Tech Bones

[Comment: I received the following from Wally Kinney, a friend who I highly respect. In his capacity as Chairman of the Audit Committee for the Texas State Securities Board, Wally is extremely knowledgeable about investing. He felt the following information was well worth sharing, regardless of whether you live in Texas or not. After reading it, I agree wholeheartedly.] SECURITIES COMMISSIONER WARNS ENTREPRENEURS ABOUT POTENTIAL HAZARDS OF RUSHING INTO ‘CROWDFUNDING’ AUSTIN, Texas - Securities Commissioner John Morgan today urged small businesses and entrepreneurs to be aware of the potential regulatory pitfalls in "crowdfunding," an online money-raising strategy sanctioned by the federal Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. Through crowdfunding, individuals will be able to invest in start-ups through a broker-dealer or a "funding portal," which is a website that advertises the investment offering and facilitates payment from investors to the company i...

Without announcing prices or release dates, Microsoft recently introduced a pair of tablets named Surface. Leaving the analysis of the technical details of each tablet to those who attended the announcement, the most striking element of this announcement to me is the dramatic departure from Microsoft's 37 year old tradition of avoiding direct competition with their hardware partners. Considering Apple's success, one might argue a Microsoft tablet is long overdue but too late to have an impact. Microsoft Surface http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/default.aspx In reality and despite the substantial lead forged by Apple with the iPad, a huge untapped market for tablets exists. As even more functionality is added, the prospects for overtaking the low end netbooks and notebooks market increase. Besides, everything new today becomes dated within 18 months, so the upgrade market will always loom on the horizon. Microsoft's entry will up the ante in the tablet market by ...

An upsetting trend looms over proposed national legislation and international agreements that threatens First Amendment rights on the internet. While public outcry has successfully hindered the advancement of such measures so far, attacks to our freedom of speech on the internet continue to increase according to Google. A Fox News article entitled "Google sees 'alarming' uptick in government censorship' outlines several recent examples of governments submitting requests to have material it finds "illegal, hateful, terrorism-promoting, or offensive" removed from the internet. While Google has refused the requests in some cases, they have been forced to comply in others. Fox News: Google sees 'alarming' uptick in government censorship http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/06/18/google-sees-alarming-uptick-in-government-censorship/ Dorothy Chou, Google's senior policy analyst, wrote in a Sunday blog post, "It's alarming not only because...

Prior to the proposed legislation of the Senate's PIPA (Protect IP Act of 2011) and House of Representatives' SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), an international effort to enforce Intellectual Property (IP) rights, known as ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), was already in the works. Though PIPA and SOPA were both left to languish as a result of negative response from the IT user community, ACTA remains alive and well. Public scrutiny over the extent and regulations of both PIPA and SOPA thwarted congressional approval of either act. However, the ACTA effort is not subject to such openness. Negotiations for its enactment continue behind closed doors. With minimal industry or user input allowed, representatives from major industrialized nations continue to negotiate the terms of ACTA. Based upon leaked copies of drafts, the combination of broader controls and even more vague wording will compromise the First Amendment on the internet and erode privacy concerns far beyond ...

If you think battling all the viruses, trojans, malware, and other perpetrators in the internet world is tough enough, imagine trying to defend against someone with a passkey to your backdoor. Virtually everything used on a daily basis is computerized and networked. The latest gadgets, alarm clocks, appliances, houses, cars, and virtually everything else we use for entertainment or work, are computerized and inter-connected. Imagine a nefarious entity, such as Austin Powers' Dr. Evil, who intends to control the world and force his way of life on the rest of us. What if Dr. Evil covertly, over time, gained control of the manufacture of technology by replicating creations throughout the world and selling them at a fraction of the price, thanks to lower labor costs and a willingness to take a short term loss to gain long term control of the market? What if Dr. Evil succeeded in not only becoming the manufacturer of a majority of all electronics produced in the world including mili...

If you are a network manager, a computer systems administrator or a computer security specialist, you have undoubtedly heard about the Flame trojan, a malware program that redefines ones concept of espionage and warfare on the cyber front. In a recent post on The Weekly Standard magazine's Web site, Jonathan V. Last provides an interesting perspective of the Flame pertaining to what Flame means in terms of the evolution of malware. Bride of Stuxnet Webcraft as spycraft. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/bride-stuxnet_646424.html While accurately describing Flame as " the most spectacular computer worm ever made ", Jonathan Last minimizes the true threat it presents by categorizing it as " the perfect spy ." Aside from the obvious espionage threat this malware poses, its potential evolution as a disruptive and destructive threat is far more ominous. The current Flame trojan could be merely a first release in the wild, a recon version on a spy missi...

What seems like a lifetime ago, but in reality was only a generation, when Saturday Night Live was in its prime, Eddie Murphy portrayed a character named Velvet Jones. As an entrepreneur, Velvet offered instructional books on several subjects. In an SNL sketch titled the "People's Court," Velvet was forced to defend one of his books against accusations that it did not deliver sufficient instruction to achieve success. Velvet Jones on the People's Court (NBC's Saturday Night Live - Season 7, Episode 9 - 23 January 1982) When I read pitches for co-founders or chat with people who believe they have the idea for the next great startup, the image of Eddie Murphy comes to mind. While I admire their enthusiasm and encourage their pursuit of the dream, I sense these potential entrepreneurs have skipped a few chapters along the way, trying to jump from the premise of having an idea to counting their first million. If only they would take the time to re-read the book...