Disqus - Friends of grvaughan

Re: Important new technology

Glenn Fleishman — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 20:10:57 -0000

I'm not confused. The MBOA is 80 companies, but I think it's premature to say that Motorola's intended UWB specification will lose. There are too many variables in this. My main intent is note that the MBOA has entirely exited the IEEE process.

Re: Important new technology

Glenn Fleishman — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 20:50:51 -0000

Now I see why you thought I was confused. I'm not saying that Motorola and 80 companies are on even footing. Rather, that Motorola will bring its products to market and so will the MBOA. Even positing this early that the MBOA's technology will win, you will still have a market potentially full of Motorola and XtremeSpectrum technology.

Another factor. Xtreme has many patents in this field. In the IEEE process, patents for standards must be licensed on reasonable and customary terms to all parties. With the MBOA out of the IEEE process, the likelihood of patent lawsuits dramatically increases with Motorola funding it as an effort to maintain a disruptive marketplace in which they can maintain their hold on manufacturing partners.

Of course Motorola bet early and long on HomeRF, too.

Re: Important new technology

Glenn Fleishman — Thu, 18 Mar 2004 18:57:08 -0000

Remember that Motorola's acquisition XtremeSpectrum already had signed consumer electronics deals. Unless those were bogus, those companies may come to market even if Motorola's house brand solution does not.

Re: Technorati Top 100 Is Changing Radically

Glenn Fleishman — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 19:38:37 -0000

Remember what Amazon.com's bestseller list was like in 1996. I dug it up:

1. Creating Killer Web Sites: The Art of Third-Generation Site Design; David Siegel

2. Executive Orders; Tom Clancy

3. The Dilbert Principle: A Cubicle's Eye View of Bosses, Meetings, Management Fads & Other Workplace Afflictions; Scott Adams

4. Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk; Peter L. Bernstein

5. The English Patient; Michael Ondaatje

6. Idoru; William Gibson

7. Airframe; Michael Crichton

8. Creating Great Web Graphics; Laurie McCanna

9. Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet; Matthew Lyon, Katie Hafner

10. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information; Edward R. Tufte

I believe Programming Perl was the bestselling Amazon book in 1995 (their first year of operation), but I might be wrong.

Re: Wavion’s WiFi access points could help Google in SF

Glenn Fleishman — Mon, 22 May 2006 11:56:02 -0000

Tropos widely announced a contract that they signed with EarthLink months ago that gives them the first five cities that EarthLink unwires. Likewise, Motorola Canopy will be used in those five cities. There may be performance clauses or other outs (like five cities within a period of time) that I don't know about.

Further, it would be very odd for a startups first products to be used for a deployment of the scale of San Francisco. The reason Tropos, BelAir, Strix, and SkyPilot have had such traction in this form of metro-scale rollout is that while still all startups, they now have years under their belt and real deployments.

There are real questions about whether what they're doing scales and works as predicted, but that's separate from whether a company like EarthLink would install Wavion or Go Networks (similar MIMO approach) gear rather than an existing provider of this kind of equipment.

Re: Almost Exclusive: Amazon Readies Utility Computing Service

Glenn Fleishman — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 15:37:06 -0000

Note that Amazon doesn't consider these servers "reliable" in the sense that they state in their introduction to the service that data stored directly on them or used in memory should be considered transitory. They suggest storing data permanently by moving them off the computer into other structures. I'll be curious if you could set up MySQL, for instance, to host its databases at S3 -- doesn't seem like that would quite work because you need a socket. Amazon database services--on-demand SQL--would be fabulous.

Re: Xen and Amazon EC2

Glenn Fleishman — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 10:59:54 -0000

Actually, that's Jeff Barr's post at Amazon. I merely left a comment.

