Wednesday, April 09, 2003

New Social Software Products Social Software Making Progress The smaller the group, the more immediate value in the relationship. That's one notion behind an emerging phenomenon called ``social software" [via Dan Gillmor's eJournal]   Dan's got some thoughts on the emerging category of "social software", a phrase Clay Shirky has been promoting.  Another interesting company solving similar problems --- and one who was just on a panel moderated by Clay, also including SocialText --- is Providence, RI-based Traction Software, who's "enterrprise weblog" software is really a powerful distributed communication and publishing tool for information professionals. 9:59:42 AM    comment []

Analysts: Wi-Fi a 'Positive Disruption' Analysts: Wi-Fi a 'Positive Disruption' [via 802.11 Planet] "Not since the earliest days of the Internet have we seen a technology capable of creating such positive disruption and change and we expect that 802.11 and its derivatives will only increase in importance over the next five years," said Jupiter Research Director Michael Gartenberg 9:38:59 AM    comment []

Wi-Fi for Everyone Wi-Fi for Everyone [via 802.11 Planet] Efforts to deliver broadband to low-income housing via WiFi.  Sounds great. 9:36:46 AM    comment []

C# and CLI Standards?? Microsoft to score new C# standard ISO will certify C# language and CLI - CNET News.com [via Loosely Coupled news aggregator]   CNet reported on the ISO "seal of approval" on Microsoft's C# and CLI submissions.  I looked into the ECMA and ISO "standards", and it's quite deceiving.  Unlike many other consortsia-standards such as ANSI C or even ECMA-262 (ECMAScript), these are merely published references that CANNOT be used for commercial products or implementations.  These last two paragraphs from the news.com piece tell it all: On top of an ISO seal of approval, companies can also look at the published specifications of C# and the CLI to better understand the underlying products once they purchase them, Goodhew said. The academic community benefits perhaps more from the published specifications to do computer science research than do companies, he added. While it's great to have visibility into the architecture, this is hardly an open standard given the tight commercial restrictions imposed with it.   9:27:10 AM    comment []

WiMAX vs/+ WiFi From Broadband Intelligence:  WiMAX companies say the new standard, a metro area network (MAN) technology, is capable of providing up to 31 miles of linear service area range and eliminates the need to be in direct line of sight to the base station, a critical flaw undermining earlier efforts at fixed wireless broadband. The technology can also pool capacity to deliver rates up to 70 Mbps, enough bandwidth for 60 T-1 type connections or capacity to deliver DSL-level speeds to hundreds of homes using a single sector of a base station, which are expected to come equipped with six sectors. Hoping to emulate the success of the Wi-Fi Alliance, which spurred the current Wi-Fi revolution, WiMAX will develop conformance test plans, select certification labs and host interoperability events for equipment vendors, as well as work with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to develop test plans for HIPERMAN, the European broadband wireless metro area access standard. Vendors who pass the interoperability tests will get a “WiMAX Certified” seal of approval. It's clear that very high-speed fixed wireless can be complementary to WiFi for broadband wireless, and it's good to see industry collaboration around standards that will make it effective (e.g. eliminating line of sight problems that have stalled fixed wireless in the past), but given the incredible investment surrounding WiFi access points and cards, and the R&D around extending 802.11's effective range, it seems that this will ultimately be a competitive situation.   9:09:28 AM    comment []