Tech and Other News

Here are a few interesting items from the news today.

For those of you who have less than nice things to say about Microsoft:

Jeff Reifman, a columnist for Seattle Weekly, has written a great editorial analysis here.

He talks about Microsoft’s past and current missed opportunities, contrasted with its financial success, while covering in fair depth some of the most serious threats to their business model. Great insight from someone who has been on the inside.

And, from CNN.com today:

CIA Director George Tenet has resigned, citing personal reasons, President Bush said today. Tenet’s resignation takes effect in mid-July, after which Deputy Director John McLaughlin will become the agency’s acting chief, Bush told reporters at the White House. Bush said Tenet had done “a superb job for the American people.”

Mmmm, yeah. Except for that whole anti-terrorism thing. Well, the President has a soft spot for former CIA directors so I can understand. After all, he does call one daddy. Maybe George Tenet will run for President some day. Let’s keep our fingers crossed on that one.

Lastly, for the pro-Apple computer crowd (of which I am a card-carrying member):

Toshiba announced that it will offer a 60GB version of its 1.8-inch hard drive in the coming months and that Apple has already placed its order. Cindy Lee, deputy manager of Toshiba’s hard disk drive division, said the drive will enter mass production during July or August. All three iPod models (15GB, 20GB, and 40GB) use Toshiba drives, while the iPod mini uses a 4GB 1-inch drive from Hitachi. Lee noted that Toshiba is currently shipping 350,000 of the 1.8-inch drives per month to Apple.

60 Gig iPods? What’s the world coming to? My first computer didn’t even have a hard drive in it. One of my first Apple Computers only had a 128 MB Hard Drive and I thought I would never fill that up. Now, my G5 has 500 GB of storage in it and I am running out of space. Odd.

Later.