September 2005 Archives

What an interesting day.
'Nuff said.

Don't get me wrong. I think Nicholas Negroponte's idea of developing a $100 laptop, running a very thin version of Linux and with some of the most innovative examples of power saving and power generation in a laptop device ever created, is truly inspiring. I applaud Negroponte for his continuing belief in the power of technologies in changing cuture, and the future of human society. For a start, it's great to see such optimism. But it's also interesting to see how aspects of Negroponte's vision have been realised over the past decade, since the release of his manifesto, Being Digital.

But I'm also interested in the commentary associated with the $100 device. Several commentators have brought up the issue of the so-called 'grey market' (as opposed to 'black market') of recipients of the $100 laptop selling the device to buyers in order to raise cash to eat. Negroponte doesn't know how to deal with that. What's more there are cultural imperialism and even legal issues that can arise from rolling out such devices. In a ZD-Net blog post on the subject, David Berlind cites his interview with Negroponte on the subject.

I asked Negroponte how he felt about the Catch-22 proposition that's created when a government like China hands systems like his out to all of its primary and secondary school students while at the same time stifling their ability to use the systems to exercise freedom of speech through technologies like blogs (the Chinese government is cracking down on bloggers). Answered Negroponte: It's a Trojan horse. Uh huh.

To be honest, I don't think that's the key issue with developing these devices for the China market. The biggest problem in China will be the scam duplicates that will appear on the black market within months of the devices being released. The Chinese are masters in the art of duplicating or faking original products. Give them a year or two and they will have hardware and software that are either fakes of the original at a fraction of the price, or they will develop a cut down version of the cut down machine and try to sell these back to their people and their government, outselling the developers of the MIT prototype. And it's not just a matter of getting the Chinese Government to "do something" about piracy (ie: regulation, criminalisation, police crack downs). The Chinese economy is actually booming partly because of this art of duplication. I doubt whether any action taken will be particularly effective until the labour rates and working conditions in China catch up with those enjoyed in western nations. (And for what it's worth, John Ralston Saul estimates this will occur around 2010 or 2015 at the very latest.)

It will be interesting to see how this project progresses.

Okay so I've been a little brief in my posts lately, and I apologise for that. Here's the summary of things I have missed blogging in the past few days but haven't failed to notice:

- The marriage of my dear friends, Michelle & Mick! Hope you had a wonderful day, and I wish you a lifetime of happiness, guys! I'm glad you had your family around you, and as quiet as your day was, you both looked radiant. We will have to have a small friends' celebration when I'm down in Melbourne for Christmas :)
- BitTorrent, the file sharing service, is currently attempting to legimize its operations by seeking venture capitalist funding. One wonders if the VC funding will primarily go to paying BitTorrent's legal bills for facilitating copyright violations.
- Google turned 7 years old yesterday.
- Another childhood hero has passed into the great unknown. Vale Don Adams. Oh Max!
- While I was disappointed my beloved Eels' performance on Sunday, I'm now going for the Cowboys in the NRL Grand Final this weekend.
- My thoughts are with the Brisbane Graduate School of Business team at the Boston Consulting Group Strategy Competition grand final on today.
- The Brisbane Writers' Festival starts tomorrow and the program looks fantastic. I'm afraid I probably won't have time to see much of it, but I'll see what I can manage.
- At some stage soon, I'd also really like to see Brisbane's new shopping extravanganza, the Direct Factory Outlet. It's been open nearly a month, I've driven past it to and from the airport but haven't had the chance to get to it yet!

More geekery later.

So the analogue TV shut down is going to be delayed? Now there's a surprise. NOT!

I think Duane Varan and I predicted this back in 1999. Shame we didn't open up a betting book on the idea. We could have been rich!

In a somewhat different vein, the Wall Street Journal has a fabulous article on the story of Jim Allchin and remarkable changes taking place in Microsoft since July 2004. In a move that Sir Humphrey Appleby would have described as "brave", Allchin made the extrordinary decision to be brutally honest in a meeting with Bill Gates, and tell his boss that the strategy being pursued in the development of the latest Windows operating system was too complex, was running over time and over budget, and in the end, simply wouldn't work.

