Google Wave is another grab for the Holy Grail of collaborative computing. But, will it be more successful than previous attempts?

Whenever you see something compared to Lotus Notes, as Google Wave has been, you know to expect an uphill slog. Add a comparison to Microsoft Groove, which I have not seen but seems reasonable, and you can expect deep trouble.

The U.S. has relaxed its grip on the Internet, thanks to a new agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Widely hailed as an internationalization of Internet governance, the move could also make it more likely consumers will see a huge increase in Global Top-Level Domains (gTLDs).

Until now, ICANN has largely been a creature of the U.S. Department of Commerce and has sometimes been criticized as a result. The new agreement between ICANN and the U.S. creates a new international management scheme, under which the U.S. has only a single seat at the negotiating table.

As popular as it is to pick on AT&T, it easy is to forget the company occasionally does something right. The addition of multimedia messaging is an example.

OK, so AT&T really should have had MMS available when the iPhone 3GS shipped this summer. We are also still waiting for tethering to be available legally from AT&T.

Happy birthday, Google, but all this messing with your logo is just a little too precious, don't you think? And maybe the two ones in Goog11e should have been birthday candles?

I am all for, as one of my editors described it, "quirky and interesting." I liked the Morse code logo and the telescopes, but a series of flying saucers and crop circles? Sci-fi game references? I know what those referred to and couldn't care less. Waste of time and wonder.

It seems like just the other day when Apple announced its 1 billionth App Store download, and today they have crossed 2 billion. Are there any reasons to buy a smartphone that is not from Apple?

Give Google a break: Statistics show its reliability to actually be very good. It's the media that makes a big deal of Gmail and Gnews outages, not users.

That is what several readers told me in response to yesterday's post concerning recent problems with the two services. Their authors have a point: The actual amount of downtime is pretty small.

Google keeps telling us its applications are business ready, but again this morning we have learned otherwise, thanks to another Gmail outage. OK, it has been a bad week, but a Google News outage on Tuesday, followed by a Gmail failure today is just too much to bear.

I know all the excuses, from how huge demand makes Google a "victim of its own success" to "what do you expect for free?" Nevertheless, they are just excuses.

Google's new Sidewiki web annotation feature doesn't allow anonymous commenting, and that is an excellent thing. The Web has been held hostage by anonymous comments for far too long. But, Google is also treating other peoples' content as its own, and that's bad.

Before angry readers respond, let me say that anonymous comments are sometimes necessary. There are valid reasons for watchdogs and others to protect their identities from potential reprisals.

A new accounting rule, supported by Apple and others, could mislead the investing public. If you didn't know better, financial results showing huge revenue spikes would seem quite impressive.

But, what if the company's revenue hadn't actually changed?

Microsoft is working on a new tablet PC, codenamed "Courier." It could be here soon or might be a year or more away. And, no, Microsoft probably doesn't much care what Apple does.

Gizmodo has revealed the existence of a dual-screen prototype Microsoft tablet computer, codenamed "Courier." Their illustration shows it opening like a book and using a stylus for input and control. The dual screens, described as roughly 7-inches in size, are actually multitouch and work with fingers and also accept gestures.

An industry group says Palm's Pre shouldn't pretend to be something it isn't, namely an Apple product.

The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), acting on a complaint by Palm that Apple had disabled automatic Pre-to-iTunes synchronization, responded with a rebuke to Palm. At issue is something called a "USB Vendor ID" that identifies--or is supposed to--the manufacturer of a USB device.

Tuesday's Google News outage began earlier than the search giant admits, or may even know. Officially, Gnews was down beginning at approximately 12:25 P.M. Pacific Time and lasting "roughly two hours," according to Reuters.

All the company said about Monday's failure is that "many users" had difficulty accessing the site during that time. Earlier in the month, Google Mail was unavailable to a majority of its users for more than an hour. That outage was blamed on router failure.

Published reports that iPhone applications are not licensed for business use appear to be untrue, at least for customers of Apple's U.S. App Store.

