Chrome vs. Bing vs. You and Me

timesdetailA couple times per year the New York Times calls me up asking for an Op-Ed column on some technology topic.  I don’t know how they found me but I’ve been writing these pieces since 1995.  I think they call because I’m good at meeting tight deadlines.  Lord knows that if there was a piece I actually wanted to get in the Times (my idea, not theirs) I have no confidence that I could get them to run it.  Op-Ed at the Times — at least to me — is a sort of black box.

Here’s the column they asked for on Google’s Chrome OS: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/opinion/13cringely.html

The opinions expressed, as always, are ruthlessly my own.

By |July 12th, 2009|Uncategorized|120 Comments
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Google/Adobe? No.

adobe_flashI had intended to write a post about Google’s Chrome Operating System, but then the New York Times called looking for an Op-Ed piece on exactly that so I gave it to them.  Look for the column to appear Monday and I’ll put a link to it here.

The Times column is here.

Beyond the broader implications of the Chrome OS, one reader asks about the strategic involvement of Adobe Systems in the project, since Adobe is in the short list of companies mentioned in the Chrome OS FAQ.  Why is Adobe on this list, asks the reader, and is Google likely to buy Adobe?

I have no inside information here, just the usual […]

By |July 10th, 2009|Uncategorized|63 Comments
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The Future of Television (part II)

predicta2My last column generated a lively debate on the prospects for various business and technical options for the delivery of Internet TV so it makes sense to continue this topic and build it into a more full-featured model.  I used to write quite a bit about this back when I was trying to get NerdTV going.  The core of what I’ll write here can be found in a couple dozen columns from back then — columns that would seem to have been for the most part forgotten given the direction last week’s discussion took.  You see the future of television IS Internet television.  There is no other in sight.

No business or technology exists in a […]

By |May 13th, 2009|Uncategorized|224 Comments
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The Sequel Dilemma

linqiconNot long ago I had a chance to visit the big data center at 365 Main Street in San Francisco.  I was invited by friends to help them install the first servers for their startup, which is still in stealth mode.  The data center was enormous, though my friends occupied only a small part of one rack not far from the Oakland Raiders and one floor up from Bebo, the social network bought not long ago by AOL.  Bebo is a big hit in the UK and I found it odd that all those British profiles are hosted in San Francisco, eight time zones away.

We installed the servers — three little boxes and one big […]

By |May 1st, 2009|Uncategorized|113 Comments
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Geek Chic: Google’s Culture of Efficiency

google2Last week Google revealed to the world its shipping container modular data centers that I was the first to write about almost four years ago. I was invited to the event and expected to be there until the parking brake on my 34-foot Winnebago motor home let loose on a slight slope during my trip to California. Though I jumped in the way trying to stop with superhuman strength the half-mile-per-hour collision with a 2000 Ford Excursion SUV, the crunch happened anyway and I was a day late and about $4000 short getting to Google.

There’s not much about the container strategy that I didn’t already write years ago. They use standard shipping containers […]

By |April 6th, 2009|Uncategorized|119 Comments
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