It can only be descibed as the best move Allchin could ever make. Not for him personally, but for Microsoft.

The changes taking place in terms of software development and capital investment on product development are a cultural shift away from the traditional processes adopted by Microsoft, and the impact this is having on the firm are only now beginning to be realised. This article is a useful read for anyone who believes that the cheapest and easiest route is the key to success. User centred design and centralised information sharing works better than hanging bits of code together. And for the information technology sector generally, it's good research and planning that's now becoming a competitive advantage.

This New Yorker parody article is up there with the Flying Spaghetti Monster as rather funny commentary on the whole notion (and arrogance) of Intelligent Design. Well worth a read and a giggle.

... JJ in a Bonds singlet and jeans, carting box after box from my old office to my car on a removalists' hand trolley which has flat tyres, so it's like pushing uphill the entire time.

Then imagine JJ's poor little shoulder and back muscles twitching from exhaustion after getting a carload packed, transported and unpacked.

That's about where I am right now. Excuse me while I go take a shower to smell better and hopefully avoid back problems next week.

Congrats to the dear old South Melbourne Football Club - and their Sydney counterparts - for the victory today at the AFL Grand Final. What a great game it was, too. Commiserations of course, to the gallant Weagles, but I think after 72 years of no premiership title, it was the Swannies' turn.

Thanks go to Kev & Stef for hosting my grand final viewing, and for putting up with my usual sporting banter!

From Editor & Publisher Online....

The New York Times Co. announced a staggering staff reduction plan Tuesday that will likely mean some 500 job loses (sic) at the company's many properties, including an expected 45 newsroom positions at The New York Times newspaper and 35 at The Boston Globe.

There's a rather interesting story about the likely end of the Cavendish Banana in Popular Science magazine this week, that's doing the rounds of the blogs. It's a sad but inevitable tale of what happens when you put all of your fruit in one basket. Literally.

This is why we need diversity, folks. I keep telling you, but nobody listens. Someone makes a fortune and everyone else copies. Well it doesn't work. Not in nature anyway.

(Maybe in technology, but even then the applause is sweet but all too brief.)

It seems Microsoft just won another coup. BusinessWeek Online are reporting that Palm are about to release a Treo which runs Windows Mobile 5. I agree it's sensible to have a Windows OS on a Palm device, but it does feel awfully like the technology equivalent of jumping the shark.

Also from BusinessWeek is the news that Intel are going to mass produce chips built for performance on the same production line as chips built for power efficiency. This green Intel is apparently their reaction to the growth of AMD and Texas instruments.

From Engadget is the news that Steve Jobs has no plans to bluetooth-enable the iPod. Apparently the market want battery life and disk space, not communication capacity... at least for the next little while.

Also from Engadget are these mighty wireless headphones ... sexy and high fidelity. What more could one ask? (Well I guess I could ask for a microphone so I could use them for Skype.)

Finally, from Slashdot, is the news that Microsoft are about to engage in a massive restructure to reduce costs and increase output. Minimicrosoft, the blogger, has plenty to say about how this is going to affect innovation at the technology giant's headquarters.

Having just watched Bob Cringely's new NerdTV netcast interview with Max Levchin (co-founder PayPal) I'm once again struck by the number of bloody good ideas out there. Besides the fact that NerdTV itself is a good idea, I'm interested that Levchin is saying that the next big thing for new technology is to investigate new uses of, and prospects for, advertising. Now in spite of the fact that Levchin is just 30 years old and worth something like US$500 million, I feel no enormous jealousy towards him because he has just positively reinforced the most important project I have under my portfolio - the Beyond 0:30 Seconds initiative. As a Project Manager at ACID, I am focused on the options and possibilities for advertising arising from emergent and interactive content services. So effectively, at ACID we are doing precisely what Max Levchin considers the most important research for the future of technology engagement. It's a rather exciting prospect.

