Gregarius &#187; BetaNews.Com &#187; décembre 2010

My last set of year-end retrospectives surprises me, and some Betanews readers may feel the same. Many commenters accuse me of shilling for Apple, of being a fanboy, which I always dismiss. But in looking over my own Apple posts over the last year, I see just how biting are the topics or analyses and wonder what are these fanboy claimers reading. As a group, the posts are insightful -- even though some Macheads' blog rebuttals will assert otherwise. From some one in the Mac camp will come the PC fanboy accusation, which also is untrue.

Unlike the top-10 story lists for Google and Microsoft, this one is more thematic, in part because of CEO Steve Jobs' incredible visible influence over Apple in 2010, following a media leave due to liver-transplant surgery in 2009. One of the best ways to understand how Apple operates and where it's going is to understand the mind of Jobs. He gave unusual opportunities to do just that this year. Among the top-five stories on this list, four are specifically about him.

These are the 10 of my Apple stories I believe that you should have read in 2010. The stories are organized by importance, from least to most -- that is 10 to 1. I weighed importance based on relevance of the analysis to Apple in 2010 and even in coming years. Not all readers will agree on which is more or less important, or perhaps not at all.

I would like to call out several posts that would have made a longer list: "Apple's five stages of Google Grieving" (May 24); "Apple's HTML5 Showcase is rigged" (June 4); "Does Apple demand too much to be cool?" (April 13); and "Clash of the titans: Apple, Google battle for the mobile Web" (April 8). I excluded the last one simply because it made my Google 10 stories list. With that introduction, I present 10 Apple stories that mattered in 2010.

10. "Apple can still win the mobile platform wars, but it won't be easy": Which mobile platform will be more successful? Smartphones are but one small measure of success. In October 2009, I asserted that "Apple cannot win the smartphone wars." Pundits predict iPhone's death brattle before the great Android god. I wouldn't write off Apple just yet. The mobile wars are bigger than smartphones, as Apple already has shown. Also, market share is but one measure of success. Money is more important, and Apple rakes in nearly $600 for every iPhone. I don't believe that Apple can win the smartphone wars, but there's still a chance to win the broader mobile platform device wars. It won't be easy. Posted: August 13.

9. "Is Apple No. 1 and not No. 3 in U.S. PC shipments?": It's a follow-up question to another question posed in late August: "Is Apple the real U.S. PC market share leader -- or soon will be?" I ask both questions based on another: Is iPad a personal computer? I assert "Yes" based on function, but neither Gartner nor IDC, which both released preliminary third-quarter PC shipment data in October, classify iPad as a PC. Right now, iPad isn't really counted anywhere, despite generating $2.17 billion in new revenue during the launch quarter. If iPad is counted as a PC, then based on analysts' projected tablet shipments and IDC's Q3 data, Apple could rank as No. 1 in the United States. What is iPad then?

The analyst firms later released data classifying iPad as a media tablet. Gartner predicted media tablets would cannibalize 10 percent of PC sales in a few years. If tablets are replacing PCs, shouldn't they be counted that way? Posted: October 14.

8. "I was wrong about Apple iPad": The world does need an Apple tablet -- and perhaps others -- contrary to what I asserted in late January post: "The world doesn't need an Apple tablet, or any other." Gloaters will circle my admission like vultures pecking a carcass, but that's the penalty for being wrong. Yes, I was wrong. I admit it.

The gloaters came, and supporters too. Some people wrongly presumed I changed my position because of iPad sales, which were mere projections then. It was the immersive reading experience that got me, particularly after seeing the "Wired" app -- and months later Virgin's "Project." Additionally, I asserted: "The iPad is a remedy for distraction while letting users reap the Internet's benefits." Posted: June 15.

7. "Of course media bias favors Apple": This commentary and its companion, "Be smart, don't buy into iPad hype", question why analysts, bloggers and journalists give so much positive attention to Apple. The state of the news media: Gossip and rumors are rapidly replacing factual reporting -- in large part driven by the Google economy. No company is benefitting more than Apple. The hype is in part driven by the large number of bloggers and journalists using Macs -- the same kind of inherent bias (from Windows users) benefitting Microsoft a computing generation ago. There are also the investors and Wall Street analysts who recognize how much rumors can lift (or collapse) Apple's share price. Who benefits when analysts write favorably about Apple, but don't disclose theirs or their clients' investments and potential conflicts of interest? Posted: March 21.

6. "iPhone 4 isn't one launch but a series of smaller announcements timed to drive up Apple's stock price": Apple is carefully manipulating its share price by the timing of certain product announcements; iPhone 4 is the clearest, recent example. Not that the manipulation is new. In December 2009 I asked: "Are Apple stock price gains the reason for recent tablet rumors?" The answer was an unequivocal "Yes!" based on how share price gains align with rumors -- and Apple announcements that follow. To be clear: In asserting manipulation, I don't suggest someone is breaking the law or acting unethically. I liken it to a puppeteer masterfully and artistically moving marionettes across a stage. With respect to its share price, Apple is carefully timing certain announcements for maximum share gains.

I'm surprised how little analysis there has been about how Apple manages perception through carefully timed announcements or leaks. The stock hit a 52-week high this week, of $326.66, by the way. Posted: June 21.

5. "Sorry, Steve Jobs, search is happening on smartphones": In early summer, Compete put to shame Jobs' ridiculous April assertion that "search is not happening on phones." According to the analyst firm, search is indeed happening on mobile phones -- 55 percent of smartphone owners have searched locally from their handsets; on average, 15 percent locally search at least once a week. The news that search is happening on phones is good for Google, which has continually updated mobile search features, particularly in 2010, with Android getting a little extra juice over iOS (at least with what rolls out to which mobile operating system first). Then there is all the "stuff" Google wraps around mobile search, particularly the local variety, such as keyword advertising.

Smartphone owners use of local search in part explains Google's attempt to buy Groupon, which rejected a $6 billion bid in early December. Posted: July 6.

4. "What is Steve Jobs Afraid of?:" Apple's CEO made a surprise appearance during the company's fiscal 2010 fourth quarter earnings call. Jobs said he couldn't resist participating, given Apple's record $20.34 billion revenue. But he leveled most of his comments at competitors, and in quite defensive posture. Nearly every Jobs' statement effused defensiveness. I expected more confidence from the legendary Steve Jobs and speaking from position of strength.

Several commenters pointed to Daniel Eran's post ripping me and defending Jobs. Eran's core defense was simply that Jobs made the kind of competitor comments that any CEO would make. Right, but other chief executives often do that from position of weakness -- bravado by, say, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talking about catching Google in search or dismissing iPhone or iPad as insignificant. That Jobs' competitor attacks came from a position of strength, where he shouldn't feel insecure, reveals something important about his psychology and thinking that is essential to understand when looking at where Apple is going and what its influence will be. Posted: October 19.

3. "Steve Jobs shows little remorse about iPhone 4 Death Grip -- should he?": Apple CEO's handling of the press conference announcing free iPhone 4 cases reveals something more about the psychology and thinking of the man. Jobs was harried and hurried and didn't play the "We're sorry" role very well. There was no real apology, but plenty of justification. Death Grip, where the signal strength meter declines when iPhone is held in the hand, was the gripping business and tech story of the summer. I found Jobs' excuse for why people are seeing Death Grip the lamest of all -- the relatively small number of cases available at launch. The reasoning: If there had been more cases, fewer people would be holding the phone directly. Posted: July 16.

2. "Steve Jobs 'Thoughts on Flash' is just smoke": Jobs' "Thoughts on Flash" memo is a rare glimpse into the mind of the rarest breed: A high-tech, cult figure who isn't a geek. Apple posted the nearly 1,700-word essay earlier in late April, in response to the ongoing debate about Adobe Flash on iPhone OS devices. One-sidedness seeps through nearly all of Jobs' six no-Flash justifications. I don't doubt his sincerity about wanting to protect the iPhone OS device user experience, but there's more. Apple calls iPad "magical and revolutionary," but the same phrase applies to Jobs' ability to make so reasonable arguments that emphasize the positives benefitting Apple products, while de-emphasizing or even ignoring the negatives -- or facts! As I stated in February, "Apple's problem with Flash is mobile applications competition." Apple wants to control the development stack -- plain, pure and simple.

Apple later shipped two new MacBook Air models without Flash installed. Posted: April 29.

1. "Apple is the new AOL and new Microsoft, and whoa that can't be a good thing": Two astoundingly good analyses hit the InterWebs over the US Memorial Day holiday weekend: John Battelle's "Is The iPad A Disappointment? Depends When You Sold Your AOL Stock" and Kroc Camen's "Will Apple Embrace the Web? No." Battelle and Camen come at the topic from different directions, but end up at the same destination: The web will be easier to use on iPhone OS devices, but Apple will confine consumers and developers to its, ah, walled apple grove. The open web ultimately threatens Apple's business model. Posted: June 1.

4chan victim of DDoS as FBI investigates role in PayPal attack

Publié: décembre 30, 2010, 11:11pm CET par Ed Oswald

Users of 4chan may have gotten a taste of their own medicine after the site was knocked offline by a DDoS attack from an unknown origin early Thursday morning. The attack came amid an FBI raid on a Texas collocation facility as part of a wider investigation into an attack on PayPal.

4chan may have been indirectly involved in the attack, which has also been blamed on a group that calls itself "Operation: Payback." Operation Payback is also believed to have involvement in attacks on Visa and MasterCard. In all cases, the attacks were in response to the suspension of accounts associated with WikiLeaks.

"Site is down due to DDoS. We now join the ranks of MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, et al.--an exclusive club!" 4chan founder Christopher Poole posted at 2:39 AM Thursday. No other details were given on the incident itself.

It appeared that the attack was first aimed at the site's popular message boards, however later the entire site seemed to be offline. 4chan looked to be fully operational when checked by Betanews late Thursday afternoon.

The site has been known for its pranks and participation in general Internet chaos, whether it be faking pop star Justin Bieber's death or shutting down both RIAA and MPAA's websites back in September.

Nevertheless, the activities of the group may not be 100 percent legal -- thus the legal attention of the FBI. The agency appears to be looking into the collocation facility's role, even though the site's servers may have been inadvertently hijacked to launch the attack.

PayPal contacted the FBI regarding the attack on December 6, according to documents uncovered by news site The Smoking Gun following an attack by 4chan users. Several days later, the site was attacked again -- this time more severely -- by participants in the Operation: Payback effort.

FBI officials appear only to be interested in finding the offending server according to the documents posted to The Smoking Gun. "Once the desired computer has been identified, no other systems will be checked," FBI Agent Christopher Calderon writes in the affidavit.

That said, Calderon admits this may require the search of multiple computers until the desired one is found -- meaning the process could turn out to be quite lengthy.

Boxed software isn't going away any time soon, says Smith Micro

Publié: décembre 30, 2010, 10:18pm CET par Tim Conneally

Web retailer Amazon.com has released a few end of the year lists that show what people were buying in 2010. Among its "holiday hot sellers" list, Amazon said Smith Micro's Anime Studio Debut 7 and Manga Studio Debut 4 were two pieces of software that were given the most as gifts, along with Adobe Photoshop Elements 9.

When looking at the rising tide of app store-based software distribution, the popularity of netbooks and ultra slim PCs with no optical drives, and the hype surrounding smartphones, tablets, and Web terminals like Google's Chrome OS, boxed software like these would appear to be under serious threat of extinction. But good old fashioned boxed software serves a major purpose and has a specific group of consumers to whom it appeals.

"Many Customers see value in something tangible. Something that [they] can touch and feel," said Steve Yatson, Senior Director of Productivity & Graphics in Smith Micro's Consumer Division. "I don't see that going away anytime soon."

Though Amazon was a major driver of sales of Smith Micro's Debut versions of Anime Studio 7 and Manga Studio 4, the company's software is selling just as well in physical outlets like Target and Best Buy.

"I would hesistate to say that one or the other is the best," Yatson continued. "Both brick and mortar and Online have their merits."

For one thing, that famous quality of "shelf appeal" is actually a powerful sales tool. A 2009 study from Ohio State and Illinois State University showed that consumers are far more likely to buy products they've pulled down from a store shelf and handled.

"The 'display factor' as I call it is something that requires a box," Yatson said. "We take a great deal of time with our packaging. The images we use to represent the power and versatility of our graphics applications on that packaging are critical."

This helps reach a broader range of consumers. After all, the methods of discovery online do not work for everyone, and users who are likely to download a piece of software may not be the same people who would buy it in a retail store.

"We reach a different customer in a retail location as opposed to online. There's a great deal of visibility for both the product and the Smith Micro brand in retail," Yatson told Betanews today. "Having an attractive package on a retail shelf presents the opportunity to make an impression on a customer that may just be browsing and may not be familiar with our products or Smith Micro as a company."

Finally, there's the Christmas factor. You can wrap a boxed piece of software for a gift; and as anyone who grew up in the era when all consumer software was distributed on floppy disks will tell you, certain kids are thrilled to get software as a gift.

"We're seeing more parents and grandparents gifting our Debut products than ever before," Yatson concluded. "Anime Studio Debut, for example, is less expensive than the average video game. There's something satisfying about giving a child something educational, something that helps them grow or learn a skill such as animation."

Facebook becomes most searched, most visited in 2010

Publié: décembre 30, 2010, 7:59pm CET par Ed Oswald

Google is often the target of the net faithful's ire for its ever increasing size and so-called "evilness." That distinction may now belong to Facebook, as Hitwise said Thursday the site now leads all others -- including Google -- as being both the most visited and most searched for in the US.

Facebook accounted for 8.93 percent of all traffic for the period of January through November 2010, followed by Google with 7.13 percent. Rounding out the top five were Yahoo Mail with 3.52 percent, Yahoo with 3.3 percent, and YouTube with 2.65 percent.

If all Google's disparate web properties are added together, it still retains the top spot with 9.85 percent of all web traffic.

This was the first time Facebook beat Google in terms of web traffic, although it was the second year in a row that the site led in search terms. Social networking site MySpace saw the biggest fall: in 2009 it was the second most term, this year it has fallen to fifth.

"Facebook login" was the second most searched term, followed by YouTube, Craigslist, and then MySpace.

Two other variations of the term "Facebook" not mentioned previously were in the top ten searches this year, and accounted for 3.48 percent of searches overall, a 207 percent increase over last year.

Hitwise also noted that several new terms began climbing the list of most searched -- many of which involved streaming media and entertainment, including Netflix, Verizon Wireless, ESPN, Chase, pogo, tagged, Wells Fargo, yellow pages, poptropica, games and Hulu.

Should Apple stop selling software in its retail stores?

Publié: décembre 30, 2010, 7:31pm CET par Joe Wilcox

Mac App Store

It's the question to ask with the Mac App Store launching in one week. Software takes up valuable shelf space Apple could use for other things, particularly in many of its smaller boutique-sized shops. I've asked Apple PR if the company plans to stop selling software at its retail stores but received no answer before posting.

Apple is notorious for pulling the plug on something and pushing the consumer market forward, whether or not it's ready to move. I remember when in 1998, with launch of the Bondi Blue iMac, Apple removed legacy ports, shifting to FireWire and USB. A decade later, Apple ditched the internal optical drive on the original MacBook Air. The newer model replaces the hard drive with solid-state storage. There are many other examples and some quite displeasing to consumers, when Apple releases something new incompatible with what its customers already have.

Should digital download delivery only be the next push?

The Mac App Store offers many advantages developers can see from selling applications through iTunes for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Among the other advantages:

1. Applications can be made available across multiple-sized devices -- Macs, iPads, iPhones and iPod touches.

2. Developers can now scale their applications across devices.

3. Developers can sell apps for which they will be paid; the app store deters piracy.

4. Rights protection is built in so that customers aren't exposed to onerous piracy-deterring activation mechanisms.

5. The store makes applications easily available to customers and more easily searched for than scouring the Web.

6. Developers can easily get digital shelf space -- and, therefore greater exposure -- where they might not get retail shelf space at all.

Would Apple be so bold regarding software, by making the Mac App Store its sole distribution channel? It's not like Apple runs a record shop, selling CDs. There is iTunes for that and for selling mobile apps. Surely the developer benefits are compelling.

"I can't imagine them doing that," says Stephen Baker, NPD's vice president of industry analysis. "I suspect they would lose a lot of support from the major third-party software producers." Oh, yeah? But no one complains about selling mobile apps digitally.

"I think the genius of any app store for mobile was that it puts all the products together in one place for people to find, that was the challenge for mobile," he responds. "For computers we already had that, it is called a retail store. So yes, I think apps for a computer is just another name for a DDL [direct download] store."

Baker backs up his assertion with some convincing numbers. First, he concedes, people do buy software online -- about three-quarters of US computer users. "Of that, about one-third were subscription renewals, one-quarter were digital downloads and one-quarter were CDs," he explains. So while the majority of computer users have purchased software online, not many bought direct digital downloads.

"Only 43 percent of online software buyers want a digital download only," Baker says. "Thirty percent want a box and 22 percent want a download and a box."

Still, 43 percent represents a helluva lot of people, and right now Apple only needs to be concerned with Mac owners, as the store won't be available to Windows users next week. Like lemmings, so-called Macheads seem all too willing to leap over the cliff with Apple to the next big thing. No push required.

How do you buy or want to buy software? Please respond in comments.

Amazon Kindle users can now lend e-books to friends

Publié: décembre 30, 2010, 7:22pm CET par Tim Conneally

One of the major advantages Barnes and Noble's Nook e-reader offered over Amazon's Kindle was the ability to lend other users e-books that you had purchased. Today, Amazon closed that gap when it announced Kindle Book Lending.

Just like Barnes and Noble's Nook, Kindle users can now share certain books they have purchased with friends for a period of 14 days. From the "Manage Your Kindle" menu in your Amazon account, you can select "loan this book," and then enter the recipient's e-mail address and name. They do not have to own the Kindle hardware, and can read the book in any of the free Kindle applications. If one receives an e-mail alerting you that someone has loaned you a book, you have seven days to initiate the loan and start the 14 day loan period.

Not all Kindle books can be loaned to other users. A book's eligibility for sharing is determined by the publisher or rights holder, just like their ability to be endowed with text-to-speech. To find out if a book has lending enabled, you have to scroll to the product details section of a book's Amazon page, or from within your "Manage My Kindle" list of purchases.

Chinese Trojan discovered in Android games

Publié: décembre 30, 2010, 6:40pm CET par Tim Conneally

An Android-based Trojan called "Geinimi" has been discovered in the wild, mobile security company Lookout now warns. The Trojan is capable of sending personal information to remote servers and exhibits botnet-like behavior, the security company says.

Geinimi originated in China, and is being distributed inside applications and games downloadable in third-party Android app stores. Once the application is launched on the user's smartphone, the trojan collects location data, as well as the device's IMEI and IMSI numbers, and a list of all the apps the user has installed on his device. It then attempts to contact a remote server every five minutes to send this information.

"Geinimi's author(s) have raised the sophistication bar significantly over and above previously observed Android malware by employing techniques to obfuscate its activities. In addition to using an off-the-shelf bytecode obfuscator, significant chunks of command-and-control data are encrypted. While the techniques were easily identified and failed to thwart analysis, they did substantially increase the level of effort required to analyze the malware," Lookout said on Wednesday.

Lookout says the Geinimi Trojan has been found in versions of the games Monkey Jump 2, Sex Positions, President vs. Aliens, City Defense, and Baseball Superstars 2010, which are hosted on third-party app stores. The versions of these same games in Google's Android Market are safe to download.

Earlier this year, another Android Trojan disguised as a media player application reached widespread circulation. Unlike Geinimi, that particular Trojan sent SMS messages to premium numbers that incurred charges on the user's phone bill.

What's it like to develop for Windows Phone 7?

Publié: décembre 30, 2010, 6:10pm CET

By Andrew Long

I started developing applications and websites using Microsoft tools about 15 years ago, and I anticipated developing for Windows Phone 7. In fact, two of my WP7 apps were announced as winners in Microsoft's WP7 Federal Apps contest about two weeks ago. However, my enthusiasm is much less post launch, after struggling to get several of my apps approved for sale in the Windows Phone Marketplace.

When I went to register for my Marketplace account early in September, I got an error message at the end of the process. My credit card was charged the $99, but I had no access to the Marketplace developer portal. It took about a full week for this issue to be resolved and for me to get access to the portal -- however, the issue was fairly widespread as there were numerous postings to the support forum from other users experiencing the same issue. I believe this issue is still occurring, although not as commonly, as you can still find similar postings to the registration forums here.

One of the apps I initially submitted was rejected partially because it violated section 2.4 of the Marketplace app requirements, which states that "Your application must not jeopardize the security or functionality of (a) Windows Phone 7 devices or (b) the Windows Phone Marketplace." There was no further indication of how my app violated this policy. I have also seen many other posts from developers looking for more detailed information as to why their application was rejected. Incidentally, after making a couple of changes and resubmitting my app, it was approved, so no sour grapes here.

Improved but Dicey App Approval Process

Overall I'd say the app submission/approval process has improved since launch, but there are definitely still issues. The biggest issue I've had is inconsistent testing and interpretation of the application certification requirements. I recently had an app rejected because of the way a certain UI control I was using worked with the phone's back button. Now I already had another app that used the same control and worked the same way with the back button approved and in the Marketplace. I submitted a failure dispute and after a week or so heard back that indeed I was correct and my app should not have failed certification. However, they could not change the certification result so I would have to resubmit the app. I did, and it failed again for the same reason. I resubmitted again and included detailed tester notes referring to the issue, and my failure dispute, but the app again failed certification for the same reason. I finally gave up and modified my UI just so I could get the app approved. You can see a thread I posted here -- and notice that it took a full 5 days before getting a response from Microsoft on the forums.

Another one of my apps has a section accessible only with a login. I received an email from Microsoft asking for a test account so they could continue testing. I responded to that message with the requested info and a day later I received a bounced email notification that my response could not be delivered. I also posted this to the forums asking if there was another address for me to send the test account info to, but there there was no response.

Initially I saw very little, if any participation on the forums from Microsoft employees. As developers trying to build and submit apps on a brand new platform, these forums are one of the go-to sources of info, and Microsoft should have a much stronger presence there. While Microsoft's presence in the forums has improved, the majority of responses I see all seem to come from a single Microsoft employee. That poor guy is probably a bit overwhelmed if he is responsible for supporting all of the reported 15k registered WP7 developers on the forums.

Too Few Developer Test Phones Ahead of Launch

The lack of availability of developer handsets ahead of Windows Phone 7 handset launch is another large issue. Outside of a select group of larger developers, there was no way for the majority of us to test our apps on an actual device prior to submitting to the marketplace. I saw a large number of users post that they would not submit apps to the Marketplace until they could test on an actual handset.

The availability of developer handsets is a moot issue at this point with the phones' release, although it still seems to me that Microsoft dropped the ball badly in not making handsets more widely available prerelease as well as with how late (just a couple of weeks before the European release and roughly a month before the US release) they opened up the Marketplace to app submissions. It seems to me they could have had a lot more traction at launch with a bit more time to fill the Marketplace.

My Apps Now and Future Development

Here are some of the mobile applications I developed:

For Windows Phone 7:

Cameronheadcovers.com (a companion app to one of my websites)
Fairwaysandgreens.com lite and premium versions (another companion app to one of my sites)
Airport Status
Gratuitous
Park It
Failed Banks
rGov Recalls
rGov Congress
My Tour Caddie

For iPhone:

Cameronheadcovers.com
Fairwaysandgreens.com lite
rGov Recalls

After an initial rush to get as many apps developed and approved to the Windows Phone Marketplace, with the initial speculation over the number of phones that are being sold, and actually now being able to see numbers for my app sales, I have seriously curtailed my WP7 development and am now focusing more on iPhone and Android.

Developer Andrew Long Andrew Long has been developing websites and applications using Microsoft tools and technologies since 1995. He has been trying to convince everyone to build mobile websites since the early 2000s, and he has published several apps for the iPhone and Windows Phone 7.

Skype launches video chat for iOS, outdoes FaceTime

Publié: décembre 30, 2010, 4:44pm CET par Tim Conneally

Popular instant messaging, voice and video chat client Skype today released a version for iOS that supports video calling on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

With the updated iOS application, users can make video calls to desktop versions of Skype as well as to other iOS devices over Wi-Fi or 3G mobile data connections.

In Skype's official blog today, Peter Parkes said the app is compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPod Touch 4th Generation with iOS 4.0 and up. The iPhone 4 is the only device among them that has a forward-facing camera, the essential element in video chatting.

But this does not hamstring Skype on the platform.

Since the iPhone 4's launch in June, Apple has been pushing the intimacy that FaceTime can provide its users. Unfortunately, the FaceTime software has some big limitations in that it only allows calls between iPhones or between iPhones and Macs running the FaceTime for Mac beta client. There is no FaceTime for Windows client.

So for now, Skype for iPhone 4 can serve a broader base of users than FaceTime.

Skype for iOS with video calling is now available in the iTunes app store.

iPhone 4 vs Nexus S: Which smartphone is right for you?

Publié: décembre 30, 2010, 4:23am CET par Joe Wilcox

iPhone 4-Nexus S

Six months after moving to Apple's smartphone, I'm back on Android. On December 17, I bought the Samsung-made Google Nexus S from my local Best Buy. Days later, my iPhone 4 sold on eBay for $575, which will cover my early termination fee with AT&T and some of the new phone's cost. Like any other tech purchase, I did research beforehand but couldn't find what I most wanted: iPhone comparison to Nexus S reviews -- Apple's flagship smartphone to Google's superphone. After nearly two weeks using Nexus S, I'm ready to offer some experiential comparisons for other shoppers.

To be clear, I wasn't dissatisfied with iPhone 4. On the contrary, I was hugely satisfied with the phone and the user experience. Apple's smartphone feels solid to hold, offers breathtaking display and shoots pleasing photos and videos. With the exception of ongoing Bluetooth earpiece problems, iPhone satisfied -- perhaps too much. Psychologists say that marriages often break up not in a flurry of anger or arguments but silence. Two people drift apart, one day realizing they have little left in common. That sentiment in some ways describes my feelings about iPhone 4. Three-and-a-half years after the original phone launched, the iOS user interface is pretty much the same. The UI feels stale, uninviting and too PC-like. I love the hardware, but no longer pine for the software.

An iPhone 4 Divorce

My software breakup started months earlier, when my 89 year-old father-in-law switched to iPhone 4. In process of watching him struggle to use the device, I suddenly saw in a new way the inconsistencies of the user interface, such as the button in the left hand corner of some standard phone functions leading "back" but doing something different, too (text messaging is good example). There was a consistency about his confusion -- when encountering UI inconsistencies and oddities.

Other things bugged me. For example, photo sharing is cumbersome on iOS compared to Android. The iOS presents a few standard sharing options, like e-mail and MMS, but the services are all Apple's. By comparison, Android exposes APIs to third-party developers. When using the Nexus One, the newer Google phone's predecessor, I could upload photos directly to Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr immediately, without having to truck over to their apps (unlike iPhone). This example represents the difference in openness of the two mobile platforms.

In June, I switched to iPhone 4 from Nexus One, which my wife still uses. I generally liked the Android phone but there were accuracy problems with the touchscreen and the AMOLED screen washed out in sunlight, making the phone essentially unusable. When I had the Nexus One, it ran Android 2.1 (now 2.2). I like versions 2.2 and 2.3 less; there are more steps required for some really basic functions, like making phone calls. The point: Android's user interface is becoming unnecessarily complex in some respects. However, in many others, such as adjusting settings or getting notifications, even Android 2.3 is superior in its simplicity compared to iOS.

Nexus S Google Nexus S side view showing curvy screen

Some reasons why Nexus S appealed to me compared to iPhone 4:

1. It's the new Google phone. Nexus S is Google branded, with no carrier crapware installed. The smartphone is based on the popular Samsung Galaxy S series, and it will be first to get the newest Android operating system version updates.

2. Nexus S runs Gingerbread. Android 2.3 is tasty. What can I say? I like sweets.

3. The Super AMOLED screen overcomes Nexus One's sunlight blindness -- and it's crisp and clear enough compared to iPhone 4.

4. I like the Samsung Galaxy S series -- too bad the Nexus S misses some features. I'd be happier if like T-Mobile's Samsung Vibrant variant, Nexus S had 720p video and microSD slot to augment the 16GB internal storage. That said, the Nexus S is gorgeous and loaded with goodies.

5. I was bored with iOS and longing for Android. As aforementioned, I was ready for the iPhone 4 divorce. I just wanted the right phone to switch to-- something like the Nexus One in concept but not the shortcomings.

How Do the Phones Compare?

There is no apple (or is that Apple?) to apple comparison. Each smartphone appeals in its own way. I mostly prefer the Nexus S to iPhone 4, but I could just as comfortably use Apple's smartphone. These are both exceptional quality phones. For many people, one or the other will be a matter of taste, assuming they're not contractually committed to the wireless network supporting the other phone.

Quick Specs: iPhone 4

Processor: Apple A4.
Storage: 16GB or 32GB; available to applications.
Dimensions: 115.2mm high by 58.6mm wide by 9.3mm deep, weighing 137 grams.
Display: 3.5 inches, with 960-by-640 resolution; 326 dots per inch; 800:1 contrast ratio.
Wireless: UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA -- 850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz; GSM/EDGE -- 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz; 802.11b/g/n WiFi; Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR; Assisted GPS
Cameras: VGA front-facing and 5-megapixel back-facing (backlit CMOS and high-dynamic range capabilities); VGA video from front and 720p from the back, both 30 frames per second; LED flash on back camera.
Claimed battery life: 7 hours talk, 5 hours Internet
Carrier locked: Yes, in most geographies
US price: $199 for 16GB and $299 32GB with two-year contractual commitment to AT&T. No commitment: $599 and $699, respectively.

iPhone 4

Quick Specs: Nexus S

Processor: 1GHz Samsung Cortex A8 (Hummingbird).
Storage: 16GB; 1GB available to applications.
Dimensions: 123.9mm high by 63mm wide by 10.88mm deep, weighing 129 grams.
Display: 4 inches, with 800-by-480 resolution; 235 dots per inch; 100000:1 contrast ratio.
Wireless: HSDPA/HSUPA -- 900, 1700, 2100 MHz; GSM/EDGE -- 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); 802.11b/g/n WiFi; Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR; Assisted GPS; Near Field Communication.
Cameras: VGA front-facing and 5-megapixel back-facing; VGA video from front and 720 x 480 from the back, 30 frames per second; LED flash on back camera.
Claimed battery life: 6.7 hours.
Carrier locked: No
US price: $199 or $249 with two-year contractual commitment to T-Mobile. No commitment: $529.

In the United States, iPhone 4 is locked to AT&T's network; even when unlocked by the user, high-speed data is not available on the other major GSM network, T-Mobile. The Nexus S is unlocked and uses T-Mobile's data frequencies. The phone is good for voice on AT&T but only EDGE for data. Note to T-Mobile subscribers: The Nexus S tops out at 7.2Mbps; it does not support T-Mobile's so-called 4G network speeds.

First-Hand User Experience

The Nexus S' most distinctive feature is the curved screen, which feels noticeably more comfortable against the face than iPhone 4 or other smartphones I have used. The screen is bright, with rich contrast that is superior to iPhone 4. The capacitive touchscreen is scarily responsive, like it's reading my mind and producing letters before I touch the screen. That's not too far from the truth. In testing, I find the screen responds without touch, if I hold my fingers just above the letters.

Nexus S But it is the speed I first noticed. The Nexus S is fast, noticeably more than iPhone 4, which is saying a lot, since Apple's smartphone is no slouch. From a usability perspective, I much prefer Android's simply inspired notifications compared to Apple's seemingly hacked on approach. If, for example, Facebook isn't on the main iPhone screen, the user might not realize he or she has notifications, which appear as a numeral against the application icon. On Android, a unified notifications bar appears at the top of screen and pulls down to reveal them.

Android also places phone function or application settings on the same screen (after you untuck them), rather than how iPhone forces the user to go to a separate, consolidated "settings" application. Another nicety: Widgets running on the desktop. I use the featured "Google News/Weather" widget throughout the day. I'll add others to one of the home screens, as I find time.

Nexus S' battery life, while good, simply doesn't compete with iPhone 4, which is an exceptional performer. I would guess Nexus S delivers about 80-85 percent the time of iPhone 4. Strangely, I find talk time to be longer on Nexus S compared to iPhone 4, while Apple's phone lasts longer for data usage.

As a journalist, the camera is a high priority for me. Unquestionably, iPhone has the edge, particularly for video. But I find the Nexus S delivers satisfying performance -- certainly good enough -- and there are some actual controls for adjusting settings while taking pictures, such as white balance and exposure compensation.

Like other Android handsets, Nexus S syncs to the cloud -- no PC required, unlike iPhone 4. Apple offers some cloud sync capabilities, but users must still backup the device to a computer and receive updates there. Android updates OTA -- over the air. I presume that Nexus S, like the N1, will restore all apps and settings OTA if the phone is reset.

I find call quality on both ends to be excellent with both phones, but better with Nexus S. Several people have asked about the difference, which they noticed. Switching carriers -- T-Mobile from AT&T -- could be a factor. Here's something, and I have no explanation why: Nexus S screen is noticeably less smudgy than iPhone 4.

There remains the question of mobile apps. Apple claims 300,000 in the App Store, but what about Google? According to AndroLib, the Android Marketplace now has more than 200,000 applications. I won't quibble the number, which isn't Google official, but will say this: I had absolutely no problem finding all the applications I needed.

Which phone is right for you? I can't say. Hopefully this post will help your decision-making process. But nothing beats actually handling a phone, which I suggest you do on several trips. It's an important commitment (if bound by carrier contract that you'll live with for years) that deserves some hands-on experience. The Nexus S is right for me, and I have no regrets.

Skype explains outage, offers vouchers to customers

Publié: décembre 29, 2010, 10:36pm CET par Ed Oswald

A systemwide failure which took down the popular VoIP service for about 24 hours beginning at 4pm GMT December 22 was caused by a server overload, chief information officer Lars Rabbe disclosed on Wednesday. This overload in turn caused delayed communication with Skype clients, in some cases causing crashes.

The problems even prompted CEO Tony Bates to e-mail users of the service, offering a credit voucher worth about 30 minutes of international airtime to its users -- and again publicly apologizing for the issues.

About half of all Skype users are using Skype for Windows 5.0.0.152, which had an issue with how it handled delayed responses from the Skype servers. With nearly 40 percent of those installs, the client would crash. Some of those affected clients were also "supernodes," which further exacerbated the problem.

In Skype's network, the supernode plays a critical part in the handling of VoIP traffic, acting as a directory and helping to route calls. Obviously without this the system had a difficult time handling traffic. The load was then passed on to the remaining supernodes, which then began to shut down as a result of a massively increased load.

"This further increased the load on remaining supernodes and caused a positive feedback loop, which led to the near complete failures that occurred a few hours after the triggering event," Rabbe explained.

Essentially, a domino effect of failures eventually made much of the network unavailable for nearly a day as Skype worked to stabilize the system. Now, with the system apparently stable, the service is working to prevent it from happening again.

