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October 2006 Archives

October 31, 2006

Tuesday Newswatch: Microsoft meets PHP, Cisco slammed at net forum, new frontiers for women in tech

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Microsoft, Zend hook up for PHP

Microsoft has committed to a long-term partnership with Zend, a commercial developer of PHP products, Reuters reports. The deal is intended to improve PHP's performance on Windows servers.

"PHP has always worked on Windows. The problem is that it never performed very well," Andi Gutmans, Zend's co-founder and chief technology officer, said. The deal will result in technical improvements to PHP, which will be offered to open source developers in early 2007.

The move shows that open source has won the battle for web scripting. The real battle is over the operating system. Rather than demanding that customers use all Microsoft products, Redmond is signaling that it can accommodate customers' needs. If shops can get PHP running as well on Windows as Linux, why take on the hassle of running multiple operating systems? "Microsoft is giving corporate software developers one more reason not to choose Linux," said Gartner Inc. analyst Mark Driver.

RSF accuses Cisco of colluding with China

Addressing the World Internet Forum in Athens, Reporters Sans Frontieres accused Internet companies of participating in China's repression of free speech. Cisco especially was singled out for providing routers that allow the Chinese government to monitor and shut off traffic, Reuters reports.

"We sold the same equipment we sell in any country around the world," Art Reilly, Cisco's Senior Director for Strategic Technology Policy said at the forum. "We are selling the same product everywhere. We are not colluding with any government."
He said Cisco technology sold to China would allow a secure information flow. "It is essential that there has to be security..to provide security to allow the freeflow of information. It is the same technology for libraries for example".

RSF's Julien Paine called for a ban on "the sale of communication surveillance equipment to repressive countries."

Women in Technology is back in the Valley

In the aftermath of dot-bomb, Women in Technology International went $1 million in debt, lost thousands of members and even closed its SiliconValley branch. As it meets in Santa Clara this week, though, WITI is back - though with a more focused mission, the Mercury News reports.

``WITI has shifted from the issue of diversity and human resources to things that are important to business executives,'' said Cheemin Bo-Linn, IBM's director of worldwide marketing. ``It's getting more focused on how it can help corporations grow.''

But for some at the conference, it was more like Women without Technology, as there was no wireless access in the meeting halls. If they want to reach out to young women, that's a awfully stupid oversight.

Google buys JotSpot

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Google has acquired JotSpot, the Wiki-based groupware company founded by former Excite CEO Joe Kraus. On his blog, Kraus gushes that Google and Jot share a vision of "groups of people creating, managing and sharing information online."

when we had conversations with people at Google we found ourselves completing each other's sentences. Joining Google allows us to plug into the resources that only a company of Google's scale can offer, like a huge audience, access to world-class data centers and a team of incredibly smart people.

SVW hooked up with Kraus back in February 2005, when he had this comment: "Google reminds me a lot of Microsoft in 1987, everybody is trying to second-guess where Google is heading and trying to keep out of the way." So Joe won't have to second-guess anymore but he's probably smiling more.

October 30, 2006

Kultur Shock: Hello! ween Part 2

By Maria Mouk for Silicon Valley Watcher

Halloween has yet to arrive, but Tuesday(October 31st) will be costume number 3 for many. I do feel an extended vacation in the air and am only glad to prolong liberating moments such as these... costumes, parties, and more costumes.

If you're hoping to avoid the crowds of Halloween in the Castro, head over to see BatBoy the Musical, at the School of the Arts Theater. It'll having you smiling at worst. :)

Seems like mischievious Halloween spirits spread far and wide... even to the art world where pranksters have "decorated", (no serious damage, I'd say) Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito’s “Passage” sculpture on San Francisco’s Embarcadero at Pier 14. This incident follows another recent “bong & lighter prank”.

If 10 tons of steel can get seasonally adorned, you can find inspiration enough to attend one of the happenings on Hallow's eve.

The Extra Action Marching Band has returned to perform (after an extended hiatus:( ) at their big “Scary Halloween Bash" (12 Galaxies in San Francisco). They will be performing Black Sabbath’s First Album which is sure to get you roaring. Sour Mash Hug Band and Live Human open the show.

Alternately, hit the DNA Lounge, for their Halloween Extravaganza, with the musical talents of Rosin Coven, burlesquin of Creepshow Peepshow, Living Dead Girlz, a ton of DJ's, and a $1000 costume contest.

I also suggest stopping by the Manifesto Gathering fundraiser at Obscura Digital for local flavor with an extended cause. El Papachango, Shawna, Adam Ohana, Boreta, Kitty-D, Abai, Freek Factory's Haj, and Mozaic will be repping with promised surprises. The event is a fundraiser for an intended gathering December 5th thru December 12th on the Finca Otra Vista Farm, on the Nicoya Peninsula, in MalPais, Costa Rica. (sigh) Heaven.

Raise the bar on what you'd normally do. We are human. Engage the exploration of our potential. Happy frollicking!

[diggrz refers to the nomadic lifestyle offered by mobile digital technologies and gadgets - creating a "nomadig" culture. The diggrz name is also a tip-of-the-hat to some of the ideas of the Diggers, a democratic group that arose in 1649, out of the English revolution .

The Diggers were a radical group that cultivated and protected common lands, and sought to create egalitarian, self-sustaining communities. The Diggers would have found kindred spirits in today's software engineer culture, and the focus on creating commonly owned technologies through egalitarian open source community projects. - Tom Foremski]

Tag: diggrz

Monday Newswatch: Brightcove ad network, Seagate encryption drive, Monitor 110 raises $11mn

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Brightcove Network

Brightcove launched video content and advertsing networks, offering websites a range of tools to create "channels" while taking a 50% cut of advertising that runs. (press release and News.com story.

