Monthly Archives: November 2006

Mobile Payments One Step Closer

ZDNet reports on a collaboration that should bring mobile payments closer to reality.  Sony and former Philips chip unit NXP Semiconductors have announced they will create a joint venture to create a secure chip that enables short-range wireless interaction between handhelds, PCs … Continue reading

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The Walls Are Starting to Come Down

My friend Ajit Jaokar blogs about Hutchison 3 opening the garden and announcing fixed rate pricing. Either of the two parts of the announcement on their own wouldn’t have meant as much. Carriers in the US have all you can eat … Continue reading

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Ten Worst Internet Acquisitions Ever

This brings back memories. The most recently entry on the list is Skype, which is clearly too early to tell. This list has no entries between 2000 and 2005, when eBay got Skype. Were buyers that restrained during those days? … Continue reading

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The Latest from JibJab

Weird Al has creeped many people out but never like this. Looking at the JibJab Flash animation/collage, which uses photos for characters’ faces, I can’t help but wonder if there is a way to automate the production process more.

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Beyond Pizza

Courtesy of my friend Jack Odell comes a valuable link for entrepreneurs who want to go beyond pizza–the Burrito Blog. For those in the Boston area who can’t decide whether it’s pizza or Mexican that’s going to feed their ideas, Jack personally … Continue reading

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Video Downloads

In looking at the video download space, three sets of questions loom large. First, how much does portability matter? Is it OK to only download to the PC/laptop? Will consumers buy the necessary gear to display PC-downloaded movies on their … Continue reading

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Techcrunch Party in NYC

I’ll be at the Techcrunch party in NYC on Thursday. Polaris is a sponsor (MikeA doesn’t make it out East that often, so let’s celebrate ;-). The party is so over-booked (450 person waiting list) that they will have to … Continue reading

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Technology of the Year

A Yahoo! exec friend of mine commented on a call today that Flash should be named “the technology of the year” because it enabled Internet video and let sites like YouTube and Heavy get big very fast. I had never … Continue reading

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ColdFusion: What’s in a Name?

ColdFusion customers have often asked what does ColdFusion mean. Explaining cold fusion was confusing and sharing the bizarre story of how the name actually came about would expose too much of Allaire’s early history–we were a bunch of kids just … Continue reading

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Of Supercomputers and Contrarian Bets

WSJ reports on the launch of SiCortex, a company I’m involved with. Talk about a contrarian bet–to back a “supercomputer” company in the age of Linux clusters and to spend non-trivial amounts of capital on developing sophisticated chips, interconnects and enclosures when everyone else gets … Continue reading

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