Posted by Dan Farber @ 9:19 am   Year:July 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

July 27th, 2007 CIOs look to Web 2.0 collaboration Posted by Dan Farber @ 9:19 am Categories: General, Web Technology, Social networking, Enterprise 2.0 Tags: Web, Web 2.0, Collaboration, Dan Farber At a Churchill Club event in San Francisco on July 23, moderator Dave Margulius of Enterprise Insight discussed the current hype surrounding Web 2.0 with panelists Doug Merrill, vice president of engineering at Google, and CIOs David Bergen of Levi Strauss, Doug Schwinn of Hasbro, and Randall Spratt of McKesson. Instant messaging has been around long before Web 2.0 became a trendy way to describe how people are collaborating and taking advantage of advances in bandwidth, social media and user experience. Blogs and wikis are just beginning to seep into enterprises. Spratt give an...

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Posted by Roland Piquepaille @ 9:12 am   Year:July 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

July 27th, 2007 Putting chips inside our brains Posted by Roland Piquepaille @ 9:12 am Categories: Health Medicine, Computers Internet Tags: Researcher, Brain, University Of Florida, Chip, Roland Piquepaille Researchers at the University of Florida (UF) have developed chips which someday might be inserted in the brains of people affected by epilepsy or who have lost a limb. These neuroprosthetic chips can interpret signals in the brain and stimulate neurons to perform correctly. The University claims this is the future of medicine. This is maybe a little bit extreme. However, the researchers are currently studying these chips with rats and hope to have a prototype ready within 4 years that could be tested on humans. But read more This research work has been led by Justin ...

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Posted by David Berlind @ 9:04 am   Year:July 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

July 27th, 2007 Announcing ZDNets 15th and 16th Deputy Product Testers of the Week Posted by David Berlind @ 9:04 am Categories: General, Mobile, Personal Technology, Product Giveaways Tags: Laptop Computer, David Berlind Fridays are turning out to be one of our favorite days of the week here at ZDNet. Not only because TGIF, but also because its the day we get to deputize ZDNets next Product Tester of the Week. In addition to getting some enjoyment out of giving away free and hopefully useful stuff to ZDNets audience members, were also seeing a new pattern emerge in the explanations from readers as to why they should be selected as the next deputy product tester: humor. When we first started the program, the entries were mostly technical with a few funny ones. But now, more ...

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Posted by Denise Howell @ 8:38 am   Year:July 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

July 27th, 2007 Valleywag latest example of cutting Creative Commons corners Posted by Denise Howell @ 8:38 am Categories: Blogging, Copyright, Licenses, Social networking Tags: Creative Commons, Flickr, Valleywag, Denise Howell In Focus ? See more posts on: Intellectual Property Flickr makes it so easy to find photos, doesnt it? And if youre blogging for a commercial outlet like this one, or, say, Valleywag, it even makes it easy to find photos licensed for commercial use. Yesterday, Valleywag disregarded that when it copied and republished a noncommercially licensed Dan Farber photo in its Digg/Federated Media item. (And I dont think its the first time this has happened.) Valleywag is either confused about how Creative Commons licenses work or just being careless. CC lic...

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Posted by Larry Dignan @ 7:55 am   Year:July 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

July 27th, 2007 The $150 laptop saga: Checking out 2Checkout and Medison Posted by Larry Dignan @ 7:55 am Categories: General, Open Source, Personal Technology, Hardware Infrastructure, Linux Tags: Customer Service, Reseller, Supplier, Laptop Computer, Larry Dignan Update below: On Wednesday, I ordered a Fedora laptop for $150. On Thursday, I called the reseller of this item to get a feel for customer service and figure out whether my buyers remorse was justified. As background, a Swedish company called Medison unveiled a laptop called the Celebrity, which is dirt cheap and runs Fedora. I ordered one as did a bunch of other folks. On ZDNet and elsewhere thoughts about Ponzi schemes or worse came to the fore. I called 2Checkout.com, the reseller thats handling orders for t...

