A "core" change in Intel's strategy

Intel strategy to focus more on low power multi-core microchips and enter consumer
electronics area in a big way....slated to introduce its new line of dual core "Core" processors (code-named Yonah...israeli intel engineers have been a major technical force behind this strategy i guess). Makes me think if Israel is being underestimated as a tech hub which has talents to churn out hi-tech stuff. Only wish Indian IT and Semiconductor industry could focus more on products and not just on offering R&D services.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/30/business/intel.php

Also with Apple in its cart, consumers can expect innovative entertainment products to choose from.Looking forward to what Steve jobs has to offer to the world on MacWorld
exhibition and surely the consumer electronics show would have some interesting
insights on the future of digital home entertainment.

darth radar

Some amazing pictures of F-117 stealth fighter.The design somehow reminded me of Darth Vader...maybe also because this mean machine can dart through radar in the dark!
Would be great to see Darth vader in one of those.

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/Riat2002/F117/index.html

More Apples in your home

After the really huge success of numero uno gadget iPod and its siblings, Apple is now looking for another door into your home. Looks like Apple is now setting its eyes on consumer electronics.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1412

Nobody will be surprised if Apple manages to disrupt the consumer electronics market with whatever it is planning to launch and add a new dimension to the value chain.

opticALL

Blu-ray vs HDD has been widely debated for ages now and as of now it looks blue laser has gained a slight lead after Panasonic recently announced 50GB discs out in the market next year.

And around the same time holographic discs or rather cards will be out and may be cheaper than the disc option and will be able to offer more storage/dollar.
So if it is tuf for companies and media players to decide between blu-ray and HDD, i say dunk both and go for holographic cards which will be standardised soon. Maybe its time to go all optical..starting from storage to fibre networks and even optical computers. opticALL from end to end.

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20050608/105586/

google phobia

As the company is growing and coming out with services that can be viewed as out-of-territory or encroaching, there is a fear that Google may become "evil". We may see more debates and views and counterviews on this soon.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/
2005-12-07-google-phobia_x.htm

vein recognition

A more foolproof way of securing your stuff like laptops etc. It sure is more difficult to bypass this compared to fingerprint technology. But what if i just cut the finger or whole hand off the person whose information i want to steal. Neither technology can stop that. hmm.. i am turning into a sick freak!!

http://www.techjapan.com/Article1186.html

More to go online?

RealNetworks' Rhapsody music service will be available on the web now. We can expect more such applications migrating to the web as the web is turning into a preferred platform. Wonder whether Apple would do the same with iTunes? Apple should get 'Real' and open up.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2005/
tc20051205_293206.htm

Weird Al Yankovich

Came across Albert Mathews Yankovich's parodies on some popular songs when i was searching for originals. Realised that i was late to the party. Downloaded some of his well known numbers and also found some fakes which were equally good. Guess even the original song writers are impressed with his work and more would want him to parodify their songs.

roadkill

Flicked this one from http://cluetrain.com.
Certainly not a pleasant sight. But couldnt suppress a smile.

If you find time, do read "The Cluetrain Manifesto".
They have the whole book online.
I just started reading it and it sounds interesting.
Hopefully i will not burn out reading the full book online.

Be afraid. Be really afraid!! But of who?

Just read this long one by Doc Searls. Interesting points and views all through.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8673

But what i am wondering now is how US legislations and rules impact technology worldwide. This is scarier for me (a non-US) than what Doc has to say. The kind of control that US is exercising (not intentionally evil ofcourse) may be because most of the content and means for content distribution originates from US. And again i wonder why countries like Japan and Korea, who seem to be taking technology (mostly mobile related) to dizzying heights, are not into proposing and formulating rules for mobile space. Maybe they will, someday, when the so called "villian" equivalent of SBC, Verizon start to act. Now that may lead to another problem if there are conflicting opinions on say new content delivery systems. Maybe there would be cross country lobbying and maybe there will be an international organisation that would decide what is best for the whole world.

software torts

The Sony BMG "rootkit" has caused a lot of fury among people who feel that their digital freedom has been questioned. It looks like the trouble for sony has just started. The update they provided to fix the rootkit problem also seem to be vulnerable. And to add to the protests by affected people, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has gone ahead and filed a class action suite agains Sony BMG. Check the details here ..
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_11.php
http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/Sony-BMG/?f=open-letter-2005-11-14.html

Another lawsuit was filed by a Texas attorney...
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1891501,00.asp


To me, this may be just the start of legal moves against vulnerable software. A sort of software torts.
Wonder why no one has filed an action suit against Microsoft for IE?? Here is one more to add to IE bug list:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1891749,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

web metamorphosis

The major problem with web based application is the time taken to load pages from web servers and the lack of dynamic capabilities. Now this is changing with the wide usage of technologies (rather a group of technologies) like AJAX. Making use of DHTML, Javascript etc web pages require only delta updation which makes loading faster. Web applications that make use of technologies like AJAX also provide users more desktop like functionalities like changing the look and feel of a website or dragging a mail into trash folder as in the case of desktop email client.
The web is also becoming more like a platform where developers can combine various web based applications into a totally different,bizzare application... like a website that provides information on the cheapest stripclub in paris using googlemaps. Check out this site for google maps based mash-ups.

