Author Archive | David Worthington

Google Burrows into Internet Explorer

Posted by David Worthington on September 22, 2009 at 11:30 pm

Google Explorer Today, Google announced a plug-in for Internet Explorer that usurps the IE browsing engine’s role, rendering pages with Google Chrome instead. The plug-in, called Google Chrome Frame, targets Web developers who must program around IE 6’s proprietary quirks.

Internet Explorer remains the world’s dominant Web browser, but many of its users are running archaic versions of the software –to the frustration of Microsoft and its critics alike. Older versions of the browser do not support the latest standards, hindering what users can do on the Web.

Google argues that Chrome’s Webkit and JavaScript engines will seamlessly bring IE up to par, awhile preserving the interface that people are accustomed to in IE 6 and IE 7. Microsoft has largely solved its issues with standards support with IE 8, but Google Frame targets it as well.

Of course people will have to install the plug-in, which requires a 10MB download. Web developers will also have to modify their HTML code to invoke the plug-in. Nonetheless, it’s a new approach to getting people to upgrade their browsers.

Google is using an attrition strategy to bring IE users on board with Chrome. I could not imagine why any corporate IT folks would install this plug-in; they keep IE installed for compatibility reasons. Microsoft has also enabled legacy support in IE 8.

Google Chrome Frame is a neat technology, but I don’t expect that your mother will end up using it unless it is bundled with software that people widely use. Google might attempt to leverage its Web properties, but many people are a creature of habit. My father is still using AOL, and my attempt to move him to Gmail failed.

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GOP Moves to Block Net Neutrality

Posted by David Worthington on September 21, 2009 at 5:00 pm

Julius Genachowski A Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposal that would require Internet service providers to treat all network traffic equally was met with resistance by Republicans on Capitol Hill today.

FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski is expected to unveil a policy that advocates network neutrality this week. If the policy is implemented, providers would no longer be able to interfere with information that flows through their networks. ISPs, including Comcast, have managed peer-to-peer network traffic to alleviate network congestion, and oppose the concept.

Senate Republicans also stand in opposition to net neutrality, and moved to deny the FCC funding for developing or implementing new Internet regulations. Genachowski was appointed to the FCC by President Obama.

“I am deeply concerned by the direction the FCC appears to be heading. Even during a severe downturn, America has experienced robust investment and innovation in network performance and online content and applications,” Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said in a statement. ” She said that regulations could stifle innovation, and that the marketplace would respond to companies that exhibit questionable behavior.

Vinton Cerf, co-inventor of the Internet Protocol and Google evangalist, and Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, favor network neutrality. Berners-Lee believes that ISPs seek to shift customers to a tiered pricing model, where access to information pipelines will be tightly controlled.

I agree with Berners-Lee, and would rather see preemptive regulation than for Internet users to lose the benefits of the Internet. Toll booths would impede–not encourage–innovation. What do you think?

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Analyst Predicts Rise in PC Sales

Posted by David Worthington on September 18, 2009 at 2:40 pm

IDG is reporting that sales of PC desktops and laptops are rising ahead of Windows 7’s October 22 launch date. The strong demand is unexpected, analysts said.

PC sales in July and August caught Manish Nigam, director of technology research in Asia for Credit Suisse, off guard, IDG is reporting. Credit Suisse had held the expectation that consumers would hold off purchasing new equipment until after Windows 7 ships.

Microsoft’s pre-sale marketing campaign, where it offered customers discounted upgrades for a limited time, appears to have been successful. But I question whether enthusiasm for Windows 7 PCs will be sustained after its launch, or if those early adopters were just being extremely cost-conscious.

In March, Gartner predicted a significant drop in PC sales for the year, noted the rise in popularity of low-cost netbooks, and said that PC users were extending the lifetimes of their equipment. Windows 7 will be a sales boon for Microsoft, but it might lack the potency of previous Windows releases.

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Ticketmaster Goes Paperless to Cut Out Scalpers

Posted by David Worthington on September 18, 2009 at 2:34 pm

The middleman’s days may be numbered by a new paperless ticketing system that is being introduced by Ticketmaster, according to reports.

I have yet to go to any concert or sporting event that didn’t have scalpers soliciting sales outside, and they are not alone–brokers buy lots of tickets and sell them on eBay at inflated prices. That frustrated me when I attempted to purchase U.S. Open tennis tickets earlier this month.

Although I am not a fan of Ticketmaster, paperless ticketing is a good idea. The paperless system requires that tickets be purchased online by customers, and customers prove their purchase by showing gate attendants their credit card and identification when they arrive at an event.

Ticketmaster was mindful to set up an electronic exchange where customers can resell their tickets. Naturally, it charges a “convenience fee” for transactions, but it helps keep prices down by eliminating the need for secondary ticket exchanges including eBay subsidiary StubHub.

My U.S. Open tickets were purchased through StubHub, and I felt like I was ripped off by paying an additional mark up. The AP reports that Ticketmaster’s exchange transaction fees amounted to $1.95, or 15 percent per ticket, during a pilot at Penn State University.

Fees were raised to $7.89 during the Nittany Lions’ home opener, and revenue was shared with the university. There’s a reason why the company has earned the not so endearing nickname of “Ticketbastard.”

Ticketmaster has a near-monopoly over ticket sales, but competitors including TicketSherpa.com have sprung up, and musicians who have taken a stand on behalf of fans have helped to keep its fees in check.

