Twenty years ago, when I was writing Accidental Empires, my book about the PC industry, I included near the beginning a little rant about how good engineers were incapable of lying, because their work relied on Terminal A being positive and not negative and if they lied about such things then nothing would ever work. That was before I learned much about data security, where apparently lying is part of the game. Well, based on recent events at RSA, Lockheed Martin, and other places, I think lying should not be part of the game.
Was there a break-in? Was data stolen? Was there an unencrypted database of SecureID seeds and serial numbers? All we […]
Remember, after the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, those stories about wallets filled with money being found and turned-in to the authorities, still stuffed with cash? That’s one positive aspect of Japanese culture, but does it also make them too trusting? Sony’s loss of first 77 million customer records and now 
Sony’s huge PlayStation Network (PSN) has been 
The machine pictured here is a Sony XDCAM EX, a 1080p tapeless HD camcorder. It is a so-called “prosumer” model that lists for $7800. I bought a pair of these cameras (new in the box) at the beginning of July to use for shooting this summer’s Startup Tour. Many video professionals think these are the best HD camcorders you can buy for under $20,000. The video is stunning — clearly network-quality or, indeed, feature film-quality.
There was a minor flap in tech news last week when the CEO of Activision, a huge video game company, called on Sony to drop the price of its PlayStation 3 game console, suggesting that if Sony didn’t follow this advice Activision would consider withdrawing support for the game platform altogether. I hardly expect Activision to withdraw its PS3 support, nor do I expect Sony to dramatically reduce the price of systems that have already effectively dropped 20 percent or more in Sony’s top market, the U.S., because of the weak dollar. To the astonishment of hard-core gamers, in fact, I’d suggest that this little drama has nothing to do with game sales or games […]