece and there was a need to start a serious discussion within the community because, as was pointed out, the last chance for widespread desktop adoption is approaching and development times and community political issues dictate strong action now. I write this as a longtime *nix user(25 years), but also as one who tries not to get caught up in the religious wars that sweep the technical community. So, here goes. I have a few disagreements and a few other comments:
- The article seems to focus mostly on why Windows wins today and its current strengths in the marketplace. There is an assumption here, as often is the case in the Linux community, that Microsoft won't find other features and capabilities that are compelling to the consumer in the next 2-4 years. I think Microsoft has a broad and ongoing effort to find these kind of hooks and they are focused on the consumer and ease of use, as well as in other areas.
Vista comes with the tablet support and voice recognition. Tablet support has improved and I look for it to get better. There is just a huge convenience factor in being able to sit down and write / diagram / etc on a PC. Applicaitons are getting pen enabled. OneNote 2007 is a big step forward. I think it is ahead of Jarnal, and I think we'll see more Office integration of OneNote and additional pen enabling of more applications. The UMPC push is part of this. If they can get a usable and fully capable Tablet PC in that form factor at $500 or less, which they will in 2007, we're going to start to see an explosion in adoption in late 2007 and 2008.
But there is more. I've used the voice recognition stuff that ships in Vista. It is pretty good and it will get better in the next 2 years as well. As more folks walk around with their bluetooth headsets, talking to your computer, just dictating and then using the pen to edit, draw, etc. will become a natural and convenient user experience. On my UMPC it begins to deliver on the digital assistant that can understand me and is connected to the Internet all of the time.
- Don't underestimate the next generation of leadership at Microsoft. Ray Ozzie is one smart guy. He totally udnerstands the corporate user and has consistently delivered technology ahead of its time. AT Microsoft where they have the money and patience to deliver and then try again and again to get it right and hit the market timing, he will be a huge asset. He delivered the first serious commercial P2P application in Groove. A lousy implementation, too early and overhyped, but he gets the power of P2P and other next generation technologies. Vista begins to integrate commercial P2P, Office 2007 adds more stuff for collaboration mixing client and web. Whereas other get religious about all web, Microsoft comfortably mixes Web and desktop and focuses instead on user experience and helpful function. They can do excellent Web work as well - just look at local.live.com. There is a lot of buzz about things like Netvibes, but Microsoft did this kind of interface for a portal first, on their start.com site.
They understand what is happening and are changing and adapting. The key sin in any competitive situation is to underestimate the competition. The open source community underestimates Microsoft.
- The big media guys do not care about open source and freedom of intellectual property. They have been hurt by piracy and a lot of it comes from this community. Yes, they were stupid in not changing their business models quickly enough, but that didn't give anyone the right to steal from them. And no matter the rationalizations, under the law it was theft. Just because you want to give away the things you create for free, doesn't mean you have the right to impose your values on others and violate their rights. Big media would be CRAZY to trust the open source community and I doubt they will.
This means that they'll embrace Microsoft and Apple, the trusted media path solutions and the like. They can he
This one is truly sad. I know that the Patent office feels compelled to demonstrate weekly that its examiners incompetent in the area of software and the process is hopelessly broken, but this one is bad even for them. But armed with this patent, LSI is likely to try to extort money from small fry who can't afford the $$ to defend themselves in court.
One wonders what it will take to get this reformed. Perhaps when someone gets a patent on the business process for getting a Congressman to get you an earmark??? Those Congressmen will be outraged when someone demands a fee from them for taking public money and diverting it to useless projects. They scream "Someone ought to pass a law".
I actually am a firm believer in patents and intellectual property protection, but the US Patent Office is working overtime to change my mind.
The recent AOL data leak showed that as big or bigger threats can come from our search data. These folks are grandstanding by going after Microsoft and not the other players. They know that no one will criticize them for bashing Microsoft and that others, like Google have better press and have folled more users, and so are tougher targets. Also, as opposed to Google, Microsoft is more sensitive to the criticism because of the past anti-trust issues and are more likely to respond. Google's response to people like content owners who don't like Google's use of their copyrighted materials without permission, have found that Google's reaction is to claim they are doing public good and then fight in court.