Web sites select the services they want--ad placement in videos, a virtual video store, etc.--from a click menu on the Internet Protocol TV specialist's network. For example, a news site on extreme sports could get a feed on foreign surf competitions from an established news agency like Reuters, resell or syndicate its own clips to online outdoor-clothing merchants, and put ads in the videos it produces.

Monitor110 raises $11mn

Monitor 110, the web buzz service for the financial industry has raised $11mn in Series C funding led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. TechCrunch reports that the company has been working with just 10 hedge funds but will increase to 20 in January.

Self-encypting hard drive

Seagate Technology has developed a hard drive with built-in encryption, which it will start selling in early 2007, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The heart of the new hardware-based system is a special chip. That chip, built into the drive, will serve to encode and decode all data traveling to or from the disk, he said.
This encrypted drive will be installed in the laptop by the manufacturer. Once the user takes possession of the machine, the user or a system administrator will have to create a password in order to use the computer.

Despicable behavior by Yahoo management - Shi Tao gets ten years

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

From the London-based The Independent:

CHINA
Published state secrets
Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison after "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities."
His crime was to have emailed details of the Chinese government's plans to handle news coverage of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 2004. Yahoo! provided crucial information in the case, linking the message and email account with Shi 's computer. Reporters Without Borders accused Yahoo! of acting as a "police informant."

This kind of behavior will not fly. Yahoo management made a serious error in judgement and so has that of Google, which also hands over such information to Chinese and other government authorities. Both companies could "launder" their data before they receive it, and thus have nothing to turn over.

Both companies always assure us that any data collected is not identifiable and that they are only interested in aggregated behavioral data. It's time to prove it.

The revolt will come from within Yahoo's and Google's own ranks. How does it feel to work for a "police informant" for the Chinese government?

The revolt from the rank and file is already happening. Watch this space for more details.

And how long before users of Yahoo or Google services switch to more ethical service providers? On the Internet, other services are just a click away...

Social causes are becoming extremely important in recruiting and retaining people. As competition for key staff rises, the determining factor will not be money or stock options, it will be ethics.

What use is money and stock options if you work for a company that does not act in a socially responsible way? Yahoo and Google can have their cake and eat it. They can comply with police authorities in other countries and make sure that they do not enable repression, oppression, or supression of political dissent.

They have the technology and the means to collect user data without identifiable data. It's as simple as that.

October 29, 2006

Part 2: A passage to India . . . the stately New Delhi

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher in New Delhi.

[This is an account of my first trip to India, traveling as a guest of Tibco Software, an SVW sponsor. Vivek Ranadive, CEO of Tibco, is launching his business IT strategy book, "The Power to Predict," in India and he invited me to come along as he meets with politicians and some of India's top business and technology leaders. Part 1 is here.]

New Delhi is a government city, at least for now. Broad boulevards and grand government buildings seem to be everywhere. And civil servants sit outside in circles having lunch on the expansive lawns. It is a city of 14mn people but I have no idea where they live, clearly not in the British colonial palaces in the part of the city where I am staying.

Humayun Tomb inspired Taj Mahal - World Heritage site - photo T. Foremski

I take a guided tour of the city's sights during the day. The weather is warm and humid but not oppressively hot. I'm told by my guide that this is a good time of the year to visit India.

Delhi and Rome share the distinction of being the only two cities that have been inhabited for more than 2,000 years.

Qutb Minar site of first Moslem Mosque in India - World Heritage site photo: T. Foremski

Delhi is moving away from its dominance by government agencies and is building a large IT business park in its suburbs. Already, there are many US IT companies represented in India's capital city and more are expected. Bangalore, the well known Indian high-tech center is about a two-hour flight south of Delhi, closer to Mumbai (Bombay).

In the evening we head out to the Sheraton hotel, about 15 minutes away, where Vivek Ranadive, the CEO of Tibco, is due to give a keynote speech at the Dataquest India IT awards reception and dinner.

The Sheraton is teaming with men in suits as we walk along the corridor and into a cavernous, dark room and sit and watch the stage. Various awards are given for achievements in IT.

Mr Ranadive gets up and gives his speech. He talks about how he started life as a hardware engineer but got fed up with software continually lagging hardware. He spoke about how he started his first software company, making a presentation to Goldman Sachs and winning his first customer.

He explains how IT has been database-driven for many years and how this led to an "architecture of extortion" because it requires expensive consultants and processes to manage. And now the future of IT needs to be services-driven, through a services oriented architecture (SOA) as a way to escape the "extortion" of the old IT order.

With SOA, corporations can move beyond real-time processing of business data and tap into historical analysis to predict strains on their IT systems, to predict which customers need services that will keep them customers. The historical data can trigger business processes in real-time. It's all part of his predictive enterprise concept that is explained in his book, "The Power to Predict."

There is lots of applause and then the rest of the awards ceremony continues. It is soon over and we skip the dinner and head back to our hotel.

Next: Part 3: Private jet to teeming Mumbai as Vivek Ranadive returns to his home town, and a CIO magazine dinner with CIOs from India's largest corporations - India Inc. Part 1 is here.

October 27, 2006

Google's nonexistent YouTube problem

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Law professor Tim Wu explains on Slate why all that copyright material on YouTube is really no problem at all for Google, deep pockets or no. It's simply not a problem because of the "safe harbor" provision of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which protects online providers from liability for user-posted infringements.

Under the DMCA, so long as a provider responds to notice of an infringement from the copyright holder, there is no liability - unless the provider was already aware the infringing content was there. Wu explains:

Companies are now protected by a "notice and take down" system when they host user content. That means that if Jon Stewart notices an infringing copy of The Daily Show on YouTube, Comedy Central can write a letter to YouTube and demand it be taken down. Then, so long as YouTube acts "expeditiously" and so long as YouTube wasn't already aware that the material was there, YouTube is in the clear. In legal jargon, YouTube is in a "safe harbor." Earlier this week, when YouTube took down 30,000 files after requests from a Japanese authors' group, that was §512(c) in action.

