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My Favorite
Buzzword:
Get ready for the Wireless MAN, baby. Or short for Wireless Metropolitan Area Network.
> All About The MAN

Spam Overload Dept:
According to a recent survey, about 65 percent of Net users spend 10 minutes or more a day dealing with spam. About 37 percent of respondents get 100 junk messages a day, and 63 percent get 50 or more.
Source: Symantec and Insightexpress

Alice Hill's Technology Watch

Saturday, February 28, 2004

iPod Mini Pricing Backlash

What costs nearly $300 and only holds 1,000 songs? Backlash against the iPod Mini's hefty price tag is mounting. Forrester Research claims that a cheapo iPod is unlrealistic thanks to hard drive prices. To become the next Walkman, the price needs to get to $199. Just not there yet.
# Posted at 6:01 PM

Outsourcing? Try "Insourcing"
Buzzword Alert Department: Interesting article from Wired on an upcoming trend. Instead of taking advantage of Indian workers who will work for peanuts, why not exploit ex-cons who will work for peanuts right here?
# Posted at 6:01 PM

Innovative Laptop Alarm

Three Canadian engineering students have developed a new laptop anti-theft device targeted to busy travelers. By pocketing a small beeper-ish device, the laptop goes into "alert" mode and will emit a piercing death siren if someone moves the laptop more than 15 feet. I guess it seems odd to me that if you are forgetful enough to walk away from your laptop in a busy place like an airport or restaurant (where most thefts occur), wouldn't it be just as easy to also forget the beeper when you wander off? And can anyone bear to carry more battery-operated devices?
# Posted at 6:00 PM

Friday, February 27, 2004

Alice Meets Prince Charles

Ok, so meeting Prince Charles last night may not qualify as a high tech event, but I did spend some time chatting with England's future king about computer viruses of all things. "Are they geting worse?" HRH asked, "and can anything be done?"

The best part was telling him the theory that viruses are actually created by the anti-virus companies. He not only was blown away by the concept (which I assured him was totally unproven), he actually kept on the topic for some time, wondering if this was some modern way of "creating work for the workers."
# Posted at 5:06 AM

Thursday, February 26, 2004

Intel to Shake Up Cell Phone Industry
In a move sure to shake up the cell phone industry, Intel announced that it was going to begin moving seriously into the world of cell phones. Conviced that cell phones have the same properties that PCs do - meaning you buy a new one all the time - the company plans to flood the market with chips that will get more powerful and cheaper. Intel is also backing the new WiMax standard that works up to 30 miles.
# Posted at 1:32 AM

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Formerly "Lindows"

According to Newsfactor: "In compliance with court orders in Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, Lindows has changed its name to Lin---s -- pronounced 'Lindash.'" Microsoft has been fighting the Windows/lindows battle for three years now and actually was dealt a blow when a judge ruled that the term Windows was generic enough to be the "kleenex" of the 90's, but recent rulings have forced the new name change. Or as we like to say, Lindows, you're scr---d.
# Posted at 11:06 PM

When Your Name = SPAM
Prince Albert in a Can Dept: What happens when your last name triggers spam filters or worse, strict corporate firewalls? Siliconvalley.com has a great story (true) on the plight of poor Craig Cockburn and his struggle to literally get the word out.
# Posted at 3:53 PM

Monday, February 23, 2004

PalmSource Dropping Mac Support
PalmSource Inc. just announed that it was dropping support for Macintosh computers in all future handhelds. They company did say that third party software would be able to provide this support, but it was another sign that the Mac is becming even more of a niche product. "We believe the Mac community will be well serviced by the Mac developers we have out there already," PalmSource chief products officer Larry Slotnick said.
# Posted at 6:01 AM

Sunday, February 22, 2004

How VoIP is Killing Wiretapping

Great article on Slate, "Thanks to the blistering growth of VoIP services, which have been adopted by approximately 10 million people worldwide so far, law enforcement officials now worry that wiretapping may one day become technically obsolete." It appreas that the feds are having problems with Vonage and Skype and it many cases tapping a VoIP line is tricky business.
# Posted at 11:55 PM

Google Re-Design?
Found this guy who has screenshots of a possible re-design at Google. It's not very dirfferent, and even cleaner and more compact, but always fun to see where a familiair UI is going next.
# Posted at 11:39 PM

Hacking the Pepsi iTunes Giveaway

According to this website, MacMerc, all you have to do to snare free iTunes is to tilt the Pepsi bottle and read the cap. Pepsi printed "try again" so clearly that picking a winner is a cinch. This makes it almost comical when you consider the offline piracy aspect in what is noramlly an online problem.
# Posted at 3:44 AM

The Horror! Scented Email
Every few years a company tries to add scent to computing. Last time around, I wrote about Digiscent and its innovative scent portal, or something like that. Today Trisenx is working on a plug-in device to add scent to email. On top of a gut wrenching $300 price tag, just the mere thought of scented Spam is enough to put us off email entirely.
# Posted at 1:56 AM

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