News from the North - Dec 21

More on RIM
RIM's stocks rose on speculation of a takeover by Amazon. RIM rejected the bid, though. Both RIM and Amazon declined to comment in the linked story. However, the two companies are still working together on expanding commercial ties.  Speculation includes the licensing of QNX, RIM's Blackberry OS.

Hot Cross Nuns?
Someone beat the Vatican to the vatican.xxx domain.  A quick whois request got me the registrar, icmregistry.com. Going to the site itself (don't try this at home; stunt netbook used) gets a note that the domain has been reserved from registration.

Another Entry in the Tablet Wars
Intel has both a smartphone and a tablet coming out next year. One of the dominant chip makes for PCs, laptops, and netbooks, Intel is now setting their sights on mobile computing market with a new chip in their Atom line of processors. The Medfield is less power-hungry than previous Atom chips, thus making it more useful for tablets and smartphones. Hardware geeks know what to do with this.

Dave, I Know What You're Thinking
IBM is working on methods to have your computer/tablet/smartphone know what you want. One of the goals for Big Blue's researchers is to have ATMs able to recognize you when you go to get cash, just by using both voice and facial recognition. Ultimately, they hope this will lead to security driven by retinal scans and/or voices instead of passwords. Coupled with Watson, could we be seeing protocol droids on the horizon?

Interview with HP's Prith Banerjee
MIT's Technology Review interviewed Prith Banerjee on how Hewlitt-Packard could turn around. Some of the ideas the HP Labs' director has includes using "disruptive technologies" - technology capable of changing, transforming, or destroying an existing market. Key quote: "We felt that we needed to channel the creative minds of these people. If every project would bring together two computer scientists, one chemical engineer, a social scientist, and a physicist, something really cool could happen."

--Scott D

Comments

[Steven Savage]

Considering RIM's likely dismal future, I'd still keep an eye on Amazon. Consider they've also got a bunch of services they could integrate into what's left of blackberry - and move a ton of devices.

[Rob]

I don't expect to see a Kindleberry anytime soon.