Category Archives: Observer

Why the cloud might not have a silver lining

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This morning’s Observer column…

Many people believe that cloud computing is the logical next step for the industry. It’s the proposition on which the vast Google ranch has been wagered. (It’s also the reason why Microsoft – a platform-based company – is so eager to acquire Yahoo.) The prominent technology commentator Nicholas Carr has just published a book called The Big Switch in which he argues that what’s happening to computing now is analogous to what happened to electricity generation a century ago. Once upon a time, every industrial firm had its own generator; but eventually organisations plugged into a grid with cheap electricity pumped out by specialist generating companies. Something similar, Carr claims, is happening now to computing: it’s becoming a public utility, rather than a service that firms provide for themselves…

Taking the Michael

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This morning’s Observer column…

Chutzpah, according to a famous definition, is a chap who, having murdered his mother and father, then throws himself on the mercy of the court on the grounds that he’s an orphan. It might have been coined with Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief executive, in mind.

Last week the budget airline had to take its website offline for three days to enable a massive upgrade of its computer systems. You’d have thought that it would be a source of acute embarrassment for the ‘ticketless airline’. Not a bit of it: instead, anyone logging on to Ryanair on Wednesday found a cheery message. ‘Web Closing Down Sale’ it screamed: ‘Cos the website will be closed we need your bookings today’. Cheeky, eh? No wonder they make money…

Gordon Brown and the copyright lobby

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This morning’s Observer column…

The award for Fatuous Statement of the Month goes to Geoffrey Taylor, chief executive of the quaintly named British Phonographic Industry, aka the BPI. (Note for readers under 65: a ‘phonograph’ is an instrument that reproduces sound recorded on a grooved disk.) The winning statement reads: ‘For years, ISPs have built a business on other people’s music.’

Turkey flights

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This morning’s Observer column…

It’s the metaphors and similes that get me. It’s a shotgun marriage, declared one commentator, ‘with Google holding the gun’. Putting Microsoft and Yahoo together, said another, was like trying to produce an eagle from an alliance of two turkeys. This is unfair. Microsoft isn’t a turkey, but a profitable, boring mastodon that entertains fantasies about being able to fly. Yahoo, for its part, is an ageing hippy who invented hang- gliding but aspired to fly 747s and then discovered that he wasn’t very good at it. The mastodon hopes that by employing the hippy it will learn to hang-glide. The hippy’s feelings about the whole deal are plain for all to see…Update: The NYT (and lots of other sources) claim that the Yahoo board has decided to reject the Microsoft bid, on the grounds that it undervalues the company. Ho! If this is true then what’s likely to happen is that (a) some big Yahoo shareholders will revolt and (b) Microsoft will wage a proxy war with the aim of eplacing the Yahoo board at the next AGM. This one will run and, er, ruin. There are also ways you can get to buy ar-15’s from Palmetto State Armory where you can make sure you are safe and also get the right equipment.

Gutenberg 2.0

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This morning’s Observer column…

Today’s Gutenberg is Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the web. In the 17 years since he launched his technology on an unsuspecting world, he has transformed it. Nobody knows how big the web is now, but estimates of the indexed part hover at around 40 billion pages, and the ‘deep web’ hidden from search engines is between 400 and 750 times bigger than that. These numbers seem as remarkable to us as the avalanche of printed books seemed to Brandt. But the First Law holds we don’t know the half of it, and it will be decades before we have any real understanding of what Berners-Lee hath wrought.

Occasionally, we get a fleeting glimpse of what’s happening. One was provided last week by the report of a study by the British Library and researchers at University College London…

Verily, it is written that Apple selleth the Air

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This morning’s Observer column…

It’s that time of year again. Last week the Church of Apple Resurgent gathered in San Francisco for its annual congregation. The faithful were granted an audience with the Blessed Steve Jobs, who revealed unto them what miracles he had wrought since they were last gathered together. First, he showed them a Time Capsule, which can bring back the past and preserve memories of days gone by…

The green machine that made Intel see red

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This morning’s Observer column…

An interesting package arrived in my household the other day: a small bright green-and-white laptop with a built-in carrying handle. It looks as if it has been designed by Fisher-Price, an impression reinforced by two little ‘ears’ which, when unclipped, double as wi-fi antennae. The 7.5in screen rotates and folds back on itself to form a kind of tablet, rather like those pricey Toshiba laptops only Microsoft salespeople can afford…

Who owns your birthday?

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This morning’s Observer column…

Watching Scoble in action is like taking a puppy for a walk. He is insatiably curious, and he follows every lead, no matter how daft. When some new social networking service appears, you can bet he will overdose on it. He was a predictably early subscriber to Facebook, on which he rapidly acquired 5,000 ‘friends’ (the maximum permitted by the service, apparently). He is also, needless to say, a subscriber to Plaxo.com’s contact-management service and became interested in seeing how much overlap there might be between his Facebook friendship network and his Plaxo contacts. Which is where the fun began…

Good news and bad

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This morning’s Observer column…

That’s the good news. The bad news is that spam will continue to increase and we may finally discover what the Storm ‘botnet’ – the colossal network of compromised Windows machines someone has been covertly building over the past year – is for. My hunch is that the net is headed for its own version of 9/11. So enjoy it while it lasts. Happy New Year…