Technology
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »The iPad Killers Are Coming
[ 5 Comments ]Posted on March 23, 2010 by admin in Technology
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010Longing for a lightweight tablet PC but not too thrilled with the iPad? Don’t worry, there’s an avalanche of contenders.
The tech industry is a brutal world. Every time a product or service establishes some kind of dominance, every few months you’ll hear about its impending murder. Google Killers, Facebook Killers, Twitter Killers …well, now it’s the iPad’s turn. I already explained why I probably won’t be buying one even though I drooled for months awaiting its release. If you feel the same way I do, but long for a tablet PC to replace your laptop, we may be in luck. With the iPad hitting the market soon, the existing tablet industry is tooling up to cash in on its notoriety. We’ve rounded up most of the major players below. Read the rest of this entry »
How The Personal Computer Will Bring The Apocalypse
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on March 17, 2010 by admin in Technology
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010In the end, it won’t be terrorists or a nuclear holocaust that do us in, it’ll be some dumb e-mail that YOU opened.
Imagine if you could take control of every Windows-based computer in America. Even if your control were limited to something simple like turning them off or blocking basic web access, you would be wielding remarkable power. Everything from air traffic control to communications networks to emergency services and military operations rely in some way on Windows. This may sound like a hackneyed plot for an 80′s “cyberwar” movie, but is it? You’ve almost certainly heard about how Chinese hackers managed to hack Google because of security flaws caused by the US government, and more recently about how the Iranian government claimed to crack down on US-backed cyber activists. Or how the hilariously named Russian hacker group the Russian Business Network is back in business, allegedly nailing Citigroup for millions of dollars. Or how last year’s Conficker worm created a 12 million computer botnet. Maybe you think this sort of thing won’t happen to you because you keep your anti-virus updated, or that if there were really something to be paranoid about, it would make the news. Well, the fact is, it’s estimated that 89% of corporate security breaches go unreported, and it’s fairly common (but under-reported) knowledge that financial institutions are routinely blackmailed by hackers, based on the idea that the payout is cheaper than a consumer “run” on the bank. I have to admit I felt fairly safe until just recently, when I found my system was compromised by Conficker payloads. This little worm supposedly died out last year, but is still apparently on the loose, doing who-knows-what. I was especially stunned by getting it; my system runs AVG Antivirus
Your Computer Needs A Bigger Recycle Bin
[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 11, 2010 by admin in Clean & Green, Technology
Thursday, March 11th, 2010Did you know we discard enough computers to bury Los Angeles EVERY DAY?
How many “dead” personal computers do you have around the house? One or two? I was recently refurbishing a bunch of computers for a client who needed them for POS systems in their retail stores. In the process of working on them, I not only got to re-experience the “joy” of working with Windows 98 (the machines were perfectly viable, and buying XP was more expensive than buying new computers!), I was reminded of what a global tragedy the computer industry creates. Yes, your greed for Gigabytes fuels an industry that helps us as consumers decide to discard over 47 million computers annually. Pause and think about that for a moment. That’s over 130,000 computers per DAY. Doing some rough math, that’s enough to cover about 36 square miles – or most of Los Angeles – in one layer of computers. EVERY DAY. The sad thing is that even if you go to the extra effort of recycling because you don’t want to destory our groundwater with toxic metals, a lot of the components just end making the world toxic somewhere else, often China, India or Africa. So what can you do? Well, consider running XP for a few more years! It kinda works, doesn’t it? Besides, the business model driven by Moore’s law and an unspoken collusion between Microsoft & Intel (Microsoft writes more crappy code that needs more power, Intel comes up with the chip) has run its course; some say Moore’s Law is on its last legs. If you want to recycle though, the EPA has a decent list of resources. And for a quick summary of why my use of the phrase “global tragedy” is not just hyperbole, check out Where Computers Go to Die. Read the rest of this entry »
You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide From Human Flesh Search Engines & Your Cell Phone
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on March 5, 2010 by admin in Technology
Friday, March 5th, 2010You might as well come out come out wherever you are, because between Human Flesh Search Engines, cell phone GPS, social network analysis, and erosion of privacy rights, they’re gonna find you anyway. Unless of course you’re Osama Bin Laden.
 I wish this were a parody graphic. It’s from Google China’s Human Flesh Search page. |
If you’re not paranoid or have nothing to hide, things like the UK’s millions of security cameras, the TSA subjecting you to cavity searches, and Google tracking everything you do won’t bother you, and may even comfort you somehow. Personally, although I’m not doing anything particularly questionable with my time, and am not ashamed of the questionable activities I do engage in, I enjoy the ability to say “none of your businesss” and go off into the forest to sit on a rock and think for awhile. Back in 2002, the fact that cell phone providers were going to add the GPS-powered E911 feature to phones raised the question what do they plan to do with this information? Well the answers are finally in. If you’re the Iranian government, they’ll help you prosecute and arrest political protesters. If you’re the FBI or the White House, they’ll help you track callers without a warrant, because the current administration – much like the Bush gang – believes that cell phone users have “no reasonable expectation of privacy” when using a cell phone. “So”, you say to yourself, “I’ll just ditch my cell phone then”. Ha. Forget it. They (whoever “they” are) will still find you, either using social networking like they did with Saddam Hussein , or with the latest in reverse lookups, disturbingly referred to in China as Human Flesh Search Engines. Interested in working part time as a “Google Human Flesh Searcher”? Explore your options here. I wonder if this would work for catching Osama Bin Laden? Read the rest of this entry »
The Next Big Thing: Frictionless, Wireless, Virtual Economies
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on February 27, 2010 by admin in Technology
Saturday, February 27th, 2010Will the mobile phone powered transfer of virtual currencies created by online games and social networking allow the millenials to Twitter away their inheritances?
A couple of years ago I had a neighbor who made a few hundred extra dollars a month playing online games. How did he get paid to play games? By acquiring virtual goods like magic weapons and selling them to other numb-nuts who would actually pay real money to advance in the same online games. If you’re not already familiar with the idea, it may sound absurd, but it has become quite an industry, sometimes referred to as Gold Farming. And over the past year, it’s started taking an even stranger turn. The web sites IMVU and myYearbook have established a cross-site virtual currency exchange, and some think Facebook Credits will not only expand the site’s revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars annually, but may even become the de facto currency of the Internet. Although as of this writing, the idea of connecting these “economies” into a larger exchange remains in its infancy, IMVU and myYearbook have also launched Currency Connect, which promises the rollout of more virtual currency partners throughout 2010, and VirtualCurrencyPlatforms.com currently lists 27 viable platforms. So how seriously should we take these new virtual economies? Pretty seriously, according to the Chinese government, which fears that instabilities in virtual economies could destabilize real money, among other things. Add to the speculative possibilities of all this real and imaginary money changing hands the emerging models for frictionless and inexpensive money transfers using mobile phone-based tools like Twitpay, Square, OboPay, GetGiving, Zong, and Kwedit, and the possibilities for truly viable virtual economies are enormous. Below are a few demos of the leading-edge startups, and quick summaries of how each service works. You can also find a more in-depth look at these “frictionless” transaction ideas in this Wired piece. Read the rest of this entry »