The Internet - The first Worldwide Tool of Unification ("The End of History")

" ... Now I give you something that few think about: What do you think the Internet is all about, historically? Citizens of all the countries on Earth can talk to one another without electronic borders. The young people of those nations can all see each other, talk to each other, and express opinions. No matter what the country does to suppress it, they're doing it anyway. They are putting together a network of consciousness, of oneness, a multicultural consciousness. It's here to stay. It's part of the new energy. The young people know it and are leading the way.... "

" ... I gave you a prophecy more than 10 years ago. I told you there would come a day when everyone could talk to everyone and, therefore, there could be no conspiracy. For conspiracy depends on separation and secrecy - something hiding in the dark that only a few know about. Seen the news lately? What is happening? Could it be that there is a new paradigm happening that seems to go against history?... " Read More …. "The End of History"- Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

"Recalibration of Free Choice"– Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth, 4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical) 8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…5 - Integrity That May Surprise…

Have you seen innovation and invention in the past decade that required thinking out of the box of an old reality? Indeed, you have. I can't tell you what's coming, because you haven't thought of it yet! But the potentials of it are looming large. Let me give you an example, Let us say that 20 years ago, you predicted that there would be something called the Internet on a device you don't really have yet using technology that you can't imagine. You will have full libraries, buildings filled with books, in your hand - a worldwide encyclopedia of everything knowable, with the ability to look it up instantly! Not only that, but that look-up service isn't going to cost a penny! You can call friends and see them on a video screen, and it won't cost a penny! No matter how long you use this service and to what depth you use it, the service itself will be free.

Now, anyone listening to you back then would perhaps have said, "Even if we can believe the technological part, which we think is impossible, everything costs something. There has to be a charge for it! Otherwise, how would they stay in business?" The answer is this: With new invention comes new paradigms of business. You don't know what you don't know, so don't decide in advance what you think is coming based on an old energy world. ..."
(Subjects: Who/What is Kryon ?, Egypt Uprising, Iran/Persia Uprising, Peace in Middle East without Israel actively involved, Muhammad, "Conceptual" Youth Revolution, "Conceptual" Managed Business, Internet, Social Media, News Media, Google, Bankers, Global Unity,..... etc.)


German anti-hate speech group counters Facebook trolls

German anti-hate speech group counters Facebook trolls
Logo No Hate Speech Movement

Bundestag passes law to fine social media companies for not deleting hate speech

Honouring computing’s 1843 visionary, Lady Ada Lovelace. (Design of doodle by Kevin Laughlin)

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Nokia speeds up cell phone GPS

By Reuters

Published: July 19, 2007, 4:53 AM PDT

Nokia launched on Thursday a service that it said will cut the time a GPS-enabled cell phone takes to pinpoint its whereabouts, opening new opportunities for location-based online services.

Nokia hopes the service, available for people who own its flagship N95 smart phones, will cut the start-up time to one minute, from up to three minutes currently. The slowness has so far hampered interest in cell phone navigation.

"It will be reliably under one minute in most countries," said Ralph Eric Kunz, head of Nokia's navigation and mapping operations.

Handset makers see GPS (Global Positioning System) as one of the next big "value-adds."

Analysis firm Berg Insight has forecast annual shipments of handset-based personal navigation devices in Europe and the United States to reach 12 million units by 2009, compared with 1 million in 2005.

While most assisted-GPS technologies use mobile carriers cell sites to find locations faster, Nokia's new service bypasses operator networks, using data from a SIM card and new software that helps the phone to catch satellite signals.

Read More ....

Ooma Inc. Offers Free Domestic Calls

By RACHEL KONRAD, The Associated Press

The Washington Post, Thursday, July 19, 2007; 12:46 AM

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- A Silicon Valley startup wants to shake up the telecommunications industry with a $399 gizmo that provides free, unlimited domestic phone calls for homes with broadband Internet service.

Ooma Inc. will also offer a free second line, conference calling, voice mail service and an online "lounge" where users may change their preferences or get voice mail in an e-mail format. The company will start selling the devices Thursday with an invitation-only offer to select U.S. residents.

The company _ backed by $27 million in venture capital _ eventually hopes to crack the home-based and small-business niches. Engineers are working on a system that forwards calls to cellular phones.

