ZDNet Blogs

Arguing About the Collaboration Toolkit: Cisco's Enterprise Collaboration Platform

Oliver Marks — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:27:21 PST

In the aftermath of last week's San Francisco Enterprise 2.0 conference there's been some lively debate about what constitutes '2.0', including some great comments on my previous post. Meanwhile Cisco have literally just announced their Enterprise Collaboration Platform, which will be broad set of new tools for instant messaging, e-mail, social networking, videoconferencing, document and video sharing. John Chambers will present Cisco’s Vision for Collaboration and 'its power to transform business and the future of work' online on the 10th at the 'Cisco Collaboration Summit'. More on these new developments, which appear to go head to head with Microsoft's (Live Meeting, Exchange messaging) and IBM's enterprise collaboration tools when we've had a chance to digest the details this week....

Laser-powered 'space elevator' wins $900,000 NASA prize

Chris Jablonski — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:29:19 PST

LaserMotive, a Seattle area company specializing in laser power beaming, has claimed a $900,000 prize with their photovoltaic-powered machine that has climbed nearly 3,000 feet (1 km) at an average speed greater than 2 meters per second, or just over four minutes.

Why aren't students pushing paperless?

Christopher Dawson — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:20:04 PST

Why aren't our students driving us towards the paperless ideal? A pat answer would be that we simply haven't enabled them to work without paper. However, I think the real answer is quite a bit more complicated than that.

Cisco unveils collaboration, e-mail and social tools for the enterprise

Sam Diaz — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:01:49 PST

Cisco announces new collaboration tools that better integrate video, as well as new Web mail hosting service.

In Smartphone Wars, Darwinism Triumphs Over Intelligent Design

Jason Perlow — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:17:10 PST

With the release of the Verizon Droid, the smartphone market now has two apex predators with advanced, feature rich mobile embedded operating systems. There's no room for smaller or less evolved players, and survival of the fittest in the war of the handsets may very well mean industry and carrier consolidation.

ZEROlab to measure carbon footprints

Harry Fuller — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:30:36 PST

ZEROlab to measure carbon footprints for businesses and public agencies.

Worm inflicts Rick Astley wallpaper on jailbroken iPhones

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:20:53 PST

The first worm targeting Apple's iPhone is alive and spreading in the wild. But most iPhone owners need not worry about it.

Coming Soon: Free video conferencing from Google

Garett Rogers — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:21:34 PST

According to Rishi Chandra (a Google Apps product manager) who talked to SFGate, Google is set to roll out their first update in a long line of updates that will include multi-user video conferencing. The video conferencing will be rolled out soon -- the rest of their plan will be executed within the next 12 months. "This [current Gmail capability] is the first step in a much broader set of features we hope to roll out over the next six to 12 months around video [and voice] chat capabilities," said Rishi Chandra, a Google Apps product manager. "It's a great opportunity for us to push that space along." Integrating video conferencing across many Google apps, like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google...

Zune HD firmware 4.3 adds predictive text and desktop mode

Matthew Miller — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:02:24 PST

I was messing around with adding devices to my GDGT list today and discovered this discussion about new Zune HD firmware. I then fired up my MSI Wind with Zune desktop software, connected my Zune HD and walked through the 4.1 (191) upgrade. A couple of the key upgrades include a much faster web browser, desktop or mobile controls in the browser and predictive text support with the keyboard.

TiVo readying 802.11n Wi-Fi adapter?

Sean Portnoy — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:18:49 PST

It's been a tough slog for TiVo, whose once-innovative DVR ecosystem has been co-opted by cable companies' own DVR services. (Though some offer the TiVo interface for an additional charge.) The company and its devices still have their champions, but it's difficult to achieve mass success when buyers have to pony up a minimum of $149.99 (for a new standard-definitio Series 2 DVR) and a monthly fee, instead of just paying a few bucks a month for an HD DVR box from their cable provider. One of the many things TiVo offers that cable boxes do not (yet) is Wi-Fi capability, which you can add via a $60 802.11g adapter. Among other things, it allows you to connect two TiVos...