Simon’s Blog

Just in case anyone’s interested, by the way, I’m now on Twitter -  http://twitter.com/psynixis (@psynixis).  For anyone that doesn’t know, Twitter is a “micro-blogging” service.

 
Today, I wanted to blog a few thoughts about the “backchannel”. Now, while many of the readers of this blog will already know what the backchannel is, I suspect that many won’t; so first, a little explanation.   I’ll quote from Wikipedia, because it has a good, concise explanation:
Backchannel is the practice of using networked computers [...]

In the first week of May, many in the Java community will meet at JavaOne in San Francisco. It’s the biggest Java conference of the year.   At last year’s JavaOne, Sun announced the new JavaFX brand, aimed at generating a renewed interest among developers for creating consumer applications by using Java.   One big announcement was [...]

Today, the creators of the BBC Micro are re-uniting at the Science Museum in London, to discuss its legacy (see the story at the BBC).   The BBC Micro, which was launched in 1981, and became widely available in 1982, was a fabulous home computer. I thought I’d take a minute to explain what I [...]

I’ve just ordered a new business mobile phone.  I needed this to be really great for e-mail on the move and there were only two choices on my short-list: an iPhone; and a Blackberry.    I chose a Blackberry, but it wasn’t a clear-cut decision between the two.  The iPhone has lots going for it: [...]

You’ve no doubt seen the news that AOL is buying social network Bebo for $850 in cash.  By any standards, that’s a great exit for all involved.   Bebo was founded in 2005 and raised a single round of venture capital ($15M for 16% of the company, apparently) in 2006.  They’ve been pretty successful in growing [...]

Interesting news from Sun.  Sun’s VP Java Marketing just told The Register that Sun will be making a version of Java for iPhone.  It seems that they feel that the iPhone SDK offers enough freedom that they can build a JVM on top of it.   Here’s the quote…
We’ve spent the last 24 hours furiously looking [...]

Well, Apple’s iPhone software roadmap meeting is over.  Did they deliver?  In a word - YES!    All the commercial and techincal details look great.   By using the iPhone SDK, it will be possible to develop truly amazing, magical software applications for iPhone, and it will be easy to distribute these apps too.   Importantly, along [...]

After looking at Silverlight 2, it seemed to me that Apple might be considering Silverlight  for the iPhone.  And just now, Microsoft’s Scott Guthrie, live on stage at Mix 08 in Las Vegas dropped a hint that suggested Microsoft may have already done the deal.   He said something like - Expect to see Microsoft putting [...]

The world of the Rich Internet Application (RIA) just took a couple of fascinating turns.   Silverlight version 2 is now out in beta; and it looks… well it looks TOTALLY AMAZING.  It can be programmed using serious, elegant, programming languages; it has great tool support; and a version of Silverlight is coming to mobile phones [...]