Blog Archives
That is one shiny, dumb, clever, piece of hardware
By David Needle | August 28, 2009MENLO PARK, Calif. -- Long before PCs, there were computer terminals tied to mainframes. That's how computing was done. These terminals were called "dumb" because they didn't have much in the way of internal processing, their main function was to provide access to the almighty mainframe -- think old black and white science fiction movies.
Over the years, these terminals, or thin clients as they're called these days, have gotten "smarter," sporting more local processing and storage that can make them a cost-effective alternative to PCs, particularly for users who run a limited number of applications.
Enter Pano Logic which wants to return to the good old dumb days -- and for good reason. I wrote about the debut of the company's [innovative Pano cube](/reporters_notebook/article.php/3698556/Five+Hundred+iPhones+One+Paperless+Conference.htm) two years ago. Pano didn't seem be making much traction, but I was interested to see a year later that it hired John Kish, the former CEO of thin client leader Wyse, to head the company.
During a recent visit to Pano Logic's headquarters here, Kish held one of the shiny silver Pano cubes in his hand and explained why this new generation of dumb is delightful. (*Photo by David Needle)*
"These are truly stateless devices without anything on them. They're dumb as sand. There's no image to download, nothing."
Okay, maybe Jerry Seinfeld can pitch a show about nothing, but what's in it for IT?
"What we sell is a virtualization solution," says Kish. "The hardware is not essential. We've knitted the stack, the connection broker and all the drivers to run in the VM (virtual machine)."
**Go ahead, run Windows**
The Pano Device, as the company calls it, is a zero client because it has no CPU, no memory, no operating system, drivers, software or moving parts. It has connections for a keyboard, mouse, VGA display and audio along with other USB peripherals. Standard Ethernet connections to the network and datacenter means the Pano can run a virtualized instance of Windows giving users access to familiar PC applications.
Mac design consultant explains Apple's edge
By David Needle | August 28, 2009MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Hartmut Esslinger, who helped design the original Macintosh 25 years ago, says many tech companies still don't get one of the keys to Apple's success.
"Design doesn't stand alone, it's a coordinated profession. People think it's about beauty, but it's really about connected technology, science, people and business. A lot of stuff doesn't sell because it's designed for the engineer," he said this morning at a [Churchill Club](http://www.churchillclub.org) event here.
Esslinger had worked earlier at Sony which helped him get in the door at Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and gain the confidence of ultra-picky CEO Steve Jobs, beating out an ad agency in the process for his then small company, the legendary [Frog Design](http://www.frogdesign.com).
"We talked about design and I asked Steve what he wanted to do with the Mac. He said he wanted a million people to use it, not 10,000," Esslinger recalled. (*Photo by David Needle*)
A million personal computers was considered big time mass market back then.
"He didn't like our design in the beginning, but he's the best learner in world," Esslinger recalled, noting the Mac's design was meant to convey the feeling of California -- "sexy, young and dynamic."
**Say hello to my little friend**
He added the idea was to design the Mac to look like a person, to create "a little friend."
While Jobs is routinely criticized for a dictatorial, my way or the highway, style, Esslinger said strong company leadership is important. He noted at Sony it took much longer to get ideas approved because it was a bottoms up process.
"At Apple it's top down and things happen right away," he said. "A lot of people totally underestimate how important leadership is. Look at the iPhone, that shows someone who really cares."
**Dinging Dell's design**
The event format was a Q&A with entrepreneur and original Apple evangelist [Guy Kawasaki](http://www.guykawasaki.com/) who asked why companies like Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), with tons of money, can't match Apple's aesthetic -- actually he asked why their computers "look like crap."
Are Web-driven multitaskers suckers for irrelevancy?
By David Needle | August 27, 2009From the "There's no such as multitasking" files, part two.
Multitasking may be fun or stimulating, but it's not an effective way to get things done or retain information, according to a study released by Stanford University researchers this week.
"We kept looking for what they're better at and we didn't find it," said Eyal Ophir, one of the study's lead authors and a researcher in Stanford's Communication Between Humans and Interactive Media Lab.
