How do IT news and reviews affect your life? Be you CIO or CTO, vendor or client, developer or helpdesk tech, we want your opinions and arguments on the latest Computerworld stories. Here are some comments that caught our eye this week:
In response to What makes IBM Watson so smart? :
I'm not sure that I would call Watson smart. I would not call a library smart. Both contain a great amount of information, yet neither has much of an ability to do anything with it. While much development has gone into giving Watson the ability to understand a question and pull an answer from its massive collection of data, it is unlikely to be able to apply that skill to routine everyday tasks. Comparing Watson's "brain" with the human contestants is like comparing a car with a human runner. The car is going to be able to outrun most humans, but what exactly does that prove?
Justin WPost reply
In response to Mike Elgan: Why Nokia is toast :
Part of the problem why Nokia failed was the way how the Nokia-Symbian partnership has been set up many years ago, followed by the purchase of Symbian probably a few years to late. Developing software across to organisations creates even more complexity, bureaucracy and slows you down. I am wondering why Nokia thinks that the Nokia-Microsoft partnership will be any different.
AnonymousPost reply
In response to Verizon's threat to throttle speeds of heavy data users could be empty :
Instead of nickel and diming its customers, Verizon should instead focus on staying relevant! Everyone else is upgrading their networks and focusing on new technologies. Yes, Verizon, 4G LTE is a good step, but to make it, you have to stay one step ahead of the competition who has had 4G for a year now instead of playing catch up.
AnonymousPost reply
In response to Lies, damned lies and search engines :
While I'm generally supportive of what the EU tries to accomplish in terms of rights of the individual ... the Internet is the ultimate form of free speech and free market, neither of which should be restricted by ISPs or governments. If a corporation has servers behind a firewall that is only locally accessible, then that's a perfect reason not to have it searched or accessed without authorization. But to request information be deleted is too Orwellian for my tastes -- especially when it's for the most pretentious and pitiful of reasons such as being offensive.
DannPost reply
In response to QuickPoll: Is Facebook doing enough to protect your privacy? :
I've been in IT for 49 years. I'm a major believer in on-line, smartphones, et al. But I'm probably also in a very small minority of my peers in that I have not joined any of the Facebook, Twitter, et. al. sites. I am just not interested in exposing my information to the world in the fashion these sites not only allow, but encourage. I would like to be able to participate, but only with the guarantee that only the information that I want to provide is required to sign up and only what I want to allow is exposed to the world. When that day comes, I'll sign up.
MCGJrPost reply
In response to Top H-1B visa user of 2010: An Indian firm :
To me, the H-1B should be assigned to the client company, not the contracting firm, if it is going to be assigned to a company at all. It really should be assigned to the individual H-1B visa requester/holder, who should be allowed to change employers. This would make it so their visa-sponsoring company ... would be forced to pay real American going rates instead of being able to hold them in indentured-service. If the H-1B holder, a temporary worker by definition, is without work for 90 days or more, revoke their visa status.
25-Yr IT ProfessionalPost reply
In response to London Stock Exchange in historic Linux go-live :
I've never noticed any significant performance difference between Linux or any other OS. It really comes down to hardware. The native verse some kind of interpreted or byte code application system would definitely make a difference, but then you're giving up flexibility and faster development to save on relatively inexpensive hardware. I would pick any Unix over Windows simply because it's so much easier to administrate.
AnonymousPost reply
Comments have been edited for clarity and brevity.
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