I’ve added a Calendar to the website. It currently shows the events I plan to attend, and the says I intend to be in Sydney or other cities, as opposed to the Blue Mountains eyrie.
Visiting Tokyo for Verizon and a personal media plan
[Update 12 September 2013: For a variety of reasons, I’ve cancelled this trip.]
On Monday 16 September I’m heading to Tokyo to attend a lunch presentation by Verizon on the 17 September. Since it’s my first visit to Japan I’ll be staying through to Sunday 22 September and doing something… special.
Yes, I’m going to Tokyo for lunch. Don’t question me. Or rather, don’t question how the internet and media industries work.
It’s actually an opportunity for the Asia Pacific tech journalists to meet Verizon’s president and chief executive officer, Lowell C McAdam, so it’ll be worth it. I’m also presuming they’ll have some announceables.
Wednesday through Sunday will be my exploration days in Tokyo. I’ve decided that I’ll do that as a personal media project, crowdfunding the money to pay for it.
At this stage I think I’ll call it The 9pm Tokyo, but it won’t be “just” a podcast. I’m thinking of setting a “target investigation” as a theme for each of the five days — “Where does the sake come from?” or “Just how weird is the tentacle porn?” — and reporting on that in words and pictures and maybe audio or video. Something like my Unreliable Bangkok series but with many more words.
That then raises the question of what I can actually investigate. Apparently whisky bars are a thing. What else should I see and do in Tokyo?
[Photo: Tokyo, as seen from the Metropolitan Government Building by Harry Vale, used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.]
Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 39
I’ve finally wrapped up my Nokia Lumia 925 / Windows Phone 8 trial. I’m impressed with both the phone and the operating system, but is it too little too late for both Nokia and Microsoft? Who knows? I’ve made a video! You can scroll down for that.
That possible problem with Wi-Fi dropouts that I detailed last time? I couldn’t reproduce it with the replacement handset — or at least not in a way that couldn’t also be explained by the swirling electromagnetic soup in the vicinity of my desk and all the wireless devices thereupon — so let’s just write that off as a false alarm.
So where does that leave us?
Well, to reiterate, the Nokia Lumia 925 is a nice piece of kit, in keeping with the best traditions of the brand. Windows Phone 8 is also a solid forward-looking operating system. I’d been told about Windows 8’s design heritage at TechEd on the Gold Coast last year. Now, having used it for a month, I can see where it’s heading. App developers should be able to do good things with it.
But with both Nokia smartphones and Windows Phone 8 having such a tiny market share, will it all have been in vain? Has the flood of iOS and Android mobile devices taught the business world that, no, they’re not actually shackled to Microsoft’s products after all? That there are other ways of doing things? And that “producing documents” isn’t actually the purpose of business?
Sometimes when I look at Microsoft’s strategy with Nokia, or the previous one when they inserted Yahoo! into Bing, that the two potentially troubled companies are clutching to each other in terror as they plunge, each hoping the other brought a parachute. And maybe they have. But all the talk I’ve heard so far is your common or garden variety corporate waffle. Good luck, guys.
The only other loose end is to post the video I shot. And here it is. Over the fold is the full 16-minute video Strathfield to Central, shot on the Nokia Lumia 925 at full 1080p resolution, and all other video settings on their defaults.
Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 39”
Weekly Wrap 169: Explaining all the things, in various ways
My week Monday 26 August to Sunday 1 September 2013 was a full one, and I survived.
Part of me wants to write more than that, particularly after last week’s false start, the thoughts generated by my university lectures on Monday, and the idiocy of being banned by Microsoft — and in that account I really should have emphasised more the defamatory nature of that action.
But it’s already well into Sunday evening, I’ve already written my counterpoint to gripes about the Sunday Telegraph, and it’s a busy week ahead (see below). So on with the facts.
Articles
- Gartner’s vision of infosec 2019: four scenarios, all bad, CSO Online, 28 August 2013.
- Look, we told you about these droids, ZDNet Australia, 29 August 2013.
- Assad’s army: the future of hacking is here, with a new target, Crikey, 30 August 2013.
- Melbourne IT breach highlights need for security culture, ZDNet Australia, 30 August 2013.
Podcasts
None, though I did more background work on Corrupted Nerds, and things will appear in the coming few days.
Media Appearances
- On Monday, I gave my guest lecture at the University of Sydney, Algorithms and the Filter Bubble, Take 2A in the morning, and Take 2B in the afternoon. They’re slightly different.
Corporate Largesse
- Also on Monday, I met up with Kim Carter, the PR Manager of the Australian Direct Marketing Association. Oddly enough, they know all about data mining. She paid for the coffee.
- Also on Monday, I went to the program launch for the Sydney Opera House’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas, which is on 2 to 4 November. There was food and drink.
- On Thursday night, I went to Text100’s (in)famous Christmas in August event, where they previewed their clients’ goodies for the holiday buying season. There was food and much, much drink.
The Week Ahead
It’ll be another busy one. Monday is dedicated to a spring clean of various projects, something I’m looking forward to.
Tuesday is a trip to Sydney for a 1000 interview recording in the CBD, and to cover a lunch event by the Trans-Tasman Business Circle featuring Westpac’s chief information officer Clive Whincup. I’m reporting on the latter for Technology Spectator.
Wednesday is a day of interview recordings, research and writing back up in the Blue Mountains.
On Thursday it’s back to Sydney for more interview recordings and a lunch briefing by AVG Technologies, and I’ll probably stay in Sydney over night because on Friday I have an 0800 interview recording in the CBD — after which it’s all a bit unplanned.
[Photo: Sydney Harbour from Potts Point, taken from a room at the DeVere Hotel on Friday 30 August 2013.]