This "safe harbor" provision came into being in the early 90s when the headlines were filled with promised of the "Information Superhighway." Hollywood's Jack Valenti was pushing for a law that would make providers fully liable for any copyright violation, whether they knew about it or not. That spurned the Baby Bells into action and the safe harbor clause (§512(c) of the DMCA) is the result.

But Wu's most interesting point is that Hollywood is not furiously lobbying to get rid of the provision; Hollywood actually loves safe harbor.

The notice-and-takedown system gives content owners the twin advantages of exposure and control. When stuff is on YouTube, the owners have an option. They can leave it posted there, if they want people to see it, and build buzz. But they can also snap their fingers and bring it all down. And for someone who is juggling her desire for publicity against her need for control, that's ultimately a nice arrangement.

YouTube's strategy is actually designed to take advantage of Hollywood's hatred for piracy in any form and its love of free publicity. By cutting deals to allow companies to advertise on their own content posted by users, they get to ride on the viral marketing of YouTube's post-and-share culture while monetizing the eyeballs. (I wrote about this shift in attitudes towards copyright violation here).

But in reaching out to Hollywood, YouTube has trumpeted a new program that allows them to search and identify copyrighted content. The plan is to alert the copyright holders to the content and allow them to request its removal or play ball and find a way to exploit its presence on the site. By running a program that tells YouTube about infringing content it is limiting its own safe harbor claims. And since YouTube can build it, the expectation will be that anyone can build it. Thus, there is no excuse for not knowing about infringing content and the safe harbor defense may be whittled away.

At least that's one way it could go. Since Google is so interested in pushing the envelope on copyright law, they should watch out that they don't push away their own interests in the current law. Technology really is a double-edged sword.

October 26, 2006

Liberal bloggers drop a Google bomb

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

In a "fascinatingly evil" plot - as one conservative blogger puts it - liberal blogger Chris Bowers has hatched a plot to "Google bomb" 50 Republican candidates by mounting a concerted effort to link to negative articles about them, thus driving those articles to the top of Google's search results.

For example, Googling "Clay Shaw" - a Florida Republican House member - returns in the #7 spot US News article on the representative's difficulties in light of the Mark Foley scandal. (It would be ranked higher if you ignored links to the other Clay Shaw, who was tried for the assassination of JFK.)

That's because bloggers at MyDD.com have been intentionally pointing to that article in their blogs in a concerted effort to play Google's ranking system. It appears to be working. On a ranking page posted today, Bowers reports on how the effort is going. It's not a total success but it's definitely having an impact on the search results.

The New York Times covered the story today, so Bowers' pages are getting a traffic boost of their own, which might inspire even more bloggers to join the effort.

The project was originally aimed at 70 Republican candidates but was scaled back to roughly 50 because Chris Bowers, who conceived it, thought some of the negative articles too partisan.
The articles to be used “had to come from news sources that would be widely trusted in the given district,” said Mr. Bowers, a contributor at MyDD.com (Direct Democracy), a liberal group blog. “We wanted actual news reports so it would be clear that we weren’t making anything up.”

Bowers also conceived of launching an AdWords campaign to promote those articles, but that part of the campaign will likely not happen due to time constraints.

The Times points out that it would be much harder to pull this off on, say, John McCain, because so many articles reference him. But for more obscure candidates like Shaw or Arizona's "other senator" Jon Kyl, the Google Bomb effect may be potent. Here's Bowers' advice to his coconspirators:

We've got to have the candidate's name in the title.
Probably, we should google the name in the first place and choose something that comes up in the first 15-20 pages.
We should choose articles with local resonance. The articles can also have national focus, but they absolutely should be local.
We need to be conscious of shared/common names. Charles Taylor and Peter King are names shared by lots of noteworthy people, all the more reason to find a preexistingly popular article.
If we do this again in 2008, we should start early, expand the field, and introduce articles on a rolling basis before dropping the complete list a few weeks ahead of the election.

October 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Part 1: A Passage to India . . . My Travels with Tibco

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher in New Delhi.

[This is an account of my first trip to India,  traveling as a guest of Tibco Software, an SVW sponsor. Vivek Ranadive, the CEO of Tibco is launching his business IT strategy book "The Power to Predict" in India, and he invited me to come along as he meets with politicians and some of India's top business and technology leaders.]

We're about to land in New Delhi when suddenly the engines of the huge American Airlines 777 rise to a roar and I'm pushed back into my seat as we gain speed and altitude.

The captain's voice is calm, "We decided to abort the landing to get out of a bad situation. We'll be taking the approach again and we'll be landing in about ten minutes."

This time the landing proceeds smoothly and I walk out of the high-tech transport and into a dowdy, provincial looking airport with threadbare carpets and walls covered with a patina of neglect. It reminds me of Warsaw airport circa 1977, before the economic changes that transformed Poland into a modern country.

Even the roads leading from the airport are similar to pre-capitalist Warsaw, with small, ancient looking cars, traveling over narrow roads with broken paving.

The analogy with Poland is an apt one but clearly on a much different scale. Poland's programmers routinely win top international competitions and India's programmers are helping to win big outsourcing contracts for the domestic IT companies--all part of a transformation of a country from a planned economy to the wild, wild west of a capitalist economy.

And while India's infrastructure is lagging its tech prowess, its IT companies are not laggards in terms of their ambitions to make their mark on a global scale. Infosys and Wipro are India's largest and best known IT companies but these are just a tip of an iceberg that I hope to find out more about on this trip.

As our driver patiently negotiates through traffic that considers lane markings as a suggestion--rather than a rule--I can see the night-time air is filled with a smoke-like haze. I'm told it is from all the two-stroke engines that are popular in many parts of Asia. I think to myself that the smog is probably good for slowing global warming by reflecting sunlight back into space but at what cost to human lungs?

