Dr. Dobb's Journal, January 2006
Being a news junkie can be exhausting when grand juries are in session. I had to replace the refresh button on my browser twice already. Between reloads of the Office of Special Counsel site, I was also trolling for technology news items. The stories I found raised more questions than they answered.
For example, Ray Ozzie recently gave a talk suggesting that the iPod and BlackBerry should be models for Microsoft to follow. He was making a point about the integration of hardware, software, and services, but I couldn't get past the simple-minded observation that these are two hardware products. Maybe Ray was just being too subtle for me, but isn't the point about the integration of hardware, software, and services with each of these products largely tied up with the fact that the companies in question own the hardware platform? And I really don't think that Ray means that Microsoft should own the hardware that its software and services run on, right? So what was his point, really?
Wired reported that the public consumption of pornography (for example, on a cell phone or other handheld device) is currently a legal gray area. So when the trooper pulls me over for talking on my cell phone while driving, should I contest that I was actually watching povPod porn on my viPod?
Speaking of Apple and video, Apple recently released new iMacs with a remote control and software called "Front Row." Together, these innovations turn your computer into something conceptually identical to Lotus 1-2-3 minus the spreadsheet. Working through a linear list of choices to get to other linear lists of choices, you can sit on your couch and sort of run media applications on your computer. Think of that.
As far back as the first iMac, Steve Jobs was talking about Apple's digital hub strategy. Years later, all we have are feeble feints in the direction of a full-on Living Room strategy from Apple while Microsoft charges ahead. How come?
I read that AOL has hired Mary Cheney, whose previous job was Gay Community Liaison for Coors Brewing, to improve its understandably terrible image in that particular demographic. I wasn't aware that AOL had any problem in that area. Maybe this is more about improving Mary's image after being associated with Coors?
I peruse InfoWorld columnists regularly and they often leave me with questions. Recently, Jon Udell said that he'd figured out how to manage life's little interruptions. Then he went on to describe how he'd written a Python script to generate automatic weekly e-mails to his son's teachers to bug them about the kid's homework assignments. I didn't quite get that one. But I didn't query Jon about it for fear he'd deploy a Python script with my name on it.
Comedy Central says it's going to start offering clips from its most popular shows online. So I guess that the 20-somethings who have been getting all their news from "The Daily Show" and the Internet can now do one-stop shopping?
You can charge the government a lot more than you can consumers, so I guess it isn't surprising when a leading manufacturer of robotic vacuum cleaners comes up with an antisniper shooting robot for the military. But I wonder if anyone remembers at exactly what point Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics became moot?
Google's doing another one of those public beta things that it does and the spin on this one, called "Google Base," is that it's designed to destroy eBay. Well, an online classified ad service could do that, I guess. But is this the right spin? Is a threat to eBay really bigger news than the fact that print newspapers are already an endangered species and that this could put the nail in their coffin? So eBay flashes on the scene for a few years and fails; so what? Newspapers die, seems significant. But that's just me, I suppose.
And then there's the Gallup poll that says that only 15 percent of Americans believe in the Theory of Evolution. Okay, that doesn't so much raise a question as just make my jaw drop.
One more thing: Dan Gillmor, reflecting on the fact that Steve Jobs's birth father was Syrian, calls Steve the most famous living Arab American. Great, now he'll get stopped every time he flies. Oh wait: He has his own jet. Never mind.
DDJ