The picture tells it all really. We are one of the few households in the UK currently to have a Sony PSP!
Category Archives: Technology
The customer is always wrong
There — I’ve said it! It goes against every marketing man’s credo. I suppose in some industries (retailing, for example) it’s reasonable to proceed on the basis that the customer is usually right — because you can respond quickly to sales feedback. But in relation to technology (where the lead times for radical technologies are more substantial), the customer doesn’t have a clue what he wants — until one day you provide it. And you can’t build a serious technology business by being customer-focussed at the outset.
I’ve always been convinced of this, but thought that I was just a loner — until I read this lovely rant by Quentin.
SunSignals
Here’s a neat idea for anxious parents heading for the sun. SunSignals are little adhesive patches which change colour when the level of UV radiation they’ve absorbed reaches danger level. UV rays break chemical bonds in the substance used to impregnate the patches, causing a pH shift which causes the colour to change from yellow to deep orange. Neat, eh?
Junxion Boxes
Just what we need to set up an Ndiyo internet cafe just about anywhere.
Hits and misses
Last Sunday’s Observer column about the Long Tail.
Ever wondered why every bookstore you go into seems to have piles and piles of a few bestsellers, but not a single copy of anything by Henry James? Or why the video section has all the latest brain-dead Hollywood blockbusters, but not a single copy of Manon des Sources? Or why your local multiplex never shows a foreign language film?…
Odeo goes live
Yep. Find it here. Another push for the podcasting bandwagon.
BitTorrent incorporated in Opera browser
According to The Register,
Opera has released a version of its web browser with the BitTorrent client built in. Users clicking on a Torrent file will see the file load in Opera’s traditional Transfer window, so for most file transfers, there’s no need to install a third-party BitTorrent client. To Opera, it’s simply another MIME type, like Gopher and Usenet before it.
E-Mail traffic doubles after bombings
From the New York Times…
A snapshot of e-mail activity from security company MessageLabs found the number of customer e-mails it monitored grew from the average of 500,000 to 1 million an hour after terrorist attacks began.
The Bush Administration’s proposals for the Net: live translation
In an extraordinary presentation last week, Michael D. Gallagher, Assistant Secretary at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), outlined new “US principles” regarding the internet’s Domain Name System. They are:
1. The United States Government intends to preserve the security and stability of the Internet’s Domain Name and Addressing System (DNS). Given the Internet’s importance to the world’s economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure. As such, the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file.
2. Governments have legitimate interest in the management of their country code top level domains (ccTLD). The United States recognizes that governments have legitimate public policy and sovereignty concerns with respect to the management of their ccTLD. As such, the United States is committed to working with the international community to address these concerns, bearing in mind the fundamental need to ensure stability and security of the Internet’s DNS.
3. ICANN is the appropriate technical manager of the Internet DNS. The United States continues to support the ongoing work of ICANN as the technical manager of the DNS and related technical operations and recognizes the progress it has made to date. The United States will continue to provide oversight so that ICANN maintains its focus and meets its core technical mission.
4. Dialogue related to Internet governance should continue in relevant multiple fora. Given the breadth of topics potentially encompassed under the rubric of Internet governance there is no one venue to appropriately address the subject in its entirety. While the United States recognizes that the current Internet system is working, we encourage an ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders around the world in the various fora as a way to facilitate discussion and to advance our shared interest in the ongoing robustness and dynamism of the Internet. In these fora, the United States will continue to support market-based approaches and private sector leadership in Internet development broadly.
Translation:
1. We don’t trust anybody else to run the Internet’s Root Servers, so we’ll continue to do it, thank you very much.
2. Other countries can do what they like with their national domains, so long as they accept Principle 1.
3. ICANN can manage the technical details and do the donkey work.
4. The UN has no serious role to play in any of this.
Quote of the day
Last week, Apple trumpeted its support of podcasting with a technically misleading but undeniably catchy tag line: “Podcasting. The next generation of radio.”
At the same time, Audible brought out its own print ad: “Audible.com announces a revolutionary breakthrough in podcasting. Profit.”
Randall Stross, writing in the New York Times about Apple’s incorporation of podcasts into iTunes.