The best example of the threat we face to our privacy from all of these folks is Google. Not Google bashing, just pointing out that they are collecting the most data about us. Google is also collecting more of our use and web patterns through Google desktop and toolbar. Add in the fact that they have your cell number, are indexing your email, have your calendar, etc. Our only protection is they sya that their culture is to "do no evil", but we don't know who defines "evil" and what that definition is. What if the Chinese government wants the data? Will Google provide it so they can stay in the market? They caved on filtering.
Whether is is Microsoft, Google, Yahoo or someone else, the more we are online the more we are telling third parties about us and we have no protections about what they do with the data. These folks all have "terms of use" and simply by using their services you've agreed to them, even if you didn't actually read the terms (almost no one does and most don't even see the link). And if you read the TOS you are pretty unlikely to know what they collect and what they do with it.
Good that the discussion is starting, but wrong target. It is really the whole lot of these guys
I was an avid fan of ebooks on my iPAQ 7 years ago, but stopped using them becuase I got pissed off at the pricing. I was paying the exact same price for a DRM restricted ebook that I was paying for the physical hard cover. This is a rip off. I understand why the publisher wants to maximize the bucks, but since they are saving printing, shipping, shelf space, and returns, ebooks are way cheaper and I should share some of the savings.
Alas, the publishers were much like the record labels and that means too greedy! If they provide price incentives than I'd use this, but given the expected restrictions if the prices are the same, I'll skip it and use the old fashion hard copies.
Technology moves fast in our business and there are numerous stories over the years of companies that tried to "manage" transitions that are now gone (Wang). The market moves at its own pace and if you are worried about what making a move will do to your business, you are looking at the wrong thing, because if you can do it to your business so can someone else. There is ONLY one option in these business and it is simple "If you don't cannibalize your own business, someone else will do it for you".
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It would seem strange for Verizon to do this deal. Verizon tries to keep pretty tight control on their network, phones, applications and the like. They use BREW which is a very closed platform. They take 40+% of revenue from the applications they do allow on their network. In the recent stir about the FCC auction Verizon and Google were on opposite sides and Verizon was against any device/any application rules. Worse, GOOG411 is aimed squarely at one of Verizon's most profitable businesses.
Why would Verizon want to help Google, unless Google agrees to pay upfront and has some other restrictions. I guess perhaps Google might pay the phone subsidies, but these help Verizon lock folks into 2 years plans. Maybe Google will pay and Verizon will still insist on 2 years, a la Apple and AT&T. And, is the Google phone really any better/different than anything else out there?
Of course, Verizon does have on set of phones that are open and allow downloading any application - the Windows mobile phones.
I think that folks misunderstand the purpose of his site. it isn't supposed to be a user generated content site like YouTube. It is going to have a *lot* of Hollywood content. What we are seeing now is still beta and they have a lot of work to do to prepare the content for the site and get it ready. I've heard that when they are really ready you'll be able to have things like all the episodes of the Simpson's available online and be able to watch ad supported. They are also planning on doing cool things like breaking Simpsons into a clip library so you can find segments you like and possibly string them together for your own viewing.
This is Hollywood content site NOT YouTube.
YouTube has use the "safe harbor" provisions of the DMCA to protect them from liability under the DMCA. However, I believe that if you make money from copyrighted content you lose this protection. Since much of the content uses copyrighted material will this increase Google exposure to lawsuits? One supposes that they will argue it is all "fair use", but a lot of the use on YouTube is clearly outside a reasonable definition of fair use. Google, of course has a history of deciding to ignore copyright laws that it find inconvenient to obey and is happy to spend the legal $$ in court for years to wear out the other side. It will be itneresting to see if this brings on more suits.
