Evolution from start-up to star presents Facebook with new opportunities – and new challenges
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on Facebook’s evolution from a “scrappy start-up to big business” and the opportunities and challenges this development brings with it. Laptopmag.com has an interview with MSI’s Director of Sales, Andy Tung, in which Tung reveals that MSI’s “internal research has shown that the return of netbooks is higher than regular notebooks, but the main cause of that is Linux. People would love to pay $299 or $399 but they don’t know what [...]
It’s “when”, not “if,” for Silicon Valley
The International Herald Tribune writes that “[s]ince the credit crisis began gripping the financial world, Silicon Valley has watched from the sidelines, secure in the faith that it was insulated from the coming storm. That faith is now being seriously undermined. High-tech entrepreneurs, investors and executives now believe the question is when, not if, the financial chaos will hurt the country's cradle of innovation. From San Francisco to San Jose, the effects are already palpable. This week, Apple, one of [...]
ACT Calls For Real Accountability at ICANN
ACT president Jonathan Zuck took part in yesterday's Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers meeting in Washington to discuss "Institutional Confidence" as the organization looks toward a future without US government oversight. Jonathan expressed our belief that ICANN has never really addressed the concerns of industry, civil society, and the US government. While ICANN has instituted programs and processes to address some of these concerns, it has done little to provide metrics or tests to ensure that these measure [...]
New Faces at Copyright Alliance’s 2008 EXPOnential event
Last week I attended the Copyright Alliance's 2008 EXPOnential in D.C. This event gave the copyright industries an opportunity to showcase their contribution to the economy and the lost revenues due to piracy. "Ho Hum" you might be thinking. However, two things really stuck me while walking through the exibits: 1) there were many exhibits by smaller copyright industries that aren't typically included in the piracy debate and 2) DRM is not going away- in fact, there is an active [...]
Norway consumer agency plans to take Apple to court over iTunes DRM
Reuters reveals that “[a] Norway consumer agency said it aims to take computer group Apple to court over what it calls unfair barriers to playing music from the iTunes music store on devices other than Apple's iPod. Consumer Ombudsman Bjoern Erik Thon told Reuters he hoped other countries would follow the Norwegian example and file their own cases against the U.S. computer giant. Thon said on Tuesday that iTunes -- Apple's online store for music downloads -- had not met [...]
EU plans to review accounting directives to ease administrative burden on SMEs
The Register reveals that “[t]he European Union yesterday called on Member States to participate in a major review of the accounting directives for small biz firms to help reduce the administrative burden on SMEs. Charlie McCreevy, who is the EU Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, said that during this “difficult period” of ongoing economic doom and gloom the small biz world, which many tech multinationals have increasingly punted their goods at in recent years, could be easily overlooked. [...]