Mark Gibbs
Mark Gibbs is an author, journalist, and man of mystery. His writing for Network World is widely considered to be vastly underpaid. For more than 30 years, Gibbs has consulted, lectured, and authored numerous articles and books about networking, information technology, and the social and political issues surrounding them. His complete bio can be found at http://gibbs.com/mgbio
Aiia SSSSSpeaker: Cheap and cheerful BT audio
The people at a company called aiia (their Web site loads insanely slowly) out of the Ukraine pitched me the SSSSSpeaker (yes, that's how they spell it, it's not a a typo), billed as the world's smallest Bluetooth speaker, and sent me...
Bluedriver: Vehicle data capture for geeks
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Automatic, a dongle that plugs into your car's OBD-II connector and sends data about your car's performance and your driving via Bluetooth LE to an app on your iOS or Android smartphone.
RoboBees to save US agriculture ... in about 20 years
If there are no bees left what will save agriculture? Robots, of course!
Nova: Bluetooth flash for iPhone
There are many times when your iPhone camera flash just isn't up for the job. Either you need light from a different angle (ever notice how phone-based flashes tend to wash out the subject?) or you need a warmer or cooler flash than...
Historical computing: The launch of the IBM System/360
In 1964 IBM announced one of the most famous mainframes ever, the IBM System/360 which, on the low end versions ran at 0.0018 to 0.034 MIPS. For the time, that was serious performance ... in comparison, the iMac I'm writing this on...
And there's something else wrong with Comcast's Xfinity customer-based Wi-Fi hotspot plan ...
A blog post by Speedify reveals that Comcast's plan has yet another downside; it shifts the cost of powering the service to the end user.
Revisiting Comcast's Xfinity public hotspot strategy
Last week I wrote about Comcast's plan to build the nation's biggest Wi-Fi service by co-opting their customers' Xfinity gateways and, following a detailed conversation with a representative from Comcast's Corporate Communications...
How to explain to big data newbies why correlation doesn't equal causation
People new to big data find it easy to assume that because two or more data sets appear to be related, they are.
How you invade your own privacy
A new study from consulting firm Infosys shows consumers globally are far more relaxed about sharing their private data than we knew and far more relaxed than they should be
WordPress plugins leave you vulnerable to attack, and new devices 'protect you' from cellphone radiation
First up this week, a white paper or report or ... I have no idea what these things should be called any more ... maybe a "glorified press release"? Whatever. Let's call it "a study" from Checkmarx, a company that specializes in...
Lying, prying and spying: Is the NSA worth it?
Is the NSA defending their intellectual property with more success than they protect our country?