The information revolution 'is over'

The information revolution 'is over' - vnunet.com, but futurologist Paul Saffo says we've only just begun.

The internet bubble of the 1990s was inevitable, and marked the start, not the end, of an internet boom that will last for decades, according to futurologist Paul Saffo, speaking at the RSA Conference in San Francisco.

Saffo explained that the IT revolution of the past 20 years was bound to cause a bubble owing to the inflated expectation of the speed of change, but that this was also a classic sign of an industry just beginning to take off.

"We are just at the start and a whole bunch of futures are going to arrive later than expected," he explained.

"The biggest change is that the information revolution is over. When the bubble bursts the technology goes deeper into our lives, and information ceases to be information and becomes media: information that touches our lives in deep ways."

Saffo believes that, as the nature of information changes, it will lead to a proliferation of new types of media and the way they are accessed. He cited a best selling author in China who is now selling his latest book page by page on mobile phones.

He also highlighted three technologies that will radically change the way people use technology.

The first is wireless and its effect on the mobile phone market. Conventional GSM systems will become increasingly sidelined by Wi-Fi as the enlarged bandwidth allows for whole new types of services.

Having ubiquitous high speed data would mean that today's web applications, like map technology, could be sent to mobile phones, which is where consumers really need the information.

Secondly, RFID technology would make almost every device smarter and able to interact with humans and help us use improved technological tools. This would make today's data use seem tiny in comparison.

"All of our assumptions about data volumes are completely wrong," said Saffo. "In 40 to 50 years you will walk into a room and assume that everything has intelligence on board. The average house in 20 years will have same data volume as a full carrier battle fleet today."

The third advance would be robotics. Rather than robots being huge unwieldy machines they would be small, smart home devices with which humans would have personal relationships, providing today's services at vastly reduced costs.

Saffo cited robotic vacuum cleaners as an example. Sixty per cent of owners of such cleaners had named their robots, and a third took them to friends' and neighbours' homes to show them off.

Open source community preaches coexistence

Open source community preaches coexistence - vnunet.com

Open source and commercial applications will coexist in peace, Marten Mickos, chief executive at MySQL, said in a keynote presentation at LinuxWorld, adding that open source will help the IT industry to move more quickly into new markets.

"There is so much that has not yet been created in areas of medicine, research, entertainment and media," said Mickos. "In order to get there we must simplify what we've built so far."

MySQL develops an open source database. Although some in the industry pitch the company against Oracle and IBM's DB2, Mickos has always avoided that comparison. The company instead targets new markets.

Mickos called on the IT industry to adopt open standards instead of picking a fight between open source and proprietary applications.

"We must open up. We must create building blocks so that we can move to the next level, he said, adding that failure to make this transition risked creating problems like the Y2K bug.

While proprietary software serves established markets, open source will focus on under served areas where people traditionally do not use software. Areas where this has happened, according to Mickos, include RSS content syndication, blogs and the internet.

Further more, Mickos expects the open source model to find applications outside software development. Journalism, medicine, politics and research can expect to be affected by a model where people working together across the world start having an impact.

"The whole notion of working together to reach a common good, while still leaving an opportunity for business, can apply to any industry where you have an intangible product," he said.

However, legal experts have suggested that, with the rise of open source software in the enterprise, companies increasingly run the risk of violating either open source or commercial software licences.

Nokia and Microsoft deal shakes up industry

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Richard Wray: Nokia and Microsoft deal shakes up industry

There are very basic business reasons why these two goliaths of the European and American markets have come together.

Microsoft has for years been desperate to get into the fast-growing mobile phone market, while Nokia, the world's largest maker of mobile phones, has been fiercely defending its patch.

The Finnish giant has flatly refused to produce phones using Microsoft's operating system, instead sticking with Symbian, the London-based software developer in which it is the largest shareholder.

