By Andy Marken

You probably didn't realize it but the minute the Halloween goblins leave, people start going online to shop for Christmas.

Well, at least that's what Wal-Mart has found, so they cranked up their holiday buying season on November 1 with a great selection of "Early Bird Online Specials." Not to be outdone, so did Macy's, Target and Toys-R-Us.

Everyone is saying, "Hey, we know you really want to shop early."

For the people who are on diets, Macy's, Penney's and several other retailers – this obviously includes all the great online sites –will be open Thanksgiving.

Almost Here

It doesn't much matter that Ipsos Research reports that 41 percent of shoppers won't do most of their holiday shopping until mid-December.

By Andy Marken

The best thing about conferences is that you get to hear about all the newest things and learn how great things are ... going to be.

At Storage Network World (SNW), we learned how much easier life was going to be for IT folks when they really start using Software-Defined Storage (SDS).

At the recent Cloud Expo, we discovered that IT folks are just like the rest of us. They don't worry about their data/content management issues; they just park them it in the cloud.

By Andy Marken

If you have a chance, catch CCE (Connected Car Expo) November 19, followed by the LA Auto Show (20/21) and cap it off with the January car show in Las Vegas.

You might call the January thing CES (Consumer Electronics Show) but forget the bangled wearables, the mobile devices of every shape/form/application, even content/data storage things.

By Andy Marken

The TV industry has been having a tough time figuring out what tomorrow is going to look like ... and how they'll play in it.

Cable folks are holding them hostage (if you read the announcements, you can't figure out who is dropping whom).

Amazon, Google, Netflix, AOL and Yahoo all have channels and big advertisers have their channels.

Folks are watching the content on their smart TVs, computers, smartphones and tablets. A lot of the time folks have two or three of the screens going at the same time.

By Andy Marken

Ever wonder how the Vikings sailed across the endless Atlantic to set foot on Canadian soil?

How about the Polynesians who crossed the vast Pacific to arrive at the Hawaiian Islands?

They had no Big Data, no analytical tools, nothing to quantify/qualify their decisions ... just a gut feeling it was going to work.

Sorta' make your day-to-day "critical" decisions pale in comparison.

In those decisions it wasn't one boss, senior executive or leader making the decision to venture into the unknown.

One had the idea but a lot of folks contributed to the decision ... made it happen.

By Andy Marken

If it weren't for my early years with JT (Jack Tramiel) during the Atari era, I probably wouldn't track video games – mobile, console or PC. But it's amazing to see how much broader the industry is today.

Our son -- like most serious gamers we know -- swears that a well-equipped PC is still the weapon of choice. Second best is the console; but that's hooked to the big TV for IP viewing, so he doesn't get his hands on it too often.

By Andy Marken

On a recent trip I gazed out the plane's window as we flew over the clouds. It reminded me that most pilots fly over, under and around clouds ... not in them. Even with all their technology pilots avoid clouds.

The rest of us fly blind.

We dump everything we can in the cloud because it's either cheap or free—in spite of

the fact that we have plenty of local, safe storage:

- Smartphone – 16 - 32GB

- iPad – 32 - 64GB

- Ultrabook – 128GB SSD or 500+GB HD

By Andy Marken

Those were a nice series of bling announcements at Uplinq (Qualcomm's bragging party), Apple's unveilings and Intel Developer Forum (IDF).

But...

I'm not interested in a smartwatch because:

- I tried digital and "computer" watches years ago and retired them because I wasn't interested in the exact time but rather how early or late I was.

- If it just tells me who's calling, who's texting, why not just look at my phone (the screen is bigger)?

By Andy Marken

The other evening I left the office, got about a half block and had to pull a U-turn to go back for my smartphone.

I've left my billfold at the office a few times but never bothered to retrieve it ... just drove a little more carefully the next morning.

Sure, I have a tablet and ultrabook at home that I could have used; but jeezz, it's my smartphone!

It's not like I'm addicted to it.

It's not like I sleep with it ... silly house rules!

It's no wonder the smartphone has taken off so rapidly around the globe.

From almost anywhere, it enables you to be in touch with everyone, virtually anytime.

By Andy Marken

You have to wonder if this year's Flash Memory Summit (FMS) didn't have Al Shugart, a hard drive pioneer, spinning in his grave.

There are a whole lot of silicon engineers hell-bent on moving his technology to a dusty corner of the Computer Museum.

Shugart was a key developer of IBM's RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control) disk system that stored a whopping 5MB of data.

Today, no kid would look twice at a smartphone or tablet if it didn't have at least 32GB (1GB = 1,024MB).

By Andy Marken

The National Security Agency (NSA) isn't doing much more than any red-blooded, we're-in-this for-the-money cloud service or social media organization is doing.

They're scrounging through all the information that just happens to pass their way to find something of interest, something useful.

Okay, they're a little different because they don't sell the information to the highest bidder. They store the stuff for later when they can figure out what to do with it.

Yes, they do have a broader area to search; but then, they aren't in it just for the money.

For that matter, they aren't doing much more than every government in every country is doing.

In London, it's estimated that Brits are captured on photos and video 300 times a day by cameras mounted throughout the city. Their intelligence service even got so creative as to monitor dumpsters, but that came to an end.

An Exclusive Peek Into Smithers Pira'S Major New Study On The Current State Play In The Region's Printing Market

The Middle East region is known for its oil rich countries living next to resource-scarce ones in relation to population.

The oil price and legacy of economic policies have been defining the region's economy. However, recent dramatic fluctuations in the oil market are putting an increasing pressure on the countries to diversify their economies.