Rabbe said the company was looking for bugs in its software like the one in the Windows client, and providing hotfixes as necessary. In addition, the company would review its early warning capabilities to help detect serious problems much earlier and thus prevent a similar major failure.

"Lessons will be learned and we will use this as an opportunity to identify and introduce areas of improvement to our software, further assess and invest in capacity and stability, and develop better processes for outage recovery and communications to our user base," Rabbe concluded.

Nintendo: 3D may be harmful to children's vision

Publié: décembre 29, 2010, 7:29pm CET par Ed Oswald

In what may be an attempt to fend off any potential lawsuits, Nintendo on Wednesday took the unusual step of actually recommending parents to not buy its upcoming 3DS handheld system for their children if they are under the age of six.

The game manufacturer's reason was that children at this age are still in the "developmental stage" and exposure to 3D imagery may damage their vision. It also recommended that gamers of all ages take more frequent breaks when playing 3D games.

Nintendo had previously recommended players of its 2D system take breaks from gameplay every hour. Due to the fact that 3D imagery is more strenuous on the eye, Nintendo says gamers of any age should be taking breaks every half an hour to prevent eye strain.

No 3D glasses will be required in order to use the portable console, which uses an 800x240 specially formatted LCD screen to create the effect. The device will debut at Nintendo World 2011, taking place in Japan from January 8-10. Earlier statements from the company indicate the 3DS would launch in Japan in late February and internationally the following month.

Nintendo is not the first to warn about viewing 3D imagery for too long: Sony has also advised its customers against playing such games for extended periods of time and to take frequent breaks.

On its website, Sony warns that users may experience "discomfort" when watching 3D images, including nausea, headaches, and fatigue.

Some optometrists seem to question whether 3D imagery really may be damaging to children's vision, however. Dr. Michael Ehrenhaus of New York Cornea Consultants told FoxNews.com that Nintendo and Sony's warnings may be a bit premature.

"It's hard to say that it'll ruin development," Ehrenhaus said. "I don't foresee it as a major issue."

What does Paul Allen need to win his patent lawsuit against Apple, Facebook? Texas

Publié: décembre 29, 2010, 7:20pm CET par Joe Wilcox

Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen really needs a lesson in how to effectively file and win patent lawsuits. For starters, you don't file them in a Washington State federal court. Other patent plaintiffs seem to get what Allen doesn't: You file in East Texas, in what is affectionately or unaffectionally called -- depending on which side of the verdict you're on -- the "rocket docket." Instead, Allen is back in a Seattle court, refiling a patent infringement case that got tossed about two weeks ago.

US District Court Judge Marsha Pechman vacated the original complaint for being too vague -- "spartan," she wrote -- listing infringers but offering no real examples of infringement. Based on my long experience reporting about technology patent cases, such little details probably wouldn't have stopped Allen in East Texas. The new lawsuit is more explicit, citing examples of real products that allegedly infringe on his patents. The lawsuit names Apple, eBay, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube -- but, hey, not Microsoft.

The 35-page refiled lawsuit, dated December 28, officially lists Allen's Interval Licensing LLC as plaintiff. The lawsuit alleges that the infringers violate United States Patent No. 6,263,507, which "was duly and legally issued for an invention entitled 'Browser for Use in Navigating a Body of Information, With Particular Application to Browsing Information Represented By Audiovisual Data.' The '507 patent describes an invention that enables a user to efficiently review a large body of information by categorizing and correlating segments of information within the body of information and generating displays of segments that are related to the primary information being viewed by the user."

The infringement claim against AOL sums up the kind of allegations made against other defendants. According to the legal document:

AOL operates many websites that provide articles, videos, advertisements, and other types of content to users. In order to help users find additional content items that may be of interest, the software and hardware that operate the websites compare the available content items to determine whether they are related. When a user views a particular content item, the AOL websites generate displays of related content items so as to inform the user that the related content items may be of interest.

Apple's alleged infringement applies to iTunes Store, the App Store and even Apple TV. "Displays of related content" is one of the major themes running through all the claims.

Where Patent Trolls Go

Perhaps these patent nuances would be too difficult for some juries to handle -- and, yes, Allen asks for a jury trial. East Texas juries seem to cut to the chase, frequently siding with patent holders. Three Texas towns stand out for delivering big payoffs for patent plaintiffs: Beaumont, Marshall and Tyler. Beaumont achieved notoriety in 1999, when a lawsuit against Toshiba led to a $2.1 billion settlement. Tyler is about 196 miles north of Beaumont, in southeast Texas. Marshall, located 62 miles east of Tyler, is another popular patent lawsuit venue. Tyler, with a population over 98,000, is the second-largest of the three towns. Beaumont: 111,000; Marshall: 24,000.

The so-called rocket dockets of Marshall and Tyler have been good to patent plaintiffs over the years. Randomly chosen from among the many wins:

In October, a federal jury awarded Mirror Worlds $625.5 million in damages against Apple.
In May 2009, a jury found that Microsoft violated i4i patents for XML.
In November 2008, a jury found that Sony violated an Agere patent and ordered payment of $18.8 million.
In July 2007, a judge in Tyler ordered Nintendo to pay $21 million to local company Anascape for patent infringement related to Wii and GameCube controllers.
In April 2006, a jury ordered Microsoft to pay $115 to z4 Technology; a judge later increased the damages against Microsoft.

Most patent-troll cases filed in Eastern Texas share fairly common characteristics:

Most plaintiffs are companies or individuals, rather than, say, Apple, IBM or Microsoft.
Patents tend to have been recently issued, typically not long before an infringement claim is filed.
Plaintiffs typically don't produce actual products or offer services, which in many other court jurisdictions would raise questions about the patent's legitimacy.
Plaintiffs demand a jury trial, and the case either goes to jury or to settlement.
Area of filing is well known for either judges or juries favoring patent holders over defendants.

Allen's patent lawsuit shares some of these characteristics. By the numbers -- and they have nothing to do with the merits of Allen's lawsuit - East Texas is more popular venue than Washington State. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts tracks the number and kind of cases filed each year. Through March 31st (the most recent data), there were 767 civil cases related to copyrights, patents and trademarks filed in Texas federal courts -- 299 in the Eastern Texas U.S. District Court (the so-called rocket docket). By comparison, there was a total of 90 similar cases filed in all of Washington State.

Perhaps Allen should rethink his legal strategy.

[Editor's Note: Distance between Tyler and Beaumont, Texas corrected.]

10 for 2010: Google stories that mattered

Publié: décembre 28, 2010, 10:34pm CET par Joe Wilcox

Google logo

My second set of year-in-review retrospectives is 10 stories in disguise. The number is closer to 20, because I combined together the 7-part Chrome OS laptop review series into one. While I wrote fewer stories about Google than Microsoft, I found this list harder to create than the first one -- "10 for 2010: Microsoft stories that mattered."

These are 10 (OK, nearly 20) of my Google stories I believe that you should have read in 2010. You still have time! The stories are organized by importance, from least to most -- that is 10 to 1. I weighed importance based on relevance of the analysis to Google in 2010 and even in coming years. Not all readers will agree on which is more or less important, or perhaps not at all.

The year 2010 was tremendously significant for Google, which started off in January with release of the Nexus One, followed by a huge surge in Android handset sales. Google announced its TV product in February, and the first Google TV settop boxes shipped in time for the holidays. New Android tablets released this year, and Google debuted a Chrome OS pilot, with 60,000 laptops for lucky testers, in December. By many other measures -- improvements to Gmail and rapid-fire Android and Chrome releases -- Google showed its stuff as a maturing company.

I will followup with similar post about Apple, highlighting the important stories about it, too. With that introduction, I present 10 Google stories that mattered in 2010.

10. "The Google-Verizon proposal is worse than evil": The Google-Verizon proposal for an "open Internet" would empower the Federal Communications Commission to exert more control over the wired Internet. But the proposal also would strip the government from exerting authority over the wireless Internet, in process allowing services like Verizon to throttle back some services while giving preference to others, like Google's YouTube. It's a devil's agreement. Posted: August 11.

9. "10 reasons I dumped iPhone 3GS for Nexus One": The official Google phone running on T-Mobile is, for me, a better experience and value than iPhone 3GS and AT&T. Among the reasons: AT&T dropped calls; Google leapfrogging Apple in mobile operating system development; and Android notifications bar.

Six months later, I gave up iPhone 4 for the Samsung-made Google Nexus S. But that's a story not yet written. Posted: May 25.

8. "I sold my soul to Google, can I get it back?": Google's free worldview and business approach is fundamentally changing the value of content and other intellectual property produced at cost. Google services are compelling and well connected, making it hard to resist the devil's deal -- taking for free things people usually pay for. Posted: December 1.

7. "Google is a dangerous monopoly -- more than Microsoft ever was": The European Union's preliminary antitrust investigation into Google practices isn't surprising. Google increasingly is becoming gatekeeper to the Internet. Fear that Microsoft would take such a role precipitated a landmark US antitrust case filed in May 1998. Google's intentions aren't the issue so much as its influence.

In late November, the European Union made the investigation official. Posted: February 24.

6. "Why is Google suddenly so evil?": It was the question to ask after Google launched Buzz with privacy controls wide open. How evil this and other actions are depends on viewpoint. To whom is Google's first obligation? Itself? Its shareholders? Or its customers? Sometimes what is evil to one group is sheer goodness to the other. Posted: February 11.

5. "Google soars past Apple and Microsoft with Nexus One superphone": The Google Nexus One launch is as game changing as Apple's June 2007 release of the iPhone. Perhaps, Nexus One is more important, although judging from blogs and tweets, geekdom doesn't yet get it. Apple supercharged the smartphone category with a more natural user interface. Google turned on the superpowers, by finally starting to integrate cloud services into its mobile platform in a hugely useful way.

Many blogs and news sites wrongly reported that Google was pioneering a new direct sales method with Nexus One (I disagreed). Others reported sales had flopped (again, I disagreed). Nexus One succeeded because of its objective -- to establish a baseline reference model for Android manufacturers. It's not surprising that Google later released the Nexus S, as the N1's successor. Posted: January 5.

4. "Like I said, Apple can't win the smartphone wars": As expressed in October 2009 and reiterated here, iPhone is to Android -- and somewhat Symbian OS -- handsets as Macintosh was to the DOS/Windows PC in the 1980s and 1990s. The analysis responds to Mark Sigal's April 26 post: "Five reasons why iPhone vs Android isn't Mac vs Windows." He couldn't be more wrong.

By end of the year, Google reported activating more than 300,000 Android handsets a day. Meanwhile, globally, Gartner projected that Android handsets would catch mark-leading Nokia Symbian phones by 2014. Posted: May 10.

3. "I don't need 10 reasons why Google TV will succeed": Three are enough: Search, advertising and Android. But if you need seven more: Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google. The problem right now with Google TV isn't the product but bloggers and journalists spouting off rumors and nonsense and Google failing to respond to them. Google product managers had better get off their duffs and defend their TV software soon, lest the rabble writing top-10 lists creates negative perceptions that could stall Google TV's adoption among manufacturers and content partners.

Related and absolutely worth reading: My Google TV first impressions review. Posted: December 28.

2. "Who really needs a Chrome OS laptop?": You do. On December 7th, Google announced a pilot program, distributing some 60,000 unbranded Cr-48 laptops running Chrome OS. The ambitious undertaking is necessary for manufacturers, developers and potential customers to test the cloud-connected operating system.

A seven-part hands-on using the Cr-48 laptop series followed:

1. "Clash of the titans: Apple, Google battle for the mobile Web": The two companies likeliest to have long-term influence over the mobile web take fundamentally different approaches. Apple favors apps, while Google prefers the browser. Behind these approaches are strikingly different worldviews that compliment and conflict. The winning platform, if one is to dominate, will make lots of people rich. Posted: April 8.

Photo Credit: Hadi Carbon

Amazon's third-gen Kindle becomes its best selling product ever

Publié: décembre 28, 2010, 8:36pm CET par Ed Oswald

Amazon Kindle's self-lighting case Internet retail giant Amazon may sell a lot of stuff, but nothing has sold like the Kindle. The company said Tuesday that the third generation of the book reader has become its best selling product of all time, surpassing 2007 bestseller Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

As has been the case with the Kindle since its initial release, Amazon still has refused to give an exact number of devices sold. An educated guess on sales can be made, however: Harry Potter sold about 2.5 million copies during the first quarter following its release.

CEO Jeff Bezos also seemingly took a shot across the bow of Apple, claiming that Kindle sales have not been affected by sales of iPads and other tablet devices. "Customers report using their LCD tablets for games, movies, and web browsing and their Kindles for reading sessions," he said.

Bezos also claimed that Kindle customers preferred the device for reading because it weighed less, had better battery life, and its e-ink technologies allowed for easier reading when compared to the LCD screens of tablets.

"Kindle's $139 price point is a key factor -- it is low enough that people don't have to choose," he added.

The not-so-obvious top 15 Android apps for 2010

Publié: décembre 28, 2010, 7:34pm CET par Tim Conneally

2010 was a big year for Google's Android mobile operating system, as it moved at a lightning pace from a minority position into the position of most popular operating system in the United States. Still, when retrospectives are put together for "best apps of the year" lists, editors often make choices that seem obvious. We've put one together for 2010 that hopefully avoids the more self-explanatory choices.

Moodagent-- Even though it's frequently chided for being weak in the gaming department when compared to iOS, Android has far more ground to gain against it in the MP3 player category. With the many OEM-skinned media players, the built-in one sometimes looks unremarkable. That's why third party media management apps on Android is a category worth paying attention to. Moodagent is a playlist-creation app that takes the music stored on your Android device and categorizes each song by its "feel." The user then sets sliders labeled "Sensual," "Tender," "Happy," "Angry" and "Tempo," and playlists appropriate to the mood are built according to its settings.

LOCi-- This GPS tracking app is available for $2.99 in the Android Market, but has the option for a $29.99 annual subscription mode that lets you switch on private, real-time tracking. This lets one user track another user's location live through a desktop Web browser without sharing that location with anyone else. It's a feature not available on the iPhone version of the same app, and is actually surprisingly useful.

My6Sense-- I took a look at this personalized feed reader when it launched in beta last September, and it is one of those rare applications that actually gets better the more you use it.

MicDroid-- Remember "I am T-Pain" for iOS? This is Android's version of that. It's a goofy little autotune sound recorder that is available for free or a $2.99 donation. It's a good source of humorous audio snippets, especially if you use it on people who do not know they're being recorded.

Yahoo! Mail-- Even though Yahoo's Webmail remains extremely popular, there was no easy way to set up Android's native email client to connect to free Yahoo inboxes. Up to the time that this app was released back in July, setting up Yahoo Mail pop3 workarounds was my top Android support request. Now that the app exists, the problem is solved.

Mint-- Intuit's Web-based personal finance site launched its Android app and widget in May 2010, and I took it for a spin when it was in beta. This application really surprised me, and Mint's minimalist design makes for a highly usable app that quickly grows on you.

Bing-- First launched exclusively on Verizon Android devices in August, Bing for Android became available for all users in November. The easy-to-use search app retains Bing's highly visual design and applies it to location-based searches, mapping, news, and movies, and also utilizes Android's sophisticated voice recognition engine for voice-powered Bing searches.

Heavy Gunner 3D-- While I was personally quite disappointed with this game, it is actually a great technical example of how solid a gaming platform Android can be. Utilizing the phone's gyroscopes as well as touch screen, this 3D first-person-shooter is a far cry from the first generation of Android Games launched just one year ago. It's not even remotely as popular as Rovio's Angry Birds, but I feel it's a better display of potential.

Chumby-- This late entrant only launched in the Android Market two weeks ago, and was long overdue, if you ask this Chumby user. What is Chumby? It would be best described as a connected alarm clock that can cycle through different functions as you need them. This app gives a whole new level of functionality to Android devices that utilize charging docks, like the Motorola Droid. With it, the docked phone can cycle through clocks, webcams, photostreams, status updates, and over 1,500 Chumby apps.

shopkick-- Shopkick is a strange location-based rewards app that automatically checks in whenever you enter a participating store. The app then gives the user "kickbucks" that can be redeemed for things like Facebook Credits, song downloads, hotel vouchers, or donations to more than 30 different online charities. It is the latter of these that really makes the app stand out. It's the only location-based shopping app I found this year that can donate to charity every time you walk into a participating store.

Google Books-- 2010 was the year that every major e-book competitor entered the Android space. Borders, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon all had their own apps available in the Android Market when Google launched eBooks. This particular app is especially handy for Android tablets, because it doesn't necessarily require a connection to sync content like other e-reader apps do. This one can store as many as 16,000 e-books on a microSD card for offline reading.

Firefox 4-- The mobile browser from Mozilla formerly known as Fennec had a slow and somewhat buggy start, but for Firefox users, the sync capabilities and promise of similar extension functionality make this browser one with an extremely bright future. It's currently still very much a work in progress, but for all the hype given to Skyfire and Opera on Android, I'm putting my hopes in Firefox.

Springpad-- This one is a bit more of an obvious choice, in my opinion, as it enjoyed quite a bit of publicity when the Android app launched back in May. However, this Web-synced note-taking app still appears to be playing second fiddle to Evernote, so that's why I included it here. The app lets users snap pictures, scan barcodes, take down notes and reminders, or save and share links and content to the web-based Springpad service.

Vonage Talk Free-- Imagine a mobile, voice-enabled Facebook Chat, and you've got Vonage Talk Free. First launched in August, this app lets users place free VoIP calls to Facebook friends with the Vonage Talk Free app installed on their profile. While it does access essentially everything it can possibly access in both your Facebook profile and your Android device, it is a nice feature to be able to use for free.

Winamp-- Pairing Winamp 5.6 with Winamp for Android creates an end-to-end music management solution for your desktop and Android device that rivals the iPhone and iTunes. You can sync your music collection wirelessly, listen to SHOUTCast streaming radio, scrobble, and manage collections via a homescreen widget or lock screen controller. Besides, even if you don't use Winamp on your PC, you have to enjoy Nullsoft's hybrid Android-Llama logo.

Honorable Mention

Snapit-- When my father passed away last year, I was presented with huge stacks of his work-related documents that I wanted to scan, but the only tool I had was my phone. I downloaded Snapit just because it was the only thing that turned up when I searched the Android Market for OCR, and turned out to be exactly what I needed. I snapped dozens of pictures of documents that were instantly converted into fairly accurate text files. Yes, this app is from 2009 and my anecdote was too, but I made a personal exception for it because it came through for me when I needed it, and I didn't make a list like this last year.

I don't need 10 reasons why Google TV will succeed

Publié: décembre 28, 2010, 7:29pm CET par Joe Wilcox

Three are enough: Search, advertising and Android. But if you need seven more: Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google.

Last night, while reading news on my Nexus S, I came across this little ditty: "Google TV Is Failing: 10 Reasons Why," by freelancer Don Reisinger, writing for eWeek. Judging from Reisinger's eWeek profile, he seemingly only writes top-10 lists. His reasons appear to be sensible but lack depth regarding the consumer electronics industry, Google or television networks. Google is as committed to television as it is to mobile -- and look how well Chrome and Android are doing two years out of the gate.

The problem right now with Google TV isn't the product but bloggers and journalists spouting off rumors and nonsense and Google failing to respond to them. Google product managers had better get off their duffs and defend their TV software soon, lest the rabble writing top-10 lists creates negative perceptions that could stall Google TV's adoption among manufacturers and content partners. What incentive does Hulu have, for example, to deal with Google if the Reisingers of the InterWeb predict failure?

The Google TV rumors and innuendo are deafening. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google had asked its TV manufacturing partners to pull their products from next week's Consumer Electronics Show. Over the Christmas holiday, new rumors spread like wildfire about Google asking Logitech to either suspend production or shipments of the Google TV-based Revue. Yesterday, Logitech responded in a statement and also blog post by Ashish Arora, vice president of the Digital Home Group, denying any Revue suspension. "Suggestions that production of the Logitech Revue companion box might need to be halted to address software issues are unfounded," according to Logitech's statement. Now why can't Google be as explicit? It's long past time for Google to defend itself against the top-10 marauders and rumormongers.

Bad Tech Reviews?

Yesterday, I recorded a segment for Tech Night Owl Live that will air New Years Day. Host Gene Steinberg and I got into an argument about Google TV, which he hasn't experienced, the bad reviews and networks blocking content. This morning, I looked for those bad reviews and didn't really find them. Yes, Google TV failed to get the seal of approval of hugely influential tech columnist Walt Mossberg. He writes: "For now, I'd relegate Google TV to the category of a geek product, not a mainstream, easy solution ready for average users. It's too complicated, in my view, and some of its functions fall short."

But different reviewers have different experiences. Mossberg writes: "I was similarly frustrated by finding and using regular TV shows from my cable box. Unless you have a box from Dish network, Google TV can't search in your recorded shows, or allow you, when it finds a show coming up, to set it to record." That's not my experience. I have AT&T U-verse, which runs Microsoft's MediaRoom software, and Google TV could search for TV programs and schedule them to record them just fine. Mossberg and I both tested the Logitech Revue. I gave my first-impressions "I love my Google TV" review on December 26. Mossberg's review posted on November 18. Perhaps the user experience changed between our reviews. Logitech's Arora emphasized the benefits of "software updates."

Engadget's October 29th review more reflects my experience. Nilay Patel writes:

Google TV is a success. Features like the search bar and integrated browser are so fundamentally good on a conceptual level that they seem destined to forever change our perception of TV user experience, regardless of how well Google TV itself fares in the market, and that's no small accomplishment. Other features, like apps and smartphone control, seem equally ambitious and worthy of praise because of promise alone.

But Patel acknowledges rough edges I will concede: "The problem, of course, is that it's really execution that counts, and little else. By that much more exacting standard, Google TV feels like an incomplete jumble of good ideas only half-realized, an unoptimized box of possibility that suffers under the weight of its own ambition and seemingly rushed holiday deadline."

Betanews Reader Reviews

Betanews readers responding to my two Google TV posts during the last week generally raved about the product. Stephen Schwartz writes:

I own the Sony Television version of Google TV and I love it with the exception of the remote. Very cumbersome to use the mouse/touch pad thingy. Other than that, I use it every day for surfing, and playing flash games. Also the sites that have converted to a Google TV wide large HTML 5 format (USA Today and NY Times are a couple) look great. I really believe in Google and believe that if something is not baked 100 percent yet, they will keep striving until it is 200 percent to 300 percent perfect. (doesn't anybody remember the first release of Gmail -- look at it now).

He makes the right point about Gmail. Look at how the service has evolved or how quickly Google has iterated Android and Chrome over two years. Betanews reader Murray Hill writes: "I think that all the various news media types give [p]oor reviews of the Google TV have not even tried it themselves...According to my neighborhood Best Buy sales dudes and duddess, they have not seen any returns on the GTV products."

Commenter lindafus writes:

I just received the Logitech Revue for Christmas and set it up today. I have not been able to put it down. It hooked up easily to my Dish network 722 -- Samsung LN46A850 -- and Sony Soundbar and PS3. I am loving this device and have no clue why anyone would give it bad reviews. It is great to be able to watch movies and surf the net and control it all with one controller! I would recommend this to anyone who loves their internet and TV to be all in one! I have not found any bugs yet.

Saadbox13 writes: "Same here we simply love it! Don't understand how googletv got bad reviews in the first place, we did not buy it to watch cable on demand, if that's what you were expecting it is definitely not for you."

But not all Betanews readers buying a Google TV device shared this enthusiasm. Commenter sir-isaac griped:

Most of the channels I was hoping to watch ended up blocking Google TV, I was under the impression Google has some arrangements with content providers but now I know they were just 'hoping' they won't block because it's "Google", I have no idea what they were thinking. It's consumers who put up hard cash to buy these that ended up paying for this little experiment.

It's true that major networks are blocking browser-streamed content on Google TV. Commenter dc2003va has a temporary fix for sir-issac's viewing problems: "If you go to the setting for the Chrome browser simply change the user agent to "DESKTOP" and it will unblock most of the channels. The only things that are still blocked will be Hulu and ABC (they are using adobe Flash signature to block)."

Three Reasons

Now for those three reasons against Reisinger's 10:

1. Search. Television is ripe for Google's core competency. Search can unify video content broadcast live, streamed from the Web or recorded locally. Right now, search on television is about as bad as it was on the Web circa 1999. Google TV search has flaws, which isn't surprising for a version 1 product, but it works a helluva lot better than search does (in my experience) on Comcast, Cox and U-verse services. The search experience reminds me of the "wow" using TiVo, back when most people couldn't understand DVR benefits without using it. Many early reviews described the ability to pause live programming or record shows from a program guide as "life changing." Google search for the TV is simular, IMHO.

2. Advertising. As I explained in February post "Google TV is all about blood sucking television ad spending," the search and informational giant is looking to extend its advertising and search reach to the living room. That's no easy task:

To push into the living room, Google is going to have to push somebody out. As Microsoft learned -- and even TiVo -- that's not so easy. Cable and telco providers covet their subscription fees and local advertising revenues. Surely the big networks will fight against Google's free economy, which could reduce the value of their ad space. Why pay networks big bucks when Google will sell ad space for much less?

I'm not surprised then that some networks are blocking Google TV from receiving streamed content. According to MagnaGlobal, US television advertising revenue is more than double online ad revenue, something the firm predicts won't change during the next four years. But Google wants some of those ad dollars, and Google TV is a way to get them. Perseverance has paid off for Google before.

3. Android. Google's operating system opens the possibility of many useful and convient applications on the TV. I'm simply shocked Apple doesn't make apps widely available for its iOS-based TV product. Apps on television might seem strange at first, but what are console games but applications consumed on the TV? Surely Google will seek to unify the Android mobile experience (beyond acting as remote control) to Android in the living room. For the Millennial generation or older, busy professionals, there is opportunity to play games, while watching that slow-moving football game broadcast in a minibox (and to rewind and watch interesting plays) and in another window monitor traffic spikes to the work network.

If Google iterates its TV software as quickly as Android or Chrome, the rough edges will smooth out quickly. I agree with Engadget's Patel. "Google TV is a success," or soon will be -- that is if the Internet rabble doesn't generate brand damaging negative perceptions first. Google should defend its software. What irony. The naysayers subsist off the pageviews and advertising driven by the Google-free economy.

Scanning books into e-books gets cheaper, but accessing them remains the problem

Publié: décembre 28, 2010, 2:31am CET par Tim Conneally

Google's efforts with the six-year old Google Books project have yielded 15 million scanned books, a new cross-platform e-bookstore, and a temporary copyright shield that lets Google sell "orphaned" works*; but the task of scanning every book cannot be left solely up to Google and its partners.

Earlier this year, Google estimated that 129,864,880 books were in existence. At Google's current pace of 1,000 pages per hour per scanner in use, it could take over 40 years to scan that many books. What's more, Google is only counting the media it defines as a "book," and not the countless other paper media that makes a library such a valuable resource.

Library scanning projects are not just about books and things that fall under the purview of publishers, said Nick Warnock, president of book digitization solution company Atiz. "It's census records, old real estate transactions, deed registries...I can't even begin to tell you how many of these exist. All of this stuff has been written down for hundreds of years and could potentially be left behind."

Most of the works of this type are in the posession of small community libraries and private collectors, who may not have the reach or capital to become a partner in the Google Books project and let Google do their scanning for them.

While it is completely possible to independently digitize your own library, for many there are two huge factors that prohibit it: the cost of the project, and its potential copyright pitfalls.

"At current funding levels, I think a lot of public libraries would claim that they have a hard enough time keeping up with the tasks and needs of today much less a major initiative for tomorrow," said Aaron Krebeck, IT Manager of Charles County (MD) Public Libraries.

Since funds for digitization projects can be so light, it's important to find a cost-effective, yet high-quality and OCR-friendly way to scan and encode this rare content. Fortunately, book scans can be grabbed with consumer DSLR cameras.

"The three most ambitious book scanning projects --The Internet Archive, Google Books, and Project Gutenberg-- are all scanning with digital cameras," Said Warnock. "However, the setups that Google uses cost between $30,000 and $200,000, and something like that is not going to fit in the budget of a rural library."

Warnock hopes these are the people to whom Atiz can appeal. Its Bookdrive Scanners can do 700 pages an hour with two Canon DSLR cameras. They cost around $10,000 with the associated software, and do not incur a maintenance charge since all of the sensitive components are off-the-shelf.

Libraries can go even cheaper, and build a sophisticated book scanner for around $300 that can scan about 400 pages an hour. The scans can then be finished with a single piece of free software, which sadly has an uncertain future because it has been maintained by just one lone developer.

Fortunately, Atiz also sells its book scanning software which syncs dual Canon camera setups of any type; and as the cost of image sensors drops, so too will the cost of any of these solutions.

"You can do quick, cheap scans for peace of mind," Warnock said. "But if you are thinking about preservation for 200 to 300 years, you're going to shoot in RAW format and convert it to multi-page TIFF."

Ultimately, though, this is only half of the problem. The more aggravating issue for library administrators lies in U.S. Copyright Law.

"The library bible for copyright is Title 17 Section 108 of the US Code," said Krebeck, "Unfortunately this was written when mutton chops were de rigeur and probably last updated when Xerox units were the size of tractor trailers."

"These days it seems like the only people who pay any attention to copyright law are librarians and lawyers," Krebeck continued. "Since we are a relatively easy target, we have to play by the rules. Unfortunately, it's really hard to tell exactly what we're allowed to store digitally and even harder to tell what we're allowed to make available digitally. So we err on the side of caution."

The scope of Charles County's digitization efforts, therefore, have been limited to the sort of regional history that is still largely missing from projects like Google Books.

"For example, We digitized a donated collection of photographs depicting life in the county in the first half of the 20th century," Krebeck said. "It was free and clear of any copyright concerns and local history is always something that can generate a fair amount of interest. So it met that magic blend of legally allowable, relatively easy to do (because of the small collection size), and worth the investment of staff time. It doesn't hurt that these are the kinds of digitization projects that are most likely to get grant funding."

The content Krebeck and his staff scanned can be found through The Enoch Pratt Free Library's Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage project, which is funded by a grant from the Library Services and Technology Act.

So for independent historians, rare book collectors, and small town librarians, the task of book digitization promises to only get easier. Unfortunately, for those of us who want easy access to much of this digitized content, it appears to be a different story altogether.

*Books that are out-of-print, but still under active copyright with no clear copyright holder. For example, a book published after 1923 whose publishing house either went out of business or was acquired by another publisher.

2010 Technology of the year: Synchronization

Publié: décembre 28, 2010, 12:40am CET par Joe Wilcox

Apple's iPad surely doesn't deserve the designation, although some other news sites or blogs are giving it. Instead, sync is my choice as technology of 2010. Sync by far is the year's most useful and widely beneficial technology. Sync wasn't invented this year, but the technology reached a crescendo of usefulness -- anytime, anywhere and on anything.

I first started writing about the importance of content synchronization in 2003, arguing that the utility belonged in the operating system. In January 2004, I blogged for JupiterResearch: "Controlling synchronization at the platform level would help Microsoft protect its Windows monopoly." Microsoft planned to integrate sync into Windows Longhorn, but later pulled the plug. Apple brought sync into Mac OS X with limited utility and later to iOS, where it is much more useful. Google trumped both companies, by taking sync somewhere even more useful: To the cloud. Android and the Chrome browser sync to Google datacenters and back to software, quite marvelously. But sync's reach and utility go much farther than these three companies-- from Amazon Kindle to Facebook and beyond.

In March 2008 Microsoft Watch post "Do IT Simply with Sync," I expressed the technology's importance, but many shortcomings, as then available: "Synchronization is the natural killer application for the connected world. People use multiple devices, software products and IP/Web services. Information spreads out across these devices, requiring unnecessary rekeying and duplication. Synchronization would solve these problems and make content more useful across devices or services."

Suddenly, Sync is Everywhere

Twenty-one months later, sync has become a huge utility. What once was about keeping contacts and calendars or even e-mail in sync among multiple PCs or other devices touches just about every product or service used on the go. For example, Amazon uses sync to keep Kindle users reading in the right place. When someone starts reading a book on Kindle ebook reader but then continues on a smartphone running the Kindle software, sync brings him or her to the last page read. Kindle sync came of age in 2010, as Amazon brought the software reader to most smartphone and desktop operating systems (a process that started in 2009).

Facebook sync deserves to be utility of the year, IMHO. In January, Facebook released a new version of its application for iPhone that added contact sync and push notifications. The technology later released for Android and other mobile operating systems. During initial setup, users can choose to sync information with the contacts in their phone's address book, all of their Facebook friends or none at all. Facebook sync helps keep contact information up to date. It's the perfect antidote to annoying Plaxo spam mails, which for me all but disappeared in 2010.

Synchronization is also a vital utility for hundreds of thousands of mobile applications. Using sync and so-called push technologies, Android and iOS check to make sure the newest applications are installed -- that is synced up -- on the smartphone. Sync also lets people recover apps or even the entire desktop. T-Mobile automatically syncs contacts to the cloud, which are resynchronized when the subscriber changes devices. Google uses sync connected to one account ID to keep bookmarks synced among Chrome browsers, say, on a PC and with Android smartphone. Sync also benefits Android phone users in other ways. For example, when I changed Nexus One phones this year, Google cloud sync restored all the settings (even desktop background) and applications to the new device.

What's different about sync as it evolves and extends to more services, software and devices is transparency -- you set it and forget it.

Five Sync Trendsetters

While sync is becoming more pervasive, five companies stand out for technologies and their usefulness: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft. All five services share something in common: They use a single user e-mail as synchronization hub ID -- @amazon.com. @me.com, @facebook.com (or other e-mail address), @gmail.com and @live.com, respectively.

Facebook sync is perhaps the most interesting right now, seemingly because it is so quickly evolving. Facebook's new messaging service is one place to watch for rapid changes, particularly syncing up content between the cloud and mobile devices. Also, Facebook is becoming the default ID used to sign into other services, opening huge opportunities for extending sync benefits beyond the social network.

Apple sync is messiest, because there are two synchronization engines -- iSync/MobileMe (from device to the cloud) and iTunes (from device to PC). The two sync engines don't, well, sync up, and the latter is hugely unappealing to IT organizations. C`mon, what IT manager wants to sync corporate-issued iPads or iPhones with iTunes? That's not to say iTunes sync works poorly. It actually sets a standard for ease and effectiveness. But success has a price: Apple has gone too far down the iTunes sync path to easily change course, which is one of the major reasons there are two sync engines. However, the Mac App Store, which launches on January 6, could be catalyst driving unified sync.

Microsoft is the granddaddy of sync, and its progeny are competitors, like Apple and Google, that license ActiveSync. It's still the standard for syncing content with Microsoft Exchange. Microsoft is improving sync, and made some interesting strides in 2010. Among them: Windows Phone 7, which People Hub offers social sync across several services, including Facebook and Windows Live.

Google has removed the need for the PC in the sync equation. It's all done to the cloud. I expect sync to be the glue making Google services work even better together in 2011. I've already mentioned some of what Google has done, so I'll add just one thing: Google is the other company doing or looking to do interesting things with sync. Anytime, anywhere and on anything.