Nine Inch Nails, which has been critical of TicketMaster in the past, is supportive of its paperless system. On its Web site, the band said that the system was “an effort to keep tickets in the hands of the fans and out of the hands of brokers/scalpers.”

I welcome paperless ticketing, partly because I do not see why it is necessary to print out tickets anymore during the digital age, but also due to the fact that scalpers really annoy me. I think that we’d all be better off if they took up selling beer in stadium parking lots instead.

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Apple Scrubs Snow Leopard’s Spots

Posted by David Worthington on September 11, 2009 at 4:13 pm

OS X Snow Leopard Apple has delivered a service pack for its Snow Leopard operating system just a matter of two weeks after it shipped. The company says that the update will “enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac.”

The update targets specific issues such as device driver compatibility and performance, stuck DVD drives, and SMTP routing. More importantly, it fixes three major security vulnerabilities, including one that Apple introduced by bundling an outdated version of Adobe’s Flash run time that had a well-publicized security hole.

Apple already patched existing versions of OS X for the vulnerability in July. That should have been a showstopper for Snow Leopard’s distribution.

Continue Reading →

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DOJ Investigates Microhoo

Posted by David Worthington on September 11, 2009 at 3:39 pm

The U.S. Department of Justice is placing the Microsoft-Yahoo search partnership under greater scrutiny, according to reports. The DOJ is allegedly requesting more information about ad pricing, product plans, and search engine investments.

Microsoft was prosecuted in the 1990s for abusing its monopoly position in the desktop operating system market, so it comes as no surprise that the company is operating under the long shadow of government regulators. However, in the search engine area Microsoft is playing underdog to Google, which comScore reports held 64.7 percent share of the U.S search market in July.

In comparison, Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo have a combined 28.2 percent share. If the deal is approved, Microsoft will be in a position to claw its way up to compete with Google. The company is rumored to be preparing to launch an upgrade to Bing before the end of the month, and is spending profusely to promote Bing.

The only people who have any right to be upset about the deal are Yahoo’s shareholders. Shortly after the deal was announced, some shareholders began to cry bloody murder over Yahoo’s use of the Bing search engine for nothing in return.

Further, Yahoo did not receive an upfront payment to make the deal happen, as many Yahoo investors had hoped. The deal’s complexity also makes it unlikely that any company other than Microsoft will be able to acquire Yahoo over its 10-year duration. None of that concerns the DOJ.

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Obama Praises Tech Giants

Posted by David Worthington on September 8, 2009 at 9:50 pm

U.S. President Barack Obama heralded the technology industry in a speech today about the importance of education. The speech, which was given to school children across the country, emphasized personal responsibility, hard work, and perseverance.

In his remarks, Obama told school children that students sitting in classrooms a generation beforehand had grown up to produce Facebook, Google and Twitter –changing the way Americans communicate with one another. Those successes would have been hard to come by without an education, the President noted.

Obama successfully leveraged social networking in his campaign to become President, building a large grassroots following on the Web. His campaign leveraged Web services to rapidly convey his message and to respond to political attacks.

Despite the President’s praise, technology didn’t get a free pass in his speech. He cautioned against too much of a good thing, and asked parents to manage how much time their children spend watching TV and playing Xbox. (Obama singled out Microsoft’s game console rather than mentioning the PlayStation and Wii as well, a fact some folks noticed). He also told children to be careful about what they post online (which was a world away from President Eisenhower’s generic appeal for students to study math and science).

Here’s the speech in its entirety, in two chunks–thank you, YouTube:

Controversy aside, the President gave common sense advise that it would behoove every child to follow. Maybe the inventor of the next big thing was listening in, and became inspired by the President’s words.

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Microsoft’s Patent Pipedream

Posted by David Worthington on September 3, 2009 at 10:32 pm

Yesterday, Microsoft’s Deputy General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez called for a world authority on patents, and a single judicial body for litigation. The world needs to cycle more resources toward processing backlogged patent applications and to allow corporations to protect their intellectual property, he said.

“By facing the challenges, realizing a vision, overcoming political barriers, and removing procedural obstacles we can build a global patent system that will promote innovation, enrich public knowledge, encourage competition and drive economic growth and employment,” he added. “The time is now–the solutions are in reach,” he wrote.

After reading Gutierrez’s blog, I began to consider how many interests are vying to influence patent reform in the U.S alone. The politics of patents become infinitely more complicated internationally. Stanford law professor Mark Lemley mused that a standard global patent system may be a good idea, but then so is world peace, obviously making light of Guiterrez’s lofty goal.

Don’t look for this to happen in the immediate future, however.

Continue Reading →

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Windows 7 House Parties = Astroturfing

Posted by David Worthington on September 3, 2009 at 8:32 pm

People are not lining up outside of storefronts at midnight to buy Windows anymore, but that won’t stop Microsoft from creating the impression that the masses are fawning over Windows 7. The company is asking people to host house parties when the OS launches on Oct. 22. The Potemkin village has become the Potemkin house party.

Microsoft has adopted a PR technique that many large corporations and interests groups use to advance their positions in the absence of any significant public support: astroturfing. Astroturfing is a PR technique that is used to manufacture the impression of grassroots behavior. There are many examples of it being utilized to affect public policy.

Taking a handful of launch parties, and making it seem as if they are a widespread phenomenon would be astroturfing. I would not be surprised if that is what Microsoft has in mind. Many reporters will fall for it.

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