Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Nokia buys Navteq

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Wow… this is big. Nokia, a cell phone manufacturer buys Navteq, a map data provider for more than $8 billion in cash. Nokia has just made a huge leap off a cliff hoping that halfway down their homemade paraglider that they are going to pull out of their backpocket lifts them up to new heights.

I guess they think that this will allow them to take over the budding location based services market. Buying Navteq may allow them to take competitors out of the market by simply not providing data to them, or charging them a heafty sum of money for it.

I expected this kind of thing from Google, but not a cell phone company. I guess even Google doesn’t have $8 billion just lying around. Then again, I don’t think Google really wants to be a data company. They want to be a technology company that builds software around the data that other companies and individuals provide.

So, what happens when some other big phone manufacturer decides to buy the other major map data provider Teleatlas and both decide to no longer license data to Google? Oh… I guess no more Google Maps… even on the Apple’s iPhone…

[via All Things Digital]

Facebook Expands to Companies

Sunday, May 14th, 2006

Oh boy… facebook is expanding to include companies. I can just see where this is going. The amount of time wasted at work browsing facebook is going to be phenomenal. See… there’s a big difference between college and the corporate world. In the former, you are paying to be there, in the latter, you are getting paid to be there. I can’t imagine companies are going to be very friendly to the idea of people using company time to browse the facebook.

I wonder if there have been any court cases involving companies blocking certain sites. Here’s a wild prediction of a possible court battle…

Microsoft starts to see a bunch of people using the facebook… and not for business purposes either, just for social, outside of work type stuff. Microsoft says, “Hey, our employees are wasting time on a site that doesn’t do our business any good. Furthermore, we have been developing internally our own version of the facebook, but more geared towards businesses than the facebook currently is. We’ll block facebook so that our employees will be forced to use our not-as-cool facebook clone. Once we have Microsoft employees on board, we’ll sell this software to other companies and make lots of money.” Then, facebook sues Microsoft for loss of business or something and it goes to the supreme court, and they make some sort of ruling.

Ok, so I admit, that’s a pretty wild prediction. There are at least a few problems with it. 1) The number employees at Microsoft is really small compared to the number of people using facebook, so I can’t really see any one company with that scenario. 2) I think companies have the right to block things going to their internal networks. After all, they own their network and everything inside it, right? 3) No one will dare to challenge Microsoft in the legal realm unless they are sure to win…

So, basically, my point is that, facebook as it currently stands is not suited for corporate use, and companies will catch onto that fact very quickly and ban its use or create policies against it or whatever. Maybe facebook does have plans to make their service more useful to businesses and eventually companies won’t mind their employees using the service. But, they better get moving quick, or another site will push them out of the market. I kinda doubt facebook will change much to accomodate large corporations though. They have a good thing going with the college market. What they might want to do though is to make facebook less of a time waster and more of a school helper. I don’t know if that’s even possible, or if that’s what people really want.

Hmm… interesting. I just looked at the facebook terms of service. It specifically states that facebook may only be used for non-commercial purposes:

“You understand that the Service and the Web site are available for your personal, non-commercial use only.”

Here’s a couple related entries from a blog I just found called Inside Facebook:

Congressman introduces bill to block Facebook

Facebook opens its doors to a slew of companies

Facebook Builds WAP

Sunday, May 14th, 2006

“According to company spokesperson Melanie Deitch, Facebook has just finished building a WAP, or wireless application protocol, that will offer a browsing service that more closely resembles the way the site works online.”

You don’t build a protocol… its already been created. You build a version of the site that runs on the protocol.

“WaveMarket, a location-based technology company that is powering Sprint’s Family Finder service, has a StreetHive mobile social network application, though the site is still in beta.”

Isn’t every web application on the internet still in beta?

full article

Andreessen: PHP succeeding where Java isn’t | CNET News.com

Friday, November 4th, 2005

Here’s a little story about PHP and Java… my two favorite languages…

Andreessen: PHP succeeding where Java isn’t | CNET News.com

BBC NEWS | UK | London rocked by terror attacks

Thursday, July 7th, 2005

Just in. Terror attacks in London. I’m going to work, so don’t have time to look at it further.

BBC NEWS | UK | London rocked by terror attacks

I would also reccomend the Wikipedia article

Walking Robots

Sunday, July 3rd, 2005

US NSF – News – Researchers showcase a new breed of two-legged robots that appear to walk like we do.

CNN.com – New WTC tower design made public – Jun 29, 2005

Wednesday, June 29th, 2005

CNN.com – New WTC tower design made public – Jun 29, 2005

Google may build in A2

Tuesday, June 21st, 2005

From The Michigan Daily:

“Search engine giant Google is considering Ann Arbor as a possible place to build a new 200,000 square foot technology center.”

Google may build in A2

Open Source Solaris 10

Wednesday, June 15th, 2005

Linux…. Unix… what’s the difference? Well, until now one of the percieved differences was that Linux was free and open source, and versions of Unix were not. A major version of Unix, Solaris 10, was open sourced just yesterday, and as of earlier this year has been free and, has been available for x86 platforms. What does this mean? Well… all you Linux lovers have almost no excuse not to try it out. And, people looking for a very stable server have a good free solution. With this kind of competition, how will Microsoft stay in the server and possibly desktop market? Well… one way might be to hire the founder of Gentoo Linux.

Michael Jackson cleared of abuse

Monday, June 13th, 2005

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Michael Jackson cleared of abuse