Samsung to release iPod touch competitor at CES 2011

Publié: décembre 27, 2010, 11:53pm CET par Ed Oswald

Reprinted with permission

Samsung's four Galaxy S smartphones

Attempting to more completely take on Apple, Samsung on Monday said that it planned to release the Galaxy Player. The touch screen device would essentially be like its Galaxy S smartphone without the cellular capability: just like the difference between the iPhone and the iPod touch.

8, 16, and 32GB versions of the device would be made available, which would run on Android 2.2 "Froyo." The form factor would follow one similar to the iPod touch, and include a 4-inch LCD screen, Bluetooth capability, and front and rear facing cameras.

The release of the Galaxy Player has been confirmed to come during CES 2011, enthusiast blog Samsung Hub reports. Samsung did not specify a retail release date.

Samsung's success with its Galaxy Tab tablet -- the only device in the category other than Apple's iPad to sell in considerable numbers -- may be fueling its desire to take on the Cupertino company on yet another front. That said, no company has yet been able to make a serious dent in its dominance of the digital music industry.

It won't be easy for Samsung: the company has only dabbled in music devices, and it lacks an integrated solution a la iTunes and the iPod. Several other companies, most notably Sony, Creative and Microsoft, have tried to compete with Apple but none have managed to make a dent in one of Cupertino's key businesses.

As well as being the debut of the Galaxy Player, Samsung also plans to show two other Android powered portable music devices: the YP-G50 and the YP-GB70.

2011: Time for tech enthusiasts to act more charitably

Publié: décembre 27, 2010, 10:05pm CET

By Dave Nickason

I wish technology enthusiasts could focus more on the good that can be done for people and communities and less on whether their phone matches their shoes or who uses what product. Fanboyism is out of control and detracts from things that are more important.

Microsoft doesn't suck, and neither does Apple, Google or any other company with high revenue and long-term success. If someone writes an even slightly pro-Apple article, the Microsoft fanboys go crazy, and vice versa. These companies are all successful, and their products sell well. Shouldn't we all focus on something else?

Somehow in technology, we've reached the point of religious war, where the fans of Company A not only buy their products with enthusiasm, but put hours into finding ways to disparage the products of Company B, and reviling anyone who would even consider buying one. If you love Toyota but your neighbor buys a Honda, you don't set their house on fire or move away. So why is there so much anger vented toward someone who likes an iPod, while you prefer Zune?

It seems that authors avoid these wars better than the commenters, but when someone writes an article praising a product, it's boring and pointless to read a dozen comments calling the author a fanboy or worse.

Tech bloggers and reviewers are a separate problem. When seeking information about a product, I want to read primarily about that product and less about the competition. Some authors can only write about one product by comparing it to another. Someone will write an article about an Android phone that reads like it was written by Apple CEO Steve Jobs -- Android sucks because iPhone does this, this and that.

When I read about a product from a major manufacturer, I assume people will buy that product, and I'm not interested in an article that's nothing more than unflattering comparisons to other products. I want to read about the product being written about, not every competing product with the implication that something else is better. It's not a zero-sum game where in order for one thing to be good, something else has to be bad.

There's a real lack of charity expressed by commenters or writers, either toward one another or to other products. Likewise, why must everyone obsess about the tiniest product details and chase every rumor. Tech publications, blogs and their readers focus too much on the latest and greatest -- hardware, features, convenience, etc. -- but with little mention of how technology can actually make the world a better place for humanity.

Another kind of charity is missing, of using all this great technology enthusiasts rave about to help others. It's something to think about as the new year approaches and people make resolutions for 2011.

Of all the tech happenings in 2010, the one I remember most is not whose phone OS does copy and paste and whose does not. It's that as of last month, World Community Grid volunteers have donated over 400,000 years of computing time to research on problems like childhood cancer and AIDS -- and that's not a typo. It's a bunch of geeks donating some spare computing resources to doing good work for the benefit of others.

Charity should be everyone's resolution for 2011 -- how we treat each other as tech enthusiasts and how we use technology to make the lives of every one of the world's 7 billion people a little better.

Dave Nickason is responsible for IT -- among other functions -- for a 22-employee law firm in New York State. He has been a Microsoft MVP for Small Business Server since 2004 and enjoys exploring how technology can level the playing field between small business and enterprises. Nickason also is a Betanews reader.

Why 2011 isn't 1995 for Apple

Publié: décembre 27, 2010, 6:38pm CET

By Robert Scoble

iPad ad in Paris

In 1995 I remember waiting in lines to buy Windows 95. It effectively ended the design lead Apple had for 11 years in personal computers. From then on Microsoft had both the thought leadership and the market share. Apple ended up with less than 10 percent market share. Microsoft had most of the rest.

Lots of people think that Apple could repeat 1995 in 2011. This time with iOS instead of Macintosh OS and with Google in the place of Microsoft.

We forget one little thing: 1995 was different.

Here's how.

In 1995 Microsoft had a huge marketshare lead with DOS. That meant it had a huge army of developers who didn't want to switch over to Apple's system, which they saw as very closed and inflexible. I remember developers coming into the consumer electronics store I helped run in the 1980s and they'd complain bitterly about Apple's policies (Apple was far less flexible back then than it is today and forced developers to fit into a "look and feel" set of guidelines).

But I look at who is making money. Back in 1995 developers were mostly making money from DOS. Remember, this caused WordPerfect and Borland to make bad bets. They bet on DOS for too long, while Microsoft CEO Bill Gates went and built some of the first and best Macintosh apps. The lesson, though, doesn't pass from 1995 to 2011. Today where are most of the developers making their money? iOS (according to Sephora, Starbucks, OpenTable, eBay, and many other developers). So, Android has to convince developers to switch, or do both platforms at same time. That's quite different.

Plus, back in 1995, who owned the best distribution and supply chains? Microsoft did. Today? Apple does. Apple didn't have stores back in 1995 that will ensure its products get seen in the marketplace. Back then Microsoft could outspend Apple for shelf space at Frys and other retailers. Plus, Microsoft's model of having many OEMs building hardware for its OS was far superior to Apple's approach. Today that's not really true, because the OEMs aren't really able to bring that much value to the table and Apple has the best supply chains in China locked up (I visited one of them about two years ago and keep in touch with the folks there and that's still the case). So, it's not very likely that a Google phone will ship with better screens or better materials. At least not in volume. That is a huge difference from 1995 to today.

Other differences? Apple has outspent Microsoft on advertising around the world. Look at this picture. It's in Paris subway. Apple bought every square inch of advertising space (it bought the entire subway system's advertising space, it seemed, iPad ads were plastered down the entire trackway). Google isn't able to get its message there. That didn't happen in 1995. Remember how dominant Microsoft's advertising was back then? Microsoft even convinced the Empire State Building to change its colors that evening.

Let's go back to how closed Apple is. Most apps this month got approved in less than a week. Some even got approved in less than four days. During the Christmas rush. Is this as good as Android's (you can ship in minutes) policy? No. But, on the other hand, there are quality controls which consumers appreciate. The apps -- overall -- are better on iOS than on Android. Just check out TweetDeck. It crashes every few minutes on my Android phone. Twitter isn't nearly as nice. Facebook isn't as nice. And most apps aren't as well designed, nor crash resistant, as on iOS.

I am sensing a switch, though. Fred Wilson is leading the charge. But other developers are grumbling about Apple and want there to be an alternative and they are all comparing notes with each other. "How's Angry Birds doing with its advertising-only Android apps?" they ask. Very well, the answer comes back. So that means more developers will take the bet on Android, but so far I haven't seen many go "Android only." Why not? Because they know most of the PR comes from journalists who use mostly iOS devices and most of the best users are on iOS devices too (Sephora's lead mobile developer told me 80 percent of the users who pull out a mobile phone in her stores are using iOS, that is echoed by nearly every developer I talk with). Even Swype, which has been kept from delivering their keyboard on iOS devices showed me a prototype of it running on an iPad and the inventor whispered "if Steve Jobs wants to talk, we'd love to ship this on iOS."

So, when someone says that Apple is repeating the mistakes of 1995 (yes, I've been guilty of saying that in the past couple of years too) you should tell them that 2011 is not even close to the same set of conditions as 1995 has.

Photo Credit: Robert Scoble

Robert Scoble is a long-time tech and video blogger who works for Rackspace, where he is part of the building 43 project. He started blogging in 2000 at scobelizer.com; from 2003-2006 he was a high-profile Microsoft evangelist blogger, and he helped start Channel 9. Scoble grew up in Silicon Valley. He is @scobleizer on Twitter.

10 for 2010: Microsoft stories that mattered

Publié: décembre 27, 2010, 1:29am CET par Joe Wilcox

It's that time of year when everybody who is anybody or nobody writes retrospectives. I start with Microsoft, by highlighting 10 of my stories you should have read in 2010. You've got time now during the end-of-year lull or even a week off before the New Year. They're organized by importance, from least to most -- that is 10 to 1.

I didn't easily choose just 10. I weighed importance based on relevance of the analysis to Microsoft in 2010 and even in coming years. Not all readers will agree on which is more or less important, or perhaps not at all.

I will say this now: 2010 was an important year for Microsoft -- and not just because the company launched Azure, shipped new Office version or saw enterprises upgrading Windows and Windows Server again. Microsoft made an important course correction that I'll write about in a few days. The old dog is learning new tricks.

I will followup with similar posts on Apple and Google, highlighting the important stories about them, too. With that introduction, I present 10 Microsoft stories that mattered in 2010.

10. "It's a shame about Ray Ozzie": Microsoft's chief software architect fell on his sword for the good of the company. Ozzie and his supporters lost the internal squabble between the Office-Windows-Windows Server hawks and the open cloud computing doves. Not that he was ever one of "Ballmer's boys." This post presents the negative perspective on Microsoft's Office-Windows-Windows Server apps stack push to the cloud. See #2 for the positive benefits. Posted: October 25.

9. "Windows Phone 7 is doomed": Microsoft's problem isn't technology, but time. Short of bribing developers and customers to use Windows Phone 7, Microsoft cannot correct its mobile platform mistakes fast enough. Apple and Google will lock in customers the way Microsoft and its partners did with DOS/Windows PCs during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s.

To be clear: I rather like Windows Phone 7. Whether or not I eat crow about "doomed" in 2011 or even 2012 may depend on the continued Windows 7 marketing push, which is simply exceptional. See #7 for a more positive perspective of Windows Phone's future. Posted: July 2.

8. "Three post-CES goals for Microsoft": This post will get some followup by me as the Consumer Electronics Show approaches on January 6, 2011. Two of the goals: Set shorter marketing and product development goals and hold smaller, more-intimate product events. Posted: January 8.

7. "The bright spot in Microsoft's mobile OS disaster is...": ...There's no place to go but up. But up doesn't have to be an arduous climb. To regain mobile momentum lost to Apple, Google and Research in Motion, Microsoft must change the rules of engagement, like David did in the Biblical battle with Goliath. Already, with the approach to the Windows Phone 7 user interface and product marketing, Microsoft is applying "David thinking." Posted: September 27.

6. "I have lost confidence in Steve Ballmer's leadership": The June 17 Windows Embedded Handheld announcement shattered my remaining confidence in Microsoft's CEO. A long-time Ballmer supporter, I could do so no longer. I stood by my man, but he failed me.

However, Ballmer renewed some hope following the company's annual Financial Analysts Meeting. See #5. Posted: June 18.

5. "Steve Ballmer has one more chance to save his job": Going into Microsoft's annual Financial Analysts Meeting, calls increased for Ballmer's ouster as CEO. The challenge: For Ballmer to show he is in charge. The post highlights 10 Microsoft weaknesses going into FAM and 10 strengths for fiscal 2011. By the way, Ballmer did surprisingly well showing vision during the keynote. Posted: July 28.

4. "Five reasons why Microsoft can't compete (and Steve Ballmer isn't one of them)": Microsoft's problems are strategic and structural, and they're by no means unresolvable. Among them: US and European antitrust cases put lawyers and non-technologists in charge of important final product decisions, which negatively has affected development for nearly a decade. Another: Microsoft lost control of file formats, during Ballmer's 10-year tenure. Posted: June 22.

3. "Why won't Wall Street give Microsoft a break?": Microsoft's stock has been moribund, rarely rising about $30 a share since 2000, the same year Steve Ballmer became chief executive. Revenue rose from $5.8 billion in fiscal 2001 first quarter to $16.2 billion during same quarter in FY 2011. The company is consistently profitable, and its products are used everywhere. Why doesn't Wall Street get it? Part of the problem is undeserved negative perceptions about Microsoft and even more undeserved positive perceptions about Apple. Posted: November 7.

2. "Microsoft shouldn't break up, but break away from its antiquated business model": On the tenth anniversary of Microsoft's antitrust settlement with the US Justice Department and eight states, it was appropriate to look back at the breakup question. In early 2000, US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered that Microsoft break up into two companies for violating US antitrust law. Should Microsoft break up now, creating smaller, more flexible companies capable of stronger stock performance?

"No" is the answer. This post explains five hugely important problems Microsoft's cloud strategy solves for the company. It puts another perspective on Office-Windows-Windows Server apps stack push to the cloud discussed in #10. Posted: November 17.

1. "The Windows era is over": Prediction made in the post: The year 2010 will mark dramatic shifts away from Microsoft's monopoly to something else. Change is inevitable, and like IBM in the 1980s, Microsoft can't hold back its destiny during this decade. Mobile device-to-cloud competition's shifting relevance bears striking similarities to the move from mainframes to PCs, and it is a long, ongoing trend.

Whether the measure is Microsoft's push into the cloud, smartphones' dramatic sales gains (pushed by iPhone and Android handsets) or the success of cloud-hosted social sharing services like Facebook, the prediction has punch for the first half of decade 2010. Posted: May 26.

First impressions: Google TV delights

Publié: décembre 26, 2010, 9:18pm CET par Joe Wilcox

Logitech Revue

I simply don't understand all the fuss about Google TV delays. I set up the Logitech Revue on Christmas Eve and the family is absolutely loving it. Revue/Google TV delivers one of the best non-cable-provider set-top box experiences I've ever had testing these devices. In fact, setup and benefits make up for all the pain encountered with similar class products running other operating systems.

First the news that gets stranger: Following rumors that Google TV asked partners to pull their products from next month's Consumer Electronics Show, there's now buzz that Logitech has either suspended Revue production or shipments until Google releases a software update.

Oh yeah? I don't see a problem, whether or not the rumors are true. I'm dumbfounded by how good Google TV is right now. I can compare to Apple TV, but not Xbox 360's integration with AT&T U-verse (I don't have one of Microsoft's game consoles).

12 Steps to TV Bliss

Initially, I found Revue setup to be daunting. I received the Google TV device late afternoon on December 22d but waited another day before installation. Based on my past bad experience with this kind of product -- and, yes, including Windows Media Center -- I was flummoxed by instruction to connect my IPTV settop box to the Revue. I figured that could only lead to trouble. How wrong I was.

Logitech provides an HDMI cable in the box, which I used to connect my AT&T U-verse tuner to the Revue, which in turn got the other cable already connected to the TV -- a three year-old 42-inch Vizio model VU42L. So HDMI goes out from the tuner into the Revue and out to the Vizio. I then turned on the Revue and TV, which launched a 12-step setup process and notification 20 minutes time would be required.

I balked at the 12-step process, which was more than Apple TV ever demanded. But Revue/Google TV would be doing more -- gulp, controlling the AT&T settop box and television. For this first impressions review, I won't go through step by step. At some point I entered my Google account ID, zip code, service provider, settop box brand and model and TV brand and model. The process seemed straightforward except for setting screen size, which required using buttons on the Revue keyboard to widen the black display area to cover over blue background.

Say Your Hail Marys

After the setup process concluded, Revue rebooted and I said my Hail Marys (Heck, I'm not even Catholic, but it was Christmas Eve!). What happened next shocked me. Revue provided unified and flawlessly functional access to AT&T U-verse features, the TV and Google TV. Based on past bad experience using this kind of device, I expected either U-verse features to be unavailable or somehow compromised. Not the least. If anything, U-verse is now better, because of Google search.

Revue's mini-keyboard replaces the U-verse and TV controllers and, quite surprisingly, offers all the functionality I normally use. I was skeptical of the keyboard, which proved to be too cumbersome with other products I've tested. But, because all the functionality I expect is there and because of the ease of searching, the keyboard is handy and confortable to use -- even for my tech-adverse wife.

Google TV starts from Revue's Home button, which serves up appropriate services/applications, such as Amazon Video-on-Demand, Netflix, television and other services. Chrome browser is also available, and it's surprisingly useful and integrated into other experiences. For example, Chrome launches access to Amazon VoD, for renting or buying movies. The experience looks like the Amazon service would in a browser. I've never been a fan of Internet on the television, with screen resolution problems being one of several reasons. But I found the browser experience to be surprisingly pleasant considering the TV is more than three years old. One browser gripe: No bookmarks sync with Chrome on PC that I can see.

Google Search opens Doors

Pretty much any content available in a browser is accessible on Google TV, although the exceptions are perplexing. Hulu isn't available as a service or application (because Google TV uses Android, applications are available, too). This morning, I went to Hulu in Google TV's Chrome browser and immediately received one of several notices the service wasn't available -- yet. But I persevered, getting as far as the video window for a TV show, at which point the final prompt stopped me. Surely, it's a licensing thing, or so I guess after observing that Starz Play is available from Netflix on my laptop but not Google TV.

From a user interface perspective, Apple TV is much more visually appealing. But I found searching for and renting movies from Amazon VoD on Google TV to be much more functional. On Christmas Eve, I rented "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" for $3.99. A notice indicated that Amazon VoD HD was coming soon for Google TV, but the quality looked plenty good enough to me. On Christmas Day, my wife and father-in-law rented "That's Entertainment" for $2.99 (for 48-hours), and my daughter and I later watched "Die Hard" streamed from Netflix. I often search Apple TV and can find nothing to watch, because of the presentation and cumbersome search capabilities. So less than two days using Google TV, that works out to two more movies rented using Google TV (and one streamed for free) than Apple TV (for the month). The Apple TV is boxed; I'm done with it.

Google search is what makes the experience so far superior to using either U-verse alone or another settop box. For example, this morning I wanted to go from a Web page to Google's main page -- something really unnecessary for searching, which can be done from the address bar. But I was fooling around. Typing "Google" brought up some unexpected choices, including "Google Baby." WTH? There's a new Google service oriented to kids? No. "Google Baby" turns out to be a program airing on HBO in nine days. Google search didn't just cover the Web but future U-verse programming. Clicking "Google TV" took me to information about the show and option to record using the U-verse DVR. Hell, that's slick, and remember AT&T's service runs Microsoft's MediaRoom software. Google search is simply amazing and, as I'll explain in a later post, may fundamentally change how I use the television -- perhaps as much as the DVR did.

That's a wrap. I may do a full review in a couple weeks, particularly if Google really does issue a major software update.

Talking about Microsoft Store

Publié: décembre 24, 2010, 8:10am CET par Joe Wilcox

Microsoft Store sign

Last night, while walking around Fashion Valley Mall here in San Diego, I spent some time sizing up the Apple and Microsoft stores, which are just four shops apart. The Apple Store was busier, but I found the Microsoft Store to be more charming. More than any other time viewing the stores, I saw in Christmas shoppers dramatic differences in clientele.

Microsoft Store attracted a crowd, inside and outside the glass windows, as two teens frenetically danced using Xbox and the hands-free Kinect controller. Everyone was having fun. It was raucous with some cheering, a gravity well pulling passersby; I among them.

The Apple Store was frenetic, too, but with the charge of bustle -- there being too many people for the confined space. I'm amazed the fire marshall doesn't cite Apple Store, about three times a week, for the flood of humanity swashing against the display tables and one another.

Young, hip or chic defined Apple Store shoppers. I immediately thought 1980's Yuppies. Predominately: Twenty-something couples, Neiman Marcus-stylized thirty- forty- and fifty-something couples and teens with one parent -- not two but one. It was a money, upper middle-class crowd.

Microsoft Store is where families meet -- parents and plenty of kids or teens. I at first attributed it to Xbox, but parents and kids milled throughout the store, not just the game area. Shoppers looked more middle and working class than those in Apple Store.

The atmosphere felt different, too, in a lighter way. I looked at the store's layout differently, seeing the brown and wood tones as being more inviting, more homey than Apple Store's white on seemingly white -- a canvas against which splashes of color draw attention to products for sale. But there was an art gallery sterility to Apple Store.

Apple Santa

Apple's idea of Christmas: a big Santa Claus in the display window, hunched forward reaching for iPhone (or perhaps iPod), with his backside sticking out at passersby. Inside Microsoft Store, by comparison, the display panels circling the store greeted: "Merry Christmas."

It's unlikely that either store had a good sales week. Torrential rains pounded San Diego for most of the previous five days, leading to flooding that filled the back parking lot with water and closing off several of the mall's major entrances. Fashion Valley wasn't the best place to be a shopkeeper during the biggest sales week of the year.

But on the evening of December 23rd, with the rains gone, shoppers fell on the mall with even greater deluge. Apple and Microsoft stores were among the mall's busiest shops.

As NFC enters the mass market, so too should NFC security

Publié: décembre 23, 2010, 11:14pm CET par Tim Conneally

All the stars are in line, and tech industry experts now expect an explosion in the close-range wireless communications technology known generally as Near Field Communicaitons (NFC.) But is it as secure a method of sharing as it could be? According to one company the answer is yes, but cost has been a prohibitive factor up to now.

This week, market research firm iSuppli predicted that the market for NFC chips will grow by a factor of four over the next three years, and NFC chipmaker NXP Semiconductor recently made a prediction that 50 million NFC-enabled consumer devices will enter the market in 2011 alone. Google Nexus S

This rapid expansion will be thanks in no small part to the support NFC has received from Google, who incorporated the technology into Android 2.3, and from three of the four major wireless carriers who formed a new joint venture called Isis which focuses on using NFC for mobile banking and "wallet phones."

"Nokia has been carrying NFC phones for the last three years, but now that Google has brought out the Nexus S at a time when smartphones are more popular than they've ever been, you're going to really start seeing these types of solutions in the average consumers' hands," said Vivek Khandelwal, VP of Marketing and Business Development for NFC security company Verayo.

Historically, however, the simple passive RFID components in NFC systems have proven very easy to skim, clone and spoof. This extends even into the chips used in modern US passports which contain an access key to the passport owner's identification. These cards provide very little in the way of security, and a whole industry around RFID shields has sprung up around it. Between July 2008 and March 2010, the State Department has issued more than 2.7 million Passport cards equipped with simple EPC RFID tags.

The problem is that large-scale deployments of RFID tags and readers can get costly, and applying additional layers of encryption can add to the cost.

"Customers have become aware that the most basic RFIDs are susceptible to compromise," Khandelwal said. "They are looking for something more secure than passive RFID, and more affordable than MCU-based smart cards with high-end cryptography."

This middleground is where Verayo wants to step in. The silicon valley company is led and funded by former Sun Microsystems execs, a company which was itself no stranger to RFID technology, and its core offering is an affordable method of authenticating RFID tags using "silicon biometrics."

Verayo's CTO is Dr. Srini Devadas, the Associate head of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, and inventor of a technology known as PUF, or "Physical Unclonable Functions," which received its most recent patent (#7,839,278) just one month ago. It is this technology that acts as the cornerstone for Verayo's security offerings.

At a deep enough atomic level, every silicon chip is different, and Verayo's technology isolates these minute variations and uses them to generate a unique "fingerprint" for each chip or RFID tag. These variations simply cannot be cloned by traditional RFID cloning methods, and no personal information can be skimmed from the chip because all that is available is a random key that is useless without the "fingerprint" to authenticate it.

Devadas described it to the International Association for Cryptological Research in the following way:

"The PUF-enabled RFID uses a simple challenge-response protocol for authentication that shifts complexity to the reader or server, and therefore only requires a small number of transistors on the device side. The PUF-enabled processor generates its public/private key pair on power-up so its private key is never left exposed in (on-chip or off-chip) non-volatile storage."

The only hardware that must be endowed with Verayo's PUF system are the ISO 14443-A (13.56MHz) passive chips, and the rest of the identification is taken care of with software on either an NFC reader terminal or smartphone which communicate with the PUF authentication server.

So as NFC enters the mass market, Verayo is looking to supply the security that the mass market can afford to deploy.

"We're telling the world, if you are planning to spend five cents on a plain vanilla RFID, you can get a solution for 5.5 cents that is safe and verified," Khandelwal said.

SEC Disclosure: Tim Conneally is a shareholder in NXP Semiconductor, a company that makes NFC solutions

Please be our Ghost of Christmas Past or Future

Publié: décembre 23, 2010, 6:25pm CET par Joe Wilcox

It's two days to Christmas, and I'm mulling Christmas Past and Christmas Future (You are familiar with the Charles Dickens' classic tale, yes?) I request your participation. Like most other journalists or bloggers, I will post year-end retrospectives and year-ahead prognostications next week. I ask you to contribute. Choose your ghost and your Scrooge. What do you think were the most important events affecting the technology industry in 2010 -- and why? They don't have to be industry shaking, but merely important to you. What would you like to see next year from the tech companies that matter most to you?

I often crowdsource material for posts, but this request is different from others. Typically I ask readers to respond in comments and by e-mail (joewilcox at gmail dot com). The e-mail responses tend to be long and thoughtful, and I often feel guilty about not being able to use all the contents. I will ask some responders to this question for permission to post their entire response (or a good chunk of it) as a guest contributor. I'll edit your writing, and we can banter back and forth to get it just right. Other e-mail responses and those in comments to this post will go into stories I write about the year past and year ahead.

One of my goals during 2010 was to include Betanews readers more in stories. We have an active commenting community. But there are two problems with comments -- most of the commenters aren't identified and, too often, insightful mini-analyses are simply lost in the flow. I want to bring your valuable insight to the surface. Reader contribution will be a top priority for 2011.

I've already started reaching out to some readers, asking them to make contributions. You know who you are. This request is broader, and it's an opportunity for you to express what you think mattered in 2010 and what will, or at least should, be important for 2011. There will be plenty of year-end, year-ahead stories as January 1st approaches. Why shouldn't you have a say? Some of you will in blog posts, but here's a chance to reach your community here.

Then there's the Joe factor. Some very vocal commenters clearly don't like what I write about. You bash, but often aren't specific. Here's your chance to have your say -- about what you think mattered this year and what should matter in 2011. Any guest posts will be edited for style, not content (unless offensive). The point is to get reader perspectives. If something comes across as fanboyish, commenters can filter it out.

For year-end, year-ahead, I will write at least about Apple, Google and Microsoft as companies and cloud computing, mobile devices, security and home/work digital lifestyles as broader topics. You can contribute to these topics, or write about others.

Ho Ho Ho Ba Humbug, please comment here or e-mail joewilcox at gmail dot com.

FCC declares Comcast-NBCU joint venture to be broadly acceptable, issues order

Publié: décembre 23, 2010, 5:31pm CET par Tim Conneally

Senior FCC officials Thursday morning said the commission has determined the transaction between Comcast and NBC Universal that will result in a new joint Venture handling the two companies' content to be acceptably within the public's interest, and an order about the transaction will be circulated later today.

This is not outright approval of the deal, which was first announced in late 2009, and has been under intense scrutiny since. With a transaction of this size, there's still a great deal of time before it can be decisively approved by both the FCC and the Department of Justice.

The deal, once completed will mark a split in Comcast's brand. The cable and internet side of the business changed its branding to Xfinity earlier this year, and the joint venture with NBCU (in which Comcast will have a 51% stake, and GE will have 49%) is still unnamed. When the joint venture was announced in 2009, Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts only said the constituent networks would retain their consumer brand names.

FCC officials said today that developments in new media, specifically in streaming over the top video, have had major impact on proceedings, but that on balance, the joint venture falls within the broad "public interest standard" which includes such conditions as program access and carriage.

Skype experiences global outage

Publié: décembre 22, 2010, 8:02pm CET par Tim Conneally

Popular voice chat and IM client Skype has been down for a large portion of Wednesday morning, leaving users unable to connect to their peers.

At about 1pm EST, Skype's official Twitter account said, "Our engineers and site operations team are working non-stop to get things back to normal -- thanks for your continued patience."

Individual reports vary, with some users reporting the ability to connect to the service on their mobile devices, but with no buddies showing up on their contact lists, with still others reporting a total inability to launch the Skype client without it crashing.

Users of Skype on all platforms are reporting trouble, and it looks to be affecting millions of users. The company has not given a projection for when it expects to have the problem remedied, but the issue does not affect all users of the popular service.

UPDATE Skype's Peter Parkes has put up a blog entry Wednesday afternoon attributing the outage to a software error on several of Skype's "supernodes," which are essentially peer-to-peer intermediaries.

"Under normal circumstances, there are a large number of supernodes available," Parkes said. "Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype. As Skype relies on being able to maintain contact with supernodes, it may appear offline for some..."

Earth to Microsoft: Two years to ARM is too late

Publié: décembre 22, 2010, 7:30pm CET par Joe Wilcox

Machead John Gruber and I often don't agree on much. We've had some fairly public spats over the years, regarding Apple. But for once, we do agree on something. "This must be a mistake," he says about a report dated today from Wall Street Journal asserting that at next month's Consumer Electronics Show Microsoft will unveil a version of Windows for low-powered chips, "though it isn't expected to be available for two years." Two years? Two years is three years too late.

The rumor, first reported by Bloomberg, makes sense of others: That Microsoft would show off new Windows tablets at CES and preview Windows 8. Two years would be about right for Microsoft to release the next version of Windows. It also makes sense for Microsoft to broadly support ARM and other low-powered processors, particularly for devices like e-book readers, tablets and even smartphones. Microsoft announced a licensing agreement with ARM in July.

The strategy might even lead to -- and, honestly, it should -- a unified operating system for devices of all sizes. Right now, Microsoft's operating systems are fragmented, with separate embedded, mobile and PC versions of Windows. Also, to be absolutely clear: Microsoft already supports ARM-like processors today, just not on all operating systems.

If the rumors are correct, Microsoft will modularize Windows, something it already does on the server. Windows Server administrators have the option of choosing among different profiles when setting up the operating system. They can load as little or as much of Windows Server as needed. So, modular isn't new for Microsoft just the application as it applies to Windows 7 and/or its successor.

The approach is sound, but the timing isn't. With iPad gobbling up PC sales, Microsoft and its partners or competitors must rush to market. Gartner predicts that by 2014, media tablets will cannibalize 10 percent of PC shipments. Right now, iPad is market share leader.

But there is a much bigger problem for Microsoft. Last week, Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope published his tablet forecast, predicting about 55 million units shipped next year and 79 million in 2012. He observes:

What is surprising is that many of these products are not utilizing Intel microprocessors or a Microsoft operating environment. [We] expect the vast majority of these devices to run the ARM architecture with either iOS or [Google's] Android as the operating environment. If this is the case and our tablet forecast is anywhere near accurate, this would be the first time in three decades that a non-Wintel technology has made legitimate inroads into personal computing.

Microsoft has few options, and going down this path will likely disrupt the Wintel hegemony even more than competition would. Writing for GigaOM, Kevin Tofel rightly observes:

If reports from Bloomberg are accurate, the 25-year paradigm of Windows computers running mainly on Intel processors is likely to be turned on its head, due largely to the need for devices that are more mobile and can run all day on a single battery charge.

It's not surprising then that Microsoft is suddenly, if belatedly, taking tablets more seriously. There's an irony. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates introduced the tablet PC concept at Comdex in November 2000. Little more than a decade later, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will stand on the CES stage, assuming the rumors are true, and show off new Windows-powered tablets. But unlike Gates, who looked ahead to another future for the PC, Ballmer will look from behind at competitors marching before him. Like smartphones, where Microsoft was an early operating system leader and innovator, the company squandered its tablet lead.

Catching up won't be easy, and Microsoft simply doesn't have two years to do so. More importantly, the problem is much bigger than tablets, which are nascent. The smartphone market is much larger and more immediate -- and there Android is a big Pac-Man gobbling market share. For example, 25 of the 45 smartphones available in Western Europe launched in third quarter. Android is nipping at iOS -- 23 percent to 24 percent market share, respectively, according to IDC. Android already is the top smartphone OS in the United States, and, globally, Gartner predicts Android will catch market leader Symbian for all phones within four years.

Smartphones -- and, frankly, also feature phones in emerging markets - are where a Windows 7 or 8 Lite needs to be, as part of the aforementioned broader, unified operating system approach for many devices. Microsoft has got to strong-ARM Intel to get there. Two years is too late.

Don't act so surprised, Microsoft has supported ARM for ages

Publié: décembre 22, 2010, 7:25pm CET par Tim Conneally

A report by Bloomberg on Tuesday evening said Microsoft is working "for the first time" on a version of Windows that is not based on the x86 instruction set, but instead on the ARM instruction set popular in mobile devices.

The report, which was followed by another similarly-sourced article in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, both say the operating system will be targeted at the consumer mobility market, with tablets specifically in mind, and that it won't come to market until 2013.

Though the reports are quick to call the move an attempt to catch up to the latest tablet computing paradigm, they also overlook nearly all of Microsoft's historical activity with ARM: Windows Phone, Windows Mobile, and Windows Embedded CE have all supported chips running the ARM instruction set.

Furthermore, Windows CE, a version of Windows for reduced instruction sets (ARM, MIPS, SH) came about due specifically to Microsoft's interest in tablet computing more than a decade ago. The suggestion that Microsoft is playing catch-up to Apple and the iPad with this move are a bit presumptuous.

After merging the defunct WinPad project with a connected PDA project code-named Pulsar, the first stable version of Windows CE was released in November 1996. It supported 480 x 240 LCD touchscreens with stylus-based input, and ran on the SH and MIPS processor architecture. Since that time, the OS received support for ARM and x86 processors, and has been used on everything from cable set-top boxes to the Sega Dreamcast video game system.

Windows Embedded CE, as it's been called since 2006, has been due for a refresh for quite a while. Since just before Microsoft's renewed licensing deal with ARM last July, Windows Embedded CE 7 has been available as a Community Technology Preview.

Some speculated that Microsoft's licensing renewal with ARM could have signified a knowledge of an even more advanced ARM architecture which the company could get the jump on, but the accuracy of this is currently unknown.

Windows Embedded CE 7, which is referred to in much of Microsoft's marketing material simply as "Windows Compact 7" includes support for the ARMv7 instruction set and Dual Core CPUs, Bluetooth 3.0, advanced touch and gesture support, DLNA, NDIS 6.1, and is due for proper release in 2011. Naturally, it is being highlighted as a touch-based mobility solution.

The Windows Embedded team declined comment this morning, but we'll be looking to see what's in store at CES in just two weeks.

Mozilla releases Firefox 4 beta 8

Publié: décembre 21, 2010, 10:05pm CET par Tim Conneally

Download Mozilla Firefox 4.0 Beta 8 in FileForum now!

Mozilla pushed out the eighth beta release of Firefox 4 on Tuesday, promising a significant number of bug fixes and some performance tweaks, but no new features.

