Tuesday, July 18, 2006

July 18, 2006


http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5445.html

Developing a Strategy for Digital Convergence

Published: July 17, 2006 Author: Sean Silverthorne

Executive Summary:

Technology was getting dull earlier this decade, says David Yoffie. But the sudden arrival of digital convergence has turned the tech world upside down. What are the right bets to place? Key concepts include:

* Digital convergence has arrived, creating entirely new products, services, and collaboration opportunities.

* The technology industry is tilting to horizontal. Players need to learn to complement each other as well as compete.

* Network effects create strong market advantages for companies that can capitalize on them.



before using a technology you should understand it...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/16/acpo_jones_paedo_implant/

'Let's track paedos with chip implants' - top cop fails tech test

Shall we just believe in witchcraft while we're about it?

By John Lettice Published Sunday 16th July 2006 12:44 GMT

Britain's most senior policeman has, according to a Sunday Times report, suggested that surgically implanted chips could be used in order to track the movements of paedophiles and dangerous sex offenders. "If we are prepared to track cars, why don’t we track people? You could put surgical chips into those of the most dangerous sex offenders who are are willing to be controlled," said Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Well Ken, where shall we begin? Should we explain that the chip you're talking about would have around about the same capabilities as the RFID chip that's going into ICAO standard passports? That this is the kind of technology you're probably going to insist can only be read in close proximity to a reading device? That if you tried really hard (and we're sure people will), you could read it at maybe 10, maybe 30 metres? That satellites are actually quite far away? Or that what GPS does is it tell a reading device on the ground where it is, which would only help paedophiles if they were lost - if it's going to help you then you need to insert another bit of technology (A mobile phone maybe? Where would you stick that?) that would pass the location over to you.


Maybe the French aren't that intimidating?

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/07/18/HNgooglesuitafp_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/07/18/HNgooglesuitafp_1.html

Update: Google News still indexing AFP content

Despite suit, Google links to stories and images from Agence France Presse

By Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service July 18, 2006

Despite a pledge to the contrary made 16 months ago, Google Inc. is still returning links to Agence France Presse (AFP) articles in its Google News Web site.

The French news agency sued Google in March 2005, alleging copyright infringement over the inclusion of AFP content in Google News, a news search service which aggregates links to online articles and accompanying photos from about 4,500 news outlets.

Days later, Google announced it would scrub Google News clean of AFP content, including text, thumbnails of photos, and headlines linked to articles in external Web sites. However, a Google News search for "Agence France Presse" done mid-afternoon (U.S. Eastern Time) Monday shows that AFP articles are still being indexed by Google News.



http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/011824.html

July 17, 2006

New on LLRX.com



http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/011827.html

July 17, 2006

2006 Workplace E-Mail, Instant Messaging & Blog Survey

Press release: "E-mail mismanagement continues to take a hefty toll on U.S. employers, with costly lawsuits--and employee terminations--topping the list of electronic risks. As recent court cases demonstrate, e-mail can sink businesses--legally and financially. Last year, the inability to produce subpoenaed e-mail resulted in million dollar--even billion dollar--lawsuits against U.S. companies. In fact, 24% of organizations have had employee e-mail subpoenaed, and 15% of companies have gone to court to battle lawsuits triggered by employee e-mail. That's according to the 2006 Workplace E-Mail, Instant Messaging & Blog Survey from American Management Association (AMA) and The ePolicy Institute."



But it's a good strategy against ignorant people with no lawyers...

http://techdirt.com/articles/20060717/1533222.shtml

Misuse Trademark Law To Stop Competition And You May Owe Lost Sales

from the oops dept

Back in April we wrote about how label printer company Dymo kept forcing eBay auctions offline from a seller promoting "Dymo-compatible" labels. Dymo claimed that saying Dymo-compatible was a violation of trademark law -- which seems like a complete misuse of trademark law. It's factually accurate to say that the labels were Dymo-compatible -- and the only reason to have eBay take them down is not to protect Dymo's intellectual property, but to stop the competition. Apparently Dymo has finally recognized this. Greg Beck from Public Citizen, who was handling the lawsuit on behalf of the seller writes in to let us know that: "Dymo has backed down, reimbursed our client for lost sales, and promised not to do it again. Note for companies that wish to abuse intellectual property law in the future: you may have to pay for the damage you cause."



http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/07/india-imposes-ban-on-blogs-your.html

July 18, 2006

India Imposes Ban on Blogs: Your Questions Answered

posted by Amit Agarwal on 7/18/2006 12:34:36 AM

... Q. Why is the Indian Government banning blog sites ?

While there is no official comment, most people are speculating that the ban is connected to the recent Mumbai Train Blasts. Probably the groups behind the bomb blasts used blogs to exchange information and co-ordinate the plan so the Government decided to ban these sites.



If you don't know how to control it... Ban it!

http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/content/view/1410/51/

Keep thumb drives at home say companies

Monday, 17 July 2006

Keep thumb drives at home say companiesFearing the theft of company data, mid to large sized companies across Canada have begun to establish policies that prevent personal laptops and USB keys from entering the workplace.

In addition, some 30% of companies polled in a recent survey have also banned MP3 players, such as the ever popular iPod, from the workplace.



http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000635.html

Coding Horror

.NET and human factors

by Jeff Atwood July 14, 2006

Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats

A bunch of people have linked to this academic paper, which proposes a way to seperate programming sheep from non-programming goats in computer science classes-- long before the students have ever touched a program or a programming language:

All teachers of programming find that their results display a 'double hump'. It is as if there are two populations: those who can [program], and those who cannot [program], each with its own independent bell curve. Almost all research into programming teaching and learning have concentrated on teaching: change the language, change the application area, use an IDE and work on motivation. None of it works, and the double hump persists. We have a test which picks out the population that can program, before the course begins. We can pick apart the double hump. You probably don't believe this, but you will after you hear the talk. We don't know exactly how/why it works, but we have some good theories.

I wasn't aware that the dichotomy between programmers and non-programmers was so pronounced at this early stage. Dan Bricklin touched on this topic in his essay, Why Johnny Can't Program. But evidently it's common knowledge amongst those who teach computer science:

Despite the enormous changes which have taken place since electronic computing was invented in the 1950s, some things remain stubbornly the same. In particular, most people can’t learn to program: between 30% and 60% of every university computer science department’s intake fail the first programming course. Experienced teachers are weary but never oblivious of this fact; brighteyed beginners who believe that the old ones must have been doing it wrong learn the truth from bitter experience; and so it has been for almost two generations, ever since the subject began in the 1960s.

You may think the test they're proposing to determine programming aptitude is complex, but it's not. Here's question one, verbatim:

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