Google buys into WiMAX

So how is this? Google herds Verizon into buying and opening up the 700MHz band and then finds itself with some cash to spend on plan B … to wit … WiMax in the form of Sprint and Clearwire which are merging and teaming up with a cast of dozens:

Sprint and Clearwire merge next-gen wireless businesses, goes by Clearwire - Engadget

the new outfit will be called Clearwire, even though Sprint will hold around 51-percent of the firm, while existing Clearwire shareholders will own 27-percent and the new investors will hold 22-percent. New investors? Ah yes, Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks will collectively invest $3.2 billion in the new company, but that figure is “based on a target price of $20 a share of Clearwire’s common stock,

But from a previous post, I think we can see why this part of the wireless strategy was plan B all along …

Sprint, Clearwire set to announce $12B WiMAX deal with Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Intel, and Google? - Engadget

it’s a pretty big boost for WiMAX, which was looking pretty sickly lately. Still, asking consumers to have faith in Sprint and Comcast and Time Warner Cable is pretty ballsy — between the three of them, they’ve probably burned everyone in America.

VMware Fusion 2.0 beta 1

Hot on the heels of the VirtualBox update …

VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1 - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

The above video gives you a tour of Fusion 2.0 Beta 1’s top new features, including:

* Multiple monitor support (up to 10 displays!)
* Improved networking and printing
* Support for DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2 (this is experimental, and it might not work on your Mac)
* A refined UI for settings and VM management

VirtualBox out of Beta for Macs

The Best of Windows, Mac OS X and Linux on One PC: Sun xVM VirtualBox | Speeding Computer

There are a number of different excellent commercial products such as VMware, BootCamp or VirtualPC. However Sun Microsystems has just updated their free and open source virtualization package, the Sun xVM Virtual Box 1.60.

The new version is a major upgrade featuring over 2000 changes including full support for Mac OS X in addition to Windows and Linux distributions.

Assigned to the Help Desk?

Here’s a great little glass half-empty/half-full article about being assigned to the help desk. The quote presents the two opposite viewpoints. I figure both cannot be simultaneously correct. It must be that some companies know how to run a help desk. Others don’t. Your viewpoint is likely to be influenced by which environment you find yourself condemned to.

Your help desk career: Dead end or launching pad?

In particular, help desk technicians who work in “stovepiped” IT organizations — that is, companies where systems analysts, network managers and other IT professionals are segregated from one another — can go 10 to 15 years without being promoted into IT infrastructure, business analyst, systems administrator or other types of roles, he says.

A new breed of IT pros begs to differ, maintaining that a job on an IT help desk can open doors to other IT career opportunities. Help desk technicians, these proponents say, gain valuable experience working with end users throughout the enterprise and learning what makes the business tick.

Introducing the memristor

Introductory physics courses are about to get harder.

Scientists Create First Memristor: Missing Fourth Electronic Circuit Element | Gadget Lab from Wired.com

A group of scientists from HP Labs has finally built real working memristors, thus adding a fourth basic circuit element to electrical circuit theory, one that will join the three better-known ones: the capacitor, resistor and the inductor.

Researchers believe the discovery will pave the way for instant-on PCs, more energy-efficient computers, and new analog computers that can process and associate information in a manner similar to that of the human brain.

When Google screws up this badly …

… then come tell me how local management of email is more reliable than GMail.

An elephant never forgets? George W. Bush’s lost e-mails: Page 1

When the Bush administration took office, it decided to replace the Lotus Notes-based e-mail system used under the Clinton Administration with Microsoft Outlook and Exchange. The transition broke compatibility with the old archiving system, and the White House IT shop did not immediately have a new one to put in its place.

Instead, the White House has instituted a comically primitive system called “journaling,” in which (to quote from a recent Congressional report) “a White House staffer or contractor would collect from a ‘journal’ e-mail folder in the Microsoft Exchange system copies of e-mails sent and received by White House employees.” These would be manually named and saved as “.pst” files on White House servers.

Koders Acquired

Koders is a handy search engine of open source code.

Linux.com :: Black Duck acquires Koders.com

Black Duck Software, a company best known for its services and software for the procurement and re-use of open source software, has acquired Koders, and with it the popular Koders.com search engine for free and open source software code (FOSS). Black Duck plans to integrate Koders’ search technology into its own product line, while promising to enhance the Koders search engine while leaving its basic nature unchanged.

Live Mesh just arriving

Here we go. Microsoft has unveiled its Live Mesh platform for catching Google. It will be going into public beta “later this year”. The snippet below would be really truely impressive if Hansen could’ve used it to play music on his home XBox at work …

Microsoft Reveals a Web-Based Software System - New York Times

Mr. Hansen, who has been using Live Mesh in a private Microsoft test, said he was able to surprise his wife using the Live Mesh Remote Desktop. From work, he was able to start a song playing on his Xbox at home.

Sage Feed Reader for FireFox 3 beta 5

Here’s the blog of the extremely nice guy that picked up Sage development for Firefox 3.0. The Scotsman prefers Sage over WizzRSS due to its minimalist, lightweight design which allows you to fly though the news quickly while you get other stuff done. You can pick up the latest patch (which works pretty well) by clicking on links in the posts.

Now if someone would patch up Google Browser Sync ….

Microsoft pays half billion for Sidekick.

If you were thinking, like maybe 5 years ago, that a Sidekick was a solution to mobile computing in the enterprise, here’s where you’d be.

Danger for Microsoft - The INQUIRER

With all these managers above them, the pair have to work out how to beat Apple’s Iphone, RIM’s BlackBerry Pearl, and whatever former Danger co-founder and former CEO Andy Rubin is doing with Android at the comparatively flat organisation, Google. µ