The New Judge!

What an honour!

Naked Chasm Jumpers have been asked to be a judge for the next Blog race that is run at Manchester Business School.

Something to look forward to for 2007.

And the Winner is.......

After a long, hard Blog race the winners were announced last night....

There was stiff competition from the other blogs, especially the Disruptive Influences with a very slick presentation and great "Jackanory" video on the blog. The Wisdom of Cows with their top branding were close competitors. While the 0-0 AET were entertaining from start to finish in their presentation.

However, there could only be one winner and it went to the Naked Chasm Jumpers!!

No speeches, but just thanks to all our readers.

OVER 1000 VISITORS FOR NAKED CHASM BLOG

The Naked Chasm Jumpers blog reaches out to over a 1000 Visitors in just 6 weeks!

This achievement coincides with the same day that we present the Naked Chasm Blog to the MBA Class at Manchester Business School - Bring on the A-Grade!

Thank you for reading our blog.

Claim that Computing is Free Thanks to Moore’s Law

That is to say, the cost per MIP (million instructions) has now fallen to about a penny. Chris Anderson's article makes the point today saying that historically, the price of computing power has been astronomical; but, as hardware falls and Moore’s Law kicks in, that price has been falling at a faster and faster rate. Now, its virtually free.

Mr. Anderson gives a few other examples of things that have now also reached the “almost-free” inflection point — storage, bandwidth, and so on. I have to take exception to his assertion that free-computing equals waste, however, I think with all of these things now being essentially “free”, the real value will be in the value of ideas and creativity. Without the restraints and constraints of cost, more people will be able to participate in networks and take advantage of the power of computing for whatever purpose they desire. Almost-free will also act as a great democratiser on so many levels around the world, bringing the potential for information, the exchanging of ideas and knowledge to everyone.

The downside, of course, is that it is also ripe for abuse; one wonders, for example, if very cheap computers will just mean an explosion in spam.

Check It Out..... Not Long to Go Now!

CALLING ALL READERS!!


With only 4 days left to go until the Naked Chasm Jumpers blog is formally presented - you need to check out the Naked Chasm Reviews and let us know your thoughts:

1. Crossing the Chasm Book Review

The objective of this text is to summarise the key concepts which underpin Crossing the Chasm to provide a context to consider its key strengths and arguable limitations.

PLUS please check out whether the Crossing the Chasm Book can actually cross a chasm.

2. General Electrics IT Strategy Review
General Electric, or GE as it is commonly known, is the second largest company in the world and so how does a firm like GE use Information Technology (IT) to achieve its business goals.

Im sure you will agree that these are award winning articles!!

Guidelines for Success with your Skunk Works project

Found the following article on Digg and it provides guidelines for Skunk Works projects within IT Depts. The author states that...

"I've been hearing the term skunk works a lot lately, in reference to off-plan projects that are moving forward in all that "free time" people have in the IT department. Sometimes the term sounds slightly perjorative, but I like it when a project I am involved with is referred to in this way."

This seems to fit with what Peter was saying at our lecture yesterday - Skunk Works are making a come back.

Check out the full article here for full details

At last ITRIPS are legal in the UK... (phew)

Under the cover of darkness I and many others have been using an ITRIP - a device that is a FM transmitter that allows iPods and other MP3 players to play through car radios. A great bit of kit by all accounts. The reason for using it under the cover of darkness is that previously the use of a ITRIP has been illegal.

The devices fell foul of the Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1949, which forbids the use of radio equipment without a licence or an exemption. But strong consumer demand for the devices led Ofcom to rethink the legislation. As a result certain FM transmitters, which can be tuned to spare frequencies, will be legal from 8 December.

The Real Naked Jumper Spotted...

We are just "have a go" Naked Chasm Jumpers - however, there are people out there doing it for real. A naked man darted from a sport-utility vehicle into a downtown Washington office building and then jumped to his death from the eighth floor!

However, the funny part of the story is that before it became apparent what was taking place, the city's parking inspectors reacted to the abandoned SUV by slapping a ticket on the front windscreen.

Ten Worst Internet Acquisitions Ever

As the market for acquiring fledgling Internet companies heats up again (following the previous Intenet bubble) it's worth taking a look at all those acquisitions that didn't quite work out. For every acquisition that's successful there seems to be dozens that die.