The overload is just a symptom if the real problem and that is that parallel programming is just plain hard. We've had these issues for over a decade and we haven't seen a step function in use of parallel programming. It is difficult for most people to think of many things happening at the same time and to design and debug this class of program. We tend to start by thinking of a task in serial steps and then look for ways to add a little parallelism.
The folks who are low level systems programmers (OS and networks) tend to be folks who have an aptitude for thinking about parallelism and designing with parallelism in mind. There are a group of people in the scientific space who make use of parallelism, but then again they are Phd mathematicians and physicists. After that it drops off rapidly.
Maybe it has something to do with he way we are educated. perhaps it is a more fundamental issue of brain wiring. After all, we c perform complex physical tasks in parallel, but maybe only a small segment of the population is wired to think about programming problems in parallel.
The chip guys are throwing more cores at us and we can't create the software to fully utilize the hardware due to this issue. Perhaps it is time to take a step back and to stop trying to solve the problem by throwing more and different programming packages at the problem and examine why folks have so much trouble in this area.
Stallman has a very peculiar, and in my view distorted, definition of "free". Real freedom means I can do anything I want with the code, including make money, add DRM, make some code proprietary, etc. As an example, the Apache license grants real freedom to all parties. What GPL does is enforce a code of behavior and social and economic policy that Stallman prefers. The GPL doesn't define freedom, it restricts your freedom. Suppose you start with 1000 lines of GPL code and build something new and add 100,000 lines of your won. You are working for the original author and you have no freedom or choice about it, independent of your contribution.
Look at the entire scope of what Google does and you see that they want to know everything about you, and not some anonymous information. EMail is something you alomost always log in to. Many people set the login to remember them. Makes it easier to check you email, but once you are logged in your search queries are not anonymous. That is the reason Google has so many other things to try tog et you logged in and to stay logged in. For example, the have IM so that you've leave it running and yourself logged in.
However, most commercial activity and interesting behaviors, the ones worth money to advertisers and others, don't happen at the search screen. This is why Google has toolbar and desktop. They want to watch all of the sites you visit and what you do on the sites. Using this data they build a detailed behavioral profile of you. But they also have way more information then your commercial behaviors. They know about a wide variety of sites and can determine if you look at sites about health issues, or other sensitive and personal behaviors.
Google is a HUGE threat to your privacy. One could reasonably say that if you use many Google services and tools you have already given them such a detailed picture about you your privacy is essentially gone. And remember, they keep a 2 year rolling picture of the details about you. But they can also keep the "important" items they discover and toss the detail.
And, to those who say "Remember that Google went to Court to prevent the Government from getting records", remember what Google said. They said they were doing this NOT to protect your privacy, but to protect their trade secrets. That means so that no one can found out the real details about what they track and know about you.
Don't believe the "Do NO Evil" stuff. It is just clever marketing. They are a big company, just like all the rest and in many ways worse. Remember that they say that they want to index all of the World's information. That includes the very intimate and personal details about you!
Many viewed Google as the anti-Microsoft. Microsoft just dominated a market. Is is really debatable whether Microsoft's dominance actually cost consumers financially, but if they did, it was just money. There is no question that Google threatens at least our privac and that is just the first of our basic rights that their behavior and business interests threaten to erode.
First, we all hate ads, but they pay the bills. Just about every web site being introduced builds their business plan on generating ad revenue. Of course, few can actually get enough ad revenue to build a real sustainable business without VC money, but hey, its the 90's again!
All of the new start up video sites are doing this. Bolt, Heavy and the sites from Purevideo are or were all in the top 10 in terms of streams"viewers". They use this to try to get advertising and better rates. They use this to raise venture capital and increase their valuation. If these numbers are fraudulent and if we can't trust ANY of the ad reporting numbers things will get tough for a wide range of small web companies and startups.
Advertisers may not be technically savvy or very quick, but they will and are catching on to this kind of traffic inflation, click fraud and other abuses. What they will do is simply reduce the rates that they will pay EVERYONE because they'll assume that there is fraud everywhere. This is less likely to impact Google, becuase of the auction system, but for the banners and many other ads, including direct sales, this could seriously impact companies.