See this, folks? It’s a picture of democracy
There’s plenty of feels clogging the intertubes this morning about the front page of Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph (pictured). “AUSTRALIA NEEDS TONY,” it says. Oh this is so terrible! It’s a threat to democracy, whaaa whaaa whaaaaaa!
No, kids, look at it more closely. This is a picture of democracy. Suck it up.
Or, if you don’t like it, stop your whining, get off your arse, and do something about it.
Sure, the Murdoch newspapers’ ability to endorse a particular candidate on their front pages, effectively plastering a party-political poster onto newsagents and breakfast tables across the nation, gives that candidate a huge advantage.
Sure, if you don’t want that candidate to win, then this is a bit of a blow to your dreams.
But how about thinking through the implications of what you’re actually suggesting before you spend the whole day whining about how “undemocratic” this is?
For a start, why do you imagine that this, Murdoch’s alleged influence, is why Labor can’t win? Have you not considered that Labor itself has some sort of role to play in the process? By all accounts, they’ve been playing a pretty shit game. But that’s not really what we’re talking about here.
As Mark Newton tweeted a short time ago, your argument seems to be “All we need to do is reduce Murdoch’s influence and ALP will win.” That’s (a) antidemocratic, and (b) magical thinking.
“Let’s adjust media censorship laws specifically to improve the chances of my favourite candidate winning, because democracy,” he said.
You seem to be assuming that, despite the hundreds or thousands of people involved in the production of these newspapers and other media operations, they represent solely the opinion of one man, and him alone. You seem to discount the happy participation of all the others.
And even if it were solely Murdoch’s opinion, you seem to be wanting to remove his right to free speech because his opinion is different from yours, and you’re jealous because more people read his opinion that yours.
Diddums.
Do you really think that expressing opinions is some zero-sum game? That because Murdoch, or anyone else, has loudly expressed their opinion, that you’re somehow silenced? Then you’re an idiot. Stop whining, start influencing. And don’t whinge that Murdoch has so much power that it’s unfair and you can’t catch up, because I’m pretty sure Murdoch didn’t create his media empire by whining.
Sure, he had a head start, inheriting a ratty little provincial afternoon tabloid called The News. But you’ve got the internet at your fingertips, you can start organising, and try to counter the opinion you don’t like — because persuading and organising is precisely what politics is about, and in a democracy anyone can play.
Oh? That’s all too hard? Waaa! That’ll take ages. Waaa waaa waaaaaa! You just want to rub your tummy and have the Magic Democracy Fairy appear in a burst of sparkly how-to-vote cards and fix it all for you?
OK, let’s do that. Let’s have the Magic Democracy Fairy take away Murdoch’s influence. “Poof!”, it goes. Now what? Who’s next down the line? Take away their freedom of speech too? And the next? And the next one after that?
In terms of someone’s perceived influence being greater than yours, just how small must the margin be before you’ll allow them their freedom to express a view different from your own? Clearly-stated policies, or GTFO.
[Note to the hard of thinking: If you think this is somehow written in support of Tony Abbott, you really are an arsehat.]
Microsoft has banned me from covering TechEd
TechEd is Microsoft’s annual developer conference, and TechEd Australia 2013 kicks off this coming Tuesday 3 September. ZDNet Australia had commissioned me to cover it, from a room much like the one pictured — just like I did last year — but now it’s all off. Because Microsoft has banned me.
On 1 August, I emailed ZDNet Australia editor Chris Duckett to accept his commission. But on 6 August, he phoned me, pissing himself laughing, to say that the message from Microsoft — I don’t know from who or how it was delivered — was a no-go. I’m banned from TechEd for “being aggressive to speakers”.
Now I, too, was pissing myself laughing. I was nearly in tears!
“Aggressive to speakers”? Let’s be clear. Any problems were about one speaker, singular. And this alleged aggression — which I’d characterise more as ridicule, mockery and outrageously hyperbolic violent imagery, as is my well-worn shtick — happened solely via Twitter.
Now I’ve thought long and hard about whether to tell this story. Personally, I don’t really care. I’m happy to avoid spending most of next week in that hell-hole called the Gold Coast, and I’ve got plenty of other things to get on with. And Microsoft does have the right to decide who they will and won’t allow into their event — especially when they’re paying.
But I’ve decided to go public because I’m a big fan of transparency — as reflected in my blog posts from 2007, Releasing the Black Hawk crash video was A Good Thing, Scaring the shit out of clients and Being Real: more notes on radical transparency.
I think you should know about this ban, because it potentially affects the quality of my coverage and analysis of Microsoft as it faces some interesting challenges — more about that another time. I’d like you to be informed consumers of my work, which is why I list all the corporate largesse I receive in my Weekly Wrap posts.
I was also under the impression that any problems which may have arisen were all sorted out at the time. Certainly no-one at Microsoft has ever mentioned any problem to me since then.
Quite frankly, to bad-mouth me to one of my commissioning editors — in an undocumented phone call, no less! — strikes me as a tad defamatory.
And without any communication with me? From an organisation that wants customers to trust it with our most intimate and confidential data? Does this not represent a glaring absence of due process?
So, in the tradition of another 2007 post, “Let’s just write that down…”, I’m just going to write it all down, and put my name to it. That’s what honest people do, right?
Come with me, boys and girls, as I tell you about TechEd Australia 2012’s keynote speaker, Jason Silva, “futurist, filmmaker, epiphany addict [WTF?], ecstatic truth lover [WTFF?], techno optimist”. Check his Wikipedia entry and personal website.
Continue reading “Microsoft has banned me from covering TechEd”