You know you hear about these products where they promise to put Windows and Office on an iPad and they never quite work. Well, this morning I tried OnLive. This is the cloud-based gaming service but they have just released Windows and Office for the iPad. And it is free if you don't want premium …
5 years ago today …
... I sat in an airport lounge waiting to board a flight back to Australia. I was watching Steve Job's MacWorld keynote address from a streaming site. Rumours had been circulating for some months that Apple would announce something big there and expectations were high. And there 10 minutes into the talk jobs announced -- …
Explaining exponential growth
One of the themes here at Digitopoly is the power of exponential growth. I recently came across a terrific lecture that explains its power. Exponential
Ignore the piracy
Louis CK is responsible for much joy. If you don't believe me, watch thisĀ and if that isn't enough hunt down his appearances on The Daily Show. So you had better believe that if he had a digitisation angle I was going to post about it. Fortunately, this week he ran an experiment. Rather than putting …
Pricing the Vogue archive
I must admit that I have no idea why the pricing of the new Vogue archive is interesting me so much. I guess it was Matt Yglesias's post that described the whole endeavour as tragic that got my attention. Having noted that an individual subscription will cost $1,575 per annum, Yglesias wrote: I don't care …
Missing standardization: Elevator buttons
A theme of the digitized economy is the importance of standards. But sometimes I am puzzled by missing standards. Today I'd like to hone in on the 'open door' button on the elevator. You know the scenario. The door is closing and someone is just running up to get in. Now the appropriate social response …
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Lending is the right model
Book publishers are struggling with eBook lending. The latest to have a problem is Penguin who announced last week they would opt out of library lending programs citing security concerns. (They subsequently softened their exit to something temporary). The Penguin move specifically highlighted the Kindle lending program. Of course, this is just the latest following …
When will daylight savings end?
Early Sunday morning, the clocks in North America moved back one hour. This time around we didn't know it was coming and actually hardly noticed when it did. So few of our clocks are disconnected from the Internet, that this change can almost occur without us noticing. It is surely only a matter of time …
Moore's Law in solar energy
In today's NYT, Paul Krugman highlights the subsidy being given to the 'fracking' methods of fossil fuel extraction: basically, another example where costs are socialized although, let's face it, the most common example. The story of an old technology using non-market means to keep itself afloat is, of course, the way things work. (Just travel …
Technological Plateau or Promise?
http://s.marketwatch.com/media/swf/main.swf Have we reached a technological plateau or is innovation still going strong? If you've read my book with Andy McAfee, you know where I stand. David Wessel of the WSJ discusses the pros and cons of the argument and ties it to our current economic woes in this five minute video.
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