Looking back at Y2K from the Trump Era

Recently I came across an old column I wrote a decade ago on the 10th anniversary of Y2K. You can find it in my archive along with a thousand more, but I am also reproducing it, below. For those who have forgotten Y2K or are too young to remember it, the crisis was Climate Change for an earlier era. It was a very real global problem that turned out to be anticlimactic only because we as a society took heroic efforts to handle it. We should be so lucky today.

The column holds up fairly well, I think, and its major lessons are worth remembering. If anything, it’s even more relevant today because we are living in the Trump era of bombast […]

By |January 24th, 2020|2020, Computing, Government, history, Technology|46 Comments
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What the heck is happening at Apple?

cook“What the heck is happening at Apple?” people ask me. “Has the company lost its mojo? Why no new product categories? Why didn’t Apple, instead of AT&T, buy Time Warner? And why are the new MacBook Pros so darned expensive?

After first getting out of the way the fact that Apple is still the richest public company in the history of public companies, let’s take these questions in reverse order beginning with the MacBook Pros. In addition to their nifty OLED finger bar above the keyboard, these new Macs seem to have gained an average of $200 over the preceding models of the same size. What makes Apple think they can get away with that?

Apple can […]

By |October 31st, 2016|2016, Companies, Computing, entertainment, Industry, Movies, Uncategorized|110 Comments
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Outsourced IT probably hurt Delta Airlines when their power went out

DELTA_WING_UP_PFDelta Airlines last night suffered a major power outage at its data center in Atlanta that led to a systemwide shutdown of its computer network, stranding airliners and canceling flights all over the world. You already know that. What you may not know, however, is the likely role in the crisis of IT outsourcing and offshoring.

Whatever the cause of the Delta Airlines power outage, data center recovery pretty much follows the same routine I used 30 years ago when I had a PDP-8 minicomputer living in my basement and heating my house. First you crawl around and find the power shut-off and turn off the power. I know there is no […]

By |August 8th, 2016|2016, Companies, Computing, Outsourcing, Privacy and Security|111 Comments
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Personal computers approach retirement age

Scan Jul 29, 2014, 9_44 AMMy birthday was this past week. When I came to Silicon Valley in 1977 I was 24 years old. Thirty-nine years later I am 63 and a lot changed around me in those four decades. I went from young to old. The personal computer industry, of which I consider myself to be a part, went from being two years old to 41 — an even greater change than I have experienced. And the point of this column is to write a bit about how personal computers have matured and where they are going, because I am pretty sure the PC is going away. And I have figured […]

By |January 30th, 2016|2016, Computing, history, mobile technology|118 Comments
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For future computing, look (as always) to Star Trek

retinal scan“The step after ubiquity is invisibility,” Al Mandel used to say and it’s true. To see what might be The Next Big Thing in personal computing technology, then, let’s try applying that idea to mobile. How do we make mobile technology invisible?

Google is invisible and while the mobile Internet consists of far more than Google it’s a pretty good proxy for back-end processing and data services in general. Google would love for us all to interface completely through their servers for everything. That’s their goal. Given their determination and deep pockets, I’d say Google — or something like it — will be a major part of the invisible mobile Internet.

The […]

By |August 13th, 2014|2014, cloud computing, Computing, Gadgets, mobile technology, Product Development, Technology|57 Comments
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