Steve Ballmer's replacement needs to make this phone call

If Microsoft's outgoing chief executive had listened to Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's incoming CEO would have a much easier go of it.

Ray Ozzie (left), at that time the chief software architect at Microsoft, and CEO Steve Ballmer speak at the D: All Things Digital conference shortly before Ozzie's departure from Microsoft in 2010.

Once Microsoft's board of directors announces the name of the company's next chief executive, get ready for nonstop kibbitzing. "Sell this business. Buy that startup. Hire! Fire! Go mobile. Go big. Go east. Go west."
Something like that. When it comes to offering free advice, there's no shortage of tech analysts and know-it-all columnists eager to retail today's conventional wisdom for prime time. And given that we're talking about Microsoft, seemingly everyone is going to have an opinion about what the new boss ought to do.
Amusing, but all part of a sideshow. The person soon to inherit Steve Ballmer's job will know how to tune out the talking heads while the more immediate need is to pick up the phone to talk to the super-smart people out there who can help. When that time arrives, the first call ought to go out to Ray Ozzie. It's too late for the outgoing boss, but the incoming boss at Microsoft ought to listen carefully to what Ozzie has to say.

Peering into the future
For years, Ozzie tried to steer Microsoft into a post-PC future, predicting the emergence of Internet services and Internet devices.
But his prophecies fell Cassandra-like on deaf ears.
For those not familiar with his resume, Ozzie made a big mark with his invention of Notes, a 1990s-era collaborative groupware application that was revolutionary for the time. IBM later paid more than $3 billion to buy Lotus in order to get the program -- really big money in those days -- as well as to bring along Ozzie. Without Notes, Lou Gerstner would have never bothered with Lotus, which was getting clobbered in the market by -- you guessed it -- Microsoft.

Ozzie subsequently launched a startup called Groove that Microsoft acquired in 2005. He took over for Bill Gates as Microsoft's chief software architect the following year. Before his official move into the job, Ozzie tried to get Microsoft to modify its Windows-centric view of the world in a 5,000-word memo outlining Microsoft's shortcomings as well as the potential opportunities in the Internet 2.0 age. It's worth a read. The headline was Ozzie's insistence that Microsoft get involved in the shift toward services and service-based software, riffing on what we now refer to as cloud computing.

Products must deliver a seamless experience, one in which all the technology in your life 'just works' and can work together, on your behalf, under your control. This means designs centered on an intentional fusion of internet-based services with software, and sometimes even hardware, to deliver meaningful experiences and solutions with a level of seamless design and use that couldn't be achieved without such a holistic approach.

Reading that passage in 2013, you wonder why the message landed on deaf ears. But Microsoft was a big bureaucratic company and not everyone necessarily was ready to pull in the same direction.

Even when we've been solidly in pursuit of a common vision, our end-to-end execution of key scenarios has often been uneven -- in large part because of the complexity of doing such substantial undertakings. In any large project, the sheer number of moving parts sometimes naturally causes compartmentalization of decisions and execution. Some groups might lose sight of how their piece fits in, or worse, might develop features without a clear understanding of how they'll be used. In some cases by the time the vision is delivered, the pieces might not quite fit into the originally-envisioned coherent whole.

By 2010, Ozzie had had enough. Before clocking out, however, he gathered his thoughts for another long memo, this one optimistically titled "Dawn of a New Day." It's politely written but still a blunt indictment of a "PC-centric/server-centric" Microsoft that inexplicably dawdled over while Google and Apple went on to capture big leads in technology's hottest growth businesses.
"Certain of our competitors' products and their rapid advancement and refinement of new usage scenarios have been quite noteworthy," he said, noting that "their execution has surpassed our own in mobile experiences, in the seamless fusion of hardware and software and services, and in social networking and myriad new forms of Internet-centric social interaction."
Ozzie also put Microsoft on notice: stop making things hard on users.
"Complexity kills. Complexity sucks the life out of users, developers and IT," he said. "Complexity makes products difficult to plan, build, test and use. Complexity introduces security challenges. Complexity causes administrator frustration."
Again, he proved prescient. Microsoft eventually grokked what Ozzie was talking about and pledged itself to a future that was going to be all about devices and services. Two years after Ozzie had left the company.