A blog site, "The Daily Tech," posted an item earlier today stating that iPhone apps sold in Sweden and the U.K. are licensed for "personal, non-commercial" use only. While I have not checked those countries' Apple Terms of Service, the U.S. version contains no such language in its App Store section.

A privacy researcher is urging Netflix to cancel its next research contest, before it results in potentially millions of dollars in damages for invasion of its customers' privacy.

"Netflix should cancel this new, irresponsible contest," Paul Ohm wrote in a blog affiliated with Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy.

During the Cold War, other totalitarian states kept their citizens behind walls, but if Apple Store employees want to defect to Microsoft, why not?

My pal, Mac pundit Jim Dalrymple quotes people who don't want to incur Apple's wrath, reporting that Microsoft is attempting to woo managers of Apple's stores to its own fledgling retail venture.

Wasn't it inevitable that the Dell and Perot names would be married someday? Here are two Texan giants, leaders of their technology generations, doing "bidness" together for years, and finally tying the knot.

As a Texan who grew up writing about both the Perot family, real Dallas legends, and Michael Dell, whom I first interviewed when his company was still called PC's Limited, I consider the pairing only natural.

The FCC's new "Net Neutrality" proposal, which would prevent carriers from slowing or blocking Internet traffic as they see fit, is a huge win for entrepreneurs and consumers, and a major setback for telecom giants such as AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast.

The new rules, proposed this morning by Chairman Julius Genachowski, would prohibit discrimination among applications and users on the nation's telecommunications, wireless, and cable Internet services. A related proposal would require carriers to make their network management practices public.

Steve Jobs has reportedly taken personal charge of the forthcoming Apple tablet, working to get the details right while aiming for a 2010 launch. Meanwhile, overtime in the Apple TV group, plus last week's price cut, suggest a new model could be here soon.

I should say the "presumably" forthcoming Apple tablet, which sources inside Apple say is getting their Maximum Leader's personal and special attention. Jobs apparently sees the device as too important to have a less-than-exciting launch, so it will miss the holidays and launch in 2010. Presumably not at MacWorld.

Five state attorneys general have joined the opposition to the Google Books settlement, but what the deal means to readers isn't clear. Access to more books sounds great, but will it be?

The five AGs, from Missouri, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Washington, have varied reasons for their opposition, ranging from anti-monopoly to how money owed missing authors should be handled. The attorneys general are relatively late arrivals to the case, which already involves the U.S. Justice Department and others. A hearing will be held Oct. 7.

A leading financial analyst says sales of Palm's Pre smart phone are "not off to the races" and predicts quarterly sales will decline sharply. The company, meanwhile, announced it will no longer develop for Windows Mobile.

Needham & Co. analyst Charlie Wolf is no enemy of Palm, yet he predicts that quarterly Pre sales of 600,000 units in the August quarter will fall to 500,000 in the current quarter, ending in November.

Google's purchase of reCAPTCHA is hailed as win-win for users and the search giant. Not so much for critics of the search giant's controversial book scanning project, which the purchase bolsters.

In the deal, Google gets crowdsourced help for its massive book scanning projects. Users get access to the scanned printed material, though under what terms remains the subject of considerable controversy.

Google is the early winner in a drive to turn the U.S. government into a major user of cloud-based applications. White House CIO Vivek Kundra says his new Apps.gov cloud initiative will save money and make applications easier for federal agencies to purchase.

The new site links government purchasers to online applications from Google, Salesforce.com, and other companies, which they can purchase online.

Google's newest release of its Chrome browser fairly begs the question: Who cares about browsers anymore? Not specifically Chrome, but any browser.

Chrome sports some new features and is supposed to be faster, as our First Look details, but who really cares besides the browser-obsessed?

Unpatched client software and vulnerable Internet-facing web sites are the most serious cyber security risks for business. Lesser threats include operating system holes and a rising number of zero-day vulnerabilities, according to a new study.

A leading security education organization, the SANS Institute, has released a new report describing "The Top Cyber Security Risks." It may be read for free (no registration required). Here are its key findings, quoted from the executive summary:

It is hard to think of a valid reason for Microsoft's new Zune HD media player to exist. Not that it isn't feature, spec and price competitive with Apple's iPod, it's just that being competitive isn't enough.

