:: Sense - The Way I Sense ::

The latest issue of FastCompany has some very interesting articles. Do give it a dekko….A Short 60-sec capsule with Bill Joy pretty much sums up the debate on Bangalore and the Silicon Valley and why the valley is still the place for innovation !! Also do read up a very compelling cover story on how Simplicity is now a competitive advantage !!

If you are like me and enjoy reading other blogs more than actually blogging, then these three tech analyst blogs recommended by Fast Company have to be checked out. You can find the article here…

A random sample of some of the gadgets that I have gotten hold of in recent times The Motorola e1070 is an engg sample (expected Q4-’05). The screen is an absolute treat !! The Razr has looks. Nothing beyond it. The 19″ LCD monitor *rocks*. I realize importance of real estate now ;). The ipod nano, do I need to say anything more. Treat to eyes, ears, pocket, scratches, neighbours, ……….And talking of gadgets, can somebody tell me what is a guy like Vikram Chandra doing on a show called “Gadget Guru” !! The least the NDTV Profit team could have done is get a half-techie who can atleast google around and talk geek

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock or were cooling your heels off in Sub-Saharan Africa, you would have heard of the *huge* debate around the SONY-BMG music CD rootkits. Just in case, A few of Sony CDs surreptitiously installed what are known in hacker terminology as rootkits that are capable of shielding their presence in the PC. And experts now are worried this has opened up a real security threat since most IS managers have always assumed that audio CDs are harmless(most still are). More than the security aspect, what I’m concerned is the manner in which a giant like Sony behaved. It is one thing to go behind known mass-pirates of mp3 or serving up old grannies with legal suits. But it is completely another to actually get into the PC of a person who *bought* the CD and not tell him/her about it !! To me, it is yet another of the growing instances of the separation between media publishers and end consumers. Yes, there have been debates umpteen on piracy and DRM(Digital Rights Management), but to actually see a company of the size of Sony resort to such pre-emptive theft-prevention seems a slap in the face of the customer who spent his/her $$$. Like some wise-soul so very rightly pointed out on a /. discussion, probably downloading a single plain mp3 file is *much* safer than actually buying a CD and ripping it off for your ipod !!

And not long ago, I had pointed to an article on how the Korean Genetic scientist Hwang Woo-Suk was accused of giving his American partner too much leeway in their research, thus endangering his “Nobel” options !! And now, I see that the two have parted ways over ethical practices…Maybe I am too cynical, but the whole argument just doesn’t gel
And Just in case you haven’t heard of, Do check out Google Analytics. They are now providing the entire package that used to cost $200 for free…Time to say adieu to statcounter ??

Wired has this very interesting piece on a recent judgement in a US circuit court on what constitutes being a public figure on the internet. According to US law, being a public figure severly limits the ability of one to fight against defamation or libel. The lady in question had participated in online discussions, and since there was negligible MSM coverage of her case, the judge deemed her online presence enough to categorize her a public figure…..Compare and contrast this development with the hugely debated Kansas School Board’s decision to teach students that “intelligent design” , something that matches more than a bit with what a few religious scriptures say, is a viable alternative theory to evolution !!! While I couldn’t be less concerned about either of these developments, what i found interesting was the role of media in these..In the first case, discussion forums were taken as proof for a person’s popularity and in the second, I see it nothing more but a desperate attempt by a bunch of retired people to hit international press with their gyaan !!! Phew….who doesn’t want to be {un}popular !! And yea, there’s a nice article here that traces the IP aspect of the whole issue…