Jan 22, 2007 | blog
How did I miss this? Robert Scoble captured the visit that Bill Gates had with a number of technology and gadget sites.
Some of the sites participating in the discussion are Engadget, Gizmodo, Kotaku, and Joystiq.
The discussion was fantastic in the depth of categories of technology covered. As usual, Bill Gates is a fascinating person with some great ideas of where technology is or should be going. Good stuff – and the best part being a short discussion of Bill’s fun with his Porsche 911 in Albuquerque in the late ’70s. 🙂
Also, if you haven’t seen Robert’s work at PodTech, you should check out his ScobleShow site – there is a lot of great information he’s got posted.
Via: ScobleShow – Exclusive lunch with Robert Scoble and Bill Gates
Jan 15, 2007 | blog
Starting today, Cingular will start to publicly become AT&T in print, radio and television ads. Though not all existing adds will be changed immediately, you may start seeing the transformation. Also watch for signage changes at the Cingular stores, and on the billing and communications from Cingular.
So if you were a former AT&T Wireless customer, welcome back to the fold! Hehehe, once thing is for certain – the absolutely shitty service that the old AT&T Wireless service had prior to being bought by Cingular Wireless is, thankfully, only a painful memory.
So, what goes around, comes around – ‘ma bell’ is still around and is now you’re cell provider.
Via: PC World – AT&T to Replace Cingular Brand Monday
Jan 13, 2007 | blog
On this topic, TechCrunch is right on the money. The music industry is not looking far enough down the road to see the big picture about DRM and its impact on their reduced sales.
Artists as well are too wrapped up in the ability of their work to be easily copied. I understand this concern, and share it as well. After all, who want’s their hard work and creativity stolen?
But that belies the deeper desires of the consumer of both the artist and the recording industry. Their customer is not their enemy, the customer does not want to steal the work, or see either entity getting shortchanged for their work. What the customer wants is to be able to enjoy the music – its that simple.
In addition, giving the consumer the ability to move the music from device to device or onto CD offering DRM-free music removes the criticism, the negativity that is created by DRM. Wouldn’t a given artist rather have their fans (customers) raving about their latest release than complaining that they can’t get it onto their Rio, Zune, iPod, or other device simply because it is offered on a different format, or that the DRM mechanism failed, or worse, that the support departments of whatever online service can’t solve the DRM issue?
DRM was a great idea – but there are too many variables that need to be accommodated for it to work. Instead, companies should sell the music tracks DRM-free. Offer cheap versions for cell-phones that are encoded at lower bitrates, so the user can store more in less space. Sell the lossless versions as a “Premium” where the user can burn to CD, or re-encode for any device they own at their preference. Moreover, offer the music in a non-proprietary format that every player in the world can work with (MP3), that way, the music is available to everyone who wants it, and the players can compete on features & usability rather than what labels or online stores it works with.
Via: TechCrunch – The Inevitable Death of DRM
Jan 13, 2007 | blog
Michael Arrington of TechCrunch fame asks: Will the iPhone be a Serious Business Device. In this question, I have to answer simply: No.
It sure will be a convenience to those Apple Mac users that have been longing for a mobile communications device that will seamlessly sync with all the Apple Mac resources for information management, and entertainment. However, the idea that the iPhone will have better penetration to the enterprise market than the Mac did is a pipe dream, if only because of Apple’s inability to understand what the business user needs. Of course, part of this is because of the limitations imposed by the enterprise IT departments – since the Mac is not accommodated like Windows, Unix and Linux are.
Sure, the iPhone is a spectacular demonstration of where our communications devices should be heading – I would expect nothing less from Apple than a stunning device. But suggesting that a non-shipping phone that can’t have it’s memory expanded, has no input method other than your finger, without 3G data services, and does not support any of the popular push-mail services will be taken seriously by businesses is delusional.
Thanks for the chuckle Michael, I needed one this weekend.
Via: TechCrunch – Will the iPhone be a Serious Business Device?
Jan 13, 2007 | blog
I’m just going to give out my recommendation as a blanket statement to everyone. When you start seriously thinking of upgrading to Microsoft’s Windows Vista, simply plan on buying a new computer.
In the long run, you will be much, much happier with the result. Unless you just bought a new computer and have the “coupon” for the Vista upgrade, upgrading aging hardware, migrating your data and dealing with some hard to find drivers will be a painful experience.
So, I strongly recommend just going and buying a new PC when the time is right. Instead of spending additional money on upgrading RAM, disk, video, etc… just put that cash aside for a new computer.
With that said, my second recommendation to go with Vista is to forget desktops. Look at purchasing a laptop instead. Yeah, yeah, yeah this doesn’t accommodate all the gamers out there, but you guys know what you need anyway. I’m talking about the average computer user who is served quite well in the sub $1,000 market for laptops. Trust me, there are literally dozens of options among the 1st and 2nd tier vendors. Laptops are starting to head below $500 now for the low-end, but you’ll find the machine to fill your needs somewhere between $600-$1,000 at this time.
Another option to consider is the latest in mobility, a UMPCs that will provide the utmost in mobile computing convenience.
Just remember that Vista is a new experience, and the slow or troublesome computer you’ve been putting up with will be a great backup web browser, but not a good candidate for a Vista upgrade.
Disagree? Well, let me know in the comments!
How did I miss this? Robert Scoble captured the visit that Bill Gates had with a number of technology and gadget sites.
