…and it appears that the One Laptop Per Child initiative has a few to deal with. So says a former security director, who states that the problem starts at the top, with Nicholas Negroponte.

Apparently Negroponte, for all of his blustering about Linux, wanted Windows XP to run on these machines all along. So much for the purity of motive, and the delight of Open Source.

Harsh words about the cost overruns, the marketing program, and the hardware failures round out the criticism of Ivan Krstić.

Former One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) security director Ivan Krstić is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore. He opened up a massive can of damning allegations about OLPC earlier this week in a lengthy tirade on his personal blog. The blog post includes a deeply pessimistic appraisal of constructionist learning theories and some harsh words for OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte, but it also offers some valid and insightful observations about the project’s failings and what can be done to remedy them.

Krstić’s blog post is like an angry rant from one who has escaped from a sinking ship and is now shouting from the shoreline in a futile effort to get the ship’s crew to patch holes in the hull and change course. Despite the extremely caustic tone and occasionally contradictory arguments in the blog post, those of us who have been following OLPC from the start and have seen the litany of problems and failures from a safe distance can sympathize with his frustration.

The OLPC project aimed to produce low-cost, education-focused laptops to sell in large quantities to governments in developing countries. The OLPC XO laptop includes some unique and innovative hardware components and a Linux-based, open source software platform that was designed to promote a constructionist approach to education. OLPC has faced a steady stream of serious problems that have left the project on life support.

The price of the laptop has climbed to $188 per unit as a result of hardware changes and insufficient sales volume. In order to help account for slow sales, OLPC made the XO available in North America through the Give 1 Get 1 program (G1G1), which failed catastrophically as a result of egregiously mismanaged deployment. A growing number of users who received units through G1G1 have experienced hardware failures and a number of other problems. OLPC’s attempt to reorganize and make the project “more like Microsoft” was a complete bust too, and compelled Krstić and others to leave the project.

the article in Ars Technica continues with some other criticisms of the project, including the fact that the Sugar interface, which was to be a cornerstone of the ‘look and feel’, was never really seriously considered. It was given lip service, and  not much more.

Krstić continues by accusing Negroponte of lying about his intention to port Sugar to Windows. Krstić believes that the Sugar interface should be ported to as many operating systems as possible so that more users can benefit from it, but he fears that Negroponte will move to Windows exclusively and jettison the Sugar user interface.

“Nicholas knows quite well that Sugar won’t magically become better simply by virtue of running on Windows rather than Linux. In reality, Nicholas wants to ship plain XP desktops. He’s told me so. That he might possibly fund a Sugar effort to the side and pay lip service to the notion of its ‘availability’ as an option to purchasing countries is at best a tepid effort to avert a PR disaster,” Krstić wrote. “In fact, I quit when Nicholas told me—and not just me—that learning was never part of the mission. The mission was, in his mind, always getting as many laptops as possible out there.”

Such are the problems with many worthy efforts. One problem, from what I’ve been able to piece together, seems to fall into the category of “too many cooks spoil the broth”. There were/are just too many “idea people” and not enough “worker bees” who simply did as they were told. Why the original design was allowed to get so twisted is something Mr. Negroponte seems to want to keep to himself, but I’m certain one of the left turns along the way was thinking that using a Microsoft operating system on low end hardware would be a good idea. Children don’t really need to learn about the Blue Screen Of Death as one of their first lessons.

Ivan Krstić did lay out a fairly good set of things to change, to return the project to sanity, and possibly feasibility. Perhaps someone who can do something about it will read and comprehend.

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Quote of the day:
It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument. - William G. McAdoo

Tags: olpc, negroponte, microsoft, hardware, give one get one, sugar

while the software that powers it continues to disappoint.

It seems that after all these years, Bill Gates has run out of ideas for software, and doesn’t want to concern himself with the repair of software problems.

In a CEO Summit held in Greece, Mr. Gates showed off a project of Microsoft Research called TouchWall.

The prototype is designed to demonstrate how inexpensive hardware could turn a large surface — in this case a 6 x 4 foot screen — into a dynamic touch display. So while Microsoft is investing millions in hardware it will never sell, where’s the multi-touch version of Windows? Where’s the fix for Vista?

