Category Archives: news

Kindle as “Future of Reading”? More like Present … of stupidity.

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I don’t usually pan products here but the Kindle coming out from Amazon tomorrow is *really* a bad idea.   Not because it wouldn’t be neat to have a great reading device to replace books, but because of the demographics involved here.   Amazon is going to be lucky to sell enough Kindles to keep this project going through Christmas.     Part of the challenge for the Kindle is that it’s ugly.   Butt ugly based on the picture, though some are saying the Kindle picture does not do it justice.

Newsweek Reports with a title that is now in first place for journalistic hyperbole gone mad. 

But even if the Kindle was an AppleEsque stylish, techological beauty, who do they think will buy these things?

The early adopters of techology – folks like me who have a lot of computers, a laptop, and a fancy phone *already have* devices where we can read blogs and websites and books.   Oh yes, most of that reading is free on my laptop, where the Kindle is going to charge you – even for blogs if early reports are correct.  Sure it would be nice to have a portable reader for the coffee shop when I don’t have a real book to bring there.     But I *do* have a real book around somewhere that I do bring to the coffee shop if I’m not bringing my …. laptop … which gives me more than just reading capabilities.    Can I blog from the Kindle?    I’m not going to carry a Kindle AND my Laptop around with me.

OK, so what about those folks who are not attached to their technologies pretty much every waking hour?   The folks who may not even have a laptop to carry around.    They are going to budget $399 for a .. ummm …. ugly Kindle?  Huh?  The folks who don’t particularly like computers or gadgets and don’t think it’s fun to have a laptop at the coffee shop are going to jump right out and buy an ugly, new, unusual ….. uber gadget?     No.    What will the marketing say “Luddites of the world wake up and get out your wallets, because the Kindle is the high technology for YOU!”

As Matt Ingram notes, what in the world is Jeff Bezos smoking over there?.    The Kindle is yet another gadget designed by the folks who have everything for the folks who have everything, and therefore brings to the marketplace pretty much … nothing.  

OK, I’ve been mean and harsh because I think the Kindle is going to fail pretty dramatically.   I also feel bad because I understand Jeff Bezos is a cool, nice guy.    Yikes, I’ll never get a job selling Kindles door to door now, but the ugly Kindle truth is more important than that.   However, I would have to say that *some day* we may see lots of this type of device in libraries and coffee shops as a great way to bring people fresh and hugely diverse content without subscriptions to hundreds of magazines and papers and blogs and websites.   That is the neat part of this idea, but unfortunately for it to work the Kindle would need to kindle a lot of interest in the device as much as the idea, and this won’t do that.

Recycling Computer Parts

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Recycling old computers and monitors, especially the toxic stuff, is a problem that is going to get bigger and bigger.     A recent report suggests we are not handling this problem very well, and I know from my local recycling experiences this is seems to be case here in rural Oregon.    Of the 2 million *tons* of old computer parts (mostly PCs and Monitors I assume) most find their way into landfills.    Some 300,000 to 400,000 tons of parts are processed through “recycling” facilities, but the latest scandal suggests that most of this material is then send overseas where it may be contaminating other countries.

I have not followed up on this story, so it is possible that it’s like some other environmental red herrings where the economic benefits to the other countries are so great and the risks so trivial we won’t be doing anybody any favors by closing down the business, but obviously this type of situation looks ominous.

Technology and toxics is yet another topic where reason must prevail over scare tactics so we can develop clear, clean and economical solutions to complex environmental problems.  For example compact flourescent bulbs, when broken, leave trace amounts of mercury.   I learned this a few weeks *after* I swept up a broken bulb on our porch, completely oblivious to the fact this was – technically – toxic waste.   Does this mean we should not use compact flourescents which offer huge energy savings?   No, it but it suggests we need new technologies and different rules for how to handle mercury cleanup to avoid making a nation of lawbreakers.  Perhaps a Gov’t approved “mercury cleanup kit” so schools and businesses won’t need to start closing when somebody drops a bulb.

Genomes, Genomes! Step right up and get yaarrrr Genomes! Only $999

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It is *so cool* to be around to see some of the most sweeping changes in human history unfold right before our eyes.    www.23andme.com, the new service that will provide you with your complete genetic blueprint,  brings the potential for a sea change in the way humans will view our relationship to each other and to our own biology and chemistry.  