But for its part Nokia has become desperate to gain a larger position in the business market, in which Microsoft's Windows is dominant. The success of the rival Blackberry handheld email device - which companies can integrate into existing corporate email systems - has certainly played a part in persuading Nokia that in order to get into bed with business it must seduce Microsoft.

Some delegates in Cannes believe that allowing Nokia phones to synch seamlessly with Microsoft's email products is a quid pro quo for allowing Microsoft's music technology to work with the latest Nokia handsets. Under the deal Nokia has licensed Microsoft technology that allows direct synchronisation between Microsoft's top-selling corporate server operating system and future Nokia devices.

But it is the music deal that has people talking in Cannes.

"It is great for the industry," said Duncan Ledwith, the European general manager for the mobile music firm Melodeo. "We have the two most significant technology players in the mobile space coming to the market and saying what we have always thought: that music on a mobile is the way forward."

Nokia has agreed to work with Microsoft's Windows Media Player technology so digital music can be easily played on both PCs and Nokia phones - moving tracks between devices.

"We are enabling Windows Media Audio files to be played on the Nokia music player," explained a Nokia spokesman. That means a big stack of CDs can be easily downloaded on to a PC and into a phone. Meanwhile, Microsoft will support open standards digital rights management technology. "So if you purchase a song from one of the operators' music stores, you can listen to the music on your PC," he said.

"With this collaboration we can really offer ease of use to the consumer so they do not need to worry about different standards," he added. The first phones to play Windows media files will appear this year and some will be able to store hundreds of songs.

For mobile phone firms, which had hoped that digital music would be a major money-spinner, it is a further sign that the device people want is a digital music player they can put their existing CD collection or tracks bought over the web on to that just happens to be able to make phone calls, rather than a handset that can download music from a mobile phone network.

In this context, the Nokia and Microsoft tie-up may kill off the mobile operators' current approach to music.

Microsoft's Security Chief Says Windows Safer Than Linux > February 10, 2005

InformationWeek > Windows security > Microsoft's Security Chief Says Windows Safer Than Linux > February 10, 2005

"Even with the relatively large number of bulletins we released this week, we compare favorably," he said. "Year-to-date for 2005, Microsoft has fixed 15 vulnerabilities affecting Windows Server 2003. In the same time period, for just this year, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 users have had to patch 34 vulnerabilities and SuSE Enterprise Linux 9 users have had to patch over 78 vulnerabilities."

Nash also said that the number of patches shouldn't be the only criteria users apply to tell if Microsoft's doing its job. "Note that this is just one measure, and doesn't take into consideration all of the other progress we're making, with security guidance for customers, improving security manageability and introducing innovative security solutions and technologies," he said.

Cell chip aims high

Cell chip aims high | Tech News on ZDNet

Cell's processing units--called "software cells"--can handle completely separate jobs. "The software cells are designed to be kind of self-contained--they can kind of roam around," Halfhill said.

Cells can even roam over a network, allowing the processor to perform a type of distributed or grid computing, an increasingly popular enterprise technique in which demanding tasks are divvied up among a gang of networked computers. A PlayStation 3 could borrow unused processing power from other consoles on a network, for example, to complete a demanding task such as delivering streaming video.

"The Cell architecture is designed to make grid computing almost universal," Halfhill said. "It makes distributed processing part of the design. If you have several of these machines on a network, the work can be spread across a network."

Cell also implements a number of on-the-chip security measures, mostly aimed at preventing unauthorized copying or distribution of copyright content, Halfhill said. Such functions typically are handled by software that sits on top of the chip, but Cell bakes security into the silicon with innovations such as a memory design that allocates memory into secure chunks. That way, only an authorized application can access a protected piece of content.

Yahoo Builds Search into Web Pages

Yahoo Builds Search into Web Pages

In its latest move to expand the reach of its search results, Yahoo Inc. released a service late Wednesday that provides related search results within the context of a Web page

Yahoo launched a beta test of the service called Y!Q in an attempt to automatically provide users with relevant search results without requiring them to initiate a query, a Yahoo spokeswoman said. By analyzing the content on a Web page, the service is able to display related results within a dynamic box on the page itself.

