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July 21, 2004 |
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You were scanning your crystal balls this week, looking for hints of things to come. Your top searches involved an emerging technology with privacy-violating potential, a file-sharing tool on the rise, disturbing developments at Red Hat, the top-secret Danger Sidekick 2, and an intriguing acquisition by the inscrutable Google. |
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RFIDs
RFIDs piqued your curiosity last week, as Congress held hearings about the controversial little radio devices and Mexico's attorney general had one implanted in his arm. RFID (radio frequency identification) devices are minuscule tags equipped with tiny antennas. Each RFID contains a sort of radio bar code, readable using special RFID scanners. Companies such as Wal-Mart and Gillette are testing RFIDs to track inventory. But some worry that RFID listening posts could also be used to keep tabs on people. A paranoid fantasy? Perhaps. A Japanese primary school is already using RFIDs to monitor students. The Mexican AG had his RFID implanted partly to track him in case he gets kidnapped. And an RFID recently helped reunite an Idaho man with his long-lost black Lab. Given the way people feel about their pets--not to mention their children--we're guessing that RFIDs are here to stay.
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Picasa
We admit it: we're Google watchers. And it seems we're not alone. You were all over last week's announcement that Google had bought Picasa, a company that makes software for organizing digital photos. It couldn't have hurt that Google offered the software for free soon after the acquisition. It quickly became one of the most popular products at Download.com. At first glance, the purchase might have seemed puzzling. Picasa makes a desktop product; Google is a Web search engine. But Google may have big plans for Picasa's Hello peer-to-peer photo-sharing application, which already interfaces with Google's Blogger Weblogging service. Google is probably also preparing to compete with Microsoft, which has been touting advanced image-search features in its upcoming Longhorn operating system. But the always tight-lipped Google, in the midst of its pre-IPO quiet period, is keeping mum. It looks like we'll all have to content ourselves with reading tea leaves for a while yet.
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BitTorrent
You apparently heard about last week's report that BitTorrent file-sharing software is now pushing more data than the once-mighty Kazaa. But judging from the various ways you spelled the name, (Bit torrent was a close-but-no-cigar favorite), we sense that BitTorrent is not yet a household word. So here's the scoop: BitTorrent is peer-to-peer software that makes it easy to share huge files quickly and reliably. Remember, with earlier file-sharing networks, waiting behind 15 other people to download a file from some poor sap with a 384Kbps DSL upload pipe? BitTorrent avoids that bottleneck by splitting files into chunks and having people download different chunks from one another. Everyone downloads and uploads at the same time. Inevitably, people discovered that BitTorrent is a dandy tool for swapping movies and TV episodes. Beware, though: The entertainment industry is watching. Also, BitTorrent lets anyone see which IP addresses are downloading a file. Caveat downloader.
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T-Mobile Sidekick 2
For two weeks now, you've been ringing our bells about the T-Mobile Sidekick 2 (a.k.a the Danger Hiptop 2), Danger's not-yet-official successor to its trendy wireless handheld/cell phone hybrid. We liked the color version of the earlier model, with its 240x160-pixel, 65,000-color transflective display; 32MB of memory; and smart ergonomics. No wonder you're slavering for the sequel. In late June, the FCC published online photos of the Hiptop 2, which it quickly withdrew. But not, according to tech blog Engadget, before it also published a letter from Danger asking it to withhold images of the Hiptop 2 "until the actual marketing of our device, which is planned for late August 2004." Watch for our review as soon as Danger takes the wraps off the Sidekick 2. That is, we mean, assuming it exists.
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Trouble at Red Hat
Was it sympathy or schadenfreude that had you searching for news about Red Hat? Either way, the recent travails of the pioneer Linux seller captured your interest. Red Hat stock plummeted 23 percent last week after the company announced that it was restating earnings from the past three fiscal years. Worse, Red Hat revealed that it had received a "comment letter" from the Securities and Exchange Commission and declined to release the contents. Then several law firms filed class-action lawsuits charging Red Hat management with artificially inflating the company's stock price. All this comes a month after Red Hat's CFO announced his planned resignation. None of this necessarily reflects on Red Hat's product, and even less on Linux itself, of course, but it certainly got the attention of Tux-doll owners everywhere.
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