The researchers said they tested a group of "high tech jugglers" who tend to carry on some combination of e-mail and instant messaging conversations, text messaging and Web surfing, while also doing homework and watching TV.
A group more inclined to complete tasks one at a time was given the same three sets of tests.
I reported earlier on [information overload expert ](/bus-news/article.php/3737601/Information+Overload+Is+There+a+Cure.htm)Jonathan Spira, who challenged the notion multitasking is even possible. Spira's point was that humans can't literally do more than one thing simultaneously -- there's always a gap, even if its nanoseconds, between our actions. And as a Stanford release on their study noted:
"The brain just can't do it. But many researchers have guessed that people who appear to multitask must have superb control over what they think about and what they pay attention to."
Not so, according to the study's findings. Multitaskers are "suckers for irrelevancy," said communication Professor Clifford Nass, one of the researchers whose findings are published in the Aug. 24 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Everything distracts them," Nass said in a release.
The three tests are described [here](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august24/multitask-research-study-082409.html). In each case, the low multitaskers did much better than the heavy multitaskers in terms of sorting out information and remembering things.
**Is it nature or nurture?**
The researchers are still studying whether chronic media multitaskers are born with an inability to concentrate or are damaging their cognitive control by willingly taking in so much at once. But whatever the cause, the researchers are convinced these modern day multitasker mnds aren't working as well as they could.
"When they're in situations where there are multiple sources of information coming from the external world or emerging out of memory, they're not able to filter out what's not relevant to their current goal," said Anthony Wagner, an associate professor of psychology involved in the study.
"That failure to filter means they're slowed down by that irrelevant information."
Rogue SF Network Admin Gets Break on Charges
By David Needle | August 25, 2009Remember Terry Childs? He was the system administrator of San Francisco's fiber-optic wide area network (WAN) arrested last year for [illegal tampering with the city's network ](/security/article.php/3796346/Rogue+SF+Sysadmin+Contests+Charges.htm)and then locking it down so authorized administrators couldn't access it.
He's been held on four felony charges since July, 2008, related to the network tampering, but now the *San Francisco Chronicle* reports a judge has tossed three of the four charges against him.
San Francisco's FiberWAN network carries 60 percent of city data, including police records, city payroll data and jail booking information. Childs eventually surrendered the password information, but only after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom [spoke to him in prison](/security/article.php/3760631/San+Francisco+Hack+Where+Was+the+Oversight.htm).
Childs was accused of holding the network hostage when he refused to provide the proper codes and passwords for several days after he was told he was being reassigned from his job in the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services.
The *Chronicle* reports Superior Court Judge Kevin McCarthy tossed out three tampering allegations. Childs' lawyers had tried to get [the three charges dropped](/government/article.php/3801376/Legal+Wrangling+in+Rogue+SysAdmin+Case.htm) back in February, claiming they were too vague and that there was insufficient evidence behind them.
South Park's naughty start now on the Web.
By David Needle | August 13, 2009Fans of the potty-mouthed animated series South Park can find the "classic" pilot episode on the Web for a limited, 30-day period. The Web version of this "rarely-seen, original hand-made" pilot episode includes four minutes of additional footage that never made it to air when it was first shown in 1997.
Like me, you're probably wondering what four minutes could have been left out of the pilot that was the basis for the series' Emmy award winning premier episode "Cartman Gets An Anal Probe." You'll just have to [watch it ](www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/pilot)to find out.
The pilot was created entirely by hand on construction paper and was animated primarily by the shows creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
The Southparkstudios.com site](http://www.Southparkstudios.com) has been a comprehensive source of all things Southpark, airing full episodes and clips of every episode as well as behind-the-scenes info from all 12 seasons.
South Park is the highest rated series on Comedy Central.
TV studios have been experimenting with different ways to leverage content on the Web, while others have taken rejiggered the classic TV sitcom idea into [Webisodes ](/webcontent/article.php/3801016/Reality+TV+Ads+and+All+Comes+to+Facebook.htm)tailored to a Web audience.
