Business currents

I've never bought into the "Sun Microsystems is toast" thesis that you often hear tossed around at industry get-togethers. Even in a deepening recession, this is a company with ample resources and a wealth of talented developers. But with some of the hottest development action now taking place on mobile phone platforms, how relevant is Java going to be to the future tech conversation?

Earlier today, my colleague Stephen Shankland wrote about the debut of JavaFX, a Sun programming language that's supposed to be easier to use than Java. In his story, he quoted Sun CEO … Read more

So let's see whether I've got this straight. A white collar crook responsible for the biggest fraud in U.S. corporate history wants a presidential pardon. Meanwhile, a head case of a footballer who ran afoul of my native city's handgun laws may very well receive a mandatory prison sentence.

Jupiter is definitely not aligned with Mars.

By now, you're doubtless familiar with the public travail of one Plaxico Burress, the star receiver for (my beloved) New York Giants, who was arraigned for criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. Last week, Burress was … Read more

More than a year ago, Pasadena Now's editor and publisher, James Macpherson, caused a minor media stir after hiring a couple of reporters in India to write up the Webcast meetings of the local city council for his online newspaper

In the year-plus since his decision, many of Macpherson's peers have had an increasingly hard time of it. (In a speech delivered earlier this month, Rupert Murdoch warned of even worse times ahead -- in no small part because of the emergence of the Internet and the haphazard way in which publishers have responded to the shift in … Read more

So much has been written about Tesla Motors and its Roadster electric sports car that I fully expected a letdown.

Tell you the truth, if I were personally shelling out $109,000 for one of these babies, I might be pickier about leg room or noise levels or any of the other myriad questions that go through a potential car buyer's mind before signing on the line which is dotted.

But at the risk of gushing, I'm back to report that the Tesla Roadster is a pure adrenaline thrill.

The specs say that the vehicle accelerates from 0 … Read more

Mayors representing the Bay Area's three largest cities pledged Thursday they would work together to transform the region into the country's "electric vehicle capital."

At the same time,the global electric transportation company headed by Shai Agassi, Better Place, Announced plans to enter the U.S. market, beginning here.

The news warms this die-hard greenie's ecologically correct cockles. But can we dispense already with the pipe dream that the electric revolution will be brought to a filling station near you, courtesy of the far-sighted policies of local leadership?

That's not to say that government … Read more

Some marketing genius decided it would be a splendid idea to plaster the subway station I arrive at in the morning with posters promoting Microsoft's "I'm a PC" campaign. So twice a day, five days a week, I'm face to face with one of the worst advertising spots in Madison Avenue's history.

Then when I get home and turn on the television, the same ads--this time in full motion color with sound--are all over the airwaves.

Get me an ice pick so I can drive it between my eyeballs and get it over … Read more

Dell plans to preload computers with more subscription-based functions. The idea: give IT another, presumably less expensive way to access a myriad of systems management functions through the "cloud."

The details are still being worked over but the idea would involve a range of high-end services delivered through the cloud, like remote infrastructure management, or the ability to monitor and proactively deal with malfunctioning assets on a computer network.

"We think that we've sorted through most of those issues. It will work in some customer segments and not in others," said Stephen Schuckenbrock, Dell's … Read more

Internet Explorer dominates the Web browser market, but are that many people so in love with it? Meanwhile, the Flash player dominates its segment because lots of people find it to be a terrific. So might Adobe one day decide that the next logical step is to try its hand at building its own Web browser?

Turns out that's not such a crazy idea. Following the completion of Adobe's acquisition of Macromedia in 2005, the company's brass actually toyed with the idea.

"We looked at making our own browser," said Adobe's chief technology officer, … Read more

Credit John Thompson for having impeccable timing. Of course, the timing of his resignation announcement as chief executive officer from Symantec was purely coincidental, falling just one day before Microsoft dropped an A-bomb on the antivirus security market. But better lucky than good.

Microsoft's move to kill its Windows Live OneCare PC care and security suite and replace it with free consumer anti-malware software is a big deal for the likes of Symantec, McAfee, and the other antivirus suppliers (though nobody's going to say that on the record). Competing against free is always a tough sell, and this … Read more