China is to delay a controversial plan requiring all new computers sold in the country to be equipped with an internet filtering software, state media says.I'm pretty stunned that the Chinese apparently listened to the outpouring of complaints over the Green Dam, from computer makers, Internet users, security experts, and many others. Maybe this is a step toward more Internet freedom for the world's biggest country (although India's population will surpass it at some point) but I doubt it.
The filter, called Green Dam Youth Escort, was to have been required from Wednesday, but the industry ministry said computer makers needed more time.
Its planned rollout sparked widespread disapproval inside China, legal challenges and criticism from overseas.
Officials say it is designed to shield children from pornography and violence.
However, free speech activists have criticised the software plan as an attempt to tighten the Chinese government's already strict controls on internet usage.
A report by China's official Xinhua news agency gave no other details on the decision by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
who as reported earlier lacked the moral fiber to hold off installing the spyware, which reportedly is ridden [sic] with security holes and uses stolen code. Sony actually managed to ship ahead of the schedule.Some of the other lively Slashdot comments included:
Well, Sony finally manages to get SOMETHING out on time. Too bad God of War 3 wasn't requested by an evil totalitarian regime to oppress its people.And then there's this comment, which, as an editor for 20 years, warmed the cockles of my heart, and pretty much everywhere I have cockles, someone who has been known to actually pull out the big red Webster's New World, Third College Editon:
So I'm thinking of starting a fund to raise money and get Slashdot a dictionary. Who's in?
After taking a medical leave of absence in January, Steve Jobs on Monday officially resumed his work as CEO of Apple.
"Steve is back to work," Apple spokesman Steve Dowling, told Bloomberg News. Jobs will be working at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., "a few days a week" and working from home on the rest, according to the report.
Jobs initially was said to be taking a break from work to focus on recuperating from a hormone imbalance. But in April he received a liver transplant from a hospital in Tennessee. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook handled the day-to-day duties of running Apple in Jobs' absence. Meanwhile, Senior Vice President of Marketing Phil Schiller filled in for Jobs as keynote speaker at Apple's product events and, most recently, the Worldwide Developer Conference.
Given Jobs's disturbingly gaunt physical appearance early this year and Apple's questionable handling of information surrounding Jobs's illness, it was hard not to think the worst when it was announced in January that the Apple CEO was taking a medical leave of absence. I figured that merely was a prelude to a later announcement that Jobs would step down permanently. I'm glad I'm wrong, and I wish Jobs a full recovery and excellent health in the future.
A new study shows that social network users may be more vulnerable to financial loss, identity theft and virus or spyware infection.I'm trying to get my head around how 80 percent of respondents "don't restrict any details in their profiles from search engines" at the same time that "78 percent expressed concern over their privacy."
Boulder-based Webroot Software Inc., an Internet security company, found 80 percent of the 1,100 survey respondents don't restrict any details in their profiles from search engines, 59 percent don't know who can see their profiles, 32 percent include at least three pieces of personally identifiable information.
Webroot has recorded an increase in attacks on social media in recent months. However, 78 percent of respondents expressed concern over their privacy.
Young adults, between 18 and 29 years old, are more likely to be at risk, according to the survey.
Research conducted by analysts at Nielsen Online revealed social networking and blogging portals are more popular than ever and the duration people will visit such online facilities is up on the same time last year.Internet Retailer, June 23:
It was noted the total minutes broadband users spend updating their accounts and communicating with others is up by 82 per cent on May 2008 - with the average period per person up by 67 per cent.
The survey also found Twitter was the fastest-growing web brand for last month and saw users increase by 1,448 percent year-on-year. Over the last 12 months, unique visits to the micro-blogging site went from 1.2 million per month to 18.2 million.
The number of people who are using social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter has grown 59% in the last year to 43% from 27% a year ago, according to a new report by management association The Conference Board and consulting firm TNS. The report, based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. households, found that social network use spans generations as well as genders.SmartBrief:
About 19% of online users age 55 and older visit social network sites, up from 6% a year ago, and, overall, 48% of women and 38% of men on the Internet use social networking sites.
