Lisa Padilla on Media and Culture

My favorite acronym for a great deal of time has been " API ". It was one of the only things that made me feel better to hear after the past 5 years hearing overly-used terms such as AI (as in not so), SEC (as in investigation), and IPO (as in not currently planned). API said to me, "We're going to make this easier for you. We're going to get this software into your hands and continue the growth of the information age." And engineering managers prided themselves on having one if they were tuned in to the sales and distribution goals of their respective companies. Here is an example of the Google Maps API: There are hundreds, if not thousands of APIs, written. Yet not that many are used. Why? Several reasons, and one being that engineering teams need to stay on bug fixes and developing new features to meet competitive demand. But I hear Oren Michels is working on serving that very problem. His new company, addressing the rush of Web 2.0 services, is calle...

Around this time last year. Ikanos sold 6.4 million shares of common stock at $12 per share to maintain a competitive position in its market space ( IPTV ). Now, they have bring out a fifth-generation FX family of VDSL chipsets optimized for use with IPTV, believing that this will be the enabling technology to drive fiber first to the home while overall adoption of IP-centric storage and networking technologies will eventually do the same for fiber to the business. I spoke with Jeff Schwartz, of Disruptive Strategies , who believes that fiber is still on top, beating out copper "every time". Mr. Schwartz is a person with more mobile knowledge than most and provides PR services to some lucky and up and coming businesses from here in the valley. I recently read that Ikanos has entered into an agreement to acquire Doradus Technologies , a startup developer of digital signal processing technologies that can be used in areas such as IPTV. Further research from the 451group says ...

I write to you frustrated and discouraged in hopes that you might shed light on a 'cold prickly' feeling I have. We could agree for the sake of my inquiry, that just as many people in the information movement, I struggle with the selection of who to read, who to agree with and my own voice in the blogosphere as it rises to capture it's own A-Listesque audience. To make a difference. A positive one. Frequently identified by others as a having a positive, energetic, and nearly Polyanna-like position, I am concerned to find myself presently disenchanted with our collective efforts to expose and analyze media's growth and expansion and its effect on our societies. Is it the liquid bombing threat this week in London? Dave Winer taking little Liz Henry to task about sexism? The howels of pain from inside AOL? The inspiring conversations I have with people at conferences that fade into oblivious memory weeks later? I've approached several industry pundits and challenged th...