This company is brought to us thanks to the amazing work of the Genome Project, which fully documented a complete human DNA record.   23andme allows all of us to get a copy of our own genome – at a fraction of the cost for the first set of DNA.

 Hopefully this will also help us along the path to a better philosophical and emotional relationship to the world that spawned all of us from physical and evolutionary processes that we continue to grasp in more fascinating detail.

www.23andMe is also intriguing as it’s the brainchild of  Google founder Sergy Brin’s wife and early Google employee Anne.    One of the exciting things about Google is that the founders and early employees are not only brilliant – they are also young and enthusiastic technological visionaries who, unlike some of their predecessors like Tesla, have *tons* of money to invest in these visionary technological dreams.     

Will I be signing up for a copy?   Maybe, but even though $999 is an amazing deal it’s a lot of pizzas, so I’m going to wait for the first …. ummm … “Genome sale”.

Rethinking Privacy

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Hey, it’s nice when you agree with the Government’s interpretation of how the future is going to shake out. 

Donald Kerr is the USA’s Dept. of Intelligence Deputy Director and noted correctly:

Protecting anonymity isn’t a fight that can be won. Anyone that’s typed in their name on Google understands that. 
… Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety,”

Wait a minute….maybe the Government is just (finally) coming around to agreeing with me as I’ve been noting for about two years now that online privacy is an oxymoron.  Hey, here’s another online privacy is a mirage post!  

We don’t (actually, cannot) know where many of our pictures and data and writing and comments and email is stored, we don’t know who misquotes us, scrapes our content, has our credit card data and medical records, reads our email, or even know if we own what we write (many reviews sites will claim they own *your* reviews). 

It’s actually *not* as big a deal as one might think.  This is the brave new world of onliners and the benefits of the information explosion easily and dramatically trump the handful of privacy pitfalls.    If this were not the case we’d have seen a *lot* more trouble by now.

CNN Reports

FCC to Cable Industry: “Open wide”

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The FCC has ruled to open the Cable industry in a surprise move from an agency that is notable for NOT regulating markets.    This decision is, however, consistent with the idea that since Cable companies have enjoyed an unsual monopoly-esque sort of status in media for some time, and have taken advantage of that by rising cable rates much faster than inflation would suggest they should have. The  New York Times  reports.

Those late night guys have … writers?

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Like most people I find myself unsympathetic to the plight of those poor, underpaid, overworked Hollywood writers.    Also confess I’m ignorant about the issues involved and might even wind up agreeing that the writers are the cornerstone of Hollywood content, and therefore may deserve fatter paychecks and tons of internet royalties.

But this raises the key problem.   Hollywood writing stinks. 

You are telling me it takes a legion of clever writers to put out a few hours of the late night network talk show drivel that passes as “entertainment?”.  Apparently so because they are immediately switching to reruns.  Reruns of late night talk shows.    (better stock up on barf bags before I tune in).  

Even with the most robust satellite network you can hardly escape the constant onslaught of Britney, Paris, and Lindsay party jokes mixed in with silly monologues featuring a few clever shots at Hilary or Rudy G.   This is writing?

Is this going to affect Charlie Rose or McNeil Lehrer?    Now THOSE are writers who deserve a raise.   Or how about the writers at the New York Times, Washington Post, or the legions of hard working and *really* underpaid journalists struggling under the weight of blogOspheric news mania?  THOSE writers deserve raises as well as they keep the fires of quality journalism burning even as, um… those of us who don’t have any of them journalism degrees keep on jabbering away as if we were real live journalists.

But don’t take my word for it.   Here’s a quote about the implications of this strike from the President of the Writer’s Guild East:

“Losing Stewart and Colbert is something like losing Cronkite during the Vietnam War. ”

Excuse me, but now I definitely have to go find those barf bags…. 

David Carr has a good summary of the event, and the lack of much interest.   Hey, I say give HIM a raise instead!

Open Handset Alliance

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Today Google and partners announced the Open Handset Alliance, a group of phone related businesses and technology providers that are committing to develop phones and software with an “open architecture”.   