The Gates demonstration shows what previous demonstrations by Jeff Han and others have shown, which is that the next great leap in PC user interface design will have multitouch, gestures and physics like the Apple iPhone. Read all about that great leap here. These demos also show that there are many different ways to put together hardware that enables this next-generation user interface.

The hardware research is exciting as it is varied. But the magic pixie dust that will make all this happen is the user interface and operating system, with an ecosystem of developers and third party hardware and software makers to support it. You know, that thing Microsoft does for a living.

Windows Vista, which currently powers the TouchWall demo, is horribly flawed, and largely unpopular with users. Meanwhile, I believe Apple is plotting a market takeover with a next-generation UI touch-screen computer — basically a giant iPhone that replaces the Mac line — that could see the light of day within two years.

Apple has to build the hardware, but Microsoft doesn’t. I don’t understand why Microsoft spends so much time, effort and money building hardware systems like Surface and TouchWall while its operating system business is in such dangerous disarray.

 

Mike Elgan at ComputerWorld summed it up with the title ‘Bill Gates shows CEOs how to waste research money’, and pretty much hit the nail squarely. The thing is, this was shown as something new, when, as anyone above the level of cretin should know, it is a variation on the ‘Surface’ theme.

Perhaps touch is the next big thing, but it will take software that works correctly to run - there’s the rub.

Video presentation here

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Tags: microsoft, bill gates, touchwall, demonstration, vista

It looks as though all the workers at CNET can rest easy, as the purchase of the conglomerate by CBS means an infusion of cash, and probably no layoffs, as there is not much, if any, duplication of purpose.

The buyout is costing CBS 1.8 billion dollars, a drop in the bucket for the Tiffany Network.

One thing I’d like to see - John Dvorak reporting what’s going on in tech each week, at least one time, on the CBS Evening News! ” …and now back to you, Katie!”

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Tags: cbs, cnet, tiffany network, john dvorak

Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor that, upon close scrutiny, makes one think of the major character Gordon Gekko in ‘Wall Street’, shows what is wrong with America, and rampant capitalism fueled only by greed.

Yes, I know how that sounds. No, I am no lover of communism, or even socialism, but unlike Gordon Gekko, I don’t happen to believe that ‘capitalism just works’. Anytime humans are a part of something, there is chance for disaster. That is what is beginning to happen here.

Why this corporate raider has decided to insinuate himself into the business of Yahoo is beyond me, but then that this part of the problem. It should be beyond him, too. People who are involved in things only for the money should probably get out.

from Betanews

In the opening move of a game he plays better than anyone alive, billionaire investor Carl Icahn has named a powerhouse team of investors and executives who would be ready and willing to lead Yahoo into a big future with Microsoft.

The dissident proxy slate of Yahoo directors proposed this morning by Icahn Capital chief Carl Icahn is comprised of frequent Icahn allies associates, along with extremely accomplished executives and investors. Icahn unveiled his team this morning in an open letter to Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock.

“It is clear to me that the board of directors of Yahoo has acted irrationally and lost the faith of shareholders and Microsoft,” Icahn’s letter to Bostock begins. “It is quite obvious that Microsoft’s bid of $33 per share is a superior alternative to Yahoo’s prospects on a standalone basis. I am perplexed by the board’s actions. It is irresponsible to hide behind management’s more than overly optimistic financial forecasts. It is unconscionable that you have not allowed your shareholders to choose to accept an offer that represented a 72% premium over Yahoo’s closing price of $19.18 on the day before the initial Microsoft offer. I and many of your shareholders strongly believe that a combination between Yahoo and Microsoft would form a dynamic company and more importantly would be a force strong enough to compete with Google on the Internet.”

 

That last sentence again points out what is wrong with this mentality. The perpetrators of this type of capitalism see evil everywhere except where they should…in their own actions. The purpose of any company is to do more than rape the public for the benefit of the stockholders.

