Bug or feature? eBay drops wildcard search

eBay, the dominant auction site, this week took away from users the ability to search auction listings with wildcard keywords, which can be very useful to buyers looking for very specific part numbers or product series. It is (or rather was) easy to store wildcard searches on eBay as a powerful way of drilling down through millions of items as they are listed. No more. And eBay’s reason for eliminating wildcard searches? “Our research showed that using specific terms to expand one’s search was a more effective method than wildcard searches, which oftentimes included unexpected variations that cluttered search results. By removing the wildcard (*) advanced search functionality, we’re able to deliver search […]

The nanotech replicators are coming!

 
That’s physicist Michio Kaku talking about the upsides, downsides, insides and outsides of having a replicator like on Star Trek to make anything we’d ever need or want. It’s a compelling vision and he’s right that its implications go far beyond the economic to include cultural, social, even psychological. Kaku says it’s possible to make such a device and suggests we’ll have it in 100 years.

I say we’ll have it in 20.

A longtime friend of mine has significant pieces of a replicator functioning in his lab right now. He’s no mad scientist but a respected engineer who is known for his broad technical interests. Right now he can’t make you a mug of Earl Grey […]

Ad networks are killing the Internet. My answer is Cringely 3.0

One of my predictions back in January was that there would be no more predictions from me — that I would retire or otherwise significantly change what I do in this space at some point during the year. Well that point — the first of several, actually — is almost here. If my PBS blog was Cringely 1.0 and this space has been Cringely 2.0, get ready for Cringely 3.0, which will start subtly in a couple weeks with a change in how I use advertising on this rag.

We read a lot about how newspapers and magazines are dying at the hands of the Internet but there is hardly anything written about how […]

Think cloud computing saved you from Sandy? Think again.

Late at night last weekend, as Hurricane Sandy was beating the crap out of the eastern seaboard, I received an e-mail message from lower Manhattan. You may have received this message, too, or one just like it. It felt to me like getting a radiogram from the sinking Titanic. An Internet company was running out of diesel fuel for its generator and would shortly be dropping off the net. The identity of the company doesn’t matter. What matters is what we can learn from their experience.

The company had weathered power outages before and had four days of diesel fuel stored onsite. They had felt ready for Sandy. But most of their fuel wasn’t at the […]