Microsoft needs a decisive win across the field of the media player battle and has little hope of achieving one. Not in the next few years.

If you know what something looks like, but don't know what to call it--a dog breed, for example--the new Bing Visual Search beta is ready and able to help. Yes, a picture really can be worth a thousand words.

The dog breed example is a pretty good one and part of Bing's Visual Search Gallery. There I learned that the cute dog in the Target ads is a Bull Terrier (no "Pit"), just like our friend Spud Mackenzie of beer ads fame. Bing provided a collection of links after I clicked on the breed picture in the gallery and that is where I found the Wikipedia entry used in my own Bull Terrier link (above).

Google's new Fast Flip news-er interface is a bit of a puzzle. It doesn't seem very fast and also doesn't flip pages, but slides them across the screen.

I want to like anything Google does that makes life easier for readers, but Fast Flip can make news harder to access, not easier. Your experience may vary.

Google's experimental Fast Flip is a new way to consume online news, but not a better one. It falls into the trap of trying to make a computer imitate real-life. Rarely does this have a happy ending.

Fast Flip tries to make online news more like reading a newspaper or magazine, giving users pages to flip or slide through. (See it here).

Apple TV, which has so far been a minor failure, will get a boost from both the new iTunes LP format and a $100 price cut. However, you may want to hold off on that purchase for an expected new model.

Some had thought the new Apple TV would debut as part of the 09/09/09 "Only rock and roll" event. Indeed, with the new iTunes LP, enhanced online music product, and additional DVD content becoming available, a new Apple TV would have been a fine addition to the event.

Motorola's new CLIQ, seems like a great new phone, ripe for tailoring to specific user segments. Looking at the specs and watching a demo, shows Motorola has done pretty much everything right.

However, it is not a great enough phone (just ask Tony Bradley) to dramatically change Motorola's sagging cellular fortunes. That will take a whole family of new products, built around the CLIQ platform but featuring a different software load.

802.11n is the poster child for a standards process gone wrong. Seven years after it began and at least two years after 802.11 "draft" devices arrived, the IEEE has finally adopted a final standard for faster, stronger, more secure wireless.

Ideally, standards arrive before the products that implement them. However, the IEEE process moved so slowly that vendors adopted a draft standard and started manufacturing hardware. After a few little glitches, the hardware became compatible and many of us have--for years--been running multivendor 802.11n networks despite the lack of an approved standard.

Forget the new Nano, or the reinvention of the LP record, Apple's two biggest announcements this week were features hidden inside iTunes 9. We finally get to share iTunes music between computers and have new control over iPhone menus.

Previously, moving iTunes music around has required a separate application, such as Senuti.

Sprint's new $69.99 unlimited "mobile-to-mobile" wireless plan could start a wave of price cutting if AT&T and Verizon feel the need to respond. The plan, being announced today, knocks roughly a third off Sprint's current pricing.

Called "Any Mobile, Anytime" the unlimited service will include voice, data, text, e-mail, GPS navigation, and sending videos and images from one mobile phone to another. Perhaps, Sprint should have called its plan "The Works."

Chipmaker AMD wants to change how PCs are purchased, replacing tech jargon with a simple description of what a particular computer should be used for. If successful, AMD will put the focus on users instead of what's inside their computer.

By dividing what it says are now 22 categories into four, the company hopes customers will find it easier to buy AMD computers than those using chips from rival Intel Corp.

How did Palm manage to schedule its Pixi handset announcement for the same day as Steve Jobs' triumphant return? It's not like Palm didn't know Apple's date, but they went ahead anyway and got trounced, once again.

That makes Palm two-for-two in having its introductions overshadowed by Apple's. You'd think someone would have their office packed by now. But, since this must have been approved at the very top of Palm, well, you know.

Google today announced it has increased the size of the search box that appears on its home and results pages, giving users more space to enter their queries.

"Although this is a very simple idea and an even simpler change, we're excited about it," said Google VP Marissa Mayer in a blog post announcing the change. The company said the change "s-u-p-e-r-sizes" the search box, but users can be the judge.