However, what is most interesting about this article is the repeated errors. Some of the largest firms in the world cannot learn from their competition - why don't they learn from others mistakes? Could this mean that recent acquisitions, such as YouTube by Google and Myspace, are destined for disaster?

Also how much money is being spent - in some cases not millions, but billions of dollars? It seems that only the Americans are making such huge mistakes. So in reverse order:

10. Hotmail - acquired by Microsoft for about $400 million

9. Skype - acquired by eBay for $2.6 billion.

8. MySimon - acquired by CNET in 1999 for $700 million.

7. BlueMountain.com - acquired by Excite@Home for $780 million

6. Lycos - acquired by Terra Networks for $4.6 billion.

5. Netscape - acquired by AOL for $4.2 billion.

4. GeoCities - acquired by Yahoo! for $3.56 billion.

3. Excite - acquired by @Home in 1999 for $6.7 billion.

2. AOL - merged with TimeWarner in 2000.

1. Broadcast.com - acquired by Yahoo! for $5 billion.

Full article at http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/21041

Building A Better Skunk Works by IBM

At our MBA lecture last week we were introduced to the concept of "Skunk Works" which Lockheed have used to dramatic effect. This article details how IBM are using Skunk Works by placing some of their most talented executives in their risky startup ventures.

It is interesting to see that a huge organisation like IBM is using Skunk Works to become a more learning organisation and develop new ideas outside the main business.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/92/ibm.html

World's Oldest Blogger?

Is 92-year-old Donald Crowdis (former host of the Candadian TV program The Nature of Things) the world's oldest blogger? Even if the blog isnt that interesting - there are some funny and astute comments. Check link

http://dontoearth.blogspot.com/

Bit of Fun

Found this website which provides a different spin on the Motivation slogans that businesses have on the walls. I thought this was amusing...

Check it out... http://www.despair.com/viewall.html

The World’s Most High-Tech Urinal

This blog entry is not particular cutting edge technology, but it is very funny. Especially as my girlfriend is from Victoria and she will be appalled that we have put this on the naked chasm blog. Personally I think this is a top idea - I would certainly use it, just for novelty factor.

In an effort to handle its night time public urination problem, Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, is considering installing urinals that disappear below street level during the day. The Urilift system is a two-meter high stainless steel cylinder with three alcoves, each with a urinal, and no doors.

By day, the Urilift is lowered below street level for a nice clean look. Then at night, an operator comes by with a remote and the Urilift hydraulically lifts to sidewalk level in about two minutes. Then the unit is ready to serve all the nighttime party animals who don’t mind peeing in a very exposed public urinal.

Check out the VIDEO ADVERT.

The Tallest Website....

Check out the World’s Highest Website!

Currently, it’s 18.939 kilometers high (that’s about 11.769 miles).

Videoblogging to TV Show

A great example on the possible spin-offs of blogging, and in this case, videoblogging. It’s not all about the Adsense revenues you know.

Girly (guys can read it too) gadget blog Shiny Shiny has some Youtube hosted video clips every now and then. That has landed Susi Weaser a job as a presenter in a show at BBC Two (that’s a British public TV channel for all our non-UK readers).

Wikipedia Now available in China or has it!

Online enyclopedia Wikipedia is now accessible again in China. On Thursday after being blocked for more than a year, a move hailed by free media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders. The main page of the Chinese-language version of Wikipedia (zh.wikipedia.org) could be displayed and searches for apolitical terms turned up results, but searches for subjects taboo to China's Communist leadership, such as "June 4," remained blocked.

However, hours after writing this blog entry - news came in that China's nanny state has blocked Wikipedia both English and Chinese languages - AGAIN. Only took them a week and I thought Tony Blair's Government were bad!

iPods Make You Deaf and Even Kill You!

It's not entirely clear why everyone likes to pick on the iPod, but its popularity seems to attract all sorts of odd warnings about the evilness that is the iPod. In the past, there have been warnings about how iPods are a security risk and a beacon to muggers. The latest, though, is that audiologists are warning that the iPod will make you deaf.

