Technologizer

If ever a decade began dumb, it was this one.* When clocks struck midnight on January 1st and the dreaded Y2K bug turned out to be nothing but a mild irritant, it proved once again that the experts often don’t know what the heck they’re talking about.

Which was a relief–and a fitting way to kick off the technological era we’ve lived in ever since. Yes, it’s been an amazing time. But it’s also seen more than its share of misbegotten decisions, bizarre dramas, pointless hype, and lackluster products and technologies–often involving the same people and companies responsible for all the amazing stuff.

So–with a respectful tip of the Technologizer hat to Business 2.0 and Fortune’s 101 Dumbest Moments in Business and, of course, to Esquire’s Dubious Achievement Awards–let’s recap, shall we?

Continue reading this story…

German sci-fi fans who were lucky enough to score tickets to an early 3D preview of Jame Cameron’s Avatar were stymied by a failure in the movie’s DRM system. Some theaters were unable to decrypt the video, and some exasperated projectionists reverted back to the 2D version, according to reports.

The film’s digital masters were ‘protected’ by a DRM system that was comprised of certificates and time-sensitive keys that were necessary to authenticate a theater’s equipment–from hard drives down to the projector. That system, which incidentally sounds like it was designed by Rube Goldberg, failed to perform as required to…play the movie.

I understand the studio’s desire to protect its intellectual property. Scores of people doubtlessly worked very hard to produce the film, and it was a $237 million investment. Bootleggers will be trying to obtain the film, and probably eventually succeed in pirating the movie across FTPs and torrent streams.

Let’s be serious:  DRM will not stop a carefully concealed camcorder. With such draconian DRM in place, there should have been failsafes so that it would not affect the moviegoers’ experience.

DRM should be seamless and invisible to the user, but I don’t get why the theater had to use the system anyway given the file size was reported to be 150GB. How many people would actually share that? Screener DVDs are a more likely source of piracy.

If you mashed up Twitter and Google Alerts, you might get something a little like the new version of Trackle that launched today. The site’s been around for awhile, letting you construct alerts on just about any subject and get them delivered to your e-mail or your phone (or just to Trackle’s own inbox). Now it lets users share the alerts they’ve crafted with everybody else, making the service feel more like a community.

Continue reading this story…

Earlier this week, I pondered the ways in which I might pay for the Playstation Network, because Sony is considering a premium version of its online service for next year, but hasn’t explained what it will entail.

It appears that Sony’s been asking some of its customers to ponder as well, with a survey conducted by IPSOS Online Research that lists 22 potential features. Not all the features are included in every plan, and survey takers were asked to choose the plan the like best. Kotaku has that entire survey posted here, but I’d still treat it as a rumor because it was sent in by a reader, not officially from IPSOS. And it’s just a survey, so there’s a chance none of these features will make the cut.

It’s important to note that the survey doesn’t mention any existing PSN features. Sony has said that everything you currently get for free will remain free. With that in mind, I’m torn between “Option 1″ and “Option 2,” both of which are proposed for $70 per year. Here are some highlights from those plans:

Access to Beta Games: I don’t really enjoy playing part of a game in unfinished form, but I could see some members digging the idea of exclusive early access. That’s what makes E3 such a rush for us press types.

Cross-Game Voice Chat: Oh heck no. This oft-requested feature, which Xbox Live has offered since the Xbox 360’s debut, really ought to be free. But I’d really like to have it either way.

Full Title Trial – First Hour Free: Now we’re talking. If you avoid one game purchase because you hated the trial, the PSN membership pays for itself.

Free Access to PSOne Classics, PSP Minis and PSP/PS3 Themes: At last, a huge perk in the form of actual games to play. This would be a dealmaker for me.

Discounts on Store Content: Technologizer reader ReynaldoRiv had this on his wishlist. Someone at Sony must’ve been listening.

Loyalty Program Rewards: And I had this on mine. It’s only fair to butter up your best customers.

Catch-Up TV: I don’t know enough about this to give a “yay” or “nay,” but I’m intrigued.