With only hours to go, here are last-minute predications for this morning's Apple event: It will be a disappointment.

Predictions:

Palm has introduced a smaller, cheaper handset, called the "Pixi," due to arrive in time for holidays buyers. The new handset has a smaller touch screen than the Pre, an exposed QWERTY keyboard, and a two-megapixel camera.

The new webOS device was introduced Tuesday in a post to the company's blog. Unlike the Pre, introduced in June, the Pixi was not the topic of wide speculation--or excitement--before its introduction.

Much is being made of supposed improvements to Apple's App Store, but the approval of a music service called Spotify only raises more questions. And the recent approval of Loopt was a major step backward even Phil Schiller may be unable to fix.

Spotify is a subscription music service that gives users access to a library of 4 million songs for a monthly fee. Some see this as a major competitor to Apple's iTunes store and are surprised the application was approved.

Good news for readers: Asus plans to shake-up the e-reader market. The company that pioneered the netbook says it plans a dual-screen e-reader that could sell for as little as $164.

The Times of London reports on what it describes as "the world's cheapest digital reader."

If you believe technology is supposed to become less expensive over time, Nokia has news for you: Prices for the company’s newest products, introduced last week, are simply shocking.

Still, there is a bit of illusion at work here. The prices quoted are for unlocked phones and don't reflect subsidies paid by U.S. cellular carriers.

Apple and AT&T are rumored to be working on new, carrier-specific features intended to please unhappy iPhone customers. The features are being seen as the beleaguered carrier's bid to improve customer satisfaction before another carrier arrives on the iPhone scene.

Apple Insider is reporting this morning that two new features are under development:

There are things that should be left enough alone and Amazon's Orwellian removal of the book "Nineteen Eighty-Four" from Kindle e-readers is one of them. Orwell would have gotten a kick out of this, yet Amazon seems to miss the humor in it.

You remember the story: Amazon thought it had digital rights necessary to offer George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and "Animal Farm" to users of its Kindle e-reader. When it turned out Amazon didn't have the rights, it without warning simply removed the books from user accounts and refunded their money.

Before a graphic anti-texting video exploded onto the Internet, there was an equally graphic film intended to sell seatbelt use U.K. to teens. "No Seatbelt, No Excuse" is very similar, only better.

The controversial anti-texting film has been viewed more than 6 million times since being posted last month. The earlier film deserves the same success.

Microsoft is asking people to hold parties in their homes to celebrate the launch of Windows 7. Does this raise anticipation to a fever pitch? Well, no.

There is a site called houseparty.com, easily one of the worst ideas I have ever stumbled across, where people can sign-up to hold parties to support commercial products.

Microsoft has won a delay of a Texas court's order that would have stopped sales of Microsoft Word in mid-October. The appeals court ruling is a setback for the trial judge in the controversial case, in which Microsoft was sued for patent violation by a small Canadian firm.

Under the original ruling, handed down Aug. 12 by a U.S. District Court in East Texas, Microsoft was also ordered to pay $290 million in damages to the plaintiff, i4i, in a dispute over Microsoft's use of XML in Word 2003 and 2007.

What have we learned from Google's latest outage? That 99.9 percent uptime doesn't matter during the other one-tenth of one percent.

Yesterday's outage was not Google's first. They don't happen very often, but they do happen often enough that anyone seriously considering Google for cloud computing ought to think again.

Microsoft is offering a free 90-day trial version of Windows 7 Enterprise, the Windows Vista successor due Oct. 22. But there's a catch.

Once the 90-day trial ends, users who want to continue using the OS will have to purchase a copy and perform a clean install, including drivers and applications. And, the trial is really intended for IT Pros who, for some reason, don't already have access to the new OS.

Nokia's new Booklet 3G is an innovative netbook that highlights why Intel and Microsoft should stop hobbling netbook innovation. It also points the way for cellular carriers to become more involved in selling wireless data services.

The 2-cm thick Booklet 3G, with an amazing 12-hours of battery life (promised) is about as cutting-edge as a netbook can get. It is being shown this week at the Nokia World 09 event in Stuttgart, Germany.