The technology bubble

My Observer column on the redefinition of social space brought about by the Walkman/iPod and the mobile phone is here. Audio version here.

Gadget wars — new front opened

I had some time to kill before my meeting in London the other day, so I went to the new Apple Store in Regent Street (purely in the interests of scientific research, you understand). Amazing place. Should have a wealth warning prominently displayed on the door. Came away with this neat little speaker set for my iPod.

Volume and quality of sound astonishing, given its size. Wonder how JBL do it. What was also astonishing is the scale and ingenuity of the product ecosystem that has evolved around the iPod. It really is the Walkman de nos jours.

Spreading freedom

“Ukraine is the right way to spread freedom, Iraq the wrong way. Has this lesson come too late for Iran?”. Thoughtful piece by Timothy Garton Ash.

Objectivity and imperialism

The chaos in Iraq, together with the growth of Western impatience with so-called “failed states” and calls for a new kind of ‘benign imperialism’ (i.e. us telling them how to run their societies) has led to an interesting outbreak of collective amnesia in Britain about the whole imperial adventure. As an Irishman, I’ve never succumbed to the concept of the British Empire as one of nature’s Jolly Good Ideas, but feeble-minded folks in Britain — under the tutelage of right-wing media historians like Neil Ferguson and Thatcher-worshipper Andrew Roberts — seem to have donned rose-tinted spectacles when looking back at the imperial past. All of which makes this fierce polemic by Seamus Milne very timely and appropriate.

Wot — no pyjamas!

From BBC Online:

“A devout Baptist couple who bought a Doris Day DVD from a supermarket were shocked to find a sex film instead. Alan and Anne Leigh-Browne, from Wellington, Somerset, had been expecting to enjoy The Pajama Game. Instead they were confronted by Italian sex film – Tettone che Passione, which translates Breasts, What a Passion. ‘Some topless young women appeared and started talking in Italian… it’s not what you expect from a Doris Day film,’ Mr Leigh-Browne said.

Retired doctor Mr Leigh-Brown, 67, said he picked up the film, which was sealed in plastic wrapping, for £2.99 from the bargain bin of a Safeway supermarket in Taunton.”

Thanks to James M for the link.

Blurred images

Up to now, most blurred images were the fault of the cameraman (or woman). But perhaps that may change.

CNET has a report about recent patent application by HP for a system in which digital cameras would be equipped with circuits that could be remotely triggered to blur the face in any images captured by the camera.

“U.S. patent application 20040202382, filed in April 2003 and published in October 2004, describes a system in which an image captured by a camera could be automatically modified based on commands sent by a remote device. In short, anyone who doesn’t want their photo taken at a particular time could hit a clicker to ensure that any cameras or camera-equipped gadgets in range got only a fuzzy outline of their face.”

There’s a thoughtful posting on Slashdot about this. What if a cop who’s beating a demonstrator could use this technology to prevent news photographers from capturing his image?

The Clueless CEO Defence

That’s the wonderful headline on a lovely USA Today article on the trials of ex-CEOs Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom, Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco International and Richard Scrushy of HealthSouth. “Charismatic, driven and fabulously wealthy, they sat atop giant companies largely of their own making. They didn’t so much manage these corporations as reign over them.

But now that their trials for securities fraud are about to begin, they want to let the world in on a little secret: They actually weren’t very good at what they did. They were unaware of what was going on around them and were incapable of demanding accountability from their aides. Like the hapless Sgt. Schultz in the old television program Hogan’s Heroes, they know nothing, they see nothing.

Call it the invasion of the clueless CEOs. These once high-flying corporate titans have made humiliating swoons in an attempt to avoid being brought down by prosecutors. Ebbers and Scrushy are expected to argue that key aides kept them out of the loop on accounting decisions. Kozlowski, meanwhile, told The New York Times he was unaware of some of the lavish items that went into his New York apartment, including his infamous $6,000 shower curtain.

The problem with these arguments is that they are almost impossible to swallow. When the executives were at the top of their games, they demanded to be treated like geniuses. They made their own rules and enjoyed all the perks of power, wealth and even fame. Scrushy went so far as to create his own entrance into HealthSouth’s lavish Birmingham, Ala., headquarters. Now, they want people (i.e., jurors) to see them as naïve and ignorant.”

This is very sharp writing — in the tradition of Thorsten Veblen, who is up there somewhere, grinning from ear to ear. Meanwhile I am wondering how you could spend six grand on a shower curtain.

Gates photo — the mystery deepens

That fetching photograph of Bill Gates continues to intrigue people. It was allegedly published in an 1983 edition of Teenbeat magazine. But if so why — asks the eagle-eyed Karlin Lillington — is there a Macintosh clearly visible behind Bill? (The Mac wasn’t released until January 1984.) Presumably the photograph dates from ’84, not ’83.

Update: Mystery solved. The wonderful Urban Legends site says: “These images are actually publicity photos taken of the then 30-year-old Bill Gates coincident with the initial release of Microsoft Windows in 1985. The Corbis photo archive identifies their depiction thusly: ‘Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, reclines on his desk in his office soon after the release of Windows 1.0. 1985 Bellevue, Washington, USA.'”

Hmmm… Not sure about “thusly”. But thanks to Colm MacCarthaigh for the link. (And to AA for spotting the mispelling of ‘presumably’!)

Generate your own Windows error messages

Those of us who don’t use Windows miss out on its baroque error dialogs. How nice then to find that some kind soul has built an ingenious tool for creating them. Here’s my first effort.

Firefox downloads now more than 20 million

Yep. Stats and a nice graph here.