Although showcasing an actual Google Phone would have been more dramatic, this approach will likely shake up the cell phone world in a variety of ways, especially if this approach gains quick traction in the developer community.   On November 12th Google will make available a free package, the “Android SDK”  which is  a  software kit for phone application developers.   If the Google mapping applications used by the iPhone and the Treo are an indication of the kinds of new phone functionality we can expect from this Google’s expressed goal of trying to create something like a “magic phone” could actually become a reality.  Google asked kids what they’d want in a “magic phone”.    I think this was a neat way of helping adults innovate and think out of the box during the software design phase.

Myspace to join Google’s Open Social. Facebook’s value plunges.

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It is a mildly risky but potentially brilliant counterstrike against Facebook’s rising popularity.  Myspace will announce shortly that they are joining the Open Social movement spearheaded by Google and which is now officially a social juggernaut of global proportions.    TechCrunch seems to have the latest on this breaking story.

If Facebook was worth 15 billion yesterday I’d suggest it just dropped by more than 50% in value.   Why?   Without Myspace’s hundreds of millions of users Open Social looked like it would be a third player in the field, struggling to catch up with the user bases of Myspace and Facebook and keep up with Facebook development.   But  not any more.  With Myspace, Open Social instantly becomes the key social network, dwarfing Facebook by any reasonable measure of prominence.   Can new Facebook partner Microsoft help sway onliners and developers to stick with Facebook’s “partly open” architecture instead of defecting to what appears to be a very open Google architecture?   No way.

Bad News for Good Newspapers

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Nick Carr summarizes a study in the UK that suggests more perils for news organizations as they move online.    The online editions appear to be “cannibalizing” the offline edition readership.   A university study looked at how online news readers are less likely to buy a newspaper from the same company they read online.

If this proves true across the newspaper landscape it presents newspapers with the twin challenges of needing to beef up the online portal to keep up market share even as their total advertising revenues are tending to go down.   Offline readership generally gives a better ad return per reader, so even as online advertising increases that extra revenue is not likely to keep pace with the offline losses. 

TechMeme River of Tech news with a river of comments …

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I could not resist this.   I’m taking a day of TechMeme stories and links and then commenting on all of them.   Partly because I *always* have something to say and partly because I just want to see how this is processed as TM commentary.    If this seems to annoying to some of you great folks that read the blog …. just skip this post, OK?

The Register: California court tilts towards mandating web accessibility
Could be interesting.  If accessibility is mandated it may push some smaller sites and even small companies off the web.   Or, it may launch a revolution in overpriced accessibility software.   Either way, consumers will probably lose.

Washington Post: Shadowy Russian Firm Seen as Conduit for Cybercrime
Spooky.  Sometimes you just want them to bring back the good old USSR.    There was the mean KGB, but they NEVER went after your credit card! 

Read/WriteWeb: New York Times Puts Reader Comments on Main Page – Good Idea?  Of course it’s a good idea.  Only old school journalists think regular folks have nothing important to say.   It’s the other way around in fact – regular folks in Darfur, Inner City, and all over the world are, literally, dying to have their say while journalists keep harping on sensational garbage, Britney Spears, and …. Britney Spears.  Quality Journalism is as close to an oxymoron as you can get.

Telegraph: Could the time be ripe to pick off Apple?
Yes, it could.   The iPhone was Apple’s final brilliancy, and it’ll be heavily copied.  Sell AAPL now or face the consequences.

New York Times: The New Advertising Outlet: Your Life
It’s all about marketing.   People say they hate ads and sales, but that’s what makes the President and feeds your kids if you run or work for a business.   Or even a public sector because they are run with taxes and taxes come from business which runs off advertising.  Don’t like it?   Tough.

TechCrunch: Facebook Has LinkedIn In Their Crosshairs
..and everybody else too.   Yes they are overhyped but yes they could win it all.   However I think there is room for both unless Facebook can really do a better job with biz social networking rather than “fun” social networking.

Silicon Alley Insider: Radiohead: 1.3 Mil Downloads! (But Big Music Not Dead)
Fred Wilson likes them so they must be good.