The recent Supreme Court ruling about "obviousness" will make this patent worth less than the paper it was printed on. This one will clearly get tossed if they try to enforce it. It is obvious, in the sense that the Court defined the term and prior art exists.
Google has leveraged the "Do no evil" and other PR activities (billionaires only taking $1 salary) to create this false public image as somehow better / different. We get all the stories in the press about the cafeteria and other "perks". What we don't get is the price you have to pay to dance with the devil! And, of course, the NDA prevents people from telling us about that.
Yes, Google is the 21st century Microsoft. If you look closely they have taken Microsoft's business strategy for PCs and implemented it on the web. They don't innovate with new services, but look at what is popular / successful for others and they try to build a nicer version with a prettier UI .
The Supreme Court didn't weaken patents,and have instead brought some sanity to system that is broken. The Patent Office isn't capable of doing prior art, applicants don't do a good job and there are tons of filings for incremental and OBVIOUS changes and so-called processes being granted. The rules from the Patent Court didn't work for software, since so many advances just get shipped and aren't written about until much later or more likely never.
There are companies that did a lot of innovative work in the 90's that are gone and there is no record of their technology, but they had things we see being patented today as "inventions". These innovations are obvious and were implemented, but no one remembers and there are no articles, and hence no "prior art" or way to show obviousness.
I am a supporter of software patents, but we need to have patents granted for true innovation. Taking an idea from the web and making it work on mobile is engineering and not innovation, but you would never know that from a lot of patent filings. Putting P2P technology in a STB (a computer) and making it "easy to use" isn't invention, but engineering.
Too much stuff is filed that is incremental and obvious so that people can show "protectable IP" to the VCs and therefor raise money. The Patent office can't figure out the stuff and so grants it. A mess that this ruling will hopefully put us on the path to fixing.
I've been using Vista since RTM. I generally find it pretty good and certainly superior to XP. The *REAL* problem with Vista is that the pricing is ridiculous. Ultimate is pretty nice, but the price of $400 is simply $250 off from what anyone will pay and Home basic is a joke.
MS will figure this out and find a way to cut prices or they will see a long and slow adoption curve for Vista.
Ok, so we do do some evil, but jusy with our competitor's code. That isn't so bad, is it?
Google is gathering a huge trove of informaiton about us and this shows it is not anonymous. Search is only part of what they have. The more Google services you use the more you let them build a very detailed profile of you. And the more you do that the less privacy you have.
They know what you search for, who you IM and email and about what, where you have appointments and what you bought. You essentially have no privacy.
If you value your privacy do not use any single provider and spread your searches, IM, email and purchases accross multiple service providers. The government can use its powers to get your data and correlate it, but no commercial entity should have the equivalent power. Commercial interests of Google or any other provider run counter to protecting your privacy.
Here are some I find must haves:
- Tab Mix Plus: Gives you a lot more control of and functionality for your tabs, including multi-level undo for close.
- Videodownloader: Get a local copy of a YouTube video.
- GeckoTip: I have a tablet PC and if you do you MUST get this
- Firebug: Did he include this? If not best way to see what you have open in your tabs.
Much of the reaction here helps make Enderle's point. While the quality of his article is mixed, he does make some valid points. For example, Linix security isn't any better than Windows if you run as super user (the way users run in XP) and then install some random executable. However, most Linux users are more savy than Windows users and avoid doing that. GPL 3 is *most certainly* anti-business and most of the money in Linux is in services.
What is most spot on is that the Linux community is not a place where open discussion is valued and those who refuse to adopt the purist view are attacked as fiercely as the Revolutionary Guard in Iran would attack a woman walking around in a halter top. Linux is just a technology and it has flaws like any other technology. Linux as a business has its flaws just like Microsoft or Gooogle (opps, Google does no evil, right??). GPL is a socialist economic model and much more onerous and way less free than Apache licenses.
let's have discussion. Let's have CIVIL debate. I understand that Linux devotees treat any comments that don't follow the orthodox view as heresy, but if you believe in "free and open", shouldn't it include the discussion and debate.