The features in this survey are less ambitious than the ones I dreamed up, but they’re also more practical in the short-term. If Sony fused together all the above options in one package, I’d probably pay for that, too.

What, you expected AT&T’s network to come to its knees? In what could probably be called the most foregone conclusion in the world of technology in quite some time, AT&T’s network withstood the assault of what probably was not more than a handful of users taking a piece of satire way too far. I checked my phone here in Reading, Pa. and didn’t really notice much of anything other than the typical peak-hour slowness. Others across the country reported similar results, according to the Facebook group.

Of course AT&T is not going to feed the troll: the company’s response was that there was “no impact” on service as a result of this. Reading the Facebook page is somewhat amusing, too. A lot of folks there seem to be determined to make some impact — in fact one is already recommending Round 2. Good lord.

As for Lyons, what does he have to say about this (edited for a family site, here’s the full post):

“I shall never speak of this again. Nor should you. Peace be upon you.”

Thank god.

Once upon a time, renegade OS X clone maker Psystar thought it might sell a million pseudoMacs a month. Now, in the wake of Apple’s court victories, it’s going away. Which leaves only one way to get an OS X computer that isn’t an Apple computer: Do it yourself…

While many are focusing on market share aspects of a report from mobile ad company AdMob today, there are some other interesting factoids within the report that I found especially prescient considering discussions I’ve been having with my friends lately.

Those partial to Microsoft have started to float the argument that Windows Mobile is still far more popular overseas, with Apple the also-ran in those markets. If we’re going to believe AdMob’s work, that’s probably not a very sturdy argument to make.

Since the iPhone and iPod touch are on the same platform, its somewhat difficult to gauge the true growth of iPhones overseas as they are not separated when it comes to detection (how these statistics are compiled). Either way Apple’s growth in some of these markets is very impressive, and should worry the fans of Redmond.

In Japan, the user base has grown by nearly 350 percent, followed by France which has seen a 300 percent increase. Australia, China, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands all grew by more than 200 percent during the year. More details of the report can be found in this PDF.

As should be expected iPhone growth in Canada and the US is lagging, although still up 100 percent. There’s a pretty straightforward and simple explanation for this: by far this is the most established market for the device as it has been here the longest.

I think these numbers are certainly beginning to put to rest the assumption by some in Microsoft that Apple can not compete outside of the US. Yes, Cupertino’s struggling mightily selling computers outside of its home markets — but apparently that’s not preventing people from picking up an iPhone.

When you add to this the data that’s showing Android’s doing well, like Colin Gibbs over at GigaOm is reporting, and data that shows RIM is also hitting its stride, you have to wonder if Microsoft really stands a chance to do much of anything in the mobile space.

Who knows, could we soon be talking about a “Halo effect” when it comes to the iPhone, too?

Caveat: As Technologizer reader John Baxter points out in the comments, we should take into account that some of these numbers on growth may be skewed due to the fact that these are emerging markets for Apple’s iPhone. Like the US and Canada, it’s probably fairly likely we’ll see a dramatic drop off in growth here too as the market saturates.

If the iPhone is really no longer an AT&T exclusive in the new year as many analysts are now suggesting and/or predicting, at least one carrier doesn’t want to get caught with its pants down. Verizon Wireless says it has made the changes it would need to make to its network in order to handle what would obviously be a new surge in data traffic.

Better to be safe than sorry, I guess?

Quite a surprising statement considering the company is spending quite a bit of money putting down Apple in its “Droid Does” ads that we’ve all been getting peppered with for the past two months plus. But in a way it’s not because Verizon has watched as AT&T’s network problems have become a serious liability to the company, “Operation Chokehold” notwithstanding.

“Absolutely, I think we could handle it,” Verizon Wireless CTO Anthony Melone told BusinessWeek in an interview. Now, lets not get the story twisted here: Melone is not saying there is any deal yet, but its pretty much common knowledge that the two sides have at least discussed possible partnerships in the past.

