Time for a Silver Bullet How To Make Tech Companies Do The Right Thing Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, December 22, 1998 URL: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Time-for-a-Silver-Bullet-How-To-Make-Tech-2971758.php Recently, at my request, Silicon Valley Congresswoman Anna Eshoo's press secretary, Tracy Warren, sent me a list of the most significant digital communications policy issues facing Congress and...
The Socket Wars How Intel is giving R&D a bad name Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, December 7, 1998 URL: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/The-Socket-Wars-How-Intel-is-giving-R-D-a-bad-2974400.php Years ago, most "research and development" spending went into the lab, giving us everything from light bulbs to integrated circuits to pacemakers. By focusing on the "Really Big Questions," R&D often...
Free Money Here! Online help for finding venture capital -- which you may not want to use Hal Plotkin Monday, November 23, 1998 URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20080517081941/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/1998/11/10/epigram.DTL Last year, one of my editors at Inc. magazine had a brilliant idea: Call up top Silicon Valley venture capitalists and ask them for a list of the...
Poof! Instant LAN (You're already wired) Hal Plotkin Tuesday, November 10, 1998 URL: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Poof-Instant-LAN-You-re-already-wired-2979409.php When I learned that Cisco Systems' well-respected PR ace Adam Stein had recently joined Epigram, Inc., a little-known Sunnyvale, Ca. start-up, I wanted to know why. No one leaves Cisco. Unless, perhaps, their options have vested and they move to Kauai,...
Closing the Digital Divide Is the dream of racial equality stuck in an infinite loop? Hal Plotkin Wednesday, October 8, 1998 URL: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Closing-the-Digital-Divide-Is-the-dream-of-2983641.php I've been thinking a lot about infinite loops lately. I am something of an expert on the subject, having created dozens of them in my first BASIC computer programming class. For the...
Why It's Not Clicking For Asia More Economic Turmoil in the Far East? Hal Plotkin Wednesday, October 8, 1998 URL: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Why-It-s-Not-Clicking-For-Asia-More-Economic-2986904.php The Internet is renown for speeding things up. We can now get immediate stock quotes, sports scores, and even hot news like Ken Starr's White House Tour with the click of a button....
New Age Voting How Technology Might Revitalize Democracy Hal Plotkin Wednesday, September 23, 1998 URL: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/New-Age-Voting-How-Technology-Might-Revitalize-2983179.php New technologies have improved many old processes to enhance outcomes. Computer simulations, for example, give us safer airplanes; specialized software fixes our mistakes on the fly; and medical monitoring devices lengthen our lives. We don't do very many...
Tear Down The Walls College in the Digital Age Hal Plotkin Monday, August 31, 1998 URL: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tear-Down-The-Walls-College-in-the-Digital-Age-2994857.php No one could believe it when our high-school buddy, Chip (not his real name) -- easily the most-talented member of our graduating class -- was rejected by the college of his choice. Chip was a brilliant...
As originally published on SFGate.com at: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/The-Open-Source-Revolution-Or-Mr-Gates-Meet-2999014.php Hal Plotkin Monday, August 3, 1998 Just when Justice Department lawyers, Wall Street analysts, and most pundits are telling us that Bill Gates' juggernaut is unstoppable, Microsoft is finally facing a kind of digital Waterloo: It's called the open-source software movement. In just a few short...