Of course, while it sounds alarming, basically they're just saying that loud noises, directly in your ear are a risk. They always have been, from the days of the transistor radio with an earpiece to the walkman. However, how many stories are there of people who are now deaf for listening to their walkmans too loud?

But not everybody minds: the CEO of hearing-aid maker Phonak has forecast strong growth his company, saying that young people listening to their music players too loudly will create a "a hearing loss bubble in years to come". While the company may be rubbing its hands in expectation of a booming market, it had better hope that class-action lawyers, or overzealous politicians trying to protect the stupid, don't screw things up for it.

Furthermore, MP3 players could mean the difference between life and death when crossing the road, pedestrians are being warned during Road Safety Week. Deafness Research UK has teamed up with Specsavers Hearcare to encourage pedestrians to remove their headphones while crossing the road in a bid to reduce hearing-related road traffic accidents. So IPODs can kill you when crossing the road? Surely its the idiot listening to the IPOD that crosses the road without looking?

No More Wires - At Last!

The tangle of cables and plugs needed to recharge today's electronic gadgets could soon be a thing of the past.

US researchers have outlined a relatively simple system that could deliver power to devices such as laptop computers or MP3 players without wires. The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many metres, the researchers said.

Check out the full article here

How many Blogs?

Every day 100,000 new blogs are created and 1.3 million posts are made, it found during its quarterly survey. Technorati is now tracking more than 57 million blogs, of which it believes around 55% are 'active' - updated at least every three months.

While the daily figure of 100,000 new weblogs is down on the 160,000 total from June 2006 it does not indicate a slowdown in growth rates. Furthermore, English and Japanese remain the two most popular languages in the blogosphere. Despite problems for bloggers in China, Chinese remains at number three.

Suing a Search Engine Because your Ranking Sucks?

Why is it that people have this weird expectation that having a high search engine ranking is some sort of legally guaranteed right? We've seen a bunch of lawsuits recently where companies sue search engines because they're not happy with their ranking.

However here's a twist. Threadwatch points us to the story of a search engine optimizer (SEO) who is being sued by a former client because that client's search engine rankings have dropped below those of another company, who later hired the same person. It sounds like the complaint from the company is that the SEO later worked for this same company and helped "optimize" their rankings so they beat out the former client. The SEO notes that the work he did for the original client was four years ago and they've done little to nothing to continue the process of optimizing their site. The guy also claims that his agreements with companies make it clear that he does not work exclusively with them, and you'd have to imagine that most SEO contracts do not promise specific results -- especially not ones that would last four years after a contract is complete. It sounds like yet another case of a company suing simply because they don't like something, not because they have any real legal claim.

Cash Back for Windows

A Sheffield chap has won a refund from Dell for not installing Microsoft's Windows XP on a laptop he bought from the PC giant. Freelance programmer Dave Mitchell ordered a Dell laptop on 21 October, and the machine was delivered a few days later. As Mr Mitchell was planning to run the Linux open source operating system on the machine, he had no need for the copy of Windows XP Home.

When he started it for the first time, he clicked the box that said "no" on the Windows licence agreement that asked him to agree to its terms. The text of this agreement states users can get a refund for the "unused products" on their new computer if they get in touch with the machine's manufacturer.

Mr Mitchell, who is an active member of the open source community, said he knew that other Linux fans had tried to get refunds in a similar fashion with varying degrees of success.

We told you...

We wrote an article regarding news about the new competitor to Wikipedia from Larry Sanger - It Sometimes pays to come Second. Obviously the Financial Times are reading our blog - as they took this and wrote an in-depth article on the subject, check it out Wikipedia Stand-Off.

One in 100 web pages are naked

The Naked Chasm Jumpers bringing you news about nakedness....

A US Department of Justice - ordered study into pornography on the internet has found that just over 1 per cent of web pages contain sexually explicit material.

While representing only a small proportion of all material on the internet, the findings still showed that hundreds of millions of freely available web pages contain adult material, experts said. That could add to pressure in the US for a fresh legal crackdown on online pornography, a move that has been blocked for years by free speech advocates.

Full article on FT.com

Do you suffer from IPOD paralysis?

