NewsTrust - Microsoft - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

How will technology influence the news in 2012?

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Dan Gillmor - Dec. 29 (Opinion) - Predicting the next year's news is a fool's errand, but looking at technological trends could give us a hint At the beginning of 2011, aging dictators ruled Egypt and Libya, and despotism was the nearly unquestioned reality in most of the Middle East. The eurozone was seeing trouble at its edges, but wasn't heading toward collapse. News International had successfully covered up most of its rampant bad acts, and Rupert Murdoch was on the verge of even greater control over British media and politics. Anyone who might have predicted how utterly and rapidly those realities would change might have been branded a lunatic. Which is one reason why the annual journalistic ritual of making predictions about the year ahead is a fool's errand. With that in mind, let me offer instead some observations about the technology and media trends we've seen in past months, and how they might play out in 2012. In many cases, the trajectory is deeply worrisome. But I remain an eternal optimist in the face of ...

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Do mobile, the cloud and social spell the end of the PC era?

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Jean-Louis Gassée - Oct. 24 (Opinion) - These are the three interdependent forces that power the biggest wave of growth, change, and destruction I've seen since I have been allowed to take part in the high-tech industry. In the beginning (or mine, anyway), back in 1968 when I was, miraculously, offered a salary to be part of HP France there was the mainframe. IBM – "The Company" – reigned supreme, a dynasty that seemed unassailable. The IBMer wore a suit and tie when approaching the punch card feeder. Big Blue's competitors, the BUNCH, were also called the Seven Dwarves because their combined market share couldn't compare to IBM's dominance.

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Why Google had to have Motorola Mobility

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Dan Gillmor - Aug. 17 (Opinion) - The acquisition has provoked comment about defensive buying of patents, but Google surely has more ambition than that For several years now, Google has been following a vow made by former CEO Eric Schmidt: mobile first. New CEO Larry Page is taking that dictum to a new level by announcing a deal to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5bn . The implications of this deal depend entirely on how Google plans to use Motorola. If, as some claim, the deal is more about obtaining Motorola's mobile patent portfolio than anything else, we can expect escalating patent warfare between technology giants and limited innovation beyond that. If, however, Google intends to operate the business it is acquiring, we may see some broad and sweeping changes in the technology industry. If the deal is chiefly about obtaining Motorola's mobile patent portfolio, then Google would likely spin off the hardware end of the company and keep the software and patents. The patents would be vital weapons in its competition with ...

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Goodbye, Encarta. A cautionary tale for newspapers?

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By John Yemma - Mar. 31 (Opinion) - Wikipedia killed Encarta. Encarta was the early digital encyclopedia. It began life as CD/ROM and increasingly went online. What it never did was truly embrace the power of the Internet. What does that say about how we get information? And about the future of newspapers?

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Software is becoming a media business

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Forbes - By Nicholas Carr - Feb. 03 (Comment) - Software is becoming a media business. The Net is not only a universal medium, a distribution channel for words, sounds and images. It is also turning into a universal computer--the machine we use to run software and store data.

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A revolution is taking shape

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Financial Times - By Nicholas Carr - Jan. 30 (Opinion) - No corporate computing system, not even those operated by big companies, can match the efficiency, speed, and flexibility of plants such as Google's. One analyst estimates that Google can carry out a computing task for one-tenth of what it costs a typical company.

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Bill Gates, closet socialist?

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Foreign Policy - By Blake Hounshell - Jan. 25 (Opinion) - If you look at what Gates actually said, he didn't call for governments to seize control of the means of production. Nor, truth be told, did he actually say anything profoundly new. He just wants to push for "an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities."

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