Verizon has gone the opposite way of AT&T over the past several years in investing in network infrastructure, spending about $19 billion on the network itself over the past three years. As Gizmodo points out, AT&T’s spending since the iPhone launch on the network itself has actually decreased.

With Verizon readily talking about it’s iPhone readiness, I wonder if T-Mobile USA will start making overtures as well. The carrier has been mentioned much more often recently as a logical next carrier for the device, as it would take minimal changes (adding TMUS’ 1700MHz band to the 3G chip of the iPhone) for it to work.

Going to Verizon — and CDMA — requires a much more involved rework of the device. Going to be an interesting 2010 in iPhoneland, that’s for sure.

Now that the first beta of Google’s Chrome browser for OS X is out, Google is telling Mac users about it. At the moment, it’s doing so via a promotional dialog box which I’m seeing near the upper right-hand corner of the Google home page in both Safari and Firefox. One that’s about as splashy and pushy as anything Google ever puts there.

Faster than what? The logical assumption is that Google’s saying it’s faster than the browser you’re using now. I haven’t seen any browser benchmarks from the company–comprehensive or otherwise–but when I ran the SunSpider JavaScript test on all the major OS X browsers, Safari performed best. As I said in that story, it was essentially a wash with Chrome (Firefox 3.5 was considerably slower). The test only tells you so much about browser performance.  And maybe Google, like Microsoft, is saying that “fast” is about more than traditional speed tests.

But I remain curious: Is Google specifically saying that Chrome for OS X is a faster browser than Safari? (Apple still touts Safari as “the world’s fastest browser,” although as far as I know, it hasn’t compared Safari to the Chrome beta.)

Some of us are a wee bit fixated on the fate of nifty music service Lala now that it’s part of Apple. Peter Burroughs has a story in BusinessWeek with a hopeful-sounding headline: “Apple Will Let Google Continue Using Lala.” It refers to the agreement between Google and Lala that puts links to free Lala music (and purchase options) in some of Google’s music-related search results.

After reading Burroughs’ story, I’m not so sure how hopeful to feel. Google’s RJ Pittman told him that Apple and Google “are agreeing to continue to leave the service as is” and that Lala will “remain live for the forseeable future.” But it’s Apple that’s going to determine Lala’s future–and Apple spokesman Steve Downling’s only comment to Burroughs was that Apple doesn’t comment on acquisitions.

So I’m left with all the same questions I’ve had since news of the acquisition broke.

How much (if any) of Lala will make its way into iTunes and/or other Apple services such as MobileMe? Lala lets you buy streaming only-songs for a dime apiece (and listen to them via an interface that already looks like iTunes in your browser); it gives you access to streaming versions of songs you possess in MP3 form; and it has some cool community features that let you peek at what your pals are listening to. A Lala-ized iTunes could be wonderful, but it’s also possible that Apple bought Lala for its engineering talent, not its service.

Will the Lala site and service continue on? It’s hard to believe that Apple would just leave it as. Over time, it’s surely either going to get sucked into iTunes, or cease to exist.

Will Apple put Lala’s impressive iPhone app on the iPhone App Store? (“Approve” doesn’t feel like the right word when you’re talking about a piece of software now owned by Apple.) It’s not necessarily a terrible sign if it doesn’t show up–Apple may merely be so excited about the app that it’s working on an Apple-ized version.

Will the Google deal continue on? I hope so, but I won’t be traumatized if it doesn’t–in part because Google has a similar arrangement with iLike.