Nowadays we think nothing of ripping our music from CDs and rehousing a huge library of tracks into our computers to then cram onto a tiny MP3 player. However, the problem comes when you what to choose want to listen to - you either end up listening to rubbish, endless shuffling or just scroll though endless track lists. This is better known as IPOD paralysis!

So it's a relief to welcome a wave of cool tools that resolve this problem and let you mix, match and share your tunes. The best one that I have found is filter.com - a free program that lets you build mood-based playlists, fine tuned by your taste. It cuts out all the guesswork in selecting the best track. You choose a track and the software will build a playlist around that tune.

Another program (moodlogic.com) that features mood-tagging and recommends tracks based on recommendations of thousands of users to create and store playlists of all your tracks automatically.

My IPOD has been saved by such tools as I have rediscovered my music. Check them out and let us know what you think

Microsoft aiming small?

I saw this headline today in my Inbox, and thought, "More Microsoft Bashing!" However, once I clicked on the link, there was a very interesting story behind it, particularly if you own a company with between 1 and 10 employees, which is apparently responsible for 90% of employment in the US, something I wasn't aware of.

Is Microsoft finally waking up to the threats around about it, or is it all just a short term marketing ploy? The decision is yours.

http://www.growthbusiness.co.uk/expansion/it-explained/29961/microsoft-gives-small-business-a-lift.thtml

Hell has Frozen over - Microsoft Plays Nice with Open-Source

Microsoft called together a press conference the other day and announced a collaboration agreement with Novell for its brand of Linux. (This follows an announcement by Oracle to start supporting Red Hat's version of Linux).

As part of the agreement, Microsoft will not assert patent-infringement claims against individual, noncommercial, open-source developers. The moratorium applies only to Linux SuSe developers, not other flavors of Linux or other open-source software.

This represents a major shift for Microsoft, who until now seemed determined to defeat Linux. I guess that hell is now officially frozen. Obviously, both Microsoft and Novell were forced into this by its customers. Linux is just too entrenched in the enterprise for Microsoft to ignore it or fight it. But it is picking its partners.

What is 78 x 23?

The following article appeared on Digg.com and became popular very quickly - it may appear an odd question, but the author draws interesting conclusions about software deskilling people .

For example has the advent of Photoshop and Illustrator producing more talented graphic artists or is it allowing mediocre talents to get by?

Think of this as an 'interactive' article - certainly worth a read.....

http://clintonforbes.blogspot.com/2006/11/what-is-78-x-23.html#the_answer_to_78_by_23

UK Christmas shopping online set to hit £7bn

Britons are set to spend more than ever online this festive season, with internet shopping predicted to rise 40 per cent to a record £7bn in the 10 weeks leading up to Christmas day.

The sales boom is being driven by increased investment in online services by big retailers such as Tesco and Argos, according to the Interactive Media in Retail Group, as well as shoppers’ growing willingness to buy online items such as clothes and furniture they would normally have bought on the high street.

Full article on FT.com

I plan to buy all my christmas presents online and have them sent to me at home. I am refusing to visit the high street at xmas - no crowds for me!

Citizen Journalism - who needs the Sun Newspaper?

We've been waiting for the newspaper industry to realize it needs to do more than just put their articles online and sell advertising, but figure out ways to better enhance their offering via adding features that were simply impossible without the internet. For example, recognize that rather than readers, many people are willing to be distributors of the news as well. Gannett, most well known as the publisher of USA Today and a bunch of other newspapers is now trying to do much more by better involving readers in writing the news as well. Obviously, the idea of citizen journalism has been discussed at length for a while, but perhaps not when it comes to a major newspaper chain. Gannett is reorganizing their news rooms to be more collaborative (something that should have happened long ago), but are also encouraging newsrooms to get the community involved in the reporting process as well.

The article discusses how one newspaper got a bunch of readers to help them investigate excessively high prices for water and sewer lines to new homes. Apparently, it generated a lot of interest, with various experts all coming together to dig out the real story. Of course, that doesn't necessarily work in every case -- and there are some risks involved. As you might expect, many of the reporters are skeptical, wondering if this is just a way to fire reporters and replace them with "free" labour.

Digg up for Sale?