But beyond the work I'm doing here at ACID, there are also a series of other bloody good idea out there at the moment. One of them is a replacement for the good old powerboard - the PowerSquid Outlet Multiplier. An incredibly simple idea, the PowerSquid solves the problem of bulky transformers that take up too much space on powerboards, by separating each individual power outlet, allowing for very differing plugs all to be available from the one socket multiplier.

To plug my own firm, there's also the 'television mouse' which is currently being developed to overtake the classic television remote. It may sound like something out of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but there are a series of uses for this gesture oriented tool beyond just changing channels. As we are required as consumers of content to do more to engage with the content, the number of tasks a remote control has to fulfil is also growing. We therefore need to consider new ways of communicating change via the technologies... enter the TV mouse.

Finally there is the growing C2C production and marketing model which seems finally to be attracting the interest of venture capitalists under its new title, minipreneurisalism. The development of widgets for all sorts of functions has now become a major industry. And the identification of truly valuable widgets (usually those that continue to add value to a system through genuine learning and information aggregation facilitation) is in itself a licence to print money.

We're now entering a period where bloody good ideas have a chance to compete on the main stage with major firms. The challenge is to get your product into a platform fast enough for you to benefit.

This week I've been trying to adapt to changes in the work environment and to get all my 'bits' connected. Simultaneously I've been dealing with some pretty serious security flaws in a wireless network and to provide advice and instructions about how to ensure laptops are protected against possible breaches of security.

I've included some of the advice I've been giving below, because I think anyone who connects to wireless architecture may find this useful. As a general rule it is imperative that anyone who connects to a wireless network ensures their machines are properly patched and checked for viruses in order to minimize possible effects of potential or emergent security flaws.

For Windows PCs...
Visit the Windows Update facility at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ and download all the latest patches.

For Macintosh PCs...
Visit http://www.apple.com/support/ and download all updates for the relevant operating system software installed on your iBook or Notebook.

All machines...
Visit http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ and run a remote virus scan on your PC to check for viruses. If a virus is found, DO NOT use your PC on wireless networks, and instead fix your machine and update virus software to combat future attacks. Free software is available at AVG - http://www.grisoft.com/doc/40/lng/ww or http://www.free-av.com/.

Please also run the Housecall Spyware and security vulnerability scans to ensure your machine is properly protected.

If your machine is properly patched and is free of viruses, please ensure your have a firewall activated on your PC at all times. For Windows machines, go to the Start button, select Control Panel, Network & Internet Connections, and choose the Windows Firewall. For Apple laptops, Open System Preferences and click Sharing, then click Firewall, and click Start.

This should cover the basic security problems you are most likely to encounter. Hope this information is useful.

In a food processor, finely chop a capsicum, a red onion, a carrot, 6 chillis (top and tailed). Reserve the gluggy mix. Then less finely chop a half bunch of spring onions. You can separate the dominantly white bits of the spring onions from the leafy bits just for effect. Get about half a kilo of prawns (either green or partly cooked), and peel, but leave the tails on. Always remember once you get the prawns, you should take them out of the plastic bag and store in the fridge in a glass container, covered and lined with ice.

Later in the day - about 20 minutes before you're ready to eat - put about a cup of jasmine or basmati rice in a water-filled saucepan for 15-17 minutes from cold water. While the rice is being cooked, organise a nice dry white wine for yourself. After about 10-12 minutes, heat up a wok or an electric frying pan, with olive oil in the base. When hot, pop in about 2 dessertspoons of minced garlic, and a tablespoon of chopped ginger. Add about 2 tablespoons of sweet chilli sauce and 3 or 4 tablespoons of oyster sauce. Stir. Add a handful or two of chopped green beans. Add your gluggy mix and stir until the mixture is hot. Should smell amazing. About this time, fill up your kettle and set it on to boil. If your wok mixture is looking a little dry, add a bit of water to that too.

