Tech Buzz

Yesterday, Bill Gates was supposed to give the best keynote talk in his history, but given I write this column the week before it is published I have no idea whether he actually delivered the goods. Steve Jobs doesn't do his thing until after the column publishes and most of you are still in the dar...

Remember when AOL thought it was doing the world's researchers a big favor and made a boatload of online user behavior data openly available? Remember the unintended consequences? It became fairly easy to link up user preference data with some actual identifiable users. Users were upset, AOL looked ...

For this last column of 2006, I thought it would be interesting to look ahead to 2007 and explore the battles that are to come. The three big ones are the Battle for the Digital Home, the Battle for your Pocket, and the Battle for Your Lap. The fighters include Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, HP, Dell, G...

It took about an hour before I finally switched from thinking that my initial experiences with Second Life were a waste of time, to actually finding them being productive in new ways. I was one of a 3D flurry of invited "VIPs" to enter an IBM pavilion inside Second Life. With my unique personage ava...

I know a lot of you will be spending time with your families and, if you are like me, you may be looking for some things to talk about that aren't religion or politics but just as likely to result in a heated holiday "discussion." Since the iPod, Apple's valuation has shot up like a rocket, while Mi...

There are only 10 days left in 2006, ample time to review -- and hopefully learn from -- past mistakes, including at least five policy blunders that should not have happened in California this year. For example, by preemptively classifying nanotech products as "hazardous materials," Berkeley politic...

Have you heard what a certain software company has been saying about next-generation IT development and deployment strategies? There's this gem about service-oriented architecture: SOA "is not about a product or skill, but rather it's about style of how one comes up with a system." Or: SOA should al...

I spent much of last week in Brazil watching five South American University teams show prototypes of their ideas on what the majority of the world needs in personal computing hardware and services. In addition, last week Congress once again went after HP -- but this time seemed to step in front of t...

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., caused a political firestorm recently when he said he wanted to reinstate a military draft. His radical proposal brings to light a growing theme that both political parties should consider very closely. In a world where science provides better health and improves the pro...

Linux is fast becoming my operating system of choice because it lacks the software bloat and high overhead plaguing both Microsoft and Apple computing. Those words do not come easily to me. I have been a devout Windows user from the early days. Each Linux distribution offers a distinct flavor of the...