Net Results: I love the rich pageant of the information technology industry - the ups and downs, ins and outs, great breakthroughs and idiotic mishaps. Of course, going by the marketing bumf and the PR spin, nothing down, out, or idiotic ever happens, but we all know otherwise.
As a new year starts, and as a service to all those who feel all we ever hear is the wonders of tech rather than the blunders of tech, I forthwith offer up my personal list of the top 10 stupidities of 2004 in the sector.
1) A "breakthrough" to make mobile phone calls possible while flying: this was announced with great fanfare at the end of the year, and was guaranteed to bring out the Scrooge in all of us. Just what I want on my next plane flight - some idiot talking far too loudly in the next seat.
You can picture it now: a plane full of people holding handsets to their ears as they bellow: "I'm on the plane." Guaranteed to drive up the sales of iPods used with Bose noise-cancelling headsets.
2) Google IPO: Oh, please. Could they have done more wrong? The Google Gang demonstrated pre-IPO that they knew less about their company and how to conduct an IPO than most journalists - and that's saying a lot. Boys, you don't do interviews in Playboy full of statements that show you can't even give an accurate employee count (off by about 1,000), don't know the traffic flow to your site, and other things that required your lawyers to file three amended statements to the Security and Exchange Commission "correcting" information offered by Google's founders in the interview - the two people who were also running the Google roadshow. Doh!
3) Continued Irish government support for a data retention bill: new tactics in our year of the Irish EU presidency saw the government switch from trying to introduce domestically this abhorrent piece of legislation - storing details for years about people's phone, mobile, and fax calls as well as email and internet use information. They proposed it as an EU-wide legislation during the presidency, and continue to back it now.
4) SCO lawsuits: the industry's most exasperating set of lawsuits have to be those threatened by Linux supplier SCO against all other Linux suppliers and users, based on the notion that SCO purchased UNIX intellectual property that is core to Linux (and thus the rights to be compensated for any use of Linux by anyone else).
Thankfully one lawsuit, against DaimlerChrysler, was thrown out. Others are submerged in a haze of motions and judicial detail. SCO seems unlikely to be successful but the jury is still out.
5) IMRO v Apple and U2: the Irish Music Rights Organisation's brinksmanship with Apple and U2 on its cut of profits meant that Irish music lovers still cannot purchase music through Apple's online iTunes music store (thus depriving Irish artists that IMRO supposedly supports of revenue).
U2 were said to be unhappy that the issue hadn't been resolved by the time the band launched a U2 special edition iPod with Apple before Christmas. Insiders say IMRO thought it could stonewall the pair into conceding, which only demonstrates how little they understand U2 or Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
6) The return of spam king "Spamford" Wallace: Stanford Wallace was the first great spam king, tormenting computer users with spam back in the 1990s. He supposedly went straight - and anti-spam - but turns out he's now the target of a US Federal Trade Commission lawsuit against purveyors of spyware, those infuriating programs that sneak onto computer systems to report on their users' actions and serve up unwanted ads - or worse. Plus ça change.
7) Lycos anti-spam screensaver: while well-intentioned, the German-based Lycos portal site's grand idea that users download a screensaver that would launch attacks against purported spam sites and spammers had a few flaws. Firstly, it could not verify who was actually sending spam, and secondly, for the odd logic of swamping sites and individuals with unwanted messages in order to fight against those who, er, swamp sites and individuals with unwanted messages.
8) Government e-voting fiasco: thankfully (setting aside the taxpayer cost) the controversial machines are currently gathering dust.
But the most idiotic moment of the affair was the Taoiseach responding to a US expert technologist's thumb's down on the Irish e-voting plan by announcing Ireland needed no tech advice from the US when Ireland was the biggest exporter of software in the world. Only problem, Taoiseach, is we don't create it. Almost all of that software is created by programmers in the US. Ireland just burns the CDs, boxes and ships. Doh! Again.
9) Virus writers and phishers: hate 'em, hate 'em all. Get a life or go to jail, I say.
10) Microsoft's neglect of Internet Explorer: mighty Microsoft has totally dropped the ball on its market-dominant browser. Riddled with security flaws and with barely an interesting feature update in recent memory, IE is seeing Mozilla's free Firefox browser beginning to eat into its huge market share.
Firefox has quickly pulled over 4 per cent of IE's market, and is showing an acceleration that recalls IE's gradual gain on once-dominant Netscape in the 1990s.
On my technology weblog, Firefox users make up a consistent quarter of visitors - an astonishing figure suggesting that where the geeks are going, the market will follow.
weblog:
http://weblog.techno-culture.com