"It's nothing like anything a carrier can do currently," CEO Andrew Frame said. "Once you own the box, you don't have to pay ooma anything in the future."

Frame and other executives assume, of course, that their company won't meet the same fate as other startups going up against telecommunication veterans.

Read More ....

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

The hidden workplace

There's the organization chart - and then there's the way things really work. Some smart companies are bringing power structures out of hiding, reports Fortune's Jennifer Reingold and Jia Lynn Yang.

FORTUNE Magazine

By Jennifer Reingold and Jia Lynn Yang, Fortune

July 18 2007: 11:00 AM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) -- Anyone who has ever worked knows that the org chart, no matter how meticulously rendered, doesn't come close to describing the facts of office life. All those lines and boxes don't tell you, for example, that smokers tend to have the best information, since they bond with people from every level and department when they head outside for a puff. The org chart doesn't tell you that people go to Janice, a long-time middle manager, rather than their bosses to get projects through. It doesn't tell you that the Canadian and Japanese sales forces don't interact because the two points of contact can't stand each other.

What's your OQ? Take our quiz.

In every company there is a parallel power structure that can be just as important as the one everyone spends stressful days trying to master. Jon Katzenbach, founding partner of New York City-based consulting firm Katzenbach Partners, and his colleague, principal Zia Khan, have spent the past several years trying to bring the shadows to light. In a study released exclusively to Fortune, "The Informal Organization," they argue that successful managers must understand this "constellation of collaborations, relationships, and networks," particularly in times of stress and transition. "We're not saying you can formalize the informal," says Katzenbach. "We're saying you can influence it more than you do."

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ERP Is Dead. Long Live ERP.

Posted by Ben Worthen, The Wall Street Journal

Companies may need to change the way they approach their large corporate systems…again. Several years ago, the conventional wisdom among analysts and consultants was that “Enterprise Resource Planning,” or ERP, applications–large software programs that businesses use for everything from accounts payable to inventory management–were on their way out. But the systems never went away. And today, ERP is more important to businesses than ever.

computerIn a new study, the research firm AMR forecasts that the ERP market—served by companies like SAP and Oracle–will grow 11% a year between now and 2011. “We are seeing a much broader and more pervasive deployment of ERP,” Jim Shepherd, a vice president at AMR, tells the Business Technology Blog. “These systems are moving into every aspect of a company.”

The reason is twofold: 1) Companies have learned that there really isn’t an alternative to automating the business tasks that these systems perform; 2) Buying separate software for each task–say one program for sales forecasts and another for supply-chain management—makes the collection hard to support and harder to integrate. Shepherd says that so-called “software as a service”–a model in which customers access software over the Internet and store their data remotely on the software vendor’s servers–isn’t a threat to traditional ERP systems that companies own and operate because large companies are just too nervous about having sensitive product and employee data reside on someone else’s servers.

Even companies that already have ERP systems should expect to invest anew in the technology. This is because right now only about half the employees in a given company have access to the systems. Taken together, Shepherd doesn’t see any competitors to ERP arising any time soon. “It’s time to start thinking of these systems as 15- to 20-year investments,” he says.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Microsoft's Software-Plus-Services Plan Praised

Partners at last week's conference are pleased with Microsoft's focus on software and hosted services.

Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service

PC World, Saturday, July 14, 2007 11:00 AM PDT

Microsoft Corp. partners introduced to the company's software-plus-services strategy this week at its Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) applauded the plan, though they noted a few challenges as the company makes the transition from selling business software to offering more hosted and Web-based services.

Microsoft used its annual partner conference, held this year in Denver, as a coming-out party for the strategy, with CEO Steve Ballmer outlining the plan for the first time after other executives have been discussing it publicly for more than a year. It seemed fitting that the company's top executive was the one to deliver the message to thousands of partners who play a significant role in the company's success.

"I had no idea how partner-focused Microsoft really is," said Linda Gillis, a first-time attendee of the WPC and director of marketing for Squirrel Systems, a British Columbia company that provides restaurant point-of-sale software and services.