Firefox OS fan Geeksphone plans high-end Revolution

The Spanish company's new Firefox OS phone will include a "high-performance processor" and can run Google's Android operating system, too. The company hints it could use an Intel processor, too.

Geeksphone is working on a new Firefox OS phone called Revolution, but it's not ready to share details.

Geeksphone, the first Firefox OS phone maker, announced on Wednesday a new high-end smartphone called the Revolution.
The Spanish company didn't disclose details such as price, features, ship date, and appearance. But judging by the wording on the Geeksphone Revolution Web page, "a creation with a powerful heart," we can expect a faster processor than what's in the company's first models, the low-end Keon and midrange Peak.
"We are...confident that we will surprise everyone by its very high performance," Geeksphone co-founder Javier Aguera said in a statement. "And it's very competitively priced."
The phone will run not just Firefox OS, but Android, too, and customers can order it with either. Geeksphone offered Android phones before it began its Firefox OS foray.

Update 12:33 a.m. PT November 29: Based on a forum post from Geeksphone, it looks like the Revolution might use an Intel processor.
"This is what we are working on, but now with 4.8" screen," the post said, offering a link to a video showing an Intel-based Firefox OS phone outperforming one using a Qualcomm ARM processor. The phones use 3.5-inch screens in the video, and the Intel-based model outperforms the Qualcomm model in boot time and some other computing tasks.

Geeksphone is working on a new Firefox OS phone called Revolution, but it's not ready to share details.

Technically, it's not Firefox OS on the Revolution, but instead the Boot2Gecko software that Mozilla uses for the project's name. It's the same bits and bytes, but a different label: "Firefox OS is a brand currently not available for independent manufacturers not associated with carriers. Geeksphone will work with Mozilla once this option is made available," the company said.
The company bet big on Firefox OS, Mozilla's open-source, browser-based operating system. Mozilla hopes Firefox OS, along with an Android version of Firefox, will extend the clout it has with personal computers into the mobile market, too. Currently, Apple and Google dominate mobile operating systems, and Mozilla doesn't like those companies' controlling ways.
A third carrier joined the Firefox OS push Thursday: Telenor, which is based in Norway but also does business in Asia and eastern Europe. It already was committed, but now it's actually begun selling Firefox phones.
"I am pleased to see that our customers in Serbia, Hungary, and Montenegro will be able to enjoy mobile phones on Firefox OS, providing them with high-quality Internet experience before Christmas," said Rolv-Erik Spilling, head of Telenor Digital, in a statement. "Through this launch, we are one step closer to connecting the next billion customers to the Web."
Geeksphone is a small manufacturer; the more prominent sales push for Firefox OS is coming from carriers -- Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom to start with -- that have a strong retail presence. So far they've brought Firefox OS to markets such as Brazil and Poland; in more affluent markets where iOS and Android have a stronger presence it's a harder sell.
The company is in the process of designing an upgraded Peak model called the Peak+ that isn't shipping yet. Customers who ordered the Peak+ will be able to switch to the Revolution at no cost, Geeksphone said.

Incredible remote-control A380 takes to the skies

The 16-foot-long model is powered by four small turbine engines, and wowed a crowd at a recent model-airplane show in Switzerland.

 

A model Airbus A380, built by Peter Michel, taking off at a model-airplane show.

 

 

Soaring over the airshow, the A380 looks as it should -- its double-decker fuselage wowing the crowd watching from below.
But while Airbus' A380 is the world's-largest passenger plane, this aircraft doesn't even have a pilot, at least not one on board. In fact, this is a remote-control scale model of an A380. Built by Peter Michel, the model, made to look like a Singapore Airlines A380, took eight "months, 5,000 working hours, and a whole lot of Styrofoam and lightweight balsa wood" to take air. Plus what appears to be some very cool scale-model jet engines

According to information provided with the video, the plane is 15.8 feet long, has a wingspan of 17.4 feet, weighs 156.1 pounds, and has a 2.6-gallon fuel tank that burns through 0.3 gallons a minute. Powering the plane are four Jetcat turbine engines.