The main changes Mozilla cites in the Firefox 4 Beta 8 release notes are an improved Firefox Sync setup experience; an overall speed, compatibility and functionality improvement to WebGL, and some "additional polish" to the Firefox Add-ons Manager.

The list of bug fixes, however, is considerably longer with more than 1400 entries.

For better or worse, here are the FCC's new Net Neutrality rules

Publié: décembre 21, 2010, 7:48pm CET par Tim Conneally

Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission voted upon --and passed by a 3-2 margin-- the Open Internet Order, the revised net neutrality rules which seek to establish more formal codes of conduct for broadband network operators.

The order has caused a great deal of sturm and drang among consumer advocacy groups, who feared that there would be a shift in power for internet service providers based upon loopholes it opens. The order has raised a great deal of concern from both sides of the political spectrum: from those who believe the FCC oversteps its boundaries by trying to create rules for the Web, and from those who believe the FCC isn't going far enough to prevent future problems.

As expected, FCC Commissioners Baker and McDowell voted against the Order, while Commissioners Clyburn and Copps and Chairman Genachowski voted in favor of the Order. "Over 90% of our actions are not only bi-partisan, but unanimous," Commissioner Robert McDowell said on Tuesday. "We agree that the Internet should remain open and freedom-enhancing...Beyond that, we disagree. The contrast between our perspectives could not be sharper."

The Order lays down just a few basic rules for fixed broadband services, and a few more for mobile broadband services.

Basic Rules for fixed Broadband
--Transparency: Carriers must clearly express to consumers how their traffic is handled and how charges are derived.

"A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service shall publicly disclose accurate information regarding the network management practices, performance, and commercial terms of its broadband Internet access services sufficient for consumers to make informed choices regarding use of such services and for content, application, service, and device providers to develop, market, and maintain Internet offerings."

--No Blocking: This refers to services which may compete directly with the network operator, such as VoIP and streaming video.

"A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management.

--No Unreasonable Discrimination: This general rule means paid traffic prioritization will not be allowed, but "reasonable" network management practices are acceptable. What is "reasonable" can be determined on a case by case basis.

"A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic over a consumer's broadband Internet access service. Reasonable network management shall not constitute unreasonable discrimination."

Basic Rules for Mobile Broadband

--Transparency: Like fixed broadband providers, mobile network operators must also be open and transparent about their policies.

--No Blocking: Network owners cannot block access to lawful Websites or applications that compete with voice and video telephony services such as Google Voice. This, however, does not generally apply to providers engaged in the operation of their own app stores.

The problem here arises in the lack of language covering paid prioritization for mobile broadband traffic. Commissioner Clyburn, who believed there should have been some protections against paid mobile prioritization, said "Bear in mind, this does not mean we are not pre-approving any behavior by mobile broadband providers."

Enforcement

As a part of the Order, the FCC will allow anyone to file both formal and informal complaints that alert the FCC of operator violations. Consumers can submit free informal complaints at fcc.gov, or go through traditional methods to file formal complaints. Based upon these complaints, the FCC can move to initiate investigation into the carrier's practices, and ultimately block the actions that violate the Open Internet Order. The FCC's power to preside over the Internet in such a way is supported in the Order by Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and Titles II, III, and IV of the Communications Act.

"In key respects, the interests of edge innovators -- the entrepreneurs creating Internet content, services, and applications -- broadband providers, and American consumers are aligned," Chairman Genachowski said on Tuesday. "I believe our action today will foster an ongoing cycle of massive investment, innovation and consumer demand both at the edge and in the core of our broadband networks." The Order will not take effect until next year, and it could face opposition from Congress or the Judicial branch. As Commissioner McDowell was almost proud to point out, "The FCC's last net neutrality order was met with a spectacular failure in the appellate court."

What's wrong with Google TV?

Publié: décembre 21, 2010, 7:28pm CET par Joe Wilcox

By measure of sheer punditry, rumors and competitor jocking, Google TV is dead on arrival. Hardly. But rumors -- hey, published in the mother of business reporting, the Wall Street Journal -- claim that Google has yanked the software (and, therefore, third-party hardware) from next month's Consumer Electronics Show. Meanwhile, today, Apple gave Google a noggie by announcing Apple TV shipments would reach 1 million units this week. Perhaps worse, Chip Trick is reporting a tempting last-minute holiday deal -- the Roku XDS for a cool 80 bucks. The cheapest Google TV device costs $300. Yeah, Google TV isn't having a good week, and it's only Tuesday!

Google TV has a future, despite all proclamations of its early death. Television is important to Google, because of advertising competition. According to research released this week by MagnaGlobal, US online ad revenue surpassed newspaper advertising in 2010, with projections of topping all print ad spending in 2014. But TV still tops all categories, and by considerable margin -- more than twice as much as Internet advertising, and that continues through MagnaGlobal's forecast period when in 2015 TV ad revenue will near $100 billion and online ad revenue tops $44 billion. Ad dollars aren't moving fast enough online for Google, with TV being the jewel the information giant needs to add to its advertising and search crown.

Google has good reasons to be committed to its TV software. But there are problems, otherwise Google TV's situation wouldn't look so perilous so early on. That said, peril is business as usual for Google. Starting in 2003, when Google moved to first place in US search share and stayed there, pundits warned the company was a feeble, one-trick pony. People could switch search engines by typing a new Web address, and that would be the end of Google. Then Google moved into e-mail, with a Gmail beta that lasted five years. Critics circled like vultures, as they did for other products, like Google Docs. What about Android? US analysts, bloggers and journalists pined for iPhone when T-Mobile shipped the one and only available Android phone in autumn 2008. Now look where the mobile operating system is today. It's US share is greater than Apple's iOS -- 44 percent to 23 percent in third quarter, according to NPD.

Still, Google TV could go to the great settop burial ground that Microsoft knows so well. I see fundamental issues that Google (and its partners) must immediately address. Confession: I've only used Google TV at my local Best Buy store. I've asked Logitech for a Revue review unit but haven't heard that one is available.

1. The first devices cost too much. How strange is that, considering Google is the king of free? Apple TV and Roku have set the price bar at $99, which is an easy purchase for most consumers. Google TV devices cost so much more -- $299.99 for the Logitech Revue and $399.99 for the Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Disc Player (Logitech is running a $50 discount, so $249.99, for the holidays). It's hard from the demos to see the benefits over Apple TV or Roku, which offer many of the same streaming services, such as Netflix. Apple TV has got drop-dead-simple rentals -- 99 cents for TV shows and $4.99 for HD movies.

2. Consumers don't want Internet on the TV. Just ask Microsoft, which bought WebTV in 1997 and could never make a business of it. Consumers are more likely to watch television and access the Internet from a tablet while sitting on the couch (gasp, can you say iPad?). But TV-like content, such as Hulu Plus, Netflix or YouTube makes sense. So do applications, particularly games, that consumers are already accustomed to doing on the TV. From my small experience using Google TV in stores, it's not enough about TV-like content, which, by the way, fits better with Google's advertising objectives. Something else: Consumers would benefit, if finding stuff to watch was easier -- that's something Google TV offers. Google should better promote content search benefits for helping TV watchers find content that matters most to them.

3. CES could be but shouldn't be Google TV's funeral. The rumors had better not be true. It seems inconceivable that the prince of betas would leave hardware partners crying at the Consumer Electronics Show alter. Google and its partners absolutely should show off Google TV during CES, even if the software changes in just a few months. Consumer electronics manufacturers typically showcase stuff that won't ship for months, often not until the holidays --so what if the software changes later? It's better that Google show off something, even if changes will come later on. More importantly, Google shouldn't peeve its partners. The next iteration of Google TV doesn't need to be ready for primetime during CES, it just needs to put on a good show.

Want do you with your television? Would you buy Apple TV, Google TV, Roku or something similar. Please answer in comments.

SEC launches investigation into Hurd's exit from HP

Publié: décembre 21, 2010, 6:45pm CET par Ed Oswald

The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun a far-reaching investigation into the circumstances surrounding former CEO and now Oracle executive Mark Hurd's departure from Hewlett Packard, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The regulator is looking into claims that he may have passed insider information to a female contractor, who later became central to his resignation from HP. In addition, his use of corporate expense accounts will be studied: a matter which the HP board used in its efforts to get Hurd to step down.

HP has said it is fully cooperating with the SEC's investigation. A spokesperson for Hurd told the WSJ that it was "understandable" that the agency was looking into the matter, but maintained he "acted properly in all respects."

Both Oracle and the SEC declined to comment. It is unknown how far along the agency's investigation may be, or whether the SEC plans to file charges.

Hurd's exit caught many by surprise: in August Mark Hurd was pushed out of HP's top post following allegations of sexual harassment by the contractor, Jodie Fisher. Later, it was revealed he allegedly attempt to circumvent an internal investigation by moving to settle with Fisher on his own.

This all got even stranger when Hurd joined Oracle as its co-president a month later, a company whose freewheeling CEO Larry Ellison took HP to task in the New York Times a month earlier.

A week with Google's Chrome OS laptop, Day 7: Settling in for the long haul

Publié: décembre 21, 2010, 12:24am CET par Joe Wilcox

Google Cr-48 laptop

On December 13th, I received from Google the unbranded Cr-48 laptop running Chrome OS, which I've been using and writing about for the last seven days. Whew, it has been quite the journey and not one that's over. I will continue using the Cr-48 as my primary computer through the end of December and quite likely much longer. I say primary, because testing Mac OS and Windows apps will require some time on the other operating systems. I'll be front and center looking at the Mac App Store, for example, when it launches on Jan. 6, 2011.

How much longer I can use Chrome OS for daily work (including Betanews writing) greatly depends on how quickly Adobe Flash is fixed to run right. Many of the Web services that replace my desktop apps require Flash, something I discover as things go wrong. While writing this post, for example, the Flash plugin crashed, pulling AIM Express offline and stopping Mog streaming. AIM Express replaces the IM client I used previously (and I will switch to an alternative Web service in the next day or so). AIM Express is a real hassle if the Net connection goes down or Flash crashes. There's no indication of a problem, unless I go to the tab and check -- and logging back in is a manual process (It's not automatic like the desktop client).

Mog replaces iTunes (for now). I found that Pandora's Flash implementation demands too much from the Cr-48 battery. So far I like Mog, which claims to have a 10-million song library -- all available for $4.99 a month, or $9.99 for mobile phone and PC. The fidelity sounds good to my aging, but fairly discerning, old deejay's ears. Actually, I hear more definition, particularly the higher tones, from Mog streamed songs than AAC files purchased from iTunes Store. I'm a big fan of subscription services like Mog. Unless you need to listen to the The Beatles, subscription services offer music for a fraction of the cost of buying. They also can improve music discovery. I'll save a bundle of money using Mog over iTunes, a switch that I should have made ages ago.

The Flash problem cannot be understated, however. Surely Adobe and Google will fix Flash long before Chrome OS is commercially available. But for committed, full-time testers it's a burden, and one I'm willing to carry for weeks -- during the holidays when the writing load is lighter -- but not for months. The Consumer Electronics Show, which opens with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's keynote on January 5th, will really show my commitment. Would I take the Cr-48 to the show (if I attend), where there might not always be persistent Net connection? I'm cocky and confident enough to say yes now, but the real test is what I'm really willing to do.

Before continuing, the previous posts in this series:

Cloud Sourcing

Chrome OS has brought out my inner geek in a way I haven't experienced in about a decade. I always assumed that with age I just tired of beta testing. But I now see that with software there wasn't enough interesting to test. Chrome OS appeals because it demands adopting a different computing lifestyle, as I explained in Day 5 and Day 6 posts, and that's exciting. It also represents a technology change I've been writing about for about six years -- shifting computing and informational relevance from the PC to the cloud.

Six years ago this month, I wrote in a blog post for JupiterResearch about Microsoft's emerging cloud competitive problem:

The real threat remains the web and how a vendor like Google has found a new way to exploit the Internet's utility beyond Windows. Additionally, consumer interest in digital content and non-PC devices and the possibility another platform might rise to dominance has to scare the hell out of some Microsoft executives. Microsoft knows, because the company has been there. IBM's mainframe monopoly didn't dissipate because of the PC; it's relevance diminished as the new platform soared to dominance.

In later posts, starting in early 2005, I explained about the many advantages of having access to business or personal information anytime, anywhere and on anything. Chrome OS is helping me to see these advantages in a new way. Perhaps that also explains my so easily committing to testing the Cr-48. Software testing, particularly operating systems, requires steely willpower. There is always the risk of fatal crashes that wipe out all your precious data. I don't worry about data loss with Chrome OS because the stuff is stored elsewhere. I've experienced one fatal crash running Chrome OS, which I was sure would wipe out the unsaved writing done in the browser. But Chrome restored to where I left it, without data loss. This sense of safety makes long-term testing enticing.

When I started writing about the cloud and cloud-connected devices displacing the PC's relevance six years ago, it was unthinkable that Microsoft would make any change risking products like Office. Now "to the cloud" is a Microsoft marketing slogan. This is a good development for many Betanews readers -- Microsoft software users who would scoff at working in Google's cloud. "Google Docs? Ba Humbug! Gimme Microsoft Word." No problem, you can work in Microsoft's cloud. Office Web Apps is a hosted Microsoft service, and Office 365 is testing now. While I found performance to be a tad slower than Google Docs, Office Web Apps is plenty usable on Chrome OS. It helps that the hosted productivity suite is cloud by design, with storage on Microsoft's SkyDrive. The point: Chrome OS is about the cloud, not just Google's. If the Web app or service works in standalone Chrome on Windows, it likely will run on Chrome OS.

The question is more: Is that Web app good enough to replace something on the desktop? In many cases, the answer is no. I can't replicate all my computing needs, particularly photo and video editing in the cloud. But it sure is fun looking for alternatives. Of course, I'm unusual in seeing change as being good. Forgive the accidental pun, habits cloud the mind. For many businesses looking to minimize costs, change is viewed differently, which I appreciate. Living Like Superman.

Still, there are identifiable advantages I'm seeing using Chrome OS and many apply to Chrome on other operating systems:

1. Sync is exceptionally seamless. As I explained in a May 2008 post: "Synchronization is today's killer application." It's even more so in 2011. I warned: "Should Google get synchronization right before Microsoft, it would be game over. Google would be able to extend the relevancy of the Web platform back to the desktop on its terms -- think invading army -- and across many devices or services." Google sync is that good now, and automatic, Chrome to Chrome OS and also from Android. It's pure cloud sync-driven. But Google will have to do more, helping third parties to offer as seamless sync. It's an essential utility for working in the cloud.

2. The browser is the most natural motif. For years, Microsoft pitched the value of Office and the extension of its user interface motif. Rationale: The number of people who work in Office make the UI natural. Yeah, but the Internet population using browsers is larger. After seven days working almost exclusively in the browser, I see its greater value as the most natural user interface -- not for being better but for being ubiquitous.

3. Cloud computing can be liberating. Not everyone will agree with this sentiment. Other people argue the cloud is risky, dangerous -- as GNU founder Richard Stallman has done. The contention: Businesses or consumers using cloud services lose control over their data. But isn't this already the situation for anyone using Facebook, e-mail, instant messaging or simply connecting to the Internet? Local storage creates illusion of control. But any computer connected to the Internet risks data theft or loss. I worry more about local hard drive failure or malware compromising data or stealing vital information from the PC. Perhaps I'm naive trusting, say, Google or Microsoft with my data. Like I said, many people won't agree.

Superman soars above the clouds, where he is energized by the yellow sun. I feel energized from the cloud flight using Chrome OS. It's not for everyone and won't be when released. But there's real vision behind Google's attempt to remake the PC operating system for the cloud era.

Open Internet Order for Net Neutrality likely to pass at FCC hearing tomorrow

Publié: décembre 21, 2010, 12:10am CET par Tim Conneally

The net neutrality regulations known as the Open Internet Order are coming up for vote before the Federal Communications Commission tomorrow, and it is now believed the order will pass, based upon statements from FCC commissioner Michael Copps on Monday.

Copps was formerly the "swing vote" for the Open Internet Order, Commissioners Baker and McDowell are expected to vote against the order, while commissioners Clyburn and Genachowski are expected to vote in favor of it. Until recently, Copps was in favor of reclassifying the Internet as a Title II telecommunications service, but that position was denigrated not only by Chairman Genachowski, but also by former Commissioner Michael Powell who is considered the "founding father" of the regulation.

Today, Copps issued a statement which said he would be voting in favor of the Order.

"If vigilantly and vigorously implemented by the Commission --and if upheld by the courts-- it could represent an important milestone in the ongoing struggle to safeguard the awesome opportunity-creating power of the open Internet. While I cannot vote wholeheartedly to approve the item, I will not block it by voting against it. I instead plan to concur so that we may move forward. I do thank the Chairman for his engagement, and I owe a special debt of gratitude to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn for her thoughtful and creative work to improve this item," Copps said today.

"I appreciate the hard work of my colleagues, and I am especially grateful for the commitment and dedication of Commissioner Copps, who has worked many years on behalf of consumers to ensure an open Internet," Commissioner Clyburn responded. "As a Commissioner whose task is to safeguard consumers and the public interest, I will continue to watch the growth of the Internet and will applaud industry advances and milestones. I will also seek out and facilitate any collaboration between myself, my colleagues, corporate stakeholders, and public interest representatives, as there can be no better path forward than that which is achieved through consensus."

The "nuts and bolts" of the order have not yet been made public, but that hasn't stopped those standing in opposition to the FCC's intervention from airing their concerns.

"The FCC has never before explicitly allowed discrimination on the Internet --but the draft Order takes a step backwards, merely stating that so-called 'paid prioritization' (the creation of a 'fast lane' for big corporations who can afford to pay for it) is cause for concern," Senator Al Franken (D,MN) wrote today. "It sure is --but that's exactly why the FCC should ban it. Instead, the draft Order would have the effect of actually relaxing restrictions on this kind of discrimination."

Free Press Managing Director Craig Aaron said, "This short-sighted decision is all too familiar to those who have watched the Obama administration and its appointees squander the opportunity for real change in favor of industry-written compromises that reward the biggest players from Wall Street to health care and now the Internet. There is overwhelming public support for real Net Neutrality, and this setback won't stop those fighting to save the Internet."

The most important outcome of tomorrow's open commission hearing will no doubt be the release of the full text of the Order. This will likely settle some of the dissenting voices, since it will reveal all of the unknown information and thus halt the fear that so often helps to crank up the rhetoric.

Motorola to show off mystery tablet at CES 2011

Publié: décembre 20, 2010, 8:24pm CET par Tim Conneally

Motorola will be showing off its mystery tablet product at CES 2011, according to a teaser video released by the company on Sunday.

It is the first really enticing move from Motorola since co-CEO Sanjay Jha announced the company's intention to make a tablet back in September.

The video, embedded below, goes through a series of tablets from history and lays out one positive aspect and one negative. While much of the content in the video is simply humor, there are a couple of important bits thrown in there to get the public interested.

The most significant part of the teaser is when it mentions the Samsung Galaxy Tab and says "Android OS, but Android OS...for a phone." The camera then sweeps over to a silk-draped platform with Motorola's logo on it, and a bee then begins to buzz around the screen.

This could be a reference to the next Android version reportedly codenamed "Honeycomb." The rumors since last July have guessed that version of Google's mobile OS is being designed specifically for tablet devices. However, there is no assurance that Honeycomb is even the name of the next version of Android, let alone that it will be peculiar to tablets.

The latest version of Android, 2.3, also known as "Gingerbread") adds support for extra large tablet-size screens, so even though it is not a tablet-specific OS, it offers support for larger screens, at the least.

Another rumor has said that Motorola and Verizon are working on a 10" tablet destined for Verizon's FiOS network. The logic behind that rumor is that Motorola makes set top boxes for Verizon's FiOS service, and the tablet could serve as a related in-home communication tool. Unfortunately this rumor is based on an unsound premise, since Verizon and Verizon Wireless are not the same company. Verizon Communications is a U.S. based telecommunications company, and Verizon Wireless is actually an international joint venture with Verizon Communications and Vodafone.

Betanews will be at CES 2011 and will spend time with Motorola to find out more about its upcoming tablet.

To grow 4G coverage, AT&T spends $1.9B on FLO TV's wireless licenses

Publié: décembre 20, 2010, 5:01pm CET par Tim Conneally

FLO TV Personal Television

Qualcomm on Monday announced that it will be selling its valuable Lower 700 MHz D and E Block wireless spectrum licenses to national service operator AT&T for $1.925 billion. The precious wireless licenses were being utilized in Qualcomm's mobile television service FLO TV which will be shutting down in March 2011.

Less than one year after FLO TV launched as a standalone service with its own HTC-made "Personal Televisions", Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs told investors that the company was looking to sell off the service, but provided little in the way of detail as to whether it would be sold off as a package, or piecemeal.

The question now is whether there was any value in FLO TV at all or if the service's worth was derived entirely from the wireless licenses Qualcomm held.

Due to the scarcity of free space in the wireless spectrum and the huge demand for additional capacity for wireless broadband, the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan says wireless spectrum is ten times more valuable for mobile broadband than it is for broadcast television services.

In October, the FCC estimated that new wireless spectrum applied to mobile broadband services would be worth nearly $120 billion in total.

On Monday, AT&T said it will utilize its new spectrum as a supplemental downlink to increase its 4G network capacity in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. AT&T said it expects to enable the coverage whenever 3GPP release 10 (the LTE-Advanced standard) is finalized, appropriate hardware is deployed, and compatible consumer devices are released.

"Ironically, more people will watch mobile TV on Qualcomm's FLO spectrum now that AT&T is buying it for LTE," Current Analysis Research Director for Consumer Devices Avi Greengart quipped on Twitter after the announcement Monday.

"Carrier aggregation, supplemental downlink and LTE multicast technologies are an exciting evolution of next generation wireless systems to economically support increasing consumer demand for mobile TV and other rich media content," Qualcomm's Jacobs said on Monday. "We will continue to drive the development and delivery of these new capabilities, which build on our technology leadership and deep experience with 3G, 4G and broadcast technologies."

The transaction is expected to be completed during the second half of 2011, pending approval from the FCC and the Department of Justice.

A week with Google's Chrome OS laptop, Day 6: Adopting a new lifestyle

Publié: décembre 20, 2010, 5:42am CET par Joe Wilcox

Google Cr-48 laptop

Chrome OS demands computing differently, but not as radically as some people think, or so I have concluded six days into using Google's unbranded Cr-48 laptop. Persistent Net connection is required and storage is generally on the InterWeb rather than on the computer; these changes take some adjustment.

I'm accustomed to running applications locally. I can't on Chrome OS.

I'm used to having offline access to applications. I can't with Chrome OS.

I'm used to managing files stored locally. I can't easily with Chrome OS.

Google's cloud-connected philosophy and approach to Chrome OS security necessitate these usability compromises. The promise is something better. But it requires adopting a different computing lifestyle some consumers or businesses won't want to.

Security built like a Tank

Chrome OS security reminds me of Windows NT 4: Hardened, in some ways to a fault. NT 4 remains my favorite operating system of its era. Running NT 4 is how I imagine driving a tank should feel like. Microsoft's circa 1996 OS felt solid and unapproachable, so much so many applications and peripherals wouldn't work. NT's security model restricted access to key parts of the operating system, including the kernel. But Microsoft also made compromises, such as moving graphics inside the kernel, which was good for developers but not as good for security. It was a usability tradeoff. Then Microsoft made the disastrous mistake of incorporating Internet Explorer (packing the ActiveX plug-in architecture) into future Windows versions. The company sought to make Windows more usable for the Internet age, but at great security cost to the company, its customers and developers.

Google stands where Microsoft did in the late 1990s, trying to bring a robust and secure new operating system to market. Google's challenges are greater. For starters, the OS isn't that new. Chrome OS is open-source Linux running Google's browser. But Google made changes, such as read-only root partition, restrictions against running executables and plugins running as separate processes, among others. Chrome OS also sandboxes applications, limiting their interaction with one another and the operating system. Considering the ongoing security problems with Adobe Flash, which Google has committed to supporting, sandboxing is helluva good idea for this software, if no other.

The security approach meets specific design goals: Google sees the first commercially-available Chrome OS devices being used in public places, such as libraries and coffee shops, or shared at work and home. The security model must protect two intertwined points of public access: The Internet and other users. In the Chrome OS build shipped on the Cr-48 laptop I'm using, Google provides a guest account that meets the sharing design goal while better protecting the default user from information or identity theft.

The security approach limits local usability while in concept enhancing it from the server-side -- the cloud. Google doesn't want executables running locally, nor let Web applications, extensions or plugins have too much interaction with the operating system or one another. It's important for anyone evaluating Chrome OS for business or personal use to fundamentally understand that Google isn't just building an operating system designed to be persistently connected, it's enforcing this behavior with the security model. Cloud philosophy and security approach are inseparable.

Balancing Security and Usability

Operating system security is difficult because of usability; balancing the two is challenging. Microsoft takes some mighty big lumps for Windows security. But the company could solve the problems tomorrow by simply locking out access to third-party everything -- applications, data, dlls, software drivers, etc. Lockdown wouldn't make Windows very usable, but it would be more secure. Take as analogy the shopkeeper who's store window of display goods is smashed and robbed. He responds by putting up bars over the windows, which makes it harder for people to see what he is selling. Maybe he is robbed again, responding by locking the door and opening it when customers buzz. Each security measure makes it harder for the storekeeper to sell his stuff. It's a usability problem that can be tough to balance.

Philosophically, I like Google's approach to Chrome OS security. It's like the shopkeeper moving his sales online -- asking shoppers to change their buying behavior -- while keeping the store open for customer service. In the interest of security and operating his business, the shopkeeper changes the usability model. Google is making a similar demand with Chrome OS -- that users change their habits, adopt new behavior.

However, critics -- and some of them are Betanews commenters -- scoff at the idea of keeping data in the cloud and needing to keep a persistant Net connection. They assert that Google asks too much -- and it's unnecesary. Betanews reader Chad Keith in comments:

For the consummate computer user who computes in a variety of places, scenarios and both online/offline (whether for work or for leisure) I hold reservations about Chrome OS's ability to serve. My opinion, Chrome OS will be another hobbyist operating system like Linux. It will be tough to get the casual computer user to switch from Windows (and even from Apple) because of the fear of uncertainty about a strange operating system.

Remember, that Chrome OS is still testing and will be until summer 2011, if the schedule doesn't change. I expect that, as long as the security model can be maintained, Google will eventually provide some offline access to its own services, like Docs and Gmail, and perhaps others. Offline mode would mean even less disturbing computing lifestyle change. Google's challenge will be balancing security against usability and long-time PC user/administrator expectations.

How Google defines, or redefines, usability will be interesting to observe during the testing process. Will Google stick to its cloud usability model, which gives up usability computer users are accustomed to now and trades it for presumably as good or better usability in the cloud? Or will Google compromise, providing users and Web applications more offline access? And if the latter, can Google do so while keeping the security model intact (or even improved)?

Personally, after several days disorientation, I'm adapting comfortably to this new usability model and feeling good about Google's security approach -- granted, which must still prove its wherewithal. I can live in the cloud, and I'm convinced that many business users and consumers can do so, too. Remember that cloud doesn't have to mean Web service run by a third party on the Internet. It can be a corporate hosted service that users access across their network or Intranet. Chrome OS promises to meet the demands of both.

Before concluding, links to the first five parts of this series:

For the Day 7 installment I will discuss Web applications/services I use in the browser and how they are beneficial. It's the "how I live in the cloud" post.

A week with Google's Chrome OS laptop, Day 5: My life in the cloud

Publié: décembre 19, 2010, 1:48am CET par Joe Wilcox

Chrome Web Store

Settling into the cloud is taking longer than I expected, as I try to root out enough applications to make up for what I used locally on my last laptop -- the 11.6-inch MacBook Air. The simple reality: There aren't enough good applications yet, or perhaps I'm just too slow finding them. Strangely, if I were living in a different cloud -- from smartphone or tablet -- I could choose from plenty of apps and many of them would be better than those available on the PC (the difference, of course, being something running locally and connected versus something running in the browser that must be connected).

I got a stronger-bitter sweet taste of the difference between the clouds on the evening of Day 5, when I bought the Nexus S smartphone running Gingerbread (aka Android 2.3) from the local Best Buy Mobile.

Another hardship is unnecessary: The touchpad on the Cr-48 is so miserable to use, Google should package the hardware and supporting software for sale to the military. It's torture to use. I'd confess to just about anything if forced to use this damn touchpad long enough. It's an absolute misery maker that has sucked up about all my holiday cheer.

What If There's No Internet Connection?

Still, five days into running Chrome OS on Google's unbranded Cr-48 laptop, I'm starting to see how I might continue for 10 days -- or even 30 -- particularly if Google issues regular updates or suitable applications magically appear. I'm not struggling with the always-connected lifestyle change because it's not much of one -- remember, Chrome OS demands a constant Internet connection. Since switching to ISDN broadband in 1997 and DSL 18 months later, I've nearly always computed connected. What good is any computer without the Internet? It's an important question because what it means to living in the cloud. Many consumers and IT decision makers will have to get beyond the "What if?" question. "What if I can't connect to the Internet?" My answer: It's more a psychological than real world problem -- at least for most businesses.

On December 15th in comments, a Betanews reader simply identified as Jonah challenged: "Shut off your internet, then tell us your experience and estimate the billions of dollars lost in productivity for any corporation that debates a full cloud solution and loses connectivity for a day? Seriously, would love to know how good this computer is without internet."

If I shut off the Internet connection for a regular laptop my experience would be abysmal. There is very little I do that doesn't require a constant Net connection, regardless where the applications run -- locally or in the cloud. Isn't that your experience, too? Don't most businesses already depend on persistent Net connections? Not every employee needs Net access, but those that do won't get much work done without it. Jonah's challenge is ridiculous. It's like asking: "Shut off your electricity, then tell us your experience and estimate the billions of dollars lost in productivity for any corporation that debates a full cloud solution and loses electricity for a day? Seriously, would love to know how good this computer is without electricity." For most businesses and consumers, the Internet, like electricity, is a necessary utility.

More people are connected. According the United Nations, the number of people globally with Internet connections will top 2 billion by the end of the year. Internet penetration in developed countries is 71 percent and 21 percent elsewhere. Sixty-five percent of the 226 million Internet users added this year live in emerging markets. Meanwhile, mobile phones are making Internet connections where broadband or dialup don't reach. Mobile telephony is now available to 90 percent of the world population. Subscribers are projected to reach 5.3 billion by end of the year, with 3.8 billion of them in developing countries, according to the United Nations. The latter statistic is important to Google's other operating system, Android.

If the "What if?" question is a problem for businesses or consumers considering Chrome OS, why not smartphones? Mobile handsets also require constant connections -- for telephony and data (where service is available for the latter). Subscribers may choose one service over another based on real or perceived service reliability, but they must still commit to a wireless carrier -- often accepting at least one-year contract (In the United States, typically two). Businesses deploying handsets, particularly smartphones, depend on their being connected -- and willingly take the risk of failure. Should it be such a leap to make the same commitment to an Internet provider, something IT decision makers already do? There's paranoia and then there's realism. No one should disregard Chrome OS simply because their reliable Internet connection might not be available someday. Like their cell network or electricity. By the way, the Cr-48 ships with Verizon data service -- 100MB free a month -- and more available starting at $9.99 a month. So there's backup Net service to WiFi.

Being Connected Doesn't Mean Connecting

Chrome OS naysayers should worry much less about "What if?" and more about "What can't I do?" Early days testing, it's a surprising list. While researching about Internet usage for this review, I came upon an Excel spreadsheet posted by the US Census Bureau. Clicking the link downloaded the spreadsheet, which generated "unknown file type" warning. Eh, I had Google Docs open in a tab, shouldn't that somehow open the spreadsheet? I resorted to "Uploading Files," dragging the file from "Downloads" to "Drag and drop files here" in the browser. No luck. I eventually uploaded the file from Downloads, but once on the server I couldn't open it. Uh-oh.

On Day 1 of testing, I spotted in my RSS feeds "Dp1x winter raw pack" -- a collection of holiday photos by Carl Rytterfalk. He packaged them up as a zip file, which I downloaded. Whoops: "unknown file type." I couldn't find in the Chrome Web Store an archive utility by searching for "compressed file" or "zip," although the latter keyword strangely and unexpectedly revealed the NPR app for Chrome. That's good to have for my daily dose of program "All Things Considered."

Printing is another hardship. The Cr-48 has WiFi. I own the Epson Artisan 810 printer, which supports WiFi printing. I've got it setup for the family's other computers. But the Cr-48 and Artisan 810 don't talk -- Google has got a cloud printing setup utility instead. At this point in Chrome OS development, the setup process requires connecting the printer to a Windows computer and accessing a Google webpage. Well, hell, I don't have one of those PCs. I lent out my Windows 7 laptop to a friend, so he could experience the new operating system's wonders. I'll wait until he's finished or Google releases a Mac utility.

I plopped my Leica X1 camera's storage card into the Cr-48's SD Card slot, but I couldn't access it. There's no file manager that I can find in Chrome OS; granted, I looked quickly. I typically edit photos using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (currently version 3.3), which isn't an option here. I'll report on using cloud alternatives on either Day 6 or Day 7.

The Android Cloud Feels Better

I can't help comparing the Chrome OS cloud to the Android cloud. While Android runs apps locally, connectivity is still paramount. Android phones are also supposed to maintain persistent connections for data and voice. The experience there is just so much superior, Chrome OS feels less than what it is by comparison. For example, I can do so much more with photos taken on the phone, such as editing and applying effects (using one or more apps) or quickly uploading to virtually any service from Android's photo Gallery. There's greater utility in almost every way.

Still, developers are rustling the leaves, and beneath them placing new Chrome apps to discover. I haven't counted the apps available from the Chrome Web Store, but there sure feels like many, many more on Day 5 compared to Day 1. My Day 6 report will focus on the more positive cloud experience and some of the benefits I have found there.

Before concluding, links to the first four parts of this series:

If you're a Cr-48 tester and have some time or inclination, please share a little about your experience in comments.

A week with Google's Chrome OS laptop, Day 4: Who is the cloud for?

Publié: décembre 18, 2010, 12:23am CET par Joe Wilcox

Cr-48

Few months ago, while walking around Apple Store, minutes after leaving Microsoft Store, I suddenly thought: "My next laptop will run Chrome OS." Well, almost. I ended up with 11.6-inch MacBook Air first. But four days into using the unbranded Google Cr-48 laptop running Chrome OS, I can see living in the cloud as a reasonable future -- not just for me but many other computer users. Problem: It's a residence not quite finished. There's a roof overhead and enclosed walls, but rooms are drafty, electricity works only in some places and the appliances are portable temporaries.

Running Chrome OS on Cr-48 reminds me of testing Windows NT 4 and Mac OS X 10.0 as beta and final release. Windows NT 4 debuted ahead of its time. The hardened security model meant problems connecting peripherals and running many applications. NT 4 was a lonely domicile -- analogous to the first house finished in a new community. Mac OS X 10.0 was similar. Apple made the outrageous decision to ship the operating system before there were adequate drivers for optical drives on existing Macs. Mac OS X also was a new platform for which there were few applications and for which Apple's low PC market share gave developers little incentive to write native ones.