The problems that Yahoo has experienced show precisely why it is hard for some companies to go public, because when that happens, the vultures and idiots (perhaps one and the same) start circling.

Backing Icahn up in his plan to reshape the online landscape are some powerhouse names, including Nextel founder John Chapple (reportedly one of Microsoft’s choices for its own would-be proxy slate), legendary mutual fund manager Brian Posner, New Line Cinema Co-chairman and Co-CEO Robert Shaye, former Universal Studios chief Frank Biondi — one of Hollywood’s most respected former executives — and another billionaire investor-slash-household name, Dallas Mavericks and HDNet owner Mark Cuban.

Also on that list is Icahn himself, of course. It wasn’t stated who would necessarily be elected chairman of that board, though it’s a fair bet that Icahn would be the leading candidate.

Icahn’s goals obviously include big short-term gains. He wants to replace Yahoo’s existing board that was opposed to a Microsoft buyout at all costs, with a team more copacetic to the notion. But the fact that Icahn’s team represents not just Wall Street investors but seasoned managers in their own right points to the possibility of an unspoken long-term goal: a big hand in the oversight of a much bigger company.

In just the last few weeks, Icahn has become a major Yahoo investor and plans to become bigger one, according to his own letter. He purchased 59 million more shares and share-equivalents of Yahoo stock, and has signaled with the US Federal Trade Commission his intention to purchase more shares worth $2.5 billion. Outside estimates are that Icahn already owns 2.5% of Yahoo, and this purchase may bring his stake up to 4% — not huge, but certainly enough to give him a platform when he addresses shareholders on July 3.

Since a Microsoft merger is the stated, outright goal of this nomination, its success would make his Icahn Capital venture a principal investor in a newly combined Microsoft Corp. Certainly some of his proposed alternative Yahoo board — including, most likely, Chapple — would be open to the notion of being seated on Microsoft’s board in a post-merger scenario.

According to a filing last February with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Icahn Capital did not have a major stake in Microsoft, and did not hold one in Yahoo either at that time. Curiously, though, he does continue to own about a third of a billion in combined stocks in Time Warner, the parent company of AOL — which is one of the companies Yahoo was seen associating with, in order to fuel speculation about “strategic alternatives” that could thwart a Microsoft buyout.

 

Forcing a merger with Microsoft is merely a way for Icahn and his gang to insinuate themselves into Microsoft, so perhaps Darth Ballmer should get upset at this point. We, as viewers on the sidelines, should be at least a bit anxious, as this, for those that believe, could take Microsoft even further toward the dark side. A Microsoft - Yahoo merger by these people would yield a company that cares even less about quality of product, and only about shareholder value. It could be the start of the long, ugly collapse of Microsoft, after a few more iterations of crappy software, released on a shareholder timetable, with no care for the quality of the product.

and

“While it is my understanding that you do not intend to enter into any transaction that would impede a Microsoft-Yahoo merger,” Carl Icahn wrote Roy Bostock this morning, with his usual sense of perfect word choice. “I am concerned that in several recent press releases you stated that you intend to pursue certain ’strategic alternatives.’ I therefore hope and trust that if there is any question that these ’strategic alternatives’ might in any way impede a future Microsoft merger you will at the very least allow shareholders to opine on them before embarking on such a transaction.”

The other “strategic alternative” involves a combination or partnership with Google. Icahn wants none of that — and incidentally, he is not a major Google shareholder.

Yahoo’s current board of directors includes the managing director of Softbank Capital and former Ziff-Davis publishing executive Eric Hippeau, Activision Chairman and CEO Robert Kotick, Northwest Airlines Chairman Emeritus Gary Wilson, and Arthur Kern, the chairman of American Media which publishes the National Enquirer. Yahoo did not have a public comment on Icahn’s move this morning.

 

This bozo is only concerned with merging Yahoo with Microsoft. It is not because he has any grasp of the situation in ‘cyberville’. It is not for the betterment of either of these companies. It is purely for the increase in his portfolio, and the rest of the world be damned.

Need I say more?

