pulse

Michael Phelps blows off IBM

LAS VEGAS--I'm here at IBM Pulse 2009, the IBM Tivoli customer conference (more on Pulse09 in my next blog). Many months ago, IBM hired Olympian Michael Phelps as a keynote speaker and the company was quite excited about having him present. When pictures of Phelps "pulling on a bong" emerged, I really felt bad for IBM, imagining an emergency meeting between the Pulse09 event team, corporate marketing, HR, and legal to decide what to do. IBM ended up sticking with Phelps as planned.

Given these events, I was very interested to see how IBM and Phelps handled … Read more

IBM cloud announcement disappoints...again

Update: This post covers the Tivoli specific announcements that Gordon Haff covered in the post referred below. IBM made significant, additional announcements after this post was written, which I cover in a separate post.

I looked forward with great anticipation to Gordon Haff's post on Monday covering the Tivoli announcements at IBM's Pulse conference.

Specifically, I was especially interested in what Tivoli was going to offer to support dynamic infrastructure, in part because IBM's cloud DNA holds so much promise, and I have yet to see any magic from them.

As would be expected from Pulse, the bulk of the announcements are geared toward service management. From Gordon's post:

IBM service management software and services from IBM Global Business Services, IBM Global Technology Services, and specialized IBM Business Partner capabilities. Together, they enable organizations to design and implement IT systems that centrally manage and monitor an entire industry infrastructure, enabling greater performance of both traditional assets, such as manufacturing robotic equipment, as well as emerging technologies like "smart meters" and RFID (radio frequency identification). A new governance-consulting practice. Through the practice, IBM works with clients to design governance systems to help mitigate risks related to business changes, changing market conditions, and regulatory requirements. New Tivoli Service Automation Manager software, which automates the design, deployment, and management of services such as middleware, applications, hardware, and networks, tasks that today are largely done manually and thus are subject to error, time constraints, and other human limitations. New Tivoli Key Lifecycle Manager software, which helps organizations simplify the life cycle of encryption keys by enabling them to centralize, automate, and strengthen security through key management processes, with an increasing number of IT infrastructure elements having built in encryption to protect them.

Ugh.… Read more

Daily Tidbits: China's Web users match total U.S. citizens

The total number of online Chinese citizens has grown to approximately 298 million, reports the BBC. According to the report, which cites data from the China Internet Network Information Center, there has been a significant increase in the number of people who use mobile phones accessing the Web, which led to a 41.9 percent increase in China's Internet population year over year. Although there are almost as many people on the Web in China as there are U.S. residents, the country has a long way to go to match Web penetration rates measured in other countries: Web … Read more

"Novel" receiver to protect electronics against electromagnetic pulse attack

A Malibu, CA company is developing a new system to protect military communication gear from high-power microwave weapons, nuclear blast generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and the mythic, directed-energy "e-bomb".

One nuclear airburst can unleash the EMP equivalent to 100,000 volts per square centimeter, frying computer, radar and communication equipment within hundreds of miles. It's possible to protect electronic circuitry from EMP with something called a Faraday cage, or covering it up with 1 inch mesh, grounded, copper chicken wire as they've done with FEMA headquarters; problem is-nothing gets out either, which defeats the purpose when … Read more

Livescribe starts shipping, barely

Updated 4:15 p.m. with details on availability from a Livescribe e-mail.

Livescribe plans to start shipping the first preorders for its digital pen on Monday, narrowly hitting the company's already delayed target of shipping this month.

In a blog posting on Friday, CEO Jim Marggraff said the company has been "overwhelmed" by the number of preorders. The company's flagship device, the Pulse, combines a digital pen with synchronized audio notes and sells in two models. The 1GB device sells for $149, while the 2GB variety is $199.

Started by former Palm and LeapFrog executives, … Read more

Where we had to beat them to death with their own shoes (UPDATED)

EPISODE 30

We rant about eBay abandoning negative feedback, what happened to Heath, retro Internet, why Red Bull makes you cop a feel, Marky Mark and console gaming. By the way, lots of retro.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Updated: Red Bull Commercial Boob Grab

Six Apart launches Activity Streams

Six Apart is releasing a new plugin for Movable Type this morning called Activity Streams that let MT users create a news feed and add it to their blog. Similar to the FriendFeed, which I checked out back in October, MT users can plugin their various affiliations with other social services and present all the information in one place where they are already publishing content--their blog.

MT's creators said the plugin is different from services, such as Plaxo Pulse, because you host it, not a third party company. Hosting it yourself keeps your login information in your hands. MT … Read more

Plaxo inches further onto your desktop with new Mac application

It's no shock that contact management site Plaxo has been a fierce advocate of data portability. As a result, it's not particularly surprising that the service continues to expand browser-to-desktop application functions: on Wednesday, the company announced that the latest version of its downloadable Mac client will sync the Plaxo Pulse social network to Apple's Address Book software. This comes in the wake of an announcement that data from Pulse--which aggregates feeds from social media sites like Flickr and Twitter into a common profile--would also sync with Microsoft Outlook.

The new version of Plaxo's Mac client, … Read more

The Scoble scuffle: Facebook, Plaxo at odds over data portability

A data import feature being tested by contact management site Plaxo hasn't gone over too well with social network Facebook.

At least one alpha tester of the new script has had his Facebook account disabled, due to an alleged terms-of-service violation that brings to light the sticky debate over just how "open" the social Web is--and ideally should be.

The controversy hit the Web when popular blogger and former Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble--who once gained notoriety when he publicly complained that Facebook wouldn't allow his friends list to surpass 5,000 people--posted a blog entry that … Read more