Despite the hype surrounding social networking and collaboration tools for business use, just 18% of firms have implemented such offerings, according to Forrester Research, with 63% saying they are not interested in the segment.It's hard for me to understand why businesses trying to gain an edge in an incredibly challenging economy won't even consider trying tools that could allow them to better leverage their intellectual assets and more effectively engage their customers. I'd say this aversion to social networking and collaboration tools in many organizations likely stems from 1) the traditional corporate need to control the flow of information, and 2) fears that use of these tools would diminish productivity.
"It's not the first entry for Microsoft. They do this about once a year," Schmidt said in an interview with Fox Business Network. "I don't think Bing's arrival has changed what we're doing. We are about search, we're about making things enormously successful, by virtue of innovation."Bing's TV ads, however, need some work. They remind me of all the lame commercials trying to sell Intel, CNET, Monster.com, Microsoft, and other sites and apps back in the 90s.
"Now companies have the option to deploy an on-premise solution behind the firewall under their control," Socialcast CEO Tim Young told InternetNews.com. "We feel the majority will stay with SaaS, but there are companies that place a very high value on their [intellectual property] and security and this lets them hook up to single sign on and LDAP if they choose."
Socialcast already offered its service for free to the first ten users in a company and the incremental cost was fairly modest for every user beyond ten -- $1, per user, per month.
Young said the free version is a complete microblogging service � la Twitter, designed for the enterprise that includes administration tools and basic site customization.
New features in version 6 include what Socialcast is claiming is an industry first, a true, real-time track feature that lets users customize activity streams based on subjects, people, groups and topics. There is also enhanced e-mail integration.Later this summer, Socialcast plans to introduce a business intelligence suite that it will charge for. Socialcast's Young says the company has trademarked the name "Social Business Intelligence."
The optional BI system will provide social analytics within a company to give managers a better idea of how and where information is moving within the organization.
Expect the freemium bandwagon to grow as customers realize there are services worth paying for above and beyond the basics.
The China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center said it had complained twice to Google about the "vulgar links" available through its search engine at www.google.cn.Before this latest salvo, the Chinese government went even further, ordering all new personal computers to carry Internet filtering software. Yesterday, there were reports that China was relaxing that plan, but that turned out to be bogus, The New York Times reported today:
"Google China has not conducted the oversight required according to China's laws and regulations, and a large volume of foreign internet pornographic information has entered our borders through this Web site," the center said.
It urged Google to conduct a "thorough clean-up" of its Web pages and also urged authorities to step in and punish the company.
Google and other major Web sites have previously been given a public dressing down for not being quick enough to wipe out targeted content.
American computer makers say the Chinese government has not backed down from a requirement that Internet censorship software be installed on all computers sold in China after July 1, despite reports this week that the rule had been relaxed.Meanwhile, the anti-censorship crowd is fired up and getting more organized all the time, as we saw with the incredible events surrounding the Iranian election. Some reports say that Iranian protesters got a lot of help from Chinese dissidents. It'll be fascinating to see how the censorship fight amps up in the world's fastest-growing economy.
In a further sign that Chinese officials are trying to assert more control over the Internet, the city of Beijing wants to recruit 10,000 volunteers by the end of the summer to monitor Internet content, said an employee of the Beijing government's Spiritual Civilization Office.
... Many people say the software, called Green Dam-Youth Escort, will be used to block Web sites with politically unacceptable content even though officials insist the software will be used primarily to censor pornography.
Computer experts also discovered severe weaknesses in the software that would allow hackers to hijack the computers of people using Green Dam.
Nearly two-thirds of residential Internet connections in the United States are high speed, according to the latest survey from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.
From eWeek.com:
Despite the recession, U.S. residential broadband penetration jumped significantly last year, Pew reported. April's 63 percent level of high-speed home connections represents a 15 percent increase from a year ago.
Well, what do you expect with the price of high speed connections dropping and all. Oh, wait...
Over the past year, according to Pew's numbers released June 17, the price of residential broadband increased 13 percent, from a monthly $34.50 a year ago to $39 at the end of April. Broadband users with the choice of one provider reported an average monthly bill of $44.70 while those with the choice of two broadband providers reported monthly bills of $38.30.
Let's hear it for competition. That difference of $6.40 may seem negligible, but it'd cover most of an $8.99 basic unlimited monthly plan from Netflix. In fact, you could take that money and upgrade to the $13.99, two DVDs out at a time plan and still have some pocket change left over.