Windows NT 4 and Mac OS X 10.0 represented platform shifts. From NT 4 evolved Windows 2000 and XP, which were more mass-market friendly. Mac OS X 10.0 begat six more direct versions and iOS running on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Chrome OS has same potential, even though from reading Betanews comments and other web commentary many people don't yet see it. Google is plotting a fundamental platform shift to the cloud. Everything about using Chrome OS feels the same as early NT 4 and OS X testing. I expect similar adoption pattern -- slow at first, then accelerating.

Before continuing, links to the first three parts of this series:

Cloud Critics Speak Out

Many people already are asking about Chrome OS: "Who is it for?" Three days ago, ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley confessed after using the Cr-48: "I'm stymied as to who the real Chromebook user is supposed to be. So far, I don't see myself in that category."

A day later, Gmail creator Paul Buchheit, who no longer works for Google, predicted: "Chrome OS will be killed next year (or 'merged' with Android)." More: "Chrome OS has no purpose that isn't better served by Android." Even more: "I'm surprised that an OS with approximately zero users would have so many fans." Surely some critic or competitor said something similar about the early Gmail beta. :)

Same day, Guardian tech reporter Charles Arthur quoted GNU founder Richard Stallman as (once again) condemning cloud computing but renewed in context of Chrome OS. Stallman asserts that people will lose control of their data should they store it in the cloud. His statements have a conspiracy quality about them, and they're eerily familiar. Surely someone made similar assertions about the PC in the early 1980s -- that by letting employees use personal computers instead of terminals connected to mainframes that businesses would lose control of their data. So much for ragged-hair doomsayers holding "End of the World" signs, 30 years ago and in 2011.

Buchheit's and Stallman's statements spread like fire across the Wild Wild Web on December 14th and 15th. Many Chrome OS critics see Google returning to the failed network computer effort of the late 1990s. They observe that Google CEO Eric Schmidt worked for Sun, which during his tenure was a big network computing advocate. Like Foley, they can't fathom who the "Chromebook user is supposed to be."

You Belong in the Cloud

On December 12th, before receiving the Cr-48, I asked: "Who really needs a Chrome OS laptop?" After four days using the laptop, I can answer the question. You do. TechCrunch's MG Siegler expresses it better than I would:

In many ways, Chrome OS is the anti-OS. And that's refreshing. It's not where it needs to be yet, but when and if it gets there, it could be really, really great. Imagine a computer that boots in two seconds. Imagine one that lasts for an entire day on a single charge. Imagine one that costs less than $100. It could change the world.
Just think about what you use your computer for these days. There's a very good chance that it's mainly to use the web. I'm at a cafe right now. Looking around, every single screen has a web browser open. That's important. That's why Chrome OS was created.

Responding to Buchheit, web marketer Brad Nickel asserts:

Browser based OS in the mainstream [is] long past overdue and really a reality today with Windows -- just track my wife's usage. I could...plop a well configured Chrome OS notebook or tablet down in front of her and she wouldn't lose a beat and nor would probably about 75 percent of her world (friends, family, etc.), and we geeks would love not to have to deal with more support than a browser based OS.

I concur, particularly having used Chrome OS and being cut all to hell on its bleeding edge. Two years of brisk (but now somewhat waning) netbook sales show there is demand for cheap, small, lightweight laptops with long battery life and constant Net connections. That said a netbook is different, because there is big, local storage. As I learned using the Cr-48, there's thinking you live in the cloud and really living there. It's one thing to mostly use the browser on a laptop with local storage and something else to always be in the browser with required Net connection and data stored elsewhere. It's a lifestyle change.

Resistance is Futile

Chrome OS is no more ready for commercial release today as was Windows NT 4 or Mac OS X 10.0 when beta testing. Like these operating systems, the market likely won't be ready for Chrome OS in summer 2011, assuming Google keeps to the release schedule. Instapaper creator Marco Arment is convinced inertia and switching costs will hold back business adopters:

Most businesses that could use such a setup are large, and deploying a major technological change to their staff is a huge and very expensive undertaking. Even if Google somehow gave them thousands of Chrome OS netbooks for free, any company attempting this will need to spend a ton of money in IT labor, employee training, and increased help-desk needs as the organization deployed the new setup.

I agree to a point. Many enterprises are already deploying cloud solutions now. Whether they outsource to companies like Microsoft or Salesforce.com or self-host, the clouds servers are there, or will be. Chrome OS is simply the client, and arguably a secure one. Many businesses will already have made the painful backend transition before Chrome OS ships.

Richard Stallman is full of crap talking about losing control of data in the cloud. Many enterprises will regain control of data there. Right now they've got all kinds of valuable data leaking out on laptops and smartphones. These devices present huge privacy and security risks if lost or stolen. Businesses need to get this data back where it belongs -- behind the firewall. The commonsense behind Chrome OS is providing a reliable and cheap frontend for accessing data safely-stored behind the firewall.

Chrome's critics miss the point: Technology innovation isn't about giving people what they want but what they don't know they need. Google is looking ahead with Chrome OS, and, yes, some businesses or consumers won't get it right away and may balk at how they must change behavior. Windows NT 4 and Mac OS X 10.0 had their critics, too, although the demands asked were less. Over the years, I talked to many IT managers and CIOs who refused to deploy Mac OS X. The demands Arment identifies -- costs associated with switching, employee training and helpdesk support -- often topped their reasons. Now many of those same people are deploying iPads and iPhones -- running iOS, which derives from OS X.

"Chrome OS remains a good idea," Siegler asserts. "And it seems like one that ties directly to Google's entire essence. If they put the resources necessary into it, and give it time, I do think it has a good chance to succeed." I agree. The only question is Google's commitment. Dispatching 60,000 test laptops sure looks like Google is committed. Time will tell who is right.

For Day 5, I will return to hands-on experience, sharing about living in the cloud and the changes Chrome OS requires to live there.

Justin Bieber's World Cup iPad: 2010 in keywords

Publié: décembre 17, 2010, 9:40pm CET par Tim Conneally

The end of the calendar year is a time to reflect on our experiences of the last twelve months, and to look ahead to what the next twelve have in store. For many, this means getting together with the family, exchanging gifts and sharing stories of the year's adventures.

For the technology and information industries, it doesn't mean sitting around the fireplace and getting nostalgic over a cup of hot cocoa, though. It means year-end statistics; and for the rest of us, this is far more exciting.

Even though I'm a part of the rising tide of journalists who oppose top ten lists, I've been collecting all of the "Top 10 of 2010" lists from sites that have access to the most copious amounts of the Web's data and compiling the data into a roundup of what was most important to the Web this year.

Google

The weightiest site to disclose figures is, of course, Google, and Google's Zeitgeist 2010 ranked the topics that gained the most interest in the shortest periods of time this year.

1. Chatroulette
2. ipad
3. Justin Bieber
4. Nicki Minaj
5. Friv
6. Myxer
7. Katy Perry
8. Twitter
9. Gamezer
10. Facebook

Yahoo!

According to Nielsen ratings earlier this year, Yahoo bounced between the positions of second and third most-visited site of the year, and Yahoo's 2010 Year in Review includes some search terms that were popular in previous years, but have fallen off the map for most other services. The result is a list that looks a little dated.

1. BP Oil Spill
2. World Cup
3. Miley Cyrus
4. Kim Kardashian
5. Lady Gaga
6. iPhone
7. Megan Fox
8. Justin Bieber
9. American Idol
10. Britney Spears

Facebook

Facebook was positioned closely to Yahoo in the year's Nielsen ratings, but rather than ranking searches, Yahoo listed the most popular phrases to be posted as status updates in Facebook 2010 Memology: Top Status Trends of the Year.

1. HMU (Initialism for "hit me up", new slang begun in late 09)
2. World Cup
3. Movies (Toy Story 3, Inception, Twilight Saga, etc.)
4. iPad/iPhone 4
5. Haiti
6. Justin Bieber
7. Statuses related to Facebook Games
8. Chilean Miners
9. Airplanes (specifically, the song lyric "Can we pretend that airplanes in the nights sky are like shooting stars")
10.) 2011

YouTube

Google's YouTube is undoubtedly the leader in Web Video hosting and is the fourth most trafficked site in the United States overall. In YouTube Rewind 2010: The Year in Review, the most popular videos of the year were ranked according to their view counts.

1. Bed Intruder Song
2. "Tik Tok" Ke$ha parody: Glitter Puke
3. Greyson Chance singing "Paparazzi"
4. Annoying Orange Wazzup
5. The Man your Man could Smell like (Old Spice ad)
6. Giant Double Rainbow
7. OK Go "This Too Shall Pass" video
8. Twilight Saga: Eclipse trailer
9. Jimmy Kimmel surprises Bieber Fan
10. Gymkhana three, part 2

Bing

Microsoft's sites fall next in line behind YouTube, and the Most popular overall 2010 searches on Bing reveal a somewhat different mindset of its users.

1. Kim Kardashian
2. Sandra Bullock
3. Tiger Woods
4. Lady Gaga
5. Barack Obama
6. Hairstyles
7. Kate Gosselin
8. Wal-mart
9. Justin Bieber
10. Free

eBay

According to eBay's free statistics site, Pulse, tech gadgets are unquestionably the most searched-for items, and only 2 out of the 10 most common search queries are non-tech related.

1. iPod
2. Xbox 360
3. p90x (diet/fitness item)
4. iPod Touch
5. iPhone 3G
6. Verizon Cell Phones
7. iPhone 4
8. Xbox 360 Console
9. PS3
10. Coach Handbags

Twitter

Though Twitter is less popular than Amazon and Wikipedia, those services haven't released up-to-date figures for 2010, and Twitter's engineers were more than happy to disclose what its users have been talking about in #Hindsight2010: Top Trends on Twitter, released last week. Fortunately, Twitter's trends are more focused on current events and not popular culture, similar to the trends already visible in the most commonly edited articles in Wikipedia.

1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. FIFA World Cup
3. Inception
4. Haiti Earthquake
5. Vuvuzela
6. Apple iPad
7. Google Android
8. Justin Bieber
9. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows
10. Pulpo Paul

This is only a selection from the highest traffic sites in the United States, but the trends found here are reflected in the Web's smaller niche sites as well. FAILBlog, for example, ranked the Horizon Deepwater Oil Spill as the "most memorable fail" of the year by a 34% margin, followed by "fails" related to the iPhone, Winter Olympics, Katy Perry, and the "Bed Intruder" meme.

Justin Bieber iPad. Yes, it's a horrid shop job.

According to a two-year study published by Arbor Networks last year, about 30 percent of all internet traffic is driven by a disproportionately small number of companies, most of which are included in the list above. So when a term has risen to the top of all of these sites, there's a significant chance they are among the most commonly searched subjects in the entire Web.

Somasegar gets it, do you?

Publié: décembre 17, 2010, 6:36pm CET par Joe Wilcox

The end-of-year retrospectives are popping up everywhere as Christmas and New Years approach. This morning, Soma Somasegar's walk down 2010 memory lane caught my attention. He posted "A Year of Excitement" late-day yesterday (Eastern Standard Time). Whether or not there is any Microsoft "excitement" is topic for discussion in comments. But the tone of his post and emphasis is something other Microsoft bloggers -- and employees from other tech companies -- should try to imitate as they look back on the year or even ahead to 2011.

Somasegar writes: "I'm always impressed with the work we do here at Microsoft -- you can see how unbiased I am :) -- but this year I'm especially proud to see some of the work having a real impact in my house and with my family members." Stop right there. Somasegar is senior vice president of Microsoft's Developer Division. He's not a consumer evangelist but a developer. He works for a company selling most of its products to businesses, and he engages developers among them.

Lifestyle Marketing

Companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Research in Motion, Samsung and Sony, among many others, don't just sell products -- they sell a lifestyle around them. Each has a clear digital lifestyle philosophy and worldview. Apple's digital lifestyle marketing is exceptional, as is Nokia's (regardless of its declining mobile phone/operating system market share) and Sony's. These companies tell a good story about how their interconnected products benefit you.

Microsoft told a good story during the 1990s, particularly to beta testers, developers, enthusiasts and IT pros. As Microsoft developed more products and trenched in the enterprise, the lifestyle message scattered. Not that Microsoft failed to try. For years the company has talked about converging personal and professional lifestyles -- work and home -- and how its products could meet the needs of both. It was the right idea, but unbalanced; there was too much marketing emphasis on work compared to home. Much changed over the last 18 months, as Microsoft hired a new ad agency, shipped Windows 7 and prepared to launch Kinect and Windows Phone 7 for holiday 2010. Somasegar's post captures some of that rebalanced emphasis of home-work lifestyles.

"Several weeks ago, my family became Windows Phone 7 users," he writes. Microsoft gave out Windows Phone handsets to all employees. Family members, too, or did he buy those? Somasegar shows a picture of the personalized phones that he, his wife and daughters use. He then highlights features that are meaningful to his family, such as Bing search and personal connections:

I have hundreds of Outlook contacts, Hotmail contacts, and Facebook friends. I have contact information for some of my friends in more than one of those sources, and I was impressed with the People hub's automatic contact linking so that each person had just one contact card with information from all my sources, including their photos.

He praises the number of applications -- a measly 4,000 -- but, hey, is a developer guy that sees the richness of the apps. Somasegar moves on to Xbox:

We have an Xbox Kinect at home, and I was amazed at how fast my daughters got the hang of controlling the Xbox and playing games using motion and gestures. Dance Central is popular at my house, but for all my years of software experience, this is one place where my wife and daughters have me beaten hands-down.

There's a photo of his daughters playing games. Somasegar concludes by briefly praising Internet Explorer 9, which is still in beta. The blog post isn't exceptional writing, but it's personal and approachable, providing a homey perspective. And it feels genuine, rather than being crafted or vetted by one of Microsoft's outside PR agencies.

Apple's Serotonin-rush Mob

Somasegar is a developer, like many Betanews readers. He's a father and husband, too. These familial roles are worth remembering and emphasizing during the holiday season. They're part of our lifestyle, particularly during an era when home and work lifestyles often overlap so much. There's a humility, too, that I often see among Microsoft employee bloggers and the lifestyles they tout compared to competitors.

Take Apple as example; messaging is tightly controlled. Where are the employee bloggers to be found? Where are they hiding? Apple runs a great lab rat experiment, where many bloggers, enthusiasts, investors and shareholders feed off rumors. They chase them through mazes looking for the next product announcement. Many people writing about Apple live the mouse-in-the-maze lifestyle -- or rat race, if you prefer.

What about people adopting the modern Apple lifestyle? It's a serotonin-rush mob. Macheads buy into feelings of exclusivity (based on price), superiority (from product design and bleeding-edge technologies) and belonging (the so-called community of Mac hardcores and, for Generation Y, using what their friends do). I'm often galled by many Macheads' sense of superiority and closed-mindedness, where their lifestyle, regardless of how they define it, is the only one acceptable.

Unlike controlling Apple, among Microsoft's lifestyle attributes -- and I would assert much the same about Google -- are availability, choice, cooperation and ubiquity:

Making personal computing's benefits available to all (derived from cofounder Bill Gates' quest for a PC on every desktop).
Providing customers with a wide choice of products (by the software licensing model that leads to many products released from the software platforms).
Collaborating with customers, developers and testers (as demonstrated by tools for feedback, employee blogs and commercial products like SharePoint).
Seeking standards, and arguably formats Microsoft controls, that make information easily consumed anywhere (successful efforts that solved 1990s' problems of sharing documents created by different applications).

The Internet platform and rise of ubiquitous search has diminished the last attribute's significance -- and there Google deserves credit. But I digress. Somasegar stepped out of his developer role into another, there peeking into the Microsoft lifestyle that is for most people the most meaningful: Family.

Yahoo to terminate 8 web properties in restructuring effort

Publié: décembre 17, 2010, 7:07am CET par Tim Conneally

Following a reported four percent staff reduction announced this week, search engine and web portal Yahoo! will also be restructuring its large roster of sites by terminating some, merging others, and turning still others into "features."

According to a presentation slide leaked from an internal Yahoo product meeting on Thursday, Altavista, Yahoo Picks, Yahoo Bookmarks, Yahoo Buzz, Delicious, MyBlogLog, Alltheweb, and MyM are all slated to be shut down for good. Additionally, Yahoo says its Traffic APIs will be shut down as well.

The services FoxyTunes, Yahoo Events, Yahoo People Search, Sideline, FireEagle, and Upcoming are all going to be merged into other Yahoo services.

Finally, Yahoo Deals, Avatars, Alerts, Widgets, Greetings, Babelfish, Calendar, Address Book, Notepad, and Message Boards will become "features." What this means exactly, however, is currently unknown outside of Yahoo.

In a statement to the media, Yahoo said this restructuring effort will help the company "put better focus on our core strengths and fund new innovation in the next year and beyond."

Now that Yahoo's search is powered by Microsoft and Bing, one of the company's core strengths is its participation in the development of the Hadoop software framework.

In Yahoo's second quarter earnings call this year, CEO Carol Bartz said "Hadoop is...behind every click on Yahoo! But it's not just us. Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and the rest of those 1,000 developers I just mentioned also rely on Hadoop. And our approach to Hadoop's development has earned us a lot of admirers, not just for the huge amount of technology expertise needed to build it, but also for making it open source. Technology plays an essential part in what we do. Hadoop and the great talent we've recently added demonstrate how we are elevating science, technology, and innovation even more within the company."

A week with Google's Chrome OS laptop, Day 3: Living with Flash

Publié: décembre 16, 2010, 11:11pm CET par Joe Wilcox

Cr-48

I've spent the last six weeks living the serene computing life, like being back on a Maine farm, with dusty roads, upward-reaching pines and Milky Way spanning night skies. Switching from the 11.6-inch MacBook Air to Google's Cr-48 brought back city congestion and bursting neon signs. Adobe Flash is back in my life, and it's hurting my Chrome OS experience.

"Whether or not Flash?" is topic for Day 3 of my week-long usage experiment, and it's a question many other people are sure to ask. Previous posts in this series: "A week with Google's Chrome OS laptop, Day 1: Getting acquainted" and "A week with Google's Chrome OS laptop, Day 2: Becoming a cloud citizen."

Quick recap: Starting last week, Google dispatched 60,000 12.1-inch laptops with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor running Chrome OS to lucky testers. I received my unbranded Cr-48 laptop on December 13, then embarked on a week-long user journey and storytelling.

Google doesn't plan on ever selling the Cr-48 or anything like it. But the laptop is a reference design for PC OEMs to follow. I presume that six months or so from now, commercially shipping models will have faster processors and better something. Surely Chrome OS will shape up in the interim, too. But I must evaluate based on the reference design and software available now; Google wants feedback, and testers like me are supposed to give it. Simply put, Flash sucks.

Flash Video Is Not

Chrome OS running on the Cr-48 feels fast enough, except when it doesn't. Generally, it doesn't when even one tab is open to a page with Flash ads. Rotating Flash ads are the worst performance suckers. The little frakkers are seemingly everywhere. I had forgotten because MacBook Air's Safari browser doesn't come with Flash, and I refused to install it.

On Day 1, I went to YouTube and watched Sara Bareilles' "King of Anything" music video in full-screen mode. The video played smoothly and sounded good. On Day 3, I casually conducted another test expecting similar results. I went to Hulu and chose December 11th's "Saturday Night Live." The video played in spurts -- totally unwatchable -- even small size, although audio was clear enough. What the frak? I replicated similar behavior. Perhaps Chrome OS is optimized for YouTube or, even, gasp signaling HTML5 video instead of Flash. All I know, where I can identify video content as Flash, performance disappoints at best.

Now compare this to iPad, which offers Hulu Plus as an app. I watched the same clip on iPad, where it looked and sounded great. By the raw hardware specs, Google's unbranded laptop should do as well or better. But there are other considerations. In a Cr-48 review posted today at the Droids, Ryan Trevisol sizes up Flash video performance:

Let's talk about Flash. It's been mentioned numerous times that Flash sucks on Chrome OS. For Flash video, it does, to the point of being unusable. However, other flash-intensive uses are plenty usable...The thing to remember about Flash on Chrome OS is that it's built on Linux, and Linux doesn't have a hardware-accelerated h.264 API, meaning it can't use CPU or GPU hardware directly to decode most Flash video. Adobe has acknowledged this, and I'm sure in future versions of Chrome OS we'll see performance improvements.

Adobe isn't shy about admitting there's a problem. In a December 9th blog post, Adobe's Paul Betlem explains:

In terms of Chrome notebooks specifically, as with many aspects of the device, Flash Player 10.1 support remains a work in progress. Video performance in particular is the primary area for improvement and we are actively working with the engineers at Google to address this. Enabling video acceleration will deliver a more seamless experience on these devices...The work we're doing on acceleration for video in Flash Player is a top priority because the vast majority of video on the web is delivered using Flash.

Sucking Up the Battery

Perhaps, there will be better video performance someday. Even so, Flash video is hardly the only problem. On Day 2, I signed up for Pandora and started streaming music. The service requires Flash to use, and pesky Flash ads continuously run. Before the first song played the length of an iTunes sample, battery at 73 percent charge immediately dropped to 4 hours 23 minutes remaining from more than 7 hours. Soon as I closed the Pandora tab, battery time remaining jumped to 5 hours 17 minutes, then 5 hours 57 minutes before topping 6 hours 20 minutes.

For comparison, on Day 3 I started up MacBook Air and unplugged the power. Charge remaining: 4 hours 28 minutes. I opened up Pandora in Google Chrome and started playing music. Within 10 seconds, charge remaining time dropped to 2 hours 20 minutes. Whoa. Results might vary -- perhaps even be better -- in other browsers. Only Chrome matters here because Flash is baked into Google's cloud-connected OS.

So I wonder why Google is pushing Flash and if perhaps Apple has a point after all. One of Apple's major Flash gripes is battery consumption. Another is the user experience, which Apple Steve Jobs has faulted. But Chrome OS is supposed to be all things Web, and right now Flash is very much apart of the Net-connected experience. More significantly, many of the Rich Internet Applications Google should want Chrome OS users to have require Flash.

I've been a happy camper running Safari on MacBook Air without Flash. The browser is more responsive, and I'm less distracted by the ads while reading, which increases retention. I hadn't realized how annoying are Flash ads, until going without them for nearly two months. More significantly as someone trying to evaluate Chrome OS, I'm appalled by how much Flash negatively affects the experience. As expressed earlier. Chrome OS performs well when it doesn't, and when it doesn't Flash usually is the reason.

Day 4 will focus on my life in the cloud and using applications there who the cloud is for. If you're up in the Chrome OS cloud, too, please share in comments about your Cr-48 user experience.

Opera 11 final version published

Publié: décembre 16, 2010, 10:49pm CET par Tim Conneally

Download Opera 11 for Windows in Fileforum now!

Opera Software Thursday released the completed version of the Opera 11 browser, which has been available in various states of pre-release since October. This version of the browser breaks new ground for Opera, and includes support for extensions and introduces a new tab management system.

If you have been using the beta version of Opera 11, which was last updated on November 23, there isn't going to be a tremendous amount of change that is immediately visible aside from a few changes to the search dropdown, speed dial background, and extension installer UI, but a handful of usability improvements have been made.

Under the hood, however, support for more HTML5 content has been added, including support for the progress and meter elements, and the form input types: "search," "file" multiple, null placeholder, "color", and "tel." The complete log of changes between Opera 11 beta and the final release candidate is available here.

If you've downloaded any of the Opera 11 release candidates pushed out in rapid succession over the last two days, this is the final version, but it has the same release number as RC3, which is 1156.

It's the holidays, how do you use your phone to shop?

Publié: décembre 16, 2010, 7:57pm CET par Joe Wilcox

Holiday 2010 shopping survey

I ask because of a surprising mobile shopping report made available today. What caught my interest was methodology -- survey by mobile phones -- and sample size of 12,533. Briabe Media put together the survey, conducted on MocoSpace's mobile network of 14 million registered users. Among the 31-page PowerPoint report's findings: 62 percent of respondents used their phones to research products or pricing before going shopping. Forty-six percent used their phones to comparison shop once in the stores.

Can you say personal shopping assistant? What the report doesn't reveal is where mobile users do their comparison shopping. Is it using the Amazon app or perhaps Google Googles? Something else? I rarely buy anything selling for more than $20 without comparison shopping in the store. What about you?

I generally look lightly on reports like this one -- built-in conflict-of-interest. Both parties directly benefit from promoting the data, meaning it's not conducted by a neutral third party. But the methodology is interesting enough and information provided in the report detailed enough for me to reasonably trust the findings. Additionally, there is excellent attention given to demographics, such as race and age. That said, the data is somewhat skewed by the disparate gender representation -- 71 percent female and 29 percent male. By age: 14-19, 22 percent; 20-29, 35 percent; 30-plus, 43 percent.

Holiday 2010 shopping survey

Some quick findings:

32 percent of respondents consider their mobile phone as "very important" during this holiday shopping season
76 percent give some level of importance to their mobile phones for holiday shopping
40 percent of African Americans consider their mobile phone as "very important" this holiday shopping season -- caucasians ranked lowest, 24 percent
Half of Asian Americans have used their phones to comparison shop while in the store
14 percent of respondents have used mobile coupons, and 30 percent are more likely to do so during the holidays

Holiday 2010 shopping survey

As I've for so long asserted, mobile phones are more personal than the personal computer. The PC's biggest benefit is it's unusual Jack-of-all-trades characteristic, something smartphones share but more portably. The phone goes everywhere, including the mall.

Holiday 2010 shopping survey

I'll ask again: How do you use your phone to shop? Please answer in comments.

Nokia takes Apple patent fight to British, German & Dutch courts

Publié: décembre 16, 2010, 6:43pm CET par Tim Conneally

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia on Thursday announced it had filed claims against Apple in the UK High Court, Dusseldorf and Mannheim District Courts in Germany, and the District Court of the Hague, Netherlands. The three new complaints join those already filed with the US International Trade Commission, and US Federal Courts in Delaware and Wisconsin.

Nokia had already accused Apple of 24 patent violations; 10 counts in its 2009 complaint, and 14 more in its 2010 complaint that responded to Apple's countersuit. The action announced today piles 13 more patents on the case; 4 in the UK, 7 in Dusseldorf, 5 in Mannheim, and two in the Hague.

"The Nokia inventions protected by these patents include several which enable compelling user experiences," Paul Melin, vice president of Intellectual Property at Nokia said today. "For example, using a wiping gesture on a touch screen to navigate content, or enabling access to constantly changing services with an on-device app store, both filed more than ten years before the launch of the iPhone."

Apple has not yet issued a statement regarding Nokia's complaints.

Apple crashes CES party with Mac App Store

Publié: décembre 16, 2010, 5:28pm CET par Joe Wilcox

Suddenly, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's Consumer Electronics Show keynote is a heavier burden. Ballmer will open CES, with a 9:30 pm EST keynote on Jan. 5, 2011. On January 6th, Apple will officially launch the Mac App Store, exclusively for Mac OS X 10.6 (aka Snow Leopard). Earlier this morning, Apple announced the store opening date, and you can be sure timing is deliberate.

For years, Apple has played a game of oneupmanship with CES, timing announcements so that they would suck away some of the excitement and press coverage around products debuted or updated there -- iPhone in 2007, MacBook Air in 2008 and iPad in 2010. Then there are the rumors, often obviously from internal leaks, ahead of big Apple announcements. Apple has a knack for marketing manipulation -- controlling the message and perception. Blogs' and news sites' ever quest for pageviews makes every Apple rumor worth another story. Then there is clear media bias favoring Apple.

But there's more than CES oneupmanship at work. I've long asserted that much of Apple's recent stock performance is as much about perception as corporate execution. About a year ago I asked "Are Apple stock price gains the reason for recent tablet rumors?" The answer was yes, when looking at share rises against the rumors. I'd argue that throughout much of 2009 and 2010, Apple rumors and product announcements pushed shares ever higher. Apple has gotten very good at managing perception. The best perception opportunity comes when there is something for comparison.

So, as Ballmer takes the keynote stage, many heads will be turned away to the Mac App Store. Apple will launch the store in 90 countries. Assuming global means local time, the store will already be available in some countries before Balmer takes the keynote stage. Even if Apple sets a Pacific local time for January 6th, the buzz will be deafening.

The good thing for Microsoft is the announced date; Ballmer and his executive team now know when. Previously, Apple had only indicated January. Ballmer knows what he's up against, and in a way Apple CEO Steve Jobs has issued a challenge. I say that because of the rumors Ballmer will show off OEM partners' new Windows-powered tablets and slates during the keynote and possibly Windows 8. It is against these products that analysts, bloggers and journalists will compare the Mac App Store. Jobs and Company are cocky, confident, that Microsoft won't have anything really exciting to show -- or anyone else during CES.

It's a strange attitude. The Mac App Store's value is marginal. "The App Store revolutionized mobile apps," Jobs asserted in a statement. "We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by making finding and buying PC apps easy and fun. We can't wait to get started on January 6." If not for Apple's mobile App Store success, its Macintosh counterpart would be nearly meaningless. Despite recent Mac market share gains, Apple cannot deny that the world runs on Windows. Presumably, the Mac install base is equally split, at best, between Snow Leopard and earlier Mac OS X versions. Remember, the Mac App Store is for Snow Leopard only, significantly reducing the real number of people who can use it. Something else: If mobile is the future, why is Apple investing so much in the PC past? Mac App Store is at best three years too late.

But the buzz, as it is with all things Apple, will make the announcement seem larger than life. The store isn't insignificant, as I explained in October, it's for now simply not as big as InterWeb gossipers and Apple cheerleaders make it out to be. The benefits as limited to Snow Leopard and iOS users and developers:

1. Applications can be made available across multiple-sized devices -- Macs, iPads, iPhones and iPod touches.

2. Developers can now scale their applications across devices.

3. Developers can sell apps for which they will be paid; the app store deters piracy.

4. Rights protection is built in so that customers aren't exposed to onerous piracy-deterring activation mechanisms.

5. The store makes applications easily available to customers and more easily searched for than scouring the Web.

Given the scope of availability, Mac App Store is more a perception builder than announcement worthy of the buzz I'm already seeing today. Big would be Ballmer unveiling a Windows application store, opening on January 5th. Such a store would reach hundreds of millions of Windows users and offer developers a reason to get excited again about desktop operating systems. Now there's a helluva perception builder.

If Ballmer focuses on tablets or Windows 8, and little else, analysts, bloggers and journalists will write, again, about visionless Microsoft poorly imitating Apple and missing out on yet another important market. Those claims would likely be made about a Windows app store, but they ultimately would be meaningless for the sheer number of people who would benefit.

Ballmer, some advice: You know what's coming. Change your keynote now. Do something better, and better means that generates some positive perceptions about Microsoft innovation and delivering something good that people can use January 6th -- not many months later.

Free Software turns DisplayLink docking stations into Linux client PCs

Publié: décembre 16, 2010, 5:05pm CET par Tim Conneally

DisplayLink and Userful client PC software

DisplayLink, maker of graphics-over-USB solutions, has partnered with Canadian company Userful to turn Displaylink-powered docking stations into Linux-driven CPU-less client PCs.

Userful makes a virtual PC solution for classrooms called Userful Multiseat Linux 2011. With this, a single PC can drive ten independent client machines running Edubuntu. Now that Userful has partnered with DisplayLink, owners of consumer docking stations with DisplayLink's USB Virtual Graphics technology (such as those made by Targus and Asus) can do the same thing for free, except in a more limited fashion.

All existing DisplayLink-powered USB docking station customers can now download Userful's software for free, which turns their laptop or PC and docking station into two independant computer stations. Userful's software solution and DisplayLink Linux drivers are compatible with the full line of DisplayLink chips, allowing plug and play graphics over standard USB cables, and the software can be installed as a dual boot, so it can be run without affecting any existing systems.

"We are excited to work with Userful on the development of drivers and MultiSeat Linux software solutions that enable the use of our USB virtual graphics on a robust open-source platform," Dennis Crespo, executive vice president of marketing and business development at DisplayLink said yesterday. "Now schools can spend less time and money configuring systems, and more time providing students with practical computing experience."

DisplayLink dock owners can freely download Userful's software here.

Google taps networking expert Medin to build out fiber network

Publié: décembre 16, 2010, 2:55am CET par Ed Oswald

As Google moves ever closer to its fiber-optic network plans, it has hired networking engineer Milo Medin to oversee its rollout. Medin is widely viewed as an expert in Internet networking, and is credited with pushing TCP/IP in the 1980s as a standard for Internet connectivity.

Medin will manage the fiber team and serve as vice president of access services. Google said in February that it planned to build its own fiber network. Hundreds of communities nationwide have vied to be the location where the planned 1 gigabit network will be built -- Google says it will announce a winner early next year.

"Over the past several months I've been following the progress the [fiber] team has already made--from experimenting with new fiber deployment technologies here on Google's campus, to announcing a 'beta' network to 850 homes at Stanford--and I'm excited for us to bring our ultra high-speed network to a community," he said.

Medin apologized for the delay in the announcement of the winning location(s), but stressed the company wanted to "get this right" and that it would have a decision as soon as it was comfortable making one.

In addition to his work with TCP/IP, Medin also helped start early high-speed access provider At Home. At Home would later merge with Excite in 1999, although it became a victim of the Internet bubble burst, and folded in 2001 after failing to reach key agreements with telecommunications providers.

More recently, Medin has ran M2Z Networks, an effort to bring free, nationwide wireless broadband service to US residents. It was not clear what role Medin would maintain with the company, if any. M2Z's website, however, is apparently down -- with its hosting account "suspended" according to a message on its site.

A week with Google's Chrome OS laptop, Day 2: Becoming a cloud citizen

Publié: décembre 15, 2010, 11:07pm CET par Joe Wilcox

cr-48 keyboard

I've long prided myself on being a good cloud citizen. I seemingly live in the browser. But using the Cr-48 laptop running Google's Chrome OS, I discovered the number of important but small apps that are vital to my daily computing. I have been living a double life, meandering as nomad between two computing domiciles, never really settling into one or the other.

All the blogging or reporting I do takes place in the browser. It's where I use Twitter and collect RSS feeds. But I rely on clients for instant messaging and email. I run Skype, too, and most importantly a media client -- right now iTunes, with 90GB of music stored on an external hard drive. The biggest challenge on Day 1 got unexpected relief on Day 2: Gmail. How do you manage separate Gmail accounts -- I've got four of them -- when each requires separate sign-in? I used a different account to set up the laptop than the domain attached to Google Apps. I'll answer the question in a few paragraphs.

Touchpads and Tabs

First, a few updates following yesterday's post "A week with Google's Chrome OS laptop, Day 1: Getting acquainted." While proofing before posting, I removed a sentence that I deemed too harsh. I described the touchpad as the "worst I had ever used." At TechCrunch, MG Siegler stated what I redacted: "It's maybe the worst excuse for a piece of technology that anyone has created in the past five years. It's so much worse than any other trackpad I've ever used in recent memory, it's almost unbelievable." Siegler observed similar problems, one of them being accuracy. Often when pressing the touchpad, the cursor moves up, so the click occurs in the wrong place. While the problems are almost certainly software related, they are simply inexcusable. What's really annoying: The inaccuracy problem reminds of the Google Nexus One smartphone.