Well, I guess anyone is for sale at the right price, but according to several Internet sources the Digg owners have been talking to a number of potential suitors, including News Corp -MySpace's owner. Asking price, could be $150 million, which may be too high.

Given that founders Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson are starting another company, Revision 3, maybe they're ready to move on.

One article about the potential sale: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/24/digg-does-the-acquisition-dance-with-news-corp/

Facebook being greedy and losing its cool

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship with potential suitors. Instead of cashing-out for $800 million, the young entrepreneur is holding out for $2 billion.

Facebook launched in February 2004, and the website now has over 10 million registered users across over 40,000 regional, work, college and high school networks. According to comScore, Facebook is the seventh-most trafficked site on the web and is the number one photo-sharing site.

However, Business Week reports the site is starting to lose popularity and with the decline in growth, might come a decline in purchase price. Potential buyers such as Viacom and Yahoo, are content to sit back and wait, hoping to get a cheaper price tag.

In my humble opinion the decline in viewers on Facebook is down to the site losing its elusive cool factor. I think the owner should get out while the going is still considered good.

LibraryThing - Social Network for Book Lovers

Stumbled across the following social network for Book Lovers - LibraryThing.

LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. You can access your catalog from anywhere—even on your mobile phone. Because everyone catalogs together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth.

LibraryThing is a full-powered cataloging application, searching the Library of Congress, all five national Amazon sites, and more than 60 world libraries. You can edit your information, search and sort it, "tag" books with your own subjects, or use the Library of Congress and Dewey systems to organize your collection. This has been describe as "Myspace for Books".

This seems like an interesting idea, but not sure what the value of this is?

Do you know what a slingbox is? Its the next big thing...

The slingbox has come to my attention in the past week and in my opinion needs to be shared with a larger audience. This has to be the next big thing - watch your TV anywhere! A friend of mine has one of these and watches his TV with his laptop everywhere - he even watches his cousin's TV which is in the USA!

Slingbox is a compact and elegantly designed, state-of-the-art electronic device that connects to the back of your TV. It redirects the TV signal from your cable box, satellite receiver, or personal video recorder to a computer or laptop of choice, no matter your location - so long as you have a high-speed Internet connection.

In my humble opinion this device will transform the way people watch TV. Whether you want to watch your soaps in the shower room, or catch the big game during a conference call, or watch your local news from China, it now can be done. Plus you can buy the Slingbox in PC World and Dixons. Check out the website:

Famous at last....

The naked chasm jumpers blog is starting to get a reputation. The site has becoming highly rated by Google's search engine - if you type in naked chasm we now appear at the top of the list! This is a huge step forward when in the beginning (less than 3 weeks ago) the blog didnt even rank in the top twenty search pages.

Next step the world!!

The way of the future?

I found an interesting article on the BBC website which talks about Google and its ad revenues. It is expected that the Internet giants ad revenues for 2006 will surpass that of Channel 4, a TV channel in the traditional media sector. It is then expected that in 18 months it will surpass ITV's ad revenues. Is online advertising the way of the future?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6108678.stm

Breaking Mental models (sort of)

During our lecture last week with Ian Kendrick, he was talking about peoples mental models and how these are based on the experiences of people. As a bit of fun, I tried to find some examples of videos breaking mental models. By far the funniest is in the link below and is for all you wanna be boy (or girl) racers out there, although I don't think you will ever be able to do this in reality!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlCzCJEwZmY

Stirred, not shaken is best for Hollywood

Blogs can create a viral buzz about a new movie better than any marketing push, and Hollywood should wake up to their potential.

Along with the normal barrage of banners, 60 second trailers and the inevitable round of movie-star interviews, some film companies are using the internet to experiment with other marketing tools to involve the audience - blogs!

Despite the millions of pounds spend on film marketing, the success or failure of a film still relies on word of mouth. Film blogs can tap into a conversation long before a more traditional marketing campaign with the benefit of being cheaper. Some parts of the movie industry have realised this - for example, the forthcoming James Bond film, Casino Royale, has no viewer interaction, but most in the blog world see interactivity as key to its success. http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/casinoroyale/blog/

Do we really need another site with a few pretty pictures and crappy interviews with the actors who just talk about how lovely it was to work with so-and-so? No the movie audience wants interactivity and one on one with the team behind the film - bring on the film blogging and save your marketing budget.

