06.10.05
Posted in Technology at 1:25 pm by wfrantz
Today I received e-mail from Chevrolet that began like this:
Recently some of our unsubscribe data
was deleted. Please help us update our
records to ensure that we have captured
your preferences correctly.
If you have previously unsubscribed from
Chevy email communications, please
unsubscribe again
http://www.imail.imrsvcs.com/UM/U.asp?…
I would never respond to such a message because it looks like phishing. There’s no valid return address. The website they ask you to respond to is the mysterious imrsvcs.com rather than chevrolet.com. The entire premise of the message seems dubious and there’s no way to verify the story.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
05.08.05
Posted in Technology at 2:49 pm by wfrantz
Could Patents Ever Be Beneficial?
Clearly software patents are not urgently needed by anyone except patent lawyers. The pre-patent software industry had no problem that was solved by patents; there was no shortage of invention, and no shortage of investment.
I have to disagree with this. Some software patents represent considerable investment. Consider compression or encryption algorithms. A great deal of research goes into creating a highly efficient compression algorithm like MP3. If there were no patent protection and no opportunity for licensing revenues, we might not have things like portable music players.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
05.07.05
Posted in Technology at 12:00 pm by wfrantz
I recently got into a discussion on JavaRanch about mobile payments (m-payments). It started with a simple question.
Are there m-payment systems which are done in J2ME? Would be really grateful to know about any company which is using that kind of a technology, case studies and theisis? What about the trend of M-Payment systems.
Several others expressed interest in the topic so I added my thoughts and I’m going to rehash them here. Basically, I think that you already can use your phone in place of a credit card or a check in certain circumstances, but for whatever reason, consumers don’t do it and merchants don’t encourage it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
04.10.05
Posted in Technology at 12:33 pm by wfrantz
Alyce Lomax at Motley Fool wrote a bunch of backhanded compliments about eBay and how she missed the boat in the 90’s. She avoided eBay expecting it to eventually collapse after the dot com burst. I wouldn’t have agreed back then (or now). Unfortunately, I didn’t put my money where my mouth was. Now my neighbor drives a new car wearing a plate that reads “4MYEBAY” and I still have no eBay stock.
I still think eBay has a sound business model and I should probably buy the stock even at today’s inflated prices and dispite the sharp decline in 2005. Their long term outlook always looks excellent due to their powerful network effect. Plenty of other on-line auction options exist including big players like Yahoo and Amazon but they can’t catch eBay which has already passed critical mass. If you want to sell something, you will have the best results by listing it on eBay because that’s where the most buyers shop. Likewise, you have the best chance to find what you are shopping for on eBay because that’s where the most sellers are. As long as that symbiotic relationship exists, eBay will be king (baring them doing anything blatently stupid). However, I have a few ideas that could turn the tables on that relationship.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
04.01.05
Posted in Technology at 5:12 pm by wfrantz
I got some Treo 650 questions from somebody over at Sprintusers.com
I am seriously considering purchasing a Treo 650. I have a Sanyo 7400 currently. I talk while driving often enough for that to be a concern for me. Is it cumbersome to use while driving? Does a bluetooth headset make talking on the phone very easy, driving or otherwise? I use a BT headset right now with my 7400, with an adapter, and I have different ring tones for some of my main contacts. It makes it nice and easy to make calls and I can use voice dialing with the headset as well.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
03.30.05
Posted in Technology at 10:46 am by wfrantz
Newsweek ran a story titled Major Hangups over the iPod Phone. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the phone-pod concept other than the greed of the carriers. Everyone seems so surprised that the carriers won’t support a phone when they don’t get a cut of the revenue. I could see it coming.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
03.06.05
Posted in Technology at 11:25 pm by wfrantz
Lawrence Lessig sent out a bunch of e-mail urging for political action and got several angry replies from the recipients of his spam. He tried to defend his actions by claiming his post does not ask for money or propose a commercial transaction and thus is not spam in his view. That started several people ranting about what “spam” is.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
02.17.05
Posted in Technology at 7:21 pm by wfrantz
MacCentral: Apple partners with Euro telecom firm Teleca
European telecom services company [[Teleca]] on Monday announced a partnership with [[[Apple]]] that will enable the services provider to use Apple’s hardware and software in its creation, delivery and multimedia playback solutions.
Someone else in my office brought this to my attention today (I work for Teleca in [[[San Diego]]]). I didn’t know our company was working with [[[Apple]]] at all. I’ll have to forward this to my friends at [[[AAPL]]].
The article claims [[[OS X]]] will be the focal point of Teleca’s efforts to build … software for mobile devices. Sadly, our office doesn’t have any [[[Mac]]]s, but based on this statement I think we should get some for our mobile application development. I’ll keep hoping anyway.
Permalink
02.16.05
Posted in Technology at 6:34 pm by wfrantz
Apple, Napster Swap Jabs Over Security Flaws
Apparently, [[[Steve Jobs]]] sent a message to top record industry executives directing them to “a Web page detailing how to convert [[[Napster]]]’s rental tunes into permanent downloads.” I’m not sure what page he is refering to but it could be something like All-Streaming-Media.
Napster CEO Chris Gorog jabbed back by pointing out that the same technique could be used to capture [[[iTunes]]] music and in fact, it’s even easier to unlock most iTunes downloads using hymn. Hymn is open-source, free software that attempts to remove the Digital Rights Management (DRM) from [[[Apple]]]’s [[[AAC]]] files. Of course once the DRM is removed, users can swap files with their friends or move the music on to (unauthorized) machines.
There has been an ongoing battle between Apple and hymn. I can’t believe that Jobs would be so dense as to throw rocks from his glass house. I thought Steve was smarter than that.
Permalink
02.06.05
Posted in Technology at 1:53 am by wfrantz
As it turns out, Sprint PCS subscribers are not alone in our quest of OBEX enabled handsets. The Verizon Motorola v710 has been available since August. It is the second CDMA Bluetooth handset in North America (the first being the Sony Ericsson T608).
Surprise, surprise, [no OBEX on the v710][1]! Dial-Up Networking (DUN) and Handsfree only. There were some blatent communications from Motorola and Verizon that flatly stated OBEX was removed at Verizon’s request. Lots of rumors were flying about Verizon releasing a new firmware version that would enable OBEX again.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
« Previous entries · Next entries »