With the news that Be is shortly to offer 24Mbit/s broadband over BT lines come some consequences.
For example, the new high data rate is available only to those that happen to live within a relatively short hop from an upgraded exchange, dividing the country into those that can have the service and those that can’t.
As the difference between broadband haves and have nots continues to climb, Sneak wonders if estate agents will begin to take note.
Will their already bizarre descriptions of potential home purchases gain a new quirk, describing broadband availability alongside notes advising of desirable local schools, a sunny aspect, or prospects for improvement. Claims that a property “lies in a very favourable location with respect to the local BT exchange” could become commonplace.
Staying on the same runaway train of thought, Sneak wonders if BT realises it is sitting on a property development goldmine. What better place to build a series of delightful, bijou flats than over the top of its existing exchange buildings?

September 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Apple's new iPod Nano has been causing the company rather more bother than earlier releases of its music player devices, it would seem. Angry buyers have reportedly been queuing to return units for replacement or refund after the screens became scratched or broken soon after purchase.

Steve Jobs is probably more used to hearing glowing praise from buyers, but did he perhaps foresee that Apple fans might turn into difficult customers and get in some pre-emptive revenge?

Sneak couldn't help noticing that 'nano' is 'onan' - as in onanism - spelled backwards. Could Apple be trying to suggest that disgruntled iPod users are all backwards w***ers?

September 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (3)

As uncounted numbers of schoolchildren would no doubt acknowledge, sheepishly, it’s a lot easier to copy someone else’s work than to find something out for yourself.
The web has of course made it a lot easier for little Jimmy to find someone else’s essay on Animal Farm or The Merchant of Venice, but what works for schoolboys also scales up. As witness the minor flap that triggered the recent announcement of a tenth putative planet in the solar system.
California-based astronomer Mike Brown rushed into an early announcement of his discovery after learning that someone else had been looking up web-based records of where he had been pointing his telescope.
Spanish astronomer Jose-Luis Ortiz of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia has since admitted he accessed the logs.
Interestingly, Ortiz had earlier announced the discovery of a different planetoid that Brown had also been studying, New Scientist reports, and again Ortiz admits having checked out Brown’s records.
Ortiz denies doing anything wrong. Presumably his dog ate his own observation schedule.

September 22, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

For his sins, Sneak was forced to sit through a webcast of Bill Gates' keynote speech from the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. The Microsoft chairman's monologues frequently score highly in the duller-than-watching-paint-dry stakes, but this time, Sneak's face was saved from hitting his keyboard by some unusual enunciation on Bill's part.
"And now we have arses built right into Internet Explorer," said Bill during a discussion of features in the forthcoming Windows Vista. Or something very like it. Sneak spooled back and listened again, and again, and finally twigged that he was in fact trying to talk about Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, the internet protocol that supports weblog updates.
What with all the foreigners Gates has to deal with, having that whine of a West-coast accent must be a real bummer.

September 14, 2005 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google may be steadily luring away Microsoft’s top people, but the Redmond giant is fighting back with a renewed recruitment drive. Evidently the brain drain has affected Microsoft's HR staff, however, as someone thought it a good idea to try to hire Eric S Raymond, gun-toting, self-appointed ambassador for the open source empire - the scary, moustachioed bloke who modestly describes himself as having “[written] most of the theory and propaganda for [open source] and talked IBM and Wall Street and the Fortune 500 into buying in”. Sneak for one is disappointed that Raymond didn’t take up the offer. With any luck he might have gone the way of so many other Microsoft initiatives, and simply disappeared without trace.

September 13, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

When Siebel Systems – a firm with big customers and billion-dollar annual revenues – is worth only a third more than a tiny upstart internet telephony company scraping by on twenty-times less turnover, you’d be forgiven for thinking that you may have been hit on the head in 1998 and imagined all of the last seven years. Sneak feels about ready to step out of the shower, Bobby Ewing style, to find that it’s still 1999.
But apparently the dot-com bubble did burst, even if it is ballooning up again. Hot start up Skype is valued at 68 times this year’s likely revenues, while boring old has-been Siebel is worth only four and a bit times revenues.
What with Google trading at $300 per share, Sneak continues to remain awake despite being black and blue from self-inflicted pinches. Incidentally, Sneak has some shares in Fools&theirMoney.com to sell, if you’re interested.

September 12, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)

In general, Sneak tries to steer clear of tiresome Windows versus Linux mudslinging – it helps keep the hate mail down to a manageable three bags a day. But not even Sneak can ignore the breathless coverage triggered among certain publications earlier this month, following a survey sponsored by IBM that found Linux is 40 percent cheaper than Windows. IBM knows this because its mercenaries (sorry, researchers) spoke to IT executives at "over 20 mid-sized to large enterprises". Inspired by this stupendous feat of in-depth probing, Sneak surveyed himself and found 100 percent of respondents think IBM really ought to talk to more people before concluding that everyone shares its own warped view of the world.

September 6, 2005 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the latest tit-for-tat move among IT giants, Google's launch last month of Google Talk, an instant messaging service that supports voice calls, was quickly followed by Microsoft's swoop to acquire voice-over-IP firm Teleo.
Sneak wonders where the current rivalry between the two firms will lead. First Google launched a free email service with gigabytes of storage, prompting Microsoft to upgrade Hotmail to match. Then, when Google introduced its Google Earth and Google Maps tools, Microsoft responded with its own Virtual Earth. That’s not to mention Microsoft's attempts to compete with Google’s world-beating search service with its own MSN Search.
If Microsoft's case of Google envy continues, Sneak fervently hopes that Google decides to bring out a stripped down office productivity suite that doesn’t stagger under the weight of its own widgets, a desktop operating system that doesn’t take 15 minutes to boot or shut down, and a browser that isn’t inherently insecure. Maybe then Microsoft will feel compelled to do likewise.

September 1, 2005 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

File this story, from sober science magazine New Scientist, under "Headlines Sneak couldn’t make up if Sneak had spent a week's wages on acid": Robotic space penguin to hop across the Moon

September 1, 2005 Travel | Permalink | Comments (1)