Thursday, March 14, 2002

[John Robb's Radio Weblog] Reuters.  Microsoft reveals they are working with the DoJ to fight cybercrime (terrorism).  Bing!  Dave and I took a tough stand on this a couple of months ago when we couldn't figure out why the DoJ threw away 6 years of work on the Microsoft case and sided with Microsoft.  Here is the reason.  Ashcroft turned the DoJ into a war-time agency.  Microsoft could provide him with a way to get into networks through a backdoor (keylogging software etc.).  Microsoft is trying to craft the same deal with the Euros.  >>>``As we think about private and public partnerships, we have to say that this (partnership) is key,'' said Ballmer, as he outlined the dangers of cyber-crime to the European Policy Centre, a private think-tank. ``We've worked very closely, for example, with the Department of Justice in the United States to get additional funding for FBI efforts to target cyber-crime,'' he said. ``They simply didn't have enough people who were technically expert,'' he added. ``We've loaned our experts but we also think it's very important that government have its own experts as part of the policy process in these issues.'' Microsoft still faces a continuing investigation by the European Commission for allegedly violating European antitrust laws, but Ballmer declined to say whether he would be holding discussions about those problems during his stay in Brussels. ``Those (talks) are always confidential, of course, between us and the appropriate governmental authorities,'' he said.<<<   This is scary stuff (thanks Michael for the heads-up on this). 10:41:29 AM

Michael Shrage article on the cost of adopting new innovation and what that means for pricing. 8:21:42 AM

[Yahoo News Headlines - XML] Top Tech Jobs for 2002. ... displaced programmers are finding work with Java and newer cross-platform approaches, such as XML and .NET.... 8:09:55 AM

[Sam Ruby's Radio Weblog] Been blogging for nearly three months now.  Time to comment on the metablogging going on.  My essay on the subject is entitled Manufactured Serendipity. 8:08:14 AM

[Sam Ruby's Radio Weblog] Apache: Borland, Fujitsu, HP, IONA, Nokia, and Oracle voted with Sun to lock Open Source out of Java.  It will be interesting to see if anyone in the press picks this up. 8:05:15 AM

[Technology Review - Computers and Electronics] Handhelds of Tomorrow. Think thumb keyboards and portable hard drives—not the overhyped notions of cell phone Web browsers and "pen-based computing." 8:03:08 AM

[Sam Ruby's Radio Weblog] I've added Jon's subscriptions widget as modified by Marc to my weblog.  While I have not changed the script itself, I chose to put it into the "Macros" folder instead of the "Web Services" folder.  This enables it to be invoked as simply as <% subs() %> 8:02:01 AM

[The Motley Fool] Berkshire Hathaway. "It will also mean that bull markets in the near future will not last very long." 7:56:53 AM

[John Robb's Radio Weblog] BBC.  Mira, Microsoft's new portable digital screen/tablet technology that connects to a hub PC, will be "out by Christmas" for around $500.  This is how Microsoft plans to soak up excess compute cycles on today's fast PCs:  use XP profiles to allow everyone in the home to have a digital screen/tablet that connects to a hub PC.  The key is multiple simultaneous users on the same hub for mail, multimedia, and browsing. I suspect the vision is that there will eventually be a hub PC (HomeStation) you can put into a closet.  Base stations to recharge the tablets for each user.  Connections to roaming wireless networks for remote access to the home hub.  Convergence with personal storage device technology to add dozens of Gb of portable storage for local playback of multimedia.  Convergence with wireless phone technology so that you could use your hub's contact manager for easy communications management.  Nice. 7:47:41 AM

Who Was Benjamin Graham?. Meet the father of value investing... and Warren Buffett's mentor. [The Motley Fool] 7:43:42 AM