Add the peeled prawns to the wok, along with some of the rough chopped spring onions. Once the prawns are coated and start to curl up a bit (maybe 2-3 minutes?), add some fresh basil and coriander leaves, coat those and turn the heat off. Cover with glass wok lid.

By now your kettle should have boiled and the rice should be ready. Drain the rice in a fine net drainer, and empty your kettle of boiling water over the rice to just freshen it. Allow to stop dripping. I can't over-emphasise that. Wet rice sucks. Overcooked rice also sucks, so really don't cook your basmati or jasmine rice for more than 15 minutes.

Arrange the rice on your plate(s) in a nice circle about 12cm in diameter. Pile it up, if necessary. On top of this nice little rice circle, add the cooked prawns, some leafy stuff and a bit of the mix in as decorative a manner as possible. Put a couple of fresh, washed raw chillis either on top, or on the side as a garnish (you can also cut a chilli down the centre and just quickly fry in the wok if you prefer).

Serve, ensuring you've topped up the wine in your glass and those of your guests.

I strongly recommend a platter of canteloupe, kiwi fruit and pineapple, perhaps with a dash of ice cream or natural yoghurt for dessert.

Latest trailer is out for the next of the Harry Potter flicks and whilst I'm a fan, I have to say this one just looks awesome.

I'm just back from a flying trip to Melbourne wher I was facilitating a research planning workshop so I'm a little tired and can't think straight let alone blog straight, but I just had to note the hysterical situation of parody imitating reality which is all over the blogs today.

First - a bit of background. I do the orientation class for MBA students which introduces the technology and tools students use throughout the MBA at the Brisbane Graduate School of Business, and in that session, I talk about legitimate and somewhat questionable news sources. I always point my browser to The Onion, as an example of a site which looks like a legitimate news site, but which is actually a parody of a news site, and is often hilarious reading. I point out that the news is apocryphal at best and often potentially offensive. I also point out that the news is inaccurate.

I must now add a caveat to that last point.

Because The Onion published a story in February 2004 which (besides being about as offensive as you can get in terms of language), was an hysterical piece supposedly written by the CEO of Gillette (yes, the shaver company), where the absurd battle between Gillette and Schick for shaving prowess was brought to a new level, with the CEO calling for a 5 blade shaver. Here's a taste:

They don't tell me what to invent—I tell them. And I'm telling them to stick two more blades in there. I don't care how. Make the blades so thin they're invisible. Put some on the handle. I don't care if they have to cram the fifth blade in perpendicular to the other four, just do it!

It's meant to be a lot of fun.

There's only one trouble. Gillette unveiled a new shaver designed almost precisely as it is described in The Onion article on Wednesday.

So from now on, I will have to say, "The Onion is usually inaccurate, and is meant to be a parody news source. Nevertheless, they occasionally get the story right, and I would go as far as to say that nothing scares The Onion editors more."

I would like you all to take a moment to remember the glory days of Australian cricket, from the first instance, when Allan Border and his men reclaimed the Ashes in 1989 with batting totals of no less than 424 runs per first innings. Since then, under the impressive leadership of Border, Taylor and Waugh, The Australians have dominated for a decade and a half of cricket.

But all good things must come to an end.

Last night, admid the fading British light, and set aganist several heartbreaking dropped catches and missed chances, Australia's dominance in Ashes series cricket was finally set to rest. I suggest we all burn a bail for rememberance.

Oh, and make the poms pay like hell next season.

According to China's National Development and Reform Commission, its high tech industry's production value is expected to rise to 10 trillion Yuan (US$250 billion) in terms of value add by 2010.

I have to say it; in spite of all the issues that all jobs have, and the challenges with bringing people together, I really love my job.

I join with so many others in bidding the wonderful Donald Horne a fond farewell as he passes in to the great blue yonder... perhaps the true "lucky" country. The last time I met Donald he was launching his book, The Avenue of the Fair Go, a copy of which he signed for me, several years back. He was delightful company and so eager to please, nervously questioning, "Was I alright up there?" after he finished his speech at the launch. An eminent academic, and a true critic of Australian policy development, Horne's 1964 legacy book, The Lucky Country, was often misunderstood, because Horne didn't think Australia had much to be proud about, and he criticised the attitude of policy developers who relied too heavily on Australia's natural resources.