OK, so I'm writing about Day 2 on Day 3, where I've had the first crash, while writing the above paragraph. Scrolling down bookmarks for the link to Siegler's post locked up Chrome. If there is a recovery option I don't know about it yet. The lockup was complete, which surprised. On other operating systems, Chrome runs each tab in separate sessions. I expected only a single tab crash, but the whole browser froze up. That meant rebooting, and, frak, I hadn't saved. Luckily, like Chrome on Mac OS or Windows, "restore session" retrieved everything; I quickly saved draft to the blogging system.

I received the Cr-48 with about 50 percent charge, and I ran the battery down until the computer shut down. I started writing this post with 100 percent charge and the laptop claiming 9 hours remaining. We'll see about that. Less than an hour later, percentage is 86 percent and 7 hours 43 minutes remaining. LOL, I think leaving TechCrunch open explains the sudden battery zap. Flash ads, baby.

Some radio interference causes my Bose speakers to buzz when unplugged from a computer. This is new. There is no hum when plugged into MacBook Air, but a slight buzz remains when attached to the Cr-48. I'll need to test more for the source. I'm too far behind writing this post now.

It's Moving Day

I only spent part of Day 1 using the Cr-48. I simply wasn't ready to move in, and email was the major reason. I actually had some boxing up of stuff for the movers. I hadn't cleaned up my inboxes for months or filed away important messages. That was priority No. 1. I have accounts with four services, Google among them. I strictly use IMAP to keep messages in sync everywhere and to easily file saved messages from all accounts into one. That's something I can easily do in a local client but with greater difficulty in the browser. Packing up also required syncing contacts and calendars to Google's cloud. For about the last two months I've been using Apple's MacBook Air and iPhone 4 for a little longer. Apple's Address Book and iCal can be set to sync with Google Conracts and Calendar. Problem solved.

I used Cr-48 for most of Day 2 while I figured out how to solve the problem of easily managing multiple Google accounts. I was really only concerned with the domain attached to Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) and my all-purpose Gmail account. After breathing deeply, I experimented, signing into both Gmails in separate tabs and crossing my fingers Chrome OS wouldn't melt down or explode. Trepidation's cause: Chrome OS setup required using a single Gmail account. I wasn't sure the extent of account integration between the core Linux OS and browser.

What I wanted more was the ability to manage mail from a single account. Gmail will collect email from up to five accounts using feature "Mail Fetcher"; but it requires POP3, and for other Gmail accounts no IMAP. Switching to POP3 on the other Gmail accounts would cause sync problems on my smartphone. No way, Jose. Then came an unexpected remedy. On December 14 afternoon, Google announced a new feature: "Gmail Delegation." The feature is promoted for allowing you to give someone else with Gmail access to your account. But it could just as easily be used for account consolidation. Problem solved.

Storm Clouds Ahead

Instant messaging was my next area of concern, for which there are several obvious solutions. Google Talk is built into Chrome OS. There's a core of less than 10 people I need ready access to. I will see how many use Google Talk or are willing to. Facebook Chat is a really good option, and the one I'm favoring long term. For moving day, I simply logged into AIM and Windows Live messaging on the Web. I had forgotten that AIM works with Facebook, which is an AIM Express log-in option. The AIM Express user interface is unappealing when maximized full screen. Windows Live Messenger for the Web is much more appealing, in part because of its tidy integration into the personal Live home page.

Skype proved to be a real problem. A client is required to use the service. I could find no official Chrome app or extension. However, I easily installed the Google Voice extension. I'm debating options.

For music, I signed up for Pandora -- finally. I've been threatening to do so for years. Pandora provides a Chrome app that easily installs. I set up the initial profile based on band "Brand New." Music sounded pretty damn good streaming, but a gotcha appeared. Battery percentage at 73 percent immediately dropped to 4 hours 23 minutes remaining. Goddamn Flash! Pandora runs Flash ads. Soon as I closed the Pandora tab, battery time remaining jumped to 5 hours 17 minutes, then 5 hours 57 minutes before topping 6 hours 20 minutes.

Moving into a new place isn't finished overnight. There's still unpacking and decorating to do. I consider most of my Day 2 moving choices to be temporary. No doubt, some Betanews readers will scold in comments about what I should have done instead. Hey, I'm trying to file stories and move to the cloud at the same time. I'll figure it out with enough time, and, yes, gladly accept suggestions about what to use.

Day 3 or Day 4 will focus on my life in the cloud. Will I meet you there?

Bing Maps gets another graphical overhaul, feature upgrade

Publié: décembre 15, 2010, 10:21pm CET par Tim Conneally

Wednesday, the mapping component of Microsoft's search engine Bing got another significant UX upgrade and new features for both the desktop and mobile versions of the service.

Last August, a new style of the Bing Maps was unveiled, which focused on providing a cleaner visual experience for users. Today, that new style has been updated even further with subtle changes to color contrast and brightness, as well as to the density of information and size of text to help in overall legibility and usability.

The differences are very subtle, but it is certainly the kind of thing that graphic designers love to split hairs over.

Next, Bing has taken the "street view" map concept and brought it indoors. Today, Bing Maps product Manager Brian Hendricks announced that more than 5,000 360-degree internal views will be added to Bing Maps that allow users to take a first-person look at businesses and attractions.

The feature was briefly shown off in a TED talk by Blaise Aguera y Arcas back in February of 2010, and comes as a result of Microsoft's partnership with EveryScape. When Everyscape announced its partnership with Microsoft at Tech Ed 2010, the project only had about 500 locations captured as 360 degree panoramas. In just six months, the coverage has expanded tenfold, but the majority of the locations are still situated in the Boston metropolitan area where Everyscape is headquartered.

Bing Maps interior view

Along with the internal views of restaurants, Bing will also incorporate OpenTable, so users can search for, and book reservations to restaurants directly in Bing. The inclusion of these two features paints a rather promising picture of what can be done with the tools. Users could theoretically choose their table in Inside View and click on it to make a specific reservation.

Finally, Bing for Mobile (iPhone/Android) got an update to include real-time mapping of public transportation in Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco. Users can query Bing's transit schedules and see how many minutes it is until the next bus will arrive nearest to their GPS coordinates. Standard transit routes (not real-time) have also been included for areas such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Vancouver British Columbia, with more on the way.

In addition to the streamlined interface and autosuggest feature, Bing for Mobile now includes location-based reminders, so when you are near a location where you need to run an errand, Bing for Mobile alerts you.

Bing for Mobile is available in both the iTunes App Store and the Android Market for free.

MetroPCS takes on mobile's 'big four,' expands 4G LTE presence further

Publié: décembre 15, 2010, 7:08pm CET par Tim Conneally

MetroPCS may be the fifth largest wireless network operator in the United States, but it is the first in LTE, the next-generation wireless standard that will eventually be used by market leaders Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Wednesday, the company expanded its LTE network footprint to three more major markets: New York City, Boston, and Sacramento.

In September, MetroPCS opened the first commercial LTE network in the United States in Las Vegas, and a little more than a week later switched on the second deployment in the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area. Since then, the company has activated LTE networks in the Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia metro areas in Pennsylvania, in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California.

The company took a big step in November when it launched its first nationwide wireless coverage plan, which essentially marked the company's graduation from regional wireless carrier to national carrier. MetroPCS uses CDMA wireless technology for its service and has a respectably large national footprint, but it offers no 3G data services. Now that it has a growing LTE network for data, the company can join the upper echelon of wireless networks it stood beside during the "third generation" of wireless services.

Currently, MetroPCS has "2G" services in approximately 11,000 cities and 4G in just nine. MetroPCS' 4G expansion plans for the remainder of 2010 and beginnings of 2011 include new networks in Atlanta, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando and Tampa.

"As the only no annual contract, pay-in-advance wireless service provider offering 4G LTE services, we continue to build our network to allow more customers to experience our unparalleled value and flexible, affordable service," Roger D. Linquist, president, CEO and chairman of MetroPCS said in a statement this morning.

Google releases Chrome IT deployment tools

Publié: décembre 15, 2010, 6:50pm CET par Joe Wilcox

Google just announced availability of IT deployment tools for Chrome in a blog post (I also received email from the PR team). The deployment tools step up Google's assault on Internet Explorer turf, earlier with Chrome Frame.

"We've created an MSI installer that enables businesses who use standard deployment tools to install Chrome for all their managed users," according to the blog post. "We've also added support for managed group policy with a list of policies and a set of templates that allow administrators to easily customize browser settings to manage security and privacy."

Google's IT pitch is threefold. For starters, easy and customizable installation and availability of a modern, HTML5-supporting browser for Windows XP. Rationale for the second: Internet Explorer 9, which is beta testing, only runs on Windows 7 and Vista, while the majority of the enterprise install base is still on XP. Google also touts Chrome as means of enterprises certifying Web apps that could later be deployed on Chrome OS.

"By deploying Google Chrome, organizations can take advantage of improved security and web application performance without needing to upgrade other expensive software licenses or buy new hardware," according to the blog post. That's a polite way of saying IT organizations can keep running Windows XP longer. More:

Deploying Google Chrome also gives users access to productivity-enhancing HTML5 web applications. Since Google Chrome is the same as the browser on Chrome OS, admins considering Chrome OS for their organizations can start testing their mission-critical web applications by deploying the Google Chrome browser.

The Chrome test is a polite way of saying "for you IT managers not lucky enough to get one of the Cr-48 Chrome OS test laptops." I'm on Day 2.5 using one. I posted about Day 1 "first impressions" yesterday.

The administration tools are part of Google Apps for Business, which isn't surprising. Google's clear development priority are Web applications over those resident on the computer. Chrome is the gateway. While any browser conceptually will do, Chrome assures support for standards like HTML5. Enterprise adoption is crucially important for Google Apps deployment and building up the ecosystem of Web-based applications from Google Apps Marketplace.

Google claims there are 120 million Chrome users.

Would you pick Mark Zuckerberg as Person of the Year?

Publié: décembre 15, 2010, 4:47pm CET par Joe Wilcox

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

The editors of Time magazine have done just that. But is he worthy?

Time readers chose WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange; Time editors put him as fourth runner up. Facebook CEO Zuckerberg ranked 10th among Time readers. It's a question I pose to Betanews readers: Would you chose Zuckerberg, or someone else, as Person of the Year?

Sure this isn't the kind of topic Betanews typically covers, but Zuckerberg is a geek, programmer, entrepreneur and cofounder of one of the most globally influential products ever -- all in just four-and-a-half years (I count from when Facebook opened to the public in 2006, not to Harvard students in 2004). I pose the question to you and ask for response in comments. Please, let's have some gingerly and feisty but civil debate.

I won't argue with influence. With over 500 million users, up from an already impressive 30 million in Q1 2007, Facebook is a hugely successfully service. Time editors write:

For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME's 2010 Person of the Year.

Zuckerberg has defied detractors. All Things Digital's Kara Swisher once called him the "toddler CEO." In a recent 60 Minutes interview she recanted, saying that the child turn out to be a "prodigy." Zuckerberg defied takeover bids, with AOL, Google and Microsoft among would-be buyers.

Zuckerberg instead negotiated a Microsoft investment, $240 million, in October 2007. Pundits and Wall Street analysts criticized the investment, which looks smart today. Zuckerberg also resisted calls to open up the service to the Wild Wild Web, but held tight-fisted onto his property, granting limited access where Facebook benefitted. Facebook's new messaging service, which launched last month, may be the greatest coup of all. All the while, he navigated ongoing criticism about privacy. Zuckerberg held his ground and stuck to the vision.

Facebook's CEO reminds me of young Bill Gates. Both men launched globally-influential companies. They're cunning and competitive programmers with shrewd business sense, questionable social skills (about the same age) and tenacious drive. Microsoft built an operating system for PCs, while Facebook is an operating system in the cloud. Developers write applications for both. Both men benefitted from timing -- Gates the shift from mainframes to PCs and Zuckerberg cloud-connected social sharing.

Does any of this make Zuckerberg worthy to be Time's Person of the Year 2010? Is there someone else you would choose. These are questions for you to answer in comments.

While Microsoft may try tablets again at CES, Windows 8 may be the star

Publié: décembre 15, 2010, 12:27am CET par Ed Oswald

Microsoft is expected to use the platform of January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to hawk its tablet line, however the real star of the show may be Windows 8 according to published reports. The next version of Windows is not expected until 2012, so a debut at CES would be a surprise.

The Redmond company last used CES in 2010 to show off the HP Slate, a highly anticipated tablet device that has failed to see the light of day. So far, Microsoft's commitment to tablet computing has been a non-starter, with manufacturers either scrapping their plans, or even moving to competing platforms like Android.

In his yearly keynote to CES attendees, CEO Steve Ballmer is expected to unveil a line of tablets from manufacturers such as Samsung, Dell and others, the New York Times reports. Samsung's device is said to be similar in size to the iPad, although a bit thicker. No details were available on the other devices.

Samsung's device would also employ a different concept than other Windows-based tablets according to reports: when in landscape mode it would run a traditional version of Windows 7. However, in portrait mode the tablet would change to a "layered interface" more suitable for touchscreen devices.

Acer has already announced a line of tablets to make their debut in February, and Ballmer may also showcase these devices at the show. Whether or not HP will be a part of the presentation is unknown -- with its acquisition of Palm and thus WebOS, it's likely the company wouldn't play a significant role.

Some form of Windows 7 would probably power these devices, whether it is a full version modified for touchscreen use, or more likely a skinned and touch-enhanced version of the operating system. However, Ballmer may also use the platform to get Microsoft some much needed publicity in the first public preview of Windows 8.

Redmond is rumored to be developing the next generation of Windows to work better with touchscreen devices like tablets. Such a strategy might be wise for Microsoft: analysts -- and even Ballmer himself -- agree the company has fallen far behind Apple and Google (through Android) in gaining a foothold in this nascent market.

A week with Google's Chrome OS laptop, Day 1: Getting acquainted

Publié: décembre 15, 2010, 12:26am CET par Joe Wilcox

Google Cr-48 laptop

"Just when I thought I was out -- they pull me back in," says Michael Corleone in movie "Godfather III." I understand the sentiment. Two weeks ago I asked: "I sold my soul to Google, can I get it back?" The answer is no. On December 13, I received from Google the Cr-48 laptop running Chrome OS. They pulled me back in.

Google sent the 12.1-inch notebook as part of a 60,000-unit pilot program. The company seeks to shakedown Chrome OS in preparation for commercial release sometime in mid 2011, to provide IT organizations opportunity to test the cloud-dependent operating system and to churn developer interest and new applications. Google is clear that the Cr-48 is a test bed not really ready for primetime.

Over the next seven days, I will share the highs and lows of living in Google's cloud, from the perspective of this black, and arguably sleek, laptop. There will be one post per day. Already I can see that Days 1 and 2 will be the hardest, in part because I'm moving from the simply awesome 11.6-inch MacBook Air. More problematic, a real and meaningful test requires commitment, which is proving to be more difficult than anticipated. These difficulties, which are mainly about moving to the cloud, will be Day 2's major topic.

Out of the Box

The Cr-48 is impressive for its spartan, black matte finish with no logo. There's not even Google stamped on the case. It's a stealth laptop that immediately evokes espionage and intrigue. Everything about the design is minimalistic, and this is important preparing the user for Chrome OS (more on that in a few paragraphs). There are just three ports -- audio, USB and VGA out.

When seeing the Cr-48, my daughter asked: "Is it a MacBook?" The color, case texture and keyboard remind of the circa 2006 black MacBook. Depth and length are about the same as Apple's current 13.3-inch MacBook Pro, but the Cr-48 isn't as wide. Thickness surprised considering there is no optical drive. Google doesn't provide specs on the computer -- more minimalism. But a pilot program participant posting to the ChromeOS Site offered specs, after tearing down the laptop:

Processor: Intel Atom Processor N455 1.66GHz 512K Cache
Chipset: Intel CG82NM10 PCH
Motherboard: Tripod Motherboard MARIO -- 6050A240910 -- MB -- A03
Ram: Hynix 2GB DDR3 1Rx8 PC3 -- 10600S Ram
Read Only Memory: ITE IT8500E Flash ROM
SSD Drive: SanDisk sdsa4dh-016G 16GB SATA SSD
Wireless Wan: Qualcomm Gobi2000 PCI Express Mini Card
3g Adapter: AzureWave 802.11 a/b/g/n PCI-E Half MiniCard
Bluetooth: Atheros AR5BBU12 Bluetooth V2.1 EDR

Opening the Lid

Initial setup is surprisingly quick and easy. There are no onerous activation mechanisms or annoying prompts. The user chooses WiFi or 3G -- "Chrome OS needs the Internet to work," the simple documentation claims -- and then signs in with a Google account, or creates one. The setup process also offers to snap an account photo using the built-in WebCam.

Bootup and wakeup are blazingly fast. Once powered up, flipping the lid instantly reawakens the laptop. It's actually faster than MacBook Air, which is puzzling. What could be faster than instantaneous? The Cr-48 has got it.

The keyboard layout stomps and proclaims, "Look, Bud, this isn't your daddy's PC." There are no F keys. In their place are dedicated function keys, half of which are browser controls: back, forward, reload, full screen and next tab. The keys are comfortable to use, which surprised since I was accustomed to using MacBook Air.

The "giant touchpad," as Google documentation says, frustrated me to all hell. The touchpad produced jerky, jumpy movements. I'm super unhappy about the experience. We'll see if I feel as cranky about the touchpad at the end of the week. There is no option I can see to add a Bluetooth mouse. I don't have a wired one, and wouldn't take up the single USB port for it (Hehe, we'll see if I feel that way in a couple of days).

Less is More

As the name indicates, with Chrome OS the browser is the operating system. Chrome fills the entire screen, which I immediately found disconcerting. I usually only let the browser fill four-fifths of the display, so I can keep some stuff at ready access on the desktop. D`oh, there is no desktop. I'll just have to adjust. Over the coming days, I will go deeper into the Chrome OS/cloud user experience but will stick to first impressions for this Day 1 post.

Minimalism even more defines the operating system than the hardware. In its current form, Chrome OS offers little access to settings from the user interface. For someone used to personalizing and adjusting settings, I felt an uneasy lack of control when looking at what can be adjusted. The settings option is accessed from an icon to the far right top corner of the browser window. Everything is streamlined, much as the early Chrome browser betas were. Google added features before Chrome 1.0 released, which surely should be expected here, too. One option will surprise Google pundits; there is a choice of default search engines, including Bing and Yahoo.

New York Times Chrome App

There aren't a whole lot of apps, either. Adobe Flash is built in and sandboxed, much as the standalone Chrome browser. Google Talk is built in, too, and I like it -- as first impression anyway. Other preinstalled apps include Google Maps and Poppit, among others. The Chrome Web Store offers more apps, which can be used in standalone Chrome browser, too. For my first impressions test, I installed the New York Times app. The layout reminds of the Times Reader, which I haven't looked at for some time, so memory is talking here. I much prefer the Chrome OS app, which loads quickly, to the iPad app.

Window to the Web

As a browser, Chrome OS delivers much the same experience as the standalone browser. Cloud sync is automatic. My bookmarks automatically imported from my other computer, eliminating any onerous setup. They were just there. Visually, the browser is appealing, and fonts throughout are readable enough. The screen isn't as bright or as crisp as MacBook Air, but it's plenty usable. The matte finish is a refreshing change from reflective, glossy displays. The display and browser viewing suit one another well -- as a first impression.

MacBook Air feels faster than the Cr-48. Webpages load snappier, which surprised. I expected better from the Cr-48, a computer and OS that are supposed to be always Net connected. That's not to say performance is slow; it's just not exceptional. What matters most: Is performance good enough for what it's supposed to do? I'll answer that question over the next six days. I initially found performance to be frustrating, but that changed over a couple hours. It could be a subjective reaction or Chrome OS settling in, such as caching Web images or other stuff happening under the hood.

Again, simply as first-impression measure, I went to YouTube and watched Sara Bareilles' "King of Anything" music video in full-screen mode. Holy frak, the laptop's tiny little speakers sound great. The video looked good, too, with no noticeable dropped frames. I was surprisingly impressed. I expected less.

Overall, the first impression is a good one, but there is much more getting acquainted ahead. As I'll explain in the Day 2 post, moving to the cloud is more difficult than I expected. I pride myself on being a good cloud citizen. Turns out that I'm no such thing.

Kinect hackers presented with legitimate opportunities in 3D interface design

Publié: décembre 15, 2010, 12:23am CET par Tim Conneally

Hacking the Xbox 360 Kinect controller is all the rage right now, but it's not exactly sanctioned by Microsoft. The future for 3D gesture-based controls, however, looks extremely promising and Belgian software company Softkinetic launched a content developer program for engineers looking to make a legitimate entry into the field.

Ever since an open source PC driver was devised to turn Kinect into a standard USB device, amateur developers have been coming up with clever new ways of using the "controllerless controller."

In just one month's time, DIY developers have turned Kinect into a 3D live rendering camera, a controller for a self-piloting quadracopter, a Windows 7 peripheral, an invisible piano keyboard, and dozens of other tools with more appearing daily. They're all brilliant examples of how 3D "free space" can be used as a controller.

The problem with all this clever hacking is that Microsoft's position on it is unsteady at best.

In early November, a $2,000 "bounty" was offered for the first person to hack the device.

Microsoft said it did not condone modifications of its products and that there are "numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering."

After the clever hacks started rolling out, however, Xbox spokesman Alex Kipman said in a radio interview that the "hack" was built upon a quality of Kinect that was intentionally left unprotected. He also went on to say that fans using this hack would not be legally punished.

Maybe it's not outright approval, but it definitely appears to be condonation.

Softkinetic, meanwhile, has developed its own 3D real-time gesture recognition platform similar to Kinect that has already been put to use in real-world applications like the Scorcerer's Apprentice promotional game seen in the video below, and the Mayafit digital fitness training system.

Today, Softkinetic is issuing a call for Kinect hackers and aspiring 3D interface developers alike to check out the brand new B2C Content Partner Program. The company's main product is called iisu, a 3D interface middleware compatible with all types of 3D cameras: structured light (like Kinect uses) time of flight, or stereoscopic. iisu comes as a cross-platform SDK that's compatible with Adobe Flash, Unity 3D and 3DVIA Virtools development environments, and developers who enroll in the program will also get a prototype 3D camera to start experimenting with.

"The consumer market for gesture based application is in its infancy, and the opportunities are endless for those who are able to build immediate consumer projects," said Michel Tombroff, CEO of Softkinetic. "We want to provide the tools and support at a minimum price to the most talented shops out there while diligently supporting early adopters."

Softkinect won't be fully launching the developer program until GDC in February of 2011, but today, the company is accepting its first participants. We will be sitting down with the company at CES in a couple of weeks to get a closer look at what this middleware is capable of.

Google includes personalized voice recognition in new search for Android

Publié: décembre 14, 2010, 8:55pm CET par Tim Conneally

Google launched an update to Android's voice search capability on Tuesday that incorporates speaker recognition to improve results.

The new "personalized recognition" feature is currently quite limited: it's only available in English in the United States on Android devices running 2.2 and above.

When turned on, the new feature stores your voice searches and builds a statistical profile based upon the pitch and timbre of your voice and the pronunciation and pace of your speech.

"Speech recognition is based on statistical modeling," Google's help file on the technology says. "To recognize spoken words, we compare the input search to a statistical model of the language and try to find the closest match - the system's best guess at what the user said...Knowing what you said in the past allows us to build specialized models that are designed to match your voice and your words."

The feature then, over time, improves the speech recognition capabilities just for you. The recordings of your voice are associated to your Google Account and are not available to anyone's searches but your own.

Personalized recognition can be enabled or disabled at any time through the Google voice recognition settings in your phone (Menu>Settings>Voice Input & Output>Voice Recognizer Settings), and all of your voice recordings supposedly can be disassociated from your Google account in your Dashboard under "Speech," but since I've enabled the feature, that option has not shown up yet.

IDC predicts mobile apps will drive the 'Appification of Everything'

Publié: décembre 14, 2010, 6:15pm CET par Joe Wilcox

Last week, I took my daughter to Los Angeles for a TV commercial audition. About 20 other teen girls waited with their parents, and all -- every single one and parents, too -- had out a smartphone. Tap, tap, tap text and apps. It's an anecdotal moment supporting an IDC prediction: By 2014 the global market for mobile applications will surpass $35 billion.

IDC published the findings in a new report "Worldwide and U.S. Mobile Applications, Storefronts, and Developer 2010-2014 Forecasts and Year-End 2010 Vendor Market Shares: The 'Appification' of Everything." The analyst firm is quite serious about so-called "appification" (God help us if the word makes the Oxford English Dictionary by end of 2011). There are two main trends: Lighter, mobile apps popping up in more devices -- some stationary like settop boxes -- and mobile applications impacting virtually everything people do. Personal example of the latter: During the drive back from LA, my daughter downloaded an app that turned her smartphone's LED camera flash into a light, so she could do homework.

"Mobile app developers will 'appify' just about every interaction you can think of in your physical and digital worlds," Scott Ellison, IDC vice president of Mobile and Wireless research, said in a statement. "The extension of mobile apps to every aspect of our personal and business lives will be one of the hallmarks of the new decade with enormous opportunities for virtually every business sector."

It's a bold prediction with huge implications. For starters, it's yet another sign that the PC epoch is receding before the cloud-connected device era. IDC observes that developers have churned out 300,000 mobile apps in three years -- 2.5 really. In July 2008, when Apple launched its App Store, I asserted: "Mobiles will replace computers as the most widely used personal devices; today, they're more adjuncts." A smartphone is more personal than the personal computer. People carry 3G handsets everywhere, and there is more intimacy using the applications. Users can pick and choose smaller apps that are meaningful to them. Developers already follow the money, which is away from the PC to the cloud and the mobile device.

Something else: The personal versatility that IDC associates with mobile applications reminds of what analysts said about the early PC. The personal computer is unusual for being a jack-of-all-trades rather than single-purpose device. Same can be said of smartphones, ebook readers like Barnes & Noble Nook or media tablets like Apple's iPad or the Samsung Galaxy Tab. IDC also sees theses devices driving developer opportunities for creating useful mobile applications.

CNN iPad app, which released today

There is another implication, which is more strategic. My April post "Clash of the Titans: Apple, Google battle for the mobile Web," focused on two divergent strategies -- Apple pushing resident apps and Google favoring browser consumption. Will users consume separate mobile applications or use the browser? The Chrome OS PC pilot shows how much Google is committed to the browser model. But devices running Google TV and improvements to the Android Marketplace also emphasize local apps.

IDC makes a point of calling out settop boxes running mobile applications, among other devices. I've been wondering about Google TV. Logitech Revue and Sony Internet TV Blu-Ray Disc Player sell for $299 and $399, respectively; both devices run Google TV. By comparison, Apple TV and Roku sell for about $100. That's quite a price difference. Could it be for the apps? I wonder and can't answer, having not used a Google TV device.

How would you say that mobile applications/devices "appify" your life? Is the more meaningful appification on your phone or PC? Please respond in comments.

I'll tell you something about Microsoft

Publié: décembre 14, 2010, 6:00am CET par Joe Wilcox

The year 2011 will be make or break.

Early year, make or break will be one of perception, whether or not customers and shareholders see the glass as half full or half empty. From the half-full perspective, Microsoft has bet big on the cloud, and at the right time. From the half-empty viewpoint, Microsoft muffed mobile, by first fumbling smartphones and later tablets. The company started pushing the latter category a decade ago, only to lose it to Apple during 2010.

The half-empty soothsayers aren't waiting until the new year to predict doom. Goldman Sachs analyst Sarah Friar penned a nasty note over the weekend. Her already sour outlook turned bitter. For 2011, she predicts year over year growth of 7 percent, not 12 percent. For fiscal 2011, which ends June 30, Wall Street consensus is 9.8 percent sales growth and 10.9 percent earnings-per-share growth. Friar faults Microsoft's tablet fumbling, weak consumer strategy and uncertain cloud computing future. She's prognosticator of doom.

Get the Fire Hose

Many of the news reports about Friar's note focused on her comments about Microsoft's execution with tablets. I had to laugh. A year ago, the tablet was a struggling category without clear market focus and to which Apple was rumored to soon enter. Sure, Apple's iPad proved to be a fast sales success, and What? That's reason to suddenly write off Microsoft? Oh, please, someone fire hose these analysts. In early November I asked: "Why won't Wall Street give Microsoft a break?" One answer is a question: Where else are Friar's clients invested?

Sure, Microsoft muffed the tablet opportunity, and surely it's no coincidence that late-afternoon yesterday New York Times reported that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer would debut new slates during next month's Consumer Electronics Show. Of course, Microsoft and its OEM partners will announce new tablets. It would have been news had Microsoft nothing to show. You can bet the story was leaked to counteract all the bad buzz generated by Friar.

How bad was the buzz? Geez Louise, at ZDNet Sam Diaz likened Microsoft to Titanic -- "we all know how it ends":

Like the Titanic, Microsoft was once the darling among its peers. But unless it starts positioning itself to be more reactive to new trends, technologies and competitors, it too could find itself alone in the middle of the ocean, left to perish because it couldn't move fast enough.

Titanic had two sister ships, Olympic and Britannic. Germans sunk Britannic, while Olympic served the White Star Line until 1935 (the steamer launched in 1911). Microsoft could easily be "Old Reliable," as Olympic was nicknamed, as it could be majestic but doomed Titanic.

'Old Reliable' sails

Microsoft has bet its business on the reliability of Office and Windows and extending them to cloud. Along that strategy there is a case to be made for "Old Reliable." As I explained in mid-October post "It's a shame about Ray Ozzie," the economic downturn put an end to the struggle between cloud doves, who sought to build an interoperable datacenter-based operating system, and hawks, who sought to extend the Office-Windows-Windows Server applications stack to the cloud.

From the half-empty perspective, Microsoft has bet on the PC past rather than embrace the cloud-connected device future. But by the half-full viewpoint, Microsoft has done something seemingly impossible even 12 months ago. The company's biggest challenge is success -- enterprises use its products everywhere, and they've got little reason to buy again and again. By extending the Office-Windows-Windows Server apps stack to the cloud, Microsoft gives existing customers in established markets something new to buy -- and there are many benefits, such as anytime, anywhere access on anything. Customers also can benefit from lower upfront pricing, lower long-term costs (which includes maintenance and hardware) and access to the newest Microsoft software (with no physical upgrade required). These benefits apply most when customers adopt hosted software.

Analysts offer mixed predictions about 2011 PC sales. In November, Gartner lowered its 2011 PC shipment forecast to 15.9 percent from 18.1 percent. Other analysts put growth in the single digits, in part because they claim corporate upgrade cycles are over and tablet sales will surge next year. Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope wildly predicts that because of growing tablet sales, with iPad the big beneficiary, Apple's global PC market share will grow from 4 percent to 12 percent.

Doomsayers are Icebergs

Slowing PC sales won't impact Microsoft as much in 2011 as 2008. I predict they'll be a positive. Just because companies aren't upgrading new PCs doesn't mean they won't need to make new technology investments. By buying into Microsoft's cloud strategy, enterprises can get access to hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint and even Office using existing hardware. Hosted services are a sales opportunity if PC upgrade cycles retract.

Similarly, Microsoft doesn't need to sell bazillions of Windows tablets to leverage its cloud. The company can tactically offer cloud services/apps for Android and iOS tablets. It's a sensible way to help businesses to maximize their investment in existing Microsoft software and/or hosted services. Ideally, Microsoft should control more of the applications stack, but "not ideal" doesn't mean the Titanic sinking.

Yes, 2011 looks challenging for Microsoft, but it's also chock full of opportunities. Microsoft marketing has never been better. Hosted services are poised to open up existing customer upgrades impossible a year ago. Microsoft's brand is stronger than it has been in years. Technology deals with Facebook are hugely important (and they're topic for another post). I should remind that doomsayers have predicted Microsoft's demise for years. Eleven months ago, I declared that "Microsoft Office is obsolete, or soon will be." But projects like Office 365 and Office Web Apps access within Facebook revitalize Office's future.

Microsoft isn't sunk yet. The largest icebergs aren't competitors or management malease but negative perceptions fostered by people by Friar. Do you agree?

After 7 years, SlySoft ending lifetime update subscriptions

Publié: décembre 13, 2010, 8:49pm CET par Tim Conneally

SlySoft, maker of the popular decryption software AnyDVD HD, and Game Jackal announced on Monday that it will be discontinuing its lifetime update subscription service on January 1, 2011.

Since 2003, SlySoft has developed circumvention techniques for the various methods of disc copy protection and incorporated them into its software packages. In 2007, for example, the company announced it had cracked BD+ Blu-ray copy protection which was developed by Cryptography Research Inc. The following year, the company announced it had cracked BD+ again, allowing its software to have a more complete Blu-ray copying solution.

"We are committed to Fair Use and, therefore, want to maintain our high standards, frequent updates, a well-trained and dedicated customer support and to enable everybody to create backups of their media," Peer van Heuen, head of High-Definition technologies at SlySoft said in a statement Monday. "Technological change has happened extremely fast in recent years. This has led to significantly higher development costs, which must be taken into account."

SlySoft says the move to discontinue lifetime licenses is being taken to avoid having to increase the cost of its software.

All existing "lifetime" licenses, and any purchased until the first of the year will continue to be honored, but after that, no new lifetime update and support subscriptions will be offered.

I'm changing my passwords, shouldn't you?

Publié: décembre 13, 2010, 5:42pm CET par Joe Wilcox

There's something unbelievable about Gawker claiming to be "embarrassed." Considering the amount of raunch and rumor Gawker sites like Gizmodo publish, editors show no signs of being embarrassed by anything they do. Yesterday's hack, which exposed 1.3 million Gawker usernames and passwords and some of the content management system source code, can only be good for churning pageviews. How funny if "embarassed" turns out to be ashamed of profiting so much from readers' hardship -- Gawker having an unusually good month of traffic.

The Gawker hack and other mischief and mayhem going on this month should be warning to everyone on the InterWeb: Nothing is private. Amazon, Facebook or Google mine your private information, while some hacker or insider makes it available for everyone to read, whether on some torrent or even WikiLeaks. There's no such thing as privacy on the Internet, and there never really was. People acknowledge this all the time, then flip on the denial -- "It could never happen me" -- switch. No doubt, many Betanews commenters speak out elsewhere. If that's Gizmodo, you've been hacked, baby. It's time to change passwords anyplace using the same one(s) at Gawker.

The Gawker hack should disturb anyone living in the cloud. Imagine the consequences of your Facebook password being compromised and through Facebook Connect unlocking other accounts. Already, the data exposure led to Twitter account compromises. Then there are Google or Windows Live services. Loss of one password could expose the kit and kaboodle. Single sign-on is convenient as is choosing one or even a couple passwords to use everywhere. The latter is my habit and something that changes today.