It takes about 30 minutes to reach The Oberoi Hotel, a luxury resort with its own golf course close to the center of New Delhi. We pass through a security checkpoint that inspects the underside of the car, and there are security guards stationed all along the driveway that leads to the lobby entrance.

Check-in is quick and the receptionist and a porter and a butler, form an entourage that escorts me to my room. I take a quick shower and head back down to the lobby to meet with my Tibco hosts at an Italian restaurant inside the hotel.

It's interesting that we are eating Italian rather than Indian food but I'm not complaining about the quality, which is excellent. I hear a bit more about the schedule for the week-long trip. This includes a big IT awards dinner organized by Dataquest India, a flight to Bombay, a visit to the massive Infosys campus with 15,000 staff, and a visit to Tibco's India HQ in Pune, plus interviews with TV, radio, and newspapers.

Ram Menon, executive Vice President, Worldwide Marketing for Tibco meets us for dinner while Vivek skips the food so that he can work out in the gym. Ram lives in Silicon Valley with his American wife and five year old son and is very American.

Ram was raised in India in a British colonial tradition. His family owns a plantation and he was  sent to boarding school when he was just 5 1/2 years old, and educated in India's top private schools. He knows many of India's business leaders because of his old school tie connections.

He tells me about all the changes he's seen in India, and the booming real estate and business markets of the past few years. He says that more recently, Indian companies have been teaming up with large private equity firms, which has fueled an M&A boom enabling them to acquire large foreign companies.

He says it all reminds him of the 1999 era dotcom boom days, and that the newspapers and the rest of India's media, are covering the trend with an uncritical eye--similar to our dotcom boom period.

It was interesting hearing about the private equity funds. On the flight over I had read the excellent BusinessWeek cover story on the corporate "gluttony" of US private equity firms and the potential problems they are causing.

The BusinessWeek article noted that it used to take five or more years for private equity firms to turn around companies and then IPO them. Now, some of them are flipping companies in less than a year. Plus, they make the companies take on massive debt so that they can award themselves huge dividends--and large consulting/management fees.

BusinessWeek said the companies are leaner and meaner, but are saddled with large debt loads that will make it more difficult for some of them to survive periods of market weakness--with shareholders and employees the ones that ultimately suffer.

When I awoke the next morning, the lead story in India's top financial newspaper, The Economic Times, announced that US private equity funds were behind plans to IPO Genpact, a large Indian BPO (business process outsourcing) company.

The deal could raise more than $1bn which would become "India's biggest listing in the US." The newspaper said that the private equity firms are likely to earn five times their initial investment made just two years ago.

It made me wonder if the booming Indian IT/BPO sector could be harmed in the future, if private equity firms were to engage in the types of excesses described in the BusinessWeek article. A slowdown in US and European outsourcing could be disastrous for some Indian companies carrying large debts because of their M&A and IPO financing.

Indian companies tend to be large conglomerates, active in several very different industries, not just tech. While this can be seen as offering a protective effect by spreading risk, it could also lead to a knock-on effect that could impact India's non-tech sectors in the event of a tech melt-down.

The Indian media would do well to take notice of our dotcom dotbomb experience and offer a critical analysis of big deals, especially those involving large private equity firms.

October 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Sponsor Watch
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Thursday Newswatch: Ellison trying to crush RedHat? NewsCorp cash hard to Digg up.

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher.com

Digging for sell-out cash

Digg has been trying to dig up some gold from News Corp and several other suitors, TechCrunch says. But while there's been interest, none of it has reached the level that the Diggers think it's worth, about $150mn. Thus the SF company will probably opt for $5mn or so in second round money from Greylock Partners, already a Digg investor.
Ellison plays hardball with Redhat
At OracleWorld yesterday, Larry Ellison said it would undercut RedHat at its own game - offering maintenance services to RedHat customers for less than the Linux vendor charges, AP reports.
And not undercut a little bit. Undercut as in 50 percent discounts. RedHat's stock plunged on the news. At this writing, RedHat stock is down 26 percent from yesterday's close. Now the question is: Is RedHat ripe for a takeover? Not Oracle's intention, Ellison deadpanned:
"I don't think this will kill Red Hat. This is capitalism. We are competing."

Analyst Trip Chowdhry says IBM is a more likely suitor than Oracle. Ellison's move could cut RedHat's revenue by $40 million to $50 million annually. With total revenue of $278mn last year, no way Red Hat can swallow that loss. Still, RedHat CEO Matthew Szulik spun furiously:
"There are always concerns, but keep in mind that Oracle ... acknowledged that Red Hat is the technical leader in the market," Szulik said. "We still have a rich product pipeline. We will compete."

Apparently RedHat's purchase of JBoss for $350mn and talk about software as commodity pissed Ellison off. Said consultant Josh Greenbaum: "Larry plays a hardball game. This shows he hasn't lost his touch for savvy moves or drama."
October 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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BT buys Schneier's Counterpane

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Counterpane Internet Security - computer security and encryption expert Bruce Schneier's firm - has been acquired by British Telecom for an undisclosed sum, according to the BBC. Counterpane currently monitors 550 networks worldwide for multinational and Fortune 100 customers.
"As security threats get more sophisticated, a larger number of companies are outsourcing the management of their security infrastructure to specialised security service providers and Counterpane is a leader in this space," BT's Andy Green said.

But bloggers are saying the acquisition was more of a firesale. Alan Shimel:
I was not surprised. I had heard rumors of tight money there for some time and thought we would be seeing something happening. This though on top of the less than top dollar paid by McAfee for Citadel and Preventsys could be a trend. IBM did not really overpay for ISS either.