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Quote of the day:
The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. - Lord Acton

Tags: icahn, yahoo, microsoft, merger, corporate raider, ‘wall street’, gordon gekko, capitalism

Yesterday at 5 PM, the doors of all PCClub locations closed, forever. Apparently there was no advanced notice to anyone, as indications on the ‘net show many employees were left out in the cold, with only a few hours notice, and no severance pay.

PCClub  was the last of the non-Big Box stores here in California, and the only one that was primarily a reseller of PCs and parts. Sure, there is Fry’s, but they would just as soon sell you a television or washer and dryer. PCClub had become a fixture in a few states (how many I can’t quite remember, and the website is totally down, so that will be no help!), and seemed to be doing alright, if not tremendously well.

A little digging around shows a few stories of how some signs were there, but apparent only to those who shopped regularly. I suppose I should have been suspicious when an Apex case I bought was half price a couple of weeks ago. It is one time they had a fantastic sale on a great product - hmm, I should have been really suspicious!

When I hear about the razor-thin margins In computers, I have to laugh, as I build them, and know exactly how much profit there can be, with judicious parts selection, yet for some reason, PCClub is closed. Remember, that computer parts, like auto parts, are sold individually at a much higher profit margin than complete computers. The majority of PCClub sales were of individual parts to those wishing to build a custom PC.

To the employees, I am sorry. To the management, a better pricing and availability plan would have ensured greater profits.

Perhaps some other company will come in to take up the slack. If someone wants to bankroll me, I have some experience both in sales and management…I can see it now…Oracle PC - Where You’ll Have a Revelation!

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Tags: pcclub, clubit, store closings, multi-state locations, fry’s, best buy

For those who liked Digg, but have wondered where the site lost its way, Yahoo has had a service called Buzz, still in beta (isn’t everything these days?) which has become wildly popular, and seems to be making Digg totally unnecessary.

Web traffic analyst comScore is reporting that Yahoo’s Buzz social news service has already overtaken Digg in unique visitors per month, even though the social news site is still only in beta.

Yahoo Buzz had an explosive first few months, showing that it could generate 90% of the traffic that three-year old Digg could in only a matter of weeks. Furthermore, users of Buzz have been found to be more likely to comment on Buzzed stories.

The comScore report for April 2008 showed an astounding 74% month-over-month growth in unique visitors to Buzz, and a steady increase in minutes spent on the site. Also, over half the site’s visitors were women, likely due to Yahoo’s efforts to cater to female users with its Shine portal.

But the success behind Buzz is hardly surprising, as we noted when the service received an upgrade. Yahoo is a world-class property, and Buzz stories get a prominent place on the search engine’s front page.

Although it is doing better than Digg, on a volume basis, one wonders if Buzz will ever have the name recognition (on its own, without association with Yahoo) or social cachet of Digg.

Still, alternatives are good, and shake ups keep things from getting stale.

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Tags: yahoo, buzz, digg, social news, comscore, beta

Over at ZDNet, Ed Bott has, yet again, another article chronicling the XP versus debate and trying to shift the blame for Vista’s problems on a tendency for people to cling to the familiar.

He brings a few pieces of an article from 2001 to bear, and shows us that we (supposedly) had the same reaction to the introduction of XP in 2001.

Well. as the song says, “It Ain’t Necessarily So”.

Those of us who are willing to supplement our memories with some help from Google can attest that XP was not welcomed with open arms. In fact, it was slammed by magazines like InfoWorld, where P. J. Connolly and the very same Randall C. Kennedy published this not-so-glowing review in the October 26, 2001 issue:

Hopeless optimism must be a fundamental part of human nature, because we want to believe that new operating systems truly represent an improvement on their predecessors. It’s easy to point to certain features in a new OS as examples of progress, but end-users often find that a new OS performs like molasses compared to the version they were using. As a result, CTOs wanting to capitalize on the benefits of a new OS may find that new hardware investments are necessary — and expensive — requirements.

Unfortunately, Microsoft’s Windows XP appears to be maintaining that tradition …

Windows 2000 significantly outperformed Windows XP. In the most extreme scenario, our Windows XP system took nearly twice as long to complete a workload as did the Windows 2000 client. Our testing also suggests that companies determined to deploy Windows XP should consider ordering desktop systems with dual CPUs to get the most out of the new OS. …

Sound familiar?