Is your password in the top 10 most common passwords?

Life these days has become largely dependent on passwords - whether we're checking our emails, transferring funds or shopping online, passwords have their part to play. We're constantly bombarded with horror stories of security breaches, fraud, and phishing sites. Users are consistently told that a strong password is essential these days to protect private data. Why is it, then, that users on websites opt for the same, consistent, insecure passwords time after time? http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/top-10-most-common-passwords.asp

Which one of you muppets is using 1234 as your password?

Some people have too much time available!

As if the U.N. does not have enough going on with conflict all over the world, especially in Iraq, Afganistan, Middle East and the Sudan, however they can find the time for an "Internet Conference". Furthermore, key issues include the English language having an unfair monopoly on the Internet - which is top billing.

Im all for improving the power of the Internet and making it as accessible to as many people as possible, but surely the U.N. is wrong organisation to make this happen? What do you think?

Check out this article for full details of the conference: http://news.com.com/At+U.N.+Internet+summit,+calls+for+change/2009-1028_3-6131408.html?tag=nefd.lede

It Sometimes pays to come Second

Wikipedia, the collaborative internet encyclopadia, is about to get some competition. On 17 October, Larry Sanger, who helped set up Wikipedia in 2001, announced the launch of a site called Citizendium. He claims it will unseat Wikipedia as the go-to destination for general information online.

In my opinion, I think he has a strong chance of acheving number one spot, as Larry can benefit from second mover advantage. Second movers in a market can avoid heavy investment in R and D by simply replicating the original mover. Citizendium will start life as a "progressive fork" of Wikipedia, opening up as an exact copy - saving five years of development time!

Furthermore, Citzendium is introducing developments such as site sponsorship and an editorial team of expert academics to improve accuracy. These improvements should help it avoid the problems of Wikipedia - as the site is continually critised for having mistakes in its content that go unchecked.

Look out Wikipedia the new boy is on the block and you are next goliath to fall. Do you agree? http://citizendium.org/

Get a job via Ebay

Unemployed newbie blogger Al Murray (see pic) got in touch with BBC Radio Five about his new scheme to get work: "I have started my own blog, al4hire.com", Al says, "Rather fed up with applying for jobs I am auctioning myself on ebay to work for anyone anywhere next week. I am writing about my experiences on my blog al4hire.com, I am currently half way towards the minimum wage at £102 for next week. If this is a success I plan to do this every week until I get a good job offer."Al says he won't do anything dangerous or illegal - but that still leaves plenty of scope for the bizarre, the embarassing or the just plain boring- so I think Al is a brave man.

Still it's not a bad plan for someone whose previous career was in online marketing. I suspect this will get quite a bit of press.

The Future Scenario

A question that everybody asks at some point in time is "What does the future hold?" Most people have a clearly defined route of where they want their lives to go, from careers to love life to money! How many times does this 'plan' actually play out the way we want it to?

We had a very interesting lecture last Thursday from Ian Kendrick on scenario thinking. He started the lecture with a very powerful story about an older lady and her plans for the next couple of weeks over the Christmas holidays. She was to enjoy Xmas with her family in her new home and see her grandchild for the time. Everything was in place, her family were on the way and the champagne was in ice. All of a sudden, the peace was shattered by a loud rumbling noise. The old lady went outside into her garden where she could make a shape out at the bottom of her garden. On closer inspection, she dicovered a young man strapped to a seat, dead. A loud explosion was heard a couple of miles away and the air was filled with debris. The woman lived near Lockerbie in 1988.

In those days, not many people could have envisaged such an event happening, but today, based on past experience, people would think such an event could happen. Businesses need to be able to cope with the future and as such need to plan for possible scenarios becoming reality or at least be aware that they may happen!

I found an interesting video on YouTube, which clearly shows one companies thoughts on what the future holds both for them and their customers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BkuynPMP7o

As I questioned previously in my blog entitled "Are Blogs the new Time Capsules?", could blogs become the new 'soft' version of the Time Capsule?

I invite you now to post your version of 'The Future' and lets see if it becomes reality!

The Singularity!