On the other hand, VNUnet reports that speculation puts the price as high as $40mn.
In any case, Schneier will remain an outspoken presence on the blogosphere. He blogged: "They know I am an independent security commentator. "They're not looking for me to become a corporate shill."
October 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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October 25, 2006

Kultur Shock: Hello! Ween...

[diggrz: an SVW tag for arts, culture, trends, and events in and around Silicon Valley- new from SVW]

By Maria Mouk for Silicon Valley Watcher
Twas the weekend of costumes and all through the city, techs and geeks went parading through the bars, talking witty. Fearing Vista (for windows) more than Castro with riot, armed with Silicon Valley Kultur Watch in their mind.

And much to do, indeed! If you're even half as enthused as I am about the closest thing to fall the Bay area grants, then throw on your garb (or your "this is my costume" t-shirt) and go do "social" this weekend.

Friday Annie Leibovitz, a portrait photographer with a 10 year history at RollingStone magazine and Vanity Fair, has a book signing and talk at the Jewish Community Center, 3200 California Street, SF. Her new book, 'A Photographer's Life: 1990 - 2005', is well worth buying.

Afterward, gear up for the Critical Mass costumed bike ride and ride into the Castro Theatre's Halloween Horror Film Festival, playing triple feature old school horror classics for only 10 bucks.

If you're feeling extravagant, the Old federal Reserve Bank Bulding(301 Battery St) presents its 1st annual Spider Ball, with performances by Om Records' Collette, Dj Smoove, Tamo, and Cherry Bomb. This event will include a hosted bar, fortune tellers, and a voodoo lounge. VIP table with bottle service is optional.

Friday also brings forward the infamous Exotic/Erotic Ball (in its 27th year) at the Cow Palace. Think DJ's, porn stars, go go dancers, and wild wild costuming (or lack thereof). Definitely not for the faint of heart.

Saturday start the night out with Berkeley's Mobile Movie Mob (much like Flashmob). Their weekend mission entails creating a true Guerilla Drive-in experience. The mob forms around a vechicle with a projector and an FM transmitter, projecting movies onto a specified warehouse wall. Participants drive up and tune in. This weekend screens "The House on Haunted Hill"at 7 and "Nosferatu (1922)" at 8:45PM. Visit the site for directions.

Mighty(at 119 Utah) celebrates Halloween weekend with well known dj/producer Bassnectar headlining along with the Bassbin Twins.

I'm headed south to Santa Cruz on Saturday for the Freakers Ball, an epic evening of costumes and musical performance. This year hosts too many musical talents to mention, but a quick glance points to Freq Nasty, Bassnectar (before his set in SF), SPORQUE (Ooah and ZILLA), Random Rab, Lil John, and Brother. Circus freaks, aerial performances, live drumming and costume contests all included.

And if you're determined to impress with your costume but haven't even thought of what to pull together, call the A.C.T (American Conservatory Theatre). They have beautiful costume theatre apparrel for rent, with accessories and a fitting for $125.
A Glorious weekend to you!

Tag: diggrz

[diggrz refers to the nomadic lifestyle offered by mobile digital technologies and gadgets - creating a "nomadig" culture. The diggrz name is also a tip-of-the-hat to some of the ideas of the Diggers, a democratic group that arose in 1649, out of the English revolution .

The Diggers were a radical group that cultivated and protected common lands, and sought to create egalitarian, self-sustaining communities. The Diggers would have found kindred spirits in today's software engineer culture,  and the focus on creating commonly owned technologies through egalitarian open source community projects. - Tom Foremski]

Tag: diggrz

October 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: diggrz
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Wednesday Newswatch: Amazon cuts back, Adobe invests for Apollo, data centers are in the money, Bush checks out 'the Google'

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Amazon cuts back

Amazon.com says it will cut back on technology spending and hiring as it tries to transform technology into profitable services. “We expect our year-over-year increase in technology spending to decline during the fourth quarter,” Tom Szkutak, Amazon’s chief finance officer, said in a conference call with analysts. In the third quarter, Amazon tech spending increased 42% to $171mn, while sales increased to $2.31bn, compared to $1.81bn a year ago. Profits, however, slipped 37% compared to the year-ago quarter. And Amazon says the fourth quarter looks good, projecting 22-33% improvements over last year's critical holiday season. (NYT
Data centers are back in the black

Want a sign that Silicon Valley is back? During the dot-com bust, there was over a million square feet of unused data center space. Now, there are more customers than space, the Times reports.
Equinix of Foster City is opening a brand new center in Chicago at a cost of $165 million. Before its opening next year, it's already 95% occupied and will consume 30 megawatts of power.
The cost of power is a huge issue for the technology industry. Data centers are now jamming servers into racks and the power demands have jumped from three to 15 kilowatts per rack. “The first thing we look at is power,” Equinix's Margie Backaus said. “Getting generators today is the No. 1 thing that will drive your construction schedules.”
Consider now, Google's investment in a 1.4 megawatt solar installation. Save the planet? Yeah, sure. But something like that goes right to the bottom line.
Working the Google

Chron blogger Jessica Guynn takes note of a Maria Bartiromo interview with el Presidente and bloggers' piling on of abuse for the slightest of slips. The exchange:

Bartiromo: I'm curious, have you ever googled anybody? Do you use Google?
Bush: 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. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes.

The video is here. Using the Google's blogsearch tool, we come up with a starting point for the abuse.
Adobe will spend $100mn to seed Apollo developers
Adobe plans to fund third-party startups to the tune of $100 million to promote its sofware development apps, especially Apollo - Adobe's breakthrough for running Web apps without a browser. in venture funding to promote its software development platforms, with a particular focus on Apollo, which allows people to run Web applications without a browser.
Apollo is like Flash, except it runs outside of the browser, and apps can be written in Ajax, Flash or Flex Builder, Adobe's app for authoring complex Flash-based apps. (News.com)

October 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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October 24, 2006

DVD Jon says he has cracked Apple DRM

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

'DVD Jon' - Jon Lech Johansen, the guy who cracked DVD copy protection with DeCSS - says he's managed to unlock Apple's technology that block playback of music bought on iTunes on non-iPod players, AP says.