Sadly, I have only one provider where I live, and thus am at their mercy. For those of you who have your choice of providers, I urge you to ruthlessly play them off against each other. Make them squirm. Do it for me and the rest of us who have no high-speed options.
Google searches reference works, blogs, news sites, images, videos and much, much more. And since the company's stated mission is to "organize the world's information" can tapping into popular microblogging services like Twitter be far behind?
Apparently not, at least according to the unofficial blog Google Operating System. In a weekend post, GOS said Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is readying a service that would search and index Twitter feeds. Google already offers separate search services focused on News and Blogs, and GOS says a microblogging search along these lines is in the works that would search results by relevancy and could also be integrated with Google's Web search engine.
While Twitter itself offers search, results are sorted by date. Also, Google's search service would include other microblogging services such as, in theory, FriendFeed. Google had no comment directly on the blog post.
Comment or no comment, it's painfully obvious that Google would be planning a move like this, even if should go ahead and buys Twitter, as is constantly rumored. A bunch of smaller third-party companies already offer some kind of Twitter search service. Why would the world's top online search vendor stay on the sidelines of such a hot market?
Then there's this InternetNews.com article by Alex Goldman:
Can Twitter one day beat Google in driving traffic to Web sites?
It's a radical notion, but to venture capitalist Fred Wilson, it's not an impossibility.
Speaking [in New York] today at the 140 Characters conference, Wilson discussed the ways in which Twitter could make money -- the same way that Google does, by driving traffic to Web sites.
"Google is powerful because it drives more traffic to more places than anywhere else," Wilson explained. "It is the source for 40 to 60 percent -- sometimes 80 percent -- of the traffic for sites I'm involved in."But, he said, he's seen Twitter -- and another social site that's rocketing to fame, Facebook -- growing faster than Google.
"Six months ago, I started noticing Twitter in the referrals on my blog. We invest in about 25 Web sites and they are willing to share analytics with us on a confidential basis. I compared the trend line for Twitter and Facebook to Google," he said. "Google is still dominant but it is growing at only about 1 percent per month. Facebook and Twitter are coming on hard. Traffic is growing at 30 to 40 percent per month from a small base."
I've seen similar percentages and trends. And while I'm a big Twitter fan, the service is a long way from challenging Google as a traffic referrer for most sites. This mostly is due to overall usage and familiarity. You'd be hard-pressed to find any Internet user who can't explain Google and how it works (at least generally). But try asking some relatives or people in your local coffee shop about Twitter and you'll get a range of responses from "I've been using it for a year" to "Is that the thing where you tell people what you had for lunch? It sounds stupid."
I think we'll have a much better idea of whether Twitter poses a threat to Google in a year or so.
With the announcement of Google Wave at the recent Google I/O conference in San Francisco, there has been a lot of speculation about what this technology means. Some have suggested that it's semantic technology at work, but is it? Experts we asked don't believe it is in its initial form, but it has the potential to be depending on how people end up using the programmatic hooks into Google Wave.Check back soon for more coverage from this experienced writer.Google Wave is a unified communications platform. Think of it as a container where you can have email, instant messaging, photos, video and live document sharing in a single place, but the beauty of it is that Waves (collections of interactions, documents and rich media) are not confined to the platform, so you could embed Wave technology in a blog or web site and have the same functionality as inside the program interface. What's more, you could see those interactions as part of the Google Wave interface, or you might never have to open the program, depending on how you implement it.
Just days after launching the Palm Pre on Saturday, Palm has named Jon Rubinstein as its new chairman and CEO, replacing Ed Colligan in a move that continues efforts by the handset maker to try to capitalize on what it sees as a new era in its history.
The news isn't too surprising. While Colligan appeared to be well respected in the industry, he's still charged with being at the helm during Palm's downward spiral during his 16 years of leadership.
Two years ago, Elevation Partners, backed by venture capitalist Roger McNamee and U2's Bono, bought a 25 percent controlling interest in Palm and brought in Rubinstein as the company's executive chairman -- a move aimed at turning the beleaguered handset maker around. Palm also said in a statement that Rubinstein, a former senior executive at Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) "joined Palm ... to help bring innovation back to the company."
