Virtual machines can’t leave the platform that made them
Major virtualization vendors have developed proprietary disk formats, leading to difficulties in cross-platform migration. While a standardized format is needed, vendor lock-in…
Municipal WiFi promised free internet for a city. The economics never worked.
Concerns arise as citywide free WiFi projects falter, revealing flaws in their business models. Initial optimism missed economic realities, requiring more infrastructure…
Two different businesses called advertising
Google closed its purchase of DoubleClick this month, and the interesting thing about it is that it puts two fundamentally different businesses…
Nvidia is selling graphics cards with no display output
There is a product in Nvidia’s catalogue that is a graphics card in every respect except that you cannot plug a monitor…
The Kindle is a shop with a screen attached
Amazon’s reading device went on sale in November, sold out in under six hours, and has been unavailable ever since. Four months…
Multi-core was a surrender, not a roadmap
Quad-core processors are now ordinary in a mid-range desktop, and the marketing describes this as the natural continuation of getting faster. It…
Research in Motion BlackBerry 7100 Launches Consumer-Focused Smartphone
Research in Motion launched the BlackBerry 7100 on March 24, 2005 as first consumer-focused BlackBerry device establishing platform presence beyond exclusive enterprise…
Facebook let strangers run its growth experiments
I argued last spring that MySpace had the registered accounts and Facebook had the people who came back, and that the published…
Apple Unveils MacBook Pro with Unibody Aluminum Design, Multi-Touch Trackpad, LED Displays
Apple introduced MacBook Pro updated lineup on February 26, 2008 featuring ultrathin unibody aluminum enclosure construction replacing previous plastic and separate aluminum…
The iPhone still can’t do the thing carriers are now selling as the whole pitch
AT&T is running adverts for a USB stick. Plug it into a laptop, and you get internet access anywhere there is a…
Hulu was “Clown Co.” a year ago. The beta doesn’t look stupid anymore.
NBC Universal and News Corp’s collaboration on a streaming site, initially ridiculed as "Clown Co.," has evolved. The beta platform offers licensed,…
Polaroid is done making the thing digital could never quite copy
Polaroid is ceasing production of instant film and cameras, shifting to licensing its name for digital products. Digital photography replaced instant film's…
S3 went down and everyone read the terms of service
On Friday morning Amazon’s storage service stopped answering. Not slowly, not partially. Requests failed, and they kept failing for a couple of…
Motorola Razr V3 Released as Ultra-Thin Premium Mobile Phone
Motorola announced the Motorola Razr V3 on July 13, 2004 as revolutionary mobile phone emphasizing ultra-thin form factor at 13.9mm thickness establishing…
The iPhone SDK terms matter more than the SDK
Apple has said a development kit is coming and the entire mobile industry is now waiting to find out what the terms…