PCIN.net Update

From MSNBC:

The ultrahigh-speed Internet2 network just got 10 times faster, partly in anticipation of rising demand for capacity after the world’s largest particle collider opens near Geneva next year.

Until recently, the Internet2 had a theoretical limit of 10 gigabits per second, which is thousands of times faster than standard home broadband connections. By sending data using 10 different colors, or wavelengths, of light over a single cable, operators are boosting the network’s capacity to 100 Gbps.

From NetworkWorld:

Google’s much-hyped entrance into the office tool market dominated by Microsoft doesn’t seem to have worried CEO Steve Ballmer, who dismissed competitors as not “even as good as ‘me too’” in an interview Wednesday.

When asked about the challenge Google poses to Microsoft, Ballmer acknowledged that Google is the clear leader in search and advertising. Then he said Microsoft’s products for productivity and business computing remain far superior to competitors.

From the New York Times:

As I was in the final throes of getting my most recent book into print, an employee at the publishing company sent me an e-mail message that stopped me in my tracks.

I had met her just once, at a meeting. We were having an e-mail exchange about some crucial detail involving publishing rights, which I thought was being worked out well. Then she wrote: “It’s difficult to have this conversation by e-mail. I sound strident and you sound exasperated.”

From BusinessWeek:

A large number of companies and consumers upgrade to new computers every three or four years and therefore generate an incredible stream of discarded machines. In the U.S. alone, they ditched somewhere between 50 million and 75 million desktops, laptops, and monitors in 2005, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That amounts to as much as 1.15 million tons of hardware—or more than 3,000 tons discarded every day. And with sales of new computers growing each year, the waste stream only grows. Though many still work, the majority of these machines end up in landfills.