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Friday, November 15, 2002 |
USA Today on Wi-Fi: A generally well-balanced article surveying mostly hot spot aspects of Wi-Fi. However, the article repeats the fallacy that businesses were reluctant to use Wi-Fi because of WEP's weakness. I continue to argue that WEP is a non-starter for businesses that have actual IT operations that include authentication systems -- which means the scale of businesses mentioned in passing in the article. The writer quotes Gartner's silly nonsense about "86,000" hot spots by 2006: if there are that few, the hot spot industry will have proven to be a non-starter and some kind of 3G system offering lower but ubiquitous bandwidth will have replaced hot spots. More likely 500,000 or a limited patchwork, but not much potential at 86,000. The article also says that Wi-Fi transmissions aren't regulated by the FCC, which is incorrect. The transmission power and characteristics are. It would have been better to say that Wi-Fi users require no special permission from the FCC to operate licensed equipment. [80211b News]
8:38:43 PM 
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WSJ. Computer use is driving productivity growth. However, it only works if a companies use of computers is tied to sound strategy (obviously).
Here is an interesting stat from the article:
U.S. productivity zoomed by 2.75% a year in the quarter-century after World War II, creating the modern American middle class. Around 1973, productivity growth slowed mysteriously to 1.5%, and showed no signs of revival despite the spread of computers until 1995. Since then, productivity has grown by more than 2.5% a year. This is big. Adding just two-tenths of a percentage point to productivity growth over a decade works out to an extra $1,000 in income for each man, woman and child.
Obviously, we didn't see anything close to this growth in incomes since 1995. Where did it go? Into the pockets of CEOs like Ken Lay, Bernie Ebbers, and others is one answer. It has also been siphoned off by corporations and Wall Street. Imagine the improvement in personal incomes if American families got the full benefit of productivity improvements.
This chart shows the increasing gap between productivity and income (note, this chart depicts median income which factors out the incomes of super-rich families):
[John Robb's Radio Weblog]
8:37:37 PM
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I finished reading Smart Mobs, http://www.smartmobs.com, the book on a first go around. Now to sit and read and study and investigate some of Howards, references.
7:15:54 AM
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Reuters: "Grass-roots publishing tools are putting the power of authorship in the hands of millions." [Scripting News]
7:01:30 AM
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Looking out the window as I post this prior to heading off to work, and lo and behold, it's snowing. What a perfect ending to the week.
6:55:12 AM
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I want one!!!
Online Gaming Thinks Inside Xbox. Gamers go wild in Net forums comparing Microsoft's Xbox Live, launching Friday, with Sony's online offering for PlayStation 2. The online console gaming war is far from won, but it appears Xbox has an edge. By Dustin Goot. [Wired News]
6:06:07 AM
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All hail the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act:
Those of you with a distaste for the Digital Millenium
Copyright Act would do well avail yourselves of The
Electronic Frontier Foundation's latest Action Center
effort and use your own voice to protect your digital
fair use rights! The EFF is calling upon us to ask our
representatives to co-sponsor the Digital Media Consumers'
Rights Act (HR-5544), which would introduce labeling requirements
for usage-impaired "copy-protected" compact discs, as
well as several amendments to 1998's infamous Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). A worthy effort if there ever was one.
http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2224
5:51:13 AM
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T.G.I.F.
5:31:43 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Paul W. Swansen.
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