This dependency on partners is a double-edged sword for Microsoft as it moves to a more Web-centric services business model versus the software license model it has used successfully for years. The company not only has to revise its strategy, remaining several steps behind competitors such as Google Inc. that started business on the Web and have no traditional software business, but it also has to help its partners make changes, too.

To do this, Microsoft has been slowly ramping up its hosted services portfolio with a series of both consumer and business services. Executives also said at the WPC that those services will eventually become a full-fledged development platform, being both an OS and platform for new applications on the Web in a similar way that Windows is on the desktop.

Read More ....

Saturday, July 14, 2007

To Track Web Sites, Companies Turning To Software Niche

Investors have analyzed the emerging field of Web analytics software, and like what they see.

Friday July 13, 7:00 pm ET

J. Bonasia, Yahoo Finance

The sector remains small, but it is one of the few bright spots in business software.

Market leader Omniture has seen its stock more than triple since it went public a year ago, to near 24. Shares of rival Visual Sciences have risen about 35% since its February 2006 merger with WebSideStory. On Thursday, Visual Sciences said it "has been approached by a number of strategic buyers" in recent weeks, unsolicited, and it has hired Goldman Sachs as a financial adviser.

The sector is rising along with the rapid growth of online ads and online shopping. Companies use Web analytics software to track how their Web sites are performing, and to sell more stuff on the sites.

"Not using Web analytics is essentially like flying an airplane without using an instrument panel," said Josh James, CEO of Omniture. "Once our customers get the instrument panel, they never give it up."

He says Omniture's client renewal rate is more than 95%.

The goal with Web analytics is to improve online sales by analyzing the click paths of Web site visitors, helping to gauge the strength of Web site designs and online marketing campaigns.

But that initial goal is being extended. Companies want all the data they collect from call centers, physical stores and e-mails to be integrated with online sales data, and to be quickly and easily available to managers and sales personnel.

Integrating all this data from so many sources for easy access is a complex problem, says Megan Burns, a Forrester Research analyst. As vendors do this, sales of Web analytics software and related services should soar, Burns says.

"One of the most significant opportunities for vendors involves (customer) education," she said. "So few people understand their Web data or how to use it effectively."

Read More ....

Friday, July 13, 2007

Japan's NTT DoCoMo testing new, faster cellular network

The International Herald Tribune

TOKYO (AP) : Japan's largest mobile phone carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Friday it began testing a new cellular network nearly 100 times faster than its current system.

The company said in a press release it had started testing equipment it hopes will yield download speeds of up to 300 megabits per second. Current maximum down speeds are 3.6 megabits per second.

Completion of the new network is scheduled by 2009.

Competition in Japan's saturated mobile communications market has been driving down margins for voice services, and DoCoMo and its rival carriers are trying to capture more business by turning to date-based services, which require more bandwidth.

Read More ....

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Nokia adds Skype to N800 Tablet

Nokia has introduced a promised Skype client for its N800 Internet tablet.

Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service

PC World, July 11, 2007 6:00 PM PDT

Nokia Corp. introduced Skype Internet-calling software for its N800 Wi-Fi tablet on Wednesday, providing another alternative to using a cell phone, while a debate in the U.S. over what networks such devices may be able to use in the future heated up.

When the N800 was introduced at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January, Nokia and eBay Inc.'s Skype Ltd. division said they were working on including the popular software in the device. Nokia delivered it on Wednesday with an upgrade to the N800's software. Current owners of N800s can download the software from Nokia's site.

Skype, with a claimed 196 million registered users, has expanded from its roots as a popular PC-based free calling system and offers text messaging, video calling, and low-cost dialing to and from traditional phones. There are already Skype clients for mobile devices and even some cellular smart phones, but some mobile operators try to block VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) calls because they can eat into their voice business.

Read More ....

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

IBM Survey: SOA Discussion Moves From IT Staff Roundtables to Executive Agenda

Yahoo Finance, Tuesday July 10, 11:25 am ET

ARMONK, NY--(MARKET WIRE)--Jul 10, 2007 -- IBM Today announced the results of a survey of clients that concludes the strategic decisions to adopt a service oriented architecture (SOA) are shifting away from the realm of IT staffers to business executives. SOA is a business strategy that helps a company reuse existing technology to more closely align it with business goals, driving efficiencies, cost savings, productivity, and enabling the creation of more modular and global business designs.

