Rafe's Blog

Microsoft steers Europeans in circles

I've said it before: Navigation software can be a businessperson's secret weapon.  As long as you're not trying to use Microsoft's MapPoint to plot a route from Heugesund and Trondheim in Norway. The two cities are about 325 miles apart as the crow flies -- but 1,685 miles according MapPoint, which routes you through the North Sea, overland via Germany, across the Baltic Sea, etc. So the question is: Is this a bug, or a threat aimed at snarling the EU as it thinks about "fining Microsoft into submission?"

Hear yourself think

Business technology providers are finally taking aim at one of the biggest bugaboos of new, powerful computers: They make a racket. The new BTX-based PCs are designed for efficient cooling and quiet operation. Not quiet enough? Check out these extreme solutions for quiet computing. Also, an old column I wrote on the topic.

Meanwhile, Skype takes off

Internet phone software company Skype is finding that road warriors and remote workers are using it to reduce long-distance and cell phone costs.  No big surprise there: There’s no entity in the universe as cheap as a small business -- except perhaps a giant corporation. Skype’s software VOIP product lets you call your coworkers over the free (for now, see previous) Internet. News.com story.

Tax the Net? Oh no, not again

Every few years this awful specter surfaces. First there was the “modem tax.” And now a congressional committee suggests that a tax originally created to pay for the Spanish American War could be extended to all Internet connections. Sure, that will really help the recovery.  News.com story.

Big Brother

What is "aggressive driver imaging?"

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-01-17-aggressive-drivers_x.htm