"The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), is sent back to the year 1984 to assassinate a young woman named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). The cyborg comes from the year 2029, following a nuclear war which has devastated the better part of civilization. Computer defense mechanisms have turned on their creators, starting another war, in an effort to eliminate the human race altogether."

The above extract was taken from The Terminator Home Page, an unofficial fan site of the famous movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, given our last lecture on Scenarios and looking to the future, could the 'story' above ever become reality?

Analysed closer, there is a distinct possibility that "Computer defense mechanisms [could] turn on their creators ... in an effort to eliminate the human race altogether."

In todays world, there are scientists working towards what they call the singularity! This is the point at which computers are of equal power to the human brain and humans and technology start to fuse together. It is believed that at the current rate of development, it will be 25 years from now that scientists will understand the human brain and how it works. By some scary coincidence, people believe that Humans version 2.0 will be created in 2029, the same year that the Terminator was sent from! Is this the first step to the destruction of humans by their own creations, computers?

Can you imagine controlling machines by your thoughts or machines speaking for you as you think? Don't believe it could happen? I suggest you check out the link below -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/programmes/?id=horizon (Current as of 29th October 2006)

Apple plans to change TV next

Steve Jobs described the iTV as Apple's entry into the living room, as if it were a strategic move in a larger game plan. But with several wireless TV extenders already on the market, why will Apple's be any different?

Many asked the same question of the iPod in 2001, when there was a similar variety of music players already available. Early reviews suggested Apple's product was simply nothing new, that it just had a bigger price tag. Why did the iPod clean up the market? For starters, it leveraged some key Apple assets - well designed hardware specifically tailored for its intended use and an uncluttered, simple and easy to use interfac.

However, the most interesting element of this article is Apple's strategy to make iTV successful. It seems to follow the "Chasm approach" laid out by Geoffrey Moore.....
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/C408570C-520A-4433-B92D-B2B8219636E3.html

Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?

Academics are split, and feuding, about how to handle the popular collaborative project. Due to the ease of editing correct information into nonsense, many professors are ignoring it. Others want to start contributing. This article makes interesting reading on the subject: Wikipedia - will it ever 'make the grade'?

From the article: "As the encyclopedia's popularity continues to grow, some professors are calling on scholars to contribute articles to Wikipedia, or at least to hone less-than-inspiring entries in the site's vast and growing collection. Those scholars' take is simple: If you can't beat the Wikipedians, join 'em. Leaders of Wikipedia said there that they had turned their attention to increasing the accuracy of information on the Web site, announcing several policies intended to prevent editorial vandalism and to improve or erase Wikipedia's least-trusted entries."

Web Site Offers To 'Fix' Elections - For A Price

There are many conspiracy theories out there about how any particular campaign might go about "fixing" an election. Well, as with so many good ideas these days, it appears someone has set up a nice website to make it that much easier. A web site called fixavote.com, which appears to be satire, claims to "guarantee" e-voting results.

That's the mantra of Election Partners, whose slick Fixavote.com Web site offers such services as "real-time voter correction," and "enhanced retrospective tallying." The site features attractive stock-photography models and inspirational New Age music. "Using state of the art technology, we overcome the challenges of competition and ensure election results for our clients," the Web site states.

One journalist from PC World has tried the process and in the article the guy does say that about 30 political campaigns have contacted the site. This could be entirely made up as well, but it would definitely be amusing to find out that this is actually a honeypot to try to draw out campaigns that are actually looking to hack the vote.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,127684-pg,1-RSS,RSS/article.html

If PS3, XBox 360, and Wii were people you know?

Interesting little article about the new generation game consoles and comparing them to people .....
http://earthcode.com/blog/2006/10/if_ps3_xbox_360_and_wii_were_p.html

Social Networking for Bank Loans

A company called Zopa is using the Web to allow personal lending on a massive scale. This peer to peer money lender must be a disruptor to the traditional banks.

The idea is simple. People join Zopa online as either borrowers or lenders. The lenders proffer money not to individuals but to a pool of people grouped together because of similar creditworthiness. Zopa assesses the credit risk of the borrowers, pools the capital, and matches consumers who need money with consumers who want to lend it. Since Zopa is not technically a bank and doesn't lend money itself, the capital requirements to run the business are relatively small.

http://www.zopa.com/zopaweb/public/about-zopa/about-zopa-home.html

Free Music!