"Do no evil" was *always* about PR, not corporate behavior. They are a company,just like Enron or J&J or Microsoft or Apple. They caved quickly to get a China foothold and that should have told those who thought the slogan meant something what the reality was. Google's REAL motto is just a quote from Lincoln and a hope that the last part wouldn't be true.
This is just a case of people having an irrational hatred for Microsoft. As long as Novell complies with the GPL which governs the code, the FSF and others should back off. Remember that real freedom includes the right to do things that others don't lim, as long as you comply wi th the rules. If not, then we will have to add another "free as in..." to our discussions. GPL and FF will be using "free" to mean "Free as in North Korea"!
What is amazing is that NetVibes isn't even original. Microsoft had this interface running in their start.cm site and then in Live.com before NetVibes launched. The real issue for personalized home pages is that they take work to set up AND more and ongoing work to maintain. Most folks set them up and perhaps update once but then stop using them because their interests change.
There is one of these that addresses the problem called PersonalWeb. It watches where you are surfing and figures out what your interests are and then changes what you see based on what you are doing. They make their money putting ads in the pages and one interesting thing is that they customize the ads to also match what you are doing. You get fewer stupid ads and offers and more things that appear are ads for stuff you actually have been shopping or are interested in. Much less annoying.
It really depends on the type of product. For computer and related stuff I use CNet and PCWorld and also go to the forums that seem to cover the product or category. For PDA stuff I go to PDAPhonehome.com and read reviews/post questions. Fr software, I usually go toe the appropriate support board and read the posts to learn about bugs, vendor responsiveness, etc.
First, I think that this was a great piece and there was a need to start a serious discussion within the community because, as was pointed out, the last chance for widespread desktop adoption is approaching and development times and community political issues dictate strong action now. I write this as a longtime *nix user(25 years), but also as one who tries not to get caught up in the religious wars that sweep the technical community. So, here goes. I have a few disagreements and a few other comments:
- The article seems to focus mostly on why Windows wins today and its current strengths in the marketplace. There is an assumption here, as often is the case in the Linux community, that Microsoft won't find other features and capabilities that are compelling to the consumer in the next 2-4 years. I think Microsoft has a broad and ongoing effort to find these kind of hooks and they are focused on the consumer and ease of use, as well as in other areas.
Vista comes with the tablet support and voice recognition. Tablet support has improved and I look for it to get better. There is just a huge convenience factor in being able to sit down and write / diagram / etc on a PC. Applicaitons are getting pen enabled. OneNote 2007 is a big step forward. I think it is ahead of Jarnal, and I think we'll see more Office integration of OneNote and additional pen enabling of more applications. The UMPC push is part of this. If they can get a usable and fully capable Tablet PC in that form factor at $500 or less, which they will in 2007, we're going to start to see an explosion in adoption in late 2007 and 2008.
But there is more. I've used the voice recognition stuff that ships in Vista. It is pretty good and it will get better in the next 2 years as well. As more folks walk around with their bluetooth headsets, talking to your computer, just dictating and then using the pen to edit, draw, etc. will become a natural and convenient user experience. On my UMPC it begins to deliver on the digital assistant that can understand me and is connected to the Internet all of the time.
- Don't underestimate the next generation of leadership at Microsoft. Ray Ozzie is one smart guy. He totally udnerstands the corporate user and has consistently delivered technology ahead of its time. AT Microsoft where they have the money and patience to deliver and then try again and again to get it right and hit the market timing, he will be a huge asset. He delivered the first serious commercial P2P application in Groove. A lousy implementation, too early and overhyped, but he gets the power of P2P and other next generation technologies. Vista begins to integrate commercial P2P, Office 2007 adds more stuff for collaboration mixing client and web. Whereas other get religious about all web, Microsoft comfortably mixes Web and desktop and focuses instead on user experience and helpful function. They can do excellent Web work as well - just look at local.live.com. There is a lot of buzz about things like Netvibes, but Microsoft did this kind of interface for a portal first, on their start.com site.