Dive on in: Fabien Cousteau and the urge to live under the sea

Next spring, Fabien Cousteau, grandson of the legendary Jacques, will lead a 31-day mission, living in an underwater lab and exploring the mysteries of the deep. And you're invited to come along.

Fabien Cousteau (pictured) is planning an undersea living expedition similar to one his famed grandfather undertook in 1963, but going deeper and one day longer. The Aquarius lab will be home base for 31 days.

(Credit: Kip Evans/Mission Blue)

Half a dozen half-naked men are sitting around, talking, drinking, and smoking in Starfish House, 33 feet below the surface of the Red Sea. It's 1963. Among them is ocean explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau -- still clad in his silver diving suit -- commandant of the first undersea village.
That scene comes early on in "World Without Sun," the Oscar-winning documentary released in 1964. It provided moviegoers with a window into the underwater world of oceanauts living and working for a month in "inner space."
Now, 50 years later, Fabien Cousteau, grandson of the famed ocean explorer, is planning a similar expedition but going deeper and one day longer. And you won't have to wait for the movie to come out -- you can watch Mission 31 unfold in real time.
Next spring, Cousteau and five others will dive down to Aquarius Reef Base, an undersea lab 63 feet down in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. They plan to make the school-bus-size lab their home for 31 days, while exploring the deep and conducting scientific research (yes, there's a documentary in the works) -- all the while broadcasting the mission live.

Fabien Cousteau on his grandfather's shoulders in 1970. 

"We're in a whole new generation," said Cousteau, 46, a filmmaker and ocean explorer like his grandfather. During the last half of the 20th century, film and TV audiences became immersed in the undersea world of Jacques Cousteau, who was 87 when he died in 1997. "The Internet was in its nascent stage at the end of his life, so he never got a chance to reach out through that medium," he said.
Though time has advanced and so has technology, one thing hasn't changed much. "The reality is that we've explored less than 5 percent of our ocean to date," Cousteau said. So there are still a lot of stories to tell, and discoveries and adventures to be had, he said. "In essence we're hoping to continue on where my grandfather left off."
But it's not just by symbolically going deeper and one day longer than the 1963 expedition, he said. "There's a human-ocean connection that hadn't really been fathomed -- or certainly not enough -- that we need to emphasize now."
During the expedition, the aquanauts will conduct scientific research on how climate change, overconsumption, and pollution are affecting the health of the ocean. The aquanauts themselves will become specimens too, participating in experiments on the physiological and psychological effects of living under the sea -- and without sun -- for a month.

Immersion program
Cousteau describes Mission 31 as "an underwater classroom," where he and his team will share their discoveries with viewers -- through daily Skype video calls with students around the world, live reports on the Weather Channel, and real-time updates on social media.
"I think there's a way to wow today's generation in a way that [my grandfather] did, maybe by engaging them in a more real-time sort of way with more alternative kind of media," he said.
The 50th anniversary of his grandfather's experiment in undersea living, known as Conshelf Two, comes at an opportune time for updating our knowledge too, he said.

We're also showing the wonders of the undersea world in a way that most people will never get a chance to see."
-- Fabien Cousteau

Get Cousteau talking about the changes he's witnessed during his time in and around the ocean and he'll take an Aquaman-like dive into the scientific research as well. Caused "just by the actions of one species," the changes are both fascinating and scary, he said.
And he has a couple of decades' worth of firsthand knowledge to draw on. Cousteau grew up on the decks of the Calypso and Alcyone, the ships that transported his grandfather and crew on many of their expeditions.
"You go to the Florida Keys, for example, and it's a shadow of its former self," he said. But take someone, say a 12-year-old, diving in that area for the first time? "They've never seen how it was, how it was supposed to be, which is this fireworks display of life that I grew up with, when I was 12 years old."
The point of Mission 31 is more than going deeper and longer than Conshelf Two. "We're also showing the wonders of the undersea world in a way that most people will never get a chance to see," Cousteau said.

