Wednesday 24 February 2010

Google's European issues

A couple of bits of news today concern European legal action against US Internet giant Google. However, they couldn't be further apart regarding their validity.

First we got the news that Google is joining an exclusive club, which includes the likes of Microsoft and Google, and is coming under the EC spotlight to see if any of its business practices are anti-competitive. Intriguingly, Microsoft seems to be the primary driver behind the complaint to the EC and the issue is whether Google is unfairly moving its competitors down the list of search results.

It's right and proper that Google comes under this scrutiny. I've read some comments that Google is not a monopoly because there is choice, but regardless of choice, once a company comes to own the vast majority of a market - however fairly it got there - a special set of rules apply and it has to do more than other companies to show it is not harming competition.

A contrastingly ridiculous ruling came from an Italian judge who held individual Google employees liable for a nasty video posted on Google in 2006. The precedent this sets is for all content hosting platforms - such as Blogger, on which this is written - to be liable for all content uploaded onto them. It's obviously not viable for host platforms to individually vet all content before it's uploaded, and thus absurd to hold them responsible for it.

Thursday 18 February 2010

Bored in Barcelona

So, we were on the plane back from mwc and they said there was a strange smell in the cockpit. They decided to turn back and everyone shat themselves til we landed.

Now it's 1am and I'm still in a queue waiting to put on another flight. BA really arsed this up.

Monday 15 February 2010

Queuing at MWC 2010

The first day of mwc 2010 has so far been a succession of queues for press events, first for Intel/Nokia and now Microsoft.

Still, I've managed to get the loan of a Google nexus one so I'm playing with that while I wait.

It's excellent for accessing Google cloud services but the touch screen takes a bit of getting used to and the home screen seems to have gone mad.

Thursday 11 February 2010

Keeping up with the Joneses

It used to be having the latest gadget, but among the technorati status is defined by how many clever new bits of software you're currently playing with. If you're not using Dump, the new cloud app that lets you chronicle whenever go to the toilet and share it with your virtual social circle then you clearly don't get social networking.

The mobile phone industry is currently obsessed with social networking as a demand driver, but how many people older than 25 have a) the time to constantly update their 'friends' about what they're doing/thinking, let alone keep track of everyone else, and b) give a shit anyway?

Dan Lyons - also known as The Fake Steve Jobs - wrote something recently for Newsweek, in which he lamented the launch of Google Buzz as yet another needless social networking site he feels compelled to try out for fear of being accused of not 'getting it'.

"Then came Google Wave, and again I signed up, but as far as I can tell nobody is actually using Google Wave, mostly because nobody can figure out what it does or how it works, so that it exists only as a catnip toy for new media wanker-pundits who love it because it gives them something to blather on about, plus it provides them with yet another weapon in their arsenal of things that can be used to make lesser folks, like me, feel yet more guilty and left behind.
," he said in his story.

Very amusing and a good point.

Wednesday 10 February 2010

Funny images

I just saw this image while reading a story. I've seen it before, but the caption makes it much funnier.

 

While I'm at it, here's an all time fave of mine from xkcd.com.
 
 

Friday 5 February 2010

Qualcomm's marketing goes into overdrive

Of all the companies involved in the mobile Internet ecosystem, the most proactive right now appears to be Qualcomm.

Not only is it flying legions of journalists to every press event it can think of, it has even taking out no less than three ads during the Super Bowl.

It's clearly going big on promoting its mobile TV technology to American football fans, not only is FLO TV sponsoring video clips on NFL.com, it's even doing product give-aways on blogs.

Microsoft responds

Microsoft has responded to the Dick Brass op-ed here, but it's pretty much just a PR damage limitation job.

The blog post details a few innovations that claim to contradict some of Brass's assertions, but it's a carefully worded post that avoids sounding in any way petulant or confrontational.

Thursday 4 February 2010

Why Microsoft is failing

The New York Times has a fascinating op-ed today written by Dick Brass, the guy who tried to make tablet PCs and e-readers take off at Microsoft around the time of the dotcom bubble. It looks at why Microsoft is being out-innovated by companies like Apple and Google.

In it he says the reason lots of cool ideas were either delayed or never made it to the outside world at Microsoft while he was there was internal politics. Stakeholders in one part of the business weren't always happy when an innovation in another part of the business was getting all the attention.

The reason this is topical is that, once more, Apple seems to have succeeded in an area where Microsoft tried and failed for years - the tablet. He documents opposition from the VP for Office when he was developing the tablet, who refused to properly modify Office apps to work with the tablet format.

While he also points to a cautious corporate culture brought about by the anti-trust action of the late 90s, and we don't know what kind of axe Brass might have to grind, it's still a great insight into how even the most apparently omnipotent companies can drop the ball.

Some interesting context is provided by this piece, written almost ten years ago when Brass was in the middle of pushing the tablet concept as Microsoft.

Wednesday 3 February 2010

Pirate radio

I'm just listening to a piece on ethics in journalism on Radio 4 and ITV's Angus Walker is talking through his role in reporting the story on the UK couple kidnapped by Somali pirates.

The interviewer asked Walker how he managed to secure a phone call with one of the kidnapees. "I was having my dinner and the pirates called me," he said.

Amazing.

Monday 1 February 2010

iPad aftermath

Intriguingly contradictory.

On one hand, most people are disappointed with the many missing features on Apple's new gizmo and, perhaps more fundamentally, that it's not going to redefine computing/change the world/cure cancer.

In spite of all that, however, most people seem to agree that it does mark a profound punctuation point in the evolution of the computer and that it's changing the way the mass market looks at mobile computing.

I must admit to considerable schadenfreude seeing Apple have the piss taken out of it so savagely over the launch, but it may have seeded the mobile Internet device market in the same say it did the smartphone market with the iPhone.

Saturday 30 January 2010

Yay - did it

So I deleted the old account I'd set up on MaStory and created a new one, this time entering the URL rather than the name of the blog, even though there were no instructions to do so, and that did the trick.

Posting from a mobile

I spend a lot of time writing about the mobile Internet but much less actually using the devices.

That has now changed as I've been sent an N900 by Nokia, from which I'm writing the first post on this new blog using an app I downloaded.

So far so good but I wouldn't want to type all day on this little keyboard, perfectly adequate though it is.

Could be easier

Just tried to post to this blog from a Nokia N900 using an app called MaStory, but it's not working. I must be doing something wrong. Hmmm.

This is the type of growing pain that's putting off users as implied in this story a week ago: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2010/01/23/uk_mobile_internet_data.

Still, I'm writing this from an iGoogle gadget, so that's something.