Linksys Releases Wireless-N For Small Businesses
The local area network product line uses the 802.11n wireless draft specification, designed to better handle bandwidth-hungry apps like video and VoIP. Still, there's no assurance they'll work with other products using that spec.
Days After Entering 12-Step Program, Microsoft Falls Off Wagon
Whatever happened to the "12 tenets," announced just 10 days ago, that were supposed to help a seemingly humbled and repentant Microsoft assume a more ethical stance toward allowing competition? Could it be that its self-imposed 12-step program has already failed to cure Microsoft of its monopolistic impulses?
Apple's Copy Protection Isn't The Problem
Cory Doctorow, noted sci-fi writer and Boing Boing editor, marshals a strong argument against digital rights management in InformationWeek. But his assertion that there's no good DRM oversimplifies an issue that's best framed in compromises rather than absolutes.
Apple's DRM has benefited the public and the music industry. It
Meet Your New Code Host: Google
NewsForge is reporting that later today, Google will announce a hosting service for open-source projects. The addition to Google Code will be similar, in many ways, to SourceForge; it will also, however, include a new issue tracking tool and other perks created especially for smaller, independent open-source projects.
ERP Makeover: The Pig's Next Gig
Enterprise resource planning software--despite a long record of achievement in business process improvement--suffers from a lingering image problem. It's that ERP projects have a tendency to become resource hogs that waddle over budget and past deadline. New software in development by SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft promises to overcome the drawbacks of the past. But will ERP really get easier to deploy and manage? Or are ERP vendors merely putting lipstick on a pig?
VoIP Call Quality Takes A Nosedive: Survey
VoIP call quality has taken a nosedive over the last 18 months, with nearly 20% of VoIP callers experiencing unacceptable voice quality, according to a survey done by Brix Networks.
Who Owns The Internet?
The key questions, which I hope are addressed in the hearing this week, are exactly what the Department of Commerce originally intended when it decided to work with ICANN back in 1998, whether those intentions have changed, and whether the requirements of the American business community have changed--or perhaps should change in its own best interests.
Interesting Spam Article
"The State Of Spam," by Christopher Heun, provides a good catch-up on current spam volume, its changing nature, and current enforcement activities (governmental and private sector alike). It's a must-read for anybody who deals with junk e-mail on a daily basis.
Intel Makes Branding Gamble With 'Leap Ahead' And Core 2 Duo
The next year will determine if Intel's processor portfolio overhaul of the past few weeks will successfully put the brakes on rival Advanced Micro Devices' market share assault of the past two years. But AMD executives believe Intel has again made a big error in giving up positions of strength by abandoning two of the most well-known brands in the technology industry: Intel Inside and Pentium.
Barracuda Attacks Image-Based Spam
Yesterday Barracuda Networks announced an upgrade to its Spam Firewall product that provides the ability to apply optical character recognition, or OCR, techniques to incoming e-mail. This is an important escalation in the spam/anti-spam arms race, and something that will hopefully become more common.
Will You Join The DRM Dance?
Back in the bad old days of the 1970s, Sony came out with a wonderful machine called a Betamax video tape recorder. The idea was that consumers could tape their favorite programs off of their televisions and watch them at their leisure. No longer would people have to rush home in a panic in order to catch that week's episode of Star Trek--you could watch Johnny Carson at 9 a.m. and your favorite daytime soap at 1 a.m. if you wanted.
But Universal City Studios didn't see it that way.
The Slow, Lingering Death Of Win98
Pretty much anything about Vista makes for a surefire hit with InformationWeek readers. Take "Top 10 Windows Vista Hits And Misses." Or "20 Questions About Windows Vista." People can't seem to get enough of Vista, Vista, Vista. Which bodes well for Microsoft's next-generation operating system, right?
Well, maybe.
Vonage Denies Spyware Charges
Vonage denies that it uses spyware to deliver its advertising, as charged yesterday by spyware researcher Ben Edelman.
Microsoft Makes Its Peace With Open Source
Last month, I noted in the Linux Pipeline newsletter that Microsoft's new leadership was likely to adopt a far more pragmatic, and positive, attitude towards open-source software. I was right about what would happen, but wrong about the timing: In just two weeks, with two decisions, Microsoft has already largely demolished years of anti-Open Source dogma.
Vonage Ads Delivered Via A Dozen Spyware Makers: Report
Anti-spyware researcher Ben Edelman, in his most recent newsletter, charges that Vonage advertising appears in ads from at least a dozen sources he identifies as spyware makers. He also says there's plenty Vonage could do to stop the practice.
JasperSoft Launches Open-Source BI Site
JasperSoft Corp. launches JasperForge.org, a Web site that provides free access to collaborative tools for building, deploying and extending open-source business intelligence software.
Reviews: Firefox 2.0 Beta 1, And What The Flock Is Up With That New Browser?
Today we have a review of Firefox 2.0 beta 1 that's sure to be a crowd-pleaser, as well as a good review of a new browser, based on Firefox, called Flock.
For months now, Firefox 2.0 has been getting a bum rap because there's really no significant new features in it. Critics say Firefox 2.0 really doesn't deserve
Mark Cuban Says The Internet Is Boring. Oh, That It Were So
Mark Cuban's recent blog entry pays tribute to the Internet by declaring it boring. It works, and we take it for granted. He compares it to indoor plumbing, with similar dependence and lack of excitement.
The thing he ignores: the wireless Web.
Spawn Of Wikipedia
So can commoners--as the British like to refer to those not of aristocratic birth--be trusted? That's the question that two of the founders of Wikipedia appear to have asked themselves recently. And they appear to have come up with radically different answers.
Application Insight: Why I Hate Web 2.0
Hidden beneath all the new stuff collecting under the Web 2.0 umbrella is a simple fact: All that coolness exists to do an even better and more invasive job of marketing goods and services to Web users.
Skype Gets Reverse-Engineered
According to a blog post by Charlie Paglee, a Chinese technology company has successfully reverse-engineered the core Skype protocols. It's clear that the company is a long way from productizing this into something that will "compete" with Skype on a feature basis, but it's an interesting and important milestone nonetheless.
Geronimo Rides, Novell Switches Sides
Apache Geronimo is rapidly maturing as an open-source application server and, in its 1.0 version, venturing outside the protected bounds of its previously out-of-view camp. But can Geronimo keep moving and slip past the well-guarded doors to the enterprise the way JBoss did?
Windows Reactionaries, Unite!
Whenever Microsoft releases a new version of Windows, there's always a backlash from people using previous versions. "It's all just a bunch of hype," they say. "Why should I spend a lot of money to upgrade when Windows Me works just fine?"
Virtualization Goes Mainstream
Yesterday the server-class VMware Server 1.0 was formally released with the official price of $0. This news follows Tuesday's announcement by Microsoft that the desktop-class Virtual PC 2004 now has a price tag of $0, too, and that the server-class Virtual Server 2005 will also be
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