Fabien Cousteau describes Mission 31 as 'an underwater classroom,' where he and his team will share their discoveries with viewers in real time.

 

 

In October, an international panel of marine scientists released a report saying that increased carbon emissions have led to a "deadly trio" that threatens the world's oceans: waters are acidifying, warming, and losing oxygen. Pollution and overfishing are adding to the stress too. And things are worse than previously believed.
"The health of the ocean is spiraling downwards far more rapidly than we had thought," Alex Rogers, scientific director of the International Programme on the State of the Ocean, said in a statement. "The situation should be of the gravest concern to everyone since everyone will be affected by changes in the ability of the ocean to support life on Earth."
The findings go beyond even the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that preceded it by a week, which said that the ocean is bearing the brunt of global warming.

Daily life in the deep
In addition to the mysteries of the underwater world, viewers may find life inside Aquarius just as compelling. What happens when you pack six people who don't know each other well into a school-bus-size space for a month? Aquarius, the world's only operating undersea lab, is about 43 feet long and about 9 feet wide inside. There are six bunks, a shower and toilet, hot water, a refrigerator, a microwave, air conditioning, and an Internet connection. The longest mission Aquarius has hosted was 18 days, with a typical mission lasting about 10 days.
Cousteau has assembled a team of people with science and engineering backgrounds, three women and three men, ranging in age from 19 to 46. For most of his team, including Cousteau, it'll be a new experience living as saturation divers, enabling them to stay underwater for the length of the mission. The 1963 expedition in part was an early, successful effort in saturation diving -- a technique that allows divers to safely explore the deep for a much longer period of time compared with surface-based diving.

Drinking responsible for half of all UK's lost work phones

Here's a sobering fact: out of all the work smart phones in the UK that go missing, over half do so while the owner is out enjoying an alcoholic beverage. That's according to a report by cloud security firm Trend Micro.
Over a quarter (27 per cent) of smart phone users have had up to three work devices lost or stolen, with 52 per cent out drinking at the time. As if the hangover wasn't enough to deal with without having to explain to the boss how you lost your work mobile.
The report shows not only that cybercriminals are targeting mobiles, but also there's a "culture of carelessness" that us Brits have towards work devices.
The report surveyed 2,500 adults throughout the UK. It was conducted with help from the Centre for Creative and Social Technology (CAST) at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Vision Critical, a market research firm.
It also revealed that of UK workers who lost their work device, 26 per cent did so on the Tube, and 22 per cent in a bar (though we're not alone in this last one). 31 per cent of UK workers use Wi-Fi hotspots regularly, but 56 per cent say they 'never' or 'rarely' check how secure they are before doing so.
Unsurprisingly, we're much more careful with our own belongings. Just 11 per cent of respondents had lost their own smart phone. And 44 per cent are more concerned about losing their own content like photos and videos than the company's info. Just 3 per cent worried about losing corporate data.
It all adds up to a rather worrying picture of UK workers. Though I would argue the problem is with the companies themselves not communicating how important it is to not lose company data, and the ramifications for all concerned. Not to mention making sure their workers aren't disaffected, but that's another debate entirely.

BlackBerry Z10 Porsche Edition debuts at grand price

Harrods is selling the Blackberry Z10 Porsche Edition for more than 1,000 pounds.

 

 

Your BlackBerry Z10 might be all well and good, but it's not going to impress your oil-baron, airline-owning friends, is it? What you need is the Porsche P'9982 BlackBerry phone, which takes the internals of the Z10 and wraps it up in a Porsche-designed body. BlackBerry couldn't tell me the exact price, but it did say it'll cost well more than a grand.

The bulk of that money is, of course, going on the Porsche name, but you do at least get some good materials for your money. The body of the phone is constructed from stainless steel, while the glass-weave back panel is coated in "genuine Italian leather."
A special edition version with crocodile leather will also be available, but expect to pay even more for that one -- presumably because it's more dangerous to get the skin off the crocodile in the first place.
 Read more of "BlackBerry Z10 Porsche Edition is over £1,000 at Harrods" at Tech era.