The survey was conducted for IBM by the Link Group and consisted of a sampling of clients at the IBM Impact 2007 event, which drew more than 4,200 technical and business leaders. The survey validates a fundamental commitment to SOA as the future of process and application design -- with both significant increases in budgets and the number of SOA projects aimed at new business challenges. At the same time, the survey also found that there is an increasing need for training staff so they possess the unique combination of both business and IT skills required for a business to realize the potential of SOA.

The survey also revealed that 67 percent of the respondents said the key decision makers responsible for moving to an SOA strategy are business leaders including C-level executives and business managers. Additionally, 65 percent of clients said that business leaders are also primarily responsible for selecting an IT partner to help achieve business goals in an SOA.

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Yahoo! for Sale?

By Katrina Chan, The Motley Fool, July 10, 2007

After a meteoric rise, Yahoo! seems to have fallen back to earth. Following the dot-com bust, the share price ran up from less than $10 in 2002 to more than $40 at the start of 2006. However, it is currently trading at about $27 a share, trailing Google in the hearts and minds of Web users and investors. This has led to speculation over Yahoo!'s future and whether it can remain an independent entity. Analysts and the press have thrown in their two cents, and we at the Fool have also given it thought. Who are the likely suitors, and what is the chance of a successful deal? More importantly, what success could they find once the dust (and hype) has settled?

Yahoo! -- a well-known brand -- comes complete with a steady stream of revenue and prodigious cash flow from advertising, making it a juicy pick for a private equity firm or a consortium of firms. The benefits to both are obvious. First on the agenda would be a new long-term plan, disregarding the short-term whims of Wall Street. With a market capitalization higher than $36 billion, it won't be cheap. The stock is already trading at a P/E of 53 times trailing earnings. I think this is already frothy, and buyout firms are very price-sensitive, so this may preclude a deal or much of a premium.

What about an acquisition? Given its market cap, very few could afford the price tag. Microsoft has been mentioned frequently, since Mr. Softy is eager to enter the search engine space in a meaningful way, and this would seemingly accomplish the goal. However, a culture clash could get in the way. Oh, how people forget how many deals fail because of incompatible cultures. Remember the AOL/Time Warnerdeal? The aftermath included years and countless dollars of trying to make it right.

Google has popped up recently as another possible suitor, but there would be serious anti-trust issues. Google has more than 50% of the search engine market, and Yahoo! captures another 23%. If Google's deal with DoubleClick is drawing scrutiny by the Federal Trade Commission, imagine the cries about a Google-Yahoo! combination.

Yahoo! may well decide to stay an independent public company. But, should it decide to enter a marriage with someone else, I think a private equity deal is most likely. Providing, of course, it can be done at an attractive price.

Related Articles: Microsoft Looking at Yahoo for Potential Buyout Talks, Media Report Says

Monday, July 9, 2007

What's in a Name?

A name can help a brand to enter the public consciousness (think Google) or disappear quickly (haven't heard of Ultraviolet Man Summer Pop cologne, have you?)

by Douglas MacMillan, Businessweek.com

Innovation & Design

In 1997, Google (GOOG) founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin decided to dump their fledgling search engine's working name—BackRub—for something shorter and simpler. "We spent a lot of time on the name…because we figured that it would be important for people to be able to remember it," recalled Page in Designing Interactions (MIT Press, 2006).

They eventually settled on "googol" (a math term for 10 to the 100th power), but misspelled the word while checking to see whether that Internet domain was unregistered. "It turned out [google.com] was available, and [googol.com] was not," says Page. A decade later, the Google name has the cultural cachet of such iconic brands as Coca-Cola (KO), Microsoft (MSFT), and McDonald's (MCD).

New York branding consultancy TippingSprung wanted to find out what fledgling brand could be the next Google. In May and June, the firm conducted a survey (in conjunction with the Nielsen Co.'s Brandweek) to learn what new brand names are hitting the mark.

More than 1,300 marketing professionals and industry observers were polled to pick the "most memorable, appropriate, or distinctive" new brand name from a list of five to seven choices. The 11 quirky categories included "Most Consumer-Friendly Drug Name" and "Worst Fragrance Name." (Disclosure: This writer participated in the survey.)