Re: Don’t send bloggers stuff for free unless it’s good

Glenn Fleishman — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 00:58:02 -0000

I was a little appalled by Sprint's tactics. They contacted me by a sort of mass mail out of the blue offering me essentially about $500 of free service. I was a bit indignant as a reporter. Bloggers can run by different rules, especially if they aren't writing about products or pretending to be objective or if they disclose the relationship. Or other conditions. But I thought Sprint was pretty blatantly saying, hey, here's $500 worth of free stuff!

Re: The Second Law of Thermodynamics

Glenn Fleishman — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 17:48:44 -0000

A. I don't understand the connection between "vacation" and "Las Vegas." I don't smoke, drink heavily, have paid sex, or gamble, so I suppose that's why. The smoking was what got to me on a trip in January.

B. I was reading a terribly written book called Why Things Break, and came across a beautiful explanation of the Second Law. It's that there are a lot of possible positions for all the atoms and energy in a given space, and most of those are disordered. Well, you had to be there. (The book needed a vastly better editor.)

C. Then a few days later, I pick up Googlewhacking by Dave Gorman (a picaresque book I have since given up on), and the sentence I read cites the Second Law. What are the odds?

Re: This Page Requires Internet Explorer: Worst Offenders?

Glenn Fleishman — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 17:21:46 -0000

My favorite source of organic milk and dairy very weirdly only supports IE for Windows on its "print coupons" page:

http://www.organicvalley.coop/coupons/mac.html

I emailed them about it, suspecting that there was a fulfillment house problem, and that was it. They work with some outfit that handles their physical coupons, and that outfit's technology is stupidly IE only. They'd have to retool their whole coupon operation to get the online change. They did send me two $1 off coupons as a sort of "we're sorry but we're working on it" issue. The Organic Valley operation apparently uses lots of Macs, so they're not happy about it.

Re: This Page Requires Internet Explorer: Worst Offenders?

Glenn Fleishman — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 17:21:46 -0000

My favorite source of organic milk and dairy very weirdly only supports IE for Windows on its "print coupons" page:

http://www.organicvalley.coop/coupons/mac.html

Re: This Page Requires Internet Explorer: Worst Offenders?

Glenn Fleishman — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 17:21:46 -0000

My favorite source of organic milk and dairy very weirdly only supports IE for Windows on its "print coupons" page:

http://www.organicvalley.coop/coupons/mac.html

Re: San Francisco Local Politics Derail Free WiFi Project

Glenn Fleishman — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 02:27:02 -0000

Davis, you do write about a free network, and Google will provide 300 Kbps service at no cost under this deal. But the network is primarily designed to be a for-fee system, with EarthLink offering wholesale rates that will translate into about $20 per month for 1 Mbps symmetrical access.

John Gilmore wrote: "Google and Earthlink could put up their own WiFi network today, without city permission, if they put their equipment up on private homes and buildings (with consent of the owners), and paid for their own electricity. That’s a deal they are not interested in."

I'll go one step further, John: Google and EarthLink have the right under the Telecom Act of 1996 to get reasonable, non-discriminatory access to utility poles. Now, while Southern Edison has been playing games about pole access down in the southern part of your fine state, that hasn't been the case in the more sensible northern half.

Google and EarthLink could build a network with no city support of any kind and gain access to utility poles. Not city facilities, however, which would require separate negotiation. Again, they could do this without the city's direct involvement, including getting access to things like Twin Peaks. (Just ask Tim Pozar of BAWRN.)

John also writes: "And so Earthlink can monopolize the “public use” WiFi frequencies all over the city, selling “premium” wifi service that people will have to buy to escape the very low bandwidth of the “free” service."

While I wrote a somewhat skeptical article about metro-scale Wi-Fi networks and interference for The Economist (March 2006 Technology Quarterly issue), I don't truly believe that it's possible for EarthLink or any firm to deploy a network that actually highly degrades Wi-Fi across a city. The complaints would cause too much political fallout. The FCC has some specific ways in which they would get involved in Part 15 disputes, but the idea that EarthLink would actually be able to monopolize the network -- it's possible, and it's a very real fear (see Tim Pozar, again!) -- I don't think in practical terms it can happen without truly destroying EarthLink's reputation. I am, of course, curious how putting devices that produce the highest legal output with omnidirectional antennas across an entire city actually affects existing indoor and outdoor deployments. The results may surprise us all -- it may work just fine (Wi-Fi may be resilient enough, more than we expect or believe), or it may totally destroy existing networks (Wi-Fi may be too fragile when one provider blankets the entire spectral territory).

