This week's announcement of deal between Yahoo! and Microsoft over licensing the new Bing search engine and sharing online salesforces may have come as a surprise. After all, didn't Microsoft storm away from the negotiating table months ago over Yahoo's resistance to a merger? Ah, but that was Yahoo under founder Jerry Yang -- these days Yahoo is run by tech veteran Carol Bartz. And therein lies a tale . . . Analysis by Edgelings editor-in-chief Michael S. Malone in a piece that first appeared on Forbes.com.
Enter the Pros
July 31st, 2009 - 9:19 am
Where Has Innovation Gone?
July 24th, 2009 - 1:09 am
It was while helping his local Silicon Valley museum create a timeline of the history of electronics that Edgelings editor-in-chief Michael S. Malone first noticed, behind all the explosion of new iPhone apps, computer games and other consumer products, that the pace of important tech innovation has been slowing for more than a decade. Worse, he realized, is that the few industries where vital innovation is still taking place are also the ones under assault by Washington. After a century of being the inventive nation on the planet, he asks, what happens when the United States looses its innovation?
Worlds Enough
July 23rd, 2009 - 1:29 am
The celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moonshot last week was not only a cause for celebration and nostalgia -- but also a reminder of time when American's were willing to take great risks for a shot at equally great accomplishments. These days, there is considerable doubt that Americans will ever again walk on another world. But it can still be done, says regular Edgelings contributor Charlie Martin: all it would take for a U.S. astronaut to plant a flag on Mars in the next decade would be one little -- but shocking -- deletion in the flight plan.
Wriston’s Law Still Holds
July 21st, 2009 - 1:15 am
Politicians, when they play with the economy, always operate on the assumption that while the rules may change, the playing field (and the players) remains the same. But that hasn't been true now for a generation. One of the first visionaries to recognize this fact -- that money and talent are no longer constrained by political borders -- was, ironically, the late chairman of Citibank, Walter Wriston. In 1992, Wriston predicted that in the wired digital world, money and smart people would move (at least virtually) to where they were the most wanted. A quarter-century later, his message is truer than ever . . .and should serve as warning about the potential fate of the U.S. economy. An essay by Forbes publisher and regular Edgelings contributor Rich Karlgaard.
Malone’s Fourth Law of Technology
July 17th, 2009 - 2:59 am
At various times over the last quarter-century, as a newspaper reporter, a magazine editor and later as a columnist, Edgelings.com editor-in-chief Michael S. Malone has proposed (only partly in jest) three cultural "Laws" for the technology world. Now, based upon his experiences in the Web 2.0 world, Malone is proposing a fourth. For all of you folks out there working on iPhone applications: he doesn't have good news.
Are Gadgets Bringing Jobs Back to Silicon Valley?
July 17th, 2009 - 12:13 am
Remember those stories about how movies, radio shows, newspapers and other forms of cheap entertainment boomed during the Great Depression? Well, it may be happening again. Even if you're unemployed and awaiting your foreclosure notice, the odds are still pretty good these days that you'll cobble together a few bucks to buy a Wii or Tivo to take your mind of your troubles. And that in turn is beginning to create a (small) job growth boomlet in places like Silicon Valley. Commentary and video by NBC-KNTV tech reporter and regular Edgelings contributor Scott Budman.
Smilodon and the Computer Operating System
July 15th, 2009 - 1:08 am
The oddly repetitive story of the saber-toothed cat -- evolving to grow ever bigger, with ever longer teeth, becoming extinct, and then starting the process all over again -- has an interesting lesson to teach us in light of the recent announcement of Chrome, by Google, a new, simpler operating system seemingly designed to deliver an equally mortal blow to the venerable (and over-evolved) Microsoft Windows. Commentary by regular Edgelings contributor Charlie Martin.
Kim Chi In the Intertubes
July 10th, 2009 - 12:18 am
The attack began, pointedly it seems, on Independence Day: dozens of key government and industry websites in the United States and South Korea found themselves under assault by a software 'worm' that so overwhelmed those sites that many are still down six days later. Where did the attack come from? Homeland Security is being careful and diplomatic, blaming either a government or group . . .but the widely accepted source is North Korea. So what do we do now? Here are two responses, this one from computer expert and regular Edgelings contributor Charlie Martin. He argues that, despite decades of warnings, we have left ourselves vulnerable to even greater -- and more dangerous -- attacks . . .and that until we begin to address our cybersecurity weakness, especially in the Windows Operating System, we have only ourselves to blame.
Cyber-Terrorism: When Will We Fight Back?
July 10th, 2009 - 12:17 am
The attack began, pointedly it seems, on Independence Day: dozens of key government and industry websites in the United States and South Korea found themselves under assault by a software 'worm' that so overwhelmed those sites that many are still down six days later. Where did the attack come from? Homeland Security is being careful and diplomatic, blaming either a government or group . . .but the widely accepted source is North Korea. So what do we do now? Here are two responses, this one from Edgelings.com editor-in-chief Michael S. Malone. He argues that the time has come to stop playing defense on global cyberterrorism, especially when it is government-sponsored, and start treating it for what it is: an act of war . . .and respond accordingly.
Spam Report Reveals What Makes Us Click
July 9th, 2009 - 1:31 am
EVERYBODY hates computer spam . . .and try as we might to escape it, every once in a while we all get suckered, either by intention or accident, into clicking onto one of those sites. And that's just what spammers are counting on. There's is, after all, a percentage game: even one-hundredth of one percent response is a lot when you can pitch to ten million people for almost nothing. So, care to know which spam terms provoke the biggest response? Yeah, sure, "Viagra" . . . but there are some surprises too. Commentary and video by NBC-KNTV reporter and regular Edgelings contributor Scott Budman.
Google Takes ‘Beta’ Label off Apps
July 8th, 2009 - 11:51 pm
Is Your Company Fundable?
July 7th, 2009 - 1:15 am
It is perhaps the most tragic business paradox of our time: there are more entrepreneurs out there at work in the U.S. economy than ever before . . .but for nearly all of them, their dreams will be dashed by a dangerous lack of investment capital, brought on by government over-regulation, tight money and scared venture capitalists and other investors. Somewhere in those thousands of new start-ups are the Apples, Googles and Twitters of the future -- and if they can't find the capital they need to survive, this recession may last for years. Forbes Magazine has decided to help. Commentary (and questionnaire) by Forbes publisher and regular Edgelings.com contributor, Rich Karlgaard.
The Mash-Up of Michael Jackson
July 3rd, 2009 - 1:13 am
The King of Pop is dead . . .sort of. The real Michael Jackson disappeared long ago, retreating into a creepy, self-parodistic and drug-addled haze that finally ended last week. But "Michael Jackson", the persona that was created in the analog era of music, will now simply be retooled for the new kind of immortality -- on YouTube and MP3 -- only possible in the digital age. A Portrait of the Artist as a Shiny Mash-up Machine by Edgelings Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Malone.
Waxman-Markey Flunks Math
July 1st, 2009 - 1:12 am
Waxman-Markey is beloved both by Green Advocates and certain celebrated Silicon Valley venture capitalists. But are both operating from false principles? In the case of the Greens, do they really appreciate just how little of the electrical power in the United States comes from non-traditional sources? As for the Silicon Valley VCs, they seem to believe -- with very little evidence -- that alternative energy is destined to follow the same, Moore's Law, trajectory of semiconductor chips and computers. If both are wrong . . .and there's a very good chance they are . . . then we may be headed towards a very, very expensive economic debacle. Commentary by Forbes publisher and regular Edgelings contributor Rich Karlgaard.