Palm's new chief will be charged with nothing less than resurrecting Palm as a viable challenger in the fiercely competitive smartphone market while overseeing the roll out of a new ecosystem built around the Pre and webOS, the device's operating system.
Let's think it through (which I'm sure Palm already has). Your company has just launched a major product designed to spearhead its turnaround. It's getting good reviews and buzz, though still facing an uphill struggle against more popular competitors (the iPhone and BlackBerry). Then you announce you're dumping the CEO.
So what are the media and customers talking about now? The new product or the changes in upper management? And do those changes instill confidence in consumers, or just the opposite? Do consumers see a company determined to rebound or an organization in turmoil? Maybe they see neither and are interested only in the product. But how do you separate your opinion of the product (and support) from your assessment of the company's health?
It'd make a fascinating case study for a business school. You can argue the merits of each option that Palm no doubt considered: 1) Making the CEO change well before the launch 2) Making it well after the launch, when the Pre hype has faded, or 3) Doing what the company just did.
Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney is quoted as praising Rubenstein, but doesn't address the timing issue. If it were my call, I would have gone with option No. 1. That way you get the management change and media fallout behind you, then focus on the Pre launch. Then it really looks like the new guy is leading the company into a new era. But for some reason Palm neglected to consult me on this. I hate when companies do that.
I'd be curious to see what readers think. Feel free to weigh in with a comment below.
Microsoft's Live Search replacement, Bing, had a solid first day last week, according to one Web metrics firm. Now, a second firm says its research has found that Bing has had a solid first week.
According to a statement by tracking firm comScore, in its first week, Bing increased Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) search engine market penetration from 13.8 percent in a five-day period in May to 15.5 percent in the period of June 2 through 6, an increase of 1.7 percent.
Last Thursday, Bing was the second-place search engine worldwide, according to net metrics tracking firm StatCounter, which claims to monitor "in excess of ten billion page loads per month [globally]."
Would I prefer it to be someone other than Microsoft? I'm not going to lie. The answer is yes. But Microsoft never will take over the search market. However, what it can do -- and this would be a positive thing -- is provide a bit more competition for Google.
And while the jump from a 13.8% share to a 15.5% share isn't seismic (and could reverse itself), it's good that searchers are at least exploring options beyond Google.
Forget the laundry. The biggest mistake IT workers make when applying for a job is not focusing on results from past jobs, but rather, a laundry list of skills they've acquired.Prospective employers are much more interested in your effectiveness than your credentials. The best way for them to gauge what kind of impact you would have on their organization is for you to point to the impact you had in previous positions.
Don't go Cliff Notes. Another mistake is having a resume that is too brief. Making your resume fit into one page doesn't work in the IT industry.OK, if there's one place where a laundry list of skills is important and appropriate, it's your resume. If you're trained or qualified for anything relevant to the job you seek, here's the place where you can lay it all out.
Your homework assignment. Prior to going in to the interview, research the company. Go online, find out about their business, the products they make and the department you'd be working for.This is a no-brainer and easier than ever these days. Not only is there likely to be a ton of information on a company's web site, but you also should be able to get more information via social networking.
There may be an "I" in IT, but not in "team." Once you've landed the interview, prove you're good at communicating with people and will be a team player.It's important to be confident, warm and friendly in the interview. This will demonstrate to your interviewers that you have social skills, prerequisite No. 1 for being a team player.
There are three primary reasons why GM tanked: First, GM seemed to focus a lot of attention on high-margin gas guzzlers (case in point, the Hummer). Next, GM hit some competition from Toyota and Ford (both of which seemed to be better prepared for the economic crisis). Add to that the obvious, a financial recession, and we have a bankruptcy.While I think Microsoft is a long way from being in the desperate situation facing GM (or any of the American car manufacturers), it's an interesting comparison and analysis. Regarding marketing strategy -- and I know I'm in a minority here -- I didn't hate the Gates-Seinfeld ads nearly as much as others (including Bruzzese) did. But there's no doubt that Redmond doesn't market as well as Apple.