While Yahoo is demonstrating the functionality on a test version of its Yahoo News site, it also is offering it widely to other Web sites. Webmasters can embed Y!Q's contextual search results into their pages by incorporating code for the DHTML (Dynamic HTML) module. Because users receive the results within the Web page, they remain on a given site rather than being redirected to the Yahoo Search site, according to Yahoo.

Users also can download an Internet Explorer toolbar or one of several plug-in options for Mozilla Firefox to receive Y!Q results while browsing any Web page.

Microsoft Goes Live With Search

Microsoft Goes Live With Search

MSN Search, developed using a new algorithm with five billion indexed entries in its database, features a number of categories to help users target their searches. Web, news, images, music, images and desktop categories return specific types of results to make it easier to find specific information. The music category, for instance, allows users to search for a recording artist, song or album. The search results provide links to music files and other content provided by MSN Music. Users are also able to sample, purchase and download music.

In addition, users can obtain information pulled from Microsoft's Encarta online encyclopedia. Another feature is "Search Near Me," which allows users to search for information and resources in their geographic locations.

"This built-from-the-ground-up version of MSN Search provides an infrastructure that enables us to rapidly innovate and give consumers precisely the information they're looking for, no matter where it's located," Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's corporate vice president of information services, said in a statement.

AT&T buy shows how far voice calling has fallen

AT&T buy shows how far voice calling has fallen | CNET News.com

SBC Communications' plan to buy AT&T illustrates how far the traditional phone business has slipped--and how much it needs to change.

The prospects of the crumbling circuit-switched phone business have fallen so low that AT&T, which once controlled all phone calls across the country, sold itself for a mere $16 billion. The once-impervious phone giants that controlled the nation's telephone networks are being humbled by Internet technology--and the cable television giants and scrappy Net calling start-ups that embrace it. With high-profile Internet-based services driving the market, basic voice calling could become an afterthought.

"Voice service will eventually be low-cost enough that it could be free," said Brad Wilson, a telecommunications analyst with Legg Mason. "It could be a giveaway they bundle with other, advanced products."

The traditional phone company has seen that it can't keep up with cheaper, more versatile Internet technology, so now it's making the painful switch. Industry executives concede that selling voice calls over a vast network of circuit switches has become too costly to make sense in the long run.

The shift in strategy comes none too soon. The Bells have already been facing competition from upstarts taking advantage of cheaper IP technology. Three years after launching, Vonage is the largest VoIP provider. for a flat fee, the company lets users make phone calls over the Internet using their existing broadband connections. Skype, which offers free software for Internet calling, has signed up 28 million users--and counting.

Microsoft's answer to Linux | CNET News.com

Microsoft's answer to Linux | CNET News.com

Linux gets a good share of the headlines, but Windows server
software is grabbing a good share of the dough

In reporting its second-quarter financial results Thursday, Microsoft said revenue at its Server and Tools division, which caters to business customers, grew 18 percent year over year. Licenses sales of Windows server, which competes head-to-head with open-source software Linux and other server operating systems, grew 17 percent year over year.

Despite the threat posed by open-source products, Microsoft server software sales have been growing at double-digit rates for several quarters. Meanwhile, revenue from its current cash cows--its Windows desktop and Office products--have been flat or growing in the single digits, analysts noted.

Owing to the release of the "Halo 2" video game, Microsoft's Home and Entertainment division was also a strong performer in the second quarter. But server software offers the best prospect to recapture the rapid growth and fat profits Microsoft saw from Office and Windows in the past decade, said Greg DeMichillie, an analyst at researcher Directions on Microsoft.

"They're selling into a growing market, whereas the desktop client market is not growing much and there's not share to take from the competition," DeMichillie said. "In servers, historically they don't have a monopoly--they have under 50 percent market share."