Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Rumors correct: NewsGator purchases NetNewsWire. Greg Reinacker just wrote me and confirmed the rumors that NewsGator is acquiring Ranchero Software, makers of NetNewsWire. More tonight, gotta run to another interview. Here's an article about the NetNewsWire acquisition on eWeek. Congratulations to Brent Simmons and everyone involved. Greg Reinacker now owns three of the most popular RSS aggregators. I have 15,000+ subscribers on NewsGator's online service alone which is the most subscribers on one service I know about, so know that his system is getting very popular. [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger] It will be interesting to see whether this turns out to be good or bad. It probably makes it much more likely that there will be a Windows version of NetNewsWire, but on the other hand when a large company swallows up a smaller one the quality of the smaller company's products often suffers (if the products aren't cancelled outright). 2:25:17 PM    comment () Taiwan Irked at Google's Version of Earth. frank_adrian314159 writes "As reported in The Register, Taiwan wants Google Earth to stop calling it a province of China. Although Google has yet to comment on this issue, it will be interesting to see the brightest minds that money can buy trying to solve what decades of diplomats have unsuccessfully wrestled with - how to balance the nationalistic pride of the inhabitants of Taiwan against the nationalistic pride of the inhabitants of mainland China." From the article: "Foreign ministry spokesman, Michel Lu, explained: 'It is incorrect to call Taiwan a province of China because we are not. We have contacted Google to express our position and asked them to correct the description.' Google has maintained a stony silence on the matter, presumably while it tries to work out a solution which will please both the Taiwanese and the hosts of the (lucrative, burgeoning, inviting) Chinese internet search business opportunity market." [Slashdot] If Google continues to give in to Beijing, should we expect the British to start insisting that the United States be referred to as a colony of the UK? 12:50:43 PM    comment () Orson Scott Card Reviews Everything. H_Fisher writes "Orson Scott Card, author of sci-fi classic Ender's Game and many other novels and stories, has posted his review of the much-discussed Joss Whedon film Serenity (which opened at #2 in the US box office this past weekend). Among other things, Card has this to say about Serenity: 'Those of you who know my work at all know about Ender's Game. I jealously protected the movie rights to Ender's Game so that it would not be filmed until it could be done right ... I'll tell you this right now: If Ender's Game can't be this kind of movie, and this good a movie, then I want it never to be made.'" With praise for Full House, Friends, Being John Malkovich, and Lost to boot. [Slashdot] Card makes a good point about how well the characters are written. As he says, "Even the villain really is somebody." That's an excellent point. The crew of Serenity is already familiar to anyone who's seen Firefly, of course, but it's worth pointing out that the movie also has the best villain I've seen in many years. 12:35:51 PM    comment () Prince Andrew Screened At Melbourne Airport. We are all more secure because everyone goes through airport screening, and there's no automatic white list. [Schneier on Security] On the contrary, we're all less secure because airport screening exists at all. The only purpose it serves is to render passengers helpless in case of a terrorist attack, while also screening out those who would be most capable of dealing with such an attack by subjecting passengers to treatment that anybody with any self-respect or sense of dignity would be extremely unwilling to endure. 9:32:08 AM    comment ()

© Copyright 2006 Ken Hagler. Last update: 2/15/2006; 2:06:39 PM.