10 Microsoft research projects
Innovation is not just about cool new products. In technology, the best ideas require a) really smart people and b) lots of funding. For the past 33 years, Microsoft has had both in spades.
Innovation is not just about cool new products. In technology, the best ideas require a) really smart people and b) lots of funding. For the past 33 years, Microsoft has had both in spades.
Leetspeak, Internet shorthand, computer jargon for instant messaging -- whatever you call them, initialisms like BRB, LOL and BTW have now entered the public lexicon. (I know a few teenagers who actually say LOL to each other in person!)
A personal diary, the latest tech gossip, new Web sites of note, hypertext links to upcoming Apple products -- there's a blog for just about every topic under the sun, and the quality of these daily journals is all over the map.
Have you heard this story?
Techdirt.com posted many weeks ago about the charges against Lori Drew related to the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier in 2006. In the post, which has the subhead that being a jerk isn't illegal, Mike Masnick argues that there is an attempt to prosecute Drew for "something, even if there's little evidence she actually broke the law." In the case, the prosecutors say Drew is responsible for Internet fraud by using a fake MySpace name. It got me thinking: what should be the consequences for Internet use in this way?
I'm continually amazed at how the premier Web properties are willing to share what they are doing. We get to peek behind the curtain routinely. Google and Yahoo both have good lab pages, but there's some seriously experimental stuff on the Mozilla labs page. Here's what they're up to.
WAN optimization in a large enterprise is a nascent and headline-grabbing market. Still, IT managers are faced with the burning question: Is it really worth the investment?
What responsibility does Google have in terms of your "visual privacy"? Meaning, should they be "privy" to the junk that is laying about my yard, the car in my driveway, the cat in my lawn?
Twitter is broken, but that's okay -- every time it breaks, it makes news. Every time it makes news, it squeezes out the competition and makes them look like a pale imitation. Even sites like Plurk just can't keep pace with the Twitter surge: 12 million users and counting.
With a skyrocketing stock price, fanboy hysteria and -- most importantly -- really useful products, Google is the prima donna of tech for the new millennium.
A tech-support call starts it all. Why is my application running slow? What happened to my spreadsheet data? Is HQ using a 56K modem to handle traffic for my branch office -- again? The number of calls suddenly increases, and network analysis reveals unforeseen usage spikes at a new marketing location. The dream of data-center consolidation turns into a nightmare.
What can you use for kindling, a door stop, shooting practice or boosting a toddler up to the table?
Disaster planning traditionally focuses on three variables: data center replication, building design and backups. Analysts have maintained for years that the most common "disaster" is outright hardware failure because of faulty data center design, for instance, when the "emergency power off" button is hit, either accidentally or on purpose. Yet, for many enterprises throughout the US, the reality is that recovery plans should be customized for whichever type of major disaster is most likely to occur in any given area.
Promises, promises. When a new mobile phone appears on the market, or a new wireless standard emerges, the pundits and prognosticators chime in about all the game-changing possibilities.
Sometimes a technology idea is too good to be true. A flexible keyboard, Internet voting and watching feature films on your smart phone are examples. Today, these concepts are still evolving, but they're broken right now. I'll tell you why and what could be done to fix them once and for all.