Carl Weinschenk

Most of the drama this week focused on Washington, D.C., where Democrats and Republicans are jockeying with the politics of funding the government and, beyond that, dealing with the debt limit. If the government does close down, the impact on the Federal Communications Commission will become an issue for the telecommunications and IT industries. In […]

Tablets by the Numbers CNET has an interesting and melancholy story about the transition of Lloyd’s List to an all-digital format. It’s unfortunate because Lloyd’s List, which follows the international shipping trade, is the oldest newspaper in the world. It was launched in 1734 by postings on the wall of a London coffee shop. One […]

The app way of getting things done, for the PC as well as mobile device user, clearly is the future. The breadth of apps available is mind-boggling and growing more so by the day. Consumer apps are, of course, front and center. The enterprise app marketplace sector is a bit more complex. We have general […]

The shortcomings of the cyber security of the grid are a latent nightmare that hangs over society. The seeming impact of a successful attack would be significant, even catastrophic. At the same time, there hasn’t seemed to be too much overt reaction from the government or the utility sector. It’s a broad and amorphous category, […]

Top Seven Features of iOS 7 Last week, Apple released a significant new version of the iOS operating system. The first area of focus for observers was what new features iOS 7 offered and how they affected the basic operation of devices. The second item for consideration in such circumstances is the impact on the […]

Mobile Market Continues to Grow by Leaps and Bounds It was a rather quiet week—not one huge piece of news, such as Microsoft agreeing to acquire Nokia’s phone business—came up. But, as usual, a good deal of interesting items and commentary could be found. Here are some highlights from this week’s data and telecom news. […]

Increase Customer Loyalty Through Mobile Technology Electronic wallets, as the name implies, involve the fairly simple task of securely exchanging small bits of information over the short distance from the purchaser to the retailer. Services to do this are rolling out. However, two issues are slowing things down: There is less unanimity now than before […]

The Mobile Revolution…Starting with the Apple App Store Many sites are reporting that today is the day that many iPad and iPhone users can upgrade to iOS 7. Naturally, much of the reporting at this point focuses on what the new iteration of the operating system offers. Tech Radar says that the iOS 7 update […]

Interest in Software-Defined Networking Rising Sharply Like most big ideas, the simple explanation of software-defined networks (SDNs) is compelling. In current networks, the intelligence that controls where data is sent and the gear that actually sends it are intermingled. This is far less practical than dividing the two tasks and putting the control element at […]

There is a great quote from Mahatma Gandhi that, perhaps not surprisingly, is most often used in the United States by long shot political candidates: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Gandhi’s quote is very relevant to the news that IDC for the first time […]

The Evolution of Mobile: A Cultural Game Changer It didn’t feel much like fall when the temperature passed the 90 degree mark this week in New York, but things seem to be settling down. And, technically, autumn doesn’t start for another week or so. In any case, the IT and telecom news and commentary remains […]

It’s hard to pick up a newspaper–if, indeed, anyone does that anymore–watch television or visit a news site without running into the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare. The interest, especially among those who don’t like it, is peaking as the opening of the exchanges in which people will be able to shop for health […]