Challis Hodge’s UXblog

Intelligent airline seats could automatically alert busy cabin crew to nervous, shifty passengers, who might be terrorists or air-ragers.

No matter how carefully you guard your identity, it is vulnerable to theft. The best defense is to make your ID useless to thieves–something like a fuel line cut-off system that prevents a stolen car from going more than a few blocks. That powerful protection exists, but the credit industry doesn’t promote it. The three major credit reporting bureaus–Equifax, Experian and Trans Union–allow you to place on your credit files a notice telling prospective creditors to confirm with you by phone applications for new credit made in your name. You’ll know immediately if there’s been identity theft; and imposters will likely move on to easier targets.

Plans by Benetton to weave RFID (radio frequency ID) trackable chips into its apparel have run into opposition. A group called CASPIAN (Consumers Against Privacy Invasion And Numbering) has launched a website, boycottbenetton.org. CASPIAN founder and director Katherine Albrecht, a Harvard University doctoral candidate says what Benetton, Gillette and over 90 of the world’s biggest corporations are doing, in essence, is “registering” products to you. Albrecht has been warning us about this for years. She says consumers have no idea that these RFID chips actually track the owner .. ” then anytime you (go) near an RFID reader device the (product) would beam out your identity to anyone with access to a database - all without your permission”.

A Pentagon project to develop a digital super diary that records heartbeats, travel, Internet chats, everything a person does, also could provide private companies with powerful software to analyze behavior. Giles Hogben from the European Commission fears that “loss of sensory privacy” can indeed become a nightmare. The Pentagon, blissfully free of such Old European qualms, has solicited bids via DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and hopes to award four 18-month contracts beginning this summer.

Palm to Acquire Rival Handspring
Palm said that it will buy rival Handspring in an effort to strengthen its grip on the market for handheld devices. Palm, which also announced that it has finalized plans to spin off its PalmSource software division, will purchase Handspring in a stock deal. The transaction will grant Handspring stockholders 0.09 of a share of Palm–and no shares of PalmSource–for each share of Handspring common stock.

Oracle Makes Lowball Offer for PeopleSoft
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison shocked the technology world today with news that he plans to make a $5.1 billion offer to buy Peoplesoft, according to the company.

PeopleSoft Makes Bid for J.D.Edwards
In a surprise move, PeopleSoft announced that it had signed an approximately $1.7 billion deal to buy out J.D. Edwards, creating what it estimates will be the second-largest business applications company after SAP AG.

Invensys Sells Baan
Invensys on Tuesday said it has sold Baan, the financially troubled software maker, for $135 million to a group of investors. The investment group, consisting of Cerberus Capital Management and General Atlantic Partners, said it plans to combine Baan over the next few months with SSA Global Technologies, an enterprise software company focusing on the manufacturing industry that the two buyers already own.

Experts at the first Weblog Business Strategies Conference agree that online journals present opportunities for companies, comparing them to the early days of the PC, the Web and e-mail. But like the Web and e-mail, there are a slew of questions to answer before integrating Weblogs into the corporate structure.

Try using your business the way your customers do. Now do you understand why your competition is doing better than you? The author is suggesting user-centered methods to evaluate business. Have the last 15 years of my life actually been worth something? Is this stuff actually reaching the main stream?

Distributed digital video arrays, or DIVAs — collections of smart cameras able to detect and identify an individual in a crowded train station and track him wherever he goes — are being developed by researchers at the University of California at San Diego under a Department of Defense contract. The systems also notify authorities when they “think” an individual engages in suspicious activity or meets with questionable cohorts.