The Kurzweil interview: More comments on the "exponential growth" of computational power
On Monday, Computerworld published a portion of my phone interview with Ray Kurzweil for The Grill. There wasn't enough room in the print version of Computerworld to display the complete transcript, so below I am including some of...
The gaming world meets the corporate world: Generation G grows up
Take a look around your workplace, and count the number of people who are under the age of 40. At many offices, it's probably a lot -- according to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of July 2007, there were 81,562,389 people in the U.S....
So you want to buy a Wii this holiday shopping season? Good luck!
After hearing rumors of Wii shortages in the runup to Christmas, I thought I'd pull a fast one on the rest of the holiday herd by buying a Wii nine weeks ahead of time.I thought wrong. Wiis are as scarce as hen's teeth, judging by...
I hate Techmeme. I love Techmeme.
Dave Winer is spittin' mad about Techmeme and the new Techmeme leaderboard: Techmeme was already severely polluted by people saying stupid **** to rise to the top of the page. That was an ephemeral high. Now there's a way to...
DFC: Sony's PS3 long-term prospects look good, despite Xbox's Halo 3 win
In the wake of last month's hyped-up launch of Halo 3 for the XBox 360, comes the news that the game earned more than $300 million in sales in its first week. Microsoft has a hit on its hands, and it looks like it will be a strong...
When open-source GUIs attack: The Blender example
TDT 3D has put together a comparison of six 3D modeling tools. I am not going to get too deeply into the finer points of the products and what the TDT 3D reviewer thought of them, but many readers got quite worked up about one of the...
Apple Newton, take 2?
I had to rub my eyes when I saw this item from Techmeme, and Apple Insider: Up next for Apple: the return of the Newton.
That's right, the Newton. Apple's 90's-era PDA that ranks up there with other consumer technology failures like...
Survey shows NAS usage more than doubling
We hear all the time about how enterprise storage needs are growing. In a recent EMC-sponsored report, IDC came up with some interesting figures that projected strong growth through 2010. According to the report, storage needs will...
Vintage TI and HP calculators: Computing icons from the pre-PC era
Pat Thibodeau's article about the Smithsonian ceremony to mark the 40th anniversary of the handheld calculator is an indication of how much interest there is in these vintage devices. It's not just that people recognize how handheld...
The Halo 3 hype wave finally crests, and Microsoft loves every minute of it
Legions of crazed fans camping on the sidewalk to get a good place in line. People skipping work and school. Near-riots to get a hold of prized merchandise.What could it be? The arrival of iPhone 2.0? Red Sox playoff tickets going on...
The Singularity is Near: The movie
Earlier this month I interviewed Ray Kurzweil, the inventor, futurist, and author of The Singularity Is Near. Parts of the interview will be published in "The Grill" next month, but I wanted to highlight an interesting tangent that...
Sony delays Home, and Microsoft jeers
The Playstation 3 is hurting. The console is expensive. Sales are weak. The Blu-ray disc player is still a hard sell for most consumers.
And one former bright spot for the console is looking more and more like a bust. Earlier this...
Google moving in on Second Life?
From TechCrunch comes a rumor that probably has the crew at Linden Lab -- and the creators of other social virtual worlds -- looking nervously over their shoulders: Google -- or some other "major Internet company" -- is preparing to...
Virtual reality pioneer Randy Pausch's last lecture
Via Slashdot, I spotted this item about Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon professor and early virtual reality engineer/visionary. He has terminal pancreatic cancer, but gave a wonderful presentation this week about his life and his...
Beijing's solution to the free speech problem: Pull the plug on the Internet
The government of the People's Republic of China has a problem on its hands. The top-down approach to controlling the media and the message has broken down, due in large part to the rapid growth of the Internet (162 million as of...
Fake degrees, fake certifications, real resumes
There was an interesting story in today's Washington Post, about a series of scandals involving South Koreans who exaggerated or lied about their academic background: The state prosecutor's office has launched a nationwide...
The media, trusted sources, and dolphins with spears attached to their foreheads
The 'Net has been a blessing and a curse to journalists. This wonderful technology lets us quickly and conveniently conduct research, follow stories, and communicate with sources and our editors. But the 'Net can also be a minefield,...
A Facebook reality check
Until recently, Facebook was on a publicity roll. The social networking site could seemingly do no wrong, judging by the wildly speculative commentary coming from business and technology bloggers. "Will Facebook Kill Blogs?" mused...
There.com vs. Second Life
Of all of the emerging Internet media that are discussed in the tech press, social virtual worlds have made one of the more notable splashes in the past year. Second Life has been alternately celebrated and slammed. There was a big...
What Second Life business exodus?
Earlier in the summer, Second Life took several hits in the mainstream business press, which just last year was ga-ga over the virtual world and the potential for business activities. Pointing to negative articles in Forbes and...