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Posted by Jason D. OGrady @ 6:53 am   Year:July 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

July 27th, 2007 Hell froze over; Dvorak using a Mac Posted by Jason D. OGrady @ 6:53 am Categories: Opinion, Humor Tags: Apple Macintosh, Jason D. OGrady Perennial curmudgeon John C. Dvorak may be the ultimate switcher of all time. Thats right, Dvorak is using a Mac. In a recent column for PC magazine ( Me and My Mac) Dvorak says Thats right. Im using a Mac, and, surprise, I like it. Hey, I figured since Im known for ragging on the Mac all the time, I may as well speak from some experience, right? Its been a couple of months now, so I thought Id report what I think about the platform from a users perspective?specifically, from a PC users perspective. This from a guy who said: Isnt it about time the Macintosh was simply discontinued?put down like an old dog? Will Ap...

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Posted by Larry Dignan @ 6:49 am   Year:July 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

July 27th, 2007 VMware lands Cisco as investor Posted by Larry Dignan @ 6:49 am Categories: General, Software Infrastructure, VMware, virtualization Tags: VMware Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Investor, Larry Dignan Cisco Systems said Friday it will invest $150 million in VMware, joining Intel as a strategic investor. After the investment Cisco will own 1.6 percent of VMwares outstanding shares. VMware will also consider appointing a Cisco executive to its board in the future. Like Intel, Cisco is strengthening its ties to VMware, which is a key partner as virtualization spreads to the network. Intel earlier this month said it would buy a 2.5 percent stake in VMware. The investments come ahead of whats expected to be a big IPO. As part of the agreement (see statement) with Cis...

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Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 6:45 am   Year:July 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

July 27th, 2007 WHurley spins BMC into open source Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 6:45 am Categories: Applications, Enterprise Policy, Strategy, management, business models, BSD Tags: BMC Software Inc., Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn William Hurley, who goes by WHurley, has been an open source advocate and organizer for many years. When he left Qlusters recently for BMC Software, the Houston-based company which began with accounting software and grew like a snip ofoilpatch, I wondered how far he could spin that company toward open source. The answer is pretty far. From OSCON, he writesthat the company has opened a developer network supporting several open source projects, all under the BSD license. Its true that all these projects support BMCs proprietary software, and sel...

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Posted by Steve OHear @ 5:29 am   Year:July 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

July 27th, 2007 Banned: Gambling in Second Life Posted by Steve OHear @ 5:29 am Categories: Virtual Worlds, Second Life Tags: Steve OHear If, like me, youve lost a few hundred Linden dollars on a virtual roulette wheel in Second Life, and were planning on returning sometime soon to win it all back youre out of luck. After coming under increasing scrutiny from the FBI and other law enforcers, Linden Labs has banned gambling in its virtual world. Or more specifically, games which: rely on chance or random number generation to determine a winner OR rely on the outcome of real-life organized sporting events So down come all those virtual casinos and other 3D gambling joints, and out goes all the painstakingly programed scripts designed to ensure that overzealous avatars,...

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Posted by Larry Dignan @ 4:45 am   Year:July 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

July 27th, 2007 Twitter lands VC funding Posted by Larry Dignan @ 4:45 am Categories: General, Wired & Wireless, Web Technology, Mobile Tags: Business Model, Twitter, Larry Dignan Twitter has landed an undisclosed amount of venture funding from Union Square Ventures and now it can proceed with its to-do list: Grab more users, develop its platform and find a business model. That last point is likely to get some attention today, but a snazzy business model isnt requiredat least on the first round of funding. Twitter has potential and needs some dough to figure out how to reach it. Apparently, Union Square Ventures, Charles River Ventures and a whos who list of angel investors will help Twitter figure things out. Saying Twitter doesnt need a profit making scheme yet falls...

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Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 2:17 am   Year:July 27th, 2007   Source Site:zdnet

July 27th, 2007 If you were to ditch Windows, would you go to Linux or Mac? Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 2:17 am Categories: Apple, Microsoft, Linux Tags: Linux, Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, Here, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes Heres a question for all you Windows users out there. Lets say that you were to switch from Windows to either the Linux platform or the Mac platform, which would you choose? If you were to ditch Windows, would you got to Linux or Mac? Linux Mac A mixture of both View Results Loading Heres the odd thing. If I go back five years or so I didnt come across many people who were actively considering making the shift from Windows to another platform. Sure, I knew a few people running Mac or Linux on the desktop but the...

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