NASA names its first Chief Technology Officer

On Wednesday NASA announced its first Chief Technology Officer, a new position established to lead IT innovation at the space agency. This person will be responsible for the agency's Enterprise Architecture division and for introducing new and emerging technologies into IT planning and implementation.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.rss.html?pid=30758

India's 3G auction - Better late then never

Bidding in the the Indian 3G auction has now reached upwards of $10 billion. Its taken the government four years to get here (see my Oct 31, 2006 op-ed in the Economic Times), but better late than never.

In Sep. of 06 I had made a presentation to the Telecom Regulatory of India (TRAI) on the benefits of using an auction mechanism for selling the spectrum. This had not been done in the past in India and from what I could surmise, they were leaning towards a beauty contest. Subsequently, I wrote an op-ed in the Economic Times that got published on Oct. 31 2006.

The big question is how are these funds to be utilized? My colleague and friend Prof. Arun Sundararajan and I opined on this in the summer of 2007 with Knowledge@Wharton.

Digital Biology Disruption of Health Care

The data explosion in biology is bringing about a disruption in health care, in which people will shift their thinking toward wellness.

http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/05/04/big-ideas-for-health-it-from-hood-smarr-lazowska-highlights-of-the-ovp-tech-summit/?single_page=true

A New Player in the E-book Industry

Google is entering the E-book market. As expected, they are taking a very open approach. It will be interesting to see how/if the will be able to help define this growing industry.

Neither Rain nor Sleet, but IT Got 'Em

An unbelievable, recent example of the innovative disruption of IT.  Is TV next?

http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15911952

Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook

The title speaks for itself.

Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook.

Apple continues to change the way music is distributed

Apple is shutting down the music service LaLa. LaLa was a great way to try full versions of songs before purchasing them.

Hollywood Video To Close All Stores

The WSJ has reported that Hollywood Video will shut down its store operations. Netflix and Redbox were cited as contributing factors.

Link

Threadless

Check out this Techcrunch article. It interviews the founder of Threadless. Again, this article stresses that Threadless focuses on metrics other than financial ones. My initial reaction was skepticism, but I think that the company really does focus on catering to its fans and artists more than the bottom line.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/01/advice-from-founders-who-bootstrapped-their-way-to-success-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Timescast at NYTimes.com

I'm a fan of the NY Times TimesCast. Its a gutsy move to open up the guts (ok, so I just got back from lunch:-) of the newsroom to the rest of the world. In today's environment, where corporations once high and mighty (e.g Goldman Sachs) seem to have lost the high ground on the ethics and corporate governance, companies need to think hard about how they can leverage technology to win back the trust of the average Joe. I only hope its the real deal, an unfettered version of the real discussions that take place in there.

I believe such use of new media is going to be a great differentiator going forward.

NYC Tech Incubator Finds Success

The NY Times has a good article on a company that has a stable of products with the goal of creating a network of companies with lots of connections between them, increasing the likelihood of success between all of them.

Link

Has anyone heard that iTunes may end up cloudsourced? I just heard about this but the only info I can find is old. Does anyone know if this is true?

http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/20/itunes-dot-com-cloud/

Improving IT Cost Allocation for Better Business Decisions

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/14494101