AllofMP3.com (russian music download site) have introduced a custom made desktop music player, called 'music for the masses', to play tracks downloaded free of charge from Allofmp3.com. You must be connected to the internet and have a valid allofmp3 login name and password to play these tracks. The tracks are 128kbps... pretty good for FREE!
http://music.allofmp3.com/info/musicformasses.shtml

What Was That About How Much Downloads are Hurting Music Sales?

For all the whining from record labels about how unauthorized downloads and songs on YouTube are somehow "stealing" from them (even though it isn't), plenty of folks have recognized the promotional value of such content. The latest is that after nearly three decades in the music business, Weird Al Yankovic is happily crediting the internet for his latest album hitting the top ten on the Billboard charts (his first ever top 10 hit). He says that having his song on YouTube, having a profile on MySpace and everyone downloading his songs (including his song about downloading songs called "Don't Download This Song") helped him get the attention needed to zoom up the charts.

Even Bush uses Google!

When George Bush is not leading the US into war he checks out his own Texas ranch on google earth:

On a CNBC interview, when the host asked Bush whether he ever googles anyone, Bush replied, "Occasionally. One of the things I ’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see -- I’ve forgot the name of the program -- but you get the satellite, and you can -- like, I kinda like to look at the ranch.". Check out the video clip on this link..

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/23/bush-says-he-uses-the-google/

RSS Feeds? Make your own Headlines

RSS feeds are an unknown quantity to me (highlighted by last weeks lecture), however, I found this interesting article on the subject. It also includes a ranking of the best providers for RSS Feeds. Bloglines seems to be a highly rated service.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10088_7-6651890.html?tag=cnetfd.mt

Full-Screen iPod and iPhone Confirmed

Rumors about a full-screen video iPod and uber-multimedia iPhone have been floating around for quite some time without confirmation, an anonymous source from Apple says that both products will be released around the new year.

According to an anonymous, yet extremely well-informed exec at Apple, a 6th-generation full-screen video iPod will be released some time in December of 2006. As speculated over the past year, the device will include an touch-sensitive LCD screen that will cover one entire side of the device. The touch-screen will include a virtual scroll wheel, and will be able to display videos at resolutions as high as 480p.

http://techfreep.com/full-screen-ipod-iphone-confirmed-by-extremely-well-informed-apple-exec.htm

Putting blogs to work on Wall Street

Collective Intellect has a goal and can make money. Following on from our lecture and the discussion surrounding how collective intellect could make money - the following article shows how Wall Street is using it to its advantage.

A Wallstreet firm has created a service that combs through thousands of blogs, news sites, chat rooms and other Web sites every day and then surfaces rumors and news reports that might be of interest to traders or corporate public-relations executives. This seems similar to the Digg website.

http://news.com.com/Putting+blogs+to+work+for+Wall+Street/2100-1008_3-6128340.html?tag=nefd.lede

MySpace is getting old!

MySpace is Over the Hill .....

A new report by comScore puts more than half of MySpace users at over 35.

How the iPod Took Over the World

In an interview with Newsweek on the fifth anniversary of the iPod, Steve Jobs explains how he got the music labels to go along with the iTunes store. What he describes is a classic example of how a disruptive technology can creep up from the edges before taking the world by storm.

That's certainly true for the iPod. First it was digital music for the Mac crowd. Then for all PCs. Then it added video. And now everyone is waiting for the iPhone. Creeping disruption is definitely the way to go.



Furthermore you can now buy a Mercedes-Benz Limited Edition IPOD!! (If you are interested in one leave a comment)

Second Life Hits One Million Online Residents

Second Life, the online 3-D virtual world where you can develop your own real estate and design your own clothing, hit one million registered residents today. About 40 percent have actually logged on in the last two months, more than 10,000 are on at any given time, and the equivalent of $455,000 changed hands in just the past 24 hours.

This thing just keeps getting bigger, especially as people get more the more powerful computers needed to even log on. In fact, I think that's the main thing holding it back. Windows Vista will be good for Second Life.