Johansen said he has developed a way to get around those restrictions by creating code that mimics Apple's copy-protection system. But unlike his previous work, which he usually posts for free, the Norway native plans to capitalize on his efforts through his Redwood Shores-based DoubleTwist Ventures, said the company's only other employee, managing director Monique Farantzos.

It's a slam-dunk that Jon will see Apple in court, all the more so because he's not giving his crack away this time - he's turned entrepreneurial.
DoubleTwist says they have an unnamed client that will use the technology so its copy-protected content will be playable on iPods.

"There's a certain amount of trouble that Apple can give us, but not enough to stop this," Farantzos said Tuesday. "We believe we're on good legal ground, and our attorneys have given us the green light on this."

But that might be a little optimistic. "There is a lot of untested legal ground surrounding reverse engineering," EFF's Fred von Lohmann said.

October 24, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Tuesday Newswatch: Customized search, Wi-Fi cells, more Sony recalls

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Customized search from Google

Google has launched a customizable search engine for websites. Google Co-Op lets you define the sites you want to search and define typical keywords. The results can merely be weighted towards those sites or completely limited to just those sites. And the search engine is meant to be a collaboration with public users, or just those you invite, able to add more sites to index. Allowing all users to contribute seems like a recipe for spammers.
Custom Search also has the Google Marker tool, which allows sites to be immediately added or restricted from the search index. This tool can be set to allow only the site's publisher to exercise this option while surfing the Web, or invite a few people, an entire community or random visitors to do the same. (News.com)

OK, I set up a basic search engine for SVW. To try it out, search in the box below. Results are set to open a Google page, although you can have the system create a results page on your site.

The future of mobile phones
In Seattle, T-Mobile is now selling phones that work both over their cell network and Wi-Fi connections, the NYT reports. The phones cost about $50 with a two-year service plan and there's another $20 in service fees. Yes, that's less than the $25 bucks you were spending on Vonage and you can use the same phone for home and mobile. It's a bit unclear from the story, though, whether you can use any Wi-Fi hotspot or just T-Mobile hotspots. The latter would really detract from its attractiveness. It's also unclear whether you have to replace your home wireless router with one from the company.
Customers also need a wireless router, which is free with a rebate. The router is then connected to any available broadband line for home or office use. The phones connect not just to the wireless router, but also at any of 7,000 Wi-Fi hot spots that T-Mobile operates at Starbucks coffee shops, Hyatt Hotels and other public locations.

Sign up at www.theonlyphoneyouneed.com
Sony recalls more batteries

You knew this was coming. Sony voluntarily recalled 3.5 million more batteries, the company made in an announcement with the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The batteries being recalled were sold in Sony, Toshiba, Fujitsu and Gateway laptops. USAToday has a list of the affected batteries and notes that consumer uptake of the free replacement offer is amazingly low - if Lenovo's experience is indicative, less than 2%. People just don't mind hot laptops - until they explode, I guess.
October 24, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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October 23, 2006

I'm off to India . . !

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

Tuesday morning I'll be flying to India, my first visit, and I'm excited. I'll be travelling with Tibco (an SVW sponsor) as Vivek Ranadive, CEO of Tibco, launches his book over there - "The Predicitve Enterprise." I'll be a fly on the wall as Mr. Ranadive meets with the local captains of industry and many others.

I'll be back November 3rd and will post as I can. I hear India has a pretty good Internet connection :-)
October 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Tom Watch
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Events week-let

[diggrz: an SVW tag for arts, culture, trends, and events in and around Silicon Valley- new from SVW]
By Maria Mouk for Silicon Valley Watcher
It's the week before Halloween and never too early to get your freak on... or your tech on.

Tuesday evening starts off with a series of free public film screenings at San Francisco Art Institute, in conjunction with the exhibition Sarkis: Alive and After.
Sarkis: Alive and After is the first major US exhibition to examine the new work of Paris-based artist Sarkis, whose works are focused on humanity, and, in the words of Hou Hanru, “unfold a personal universe from the contrasts between light and darkness, green and red, material and immaterial, appearance and disappearance . . .”.
The screenings, selected by Sarkis, as having influenced his work; begin with Tarkovsky’s USSR 1979 film, Stalker, where two disenchanted intellectuals wish to explore the Zone, a mysterious region with a room at the center, said to offer knowledge of one’s most secret desires.
The weeks to follow also offer Sympathy for the Devil by Jean-Luc Godard (October 31); Tie Xi Qu: West of Tracks (Saturday & Sunday, November 4 & 5, 11am-2pm, 2:30pm-5:30pm, 7pm-10pm); and The Seasons by Artavazd Pelechian.
Once you tire of sitting, head over to Mighty on Wednesday for Man Vs. Machine: bass-heavy glitchy Slop and diamond Cut noise-hop served by L.A and Yay area favorites OOAH, Kraddy, Boreta, and the Luxury Tax. Free beer from 9-10, though I cannot vouch for the quality of free hops.
With the seemingly sunny weather, one may forget that snowboarding season is months away, so the is nigh to head over to the Sports Basement in the Presidio for the SnowPal.org mixer on Thursday eve. You'll have an opportunity to meet snow sports activity partners in your area, for trips to Tahoe, and to connect for rideshares and lodging shares (beyond the discounted season passes).

A week perfectly blended to keep you going until the next, even if Halloween in the Castro seems to be a no show blow.
oh, yea, and a lil' dancing code if you need a quick fix.

