A blast from the past. Reading through my feeds this evening I saw KnowNow mentioned more than a couple of times. Something is happening over there. I've got to figure out what. John Robb and I met Rohit Khare in 1999 in the early KnowNow offices on Sand Hill Road in the same building at Jim Barksdale's private investment company. Wow, what a trip.

posted: 10:12:02 PM  permalink  trackback ()  comments ()    

BlueSnarfing caught my attention after a colleague attended DefCon this year. Every once in a while I'll see what's going on with Martin Herfurt's research. I did my periodic research and found that he has founded the trifinite.group and they are evolving BlueSnarfing. Very interesting work.

posted: 9:43:54 PM  permalink  trackback ()  comments ()    

Via Dan Gillmor comes Kevin Sites' recounting of his experience taping the mosque shooting in Falluja. I agree with Dan. This is hugely powerful stuff. Kevin, in my opinion, has deftly walked the middle line. But more importantly, he has emerged from a harrowing experience with his belief system intact, which is clearly illustrated in these two quotes:

"...if you lower your standards, if you accept less, than less is what you'll become."

"...when the Iraqi man in the mosque posed a threat, he was your enemy; when he was subdued he was your responsibility; when he was killed in front of my eyes and my camera -- the story of his death became my responsibility."

Kevin's strength of character is to be admired and honored.

posted: 8:07:28 PM  permalink  trackback ()  comments ()    

This is a great move on CNet's part. This is the first time I've seen a media site fully embrace the power of weblogging technologies. They've supported RSS for a while. Now their editors and writers will have visibility into the conversations their articles stir in the industry like they have never had before. Welcome to the conversation, CNet.

posted: 3:36:35 PM  permalink  trackback ()  comments ()    

CNet has recently published a couple of articles on how multi-core processors may affect software licensing in the next year. In this article, Microsoft announces that they will treat a single multi-core processor as a single processor. Companies like IBM and Oracle have announced their intentions to treat multi-core processors as multiple processors that will be reflected in their pricing. Microsoft's move is heralded as a step in the right direction. I couldn't agree more. I've never been a fan of per processor pricing models, which are divorced from the economics forces of software development.

In this article, Gartner is warning companies to re-negotiate their license agreements now. I wholly disagree with their recommendation. Re-negotiating licensing agreements now could prevent you from taking advantage of some nuance in a software vendor's pricing model for multi-core processors. Furthermore, the title of the article is misleading. Gartner's recommendation only applies to software licensed on a per processor basis, not all software. The implicit punch line of this article is that you may want to hedge yourself against coming volatility in the software industry. This volatility will be caused by converging trends toward virtualization, capacity on demand, and grid computing. I firmly believe these trends spell a new era for software, but not one to be feared. All of these trends spell greater flexibility for end users. We just have to make sure that software vendors don't tie one hand behind our backs in the process.

posted: 3:32:31 PM  permalink  trackback ()  comments ()