All posts tagged ‘technology’
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
Yes, it sure is nice to see stock prices flashing green. But despite the market’s historic two-day move, there are still reasons to worry about what happens to technology shares over the next several quarters.
There are several negative factors at work here. Start with currency: One of the more eye-opening aspects of Oracle’s (ORCL) well-received earnings report last night was the company’s comment that revenues in its fiscal third quarter ending October will see a serious drag from currency factors. Oracle expects a 10 percentage point swing on a year-over-year basis: Currency boosted revenue by 7 points in the year-ago quarter, but will cut revenue growth by 3 percentage points this year, assuming exchange rates stay about where they are now.
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by Saul Hansell, Blogger, New York Times, Bits
AT&T is “carefully considering” monitoring the Web-surfing activities of customers who use its Internet service, the company said in a letter in response to an inquiry from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
While the company said it hadn’t tested such a system for monitoring display advertising viewing habits or committed to a particular technology, it expressed much more interest in the approach than the other big Internet providers who also responded to the committee’s letter.
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Posted at 12:03 AM PT
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Tagged: AT&T, Bits, House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Internet service, New York Times, Saul Hansell, Voices, Web-surfing, display advertising viewing habits, monitoring, technology | permalink
by Jose Fermoso, Editorial Assistant, Wired.com
What is the value of the steady path of technology if it doesn’t seep into the most mundane of everyday items?
With the recent invention of a fully sweat-proof suit and the newest line of bulletproof clothing, we know we’re in a place of progress. It’s probably also a dangerous, smelly place, but hey, at least we’ll know what to wear.
Designed with lining made out of antimicrobial silver ions, the Farago Aircool suit promises to contain the strongest of smells. When sweat is released, the ions are supposed to disintegrate it when it touches the fabric and release a deodorizing material that will mix with the sweat and create a clean and appropriate smell.
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by Christine Rosen, Senior Editor, The New Atlantis
In modern times, hurry, bustle and agitation have become a regular way of life for many people–so much so that we have embraced a word to describe our efforts to respond to the many pressing demands on our time: multitasking. Used for decades to describe the parallel processing abilities of computers, multitasking is now shorthand for the human attempt to do simultaneously as many things as possible, as quickly as possible, preferably marshaling the power of as many technologies as possible.
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by Stacey Higginbotham, Writer, GigaOm
The New York Times had an article today about the loss of women in the science and technology fields as they hit their 30s and beyond. It cites a report that blames a macho culture intrinsic to those fields. But it’s possible that readers in the tech field missed it, as it only ran in the Style section of the paper’s Web site rather than the Technology section. Because apparently the loss of female programming and engineering talent has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with the latest swimsuits. An article on the Wii Fit, however, was deemed worthy of appearing in both sections.
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by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's
I’m at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, Calif., tonight, for the Churchill Club’s annual Top 10 Tech Trends Dinner. This is the club’s 10th annual tech trend panel. Making the picks:
- Steve Jurvetson, Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
- Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures.
- Josh Kopelman, First Round Capital.
- Roger McNamee, Elevation Partners.
- Joe Schoendorf, Accel Partners.
- Tony Perkins, of Always On, is the moderator.
Perkins, McNamee, Jurvetson and Schoendorf have done this before. Kopelman and Khosla are the panel newbies.
Lots of mobile phone predictions. Green energy. Water. And more phones.
Here’s the pundits’ list of trends, with some responses from their fellow panelists.
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by Jeff Porten, Contributing Writer, TidBITS
When I was reporting from CES in Las Vegas last January, one of the more interesting technology experiences I had was away from the show floor, back in my hotel room. After a long night and little sleep, I decided to watch a little television; apparently this is common in Vegas, as my budget hotel considered a 42-inch plasma TV to be normal furnishing for a room that omitted a couch and a comfortable chair.
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by Richard MacManus, Founder and Editor, ReadWriteWeb
If you’re a fan of Digg, you’ve probably been noticing that tech stories are becoming less and less a feature of the social news site. The reason? Digg is attempting to attract a large mainstream-user base. Just how low has tech sunk in Digg? We have new data that show that the number of front-page tech stories is halving every year on Digg.
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by Peter Sandborn, Professor of mechanical engineering, University of Maryland
Keeping aging systems on their feet is a daunting and resource-intensive task. … Although mundane in its simplicity, the inevitable depletion of crucial components as systems age has sweeping, potentially life-threatening consequences. At the very least, the quest for an obsolete part can escalate into an unexpected, budget-busting expense. Electronics obsolescence–also known as DMSMS, for diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages–is a huge problem for designers who build systems that must last longer than the next cycle of technology. For instance, by the time the U.S. Navy began installing a new sonar system in surface ships in 2002, more than 70% of the system’s electronic parts were no longer being made. And it’s not just the military …
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by Charles Cooper, Blogger, Coop's Corner, CNET
After the derision that greeted the New York Times’s blogging-will-kill-you story on Sunday, I’m probably not going to do much for the reputation of the mainstream media with hard-core bloggers. So it goes.
Out of curiosity, I drew up a list of 55 technology journalists to find out how many use Twitter, arguably one of the most important social-media technologies on the scene. I included names of some online reporters–including colleagues from CNET as well as TechCrunch–but in the main, the list is comprised of people employed by A-list newspapers and periodicals.
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by Brandon Keim, Blogger, Wired
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are eager to talk about religion. But why are they so scared of science? The two remaining Democratic presidential candidates recently agreed to participate in the Compassion Forum, scheduled for April 13 at Messiah College in Harrisburg, Pa. Billed as a conversation on faith and values, the event will be broadcast by the Church Communication Network. It also comes five days before a proposed science debate that was canceled after the candidates refused to participate.
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by Richard Harper, Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research
The world we live in has become suffused with computer technologies. They have created change and continue to create change. It is not only on our desktops and in our hands that this is manifest; it is in virtually all aspects of our lives, in our communities and in the wider society of which we are a part. What will our world be like in 2020? Digital technologies will continue to proliferate, enabling ever more ways of changing how we live. But will such developments improve the quality of life, empower us, and make us feel safer, happier and more connected? Or will living with technology make it more tiresome, frustrating, angst-ridden and security-driven? What will it mean to be human when everything we do is supported or augmented by technology? What role can researchers, designers and computer scientists have in helping to shape the future?
(Editor’s note: This report was co-written with Tom Rodden, Yvonne Rogers and Abigail Sellen, all of Microsoft Research.)
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Posted at 12:02 AM PT
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Tagged: 2020, Abigail Sellen, Microsoft, Richard Harper, Tom Rodden, Voices, Yvonne Rogers, computer, desktop, digital, human-computer interaction, technology | permalink
by John Murrell, Blogger, Good Morning Silicon Valley
This is just pitiful. As a taxpayer, and especially as a Silicon Valley taxpayer, it rankles me no end to see yet another government technology initiative botched up because the people in charge are out of their depth. Now it’s happened again, this time with the Census Bureau’s plans to bring its tallying tech at least into the 20th century, if not the 21st.
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by Matt Richtel, Reporter, Bits, New York Times
They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece–not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.
A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
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by Ben Worthen, Blogger, Business Technology, The Wall Street Journal
Software giant SAP is getting sued for failing to deliver an “out-of-the-box integrated end-to-end solution that increases … effectiveness.” Amazingly, the meaning of these buzzwords may cost SAP over $100 million.
This blog’s hatred of tech jargon is no secret: We think that more people would be interested in technology if insiders didn’t describe the stuff in a made-up language. Despite our protests, the tech industry refuses to abandon these terms. Maybe the threat of legal action will scare it straight.
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