Tag: diggrz

[diggrz refers to the nomadic lifestyle offered by mobile digital technologies and gadgets - creating a "nomadig" culture. The diggrz name is also a tip-of-the-hat to some of the ideas of the Diggers, a democratic group that arose in 1649, out of the English revolution .

The Diggers were a radical group that cultivated and protected common lands, and sought to create egalitarian, self-sustaining communities. The Diggers would have found kindred spirits in today's software engineer culture,  and the focus on creating commonly owned technologies through egalitarian open source community projects. - Tom Foremski]

Tag: diggrz

October 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: diggrz
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Monday Newswatch: Amazon patent trouble, Chinese bloggers use real names, BitTorrent does hardware

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

IBM says Amazon infringed patents
Software critical to Amazon's web operations, including customer recommendations, advertising and data storage, infringes on IBM patents, Big Blue said in a suit filed today. IBM says it offered to license the patent to Amazon many times but “Amazon.com has refused every time.” In a press release IBM said: “We filed this case for a very simple reason. IBM’s property is being knowingly and unfairly exploited. ”
"We believe that Amazon's entire business model is built upon these patents and that damages could be substantial," said IBM spokesman Scott Brooks.

Reuters: IBM Sues Amazon over Web patents

China to insist on real names for bloggers

It's hard to persecute free speech when the only name you have to go is 'Freedom Blogger.' So China has signaled it will insist that would-be bloggers turn over their real names to the state.
"A real name system will be an unavoidable choice if China wants to standardize and develop its blog industry," the official Xinhua news agency quoted the Internet Society's secretary general, Huang Chengqing, as saying.

Bloggers anonymously disseminating untrue information on the Internet bring about ... wait for it ... a negative influence. Isn't that the point? Under the proposed rule, users would be required to register under their real name to open a blog but would still be allowed to write under a pseudonym.
BitTorrent cuts hardware deals

BitTorrent took another step towards respectability in cutting deals for the software to run on network routers and storage devices by Asus, Planex and QNap. The Asus devices can download files via BitTorrent without a PC. (News.com)
"These are the places where people will store their media in the future," said Ashwin Navin, BitTorrent's co-founder. "People don't want files to clutter their home PCs. Our technology working with these devices allows an entire family to share a jukebox."

Deals like these push forward the idea of the digital living room. Imagine a home entertainment center running not off a DVD player or even a TiVO but a media server, wirelessly distributing huge media files to an HDTV or stereo. But proof of concept was to be a video-on-demand store selling digital version of Warner Bros. movies. That's been delayed and now BitTorrent says it won't debut until early 2007.
October 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Google pushes the boundaries of copyright laws

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

The conventional wisdom is that in acquiring YouTube, Google is exposing itself to untold litigation for the reams of copyright material that exist on the site. For instance, last week YouTube deleted 30,000 clips identified as copyrighted Japanese TV and movie content. Here's Mark Cuban on the prospects:
If Google gets nailed one single time for copyright violation, there are going to be more shareholder lawsuits than Doans has pills to go with the pile on copyright suits that follow.

And YouTube is just one of the several major legal issues Google's 100 in-house lawyers and outside law firms are dealing with. Google Books, Google News, Adsense and even the search index are the subjects are lawsuits challenging every major aspect of Google's business
Google's reaction: Bring it on.
According to Katie Hafner's article in the Times this morning, Google uniquely among giant corporations is trying to re-define the law.
“I think Google is wanting to push the boundaries,” said Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University.
“The Internet ethos of the 90’s, the expansionist ethos, was, ‘Just do it, make it cool, make it great and we’ll cut the rough edges off later,’ ” Professor Zittrain said. “They’re really trying to preserve a culture that says, ‘Just do it, and consult with the lawyers as you go so you don’t do anything flagrantly ill-advised.’ ”

First and foremost is copyright. For instance, Does Google have the right to create thumbnail versions of copyright owners' images? A porn site, Perfect10, won a federal injunction against Google doing just that. Perfect10 claimed Google interfered with their ability to sell porn images to cell users. Google is appealing and the Ninth Circuit will hear oral arguments next month.
And European news agencies are suing to stop Google from reproducing their headlines, photos and story fragments. "From our perspective, these are simple issues that were decided a long time ago,” said Alex Macgillivray, Google's senior product counsel.
This is the crucial copyright question: Does Google have the right to process other people's content in ways that don't directly infringe on a strict interpretation of copyright? With Google Books, Google insists on the right to digitize copyright books so they can provide full-text searches, even though they only serve up snippets.
To my way of thinking, courts should interpret this question according to the rationale of the Constitution - "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" - and thus where Google's services detract in no way from the copyright holder's ability to control and sell its product, Google should be able to provide a service that improves access to users' ability to use the product.
In the case of books, search access should increase sales, since people will be able to discover the value of books no longer being actively promoted. In the case of news, it clearly drives traffic to newspapers' sites.
I think Google will lose the Perfect 10 case since the porn producer can show a direct interference with its own business models. That's distinguished from the book and news cases, where there is no actual damage.
If that's so, companies will need to do more than complain and sue - they will need to develop their own innovative business models. In a battle between innovators, Google is by no means guaranteed victory. In a battle between innovation and the resistance of dinosaurs, the dinosaurs will lose eventually, both in the market and in the courtroom.
October 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Top AOL execs escape prosecution

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

It look like top AOL executives will escape prosecution for their accounting tricks at the time of merger with Time Warner, The Washington Post reports.