The web is slowly transforming into what many people call web2.0 with Google as the vanguard.
Maybe its time again to witness another dotcom boom with many new startups coming up with some interesting ideas for the web.

The desktop PC should get ready for a massive redefinition from software perspective.

drop and charge

Is a neat idea to charge compatible devices like phones,portable players etc with a
charge pad.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6891

Apple woes

Looks like Apple is having a tough time this year. Bugs are being encountered in their software products lately that they might soon end up competing with Microsoft on bug counts/year. The latest i heard is the iTunes one...

http://wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,48149,00.html

I guess as more people start using Apple products, inevitably, bugs are going to be discovered as was the case with Windows and internet explorer.

whats up bug?

Bugs are so common that almost all software code around will have atleast one bug, may not be a critical one luckily. It is a little comforting for me that i dont write software code that goes into critical products otherwise i would easily be responsible for human lives.

Check out Wired's list of 10 worst software bugs:

http://wired.com/news/technology/bugs/0,2924,69355,00.html

Clock of the Long Now

Amazing eh? But wonder (if and) how they plan to test if it
really will work for 10000 years.

http://www.discover.com/issues/nov-05/cover/

new big brother

Google seems to make the news every other day. Starting off as a search engine that soon become eponymic for "search" itself. Then online tools/services like google translator, gmail,
google print, froogle Google maps. Google and Sun decided to join guns and Google office online is the expectation as a result. Google has now set its eyes on online buying and selling like eBay with Google Base. More surprises can be expected from Google. What if they finally merge with eBay and be called GooBay (a joke going around now). So it does look like Google is on a path to become a huge really huge. So is this our new big brother outrivalling Microsoft? Looks like it. Microsoft is trying to get back by focussing more on MSN, joining with Yahoo in its online book project and taking a pro-publisher stand unlike Google. Meanwhile Google shares are doing pretty well, similar to how microsoft did when it got listed.

old habits die hard

Have had problems with formatting sentences and paragraphs. Below posts would be good examples of bad formatting. This regularly happens to mails i write and i have been wondering why for quite some time now. Now i realise that i try to format sentences into smaller columns by pressing "enter" key at appropriate places. Then the mail that is sent carries these unnecessary "enters" and results in badly formatted paragraphs. Likewise for all my online entries. I am now learning to avoid "enter" ing unless it is for a new paragraph.

But old habits die hard or do they? check out
what MIT has to say...
http://news.com.com/MIT+explains+why+bad+habits+are+hard+to+break/
2100-11395_3-5902850.html?tag=nefd.pop

silicon art

Guess its their way of showing artistic skills… chip designers etching

art on silicon.

check out these images…

http://news.com.com/2300-1006_3-5887476-1.html

and this article…

http://news.com.com/What+art+is+hiding+on+your+microchip/2100-1006_3-5893374.html?tag=nefd.pop

easy blogging

I was looking at a way to blog instantly without having to login into blogger website and only found out today that blogger.com provides this option by way of mails.I guess most bloggers would be aware of this feature. Guess I am a little late in these things.

Still in office..its raining heavily outside and I don’t want to step out, but I have to go back home… damn the rain gods.

ubiquitous digital entertainment

Apple announced video iPod and has tied up with Disney for content i guess. More people will hopefully join in to allow their content to be on the network. Portable media players have already been around for years. Some really good ones like Archos. Maybe video iPod will make these more popular. The apple products have this effect as in digital music player case. The end devices are slowly becoming more aceptable. Three more things should fall in place for the revolution to take off. One is secure digital transmission mechanism which will convince content providers like hollywood production houses to put content online; second is a sound business model from both producer-consumer perspective and lastly sufficient bandwidth on network. Coming soon to a device near you, the premiere of latest hollywood movie...

network is the computer

That was what Sun Microsystems said years back and looks like that is where we are headed. And most talked about tech company Google is executing it slowly and in a neat fashion. Lauching a myraid of tools/applications Google is taking the action away from PC and putting it on the network making PC centric companies also rethink. Wont be surprised to see Google Office online, even though Google and Sun have announced other plans. This i guess is just the beginning of a smart partnership to rival big brother MS. It is going to be interesting.

paranoia

always wondered and still do, that someone or something is out here executing a neatly planned conspiracy against me. And the planning seems so good that there is randomness in occurence of unfortunate events and it makes one feel as if these are normal and stuff that happen to all people. Like for ex: I created a blog at this very site long time back and now i was not able to add any posts to it.
So i had to abandon my earlier blog account (blogpunkt) and with greate difficulty created a new one (kuttax). Is someone trying to stop me from blogging?

Anyway it is hard to convince people about this conspiracy thing and so i quit trying. But the time will come when i will unearth this sinister plot against me. Till then, i will continue gathering evidences.