Colin Berkshire
The Origin of Email
I have a surprise for you. The inventor of email did not invent email. Email was actually invented by the Bell System and was in commercial operation long before the Arpanet even existed. This is an interesting story… False The invention of email is widely credited to be Ray Tomlinson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Tomlinson) in 1971. In one especially [...]
KimDotCom
It’s very rare when an individual raises to the level that they are worth listening to. Steve Jobs was one of those people. Kim Dotcom may be another…I’m watching to see. He is certainly one of the most entertaining individuals of all time. From his hot-tub parties to his paratroopers descending from helicopters in a [...]
How the Bell System Missed the Internet – Part 1 of 8
One of the more fascinating twists and turns in corporate history is how the Bell System missed developing the internet. What follows is the story of ACS in 8 parts (in 8 days). It could have owned the internet, except for NIH (Not Invented Here.) In the mid 1970s I worked at Bell Laboratories in Holmdel New [...]
Emerging LTE and the iPad
I have been using the new iPad with Retina display for almost a year now. It’s great. But I have noticed an interesting problem: once you use Retina resolution you simply cannot go back. Traditional LCD displays look grainy and give me a headache to look at for any duration. The human brain is an [...]
802.11ac is Almost Here
802.11ac will start appearing in force in products this year. It is the latest and greatest Wi-Fi standard that will replace 802.11a, b, and g. It will receive final approval this year. Now, considering how long it has taken the working group, and how many man hours they have put into it that it would solve [...]
Growing Internationally
One of the greatest opportunities any established business faces is growth internationally. Take a company like Apple. Recently, much has been made about how they have saturated the domestic marketplace wi their iPhones and iPads. The thinking is a concern over how earth’s largest company can grow much more. This type of thinking lead to [...]
Is security that complicated
I recently had to set up an account with a US Government web site. I had a dickens of a time picking a password. They had amazing rules: The first character needed to be a number. The password had to have at least 7 characters, but no more than 12. Only lower-case letters could be [...]
A High Temperature Mystery
I just visited a data center of a branch in Thailand. I was headed down to Thailand anyway, and as they were having some problems and I like troubleshooting I said I would stop by. For some reason, the data center has been extremely hot and they have not been able to contain it. This [...]
The Dreamliner and Telecom
A couple of months ago I wrote a series of critical articles on the brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Yes, a bit off topic from Telecom, but a great lesson on corporate and governmental politics, massive engineering projects, and spin. None of those things are far from the world of Telecom. Besides, we are all geeks [...]
Does The Telecom Industry Still Exist?
Does the Telecom industry even exist anymore? I am in Vancouver Canada and am having a conversation with a branch office there. One of the questions came up as to why our company still has a Telecom department. After my knee-jerk explanation that they supply phones, inter-communication services, and manage our gateways the manager stated simply: But [...]
Telecom and Government
Telecom has always had a strange love/hate relationship with government. But most people don’t know how strange this relationship really is. I don’t understand why you pay only an 8% sales tax when you buy Coca-Cola but you pay a 35% sales tax when you buy phone service. What possible social justification is there for [...]
Siri, You Don’t Say
Google slated Siri. Apple’s Siri and I have never gotten along. I don’t need a personal assistant with a sense of humor. I need a computer assistant that gives me answers. Siri gives enough backlash that it just isn’t fun to use…or usually does it answer my questions. It’s easy to poke at a new [...]
The 787 Dreamliner (Parts 1-2)
Part1: I travel to Asia a lot. The journey takes about 12 hours and can take 16 hours depending upon where I am headed. It is arduous. I often think I would rather drink rat poison than sit in a horrid seat for one more trip. But I do it; that is my job. I [...]
Is Apple Vindictive and Evil?
Apple has not won all of its lawsuits. In fact, other than one big jury award it has for the most part been losing cases. Certainly, outside of the “home court advantage” here in America it has done rather poorly. In an especially humiliating loss outside of the US, Apple was instructed to modify its [...]
May They Get Struck with Lightning
When Apple innovates they offer something better. They offer new and compelling features. They draw you to their products with desire and lust. This is why I buy Apple and it is what has made Apple great. But the Lightning cable is like getting flogged.