Apparently, federal investigators have run into the five-year statute of limitations before they were able to file charges against top execs. Two mid-level managers are on trial for accounting irregularities, though: Kent Wakefield and John Tuli operated "far from the company's highest ranks."
For the companies that participated in the scam with AOL, though, it's a different story. PurchasePro allegedly worked with AOL to artificially drive up the Internet provider's earnings. In the "round trip accounting" scheme, each company claimed to have paid the other for advertising and other services.
Purchase Pro founder Charles Johnson is on trial in federal court on charges he lied to auditors and shareholders. Half a dozen former employees are expected to testify against him.
The problem at AOL seems to come down to the fact that prosecutors were unable to dig up high-level managers ready to testify against their bosses. "Such assistance was crucial to breaking open complex white-collar investigations of such companies as Enron Corp., WorldCom Inc. and Adelphia Communications Corp.," the Post notes.

October 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Cisco teleprescence is key to driving network upgrades

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

Cisco is betting heavily on corporate video as the killer application that will drive network equipment sales. That's why video is the prime focus of its research and development efforts.

Today Cisco unveiled its next-generation videoconferencing system. For $300K Cisco's technicians will install three 65-inch Cisco high-definition flat panel displays and a camera system, plus tables and lighting to create "Teleprescence" - a life-like meeting experience. It all plugs into existing networks and there are no monthly service fees.

What you get for $300,000 is one end of a teleprescence portal that makes it seem as if everyone is seated at the same table. I popped into briefings last week at Cisco and met with journalists sitting in New York. The effect felt very real, in that it felt that I had met and spoken with someone.

Cisco is eating its own dog food and is installing 100 teleprescence rooms across its entire global operations. It expects to save $100 million in travel costs, about 9 percent of its travel budget. That should enable an ROI in just 9 months.

The technology works well, and it communicates a real meeting experience--but it wasn't easy getting there.

"We did a lot of human factors studies, from the shape of the table to how far away from the screen you should sit, plus camera angles and lighting," said Randy Harrell, director of product marketing for the Teleprescence line.

He said the system was two years in development and it involved a lot of complexity in order to reproduce the simple experience of sitting at conference table with colleagues or customers that could be thousands of miles away.

"The experience is so realistic at times that we've had people totally forget, and try to pass papers through the screen to each other," said Mr Harrell.

The teleprescence system comes out of Cisco's emerging markets group, headed by Martin De Beer, general manager of the group. Cisco is developing this technology in-house rather than acquiring it from outside. The emerging markets group at Cisco is very video -oriented, and for good reason. "We think video in the corporate space will spur network upgrades," said Mr. De Beer.

Cisco hopes it has developed a killer application that will spur corporations to renew their entire network. You only need a 10 Mbit line to connect two of Cisco's teleprescence rooms, which most companies already have. However, the combination of high definition video plus daily network traffic would require many companies to install new networks. "If your network is more than four or five years old you would probably need to upgrade it to use teleprescence," said De Beer.

My experience of the Cisco Teleprescence room was very positive; it is easy to forget there is a glass screen separating two sides of the same oval conference table.

The only problem was that I had to fight through two hours of traffic to get from San Francisco to Cisco's HQ in Silicon Valley. I would have been a heck of a lot more impressed if I could have experienced it from Cisco's San Francisco office.

October 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Cisco [CSCO]
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October 20, 2006

Friday Newswatch: YouTube pulls vids, PC work causes cancer, Vista security spat

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Snarling and sniping erupted into a full-blown spat today as Microsoft and McAfee are getting into it over when MS is going to deliver Vista code security vendors need for their products. Microsoft is claiming that McAfee and Symantec don't need access to Vista's kernel because Vista so much better protects the kernel. Yesterday, Redmond promised to provide more complete APIs to the security companies. But McAfee was disappointed, saying there was "little indication that Microsoft intends to live up to its promises made last week." Today, Microsoft returned fire: "inaccurate and inflammatory statements." (The Register)
How bad for your health is building computers? Bad. Here's categorical proof. IBM turned over 31,000 health records of manufacturing work to an epidemiologist at Boston University School of Public Health. As published in Environmental Health, the results are a much higher incidence of cancer than the general population. Compared to a baseline of 100 score of for you and me, PC workers had:

Proportional cancer mortality ratios (PCMR) were 166 for cancers affecting the brain and central nervous system, 162 for kidney cancer, 179 for melanoma and 126 for pancreatic cancer. In women, PCMRs were 212 for kidney cancer and 163 for cancer of all lymphatic and hematopoietic tissue. (

YouTube deleted some 30,000 clips lifted from Japanese TV and movies after a Japanese trade group complained. The Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, found 29,549 video clips such as television shows, music videos and movies posted on YouTube's site without permission. Google-owned YouTube agreed to deploy an audio screening technology that could spot low-quality copy of a licensed clip. YouTube would have to substitute an approved version or remove the material automatically.

October 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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With Website Optimizer, Google to help turn click-throughs into conversions

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Google's purchase of web analytics firm Urchin 18 months ago is paying off for website operators today as Google unveiled (a beta version of) Google Website Optimizer at the eMetrics summit in Washington.

The free analytics product is designed to address the other side of Google's web advertising business. Google's made a huge amount of money selling advertising to drive users to advertisers' sites. Google's role had ended at the click-through. You pay for the clicks and once they click through, it's your job to conver 'em.
GWO helps website operators do the conversion by setting up several different variations of landing pages, having Google rotate the different combinations and generating reports on how the different combinations performed. A conversion, of course, doesn't have to be a sale. More likely, for a small e-commerce site, it's signing up for email or providing contact information.
For small business websites, this is invaluable information that there has really been no way to get at. They will gobble it up. I'm no web analytics expert but I suspect that most any business that is spending money on AdSense will need to be using GWO to constantly tweak their ad messages and landing page content.
But there is a catch. With GWO, Google actually serves as middleware. You put code on your pages that as far as I can understand alerts Google that it should intercept the serving of the page and offer up one of several variations instead. That means that not only do you know more about what works - Google does too. And for a huge number of sites.
But perhaps someone else can post about exactly why that's problematic.
October 20, 2006 | Permalink |