What does Intel know about information overload?
By David Needle | August 07, 2009From the, "just what we need, another holiday" files.
Just kidding, it's not a holiday but a marketing gimmick by [Basex ](http://www.basex.com)to get folks to focus on the problem of information overload -- and gimmick or not, that is a worthwhile cause.
The half-day, [Information Overload Awareness Day](http://www.informationoverloadday.com/), August 12, is an online event featuring Nathan Zeldes, who Basex Chief Analyst Jonathan Spira describes as the former "Information Overload Czar" at Intel, a Basex client. Attendees will receive an executive summary of the Basex report "Intel's War Against Information Overload."
I've written about [Basex's efforts](/bus-news/article.php/3737601/Information+Overload+Is+There+a+Cure.htm) several times the past few years. Spira has been banging the drum for some time with detailed analysis of how information overload zaps productivity and now he's bringing some experts together online to bring better focus to the issue.
Basex says today knowledge workers lose 25 percent of the work day due to Information Overload and by 2012 the typical knowledge worker will receive hundreds of messages each day via e-mail, IM, text, and social networks (good to know I'm ahead of the curve already)!
Other speakers include Colonel Peter Marksteiner (U.S. Air Force), Christina Randle of Effective Edge and Mark Hurst, author of "Bit Literacy."
(*Image Courtesy of Basex*)
Cost is $50, but there's a cute twist: attendees who promise not to multi-task (i.e. IM, e-mail, or text) during the event will receive a half-price discount. I've also been told you can get in for free by entering the code: InternetnewsGuest.
"We have met the enemy and he is us," Spira told me. "We have to change our behavior."
While he's quick to note e-mail is only one of the sources of information overload, he has a particular pet peeve on the misuse or overuse of "reply all" in electronic correspondence.
Silicon Valley's 'coach' shares leadership tips
By David Needle | August 06, 2009When it comes to Silicon Valley's tech scene, Bill Campbell has seen it all.
He was an executive vice president at Apple in 1980s where had a front row seat for the famous Steve Jobs, John Sculley schism that ended with Jobs resigning from the company he co-founded.
"That didn't work out too well," Campbell deadpanned during his onstage appearance at last week's [AlwaysOn Summit](http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/32096) at Stanford.
He currently is an Apple board member and says of Jobs, who is also a neighbor and friend:
"He has personal idiosyncrasies .... But there is not a thing he does that is not perfect. He won't do it if he can't manage it. He cares about every pixel on the screen and surrounds himself at Apple with people that believe the way he does."
Campbell was also CEO of once high-profile startup Go Corp, which got a lot of buzz for its pen computing software for tablets. He's also served as an advisor to numerous top tech execs including Amazon (CEO Jeff Bezos), Google (founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin) and elsewhere. For the past ten years he's been chairman of Intuit after a stint as CEO.
His motivation tips extend back to the 1970s when for six years Campbell was the head football coach at Columbia University.
Campbell told [the audience of investors and tech startups](/webcontent/article.php/3833056/Twitter+Rules+for+Now+But+Whats+Next.htm) not to "mistake charisma for great leadership. An HR person Debbie taught me this a long time ago, your title makes you a manager, your people make you a leader."
There's no magic to becoming a CEO, Campbell said, insisting anyone in the room could achieve it. "You need to understand the fundamental management practices and that's not hard to get."
Looking back at the dotcom crash he says too many companies were worried about money. But he's not all that sure the criticism that there was too much emphasis on attracting "eyeballs" or hits to a Web site, was all that unfounded.
"You really want the product to be accepted and you have to be sure people are using your Web site, service or product. Some people got bad marks in 1990s for (a strategy of collecting) eyeballs, but you look today, there's something to be said for the wonderful acceptance of Facebook and Twitter.
**"I'm a growth guy"**
"I'd rather have their problem then someone who says I can charge $5 and get three customers." Given the choice of quick money versus growth, Campbell says "I'm a growth guy."
