Another Google trick
One of the nicest hacks this year was the ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ coup on Google. [Type those words into Google and then hit “I’m feeling lucky”.] Now (courtesy of my friend Andrew) comes a new one. Try typing “miserable failure” (with quotes) into Google. I think the usage in this context originally came from Dick Gephardt.
Joseph Epstein’s memoir of his Dad
Lovely, perceptive, touching piece.
Don Norman’s reflections on the perils of setting up a home cinema
As usual, he has a keen eye for the design absurdities of current technology. This is a job for Apple..
Microsoft’s money-printing machines
Useful analysis of Redmond’s latest annual report.
NHS needs more money for IT — surprise, surprise!
The Labour government is pumping huge amounts of money into the National Health Service. Hooray! But most of the money will not go to pay for more doctors, nurses and hospital beds, but into the pockets of IT companies and consultants. According to this Register story, the NHS IT spend is about to double — from £2.3 billion to £4 billion. Quote:
“Richard Granger, NHS IT director, is negotiating with John Reid, health secretary, for the additional funds. “The programme needs a sustainable level of funding, he told the FT. “We are right in the middle of dealing with this.. I am looking for an extra £2bn.” Reid has already approved a budget of £2.3bn, so this means the NHS information technology programme has almost doubled in price, before it’s even got started. The NHS, the UK’s biggest civilian IT buyer, is to spend billions to update health service computer systems. The end result of this investment should be an integrated patient record, prescribing and booking system. If Mr Granger succeeds in securing the extra money, NHS spending will jump from £850m in 2002 to £3.2bn a year in 2007, according to the FT. He expects the NHS will recruit an additional 7,000-10,000 IT staff, joining the 20,000-strong current IT employee roster.”
I’m a great believer in computing. And the NHS needs a good IT infrastructure. But given the disastrous history of large-scale IT projects in British public authorities, this looks like a mega-disaster in the making.
Fortune on Google
Interesting piece. First, the good news…
“When the numbers pertain to Google, they look very, very good. In 18 months the company has quadrupled in size, now employing more than 1,300 people. Annualized revenues have sextupled, to about $900 million. Annualized pretax profits have grown by a factor of 23, to about $350 million, according to a handful of people who have been told the figures. Only a few high-tech companies in history, like Apple, Compaq, Sun, and more recently Amazon.com, have generated that kind of revenue growth so fast. None has made as much money doing it — not even Netscape, which grew faster than Google has but made money in only one of its years. “
Then the bad news…
“Google has grown arrogant, making some of its executives as frustrating to deal with in negotiations as AOL’s cowboy salesmen during the bubble. It has grown so fast that employees and business partners are often confused about who does what. A rise of stock- and option-stoked greed is creating rifts within the company. Employees carp that Google is morphing in strange and nerve-racking ways. And talk swirls over the question of who’s really in charge: CEO Schmidt or co-founders Brin and Page?
Such travails are hardly surprising in a startup that has grown so big and so fast. But now is a particularly unfortunate time for Google to be facing them. Competitors –the biggest and most powerful on the Net — are coming on strong. Microsoft is spending billions to build its own search engine that will be incorporated in both its online service MSN and its new operating system, due in 2006. That could push Google off tens of millions of PCs. Yahoo in the past year has methodically acquired the other top search engine companies — Inktomi and Overture Services — and is believed to be weeks away from ending its long partnership with Google so that it can compete head-to-head. Other heavyweights — AOL, eBay, and Amazon — are also drawing battle plans. All are aiming for what they see as Google’s weak spot: lack of customer lock-in. Though its search engine is a wonderful tool for using the Net, what happens when a better search engine comes along? Or just a good-enough search engine in the hands of a powerful rival? Is there anything to keep users wedded to Google? “Google has a lot of momentum, but its current position is probably not defensible,” says an investor.”
This is typical business-magazine hooey. The only thing that will stop people using Google is if someone comes along with a search engine that WORKS better.
Now listen heyah y’all
“Are yew jus’ tryin’ to git me to talk, is that the ah-deah?” [Quote from dialogue overhead on a Texas college radion station.] Today’s NYT has a report about a serious academic study of the way my fellow Stetson-wearers talk and what it says about their sense of place! Extract:
Among the unexpected findings, said Guy Bailey, a linguistics professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and a leading scholar in the studies with his wife, Jan Tillery, is that in Texas more than elsewhere, how you talk says a lot about how you feel about your home state.
“Those who think Texas is a good place to live adopt the flat `I’ [~] it’s like the badge of Texas,” said Dr. Bailey, 53, provost and executive vice president of the university and a transplanted Alabamian married to a Lubbock native, also 53.
So if you love Texas, they say, be fixin’ to say “naht” for “night,” “rahd” for “ride” and “raht” for “right.”
And by all means say “all” for “oil.”
RFID tags going in Euro banknotes?
Yep. The European Central Bank has a secret project to do just that, according to this report.
“The European Central Bank is working with technology partners on a hush-hush project to embed radio frequency identification tags into the very fibers of euro bank notes by 2005, EE Times has learned. Intended to foil counterfeiters, the project is developing as Europe prepares for a massive changeover to the euro, and would create an instant mass market for RFID chips, which have long sought profitable application.
The banking community and chip suppliers say the integration of an RFID antenna and chip on a bank note is technically possible, but no bank notes in the world today employ such a technology. Critics say it’s unclear if the technology can be implemented at a cost that can justify the effort, and question whether it is robust enough to survive the rough-and-tumble life span of paper money.
A spokesman for the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, Germany confirmed the existence of a project, but was careful not to comment on its technologies. At least two European semiconductor makers contacted by EE Times, Philips Semiconductors and Infineon Technologies, acknowledged their awareness of the ECB project but said they are under strict nondisclosure agreements.”
[Thanks to Brian for the link.]
Guardian story of about Tesco’s use of RFID
Slightly late (it was on Slashdot a while ago) but nevertheless welcome mainstream article about how RFID tags on Gillette blades in Tesco’s Bar Hill store are used to trigger video cameras.
Bloom or bust
Must-see Department. Joseph Strick made a valiant attempt decades ago to film my favourite book, James Joyce’s Ulysses. Now, an extraordinary Irish film-maker has had another go. The film is being premiered at the Foyle Film Festival in Derry tonight. Wish I could have been there.