You shouldn't trust anyone to protect your data or identity. You are the best defense. Gawker shows how little you can trust any cloud service, particularly those offering something for free (while likely mining some of your information for profit). Its statement about being hacked:

Our user databases appear to have been compromised. The passwords were encrypted. But simple ones may be vulnerable to a brute-force attack. You should change your Gawker password and on any other sites on which you've used the same passwords. We're deeply embarrassed by this breach. We should not be in the position of relying on the goodwill of the hackers who identified the weakness in our systems. And, yes, the irony is not lost on us.

There's no "appear" about it. Hacker(s) Gnosis has already posted names and passwords. "Encrypted" by what means, if the account information for even Gawker editors and writers was published, too? Perhaps for legal reasons -- can you say lawsuits -- Gawker must cage its statement for protection against future litigation, or even current cases; surely there is some juicy internal Gizmodo communications about the stolen -- eh, lost -- iPhone prototype.

Trust no one. Not even us.

There is something else really important to note here. Fourth quarter 2010 has seen an observable rise in activist hacking, such as denial-of-service and other attacks by WikiLeaks supporters and detractors. Gnosis targeted Gawker for "outright arrogance." That sounds like hacktivisim to me, with a message: No one is safe, and that means you and me, bud.

I'm adopting a new password policy today. I thought to write a password primer, and may still, but wanted to open up the topic to discussion first. How do you protect your identity and accounts in the cloud? What would you recommend that others do? Please answer in comments.

Paul Allen's patent troll suit against Google, Apple, et al, stalled

Publié: décembre 13, 2010, 4:37pm CET par Tim Conneally

The patent infringement lawsuit against AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube filed by Interval Licensing LLC has been dropped. Interval is widely associated with entrepreneur Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft, and served as chairman of Charter Communications until late 2009 when the company emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Interval sued the eleven tech companies last August, claiming violations of four patents for Web technology related to product search and user alerts.

The violations that Interval alleged, however, did not contain enough factual detail to provide a basis for the case, and on Friday, District court Judge Marsha Pechman dismissed the complaint.

"[The] Plaintiff has failed to identify the infringing products or devices with any specificity. The Court and Defendants are left to guess what devices infringe on the four patents," Friday's ruling said.

But this does not mean the case is over. Pechman has given Interval until December 28th to file an amended complaint, and representatives from the company have said the case will continue to be pursued.

Who really needs a Chrome OS laptop?

Publié: décembre 12, 2010, 10:53pm CET par Joe Wilcox

Yesterday in comments, Betanews reader DaveN asked why anyone would make the sacrifices he believes necessary to run a Chrome OS laptop. "If you're going to carry around a device in the laptop format, why would anyone want something so limited?" It's a good question, that necessitates two answers -- one for now and another when the first units are commercially available.

On December 7th, Google announced a pilot program, distributing some 60,000 unbranded Cr-48 laptops running Chrome OS. I expect to receive one for review as early as this week. That's a helluva pilot program, which has me laughing. I don't hear anyone fussing about Google handing out laptops the way they did about Microsoft with Windows Vista. That's some double standard. Microsoft offered bloggers and reviewers free Vista notebooks four years ago this month. Happy Christmas! I publicly supported the Vista program -- "Microsoft's Laptop Giveaway is About Influence Not Bribery" -- even though I didn't get a computer; there was no conflict of interest in my support. Microsoft handed out the notebooks before Windows Vista released. How else were reviewers going to use and test the operating system? Google's situation is similar, with commercial units six months, perhaps more, away.

The ambitious pilot is necessary, but I wonder if it's big enough. Google's Android success is as much about lucky timing as good technology or execution. Chrome OS butts up against Windows and even Mac OS laptops and now media tablets like iPad or the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which runs Android. Then there is the fundamental concept of storage in the cloud and, for the immediate future, missing applications categories.

Google isn't shy about the risks or the lifestyle changes pilot participation might necessitate: "Chrome OS is for people who live on the web. It runs web-based applications, not legacy PC software. The pilot program is not for the faint of heart. Things might not always work just right."

Rain Falling from the Cloud

DaveN wonders who those web dwellers might be. He writes: "I can understand living with the limitations of a smartphone, iPad, or other tablet due to increased portability and easier use while on the go. But if you're going to deal with the inherent limitations of a laptop -- size, weight, keyboard -- why not have something that will run a real app, store data, play a DVD, sync your mp3 player, work without a network connection, etc?" It's a good question for the pilot and future commercial products. The pilot isn't just necessary. It's a necessity:

1. The Cr-48 establishes a base configuration for Chrome OS OEMs. I'm hoping that's bare-minimum config. As I explained in my 11.6-inch MacBook Air review, PC manufacturers need to pay attention to a buyer's initial reaction and ongoing product usage -- that starts with adjusting priorities so they're more about making the customer exclaim "wow" and less about trimming production costs. Windows Phone 7 shows the problem of setting a minimum configuration bar. Microsoft was right to do this, but how did OEMs respond? The first Windows Phone handsets adhere to the minimums and not much more.

2. Chrome OS is a development platform misnomer. Android is hugely successful, with Google now activating 300,000 phones a day -- 27 million a quarter -- and Gartner predicting the mobile operating system will catch Nokia's Symbian by 2014. Android runs on dumb phones, smartphones, ebook readers, tablets and TV settop boxes. There are about 100,000 applications already available. Chrome OS faces as much developer competition, perhaps more, from Android as Windows or Mac OS. If Google is going to credibly make a case for yet another PC operating system -- and one with a cloud-connected approach -- developers have got to experience it firsthand.

3. Google needs more applications. One of Microsoft's newest marketing slogans is "to the cloud," but the benefits aren't divorced from local applications. Google is more ambitious, by shifting computing to the browser, something Netscape wanted to do in the 1990s. Clouds exist to make rain, and right now there is a drought of web applications in some critical consumer and business categories. Google will need developers to fill these if Chrome OS is going to succeed. The Cr-48 pilot makes the case stronger, along with the Chrome Web Store.

4. IT organizations need to evaluate Chrome OS -- now if they're going to deploy second half 2011. Timing is important for another reason: More IT organizations are evaluating Google Docs against newer offerings from Microsoft. Google can make a stronger pitch by offering a more unified stack -- applications and operating system -- much as Microsoft does today with legacy applications stack Office-Windows-Windows Server. Gartner has observed a marked increase in enterprise adoption of cloud computing solutions. "Cloud computing heralds an evolution of business -- no less influential than the era of e-business -- in positive and negative ways," Stephen Prentice, Gartner vice president, said in a statement over the US Thanksgivng holiday. It's not a question of if enterprises are moving to the cloud but to which one(s)?

Who Is It For?

That's the "now answer" to DaveN's question. But what about the future? "If you're going to carry around a device in the laptop format, why would anyone want something so limited?" There is a market for such a device, or underpowered netbooks wouldn't have sold so well over the past two-and-a-half years. Price and size are compelling attributes. Then there is the tablet surge. Gartner predicts that tablets will displace about 10 percent of PC shipments by 2014. I predict that's a way-to-conservative estimate.

Still, DaveN has a point. The Cr-48 is a 12-inch laptop running an Intel Atom processor. By the specs, it's not exactly a sportster. Still, Betanews commenter Neemobeer sees an audience for Chrome OS portables:

Most people on here are not typical computer users. If you think of it from the typical user perspective this is an amazing OS. Think of all the people you know that are average computer users; what do they do 90 percent of the time? Web, email, maybe a little bit of docs and pictures. This is perfect for those people and a great and probably afforable way for them to get in the technology train.

PC_Tool answers: "'Where is Works?!? Where are the MSN and Yahoo! messengers? What? You cannot even install them???!? Where's my Windows Live Mail client? Why can't I find anything on this thing?!?!' Yeah. The average consumer? Doesn't handle frustration well."

Steven Watson (aka swattz101) answers:

Where is Works -- probably an icon to Google Docs on the interface. Where are MSN and Yahoo Messengers -- there are web based versions, and I expect versions to show up in the Chrome App Store. Windows Live Mail client -- there is a link to Gmail where you can have a unified inbox. You can still access your webmail clients, and I would not be surprised if there is eventually some sort of email app added to the Chrome app store. I think something like this would be great for my wife. All she does on our computer is Facebook and Yahoo webmail over our home WiFi network. I doubt she would even use the 3G option much, so 100MB would proabably do ok for her.

This exchange among Betanews readers is enough to show why the Cr-48 pilot is necessary and to wonder about what market niche Chrome OS might fill. The answer to DaveN's question is another and another. Will Chrome OS even be relevant in six months? What about a Chrome OS tablet? Google's operating system kind of made sense when announced two years ago. But in 2011, with smartphones better offering cloud-connected apps, Android crushing rival phone operating systems and tablet sales soaring, will Chrome OS be irrelevant before its official debut? That's a question I hope to answer while testing the Cr-48 over the next couple of months.

Apple's 11.6-inch MacBoook is all the Air I need

Publié: décembre 11, 2010, 2:33am CET par Joe Wilcox

MacBook Air

I haven't been this satisfied with a laptop since purchasing a 266MHz PowerBook G3 in February 1999. Apple's smaller MacBook Air is unexpectedly satisfying. By the specs, the little laptop should disappoint. By the experience, it's a delight. I'm simply stunned by how much I enjoy using this notebook -- or should that be netbook?

Design Matters

Many vendors miss the importance of the out-of-box experience -- the positive emotions a well-packaged, well-designed product elicits and how important the reaction is for the broader brand or for people pining about their satisfaction to others. The best marketer is a delighted customer.

The aforementioned PowerBook was the second Mac I ever purchased, refurbished, from MacConnection. Apple was the first major PC manufacturer to ship laptops with DVD drives; I watched my first DVD, from Netflix, on the notebook. Screen resolution (1024 x 768), graphics memory and other features set apart the Mac portable from Windows laptop alternatives. The out-of-box experience was like nothing I had before it. In my March 2002 review of the 15-inch iMac G4 -- the one with the pivoting arm -- I emphasized the importance of "wow," long before Microsoft used it to market Windows Vista:

Anyone who has used PCs for a long time knows the joy has gone out of computing. The 'wow' experience from setting up that first computer or exploring the vast information riches of the Internet are memories. It is like the first time having sex, only sex is still great other times. Getting another new computer just doesn't reach the same level of excitement or joy. Until now. I cracked open the box on a new iMac in mid March 2002, the midrange model with 700MHz PowerPC processor, 256MB of RAM, 40GB hard drive and CD-RW/DVD combo drive…For the first time in as long as I can remember, working on a computer is fun. And that's doing work. Other activities just get better from there.

Surprising Performance

Fun -- better stated, joy -- is the best way to describe using the 11.6-inch MacBook Air. The delight started from booting up the notebook, which took about 13 seconds. Wakeup is nearly instantaneous. Bootup time is crucial to endearing a positive emotional response about a computer. Who doesn't get frustrated, or even angry, when being forced to wait for the desktop to appear, wait again for the network connection and wait longer still for apps to be useable? I've long asserted that Windows Vista got its bad rap in part because the bootup time was too long. It created the perception, along with annoying security prompts, that Vista was slower than Windows XP. The "wow" Vista marketing promised became "oh noooo!" Microsoft was right to make shortening bootup and wakeup times priorities for Windows 7.

Screen is another measure of satisfaction, and it too often is overlooked by PC OEMs looking to squeeze every penny of margin out of a laptop. The 11.6-inch MBA's display is exceptionally bright, clear and crisp. The 1366 by 768 resolution, at 135 pixels per inch, is just right. The glossy display is considerably more muted than MacBook Pro -- kind of a comfortable midway to matte. The display delights the eyes. Considering that the screen is the main way the eyes engage a laptop, it's surprising how few PC OEMs make the visual experience important enough priority. I actually prefer the 11.6-inch Air's screen to the 13.3-inch model, which resolution is 1440 by 900 pixels. Perhaps dimensions are one reason. The smaller Air is 16:9 ratio, not 16:10 (as the larger Air is).

The laptop is quite speedy, which mystifies considering the meager specs: 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB L2 cache, 11.6-inch LED display with 1366 by 768 native resolution, 800MHz frontside bus, 4GB DDR3 memory, 128GB flash storage, nVidia GeForce 320M graphics with 256MB shared memory, 2 USB ports, WebCam, WiFi N, Bluetooth 2.1, Mac OS X 10.6 and iLife `11. By the way, I upgraded from 1.4GHz processor and 2GB of memory. I strongly recommend against buying the base configurations Apple's retail stores offer. Apple treats Air as much like a consumer electronics device as computer. Like most CEs, nothing is upgradeable. Buyers are stuck with their configuration of purchase.

At a time when Windows laptops ship with Intel Core i3 or i5 processors for less money, MBA's older, lower clockspeed processor sure looks like a compromise. But that's not my experience consuming Air. The 11.6-inch MBA feels fast. The 128GB sold-state drive absolutely is major reason. But there's more to it. Air is a sum of little tweaks and tucks that maximize performance from the seemingly meager hardware. I'm truly surprised.

Following my first week-and-a-half consuming Air, I used the 13.3-inch MacBook Pro my wife inherited from me. That laptop has a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo processor. It feels slow after using Air for awhile. I run the same apps, without compromise or slowdowns. Even photo editing, using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.2, is quick -- actually quicker than the larger laptop. I disagree with reviewers recommending Air as adjunct to another computer. Perhaps users with specialized demands would need more, but not most people. I've been using the 11.6-inch model as my only PC since November 1st. Happily.

Size matters in laptops, where smaller often is better. The 11.6-inch MBA measures 0.3-1.7 cm high, 29.95 cm wide and 19.2 cm deep and weighs 1.06 kg (2.3 pounds). I'm now much more likely to grab the Air and go, something I rarely did with the MacBook Pro. However, while the battery life is good, I don't find it to be exceptional. I typically get a little more than 5 hours, which is about the same as the 13.3-inch MacBook Pro.

Changing Habits

My computing habits have changed since making MacBook Air my primary computer. I now:

1. Work more in the browser. I've abandoned apps like NetNewsWire and Tweetie for Google News and Twitter Websites, among others. I moved to the browser in anticipation of performance issues, but they didn't come. The browser is convenient, and I can easily kill and relaunch apps in two clicks. I'm enjoying the different way of working, although it's fresh, not new. I've merely increased the amount of productivity done in browser.

2. Kiss off Adobe Flash. Not that anyone reading Betanews would know, I agree with Apple CEO Steve Jobs that Flash is a resource hog. My Air's Safari browser came Flash-free, and I'm keeping it that way. I'm rather enjoying not being assaulted by Flash ads on many Websites. For those times when Flash is absolutely necessary, I use Google Chrome, which puts Flash where it belongs -- in a sandbox.

3. Use more external storage. Even with a beefier hard drive, I always use an external disk for my music library, which is closing in on 100GB in size. I had been using a 500GB LaCie Little Disk. I moved up to the Rikiki Superspeed 1 TB USB 3.0 external hard drive; it's backward compatible with USB 2.0.

A few months ago, while looking around an Apple Store, I suddenly thought: "My next laptop will run Chrome OS." That didn't happen. Apple sapped my tight budget for MacBook Air. But Chrome OS is coming. As early as next week, I expect to receive a Google Cr-48 laptop running Chrome OS, which I plan to use as my main machine for quite awhile. I've procrastinated this review long enough. I wanted to finish it while still using Air as my only PC.

Conclusion: 11.6-inch Air is highly recommended for people looking for netbook-like size without netbook performance compromise -- and with money to burn. Base configurations are $999 and $1,199 but optimum configure-to-order option is $1,399. MBA is an investment.

Group finds 5 main flaws with proposed Net Neutrality rules

Publié: décembre 10, 2010, 9:54pm CET par Tim Conneally

A group of more than 80 advocacy groups including The Media Access Project, Reporters without Borders, Daily Kos, Common Cause, and Nonprofit Technology filed a letter with the Federal Communications Commission on Friday citing five main areas that need improvement in the Net Neutrality legislation coming up for vote on December 21.

Unlike former FCC Commissioner Michael Powell, whose main concern is keeping the Internet lean and loosely governed to empower investors, entrepreneurs, and businesses, these groups are focused on the rights of the user.

"In announcing the circulation of his draft Order, Chairman Genachowski rightly noted that protecting the free market online means that users, not broadband service providers, must choose what content and applications succeed," the letter said. "If the current draft Order is adopted without substantial changes, Internet Service Providers will be free to engage in a number of practices that harm consumers, stifle innovation and threaten to carve up the Internet in irreversible ways."

The principle concern these groups have is the Order's omission of "Paid Prioritization," or the ability for service providers to set payment tiers for different types of services and allocate bandwidth accordingly.

"Paid prioritization is the antithesis of openness. Any framework that does not prohibit such economic discrimination arrangements is not real Net Neutrality," the letter said. "Without a clear ban on such practices, ISPs will move forward with their oft-stated plans to exploit their dominant position and favor their own content and services and those of a few select paying partners through faster delivery, relegating everyone else to the proverbial dirt road."

AT&T's Hank Hultquist openly mocked these groups' knowledge of such issues in August, calling them the "Church of Extreme Net Neutrality," who preach the "old time religion of the dumb network" without taking all facts into consideration.

The Group's subsequent gripes all follow along the same lines, asking for more adequate consideration of "full Net Neutrality" to wireless and mobile traffic, which includes the banishment of all economically-motivated traffic prioritization or blocking of applications, sites, and services; and for more comprehensive coverage that lacks loopholes.

The group cites the fiasco over "managed services" earlier this year, and points out that there is no specific language protecting against this either.

"While some highly sensitive and truly specialized services might not be best provided over the open Internet, there is no reason for the FCC to create a specialized services loophole that would undermine Net Neutrality. Unfortunately, the draft Order apparently opens the door to specialized services without any safeguards," the group said.

Finally, the group calls Genachowski's rejection of Title II, and gravitation toward the Title I provisions that failed to hold up in the circuit court against Comcast an "unnecessary risk."

Plantronics Savor and Vocalyst hands-free mobile service

Publié: décembre 10, 2010, 7:41pm CET par Tim Conneally

2010 was without a doubt the year of distracted driving legislation. Eleven U.S. states this year banned texting while driving, and a further eight states banned drivers from using handheld phones altogether.

In total, 30 of the 50 states now have local laws regarding mobile phone use.

My home state of Maryland was one of the eight to totally ban mobile phones for drivers; and though it is not a primary offense to use your phone while driving, police officers can still issue additional fines if they pull you over for another offense and you happen to be on the phone at the time.

Because of the spread of these laws, developments in hands-free interfaces have also been spreading quickly, and consumers are being presented with a growing number of choices for sophisticated hands-free controls for navigation, communication, and entertainment systems.

At CTIA last March, I took a look at Dial2Do a cross-platform handsfree assistant for sending texts and interacting with feed services. In September, telecommunications hardware maker Plantronics launched Vocalyst, a smartphone voice command service which is actually based upon Dial2Do that comes with its own dedicated bluetooth headsets.

Now that my hometown is a market of primary interest for these kinds of services, I gave one of Plantronics' Vocalyst headsets a spin.

The Headset:

Plantronics Savor

At the end of the day, Bluetooth headsets are just human interface devices like keyboards and mice, so their value comes down to how accurately they work, and how well they fit with the user's body. That said, the Plantronics Savor is both accurate and comfortable. It is small, lightweight and unintrusive while still managing to fit in three microphones, two action buttons, a power switch, volume rocker and micro USB port. To issue one of the handful of built-in voice commands ("what can I say," "pairing mode," "battery," "answer," "ignore," and "call vocalyst,") simply tap the main button and speak. The majority of the voice commands come when you're connected to the Vocalyst service, and at full charge, you get around three hours of continuous talk time with the Savor.

Audio Quality:

Plantronics markets its headsets as being able to provide natural-sounding calls that have their volume automatically adjusted based upon the background noise, the company calls this feature "WindSmart," and I put it to a test. Here's how it sounds under the three common conditions: wind, loud background noise (consistent), and loud background noise (sporadic.)

The Vocalyst service:

The $99 Plantronics savor comes with one year free of the Vocalyst hands-free assistant service. Through this, users can check and compose emails, record voice reminders, listen to Twitter feed and post audio tweets, get weather, finance, news and sports updates, and record audio in Evernote. With the Vocalyst app on a BlackBerry or Android smartphone, incoming text messages are also read aloud as they arrive.

For an additional charge, users can update to Vocalyst Pro which includes the ability to record longer voice notes, transcribe voice into text and send text messages or post content to more than 20 third party services, such as Wordpress, Tumblr, and Blogger.

It's a handy service, but the main problem involved with it is that when you're connected, the Plantronics headset does not mute the line, but the Vocalyst service does. So if you issue a command, such as "listen to my email," any background noise will interrupt the service reading your email to you and say "Sorry, I didn't understand that." After this happens a few times, the service stops listening to your line, and you lose control of it entirely. It's a pretty severe flaw when considering the noises that go on while driving.

Plantronics Savor

The Bottom Line

For Bluetooth headset users, the Savor is worth a look. It's small, stylish, affordable, and has the bonus Vocalyst integration and one year of free service.

Of course, Bluetooth headsets are a niche category, and people who do not already use them are not very likely to just pick one up and start unless there's a real reason to do so. Even though there is a growing legal basis for trying one out, ultimately, personal preference wins every time.

Google: We're activating 300,000 Android phones daily

Publié: décembre 9, 2010, 10:16pm CET par Ed Oswald

Android activations have now surpassed 300,000 per day which equals the number of activations for Symbian worldwide, according to data provided by Google. It also indicates that the now near-continuous stream of new Android phones is having a positive effect on sales overall.

Back in October, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the company was activating about 200,000 phones per day. The new number also comes from Google's engineering chief Andy Rubin, who tweeted it on Wednesday night. It is not out of the question to think that Android may become the top platform in the world early next year.

Such a milestone shouldn't come as too much of a surprise: analysts have been expecting this to happen for quite awhile now. However, the speed at which it has happened -- a fivefold increase in just the last year alone -- likely gives its competitors some pause, if not cause for concern.

Surveys show that Android is now comprising about half of all smartphone sales in the US in the third quarter, and comScore found that the OS had nearly 15 percent of the worldwide market in October.

Apple may have one last salvo to fire against Android that could slow down its plans for taking over the top spot. First, it is believed that AT&T's exclusivity on the iPhone expires in 2011, which could lead to a significant increase in sales. Add to this the release of the fifth-generation iPhone, and Cupertino might be able to stunt Android's growth, however briefly.

Windows Phone 7's first big payout rolls in early

Publié: décembre 9, 2010, 9:12pm CET par Tim Conneally

Microsoft on Thursday provided some good news for Windows Phone 7 app developers in the form of a handful of new information about the Windows Phone Marketplace.

In October, Windows Phone developers were told the first Marketplace payouts would arrive "some time in February 2011," but today Microsoft said payments will be processed in the fourth week of January. While tecnically only a tiny bit ahead of schedule, it's surely good to know when the money will start coming in.

Furthermore, the updates in the "Reports" link in a developer's App Hub account will let him get detailed reports of daily and cumulative downloads of his applications and games in the Marketplace, and reports of aggregate Marketplace data, which includes sales of apps for Windows Mobile 6.5+. With the aggregate data, developers can track how their apps are doing against the overall downloading climate of Windows Phone.

Perhaps this is more important to industry watchers, who will be able to use this information to see how the Windows Phone Marketplace is doing against its competitor platforms.

Fortunately, along with the news today came a couple of tangible updates for devs too. First, the processes of becoming a registered Windows Phone developer and then submitting apps to the Marketplace have both been streamlined.

The goal is to ultimately shorten the time it takes to register as a developer and get your first app listed, a notoriously unpredictable period of time for developers on Apple's iOS platform.

"Over the last month, 91% of applications have been certified and published within 2 days of submission, and 86% of the 1,000+ new developers that register in App Hub every week now have their account vetted and validated within 10 days," said Todd Brix of the Windows Phone Marketplace and Developer Product Management team.

Finally, the Mobile Advertising SDK that was released last September has been updated to include support for the XNA Framework for in-game ads, alongside the support for Silverlight it already had.

"Mobile gaming developers can now easily integrate banner or text ads into their Windows Phone 7 gaming apps while leveraging XNA game-specific features like 3D graphics support, multiple graphic blend modes, built-in game loop and much more," Brix said.

Pro-Wikileaks group using Botnet to retaliate against detractors

Publié: décembre 9, 2010, 7:23pm CET par Ed Oswald

A group that is using the name "Anonymous" is using a voluntary botnet in order to take down websites that interfere with the operations of Wikileaks. The group has taken responsibility for a denial-of-service attack on Visa on Wednesday and an attack on competitor MasterCard earlier in the week.

The two credit card firms had suspended Wikileaks' account, as did PayPal over the weekend. That company was also the victim of a DDoS attack, which Anoymous has also taken responsibility for. The creation of this botnet could be seen as the first salvo in what is sure to be an increasingly vicious war between the site's supporters and those looking to shut the site down.

Supporters say that the attacks are their only means of fighting back against the organization's detractors in order to keep Wikileaks online. "Everyone is aware that they are illegal but they feel that it is a worthy cause and the possible outcome outweighs the risk," Anonymous member Coldblood told the BBC.

Facebook and Twitter are also distancing themselves from the campaign, which the group is calling "Operation Payback." Both sites are claiming Anonymous' use of the social networking sites to promote their work violates its terms of service.

One site that seems to have escaped the group's wrath is Amazon. The company had shut off Wikileaks' use of its web services architecture last week. As of press time, the site appeared to still be functioning normally.

Participants in the botnet are using an application called Low Orbit Ion Cannon that uses IRC to connect to a central chat room where instructions await on which target to attack. Experts are warning those considering joining this botnet to think twice as it may pose a security risk.

Swype for Android gets fifth beta update, accepts more testers

Publié: décembre 9, 2010, 7:11pm CET par Tim Conneally

Swype Innovative soft keyboard Swype has released a new beta on the Android platform, and is now accepting more beta testers.

Late last year, Swype made big waves in the mobile tech world when it launched its alternative "paint to type" touchscreen keyboard software.

Rather than force users to tap on their touchscreen phones to type out words, Swype let users simply drag their finger from letter to letter without breaking contact. Unfortunately, not everyone had access to the new keyboard software, and this condition persists.

Though it comes built in to a number of Android smartphones, like the Samsung Galaxy S series (thanks to Samsung's Venture funding for the company,) Swype is still in invitation only beta for users of other Android devices. Today, with the release of the fifth beta, Swype is expanding to include more testers.

The latest beta includes a critical fix to the keyboard's accuracy, and has added support for double-tap to edit words already typed, and support for Google's Voice-to-Text input capability.

It's a modest update to the software, which could have been released to the general Android public two iterations ago if usability was the determining factor.

If you haven't already joined the pool of beta testers, point your Android device's browser to [beta.swype.com] to sign up and download.

Level 3 Communications: 'Why doesn't Comcast accept our offer?'

Publié: décembre 9, 2010, 5:30pm CET par Tim Conneally

Comcast, the United States' largest cable provider, and content delivery network Level 3 Communications remain at odds over how they will work together in the future. A major issue arose between the two companies in late November, after Netflix announced Level 3 would be its primary CDN, and Comcast sought to collect new fees from Level 3 due to the massive increase in traffic the Netflix arrangement would cause.

Level 3 argued that Comcast was abusing its monopolistic position to squeeze money out of a service working "over the top" of its broadband connections. Comcast, on the other hand, said it's simply re-negotiating a "peering" (free traffic) arrangement to a "transiting" (paid traffic by volume) arrangement.

Last Week, AT&T joined in the argument, and accused Level 3 of trying to create controversy by throwing around terms like "net neutrality" and "monopoly" when the issue was about peer versus transit.

"Earlier this month Level 3 won some of NetFlix's streaming business which may have something to do with the growing traffic imbalance," Bob Quinn wrote in AT&T's Public Policy Blog. "I am confident that the CDN providers Level 3 'won' this business from had been paying Comcast to deliver this same content to Comcast's customers."

Level 3 says AT&T has missed the point completely.

"Those who keep trying, deliberately or inadvertently, to maintain that the Level 3 and Comcast disagreement is 'just a peering dispute' rather than a blatant attempt by Comcast to leverage a dominant position in the residential Internet access market are missing the point, no matter how loudly and how often they try to distract from this central issue," A statement from Level 3 said this week.

"A peering dispute is clearly not the issue, rather, Level 3 and many experts and industry commentators believe that Comcast wants to set a precedent allowing them to charge a 'toll' for capacity added to their 'last mile' cable Internet access network," Level 3 argues. "This is the heart of the matter since Comcast is seeking to leverage exclusive access to its local Internet access customers. If this is not true, why doesn't Comcast simply accept our offer to deliver traffic to the edge of its big cable markets?"

EU fines LCD price fixing cartel $857M, Samsung given immunity

Publié: décembre 8, 2010, 4:52pm CET par Tim Conneally

Wednesday, the European Commission announced the fines it will hand out to the LCD price-fixing cartel that it has been investigating since 2006. The EC first began its investigation of leading LCD panel manufacturers, which it found had been conspiring to artificially inflate the cost of LCD screens for televisions and personal computers between October 2001 and February 2006.

"In total...six manufacturers met around 60 times for the purpose of agreeing prices, including price ranges and minimum prices. They exchanged information on future production planning, capacity utilization, and trading conditions," Joaquín Almunia, Vice President of the European Commission responsible for Competition Policy said today. "All of these discussions were clearly illegal under EU competition rules. And the evidence shows that the participants were aware of the illegality of their conduct."

Five of these six companies were hit with fines totaling €649 million ($857 million.) Chimei InnoLux was fined €300 million ($396 million), LG Display was fined €215 million ($284 million), AU Optronics was fined €116.8 million ($154 million), Chunghwa Picture Tubes Limited was fined €9 million ($11.9 million) and HannStar Display Corp. was fined €8.1 million ($10.7 million.)

The sixth company involved, none other than market leader Samsung Electronics, was absolved of any fines because it blew the whistle on the cartel. Similarly, the fines against LG, AU, and Chunghwa were all reduced for their cooperation with the Commission's investigation.

Almunia said two of the companies asked for fine reductions due to their inability to pay, but did not mention which companies it was. The requests were denied.

The Commission's crackdown on "hardcore cartel activity" has yielded more than €3 billion this year alone.

Net neutrality debate needs a reset, says former FCC head Powell

Publié: décembre 8, 2010, 2:29am CET par Tim Conneally

At the next open FCC meeting on December 21, the first order of business will be the Open Internet Order, a revision to the FCC's Net Neutrality policies that have sprung from the nearly seven-year old doctrine on preserving internet freedoms by former FCC Chairman Michael Powell.

With net neutrality policy coming to the forefront of the FCC's agenda in just a matter of days, it's only fitting to hear how former Chairman Powell assesses the state of net neutrality.

At a symposium held by the Internet Innovation Alliance in Washington DC Tuesday, Powell aired concerns that regulation has simply taken far too long.

"I have to say, right after President Obama's election, there was moment of great opportunity in which the public and the industry were galvanized in commitment to public and private partnership to drive broadband availability and access, and to drive increases in adoption. This took the form, of course, of the National Broadband Plan, for which I really do give great compliment to Chairman Genachowski and the FCC," Powell began.

"In my opinion, unfortunately, we seem to have fallen off the track in the last year, and I think that for the better part of the year, regrettably...we have been stuck in a neverending debate over net neutrality. Rarely in my time in communications have I ever seen so much time and energy spent on so modest a gain."

Powell says it's time for a reset, and that it's time to reconsider how lightly the Internet is regulated, if at all.

Former FCC Commissioner Michael Powell

"I think we should go back to a commitment that the presumption should be against regulating an Internet ecosystem without clear and compelling justifications for doing so," Powell said.

Powell had to clarify that he wasn't pandering to "some kind of Tea Party ethos," and it wasn't just haughty political discourse, but that it is necessary in the fast-moving reality that is the high-tech economy.

He pointed out that it's taken just fifteen years for giant telecommunications companies to completely dissolve and be supplanted by companies offering newer technologies.

"When I first started in the FCC, fear of the market power of long-distance [telephone] companies was much more significantly percieved than any other types of company. Where are those companies now?" Powell asked. "Killed. Creatively destroyed."

Furthermore, Powell said that existant telecom policy can simply not be applied to the Internet, which is a "system of ever-evolving, organic undulation," not the easy-to-follow telephone system, which had 60 years of regulation behind it when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was laid down. Therefore, Powell said he considered the potential reintroduction of Title II regulations to be the "most fatal of errors."

In the end, Powell concludes that it's undoubtedly positive that the regulations are coming up for review in the FCC soon, but progress toward an actual resolution can unfortunately not be assured, given the strong disagreements regulators still have.

Internet Explorer 9 will feature "do not track" functionality

Publié: décembre 7, 2010, 10:42pm CET par Tim Conneally

In light of the recent rash of "history sniffing" bugs and the Federal Trade Commission's proposed "do not track" list, Microsoft today announced that release candidate of Internet Explorer 9 will feature a new tracking protection setting that will keep a user's browsing habits private from sites looking to harvest browser histories.

The new feature of IE9 will let users opt out of sharing their browser information with sites they may not know or necessarily trust. It includes a Tracking Protection List of Web addresses that the browser will call only if the user specifically types the URL into the browser bar. That means any content from a URL that the user has blocked will also not show up in the browser.

This blacklist starts out empty, and the user has to populate it with addresses he doesn't want to share information with. Conversely, users will also be able to assemble whitelists of sites that are trusted and free to access browser data.

"We designed this functionality as a good start to enable consumer choice and protection from potential tracking," Dean Hachamovitch Corporate Vice President of Internet Explorer said today. "We provide a tool in the browser, and consumers choose how to use it. As with everything on the web, we expect it to evolve over time especially as the broader privacy dialog continues. We're communicating about it now as part of our transparency in the software development process."

Google announces Chrome OS hardware and first pilot program

Publié: décembre 7, 2010, 9:36pm CET par Tim Conneally

One year ago, Google gave the world its first look at Chrome OS, a project taking a new approach to thin clients and terminal computing. The long and the short of Chrome OS is: if the browser is the most-used application on a PC, why would you load it down with anything else?

Chrome OS focuses on computers that are permanently connected, where all apps, data, and user identities and desktops are stored in the cloud. The computers running the OS are designed to be as unencumbered by software as possible, so they can run quickly and reliably. Businesses can run them in secure private clouds just as well as consumers can run them on the public Web.

The project has come to the point where it can start to be tested in the real world, and Google today announced some crucial details about who will be making Chrome notebook computers, when the public can expect them, and how they'll ultimately work.

First, of course, comes the pilot program, which will test the viability of a "Web only" computer among both enterprises and individuals. Already, businesses such as American Airlines, Appiro, Cardinal Health, Kraft, Logitech, Virgin USA, and even the Department of Defense have contacted Google to be included in the pilot. Individual users, however, can apply to test out Chrome OS on the reference hardware at [google.com].

What will testers be handling? An unbranded notebook computer called the Cr-48.

Chrome OS Cr-48 pilot program notebook PC

It's got a 12.1" display, full sized keyboard, oversized touchpad, World Mode 3G connectivity via the Qualcomm Gobi chipset, 802.11n dual-band Wi-Fi, an 8+ hour active battery life with an estimated 8+ hours of standby, a built-in webcam, no spinning hard drives, and a built-in "jailbreaking mode." Google today announced Acer and Samsung as OEM partners, and they will be releasing Chrome OS notebooks in mid-2011. They're all powered by Intel chips, so there's no ARM-based instruction sets here. Unfortunately, the exact chip family and power ratings weren't disclosed today.

