General discussions
High-tech potty talk: Pee-and-play gaming system hits the toilet
Looking to capture that manly desire to aim and shoot at something, a British company has come up with a gaming system that well, lets men using a urinal actually aim at something and score points for peeing. Well sort of. Read more
Open Source CMS Continues To Dominate
It is that time of year again. No, not the holiday season, but time for water&stone’s annual report on the state of the open source CMS market. Once again the report highlights what a strong lineup of open source CMS solutions are available. The folks at water&stone looked at 35 open source CMS, but only picked the top 20 for the report. Again another indicator of the vibrancy of this market. Read more
iPhone fanboys depicted as fad following sheep in new Samsung ad
Apple critics like to frequently point out that Apple's success is largely attributable to passing fads. Of course, this argument carried more weight when we were still in the iPod era. But now that Apple has followed up the success of the iPod with the iPhone and iPad, it's hard to really argue that Apple's success is the result of anything other than sleek hardware coupled with intuitive software. Read more
Network World’s 2011 Cool Yule Tools – The List Has Hit the Wires (and the Wireless)
I was about to sign off for the Thanksgiving holiday here, but Keith Shaw mentioned to me that the results of many (very many!) hours of hands-on product testing for this year's record crop (more than 150!) of Network World holiday gifts is now available. I am once again pleased to have had the opportunity to participate as a reviewer, and I also set a record, carefully testing more than 25 products. A few of these made the hits reel, so to speak, and most were just great. Read more
DARPA to banish “geeky, formal” way code defects are eradicated
For every 1,000 lines of code, one to five bugs are introduced. And getting those bugs out of the millions of lines of software code that run today's complex systems is costly and only performed by highly specialized researchers with deep knowledge of software and mathematical theorem-proving techniques. Read more
Even Wales finds his wall-to-wall Wikipedia pictures 'annoying'
You know the old line: "Look up (whatever) in the dictionary and you'll see (whomever's) picture next to it." Well, try that on Wikipedia -- and no matter who or what you look up -- the first picture you'll see is of Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Read more
Nine successful, effective IT project tips
Most often when the watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office are called into to check out an agency, process or project they are looking for something that has gone wrong. This week, however the group took a look at some government IT projects that have gone right and came up with some best practices other government agencies or in public corporations could emulate to achieve success in their own IT projects. Read more
Measuring IPv6 Growth
People have debated the rate of adoption of IPv6 for years. Many people estimate the worldwide use of IPv6 through their own knot-hole view of the Internet. It is difficult to determine the amount of IPv6 traffic on the Internet because it depends on where you measure. The estimates and measurements have varied widely, but one thing is consistent; the amount of IPv6 Internet traffic is increasing.
IPv6 Deployment Aggregated Status Read more
Google, Facebook part of FTC facial recognition technology assessment
The Federal Trade Commission has set the lineup for its workshop next month that will examine the privacy and security impact of facial recognition technology. Read more
Interview with a Pirate
In 2009, Amelia Andersdotter, a member of the Swedish Pirate Party (Piratpartiet), won a seat at the European Parliament in Brussels, but her official appointment was delayed until this year. Despite the delay in taking her seat, Andersdotter will still be the youngest member to hold a seat in the current parliament. Read more
Apple prepping iPhone 5 with 4-inch screen along with redesigned MacBook Pro in 2012
Those disappointed in the fact that the iPhone 4S didn’t sport a larger screen and new form factor may be relieved to read that the iPhone 5 will reportedly have a 4-inch screen and a few other goodies. This juicy rumor comes courtesy of Jason Horwitz ofiLounge which typically has a solid track record with respect to Apple rumors.
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Apple appoints Arthur D. Levinson to Chairman of the Board; Disney CEO Bob Iger now an Apple board member as well
Apple last week implemented a few changes to its board when it announced that long time board member Arther D. Levinson would become Chairman of the Board, a position previously held by Steve Jobs.
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Do Lawyers Ignore Copyright Law?
I read an interesting editorial from Glyn Moody the other day on Stephen Kinsella asking the question whether or not copyright or patents were more damaging to innovation and creativity. In the end, Kinsella argues that copyrights were more dangerous. I think the question can best be seen with respect to software development in the following juxtaposition of two ideas. Read more
Harnessing Social for Vital Living
South Africa-headquartered Discovery is a financial and health services company. It offers an innovative program called Vitality. Vitality rewards people for making healthy lifestyle choices. Read more
Look, up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a ...
My 10-year-old daughter, Emma, spotted this triangular contrail configuration outside our home that I presume is the work of the UFO you can see clearly in the upper left-hand corner of the photo (black speck). Read more
Raytheon gets $10.5M to develop "serious games"
These aren't your basic video gaming systems here. The US government gave Raytheon BBN Technologies a $10.5 million today to develop what it called "serious games" that result in better decision-making by teaching players to recognize and diminish the effects of their own biases when analyzing information used to make decisions. Read more
Energy company wants to be first to mine the moon
By 2020, the Shackleton Energy Company says it intends to be operating the world's first lunar base and propellant depot for all manner of spacecraft. Read more
Apple finally launches iTunes Match
After missing its initial late October deadline, iTunes Match finally launched this week. It’s been a while since iTunes Match was first introduced back during Apple’s WWDC this past June so here’s a brief recap of what the service is all about. Read more
NASA turns up ocean of water, and possibility of life, on Jupiter's moon
Mars gets most of the attention when it comes to research looking for signs of life, but that could change now. NASA today said has found what looks like a pretty good size body of water equal in volume to the Great Lakes unde Read more
Too much social media networking: Paranoia of Big Brother surveillance may destroy ya
If you think 24/7 connectivity is nothing new for you, and you constantly check in on Foursquare, use location-aware apps, update Facebook or other social media statuses with your geo-tagged photos, then you probably have no location-awareness sharing issues and are not overly concerned if you lose locational privacy. In the year 2014, your futuristic automated smart home can update statuses for you; even more personal data will be logged coming from emerging technology; interaction with the power grid, smart meters, IP TVs, smart appliances, movie theaters harvesting emotions, robots, GPS in cars and smartphones, and products that stalk you will create a life-log. By 2014 there will be a plethora of programs, mobile apps and devices to track you that will create and store records of your movements, activities and behaviors; this is the scene that Europe's biggest cybersecurity agency studied "to predict positive and negative effects of online 'life-logging' on citizens and society." Read more
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The Connected Enterprise