33 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
Copyright © 2014 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.
The Telecom Digest for Sep 9, 2014
Volume 33 : Issue 154 : "text" Format
33 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981Copyright © 2014 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.The Telecom Digest for Sep 9, 2014 |
| Messages in this Issue: | |
|---|---|
| Re: Chicago Magazine Article on Motorola | (Hancock4) |
| Local Choice now part of Senate's satellite reauthorization bill | (Neal McLain) |
| Apple - Update to Celebrity Photo Investigation | (Monty Solomon) |
There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know. - Harry Truman
See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details.
| Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2014 10:15:10 -0700 (PDT) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Hancock4) To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Chicago Magazine Article on Motorola Message-ID: <f32cbf08-0161-4288-851e-51c5e4d77771@googlegroups.com> On Saturday, September 6, 2014 11:58:25 AM UTC-4, Gary wrote: > The big problems the author hit were the failure to move from the > "warring tribes" culture to a more collaborative one in the 90's and the > lack of visionary leadership that could led the engineering centric > culture to drive markets rather than follow them. Certainly not easy > tasks and if I'd known how to do that I'd be a very wealthy man. It's interesting to read this because IBM faced similar challenges several times over the decades. In the early 1940s, IBM was strictly electro-mechanical equipment; no electronics. But then some of its engineers, who had electronics education, designed some electronic counters which caught the eye of Thomas J. Watson Sr, the CEO. This work evolved into the IBM 604 electronic calculator, a popular relatively inexpensive device in the 1950s, at a time when true computers were enormously expensive. In the early 1950s IBM had to reorganize its product development and get away from the historic secrecy maintained by its inventors. Electronic engineering was done collaboratively, and a new lab was established for that. In the late 1950s Tom Watson Jr ordered IBM engineers to use only solid-state devices for all new product development. This was a challenge because transistors were still new at the time and their working characteristics and manufacturing methods were not fully understood. Over the following decades, several times IBM reorganized its pure research and product development efforts. > This article highlights one of my major frustrations from my time > wearing a Motorola badge: Cellphones captured all the attention. While > certainly a big part of Motorola's business, SPS and CIG contributed > significant revenue to the company. Many other sectors were important > as well, such as Motorola Computer Group, the Government Radio Group and > a group that made routers and network equipment whose name I forget. > There were many others as well. It was not easy for IBM to shift from the tabulating machine business to electronic computers, even though Watson Sr approved the fresh approach. In the early 1950s there were many who felt electronic computers were a very costly gamble, and IBM had more business than it could handle with tabulating machines. Much later, IBM faced challenges evolving from a mainframe company to a server company. Over the years, IBM sold off certain product lines that it originally invented, such as the disk drive. Two books from MIT Press go into great detail, including internal technology details about IBM R&D efforts to develop its various lines of computers: "IBM's Early Computers" by Charles J. Bashe, Lyle R. Johnson, John H. Palmer and Emerson W. Pugh, unfolds the challenges that IBM's research and development laboratories faced, the technological paths they chose, and how these choices affected the company and the computer industry. It chronicles the transformation of IBM into a computer company in a remarkably few years, discussing projects that ended in frustration as well as the more successful ones, and providing a sense of the atmosphere, the people, and the decision-making processes involved during the company's rapid technological transformation. http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/ibms-early-computers "IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems" by Emerson W. Pugh, Lyle R. Johnson and John H. Palmer tells how System/360's widely-copied architecture came into being and how IBM failed in an effort to replace it ten years later with a bold development effort called FS, the Future System. Along the way they detail the development of many computer innovations still in use, among them semiconductor memories, the cache, floppy disks, and Winchester disk files. They conclude by looking at issues involved in managing research and development and striving for product leadership. http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/ibms-360-and-early-370-systems |
| Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:59:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Local Choice now part of Senate's satellite reauthorization bill Message-ID: <d75a0bff-09a4-4acb-af52-ebb96517e349@googlegroups.com> By Daniel Frankel, FierceCable, September 8, 2014 The Senate version of satellite reauthorization will indeed include Local Choice, a controversial Commerce Committee proposal that essentially strips broadcast channels out of the pay-TV bundle. A draft of the Senate committee's version of the Satellite Television Access and Viewer Rights Act (STAVRA), complete with Local Choice language, was circulated Friday in advance of a meeting with broadcast lobbyists--who were undoubtedly unpleased to see Local Choice included. The National Association of Broadcasters-backed group TVFreedom.org immediately responded with the following statement: "Given the Local Choice proposal's negative impact on competition--as well as America's television viewers and local TV stations--little justification exists for Congressional haste to pass such legislation by year's end. Any Congressional bill that includes the components of the Local Choice proposal will ultimately cost pay-TV consumers more for less programming under an unproven and often criticized a la carte model, drive local TV stations off the air and completely fail to address true market failures that harm American consumers as a result of the deceptive billing practices of cable and satellite TV providers. In this instance, STAVRA as being presented publicly, is nothing more than a pay-TV giveaway." Continued: http://www.fiercecable.com/story/local-choice-now-part-senates-satellite-reauthorization-bill/2014-09-08?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal -or- http://tinyurl.com/kggnngo Neal McLain |
| Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2014 23:39:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Apple - Update to Celebrity Photo Investigation Message-ID: <p06240807d03426c9b08e@[172.16.42.4]> http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/09/02Apple-Media-Advisory.html Apple Media Advisory Update to Celebrity Photo Investigation We wanted to provide an update to our investigation into the theft of photos of certain celebrities. When we learned of the theft, we were outraged and immediately mobilized Apple's engineers to discover the source. Our customers' privacy and security are of utmost importance to us. After more than 40 hours of investigation, we have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet. None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple's systems including iCloud or Find my iPhone. We are continuing to work with law enforcement to help identify the criminals involved. To protect against this type of attack, we advise all users to always use a strong password and enable two-step verification. Both of these are addressed on our website at http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4232 . ***** Moderator's Note ***** I hope that Apple did more than "40 hours" of work on this issue. I also hope that the company reassigns whichever PR flak thinks 40 hours is a sufficient interval of time to have worked on this, or any, security problem. Bill Horne Moderator |
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