News Analysis

Security expert Bruce Schneier is rightly regarded as one of the industry's most intelligent and insightful participants. He has made substantial personal contributions to the science of cryptology, and has written some of the best books on the subject.

Like many smart people, Schneier is also highly opinionated. Although I have yet to hear a technical opinion from Schneier that I disagree with, some of his nontechnical opinions are--in my opinion--open to debate.

For example, Schneier coined the term "Security Theater" to describe measures that serve to make people feel safer without significantly improving security in any … Read more

With Intel's focus on the new Atom-brand processors being described at the Intel Developer Forum this week, "Atom-powered" is the obvious description of the mobile Internet devices (MIDs) these chips will go into... and it seems like half the IDF stories on the Internet this week are using that phrase.

Intel, however, seems to want even more hyperbole-- it expects people to believe that Atom will recharge the whole company. CEO Paul Otellini reportedly said "This is as important to Intel as the launch of the Pentium in the mid-1990s"-- but that's ridiculous.… Read more

There's a good piece by Saul Hansell over on The New York Times' "Bits" blog.

Hansell describes how Comcast is being criticized for low picture quality on certain broadcasts. That's interesting, especially in light of the contention between Comcast and DirecTV on this very issue, but it isn't the most important point in Hansell's post.

Hansell goes on to give a reasonable explanation of the basic issues involved, and mentions the likely future of cable TV: digital video distributed over Internet-like network switches. Instead of always sending every TV channel to every house, a … Read more

Second only to Moore's Law as a source of story ideas for pundits in the computer industry, Rambus was back in the news again last week.

This particular verdict was favorable to Rambus, but it wasn't the final word, nor was it exceptionally important. CNET News.com didn't even publish a news article about it, though Tom Krazit did write a pretty good blog post on the subject and it inspired a good post on intellectual property development from former Rambus exec Steve Tobak on his blog. Rambus has been involved in a great many lawsuits. Some … Read more

In my previous blog posts titled "Disappointed with DirecTV" (part 1, part 2) I described the problems I've had getting my DirecTV equipment upgraded for compatibility with the company's new MPEG-4 satellite broadcasts.

Today, I'll be reviewing the centerpiece of this upgrade: DirecTV's HR21-700 digital video recorder (DVR).

Since there's a great summary of the features of this product in this PDF from dbstalk.com, I won't try to rehash all the details. But I do want to describe my experiences using this gizmo, and compare it directly to my older HR10-250 … Read more

I posted the general outline of my problems with a DirecTV upgrade a few days ago. Now for some of the details.

When DirecTV called me in February to talk me into upgrading my hardware, I had three pieces of equipment in operation: a dish antenna configured to receive signals from DirecTV's three older satellites, an RCA DTC100 HD receiver in my bedroom, and a Hughes HR10-250 HD TiVo DVR (digital video recorder) in my living room.

DirecTV made a simple offer: if I simply said "yes," they'd send out a professional installer with a new … Read more

DirecTV is in the middle of a long-planned upgrade to new satellite broadcast technology. The company has launched new satellites that use MPEG-4 video compression to carry an ever-increasing number of HDTV stations, both local and national.

I've been a DirecTV subscriber for many years. In fact, I signed up in 2000 because I wanted to take a look at the then-new RCA DTC100 HD receiver. I didn't even have an HDTV, but I did have a high-quality 21" CRT computer monitor that the DTC100 could drive. It wasn't good for large audiences, but for one … Read more

Apple refreshed its MacBook and MacBook Pro product lines last week. I was hoping for more significant improvements, but the changes were minimal.

The updated models come with new Intel processors, larger hard disks, more main memory, and more graphics memory.

The new Penryn processor was expected to improve battery life, but I noticed something when I compared the specs for the old MacBook Pro to those of the new model. The new machine's stated battery life has dropped from six hours to just five. However, Apple now refers to five hours of "wireless productivity," whereas the … Read more

Today is the tenth anniversary of the official death of Apple's Newton, the world's first PDA (personal digital assistant). There were pocket computers before the Newton, but the Newton was the first device to target PDA functionality so specifically.

The original Newton MessagePad was not a very practical product. Its handwriting recognition was inadequate, its processor was too slow, its local storage was too small. But the ultimate Newton, the MessagePad 2100, was glorious. It was powerful, reliable, easy to use, and surprisingly expandable with third-party hardware and software.

I used a MessagePad 2100 from 1997 to 2004, … Read more