They understand what is happening and are changing and adapting. The key sin in any competitive situation is to underestimate the competition. The open source community underestimates Microsoft.
- The big media guys do not care about open source and freedom of intellectual property. They have been hurt by piracy and a lot of it comes from this community. Yes, they were stupid in not changing their business models quickly enough, but that didn't give anyone the right to steal from them. And no matter the rationalizations, under the law it was theft. Just because you want to give away the things you create for free, doesn't mean you have the right to impose your values on others and violate their rights. Big media would be CRAZY to trust the open source community and I doubt they will.
This means that they'll embrace Microsoft and Apple, the trusted media path solutions and the like. They can he
This one is truly sad. I know that the Patent office feels compelled to demonstrate weekly that its examiners incompetent in the area of software and the process is hopelessly broken, but this one is bad even for them. But armed with this patent, LSI is likely to try to extort money from small fry who can't afford the $$ to defend themselves in court.
One wonders what it will take to get this reformed. Perhaps when someone gets a patent on the business process for getting a Congressman to get you an earmark??? Those Congressmen will be outraged when someone demands a fee from them for taking public money and diverting it to useless projects. They scream "Someone ought to pass a law".
I actually am a firm believer in patents and intellectual property protection, but the US Patent Office is working overtime to change my mind.
Google has the information about you from GMail, Google Talk, Google Bookmarks, etc. You get the idea. They all have this kind of informaiton.
The recent AOL data leak showed that as big or bigger threats can come from our search data. These folks are grandstanding by going after Microsoft and not the other players. They know that no one will criticize them for bashing Microsoft and that others, like Google have better press and have folled more users, and so are tougher targets. Also, as opposed to Google, Microsoft is more sensitive to the criticism because of the past anti-trust issues and are more likely to respond. Google's response to people like content owners who don't like Google's use of their copyrighted materials without permission, have found that Google's reaction is to claim they are doing public good and then fight in court.
The best example of the threat we face to our privacy from all of these folks is Google. Not Google bashing, just pointing out that they are collecting the most data about us. Google is also collecting more of our use and web patterns through Google desktop and toolbar. Add in the fact that they have your cell number, are indexing your email, have your calendar, etc. Our only protection is they sya that their culture is to "do no evil", but we don't know who defines "evil" and what that definition is. What if the Chinese government wants the data? Will Google provide it so they can stay in the market? They caved on filtering.
Whether is is Microsoft, Google, Yahoo or someone else, the more we are online the more we are telling third parties about us and we have no protections about what they do with the data. These folks all have "terms of use" and simply by using their services you've agreed to them, even if you didn't actually read the terms (almost no one does and most don't even see the link). And if you read the TOS you are pretty unlikely to know what they collect and what they do with it.
Good that the discussion is starting, but wrong target. It is really the whole lot of these guys
I was an avid fan of ebooks on my iPAQ 7 years ago, but stopped using them becuase I got pissed off at the pricing. I was paying the exact same price for a DRM restricted ebook that I was paying for the physical hard cover. This is a rip off. I understand why the publisher wants to maximize the bucks, but since they are saving printing, shipping, shelf space, and returns, ebooks are way cheaper and I should share some of the savings.
Alas, the publishers were much like the record labels and that means too greedy! If they provide price incentives than I'd use this, but given the expected restrictions if the prices are the same, I'll skip it and use the old fashion hard copies.
Technology moves fast in our business and there are numerous stories over the years of companies that tried to "manage" transitions that are now gone (Wang). The market moves at its own pace and if you are worried about what making a move will do to your business, you are looking at the wrong thing, because if you can do it to your business so can someone else. There is ONLY one option in these business and it is simple "If you don't cannibalize your own business, someone else will do it for you".