Google ChromeCast — Fabulous product or fabulous demo?

chromecastYesterday Google announced a product called ChromeCast — a $35 HDMI dongle that’s essentially YouTube’s answer to Apple TV. While the event was more Googlish than Applesque (the venue was too small, the screens were too small, the presenters weren’t polished, and as a result the laughs and applause didn’t come) the product itself was astonishing — or appeared to be.

The press today picked-up on the most obvious headline item in the announcement — the $35 selling price which drops to $11 if you factor in three months of free Netflix per dongle even for existing Netflix customers. That’s Google attaching an $8 bill to every ChromeCast — something Apple would never do.

But […]

By |July 25th, 2013|2013, Breaking News, Companies, Gadgets, Media, Technology, Television|73 Comments
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The New IBM — vampires in our midst

Ginni_RomettyA memo went out this week to managers in IBM’s U.S. Integrated Technology Services division requiring that future use of additional sub-contract (1099) workers must be approved in advance by a director or vice president. This includes coverage for sick days and vacations, not to mention inevitable customer emergencies. The memo further required that the renewal of any ongoing 1099 contracts include an across-the-board 10 percent reduction in labor rates to IBM. While this may not sound like news, inside ITS it has great meaning since the company has already been cut to the bone. There are, for example, reportedly two remaining IBM experts on HP-UX, HP’s version of Unix. Yet IBM supports customer running […]

By |July 25th, 2013|2013, Business, Companies, Computing, Industry, Outsourcing|102 Comments
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So that’s how H-1B visa fraud is done!

Screen Shot 2013-07-18 at 12.37.22 AMReader Mark Surich was looking for a lawyer with Croatian connections to help with a family matter back in the old country. He Googled some candidate lawyers and in one search came up with this federal indictment. It makes very interesting reading and shows one way H-1B visa fraud can be conducted.

The lawyer under indictment is Marijan Cvjeticanin. Please understand that this is just an indictment, not a conviction. I’m not saying this guy is guilty of anything. My point here is to describe the crime of which he is accused, which I find very interesting. He could be innocent for all I know, but the crime, itself, is […]

By |July 18th, 2013|2013, Advertising, Business, Government, Industry, People|106 Comments
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Georgia Tech’s $7000 polyester masters in computer science

Productivity is good but wage stagnation is not. This trend will only be exacerbated by the trashing of U.S. education standards.

In case you missed it, the Rambling Wrecks of Georgia Tech will next year begin offering an online masters degree in computer science for a total price of just under $7000 — about 80 percent less than the current in-state tuition for an equivalent campus-based program. The degree program, offered in cooperation with AT&T and courseware company Udacity, will cost the same no matter where the students live, though two thirds are expected to live and work outside the USA. Time to complete the degree will vary but Georgia Tech thinks most students […]

By |July 10th, 2013|2013, Business, Economy, Education, Outsourcing, Software, Technology|114 Comments
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Edward Snowden is trying to be Daniel Ellsberg on Twitter

snowdenscreensWhat are the differences between Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, and Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers back in 1971? Not much, really, but the distinctions that do exist are key:

  1. 1.  Ellsberg, a true product of the establishment he was undermining, had the New York Times and the Washington Post simultaneously releasing in its entirety all that he had to share, while Snowden is dribbling his news through The Guardian and the Post, with neither paper taking much of a legal or ethical stand behind him, much less printing verbatim thousands of pages of classified material as happened with the Ellsberg case in the early 70s. If Snowden is the Ellsberg of this century, […]
By |July 9th, 2013|2013, Government, Internet, Newspapers, Politics, Privacy and Security, Social Media|73 Comments
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