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Businesses

The Twilight Years of Cap'n Crunch 313

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Tech pioneer John Draper, a legendary, eccentric figure in Silicon Valley better known as Cap'n Crunch, has slipped to the margins while his peers became rich, the Wall Street Journal writes in a profile. Draper was a 'phone phreak' and helped develop the technology for word processing and voice-activated telephone menus; meanwhile, he eluded the mainstream by tampering with the phone system, frequenting the rave scene and shouting at anyone smoking anywhere near him. 'Once tolerated, even embraced, for his eccentricities, Mr. Draper now lives on the margins of this affluent world, still striving to carve out a role in the business mainstream,' says the WSJ. More from the article: 'Contemporaries who've gone on to riches and fame say they've tried to help Mr. Draper over the years. Mr. Wozniak says Mr. Draper's problem is that his skills lie in technology rather in making business deals or starting a company. "He didn't come from a business orientation," says Mr. Wozniak.'"
Games

Blizzard Hints At New StarCraft, Launches Burning Crusade 319

Game Developer Blizzard Entertainment's long-anticipated expansion to World of Warcraft has gone live. Initial impressions are ... not available, since all 8 million players are currently in the Outlands. I'll take that to mean the servers for the most part have not melted yet. At a Burning Crusade launch party, a Blizzard exec revealed we may see a new StarCraft game very soon. But today is all about WoW. If you're not playing, and want to live vicariously, check out WarCry's extensive preview of the expansion. You could read designer Jeff Kaplan's comments on new features at FiringSquad, or Shane Dibiri's talk of inspiration at Next Generation. One new expansion a year, eh? Some folks are already looking to the future, where we probably won't see WoW on consoles, but may see it with security dongles. 0.1% of the Earth's population can't all be wrong.

Comment Re:Webroot Spy Sweeper Enterprise and Lavasoft too (Score 4, Insightful) 782

Back in the mainframe days, they were a priesthood--users could only act with the data through the intercession of them and their terminals. The PC changed all that, and they've spent the last couple of decades stuffing the toothpaste back into the tube.

Microsoft has greased the wheels with its exploit ridden, high maintenance software, creating security problems of epic proportion that are helping justify the return to the "glass house" in the eyes of management, who worries about things like HIPAA, Sarbanes Oxley, EU privacy directives, Gramm Leach Bliley, and all that--and creating a class of well-paid overseers to manage it.

The users are mere pawns in the game.

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