He was a tireless political commentator and a genuinely lovely man. Have fun up there, Donald. We'll miss you.

... As Tony Greig would probably put it. British Airways have come up with a very good incentive for Aussie crickteres to get rid of England for under 200 runs by offering airfairs between Sydney or Melbourne and Heathrow for the first innings total of the Poms in this, the last Test of the Ashes series.

From AAP...
"British Airways will offer flights from Sydney and Melbourne to London for prices equivalent to England's first innings total in the final Test."

The worst kept secret in the history of poorly kept technology secrets is finally out - the Motorola ROKR. Basically a mobile phone with a built in iTunes facility, the device is probably one of the least sexy-looking Apple-related units on the market. And most of us have had MP3 players built into our mobile phones for several years now. The New York Times has covered the release in some detail, and Gizmodo just gives the very raw facts. From what I can see, I'd call it 'over-hyped'.

Oh and Apple also announced the new iPod nano (smallest iPod ever) and some cosmetic changes to iTunes software.

The news on the forthcoming sale of the remaining 49% public share of the Australian telecommunications giant is grim, no matter what view you take of privatising the public asset.

Few people will be unaware of the fact that I have been a critic of tranches-oriented privatisation of the telecommunications giant since about 1991. If you had to privatise the telco at all, then the Australian Government ought to have kept control of the physical infrastructure itself (including transmission towers for mobile and wireless communications) and everything else might have been sold off. That way we could have maintained some local manufacturing support, and used the infrastructure, connectivity and minimum universal service obligations as a bargaining chip with private players, and Telstra executives wouldn't have had any choice about the matter. If they wanted a stake in Australian telecommunications (including internet service provision, networked communications, etc) then they'd have had to lease Government-owned networks.

Oh well. Too late now.

But the news stories about the sale of all remaining control the Government has over the telco doesn't inspire one with a sense of confidence about the future directions and strategic planning of the incumbent company executives.

- Opposition spokesperson on telecommunications, Stephen Conroy, has requested an inquiry be set up to investigate the legal issues associated with the full sale of Telstra

- National Party "Man of the Moment", Barnaby Joyce, says he's happy with the details of the sale of Telstra. Well he's a fickle individual. This morning he said he wasn't happy with things and was going to take it back to his party, but I suppose he's had lunch since then.

- Telstra shares are the lowest they've been in more than two years, with speculation rife that they will drop below $4 a share sometime later this month.

- The Prime Minister has ordered Solomon Trujillo to reign in his staff, and blasted Telstra executives for their management tactics of the telco.

- Telstra's own webcast from CEO, Sol Trujillo and CFO, John Stanhope, announced that profits would be down 10-15% on 2004 figures.

So things are bad. And they're only going to get worse. Other than for mobile communications and broadband connections, I don't know how much I'll be using Telstra anymore. As a business proposition, we may well have to see what we can all do for the physical infrastructure, and perhaps share the cost of a new Broadband Powerline (BPL) network infrastructure. But for landline phone calls, I'm swapping to Skype.

Many people are only now understanding the extrordinary differences between relief efforts and information services mobilised as a result of the tsunamis of 26 December last year, when compared with that Hurricane Katrina in the gulf country of the US last week.

In Australia, within 24 hours of the crisis, the Australian RED Cross and NGOs had committed A$8 million. Over the course of a little over a week, over a billion dollars worth of aid was raised, military personnel were mobilised and survivors of the tsunami were being assisted.

In the US, the timeline for tsunami relief was almost as impressive, with air bases set up within 48 hours for disaster relief to be flown in, and logistics for prioritisation and personnel carrying out the aid to the survivors were all mobilised within 3 days.

This all occurred on a number of different regional coast lines throughout Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and other areas hit by the devastation. The final death toll for the tsunamis is estimated to be somewhere around 190,000. The total land area affected by the tsunamis is estimated to be in excess of 20,000 square kilometres.

