If you asked 100 random people what they dislike most about attending conferences, it's safe to say "travel," "scheduling," and "cost" would be at the top of the list for most of them. Finding the time to attend conferences and dealing with the hassles and costs associated with getting there can take away from benefits such as hearing experts talk and networking with industry colleagues.
After hitting a grand slam with the iPhone, Apple can't be too happy with some of the early reaction to the iPad. On message boards, Twitter, blogs, and Facebook, a recurring theme has been to compare the device to a "giant iPod touch."
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia built on the backs of a seemingly never-ending supply of free labor, is in a bit of a bind.
People who write code for a living have a love/hate relationship with Microsoft. Over the years the press has played up the hate (and the hype), but today I thought I would turn to one Microsoft software project which is generating genuine interest and kudos from some developers.
If you were a betting man (or woman), who do you think would win in a social media face-off between the two most widely used desktop/laptop operating systems?
"Google Wave [is] a highly interactive communication environment," intones the official Wave Extension Design Principles document. "As such, it provides both rewards and challenges to programmers wishing to extend its functionality."
An early morning blog post by Facebook's Ted Ullyot has noted the preliminary results of the site governance vote. About 3/4 chose the new Facebook Principles and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities over the existing terms of use, he says.
Blender is a popular open-source software package used for modeling and rendering 3-D images. Computerworld recently spoke via e-mail with Tom Musgrove, one of the 35 active core developers on the Blender project. Besides explaining how the tool is used by 3-D artists, Musgrove also addressed complaints about the Blender user interface and discussed directions for future development.
In the wake of last month's hyped-up launch of Halo 3 for the XBox 360, comes the news that the game earned more than US$300 million in sales in its first week. Microsoft has a hit on its hands, and it looks like it will be a strong holiday season for the XBox 360.