Google Chrome Notebook pilot edition Sundar Pichai, Vice President of Google Chrome Product Management holds one of the notebooks used in the pilot program.

One of the most interesting parts of the Chrome OS notebook will be its focus on connectivity...FREE connectivity. Google has partnered with Verizon Wireless to offer Chrome notebook users special no-contract data plans. The Verizon Wireless Chrome OS data plan will have 100MB of free data per month per user. Daily unlimited data passes will go for $9.99 per day, and other plans will be sold 1GB at a time.

The pilot program will go for about half a year, at which point the first generally-available models will go up for sale. Other OEM partners are expected to be announced in the coming months.

Wikileaks' Assange denied bail after surrendering to UK authorities

Publié: décembre 7, 2010, 8:25pm CET par Ed Oswald

After surrendering to UK police on Tuesday, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was denied bail after being deemed a flight risk by a British court. Swedish officials are asking for his extradition to face rape and molestation charges, however Assange has refused.

With that refusal, a lengthy legal process that could take weeks or months to resolve begins. While this is being decided, the courts have taken Assange into custody until December 14.

Rape charges were filed but quickly dropped back in August, although the two accusers -- who worked as volunteers for Wikileaks -- appealed that decision. The incidents were said to have happened while he was in Sweden giving presentations on Wikileaks' work to disclose US military documents on the war.

According to Swedish authorities, Assange is accused of one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape.

The British courts must now decide if the extradition will violate Assange's rights. If it does not, a judge would order his extradition to Sweden. Assange would have the opportunity to appeal the judge's decision however, which could prolong the process.

His lawyers in Sweden claim that foreign powers are influencing the decision to prosecute, and that Wikileaks' work in exposing secret documents are playing a part. Swedish prosecutors deny this is the case.

"I want to make it clear that I have not been put under any kind of pressure, political or otherwise," direct of prosecution Marianne Ny said in a statement. "Swedish prosecutors are completely independent in their decision-making."

She is also reported to have said by Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that she has received no contact from any other government regarding extraditing Assange to face any other charges.

Sprint aims to phase out iDEN over next two years

Publié: décembre 7, 2010, 1:05am CET par Ed Oswald

Aiming to streamline operations and reduce operating costs, Sprint on Monday said it would begin the process of transitioning Nextel customers to its CDMA network beginning next year. The process of phasing out iDEN cell sites will begin in 2013, it said.

Combining the two technologies is expected to save Sprint up to $11 billion over a seven year period. It will also phase out a technology that has increasingly become obsolete as consumers and businesses alike require more robust data technologies.

iDEN cannot provide broadband data speeds that are necessary for today's applications. With businesses playing a large role in Nextel's overall business, this disadvantage has caused many to look elsewhere for their cellular services -- which means moving away from iDEN makes good business sense.

"We're seeing an increasing need from our push-to-talk customers for high-speed data," network operations chief Steve Elfman said. "Marrying the industry's only sub-second PTT call setup with broadband data directly supports our customers' needs and creates an unmatched offering in the market."

In addition to the elimination of iDEN, Sprint is also working with Samsung, Ericsson, and Alcatel-Lucent to combine its disparate technologies onto a single base station. This would combine services operating on the 800MHz, 1.9GHz, and 2.5GHz frequency bands, thus further reducing operating costs.

Sprint's work to add the 2.5GHz spectrum -- the frequency that its WiMAX subsidiary uses -- to its new base stations seems to also suggest that the company remains steadfastly committed to the technology for the foreseeable future.

More on Sprint's new planned base stations can be found on the company's website.

Google's Nexus phone gets second chance thanks to Samsung

Publié: décembre 6, 2010, 11:37pm CET par Ed Oswald

Google Nexus S

As previously rumored, Google on Monday confirmed that it had tapped Samsung to manufacture the second incarnation of its Nexus Android phone, which will be the first to run the company's Android 2.3 "Gingerbread OS."

The Nexus S will sell for $199 with a two-year service contract through T-Mobile here in the US beginning December 16. It will also be offered without a contract for $529. Either way, Google has hopes that the second incarnation does a whole lot better than the first.

Google offered the Nexus One both as its second testing tool for its Android development partners, and as a regular consumer smartphone. It is believed that the Nexus One only sold about 100,000 units, and much of the blame for its poor sales could be Google's own strategy. Rather than sell it through a carrier, the company exclusively sold the Nexus One through its own Web-based store for most of its lifespan. Google shut down that Web-based store last May.

Google's next incarnation includes several enhancements over the original version, including front and rear-facing cameras and a "contour display" aimed at fitting comfortably in the palm of the hand and on the side of the face. It also includes 16GB of memory and support for NFC (near-field communication).

Other features include HD video recording and playback; Bluetooth support; Gryoscope, accelerometer and proximity sensors; and 802.11n support.

"As part of the Nexus brand, Nexus S delivers what we call a "pure Google" experience: unlocked, unfiltered access to the best Google mobile services and the latest and greatest Android releases and updates," VP of engineering Andy Rubin said in a blog post.

Unbeknown to most consumers, Android actually leads a double life. Devices like the Nexus S are built "with Google," meaning they show off all of the capabilities of a free open-source Android operating system, but polished up with all of Google's specialty services that aren't open source. The far more common versions of Android are based on the open source branch and given the stamp of the OEM or the carrier. Carriers have increasingly begun to exert their own control over these devices, either locking out standard functionality, or worse yet replacing Google's own services with those of its competitors.

Verizon is an example of this new threat to Android: the Samsung Fascinate features Bing rather than Google as the device's primary web search.

Is someone fixing ebook prices?

Publié: décembre 6, 2010, 10:29pm CET par Joe Wilcox

Google's rumored ebookstore is here at last, begging the question: Who has the better price on ebooks? It's certainly the question I'm asking looking ahead to holiday shopping. Ebooks are definitely on my list of gifts this year -- and yours? Early this afternoon, I did a quick comparison, so you won't have to. The results are disturbing. Something stinks like a diaper. It's not the differences in pricing but the uniformity across ebookstores that surprises. Shouldn't competition in a hot new category drive pricing variations?

The first consideration buying ebooks is consumption. On what device? Google's new store appeals for much the same as Amazon's: Broad device support. While Amazon and Google approach the solution in different ways, the result is essentially the same -- ebooks available for reading on Macs, PCs, smartphones and tablets. Uh-oh, there's no native Google ebookstore app for BlackBerry, Kindle or Windows Phone 7. Hey, but Google has got Barnes & Noble Nook and Sony Reader. Eat those bananas, Amazon. Of course, Nook does run Android. I wonder how those B&N folks are feeling about open source -- in this case open competition -- now?

I started my ebook comparison with an obscure but classic 1930's science fiction novella: "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell. Amazon's Kindle store describes: "A terrifying shape-changing alien at a frozen research station challenges its crew for survival in the most memorable sci-fi story of its decade." Amazon and Google approach reader reviews differently. Amazon customers post reviews in the Kindle store, while Google pulls them from social site GoodReads. I chuckled at the second Google ebookstore review, which begins: "I read the Kindle version of this short story." Oh, yeah.

I was most interested to see if Google would better Amazon pricing. After all, Google is king of free. I also checked pricing and availability at Apple's iBookstore and the Nook store. I expected that "premium-pricing everything else" Apple would ask the most for the novella? It's $6.99, and only available for iOS, which means iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, baby. But Barnes & Noble charges more: $7.19. Not even Apple could top the Nook ebook. Google does a little better than Apple -- $6.15. Amazon: $4.79. Well, hell on wheels. Amazon will get my money.

Perhaps old is unfair. So I searched for something more recent and more popular. Stieg Larsson's global bestseller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ebook is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Google for $5.20. Ho. Ho. Ho. Equal pricing. But, whoops, for all Apple marketing blathering about convenience, the title doesn't show up in searches.

How about something really new and from the New York Times bestseller list: Decision Points by (cough, cough) former president George W. Bush. Once again, three ebookstores offer the title for the same price -- $9.99. I came up with nothing searching Apple's store. One more: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. It's available from all four stores for $5.99.

If this little exercise is any indicator, pricing won't be much of a differentiator among these four stores during the holidays. Google's entering the game isn't changing anything today. But shouldn't it? After all, the king of free pulls down prices and/or value pretty much everywhere else. Nearly uniform pricing is highly suspicious. Brick-and-mortar retailer book pricing does vary more, depending on initial discount, volume of inventory to sell (or unload if too many) and time on shelf, among many other factors. Remember: Ebooks don't grow old on the shelf. Retailers can't over-order or be compelled to offer overstock deals.

In looking at these four ebookstores, pricing is too similar. It stinks of publishers demanding prices be such and such to grant distribution. It wasn't that many months ago, that in a disagreement with publishers Amazon was forced to raise ebook prices and adopt an agency sales model. I have to wonder: Are major publishers fixing prices? (Or even the bookstores? After I posted, someone asked if I knew the ebookstores were using the agency model, which in theory gives them some discretion over price. Of course, I knew, which is why I expected more price variances. If there is little or none, the first question to ask is "Why Not?")

US Antitrust law looks harshly on price fixing, because it causes harm to consumers. They don't receive the benefits, lower pricing among them, of companies vying for the same customers. What's missing from my casual review is truly fluid pricing. I randomly selected another five titles, with similar result: Same prices across all the stores (and some more titles not available from Apple). The more recent, or more popular the title, the more likely all the stores sell the ebook for the same price. Does that sound right to you? Is that also your observation? Please respond in comments.

[Editor's Note: This analysis started out simply as a price-comparison story, assuming that prices would vary across ebookstores. Uniform pricing was unexpected.]

What's new in Android 2.3 'Gingerbread?' Tablets, NFC, Games

Publié: décembre 6, 2010, 8:13pm CET par Tim Conneally

Monday was a big day for Android as Google simultaneously unveiled the latest Android Developer phone, the Samsung-built Nexus S, and Gingerbread, the newest version (v 2.3) of the Android mobile operating system.

Android 2.3 includes performance upgrades and a few superficial additions for users, but the major new additions to the platform have been made with developers in mind, and they may not be visible to users right away, but they will result in exciting new devices a little further down the road.

Near Field Communications (NFC)

Undoubtedly the biggest addition to Android this time around is support for hardware supporting Near Field Communications, the low-power wireless technology that enables quick data transactions simply by passing the phone near an NFC terminal. This is the fundamental technology in "wallet phones," that AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile USA recently formed a joint venture to support.

SIP support

Developers can now build apps that support internet telephony over the Session Interface Protocol. With the SIP API, applications can now have voice calling features without having to manage sessions, transport-level communication, or audio.

New Sensors

Gingerbread now offers developers the ability to utilize many different types of sensors not previously supported by Android, including: gyroscope, rotation vector, linear acceleration, gravity, and barometer. Additionally, screen orientation has also finally received "reverse" orientations. That is, now instead of just right side up landscape and portrait modes, the screen will re-orient itself no matter which end of the device is facing up.

Front-facing camera support

While video chat already exists on one Android phone, the ability for an app to automatically detect and remember more than one camera on different types of devices was not present. New camera APIs now let applications query the device for the number of cameras it has available, and the capabilities of each one.

Bigger Screen Sizes

The Android SDK now includes a new resource qualifier, "xlarge," to let applications utilize tablet-sized screens. Previously, Android only had Small, Medium, and Large, which presented some limitations for companies looking to put Android on a device with, for example, a laptop-sized screen.

Better Performance

The Dalvik virtual machine that is the heart and soul of Android has gotten a concurrent garbage collector, and the JIT compiler that was added in 2.2 has received further optimizations, the OpenGL ES video drivers have been updated, and support for the Khronos OpenSL ES audio API has been added, to let applications control audio input, output, and processing directly from the native code.

Experience Upgrades

Behind the homescreen UI, Android is generally based on a white background. The notification bar and all sub-menus were all black text on white. With Gingerbread, that has been changed to black and grey. The soft keyboard now has multi-touch events for alternative key and numerical input. Before, users would have to switch keyboards or longpress individual keys for punctuation and numbers; in Gingerbread, users can now hold "shift" or "?123" and tap on a key for the alternate text or symbol to pop up.

Also, the application manager is now a button in the options menu in both the home screen and launcher. This way, users can now just hit their menu button and have access to the application manager from their most commonly-used screens. Within the manager, a new tab dedicated to running applications has been added, which shows the active apps and the resources they're consuming.

In the end, this is a very significant update to Android because it branches the OS out into new territory with support for new screen sizes, new sensors, and new functionality. Consumers may not immediately see the benefit, and there will be the usual cries of "fragmentation!" from users still running 2.1, but there is an awful lot here for developers to toy around with, and the fruits of those new features will be borne within the next few months.

Google launches eBooks, cross-platform e-bookstore and reader

Publié: décembre 6, 2010, 5:47pm CET par Tim Conneally

On Monday morning, Google officially unveiled its entry into the hotly competitve e-book market with an e-reader app called Google eBooks and a store called the Google eBookstore. The products are not new, but are rather a unification of many of Google's digital book efforts.

Like Amazon has done with its own Kindle platform, Google eBooks is a cross-platform solution for reading digital books across multiple devices. Currently, users can read Google eBooks in JavaScript-enabled browsers, in iOS and Android-powered devices, and on any e-reader supporting Adobe's eBook platform (which includes Barnes and Noble's Nook, Sony's Reader, and at least one of Borders' many e-readers.) There is not yet support for the Amazon Kindle, Kobo, BlackBerry, or Windows Mobile 7.

Users browse and download books in the Google eBookstore, which is currently 100% web-based. If you're using Google Books for Android, for example, hitting the "Get eBooks" button at the top of the screen launches the bookstore in a browser.

To buy Google eBooks, the user needs a Google Checkout account. However, Google's catalog of ebooks is also available through a number of partner resellers who accept other forms of payment. Alibris and Powell's Books, for example, accept PayPal and standard credit cards, so a Google Checkout account is not mandatory.

Google eBooks and the eBookstore were anything but surprise appearances on Monday. As far back as four years ago, Google's intention of selling e-books online was well-known, and it was originally going to be an extension of the Book Search project, which was itself an extension of the Google Print project.

Now that Google's commercial e-book endeavor is available to the public, the notion that the e-reader market is hardware driven should be more easily put to rest.

Facebook makes user profiles more visual

Publié: décembre 6, 2010, 4:32pm CET par Tim Conneally

Though it is primarily known as a social networking site, Facebook is actually one of the top destinations for photo sharing, and a new user profile design change unveiled Monday ups the visibility of Facebook photos and encourages users to share personal information in a more visual way.

New Facebook profile page

Two years ago, Facebook came forward with some staggering figures about the photo sharing taking place on its sites, which amounted to between 2-3 Terabytes of photos being updated daily with a peak of 300,000 images per second. Facebook would serve about 15 billion photos, and the storage dedicated just to photography amounted to more than a petabyte.

Since that time, Facebook has gone from approximately 35 million users to more than 500 million, and more than 3 billion photos are now being added to Facebook every month.

Facebook's new profile design adds photographs that the user has been recently tagged in to the main page, and information about location, age, job, relationship status, and more have been moved to a space immediately beneath the user's display name, turning it all into something of a caption for the pictures. "Likes" and interests are now represented by a row of images, and friends can now be categorized into user-defined lists (e.g. "co-workers," "school friends," etc.)

Ultimately, the new profiles don't represent a major shift in functionality for Facebook, but instead reflect the visual nature in which its users consume information posted there.

Google acquires Netflix, Vudu, and Blockbuster's streaming video DRM provider Widevine

Publié: décembre 4, 2010, 12:50am CET par Tim Conneally

Google announced on Friday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Widevine, a Seattle-based company that has focused on DRM and security for streaming internet media for the last decade.

"The Widevine team has worked to provide a better video delivery experience for businesses of all kinds: from the studios that create your favorite shows and movies, to the cable systems and channels that broadcast them online and on TV, to the hardware manufacturers that let you watch that content on a variety of devices," said Mario Queiroz, Google Vice President of Product Management.

One of the big selling points of Widevine's technology is that it is cross-platform with a special focus on mobile and non-PC-based media consumption; so it can be used to secure to many different types of media (H.264, Flash, Quicktime, Windows Media) on different types of networks (CDN, peer to peer, managed) and different device platforms (smartphones, connected TVs, video game consoles, set top boxes, PCs.)

The company also has more than 60 U.S. and international patents and more than 100 pending in areas such as: adaptive streaming, application-level encryption, real-time piracy detection and response, media tracking, and usage controls.

Queiroz said that Google will maintain all of Widevine's existing client agreements, which includes nearly all of the major streaming video services. AT&T U-Verse, Netflix, Blockbuster, Vudu, and Roxio CinemaNow, for example, all use Widevine's streaming DRM technology.

That was fast: Samsung is top Android phone maker in U.S.

Publié: décembre 3, 2010, 10:33pm CET par Tim Conneally

Market research firm Gartner has named Samsung Mobile both the top mobile phone manufacturer in the United states, and the top seller of Android Smartphones as well. In less than one year, Samsung has gone from having practically no Android phones in the U.S. market to outselling the market's early entrants HTC and Motorola.

Samsung's very first Android smartphone was announced in late April 2009, but the company was concentrating its initial efforts on the European market. Coming into 2010, Samsung's only Android smartphones in the U.S. market were the Moment on Sprint and the Behold 2 on T-Mobile.

It wasn't until March 2010 that Samsung's Android-powered snowball really began to roll down the mountain into North America. At CTIA 2010 in March, the company revealed the Galaxy S smartphone brand, and three months later the first Galaxy S phone went to retail with AT&T. Within the next three months, there were Galaxy S phones on all the major wireless carriers in the United States.

In the span of time between the end of March and the end of November, Samsung went from having a 9.2% share of the Android smartphone market to having 32.1%.

"The Galaxy S portfolio has played a significant role in Samsung's success in 2010," Dale Sohn, president of Samsung Mobile today said, somewhat stating the obvious. Samsung has shipped more than three million Galaxy S smartphones this year, and the related Galaxy Tab tablet is reportedly selling about 600,000 units per month. Tablets, however, are a convergent market, and Samsung does not necessarily have the same advantages that it has in the mobile phone sector. While it does offer carrier-subsidized versions of the tablet, Wi-Fi only versions of the device are also expected to be available.

In latest treatise, Level 3 says feud with Comcast like great telecom unbundling

Publié: décembre 3, 2010, 5:15pm CET par Tim Conneally

Continuing its public feud with Comcast, Level 3 Communications Friday released its own FAQ to explain to both the public and public policy makers, why their fight is important.

The disagreement between cable operator Comcast and content delivery network (CDN) Level 3 turned into a minor public relations war earlier this week when Level 3 announced that Comcast was demanding higher fees because of Level 3's bandwidth-consuming streaming video traffic.

Level 3 has provided CDN services for Netflix, the National Football League, and several other big name content providers; but in early November, Netflix announced that Level 3 Communications would become its primary CDN starting in 2011.

This is significant because Netflix is rapidly becoming one of the biggest consumers of bandwidth out there. Canadian network hardware company Sandvine released a study in October which suggested that Netflix streaming video traffic constitutes more than 20% of the bandwidth consumed in the "primetime" hours of 8pm-10pm.

Described in the most basic terms, Netflix owns the content, Level 3 owns the network of servers sending that content out to be streamed, and Comcast owns the pipelines connecting the users to the content. The different networks are often so-called "peers," meaning they exchange traffic freely with one another because it ultimately benefits everyone.

Now that Level 3 will be handling the majority of Netflix streaming traffic, it will be sending a tremendously larger share of traffic to Comcast's pipelines. In turn, Comcast said it would have to begin charging Level 3...effectively switching their peering arrangement to a transit arrangement. Transit services are a bit more complicated, and involve prices per megabit per month, and minimum bandwidth commitments.

Level 3 Chief Legal Officer Thomas Stortz accused Comcast of "putting up a toll booth at the borders of its broadband internet access network, enabling it to unilaterally decide how much to charge for content."

Comcast's Senior Vice President of External Affairs and Public Policy Counsel Joe Waz fired back, "This is all about Level 3 gaining an unfair advantage over its competitors by gaining enormous additional capacity at no cost to itself, instead shifting the financial costs to Comcast's high speed data customers...The bottom line is that this is a good, old-fashioned commercial peering dispute."

In its FAQ statement today, Level 3 roundly disagrees. "The dispute between Level 3 and Comcast is not a peering dispute, which relates to connection of Internet backbone networks," the document says. "At issue is a fundamental interconnection disagreement between Comcast, as a provider of local high speed Internet access to consumers who pay Comcast for access to content, and Level 3, which delivers content to residential broadband access providers like Comcast in response to consumer requests. Unlike 'peering' in the Internet backbone, where competition abounds and prices have been declining steadily, Internet carriers that have content requested by Comcast subscribers have no choice but to exchange traffic with Comcast. Comcast is using this dominant position to demand payment for traffic delivered at its customers' requests. You simply cannot 'route around' Comcast to provide requested content to Comcast's subscribers."

Level 3 then goes on to make a handful of proclamations about Comcast and its intentions, including the following (taken directly from the text):

Comcast wants to use its local access network dominance as leverage to force Level 3 to pay for traffic requested by Comcast customers that already pay Comcast for access to that same content.
No other broadband access provider in the U.S. is now charging Level 3 the type of fees that Comcast is charging.
Comcast is attempting to transform the dispute with Level 3 into a peering dispute because, if it is successful in re-casting the debate, one of the traditional criteria for peering -- balance of traffic sent versus traffic received -- could be used to turn even the largest Internet backbone providers into paying customers of Comcast.
Comcast...has a strong motive to discourage competition with its cable TV service. Online distribution of movies, TV shows and other content threatens Comcast's traditional "closed" video distribution model. While Comcast disputes that the threat exists, press reports highlighting "cable cord cutting"...confirm it is real.
Level 3 advised Comcast that [it] was willing to negotiate fair and equitable economic and technical terms to achieve a balanced interconnection arrangement, including offering to use the Level 3 fiber optic network to alleviate any potential congestion on Comcast's network. When Comcast said that it had limited amounts of equipment needed to provide the requested capacity, Level 3 offered to provide Comcast with this equipment.

Level 3 ultimately compares this disagreement to the Illinois State Regulatory Commission's disagreement with "Baby Bell" Ameritech which resulted in the interconnection principles in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. These principles outline the rules for connecting local exchanges and unbundling access to them.

Microsoft announces Silverlight 5 beta will launch first half 2011

Publié: décembre 2, 2010, 8:08pm CET par Tim Conneally

In a keynote presentation at the Silverlight Firestarter event this morning, Corporate Vice President in Microsoft's developer division, Scott Guthrie officially announced Silverlight 5, and outlined its new features and 1H 2011 beta availability.

Silverlight 5 adds more than 40 new features to the Web application framework that focus on improving its streaming media functionality for users and on improving application development for engineers.

Some of the new streaming additions include: GPU-accelerated video decoding, variable speed playback which allows for user-defined, pitch-corrected slow motion, improved power saver awareness to prevent screensavers from turning on during playback, and native remote control support.

For developers using the Silverlight RIA dev environment, Guthrie presents a list of enhancements in Silverlight 5, including: improved databinding functionality (databinding expressions can now be debugged or set as breakpoints,) support for Markup extensions to allow code to be run at XAML parse time. WS-Trust support, improved text clarity and new pivot functionality, and 64-bit browser support, to name just a few.

Google still can't effectively harness user sentiment to shape search results

Publié: décembre 2, 2010, 7:26pm CET par Tim Conneally

In the last week of November, the New York Times ran an article that showed how one retailer could use customer complaints and negative reviews to boost its search ranking in Google. Within a couple of days of the article's publication, Google was receiving complaints of its own, but this time it was from the media, who questioned the search engine's ethical responsibility in the matter.

Not even a week later, Google has replied by applying a new search algorithm that detects and downranks online retailers that "provide extremely poor user experience."

"We were horrified to read about Ms. Rodriguez's dreadful experience," Google Fellow Amit Singhal said yesterday. "Even though our initial analysis pointed to this being an edge case and not a widespread problem in our search results, we immediately convened a team that looked carefully at the issue. That team developed an initial algorithmic solution, implemented it, and the solution is already live. I am here to tell you that being bad is, and hopefully will always be, bad for business in Google's search results."

Singhal did not disclose the way Google determines a good retailer from a bad one, but he did point to the unreliability of Sentiment Analysis, a method of tracking the public's collective opinion on a subject based upon the frequency of keywords in news stories, comments, reviews, and social media. It's a technique that is used daily by online marketers and branding specialists, as well as by financial analysts and others.

In theory, sentiment tracking would take negative commentary about a service and translate it into strikes against that service. The problem with this, however, is that the reliability of a source must be established to determine the "weight" of a comment; and similarly, the degree of negativity per keyword must also be weighted. For example, an expert source calling a service "poor" would be weighted differently from an anonymous source calling that same service "abysmal."

Furthermore, controversial topics tend to have more passionate commentary about them.

"If we demoted web pages that have negative comments against them, you might not be able to find information about many elected officials, not to mention a lot of important but controversial concepts," Singhal said. "So far we have not found an effective way to significantly improve search using sentiment analysis."

Latest Chromium build to include the first Flash Player sandbox

Publié: décembre 2, 2010, 4:47pm CET par Tim Conneally

Back in March, Google announced it would be bundling the Adobe Flash plug-in with future versions of the Chrome browser. Naturally, this caused a few questions to arise about how Google planned to tackle the security and stability risks inherent in Flash, and whether the plug-in would work with Chrome's secure Sandbox environment.

Yesterday, Google and Adobe announced that the next developer build of the Chromium Project, coming as an update soon, will include the first sandboxable version of Chrome's integrated Flash Player (gcswf32.dll) for users running Windows XP, Vista, and 7.

"This first iteration of Chrome's Flash Player sandbox for all Windows platforms uses a modified version of Chrome's existing sandbox technology that protects certain sensitive resources from being accessed by malicious code, while allowing applications to use less sensitive ones," Engineers Justin Schuh and Carlos Pizano wrote in Google's Chromium Blog yesterday. "This implementation is a significant first step in further reducing the potential attack surface of the browser and protecting users against common malware."

The goal is to create a fully sandboxed version of Flash Player for all platforms that support Chrome; so the plug-in, often regarded as a significant browser vulnerability, can run more safely.

"Over the next few months, we will be testing and receiving feedback on this project," Adobe's Peleus Uhley said yesterday. "Since this is a distinctly different sandboxing code base from Internet Explorer, we are essentially starting from scratch."

Verizon's 4G LTE network launches Dec 5 with plans cheaper than 3G

Publié: décembre 1, 2010, 7:47pm CET par Tim Conneally

Three years after committing to LTE as its fourth-generation network standard, Verizon Wireless announced on Wednesday that it will be launching the new network on December 5th in select U.S. cities.

A total of 38 cities in the United States will make up the first crop of LTE-enabled networks, as well as 60 airports across the country.

At a press conference today, Verizon Wireless promised the network will offer speeds between 5-12 Mbps downlink and 2-5 Mbps uplink, which echoes the figures it gave back in March. In promotions for its Boston LTE field tests in May, Verizon showed a real-world system delivering 8.55 Mbps downlink speeds and 2.80 Mbps uplink.

The first hardware to support the LTE network will be two USB modems priced at $99 after contracts and rebates. Verizon said there won't be LTE handsets until mid-2011, despite the fact that there is currently a CDMA/LTE handset from Samsung available now in the United States through MetroPCS.

As for data plans, Verizon Wireless will start at $50 per month for 5GB of data, and $80 per month for 10GB. Interestingly, this is actually cheaper than Verizon's current 3G USB Modem plans, which cost $39.99 for 250MB per month, and $59.99 for 5GB per month. We've sent an inquiry to Verizon Wireless today to see if 3G plans will be adjusted as the LTE rollout continues.

I sold my soul to Google, can I get it back?

Publié: décembre 1, 2010, 7:02pm CET par Joe Wilcox

For about six months, I've pondered writing this post asking the dreaded Google question. Following yesterday's announcement that the European Union has opened a Google antitrust investigation, I can wait no longer. My life, and perhaps yours, is immeshed in Google products and services. If there is a devil, a Great Satan of modern technology companies, Google is it. I sold my soul to Google for free services, which are disrupting -- some would say destroying -- businesses that produce valuable content and other intellectual property. In the 1970s, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates warned of the very problem Google is creating today: Making things that are inherently valuable nearly worthless.

The problem is simple: Google's business model is fundamentally about free. Someone else pays to produce content or other valuable intellectual property, around which Google wraps search keywords, adverts and services. The information giant doesn't produce content, but its entire business model is about cannibalizing others' valuable intellectual property. Google's search dominance -- anywhere from 65 percent to 90 percent share, depending on the geography and analyst crunching the numbers -- means that content creators must pay homage to free. The content's base value to the producer is at least the cost of production, but content creators are compelled to give away their stuff for less and often for free. If not, the content becomes invisible to the Internet -- or at least to the majority of people who use Google search and other services.

On my own blog, I write about broader topics than at Betanews. But sometimes there is overlap. In August 2009 I asked: "Can you Charge for News? Ask Google," which I followed up a year ago this Friday at Betanews with "Can there be a free Web if no one makes money?" The August post looked at three organizations -- Advertising Age, GigaOM and Wall Street Journal -- using different paywall mechanisms. While the organizations all charge something, not one puts content behind a true paywall. To do so would prevent Google search bots from indexing the content. In April 2010 I posted to my blog: "The Price You Pay Google for Paywalls," which explains what happens when a site fails to make offerings to the great Google god. The post profiled Reid Reviews, which is nearly invisible to Google search, because the content is behind a paywall.

What's the saying? If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears, does it make a sound? Does Reid Reviews exist? You wouldn't know from Google search, which indexes just two pages -- home and index. That's the dark secret behind true paywalls and why there is so much talk about them and so few content creators truly adopting them. I wrote in April:

If your business is content and selling online advertising around it, you must pay homage to the great Google algorithm. As was with previous age's deities, the minions must make their sacrifices before the great Google god. To receive its blessings, they must do Google's bidding -- quite literally on keywords -- and give away all their worldly possessions (e.g., content, for free). But can they give to Lord Google and keep something for themselves, too?…Yes and no. For the true worshippers, those willing to make their offerings to the Google god, the answer is yes...For others, paywalls will come at a price, in terms of traffic, pageviews and incoming links.

Heeding Bill Gates' Warning

One year ago this month, I posted "Google's 'Open Definition': Simply brilliant business, but is it evil?" The post contrasted Google and Microsoft worldviews. Microsoft produces valuable intellectual property for which it expects to be paid. Google profits from others' intellectual property, while producing little valuable content of its own. Google uses "open" to describe its business model, but that's a misnomer. I wrote in December 2009:

This so-called open approach fundamentally opposes longstanding principles of intellectual property ownership. Copyrights are a barrier to Google gaining information that it can monetize. Google takes what it gets for free -- but which someone else may have paid to produce -- gives it away for free but with eventual profit motive.

Google free isn't some altruistic openness but a business model, which its search monopoly anchors. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates laid out a different business, one where people get paid for production, in 1976 "An Open Letter to Software Hobbyists." Gates wrote:

Most of you steal your software...One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?

Gates' question "Who can afford to do professional work for nothing?" is strangely prescient of today's expanding Google free -- supported by advertising -- business model. The question also defines one of the principles behind Microsoft's worldview -- that people (or the businesses they work for) who create something have a fundamental right to profit from it.

Google defenders argue that the Web free model has in television a precedent -- people consuming content for free supported by advertising. That's no comparison at all. Television content distribution is limited by the number of broadcast networks and cable, IPTV or satellite services delivering the content. Broadcast or cable networks don't receive programming for free, they pay someone to create it. Then there are the fees paid by consumers for non-broadcast distribution, like cable or satellite services. The Web is different because there is so much content available, which dramatically reduces advertising value and for which there is more space than advertising can fill. Additionally, Google's search dominance mandates the distribution of valuable content for little or nothing. The models aren't comparable at all. In fact, free is a flop on TV. So-called free or open TV is so-called public access, and who really watches these channels.

Breaking Google's Contract is Hard

Google's search monopoly wouldn't be a problem if not for its pervasive, and often compelling, supporting free services. Seven years ago, when working as a JupiterResearch analyst, I made the same observation as some of my colleagues and peers from other firms -- that Internet users could easily give up Google by typing in another search engine's Web address. At the time, Google was the US search leader but with nowhere near today's usage share. I warned that without sticky products or services, Google couldn't rely on search because users could so easily switch.

Now Google has those sticky products and services, and it has rapidly expanded into new markets, like phone operating systems and Web browsers. Wherever Google goes, free follows. For example, Microsoft licenses Windows Phone 7 for a fee, while Google's Android is available for free. Sure Google collects fees for keyword bids or advertising, but bundled with free search and other services. Google deserves praise for making search sticky, in part by wrapping so many supporting services around it. But is the approach evil, or at least disruptive?

I'm astounded by just how many Google products or services that I use, and ask: How many and which Google services do you use? That's a question for comments. Please respond and generate some debate about Google. What do I use:

Chrome
Gmail
Google Alerts
Google Analytics
Google Blog Search
Google Books
Google Buzz
Google Checkout
Google Docs
Google Goggles
Google Earth
Google Maps
Google News
Google Reader
Google Search
Google Talk
Google Voice
Google Webmaster Tools
YouTube

Until June, when I switched to iPhone 4, Google's Nexus One was my smartphone. So I used Android, and even more Google products and services, just a few months ago. My wife still uses Nexus One, and she loves it. This is a staggering list of Google products and services. From one perspective, Google's success selling me -- and many other Internet users -- testifies to software/services development and distribution excellence. But behind it all is the free economy of search and creating products and services that stick Google users to the search monopoly. I'm here to confess that I've sold my soul to Google, but I want it back.

In the folklore of selling souls the to devil, the contract is seven years. If I count Gmail as the starting point of my first Google non-search product then seven years would be sometime in Spring 2011. I'm baffled seeing where I could replace all the Google stuff used today with something as good for less. What's cheaper than free? But my goal is to cut back something. Facebook is one option that is more attractive because of the new messaging service and some of the search and supporting services provided by Microsoft. But I wonder: Is the devil you know better than the one you don't? Content going into Facebook doesn't easily come out. I could, or you, trade one devil for another.

Bottom line: As I asserted in February, "Google is a dangerous monopoly -- more than Microsoft ever was." The post is a good primer for understanding why the European Union is investigating Google. But that investigation may miss the broader context beyond the search monopoly -- how Google's free worldview and business approach is fundamentally changing the value of content and other intellectual property produced at cost. I'll end with this question: Should people be paid for things they produce?

Quick reminder, I am on sabbatical for most of December as I work on a book project. Posting will be considerably lighter than usual.

FCC abandons 'third way' in net neutrality order up for vote this month

Publié: décembre 1, 2010, 6:55pm CET par Tim Conneally