Rafe's Radar

What's behind the Google Chrome OS, technologically and from a business perspective? This week on the Roundtable, I discuss the pending operating system with CNET writers Stephen Shankland (Deep Tech) and Gordon Haff (Pervasive Data Center).

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This week on the Roundtable: air travel and technology. As we all get ready to spend lots of time in airplanes, and quite likely more time in airports waiting for airplanes, I thought it'd be appropriate to bring in experts on the topic of modern air travel. And we have two great guests for this show.

First, in the studio, Evan Konwiser of Flightcaster, a new service that will tell you if your flight is going to be delayed before the airline will tell you. I saw this product pitched at an Under the Radar start-up conference I moderated and it made me want to learn more about airline scheduling.

Second, via phone from Boston, we have Patrick Smith, author of one of my favorite lunchtime reads, the great Ask the Pilot column in Salon. Patrick has been a commercial pilot for nearly 20 years, and his column is a great read if you're at all curious about how the air transport industry works from the inside.

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Reporters' Roundtable #12: Air travel tech ... Read more

Humor is serious business. This week, we have two entrepreneurs who prove it: Ben Huh, CEO of the Cheezburger Network, the company behind Failblog, ICanHazCheezburger, ThereIFixedIt, and other sites you've probably wasted your lunch hours on; and Ryan Dolan, previously in business development at The Onion, now making a go of it with his own business, 30Watt, which sells funny products like those at PrankPack.

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Reporters' Roundtable #10: Funny business ... Read more

This week on the Roundtable: the App Store revolution. Something funny has happened to software. While the model we all grew up with for the distribution of software was mostly to buy it through retail channels or other resellers, or maybe direct from manufacturers, another model emerged and has proven successful by Apple: the App Store. In this model, there is one and only one outlet for software, and it's run by the people who make the hardware. And, critically, you can't get a product into the store unless the hardware maker approves it.

The app store concept is spreading to other mobile platforms and may become a part of general-purpose computing and game platforms as well. It's changing how software is made, sold, distributed, and priced. To discuss these and related topics: Sebastian Rupley, editor in chief of the GigaOm network, which publishes, among other things, a great tech analysis site. Via remote from our New York office, CNET Senior Writer Maggie Reardon, who covers mobile and Web-based businesses.

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Reporters' Roundtable #9: The app store business ... Read more

This week we are covering the dangers of cloud computing. Get it? With the major loss of consumer data for the Sidekick smartphone users--the Sidekick is made by Danger, a Microsoft company--the whole idea of "cloud" safety has been brought front and center for consumers.

Businesses, likewise, are wondering if they are exposed to similar risks when they put their apps and data in the cloud.

Can we trust the cloud?

Our guests to discuss this topic are CNET senior writer Stephen Shankland and Christofer Hoff, author of the Rational Survivability blog, which is about this very topic. Hoff is director of cloud and emerging solutions at Cisco System and thus has a vested interest in keeping the cloud safe and profitable.

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Reporters' Roundtable #7: The dangers of the cloud ... Read more

Is Windows 7 just Vista done right, or is it a real departure for Microsoft? This week on the Roundtable, we discuss what Windows 7 means for the industry as well as its impact on vendors like Apple and Google--with special guests Farhad Manjoo of Slate and Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet.

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Reporters' Roundtable #6: What Windows 7 means

We are days away from the launch of Windows 7. There is, to put it mildly, a lot riding on this release. Vista never lived up to expectations. Even today, three years after release, Vista has less than 19 percent of market share, and it's declining, according to Net Applications. Many people never upgraded from XP or got a machine with XP instead of Vista. Some are even abandoning Vista for the not-for-sale-yet Windows 7 through various pre-release programs. What can Windows 7 really do for Microsoft, and the tech industry? Click past the jump for the full show notes for this episode of Reporters Roundtable and for the full content, play the podcast, above.

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Next year will probably see new tablet computers from Apple and maybe even Microsoft. What do these companies know that our panel does not? Featuring Ryan Block and Harry McCracken.

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Reporters Roundtable # 5: Tablets' uncertain future

It's the obligatory Tablets edition of the Roundtable, this time with even more great and smart tech journalist entrepreneurs from Gdgt (Ryan Block) and Technologizer (Harry McCracken). Watch or listen for the content. Click to the full story to see the notes we used when recording. ... Read more

Should you launch your product at a trade show like Demo or CES, or should you try to drum up interest on your own? This week on the Roundtable, Revision 3 CEO Jim Louderback and Stage Two Consulting's Jeremy Toeman discuss successful and doomed strategies for introducing new products to the market.

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Today, we're talking about product launches. The reason we're doing this show now is that the Demo conference just ended, a week after the TechCrunch50 conference. One hundred and twenty products were launched at these shows. Is that smart? Is this how products should be launched? Is there a better way? To talk about this issue in some depth, I have two great guests....

As usual, watch or listen to the podcast for the content. The notes below are for those keeping score at home.

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This week, I'm joined by CNET security expert Elinor Mills in a discussion with Mint CEO Aaron Patzer, whose personal finance site is being acquired by Intuit. We grill Patzer on why he sold the company, the future of Quicken, and the security of online financial data.

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I really enjoyed recording this podcast. We had the start-up CEO of the moment in to talk about why he sold his personal finance company, Mint, to Intuit--the company he built Mint to compete with in the first place.

Also, Elinor grills Patzer on the security safeguards in his system. Patzer tells us getting access to Mint data is like initiating self-destruct on the Starship Enterprise: You need three people to give their individual passwords at the same time or no go. Play the podcast for the full content, and for our show notes, including some bonus content from a post-show discussion, keep reading.