New York Times: A Site Warhol Would Relish
I think Andy Warhol was hugely overrated.   Elite Art people are for the most part silly and hypocritical, as demonstrated by tests that show art “experts” often can’t even tell expert art.   You are lucky you are grant funded by rich people, dudes. 

CrunchGear: ‘Sneaker Pimps’ pimped out NES sneaker
I prefer the term “Tennis Shoe”

Voidstar: blog: Anouncing Twype.exe — I’ve been playing around with posting … Not going to try this one out.   I’m suffering from Social Network fatigue. 

Rough Type: The case for Google — As investors push Google’s stock ever higher …  Like Nick, I did not buy Google when I should.   I stupidly bought put options because I knew they were overhyped.   Nick’s thinking they may not be overhyped anymore.  They are, and contrary to his quote of ?, you can short a mania.

NewTeeVee: Announcing the NewTeeVee Live Schedule
Is this a TechMeme sponsor post?  I don’t really care.

internetnews.com: Skype Co-Founder Admits Expectations Were Too High
… in the running for 10th place “understatement of the year” in tech biz, 2007

law & Life: Patent Troll Fire First Volley at Open Source
Ha -I would NOT mess with Open Source people.  They are some of the toughest, meanest, nothing-to-losiest people in tech.  They’ll kill you for just *complimenting* the Vista color scheme, so this could mean war.

CenterNetworks: What About a Random Twitter and/or Twitter Gallery?
Probably a good thing to do first and ask questions about later.    Personally, I don’t really care.  Twitter is for those of us who have too much online time on our hands and don’t want to work on complicated projects.   

Ars Technica: UK to look for ever-elusive link between WiFi and health problems.    It’s elusive because it’s not there.  What is *wrong* with smart people that makes them consistently exaggerate trivial health risks?   Science based skeptic Shermer discusses this in his excellent  book “Why People Believe Weird Things”.  The short answer:  We are stupid.   Singularity, hurry the heck up!

the::unwired: INNOVATION: Microsoft receives Patent for a new User Interface for Mobile Devices I could read what this is, but unless I’m way off this is NOT going to be a significant new interface.   Seems to me that the killer ap for mobile would be much better voice control of all data applications.  

Computerworld: Why Skype and Vonage must die
Die early adopters!   Long live VOIP!    These are brilliant companies that are way ahead of their time.   Contrary to the stupid notion that you must be first in a space to succeed, I think in 90% of all spaces you *cannot* be first in the space and succeed.   Steamboats, for example.  Or Fax Machines.  Or VOIP.    Coca Cola?   Hey, maybe an exception there?

Inside AdSense: Getting more quality inventory for publishers
C’mon, all those “Buy links here” advertisements are totally relevant for blogs discussing Google’s tendency to penalize commercial links while promoting their sale like crazy via adwords PPC.   Even I’m confused now.

New York Times: Imitating the Web, for the Busy Reader
Imitation is the sincereist form of flattery.    Hey NYT, I can imitate Tom Friedman because I believe the earth is flat, too.

The Jason Calacanis Weblog: Why TechMeme is great and the haters hate (the *official* …  Right on Jason.  TechMeme is great!    Also it’s so refreshing to read a post by you that does not try to hype your Mahalo! project.   Aloha.

Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim: Costco.com Hits the Billion Dollar Sales Mark
Great Costco data except for the “half online” error.   Based on this data I calculated they make about $4-5 profit per incoming click assuming those clicks are as good as regular traffic.  Not a good assumption probably, because $4-5 seems way too high.

paidContent.org: Interview: Henry Copeland, CEO, Founder of BlogAds: To Make Money … reduce exposure of your online audience to your comments.   But that, of course, totally sucks because comments are already relegated to relative obscurity.   This is why TechMeme is so great – if people blog instead of comment, and then get listed along with the story, “we” the users can read new voices and get more diversity of opinion.   Journalists are allowed, but not really favored.   That’s good.  Unless you are a journalist.   Maybe.   I actually think journalists are great, but journalism is crappy.   We have commercialized journalism into irrelevance.   FOX News is a great example.  Some of those folks are actually excellent *journalists*, but commercial considerations and political ones at FOX mean they’ll talk nonsense about nothing to keep the job and keep the profits rolling.