BlackBerry Z10 Porsche Edition is over £1,000 at Harrods

Your BlackBerry Z10 might be all well and good, but it's not going to impress your oil-baron, airline-owning friends, is it? What you need is the Porsche P'9982 BlackBerry phone, which takes the internals of the Z10 and wraps it up in a Porsche-designed body. It's available in Harrods from 21 November for a cool £1,450.
The bulk of that money is of course going on the Porsche name, but you do at least get some good materials for your money. The body of the phone is constructed from stainless steel, while the glass-weave back panel is coated in "genuine Italian leather".
A special edition version with crocodile leather will also be available, but expect to pay even more for that one -- presumably because it's more dangerous to get the skin off the crocodile in the first place.
The metal slab at the top of the phone is engraved with the Porsche name, while the bottom is left blank -- although I reckon you could just scratch your own name in that space. It has a pretty aggressive, masculine design that won't appeal to everyone, but it's still more subtle than some of the outrageously expensive designs by luxury phone brand Vertu.
Design aside, the phone is much less imposing. It has the same internal specs as the Z10, including a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, a 4.3-inch display with 1,280x768-pixel resolution, the latest BlackBerry 10.2 software and an 1,800mAh battery. Not exactly brilliant specs for the money. It does at least support 4G.
If the cheap and cheerful Motorola Moto G doesn't float your boat with its £135 price tag, you can wander over to Harrods this week to pick up your fancy BlackBerry.

Do-it-yourself ghost hunting

"If you're looking for ghosts this Halloween, you don't need a Proton pack. A professional ghost hunter takes us to the reportedly haunted Brookdale Lodge and shows us some easily accessible gadgets you can use to search for paranormal activity."

Ghost hunters set up toys to try to lure spirits they believe haunt the abandoned Brookdale Lodge in California. 

A tea set, dolls, and a teddy bear set up at a table for a little girl. It would be sweet, if it wasn't in a dark, abandoned lodge filled with spider webs where a little girl named Sarah drowned in the late 1800s.
The toys were presumably laid out by someone trying to contact Sarah's ghost, which reportedly haunts the now-condemned Brookdale Lodge in Northern California's Santa Cruz mountains. In its heyday, the Brookdale Lodge played host to celebrities like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe and was a popular getaway for mobsters with its secret rooms and tunnels.
Now when you go inside, it's dark, dank, rundown, and eerie, with a definite chill in the air. It's the perfect place to get a demonstration of the technology ghost hunters use. Gloria Young, a self-described paranormal researcher, is our guide to things that go bump in the night.

"Throughout this particular building we know that people will hear glasses clink at night. There's always been voices," Young said. "In the bar, it's like a constant party."

 

Young uses a variety of electronics to hunt for evidence of paranormal activity.
"There are people trying to make equipment for ghost hunting, but because we don't know how to detect ghosts or how things work, they can only modify what we use and how we use it and what we can do with it," she said. "That's why we have such a vast array of stuff that is regular everyday stuff that you can buy on the shelf of your local electronics store."
Young showed off a so-called "spirit box," a modified AM/FM radio that quickly scans for radio frequencies. Young suggests asking questions and listening carefully for one-word answers amid the static. We gave it a try. See for yourself in this video.

Young also uses a $20 Geiger counter, which measures radiation. It usually clicks at regular intervals. She says irregular or frequent clicks could be interpreted as ghosts answering your questions. During our taped interview, the Geiger counter interrupted Young as she described a previous ghostly encounter.

 

 

She also employs electromagnetic detectors like a trifield meter, a rem pod, and a K-II to detect any entity that may be nearby. For video, she has a full spectrum handheld camera that she says picks up things the naked eye can't see.
Ghost hunters also use different devices that measure temperature, like thermal imagery cameras and non-contact thermometers. In this video, Young is explaining the relevance of temperature fluctuations, when something a little unexpected happens.

Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's something. Maybe it's easy to believe in spooky things when you're in a creepy, deserted, dark place looking for them.
Happy hunting. Happy Halloween.

'Doctor Who'/'Hunger Games' mashup is a bloody good time

"Thirteen Doctors. Only one can survive. What will happen when "Doctor Who" enters the "Hunger Games" arena"

The Doctor Games is brutal.

It's a simple premise. All the Doctors, including new Doctor Peter Capaldi and the War Doctor, are brought together in an outdoor arena. Only one Doctor will be allowed to leave in the Tardis. Welcome to the "The Doctor Games."
In this bizarre alternate world where both Mockingjays and the Master co-exist, the Daleks round up all the incarnations of the Doctor, deposit them in a forest clearing and, let them duke it out "Battle Royale"-style.

The weapons and supply cache in the middle of the arena is stocked with very Doctor-y items like an incredibly long scarf, sonic screwdrivers, jelly babies, a question-mark umbrella, a fez, and a laser gun. Of course, there's bottled water, too, in case the Time Lords get thirsty.
Before you watch the video, you should go ahead and place your bets on who you think the finalists will be.
Spoilers: the fourth Doctor takes one of his other incarnations out by snapping his neck with his scarf; the fifth Doctor's celery stick becomes a deadly weapon; and one of the Doctors gets both of his hearts forcibly removed.
I have to give kudos to the impressively accurate fourth Doctor costume, right down to the checks on the shirt. In fact, all of the Doctors are extremely well-costumed.
The parody video promotes itself as "the motion picture event of all time and space." The tagline reads, "No regenerations and no timey-wimey." Just be sure you're cool with lots of spurting fake blood before you hit play.

Assemble the $99 Kano DIY computer in minutes

"With more than $460,000 raised from a Kickstarter campaign, Kano looks set to spark computer education and DIY chops among kids."

The $99 Pi-powered Kano computer can be assembled by kids.

(Credit: Kickstarter)

Can computers, and even coding, be as simple and fun as Lego?
Yes, says the London-based group behind Kano, a $99 DIY computer that's designed to provide a sense of play and exploration for what can sometimes seem like just a black box.
Since its debut on Kickstarter earlier this week, the concept has raised more than $460,000, far beyond its funding goal of $100,000. What's so exciting?
Available for $99 for early backers, the Kano kit comes with a Raspberry Pi Model B board, DIY speaker, keyboard, cabling, instructions, and decorative materials like stickers. It connects to a monitor, which is of course not included.

After assembling it (which seems to take less than half an hour), users can create games like Pong and Snake, build the speaker, and modify Minecraft using Kano OS, a Linux-based programming interface.
Kano is designed to challenge closed computer devices and "to start creating with technology -- not just consuming it," the campaign page says.
The instruction books are available so far in English, Spanish, Arabic, and Mandarin, with more languages on the way since Kano is trying to be a global grassroots computing project.
Check out the vid below and see more details about Kano here.

"What's ahead for the Xbox One? A fast-paced montage from Microsoft offers a glimpse at upcoming games destined for the new console."

Microsoft montage reveals future Xbox One games

What's ahead for the Xbox One? A fast-paced montage from Microsoft offers a glimpse at upcoming games destined for the new console.

by Lance Whitney

November 22, 2013 5:41 AM PST

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Xbox One gamers can peek into their future via a new Microsoft video.
A lengthy clip appropriately called "Future Xbox One Games Montage" serves up quick teasers of a range of titles slated for the gaming console. So what's in store?
Xbox One owners will be able to dive into Halo, Watch Dogs, Tom Clancy's The Division, Quantum Break, Sunset Overdrive, Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare, Kinect Sports Rivals, Project Spark, Ultimate Fighting Championship, Fable Legends, Final Fantasy XV, The Elder Scrolls, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Dying Light, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Titanfall.
Some of the games will also be available for the Xbox 360 and Windows PCs, but most will be exclusive to the Xbox One, at least in Microsoft's gaming world. Microsoft needs a strong lineup of titles to get gamers exciting about the new console, especially since the Xbox One can't play Xbox 360 games.