I’ll be the first to admit that XP was slower than Windows 2000. The real story is, however, that most people in 2001 were not switching from Win 2000 to XP - the change was from Win 98 or Me, to Windows XP. 

Yes, the speed difference was there as well, but the difference, as I’ve spoken of several times, is that with XP, the user immediately got the ability to use more than 512MB of main memory, use hard drives larger than 128 (yes, 128, not 137 as so many stupid people speak of, as a gigabyte is in fact 2 to the exponent 20 bytes, not 1 billion!) gigabytes, and not have to worry about those 3 silly heaps that kept us rebooting a few times daily.

Vista brings none of this! It doesn’t increase memory available, unless the 64bit version is used. It doesn’t break any drive limitations that matter - we are far from the limitations of the file system of XP (most of us anyway - and again, the same benefits can be had with XP in its 64bit form), and Vista does not appear to make the time between rebooting a machine any longer.

Instead, Vista brings slowed performance, poor driver support, and questionable security improvements.

Back to Mr. Bott’s rant -

Get the picture? Back in 2001, Kennedy and InfoWorld were bashing XP and recommending that their readers stay with Windows 2000. Today, they’re bashing Vista and hawking their “save XP” campaign. But judging by the progression that XP made in six years, all that the Windows Vista architecture needs is time and a hardware replacement cycle or two.

And we’ll be able to read all about in InfoWorld’s “Save Vista” campaign.

 

Once again, Mr. Bott misses the point. After stating that all will be fine with Vista with more familiarity, and a couple of iterations of hardware upgrades, he is wrong - we will not be more familiar, as most of us will not be using Vista, with its slowness, DRM laden code, and uncountable lines of code to be able to ‘accuse the customer at any time of being a thief’. (I wonder how many times per second a ‘test for authenticity’ is being run with Vista!)

Does anyone else expect this guy to don a top hat and tails and sing ‘Puttin’ On the Ritz’? (Apologies to Peter Boyle)

Why does Mr. Bott simply state that his job, as reviewer, and part-time shill, is to get the unwashed masses to blindly accept the mediocrity that is Vista, in all different flavors. We could all use the honesty in this election year.

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Quote of the day:
We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Tags: microsoft, vista, benefits?, zdnet, ed bott, beating a dead horse

No matter what anyone says, Sprint just does not get it. The business model changes, the personnel changes, and yet the basic service, and customer service stay the same.

The service is better, but still the coverage and signal quality are poorer than most other carriers. The service plans have gotten more expensive, and yet when the company comes out with an unlimited plan that most will not wish to use, the corporate powers act as though they have invented perpetual motion. The company still does not get that no matter how wonderful the plan seems, if it is not usable, because of service limitations, then it is of no good, and not a good value. ( If I tell you that you can have unlimited service for 25 cents per week, and yet you cannot use your phone where you live and work, you have wasted your 25 cents.)

Because Sprint is not Microsoft, and does not have a virtually captive audience, they cannot be as cavalier with the customer base. Since the Sprint people have not learned this, they seem to have lost another million customers.

from Betanews

The number of subscribers for Sprint’s current 3G services fell to 52.8 million for the first quarter of 2008, down from 53.6 million during the same period a year ago.

Despite some gains in prepaid customers, Sprint lost 1.07 million post-paid subscribers, or customers who pay monthly cell phone bills.

In contrast, AT&T and Verizon Wireless each recently announced quarterly gains in wireless customers, implying that Sprint is losing market share in its current 3G business to those two rivals.

Last week’s announcement of a WiMAX spinoff by Sprint and Clearwire — funded by $3.2 billion in investments from Google, Intel Capital, Comcast, Time Warner, and Bright House Networks — raised the possibility that Sprint might leapfrog over AT&T and Verizon in the future 4G space.

The WiMax deal also calls for some new commercial relationships around 3G wireless that look likely to give Sprint a revenue boost.

