I’m pretty sure that Steve Jobs could pull a napkin out of his pocket with the word “Apple” written on it, and people would want to know when it went on sale.

Author: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

As I listened to, and then later watched, Steve Jobs’ keynote speech at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2008, I must have been caught up in the reality distortion field that Jobs is so expert at projecting. Within a matter of minutes, I went from feeling somewhat ambivalent about the iPhone 3G, Apple’s next-generation iPhone, to feeling as if this must be the apotheosis of handsets and I just had to have one.

So, am I going to be queuing up to buy an iPhone 3G on the day of the launch? No. So what was it that made me change my mind a second time? Simple, I extracted my head out of the distortion field and started to think clearly once again.

See, the thing about Steve Jobs is that he is different from most tech geeks, in that the guy oozes style, charisma and charm. And nowhere is Jobs more effective than onstage in front of thousands of hardcore Mac fans. I’m pretty sure that Steve could pull a napkin out of his pocket with the word “Apple” written on it, and people would want to know when it went on sale. What’s it down to? Hypnosis? New-age techno-religious fervor? Charm? I don’t know, all I know is that it works.

So, when I look at the iPhone 3G from outside of the reality distortion field, what do I see?

Most open source luminaries are known for their code, their successful startup successes or even their outspokenness. Andre Boisvert comes to open source from a different angle. Having worked for two billionaire programmers, Larry Ellison and Jim Goodnight, Andre's transition from proprietary software to open source software has been an interesting journey.

I think there is a big downside to this deal.  During the "Search Era" we have witnessed numerous deals in which one search company has allowed another search company to take over the selling of inventory.  While I am not 100 percent sure, I believe that in every case where one of these deals has taken place the company that gives up its inventory ultimately ends up with a lower valuation.  In other words, while Yahoo will gain in revenue, it will forever be beholden to Google and will thus lose lustre and value to investors.

Yahoo will grow.  I doubt it will ever attain a vibrant stock valuation because of this deal. 

Then he noted the recent introduction of Atom, Intel's highly power efficient processor for mobile devices.  "I discussed with (CEO) Paul Otellini a few months ago that we'd been working on low power processors for quite a long time. " He noted at  Atom's big rollout  "there was no mention of the very smart people who worked for years" on research related to its development.

"There were at least three attempts to sell the company on a low power IA (Intel Architecture)," he recalled, starting in 1999 when a group of researchers undertook "significant work" to come out with much lower power versions of the Pentium line to as little as a few watts. "It was reviewed by the senior staff, but didn't make the cut," Rattner said.

Work on the Atom began in 2004 and Rattner said he's gratified it's been so well received -- finally.

"We believed in the idea wholeheartedly," he said.  "It's a clear example of a long term, persistent research effort ultimately having a big payoff. We believe Atom is the fastest CPU in the sub-3 watt space."

He then traced similar long haul efforts to when vPro and work on WiMax was started -- 2002 and 1999 respectively.  He said Intel had a vision for fixed and portable mobile connectivity superior to cellular back in 1999. WiMax "didn't just fall out of the sky" he said.

Giving new tech a chance

Later during a Q&A session Rattner said in year's past some technology would end up on a shelf for years "because no one on the product side took a look at it." He said in recent years Intel's changed the way research presents its ideas, now interacting more with business product managers to see what's viable. "The hit rate has gone up dramatically," he said.

So is Rattner bitter that some of the research efforts took so long to see the light of day? I didn't get a chance to talk to him afterwards, but at a minimum, it sounded to me like he wanted to be sure the research crew at Intel got some overdue love for its accomplishments.

Nathan Brookwood, Research Fellow at Insight64, said Intel, like most other large tech firms, work on projects that will never see the light of day.  "It's useful for a company the size of Intel to have programs going on because you never know when they'll need it."

He noted that Intel didn't appear to make a big push into lower power chips until after Transmeta burst on the scene.  "Nobody at Intel was interested in low power in 1999," he said.

Except a group of researchers.

"In December 2003, as part of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, or Facta (.pdf), credit bureaus were forced to allow you to put a fraud alert on their credit reports, requiring lenders to verify your identity before issuing a credit card in your name. This alert is temporary, and expires after 90 days. Several companies have sprung up -- LifeLock, Debix, LoudSiren, TrustedID -- that automatically renew these alerts and effectively make them permanent.

"This service pisses off the credit bureaus and their financial customers. The reason lenders don't routinely verify your identity before issuing you credit is that it takes time, costs money and is one more hurdle between you and another credit card. (Buy, buy, buy -- it's the American way.) So in the eyes of credit bureaus, LifeLock's customers are inferior goods; selling their data isn't as valuable. LifeLock also opts its customers out of pre-approved credit card offers, further making them less valuable in the eyes of credit bureaus.

"And, so began a smear campaign on the part of the credit bureaus. You can read their points of view in this New York Times article, written by a reporter who didn't do much more than regurgitate their talking points. And the class action lawsuits have piled on, accusing LifeLock of deceptive business practices, fraudulent advertising and so on. The biggest smear is that LifeLock didn't even protect Todd Davis, and that his identity was allegedly stolen.

"It wasn't."

Link

Intel's not delaying the new gadget interconnect technology on purpose, honest!

In a mighty defensive blog post, Nick Knupffer is "dispelling the myths" that the chipmaking titan is holding back the specification. He writes:

No Intel isn’t holding back the specification, the whole point of Intel investing heavily (gazillions of dollars and bazillions of man hours) into creating this ‘Dummies Guide’ is to enable the industry to start building USB 3.0 into their silicon as soon as possible, so why would Intel purposefully delay? One danger however of distributing an unfinished spec is the risk of incompatible hardware down the line, leading to a right mess. As an Intel specification Intel has the responsibility to insure that specifications we deliver to the industry are fully developed and mature enough for others to use. The Intel host controller spec is expected to be unveiled to the industry as soon as possible, in the second half of the year. The impatience of our fellow chipset-makers (as described in the press) to leverage Intel’s investment and begin to design great USB 3.0 supporting devices of their own is however very encouraging and should aid a fast USB 3.0 adoption ramp.

Why do we care? Because "USB 3.0 promises a tenfold speed boost and low power consumption." That's why!

[via TG Daily]