What he tries to do as an advisor is "course correct." Campbell says he has basic beliefs about how a company should be managed and grow in a way that's sustainable. I try to help the management team get better every day," he said.
Those basics include answering questions like:
"What are we doing that we can really ship?"
"Who is it for?"
And Campbell is a big believer in R&D investment. "Without great products you're never going to be a great company," he says.
At Intuit he says they might have five projects in development at any one time.
"If two make it that's great, if three that's a home run."
Obama's CTO Has Browser Issues
By David Needle | August 05, 2009MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- The [Computer History Museum](http://www.computerhistory.org/) houses some very [old computers](http://pdp-1.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/), but that wasn't the only out-dated technology on the mind of President Obama's CTO in a speech here last night.
[Aneesh Chopra laid out a bold technology agenda](/bus-news/article.php/3833441/Obama+CTO+Chopra+Schmoozes+Silicon+Valley.htm) before an attentive Silicon Valley crowd -- a nationwide smart grid, networked schools, electronic health records, open government and more. But that doesn't mean he always has access to the latest tools.
The White House is saddled with some pretty old technology. Chopra expressed frustration, for example, that he couldn't access sites like the [Mint.com](http://www.mint.com) personal finance site. "I can't access hardly anything," he said. "I wanted to go to Mint.com, but the browser is so old I can't use it."
A Mint.com spokesperson said Mint doesn't support anything older than Internet Explorer 6 and is dropping 6 support next year. IE 6 came out in 2001 along with Windows XP.
The problem isn't limited to the White House either. My colleague Sean Michael Kerner [recently blogged ](http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2009/07/will-the-us-state-dept-please.html)about a State Department official voicing his frustration that the Mozilla Firefox browser hadn't made the approval list.
And these are tiny issues compared to the many tech challenges Chopra faces.
One of those is making broadband access more universal. Chopra noted U.S. consumers send and receive increasing amounts of images, music, video and other bandwidth-hungry files. "We consume more data as we embrace more of the digital life," he said.
"We can assume Internet video and so many applications coming we don't even know about yet. We're seeing the same hyper-growth in the private sector."
Better update that browser.
Fantasy Football on Facebook could ... go ... all the way
By David Needle | August 03, 2009The NFL season hasn't started yet, but if you're itching to get in the game Mountain View, Calif.-based [Watercooler ](http://www.watercooler-inc.com/index.html)might do the trick. The company just launched FanSection Fantasy Football 2009, a fantasy sports league with unique social network features.
FanSection says it's already lined up Coors Light as its official sponsor for the season; a nice fit since Coors Light is also the 'official beer of the NFL' in case you were wondering.
If you haven't heard of FanSection, they're the big sports Kahuna on Facebook. FanSection says it's the number one sports property on Facebook with more than 600 applications and more than 25 million registered users.
"Traditionally, fantasy football has been very siloed among 8 to 10 people," Bryan Bennett, FanSection's general manager, told me. "We're going to extend to a user's social graph on Facebook. Spectators play a huge role in the game and we think we can bring in more participation by allowing users to extend their social graph. Our key vision is creating a social fantasy sports game."
Players can leverage that extended social graph in several ways. You can celebrate wins posting game scores to your profile or taunt friends and opponents by posting game scores to their profile or, the old standby, simply talk smack to other teams.
You can also take polls or invite friends to join trivia and player/team discussions.
FanSection also says it's fleshed out the content available via partnership with CBSSports.com. The latter is providing a draft kit and fantasy news and video content as well as player information and updates. Basic commissioner game play and scoring is free. There's a fee for premium features that include live scoring, up-to-the-minute game stats and custom reports and content.
"In the past we've been primarily advertiser driven," said Bennett. "Now it's completely free to play the game. There's an upsell to see the stats, $4.95 for the season. We anticipate an uptake of 15 to 20 percent of the users will pay, but the game can be played without it.
"The real-time scores adds the social element. I've been playing with the same group for eight or nine years and the ability to rip your friends ... it never gets old."