But for the current quarter, at least, Sprint is forecasting only modest improvements to its financial picture.

During the first quarter, Sprint launched a new marketing campaign, along with a $99.99 per month unlimited calling and data plan, which brings pricing for current wireless services below those of AT&T and Verizon.

In a conference call with analysts, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse suggested that Sprint is still considering some sort of sale or spinoff of its acquired Nextel business, which has given rise to many of the subscriber losses due to technical problems with Nextel’s iDEN network.

At the VON.x conference at the end of March, Sprint talked in the direction of building an IP-based “Unified Service Architecture” to serve as the basis for iDEN, WiMAX, and Spring’s long-time CDMA network.

Sprint is still “committed to” former Nextel subscribers in its current customer base, Hesse said today. But “nothing is off the table completely,” according to the Sprint CEO.

 

Where Sprint went wrong here is that the Nextel customer base was very loyal, and very lucrative, yet the takeover showed Sprint treating the Nextel customer base, and the tower system, like so many things to be trampled over and forgotten. If Sprint had properly worked with the Nextel customers, and grown the network to alleviate congestion, they could have simply said ‘Hasta la vista!’ to the CDMA customers, as they were already sickened of the poor network performance and surly customer service.

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Quote of the day:
Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows. - David T. Wolf

Tags: sprint, nextel, subscriber loss, customer service, network problems, iden, cdma, wimax 

Just announced in Wired magazine, the Chinese government has provided 2.7 billion dollars to establish an aircraft manufacturing company to manufacture large jetliners. This is an attempt at becoming less dependent on foreign companies like Boeing and Airbus for really large capacity planes.

The first attempts by the China Commercial Aircraft Company will be to build an aircraft of 150 seats. As of the press announcement, no formal date for the first flight was announced. It was stated that it would take some time for the talent to be aggregated and the first designs to be completed.

European-builder Airbus has stated that Chinese domestic flights will increase by 500% from now to 2026, so it is only natural for them to have a larger aircraft industry.

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Tags: wired, airbus, boeing, china commercial aircraft co.

…before you are willing to do something about it? 

What am I talking about? I am talking about the cost of gasoline today, and how high the cost must be before you are willing to change your habits.

In my lifetime, I have seen a twenty fold increase in the cost of gasoline, and no matter how I try, I still can’t get my head around it. I know it does not have to be that way. While it is true that the amount of oil is running out, and that electric cars are available, we must face one thing…the greatest number of transportational devices on the planet are of the internal combustion type.

In the vein of being energy efficient, and also not trying to re-invent the wheel, would it not make sense to derive a ‘green’ way to fuel all these vehicles? Also, by looking in places other than the vegetable section of the market, we also alleviate problems with the world’s food supply.

Perhaps the one thing George Bush was right about (yes, imagine that - George Bush being right about something, and at the same time, someone like me pointing it out - what a marvelous confluence of things!) is that hydrogen is a wonderful source of energy for internal combustion vehicles. Where he went astray was not pushing madly for the changes to come as soon as possible.  (This points out one of the problems with George Bush. He is entirely too involved with Big Oil to ever extricate his thinking from that direction.)

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the entire universe, surely we can find, if we really try, to get an efficient way to collect enough to supply the internal combustion vehicles of our world, without involving oil, corn, or sugar.

A start might be using huge solar farms, located in remote areas, so as not to affect the aesthetic sensibilities of those who usually are against these types of projects, to provide the energy for electrolysis, which produces no pollution, and at the same time gives a source of pure oxygen, and allows complete source efficiency, with no waste produced.

Obviously, it will take much more than solar farms to make enough for the number of vehicles in use today, but it is a start,  One of the areas being investigated is the use of microbial production of hydrogen on a grand scale.

The really important thing to remember is that each time in history when a huge problem was encountered, the method to a solution was not one of simple conservation of a resource, or change in habits. A new direction was taken and a way to a better, not restricted, way of living was found.

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Quote of the day:
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of whom are absent. - Robert Copeland

Tags: hydrogen, oil crisis, ‘green’ energy’, pollution, solar power, electrolysis