Read More ....

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Live Earth Internet streaming claims record

MSN says there were more than 9 million streams of environmental advocacy concert.

CNNMoney.com, July 8 2007: 7:44 AM EDT

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (Reuters) -- The Live Earth global pop concerts broke a record for an online entertainment show by generating more than 9 million Internet streams, Web portal MSN said Saturday.

As the last two of the nine Live Earth concerts got underway, MSN product manager Karin Muskopf said the number of streams had surpassed the previous record held by 2005's Live 8 global concerts to fight poverty.

"We have exceeded any other online entertainment event," Muskopf said. "It's really exciting to see the enthusiasm for the concert."

An Internet stream is when a person watches on a computer. People can stream an event more than once -- by switching it on and off -- so 9 million streams does not necessarily mean 9 million people watching, MSN - owned by Microsoft Corp. (Charts, Fortune 500), said.

Live 8 was the first major multi-venue event successfully streamed live with Time Warner Inc. (Charts, Fortune 500)'s AOL portal on the Web. AOL said 5 million people had logged on to the event on the day of those shows, but it did not say how many Internet streams of the event there had been.

MSN said it would not be able to immediately determine the number of people who logged on to Live Earth.

Control Room, producer of Live Earth and Live 8, said it found that the on-demand streams in the days after the Live 8 had the most impact, especially after clips were passed around by e-mail.

Live 8 was streamed by users more than 100 million times in the six weeks following the shows.

Live Earth is predicted to be three times bigger with organizers expecting more than 80 percent of the viewership will be on-demand in the days after the event.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

9 Essential Competencies for Successful C-Level Executives

A list of core competencies the CIO Executive Council uses to evaluate and develop C-level talent.

By Michael Swenson, CIO.com

May 08, 2007 — CIO Executive Council — In 30 years of assessing executive talent, recruitment firm Egon Zehnder International determined that the competencies listed below are core to C-level executive success.

The CIO Executive Council has adapted these competencies for assessment and development programs to aid CIOs and their senior staff in achieving their full potential as strategic enterprise leaders.

1. STRATEGIC ORIENTATION
2. CUSTOMER IMPACT
3. MARKET KNOWLEDGE
4. COMMERCIAL ORIENTATION
5. RESULTS ORIENTATION
6. CHANGE LEADERSHIP
7. COLLABORATION AND INFLUENCE
8. PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
9. TEAM LEADERSHIP


Read More ....

What It Takes for a CIO to Be a CEO

With help from the CIO Executive Council, we tap into research about successful executives. Read on to learn more about the competencies CIOs need to develop to take the corner office, where CIOs fall short—and what CEOs expect from CIOs.

By Carrie Mathews, CIO.com

June 25, 2007 — CIO Executive Council — Do you know your Executive Quotient (EQ)? By figuring your EQ, you can determine how well you’re positioned to be the strategy-oriented CIO that businesses are demanding.

Your EQ can be measured across a set of executive leadership competencies that are essential for any well-rounded C-level executive —including IT leaders who want to move beyond the limits of Function Head and its focus on operations, alignment and order-taking. It’s also a success indicator for CIOs who are taking on formal or informal responsibilities in non-IT aspects of the business or moving up to the CEO role. (To measure yourself, see this link at the CIO Executive Council.)

Your CEO sets the benchmark for performance across all executive competencies. The good news is that the best CIOs stand up well against their bosses and even outperform them in many competencies. The bad news is that they underperform significantly in competencies unique to strategic business leadership. This gap defines the development goals IT leaders need to set in order to advance their individual EQ, their careers and the CIO profession as a whole.


Level 1 - CIOs are doing their basic job

Level 2 - CIOs can describe what the industry is doing and the basic forces of the market, including typical customers and obvious competitors.

Higher Levels - CIOs know their market well enough to spot, anticipate and capitalize on trends. The highest performers make an impact on the marketplace by creating new businesses or new products through their understanding of technology, customer needs and market trends. Unfortunately, Market Knowledge, according to Kelner’s (Egon Zehnder International) six years of accumulated data, is, compared to CEOs’ competencies, a weak spot for CIOs.


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