Peter Coffee

Few things are more dangerous than data that doesnt know its limitations. When data runs around with no idea of how it should (or shouldnt) be used, software stagnates and business models die. n Application developers know the hazards of letting data roam the streets. When any piece of an application can use any of […]

Add one more item to the list of problems that youll never have with a pen-and-paper personal digital assistant. Its unlikely that youll ever open your Day-Timer to find that all of your notes have been mirror-imaged to read from right to left—but thats exactly what one eWeek Corporate Partner advisory board member found his […]

Putting CDMA wireless access into a Type 2 PC Card, Sierras Wireless AirCard 510 modem, available this month, gives portable-PC users 14.4K-bps bandwidth (up to 56K bps with compression) via the Sprint PCS Group network. With power consumption of about one-third of a watt, the card has an internally stored, field-replaceable antenna to minimize bulk […]

The other day, i pulled up at the drive-through window of my bank to see them flipping the sign to “Closed.” I checked my watch. It was still 2 minutes before the posted close of business. And when I say its 4:58, I mean plus or minus 10 seconds according to www.time.gov. I mentioned this […]

Any decision to use a wireless link is a decision to radiate information-bearing energy in a form that can be detected at a distance. Regardless of any promise to ensure security, privacy or reliability, all wireless links take the risks that come with that choice. Users may intend only to link devices that are under […]

Making Apples imac look obese, the $2,500 Panasonic CF-E1 Audio Video Personal Computer that we saw last week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas starts with a 15-inch flat-screen display instead of a bulky, heavy, space-heating CRT. The AVPCs software suite anticipates the desire to capture, compress and e-mail video clips, while its […]

The antonym of choice for “dot-com” is often “brick and mortar,” but the essence of industry is more often “pipes and pumps.” This is especially true in the process plants that feed our economy electric power, fuels and other chemicals vital to its well-being. Maintaining and upgrading process plants is a high-stakes race against the […]

As we enter 2001, an obvious gap between past fantasy and present reality is our lack of computers that care about telling the truth. The HAL 9000 computer in “2001: A Space Odyssey” became psychotic when it was ordered to conceal facts from users. The robots in Isaac Asimovs stories are incapable of disobedience; one […]

No one can afford to scale up user support. we often hear the word “scalability” reverently invoked—as if it were the necessary and sufficient trait of any enterprise IT solution—but there are just too many users, in too many places, doing too many complex things to make scalable user support a cure for anything. Whats […]

When Bill Cosby did TV commercials for the financial services firm E.F. Hutton, the tag line was simple but telling: “Because … its my money.” Not just a low price, but also customers confidence that they wont regret the “bargain,” are what it takes to turn e-tail shoppers into buyers. With my recent consumer electronics […]

In Douglas Adams “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy,” hapless earthlings learn that laboratory mice have been experimenting on humans while deceiving them into believing the reverse. A similar agenda lies behind Sonys seemingly playful Aibo, the robot dog whose name comes from a Japanese word for “companion.” With its learning abilities, its plug-and-play personality […]

Tiny Node Could Make Connections In director Stanley Kubricks prescient “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Kubrick and collaborator Arthur C. Clarke envisioned a spacecraft the length of a football field with a master computer that knew the condition of every system on board. Any engineer would wonder if the wiring for all those sensors made up […]