Technology in Communications

How is this going to change our public world? I wonder if this could mean huge steps forward in the fight against corruption in third world countries? What about here in the US? What about right to privacy from strangers?

By the end of this year, 500 million people worldwide are expected to own a telephone with some sort of image-capturing device. That number could swell to 3 billion by 2010, says cellphone manufacturer Nokia.

LATIMES.COM 9.6.05

Posted by Josue Sierra at 7:52 AM | Permalink | Comments

Interesting look ahead. This is a key trend in regards to how and where corporations are spending their Information Systems money. The Internet is the great "integrator", making cohesiveness in business processes possible.

"Web services are expected to become even more pervasively used throughout the entire computing stack," said Sandra Rogers, program director for SOA, Web Services, and Integration research at IDC. "Web services have been and will continue to be primarily adopted by technology vendors that then proliferate the use and consumption of Web services via integrated solutions more so than enterprises addressing all the development and processing complexity directly."

Several trends influencing the level of spending for Web services software include:

• Continued vendor and product consolidation

• Price pressures and shifting license models

• Evolving maturity and skill sets in developing Web services and Services oriented architecture (SOA) solutions

• Major product version releases by key vendors influencing the landscape

• Complexity of and rate of adoption for various Web services standards

• Organizations balancing existing base of technologies until volume and levels of complexity force review and investment

Posted by Josue Sierra at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Comments

A recent survey of 122 European business executives has found that, of all strategic technologies, knowledge management solutions rank first among executives in terms of importance in large companies. The survey, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, indicated that this may be because the majority of executives feel unable to use large amounts of the corporate information that is available to them.

Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said that their IT departments' failure to prioritize bulk information was the main barrier to effective decision-making. Ignorance of what knowledge exists, or of where to find it, is another major barrier, according to 41 percent of respondents.

In some cases, a simple solution—such as keeping a regularly updated record of who knows what—can be more effective than throwing IT at the problem, according to the report.

Posted by Josue Sierra at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments

This is trend-setting and is part of what will change how people engage with Media. The key idea behind this sort of technology is to combine tools, and allow individuals to listen to what they want when they want to. Media is going one-on-one, instead of the old-world fashion of "broad"casting.

By GREG SANDOVAL
AP Technology Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Apple Computer Inc. CEO Steve Jobs introduced a music-playing phone Wednesday that is capable of storing about 100 songs, as well as a pencil-thin version of the iPod, the company's ubiquitous digital music device.

The iPhone, made by Motorola Inc. and loaded with iTunes software, can store podcasts as well as music. Users can transfer songs to the device from their PC or Macintosh computers and make calls through Cingular Wireless.

"It's an iPod shuffle right on your phone," said Jobs, Apple's chief executive officer, who noted that both the iPhone and iPod shuffle both randomly sort music, hold about the same number of songs and have display screens.

Jobs also introduced the pencil-thin iPod Nano, which will replace the iPod Mini. It is one-third the size of the Mini and holds 1,000 songs.

"It's impossibly small," Jobs said at the Moscone Convention Center. "It's thinner than a No. 2 pencil."

The Nano can store music, games, photos and a calendar. It also has a "screen lock" feature that allows no one except the user to access content.

A 4-gigabyte Nano will retail for $249, and a 2-gigabyte model will sell for $199. Both versions will be available in stores this weekend, Jobs said.

Music-playing cell phones could emerge as a competitor to the iPod, some analysts predict. By branching into phones, Apple would hope to secure its place as the kingpin of digital music regardless of what device is used to listen.

Shares of Apple rose 21 cents to $49.01 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Tags: Motorola, iTunes, Apple, iPod, Mobile Phones, iPhone, Rumors, Cingular.

Posted by Josue Sierra at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments