snowdeal.org

“It’s hard to find people that “get” the web anymore. Everyone’s scampering for the next big profit model, doing whatever it takes to create the next successful IPO. These are people that “use” the web or “do” the web, it’s just another medium to them like television or radio (remember when people used to think television could educate us?). The people that really “get” the web are the people that can still remember how magical it was to hear stories from the other side of the world, they can remember the first time a complete stranger emailed them to share experiences similar to the one’s they wrote about, and they know an interconnected world isn’t just about selling stuff to everyone that can operate a mouse.”

“Protect the disclosure of your personal search profiles to on-line search engines by using our excellent Search the Web Service, that guarantees your personal privacy at our site.

Our Private Search Engine will never deliver an unsolicited banner advertisement to you. It will also never use cookies or other invasive Personal Profiling technologies to build any personal profiles on your search requests. ”

“The Company has developed a substantial privacy-based information site with thousands of links to privacy issues, news, books and organizations. The company is constantly updating and improving this site and when it is ready for proper launch it will replace the existing search-based site as the home page and central focus of the web site in February, 2000. At such time, the existing search-based web site will be retired from service.”

“Power4 is on schedule to ship in the second half of next year in IBM’s RS/6000 Unix servers and its AS/400 servers for small and medium-size businesses running Unix or Linux.”

“SOFTLOCK EXPLAINED that due to extreme demand, customers would have to return later to access the story. “It’s ten times what we expected,” said Ruth Feiner of the Maynard, Mass.-based firm, though she would not be more specific.

At Amazon.com early on Tuesday, where the $2.50 charge most outlets asked for the book was waived, readers were accessing the 66-page novella, “one and a half times per second,” claimed spokeswoman Kristin Schaefer.”

“Both local papers, in their own ways, exercise judgments that undermine their credibility. The [San Francisco Chronicle’s] technology coverage harps on the same tired theme of amazement. My God, says the local paper, look at the wizards and their wonders. The Chron should justrun the same daily headline: “More Cool Stuff From Those Young People in Palo Alto.” The [Mercury News] regards the area’s newly wealthy as curiosities from another planet. The Merc’s recurring headline would say, “They’re Rich. They’re Young. What Does It Mean for People Who Are Poor Like Us?””

“One former editor at the Merc once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison at a banquet, but couldn’t bring himself to say a word to the billionaire. He told me later he didn’t know what to say to Ellison, whom he noted was at the time the wealthiest man in Silicon Valley.

How is it possible for an editor to be so awed by power, money or influence that he could not even shake another man’s hand? Such insecurity in the face of the area’s increasing wealth and sophistication is a sad commentary on the people who should be telling the valley’s stories”

“This is the backdrop to Chris Nolan’s little stock deal. Whatever the specific rights and wrongs of her AutoWeb escapade, it’s a sign of the new prosperity some technology reporters enjoy, and that really
gets under some observers’ skin. Maybe Nolan did everything by the book, maybe she didn’t; either way, she serves as a whipping boy for the tut-tutting of old-line news hounds who resent the changes that the Internet is bringing to their business.”

“Nathan Myhrvold, a physicist who is on leave from his job as the chief technology officer at Microsoft Corp., said in an e-mail interview, “People have made apocalyptic predictions about technology constantly for as long as there has been technology. I think it is because change frightens them. What is more, the most common form these dire predictions take is ‘this next generation of stuff — wow! that is really different and really scary.'””

“In the telephone interview last week, Joy said he doubted that the development of advances could be reined in in the commercial world, and he criticized scientists as being largely silent on the inherently destructive potential of rapidly evolving technologies.

Asked if he thought a technological species could expect to survive the ever-accelerating evolution of its market-driven technologies, Joy said: “The answer is ‘yes, but not without additional care.’ I think it’s possible — but it’s not a given. Survival won’t come for free.” ”