"A day you will never forget"

A couple of days ago apple had on it's website "Tomorrow is just another day... That you will never forget..." and had clocks that showed the time the announcement would be made. My roommates and I spent hours brainstorming what this great announcement could be, like maybe apps for your computer. Then it came out that they were adding The Beatles to iTunes.... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? THAT'S YOUR BIG ANNOUNCEMENT???? This was such a pathetic announcement to be hyped up. Either people are Beatles fans and already have the music, or they aren't Beatles fans and could care less about it. The fact that iTunes now carries it changes almost nothing. Wow apple, good work.

Stocks fall after Cisco Disappoints

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703848204575608080825362168.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLETopStories

This article discusses how a drop in cisco's stocks have affected the overall market by a small percentage. The drop in stock came after Cisco fell short on meeting its forecasted goals. This drop also affected Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, International Business Machines and Intel negatively. This ripple affect is the reason that Cisco's drop was so detrimental, and is a good example of how interconnected companies are becoming. A slightly optimistic sales forecast has essentially cost stock holder's of multiple companies millions of dollars!

Google broke the law

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703506904575591963217799010.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews

U.K. has accused Google of breaching privacy laws. Google's cars go around capturing images for Google's street views, and Google admits that it inadvertently collected personal data from unsecured wireless networks across the world, setting off a storm of criticism. Accidentally taking pictures of people's personal property is understandable, but I don't understand how Google "inadvertently" acquired data from unlocked networks. This data collection isn't an accident, Google chose to collect it. By the way, other countries have accused Google of privacy breeches as well, including France, Germany, and Canada.

Green Technology

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303738504575568812369392150.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews

Next Tuesday the vote on proposition 23 will take place in California. This proposition is a ballot initiative seeking to suspend the state's landmark greenhouse-gas law. The original law, which was passed in 2006, required substantial cuts in the state's greenhouse gas emissions and set a goal that was to be reached by 2020. Seeing this opportunity, many small clean-technology firms sprung up to take advantage of the new law. Now the business that they were basically guaranteed until 2020 could be going out early. One of the managing general partner's of one of these firms said point-blank, "We've looked at Prop. 23 more as [possible evidence of] a national mandate on where we're headed, we have to start thinking about moving a lot of our investment dollars to China."

Mobile, Not Net, Drives Indian Music Sales

http://voices.allthingsd.com/20101022/mobile-not-net-drives-indian-music-sales/

People stealing music via downloading has become commonplace now, but mobile phones have given the music industry hope for making revenue for sales of its music. Mobile phone sales (music, ringtones) make up 1/3 of india's music industry in total revenue! The reason is that mobile carriers can tightly control what is downloaded to their devices (for the average user, of course). This is in india, the second most populated country in the world, and the ratio is supposed to increase to 2/3 in the next few years.

Nintendo Trying to Make a Comeback

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704116004575521143661439792.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews

Nintendo plans to release the first system that will play 3D games (without the need for glasses, by the way) in February 2011. The company is trying to get back in competition with xbox and playstation with this new style of gaming. It reported it's first losses last year and expected a steady decline unless a new and innovative product were released. Now they project to sell 4 million systems and 15 million accompanying games by March 31, 2011, which is only 2 months from the release date. There's no word yet on the price, if it will be comparable to the other 2 or be more like the previously released wii that was a bit cheaper. The problem Nintendo has though is the games produced for their system aren't as popular as the ones for its competitors, and until they somehow overcome that it will be difficult for them to compete long term.

Cookies and Privacy

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704416904575502261335698370.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews

Back in 2001 the courts ruled that it was ok for websites to put cookies on an individual's computer to store user names and passwords for that user. Websites quickly took advantage of this though and started using them to track where people were going and what they were searching on the web. While these websites are simply gathering data (so they can better target their advertising in most cases), this seems like a bit of an invasion of privacy. People can delete these cookies, but there's a new thing called Flash Cookies that respawn as soon as they're deleted, which is the main focus of this lawsuit. Congress is also apparently considering creating a "do-not-track" list similar to the do-not-call list that will give individuals the right to opt out of tracking. One problem though is that if these suits hold up and congress were to go to the extreme and outlaw all cookies, websites claim that there's no way they could be free anymore since their income comes from advertisements and advertisers would be less inclined to use them without knowing their effectiveness. Basically it all comes down to whether we prefer privacy or these sites being free...

Google involved in EVERYTHING

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704285104575492440245394392.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews#articleTabs%3Darticle

The main point of this article is that Google had to fire one of its employees for breaching the privacy of one of its clients, who also happened to be underage. The thing I found more interesting though is that Google is making its 3rd attempt at launching a social networking site to compete with Facebook. It seems like Google is trying to get involved in every aspect of technology it can as fast as it can, and that it's starting to stretch a bit thin, which is shown by it's 2 failed attempts at social networking. I think they just need to let this one go.

Do we really have to start over?

I know this may seem a bit trivial, but is blu-ray really going to stick? Are we going to have to restart movie collections all over again. When I was younger I had a decent one going of VHS, and now they'll be worthless once our last remaining VCR dies. I thought DVD's would stick for a while so I started making a valiant effort to regain my collection in those, but blu-ray is a much better picture and seem to be encroaching on DVDs the same way they did on VHSs... And what about 3D? When it boils down to it, is there really any point in buying movies anymore? The success of things like Netflix and Redbox point to the fact that people value owning movies and tv shows less and less, and due to how fast video technology is changing I don't blame them.

Technology and Art

"http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65K37820100621"

This is an article I found about technology radically changing something I don't normally think about when I think about when I think of technology: art. One of my favorite quotes from it is: "Knowledge is more democratized now," which describes how accessible information is now that once was only reserved for the elite and "specialists." The author talks about competition becoming fierce and the number of paintings per day that can be examined being 4 or 5 times what it used to be. He also discovered a Rembrandt self-portrait that was originally attributed to someone else, increasing the painting's worth from 3000 to 40 million. Thank you computers!!