Mike Elgan

Google launched a “beta” 3D virtual environment platform yesterday called Lively. The product has been compared to the virtual world “Second Life,” but with a difference: Lively isn’t one giant world, but individual “rooms” or size-limited “spaces” that can be embedded into Web pages or even FaceBook profiles. (I created one and embedded it into […]

This 4th of July is a good time to remember the famous quote by Thomas Jefferson, that “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” If Jefferson really said that, he may have been paraphrasing a more profound (and wordy) comment by the Irish orator, John Philpot Curran: “It is the common fate of the indolent […]

You’re probably using a mouse today, but you may never buy one again. All the planets are aligning against this humble pointing device. The computer mouse has long been associated with the PC, but in fact it was invented during the Kennedy administration (in 1963) by Silicon Valley engineers Douglas Engelbart and Bill English. (Click […]

Every week, it seems, the press labels some new phone the latest “iPhone Killer.” This week, of course, the first-ever true “iPhone Killer” — the new iPhone — was announced. The “3Gesus Phone” adds me-too, “catch-up” features that competitive phones have offered for quite a while, such as 3G and GPS. The “iPhone Killers,” including […]

A federal appeals court ruled this weekthat companies can’t read your e-mail or instant messages without your permission if you or your employer are using an outside service provider. That covers, for example, e-mail sent via Gmail or chats via AIM. And it even covers you if the employer outsources the provision of e-mail or […]

Every week, it seems, the press labels some new phone the latest “iPhone Killer.” This week, of course, the first-ever true “iPhone Killer” — the new iPhone — was announced. The “3Gesus Phone” adds me-too, “catch-up” features that competitive phones have offered for quite a while, such as 3G and GPS. The “iPhone Killers,” including […]

ASUS shook up the industry with its $300 — $600 mini notebook last year. ASUS continues to dominate the market for super small, super cheap mini-notebooks. It may sell as many as 5 million Eee PCs by the end of the year – far more than all other competitors combined. It wasn’t supposed to happen […]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer rolled out this week some user interface bits from the forthcoming Windows 7 at The Wall Street Journal’s “D: All Things Digital” conference. Here’s the official Microsoft video demo. The OS is currently scheduled to hit late next year. Although everyone is talking about it, few seem to understand what all […]

We all want to succeed in our careers. We go to school for at least 16 years. We study late at night to pass exams and get certifications. We take on-the-job training, and try to teach ourselves new skills. We attend industry conferences to build our knowledge and cultivate peer contacts. We read productivity books […]

According to Gartner, the percentage of women in IT is low and shrinking, dropping from 42 percent in 1996 to 32.4 percent in 2004 worldwide. In some countries, including in the United States, it’s below 30 percent. But those figures tell only part of the story: Fewer women than men choose IT-related majors in college. […]