Ad: Manage updates with the Download App
  • CNET
  • All technology posts

technology

Who comes up with tech marketing breakthroughs?

Let's face it, high-tech is not known for its stellar marketing.

Sure, there's Dennis Carter's Intel Inside branding campaign, Steve Jobs' iMac, iPod, iPhone, iWhatever, and Michael Dell's direct-marketing concept. Aside from the obvious characters, even folks in the business--like me--have a hard time naming great high-tech marketers.

That's because much of high-tech marketing happens behind the scenes. Like Broadcom somehow managing to nail almost every market it enters, Google turning a great search engine into virtually limitless ad revenue, or Intel defining a next-generation microprocessor four years in advance of its launch.

That's a whole lot different from coming up with an ad campaign to sell beer or batteries.

You see, high-tech marketing is so interwoven with the technology that it's often unclear where the technology ends and the marketing begins. As we discussed in a prior post, marketing's job is to turn technology into successful products. But that statement doesn't imply or require that the transition from technology to product is either distinct or simple. Therein lies the rub.… Read more

Why you need to take risks

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 4 of the top 10 and 9 of the top 25 in-demand jobs over the next ten years are in technology fields. We're talking software engineers, engineering managers, IT managers, network and systems analysts and administrators, all kinds of technology jobs.

It's hard to argue with the fed's data. Bubble and burst cycles aside, technology fields have been good to us all, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. That means that a good chunk of CNET's audience probably won't be hurting for employment for … Read more

Flexible, colorful solar cells coming next year

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Konarka Technologies is a solar company that specializes in organic photovoltaics, solar cells made from plastics.

Those cells are not as efficient or long-lasting as silicon, which is used in most rooftop solar panels. But they are lighter, flexible and can be integrated into a range of products, from consumer electronics to fibers. Konarka has even suggested putting its plastic on soft drink bottles in stores for advertising.

So when will we start to see this new generation of consumer-friendly solar cells?

Konarka is now in commercial prototyping its solar cells and expects to have products that use … Read more

What kind of information technology user are you?

Do you cringe when your cell phone rings? Do you suffer from withdrawal when you can't check your Blackberry? Do you rush to post your vacation video to your Web site?

Answer a few questions to see where you fit in the typology of information and communication technology users developed by the Pew Internet Project.

Take the Test

New computers may eliminate need for nuclear tests

The government will spend $26 million on high-end computers to cut costs and standardize systems among the three U.S. labs charged with ensuring the safety and reliability of the nation's aging nuclear stockpile.

The Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) awarded the multimillion-dollar contract to Milpitas, Calif.-based Appro to supply Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories with 438 teraflop high-performance computing clusters based on the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor. To date, each of these labs had used its own combination of computer systems, which were not always compatible with the others.

"This … Read more

Roboticists to ride wave of power, chip and sensor improvements

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The Boston area has become a leading robotics hub, with a larger cluster of related companies than any other area in the U.S., according to a group of panelists assembled for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Enterprise Forum on Robotics Wednesday night.

The group, which consisted of executives from ABB Robotics, Brooks Automation, iRobot, Kiva Systems, North End Technologies and Vecna Technologies, said robotics companies are drawn to the university-rich New England area because of their unique need for highly educated employees from a multitude of disciplines.

While there are some great robots, the panelists said, they … Read more

Ticket brokers, robots, and the free market

Both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal posted stories this weekend about ticket brokers.

Ticketmaster has sued a Pittsburgh-based company, RMG Technologies, for providing software that allegedly enables brokers to bypass Ticketmaster's online security provisions and snap up all the good tickets minutes after they go on sale. Brokers then turn around and sell these tickets for a hefty profit on sites like StubHub or Craigslist. Both stories quote Chris Kovach, a former broker who was originally named in Ticketmaster's suit, but settled with the company. He claims that he used RMG's software to buy … Read more

Make green tech, not green legislation

This may be a non sequitur for the Train Wreck blog, but this stuff drives me nuts, and I can't resist ranting about it.

Check out Title 24, Part 6, of the California Code of Regulations: California's Energy Efficiency Standards for Residential and Nonresidential Buildings. On second thought, don't bother. Reading that garbage will fry your brain.

I don't know how many zillions of pages this building code is, but the latest hundred pages or so have strict requirements for new home lighting. Every room in the house, and outdoors as well, has been blessed with specific requirements for high-efficiency lighting and motion sensors.

That's not all, mind you. There are also requirements for HVAC (heating ventilating air conditioning), water heating, insulation, and believe it or not, how much window area a house can have.

And all this stuff adds cost. No big deal, right? It's not as if building a house in California is expensive or anything.

OK, fine, whatever. So legislatures and lawyers have to do something with their time, right? Well, it's not that simple. You know what really happens? Get this. The electrician installs this stuff, the inspector signs off on it, and then the electrician swaps it all out for the stuff the homeowner wanted to begin with.… Read more

Mitt Romney's communist connection

Most Americans probably are not intimately familiar with Huawei (pronounced "Wa-way," as if Gilda Radner of Saturday Night Live fame were asked to pronounce the name). The company's founder, Ren Zhengfei is a former officer of the People's Liberation Army.

Tough to know what to make of that. When it comes to speaking with the press, Ren is a regular Greta Garbo. A mini-profile Forbes ran three years ago noted that many of Huawei's major customers are state-run businesses in China. And while Ren owns 1 percent of the company, the rest belongs to an … Read more