Re: Windows Vista Laptop on eBay, Proceeds Going To EFF | Laughing Squid

Glenn Fleishman — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 14:06:03 -0000

Scott, great idea. I received product from a company I will not name, and as a freelance journalist who writes for many outlets and my own sites, I could not keep them. The company did not want them back. So I auctioned them on eBay, and sent several hundred dollars to charity (including an extra amount to cover the tax benefit to me since I was also giving additional cash).

To those on this forum and elsewhere who think Scott is doing something wrong, remember that unsolicited merchandise received by you is yours. This is a long-standing law in regards to the US Mail, and I expect that other carriers qualify. There was apparently a time in which companies would ship products and then demand payment without having received an order from a person. So Scott is basically in the position of having received an unsolicited product coupled with email that explicitly states that it is his. IANAL, and I can still tell that there's no possible way that he could be compelled to return that laptop.

As for ethics -- there's no good way for a journalist (which Scott doesn't accuse himself of being) to accept free products or services from a company. Scott's certainly in a better position since he doesn't (I believe) write or contribute to publications or participate in organizations that specifically tell their contributors or members to not accept gifts from companies.

There was a whole kerfuffle a few months ago when an article appeared about NY Times columnist David Pogue having accepted free hard drive restoration from Drivesavers. While Pogue had disclosed that he had received the service for free in his regular NY Times email newsletter, he had not told NPR and CBS, where he discussed the service, about that element. This was tricky because before this point, the Times didn't necessarily require that services be paid for or reimbursed. And what Pogue received was a service and he disclosed that fact. To be squeakier clean about it, the Times now pays for any service that they cover. Times policy doesn't allow hardware sent for review to be kept.

Re: Steve Jobs is not an idiot

Glenn Fleishman — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:53:55 -0000

"What applications did Apple have in 1989? MacWrite, MacPaint, MacDraw, MacProject, Hypercard, and what else?" geniver asked.

Are you asking what programs did Apple itself offer or that were available for it? I studied graphic design in college, and was working in imaging service bureaus in 1989 and beyond, running Yale's in-house facility for a year, and then later working with more advanced gear at an arm of Kodak up in Maine.

Windows in 1989 was essentially unusable. System 6 had Quark, PageMaker, Illustrator. My college paper, a weekly that started up in 1985, was PageMaker based and all Macs. We managed to produce a newspaper on deadline (our daily rival used Quark).

Re: New York Post Reporter Claims First IPhone Review

Glenn Fleishman — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 09:01:59 -0000

"New York Post Reporter Claims First IPhone Review" -- No, no, no, and no. The New York *Post* claims first iPhone review. The article doesn't actually state that; the headline does. The Post chose to play that up. I used an iPhone for about 15 minutes in January. My article was about what I thought was lacking in the first release that would likely be fixed. The iPhone will probably be the best cell phone ever released, but the next iPhone model with 3G, more memory, and a lot of other tweaks, will be also be the best cell phone ever released.

This isn't a "wait forever" article; it's that the 1.0 release at $500 and $600 doesn't meet my mark for what I'd recommend the average person looking for the next cell phone to buy. Waiting isn't a bad idea for what I believe Apple will pack into a future model.

For myself, as a tech journalist, I'm buying a 1.0 iPhone.

Re: New York Post Says iPhone Sucks! That’s What She Said!

Glenn Fleishman — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:35:12 -0000

I wouldn't have called it a review; that's the Post's tag. I was writing up what I thought were a combination of conceptual problems that were confirmed by a few minutes' experience with a prototype back in January. The Post is a tabloid and its readers have very little time to read, so everything is much faster and breezier than more serious papers (or even many blogs that go into great detail).