Now where does Microsoft stand in comparison? Some might say Microsoft has faced a few serious bumps over the last 10 years but came out fine. Going back to Windows Me (possibly the worst of the Windows releases), it was able to rebound with Windows XP. But the Vista debacle that began in 2006 has brought along an avalanche of critique. ...When you look at the many upgrades and varieties of Vista and now Windows 7, the slew of new System Center products, and the Xbox division (which may continue to do well with the new body controller idea), you have to ask if Microsoft is overbloating its product line. Is it stretching out in too many directions, instead of improving the core products and lowering the cost to consumers? ...
Microsoft will continue to have a long and healthy life ahead if it does three things: First, adopt a new marketing strategy. Second, let its developers go crazy and really nurture their product, trimming out solutions and honing the primary pillars of Microsoft (Windows, Office, and Windows Server). Third, provide a more reasonable price tag, starting with Windows 7.
Nielsen Online, which measures web traffic, said the number of minutes on social networks in the United States rose 83 percent in April from the same month a year ago, but found users were quick to move on and sites could quickly fall from favor.
The total number of minutes spent on Facebook surged 700 percent year-on-year to 13.9 billion in April this year from 1.7 billion a year ago, making it the No. 1 social networking site for the fourth consecutive month.News Corp's MySpace was second most popular but the number of minutes spent on this site fell 31 percent to 4.97 billion from 7.3 billion a year ago, although it remained the top social networking site when ranked by video streams.
Blogger, Tagged.com and Twitter.com came third, fourth and fifth respectively, with the number of minutes spent on Twitter -- that lets people send 140-character messages or Tweets -- rocketing 3,712 percent in April from a year ago.
Nielsen Online spokesman Jon Gibs points out that socnet popularity can be ephemeral. And that's true. Still, I wouldn't use that fact to erroneously conclude that social networking itself will have a brief shelf life. Clearly the kinds of features and interactions that socnet sites offer resonate with millions of Internet users. That won't go away. But brand loyalty always will be low when the cost of conversion is low. So yes, there will be winners and losers among the social networking providers as new applications and cool toys hit the market. And yes, many users will be short-term dabblers. However, overall social networking use will continue to grow at a rapid pace in the foreseeable future.
"Twitter is a new thing in China. The censors need time to figure out what it is. So enjoy the last happy days of twittering before the fate of Youtube descends on it one day.We're close to the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, and China is clearly stepping up its crackdown on high-tech dissidents. The list of blocked sites (or partially blocked sites) is growing and now includes Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Hotmail, and others. There's a lively discussion on censorship and the politics of modern China at Slashdot.
By the way, I want to point out that the Chinese Twitterland is funnier than the English one, for a Chinese tweet can have three times the volume of an English tweet, thanks to the high information intensity of the Chinese language. 140 Chinese characters can make up all the full elements of a news piece with the "5 Ws" (Who, What, Where, When and HoW). But the joy of the Chinese Twitterland is more fragile, and I hope that it will live longer in this country."
The upgrades build on tools such as the IBM Rational Requirements Composer, announced late last year, that help companies track application development by tying together collaboration and logging software.
"Up until this point, organizations have been lax in measuring the business value and discipline of the processes they use to deliver software assets. Classic metrics in software engineering largely ignore the importance of actual business outcomes," Daniel Sabbah, general manager for IBM Rational Software, said in a statement.
"Our clients are now beginning to realize that the software they build or assemble must be treated as a strategic business asset. IBM is committed to helping them make the right decisions and improve the successful outcomes of this newly emerging business process discipline," he added.
Big Blue made the announcements at the 2009 Rational Software Conference in Orlando.
"Data from the actual developer project" instead of fingers in the wind? Who runs businesses that way?At the top of the IBM stack is IBM Rational Insight, which provides the dashboard to display data stored in and queried through IBM Cognos.
Specialized products serve specific needs. For example IBM Rational Focal Point for Project Management helps people work together at every level. "It empowers the CTO to make informed decisions about the projects they're working on, helping align the business strategy with real-time metrics through quantitative assessment," Dave Locke, director of marketing at IBM Rational, told InternetNews.com.
The software tracks requirements, replacing the guesswork of status meetings with real data, according to Locke. Instead of "relying on humans to put their finger in the wind and give assessments," the system uses data from the actual developer project.
