Technology Futures

I probably need to start a whole new category of news items that just include iPod accessories. In fact, there are whole blogs devoted to just that topic. Here is the latest indication that the iPod continues to have continued influence on the whole economy. A company has designed winter gloves with special fingertips to make it easier to use iPod controls with the gloves on. The iGloves could be a perfect stocking stuffer.

A recent analysis of credit card purchases suggests that music lovers hate digital rights management (DRM), the software that tries to limit what we can do with our music and videos. The study shows that sales of digitally-protected music is dropping while online sales of CDs is increasing by comparison--meaning that we are still buying music, but prefer CDs that we can rip without limitations.

But this article, like so many others about the music industry, ignores what I think is the elephant in the room--that there is a shortage of good music to buy, and has been for years. As just one example of the completely backward thinking of the music companies, they are lobbying the online music sites like iTunes to increase the percentage of royalties paid to the music companies and decrease the amount paid to artists--even though the record company cost of distribution is essentially zero for digital downloads. That's just crazy; ultimately, if artists don't have some financial incentive to create new music, the record companies will have nothing to sell.

I have never seen an industry so determined to hate and vilify its own customers. Music sales are down, so it must be that customers are crooks--it could not possibly have anything to do with the quality of the music. Everybody I know, young and old, complains bitterly about the lack of new and interesting music, but it must be our fault for not buying the dreck that passes for popular music. It could not possibly be incompetent record companies. Music is not going away; music is something that is part of our DNA. Every culture in the world has a rich musical tradition, so despite the best (worst) efforts of the record companies to kill music, that won't happen. But one thing that could die is the current music and marketing distribution model. And that might be all for the good.

This short article talks about the Google/Microsoft war, and suggests that Google may be winning. The theory is that Microsoft is way behind Google in being able to deliver Web-enabled applications. The author points to Google's still fledgling word processing and spreadsheet applications that run via the Web.

I am not so sure. Vista is going to be a very painful upgrade, and the high cost may drive a few more people to look at the Mac and Linux as alternatives, but Microsoft makes a lot of money in the corporate and business environment, and very few serious businesses are going to try to save a few bucks by using Google's free or low fee Web apps. Are you willing to store all your company secrets and financial information on a Google server that you do not control? It is not a likely scenario. Microsoft has the deep pockets to play a long game of catch up with Google, and another flawed assumption here is that Google is doing everything right. Google has already had several flops, and it still has been unable to significantly improve its search engine, despite the long lead it has had over competitors. This will remain an interesting horse race for a long time.

In a widely reported story, a Danish study indicates a no more than normal incidence of cancer among cell phone users. Unlike many other studies, this one involved hundreds of thousands of people--a number large enough to make it statistically reliable. Researchers caution that the we still don't have enough long term data to know for sure that cellphones are completely safe. There is widespread agreement that cellphone and cordless phone frequencies in the gigahertz range do cause measurable changes in cell activity. What we don't know is whether or not this causes health problems. In the meantime, I'll continue to use a wired headset as much as possible (Bluetooth wireless headsets use microwave frequencies, so they are not an improvement).