But in coastal New Orleans - an area with a total land area of less than 1000 square kilometres - there are as many as 40,000 people missing and possibly 20,000 dead or dying. Relief from the US government (let alone international relief) in the way of military personnel and logistics prioritisation took more than 4 days to arrive. While US$10.5 billion was approved in the Senate within 24 hours of the hurricane hitting the coastline, New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin had seen little evidence of that financial commitment for the first few days after the area was flooded. There are still insufficient services being offered to the people of New Orleans. While journalists could enter the area both before and after the hurricane hit, no military personnel or relief logistics from outside the southern states directly affected by the hurricane were to be seen in the region for the first three days. Most of the international regions that have offered aid relief have either been declined, or their offers are still under consideration, whilst hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives are being lost every day.

It really is a bizarre comparison. The Indian Ocean eathquake and subsequent tsunami hit some of the poorest communities in the world, and the entire world banded together to assist. Hurricane Katrina hit some of the poorest regions of world's richest nation, and the US Government is still considering whether to accept aid and open its doors to international relief efforts, more than six days after the disaster.

And in case anyone on the planet hasn't yet seen the Carlton Draught advertisement, The Big Ad, you simply MUST at least download the low resolution version. (Accept the security certfificate when the box comes up.)

Besides anything else, it's a fascinating viral marketing experiment.

Thought I'd post here more of the links I've been sending to H as there are some remarkable little business and technology tidbits around today....

- Kim Beazley is calling for tax reform, after the revelation that almost 40% of families receive more in welfare payments than they pay in tax. So that would be the left, calling for fairer tax conditions - not the right.

- Senior American executives at Telstra have launched a campaign *against* buying shares of Telstra in the forthcoming float, as a protest against Australian Government regulation.

- Capital expenditure in Australia is up 7.3% in the June quarter.

- Net profit from the sharemarket probably contributed a great deal to that rise in capital expenditure, with iress reporting that the net profit of A$8.8 million from share trading in the first half of 2005 was double that for the same period in 2004.

- Looks like the developers of the Gold Coast tower, Q1, are about to go bust. A decision in the Brisbane Supreme Court has found that developers, Sunland, did not disclose a requirement to buy $41K worth of homewares after buying the property. As a result, the contract has now been deemed negated for one precedent-setting resident, and hundreds of residents who are now trying to sell their apartments for $100K less than they paid off the plan, may be able to get their entire investment back. That is, if Sunland doesn't file for bankruptcy first.

- Mastercard has announced it's going to become a public company.

- Netherlands-based ABN AMRO bank has signed deals with 5 Indian based IT firms to outsource their call centre operations. The deals are collectively worth 1.8million Euros.

- Car manufacturer, Mazda, is switching to USB keys as a means of starting its concept vehicles.

- Total Cost of Operation/Ownership of Linux is generally regarded to be 40% cheaper than Windows, according to an IBM-sponsored report.

- After a 17% slide in net profit share over the past year, Flight Centre CEO, Shane Flynn has resigned.

The wonders of experimentation! Australian* scientists have now created mice that grow back vital organs suchs as the heart and lung or entire limbs in the case of damage. The only thing they can't regrow is a brain. Rather a useful skill, though. I'm sure the ultimate goal is to genetically engineer humans to do the same thing. I'm sure it would come in handy on occasion.

EDIT: * As Mitchell points out, the scientists are not actually Australian. My apologies for the error. I should have said "The Australian has reported that..." instead.

Very, very occasionally I almost sleep regular hours. This morning I woke at 7:30am... more than 2 hours later than I usually wake. And I hadn't even gone to bed that late... about 11pm. I did wake at 3:40am and got up and checked my email for half an hour, but then I went back to bed and slept for 3.5 hours. That's pretty much a record for me so I'm just celebrating it while I can. A veteran (victim perhaps?) of the 5.5 hour sleep cycle, getting 8 hours' sleep is like a holiday from tiredness.