I'm actually planning to buy an iPhone. Just bought a Mac Pro a few weeks ago and love it. I own, let's see, 10 Macs?

I had two main points in my column. First, that the iPhone tries to do too much. That's both conceptual and firsthand. Second, it's not going to be a greater browser or document reader, even though Apple touts this as a top-line feature, because Apple chose to not offer a way to reformat Web pages or documents to flow to the screen. Instead, you zoom in and out and drag, which isn't how most people read. At 100-percent scale, where text might be legible, most Web pages and Word documents won't fit on the screen. There are mobile devices and software that can switch between real HTML rendering (not as good as the iPhone's) and a readable mode. Same with Word docs, where they can extract the text with minimal formatting.

Third, it's strange to buy an iPhone now, because Apple will absolutely have a 3G iPhone within a year, maybe six months. The EDGE network is too slow, and (this came out after my article was published) AT&T's data plan doesn't include any Wi-Fi hotspot access. Sure, you can use Wi-Fi for free in many places or pay a separate fee to another network operator. But see Walt Mossberg, David Pogue, etc.; they all complain about the EDGE--and they actually had iPhones to test.

Re: Adobe+Hires+Co-Inventor+of+Image+Resizer%26nbsp%3BTechnology

Glenn Fleishman — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 01:31:29 -0000

I don't know why no one has noted that resizing photos in this remarkably clever fashion distorts the verity of the photographs. I'm not being pure about; it's just that no newsgathering organization could use this sort of feature. PR photos and stock photos could be subject to it. I just don't see a practical application for anything but backgrounds or specific stock images. The cleverness, well, there's a lot of use for these guys' cleverness.

Re: Harvard bookstore: Our prices are "property"

Glenn Fleishman — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 03:43:23 -0000

In Feist v. Rural the Supreme Court said a collection of facts can be copyrighted (the selection and omission constituting unique efforts), but that the facts within that set cannot. So if I create a list of 10 book prices with their ISBNs, my list is copyrightable, but none of the information within it can be protected. Pretty straightforward.

Re: Harvard bookstore: Our prices are "property"

Glenn Fleishman — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 03:43:23 -0000

Re: Harvard bookstore: Our prices are "property"

Glenn Fleishman — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 03:43:23 -0000

Re: Alaska Airlines will soon offer wireless internet

Glenn Fleishman — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 10:22:10 -0000

"the latest US carrier to promise in-flight wireless internet to customers": Turns out that AP was a bit more positive than later coverage. Alaska is equipping just one plane for its test, after which it could choose to equip the entire fleet.

Still.

Alaska also did a trial a few years ago of a portable entertainment player that could show five hours of movies, play audio, etc., that would be handheld and available for rental on flights. The brilliant idea was that no plane seatbacks needed to be retrofit.

The idea was a good one, but just didn't take off in trials, I'm guessing.

Re: Mark Twain's nutty 1906 plan to extend copyright

Glenn Fleishman — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 02:32:11 -0000

Twain had gone through bankruptcy a few years before, and although he had paid creditors and clawed his way back to solvency by 1906, it's clear that he was highly concerned about his children living in penury. He eventually lost three of his four children during his life.

Re: Mark Twain's nutty 1906 plan to extend copyright

Glenn Fleishman — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 02:32:11 -0000

Re: Fruit Baskets: Apple Set to Open iPhone to Software Development. They Totally Are

Glenn Fleishman — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:23:26 -0000

Yeah, I know it makes people crazy (including me) when you see "sources." The fact is that in this case, I wasn't looking for this story, but was contacted by several different parties who practically incidentally mentioned that Apple was working on near-term third-party application installation. That was remarkable, because it was several different parties with no connection or agenda. Which makes it seem much more likely than if one or two people had contacted me trying to incite me to write such a story.