If you're going somewhere with tin cup in hand, it's probably best to leave the corporate jet at home. That's what GM CEO Rick Wagoner and other Detroit car execs found out the hard way, when they were lambasted during Congressional hearings on the auto industry bail-out on Nov. 20.
In retrospect, they probably should have flown to one of the smaller airports in the DC area; maybe they could have avoided the press. Or maybe, gasp, they should have flown plain old first class.
Now, GM is saying it has been planning to get rid of two of its leased jets. I don't know if the company is breaking a lease or incurring early termination fees. But I'd bet the company will fare better on the transaction than whoever owns the jets. Companies including Bristol Meyers, Lucent-Alcatel and Lehman Brothers (no surprise there) and many others are currently selling off planes to save money. That's creating a glut of inventory in the once-overheated used jet market.
After almost a year of testing and some recent earlysightings, Google today is planning to launch SearchWiki, a way for searchers to edit their own search results. When you log into your Google account--and you need to have one for this--you can move a search result up using an up arrow button, get rid of a result with an X button, or suggest another listing with an "Add a result" link at the bottom of the search results page. You can also comment on any result, and others can see those comments. Here's Google's video demo:
You're the only one who will see your re-ranked results, though you'll be able to click on a "See all notes for this SearchWiki" link at the bottom of the page to see what search results others in aggregate have changed. What's the deal here? Pretty straightforward, says Google product manager Cedric Dupont: "It gives users more control over their search results."
Interestingly, in some of the tests of SearchWiki, the comments ended up generating something of a conversation. For instance, a search on California's anti-gay marriage Proposition 8, people offered their trenchant opinions on the measure. Dupont also figures people will use SearchWiki to get rid of spammy results or to serve as a bookmarking feature for searches they expect to do again.
For now, user re-ranking of results won't have any impact on future or related searches, but Dupont doesn't rule out user behavior influencing search results if it proves to produce better ones.
This isn't an entirely new concept. Microsoft Research's URank looks similar, and there are other more remotely related human-powered search results at Wikia Search and Mahalo. I'm not sure how many people will actually take the time to do this. But if you're inclined, it looks like a way to make search results even more useful.
One good thing that could come out of this economic downturn is an explosion of innovation in consumer electronics. There are signs that the electronics industry may be inching closer to breaking a new frontier and offering flexible consumer electronics.
Just today, researchers from Northwestern University announced they've developed so-called "pop-up" technology to create electronic circuits that can be twisted and stretched by as much as 140%. And a team of Chinese researchers has just unveiled a way to make speakers out of thin and flexible film.
What does it all mean? Thin and flexible is in. The next electronics revolution could involve cell phones that wrap around your wrist, and film-like boom boxes that stick right to your house's curved wall or the fridge.
I recently finished writing a story on Net censorship in Saudi Arabia, as part of a larger package on Cisco's ambitions in the world's emerging markets. Throughout the process, my editor Peter Elstrom and I struggled with how to explain the link, if any, between what Cisco sells and what the Saudi Arabian government does. Cisco has always maintained that it just sells the routers--that what each customer chooses to do with them is their own business. I have a hard time with this explanation, if only because Cisco's strategy in emerging markets is all about selling the e-services that make those routers useful. For example, it has designed a massive 250,000-camera surveillance system that will likely be deployed in the vast King Abdullah Economic City that is now under construction in Saudi Arabia. If Cisco readily admits that it's helping build a system that could enable surveillance of anti-government activists, would a Cisco salesman really refuse to give any pointers to a government customer that wants to censor?
Yet most of the Net Freedom advocates I spoke with had the same view: while they were concerned about Cisco's potential to aid censors, the company had never been caught in the act. The closest thing to proof was a PowerPoint presentation crated by a mid-level staffer that suggested Cisco knew the Chinese government intended to use its technology against the Falun Gong, which led to a Congressional hearing on the topic. But most experts didn't think it amounted to that smoking gun, and Cisco publicly apologized for what it called a violation of company ethics policy. "I'm not ready to grab a pitchfork" to go after Cisco, Jonathan Zittrain told me earlier this summer. He's the author of "The Future of the Internet -- And How To Stop It" and co-founder of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
A few days before we published, news broke that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo had agreed to support the Global Network Initiative, a new code of conduct for tech companies, to help "protect and advance individuals' rights to free expression and privacy on the Internet." Absent from the list of participants was Cisco, so I called the company for comment. I was told that the code of conduct only applied to Net service providers, not equipment makers, but that the company had "indicated an interest in participating in a comparable effort for hardware providers."
I also called the Berkman Center, which had been a key driver of the initiative. While I didn't reach anyone live, I got emailed responses from the Center's acting executive director, Colin Maclay. Unfortunately, they arrived after the magazine story had gone to press. But if you're interested, here's the email interview, after the break:
Two years after jumping into the PC security software market, Microsoft is scaling back its ambitions there. The company said Nov. 18 it’s discontinuing its $50-a-year OneCare software in favor of a give-away program due next year called Morro.
Not enough people were signing up for OneCare, sold in year-long subscriptions, says Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, which advised Microsoft on the Morro project. “Pay for play was an inhibitor to penetration,” he says. Instead, Microsoft will concentrate on making sure more PC users get protected from viruses and spyware by offering those features free to Windows users. ”That ‘s the higher value,” says Kay.
OneCare also was tightly coupled with a Windows Vista feature called “user account control” that’s driven users crazy with frequent and sometimes mystifying requests for permission before Windows installs or changes programs.
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BusinessWeek writers Peter Burrows, Cliff Edwards, Steve Hamm, Rob Hof, Olga Kharif, Steve Wildstrom, Aaron Ricadela, and Spencer Ante dig behind the headlines to analyze what’s really happening throughout the world of technology. One of the first mainstream media tech blogs, Tech Beat covers everything from tech bellwethers like Apple, Google, and Intel and emerging new leaders such as Facebook to new technologies, trends, and controversies.