Apple almost certainly isn’t going to share any of its intentions for Lala–whatever happens will just  happen. Building any of the service’s capabilities into iTunes would take a while, so I’m not going to feel downright pessimistic until (A) any aspects of Lala in its current form go away, and /or (B) major new releases of iTunes and/or the iPhone arrive with no signs of Lala influence. In the short term, no news may well be good news…

Twitter’s home page was replaced this evening by a message claiming to be the work of “the Iranian Cyber Army.” Then most of the site went down. At the moment, it seems to back up, but only sort of–I still can’t get into the status page and blog.  You gotta wonder whether Twitter’s doing everything it can to keep the site safe, and whether it’ll give us all the gory details on how this happened…

I have been sitting here watching in disbelief over the past few days, feeling somewhat embarrassed about my profession at large.  Much of the tech media that has been tripping over themselves to treat Dan Lyons’ satirical movement to bring AT&T’s network to its knees as something akin to the Boston Tea Party — a defining moment that affects real change.

It’s been called by some as a “grassroots movement.” Another says that this, and I quote, “should be big lesson to any company about how social media is changing customer relations.” Others are lashing out at Lyons himself, calling him irresponsible for using his blog for exactly what it is, a satirical look into the world of Apple. To say the amount of bloviating on this topic has been astounding would be an understatement.

Earth to the media: Dan Lyons is a satirist, not Che Guevara!

Lets be clear here: there is absolutely no evidence that “Chokehold” will be anything more than a blip on AT&T’s daily graphs of data traffic. All of the hype surrounding the event has been manufactured by the tech media itself — and unfortunately, by some who have a large readership and lots of influence — and not by Lyons himself. If anything, I believe Mr. Lyons has been unfairly attacked and criticized for something that we have all essentially foisted upon him.

Remember that Facebook group we talked about in our initial coverage? It’s only up to 3,800 members — way smaller than other protest groups which have effected real change. If we are going to gauge participation by social media, we should look to Twitter too. A cursory look shows a lot of discussion, but its exactly that — talk. Call me skeptical, but its very hard to get an actual effective protest together. People are just too lazy these days, frankly.

If this is even in the least bit successful, we shouldn’t thank its creator. Rather, we should blame the tech media for making a huge deal out of a joke. Have we become so desperate for news that we’re practically manufacturing an event?

No, I’m not denying AT&T’s network sucks. In a lot of the country it does. But its not that bad that its going to bring hordes of people to the point of streaming their hearts out at 12 noon pacific tomorrow in some wild attempt at sabotage wireless data style. It’s just not going to happen. It’s time that the tech media takes a step back, and turns the hype machine off. Our readers deserve more than this.

Every week, it seems like there’s a new study that either praises or decries Nintendo’s Wii as a vehicle for getting into shape.

The most recent comes from the University of Mississippi. The study loaned Wii Fit units to eight families, who spent three months without the console and Balance Board, and three months using it. In conclusion, moderate Wii Fit use “may have provided insufficient stimulus for fitness changes,” said the study.

Nintendo would beg to differ. The company recently funded a study by the National Institute of Health and Nutrition in Tokyo, which found that a third of the games in Wii Fit and Wii Sports meet the American Health Association’s guidelines for moderate exercise.

Yet another recent study from the American Council on Exercise found that the Wii Fit provides “underwhelming” health benefits. However, ACE conceded that Wii Sports is more strenuous, and could help people meet minimum intensity guidelines for exercise.

Do we really need all these studies to declare whether the Wii is an exercise machine? Of course not. If you’re sweating a little after a round of Wii Sports Boxing, chances are you got some exercise. You also probably understand that it’s less of a work out than actual boxing, but it’s better than sitting on the couch. Duh.

The bigger problem with trying to quantify the Wii’s fitness value is that there are too many variables. You can play Wii Sports Tennis from your couch, or you can flail around like maniac. You can play Wii Fit every day for two months, and then never touch it again. Like any exercise, the Wii is totally dependent on what you put into it.

Indeed, the most important point in the University of Mississippi study is glossed over as an afterthought: After three months, the amount of time families spent playing Wii Fit dropped by 82 percent. Sounds a lot like my gym-going habits.

I can’t say it better than Kotaku editor Brian Crecente did in a Forbes feature on the matter: “What Nintendo did is they tapped into that desire people have to be healthier… Everyone wants to work out, but nobody really wants to put the effort into it.”

No amount of scientific fitness measurements can account for that.

I kinda doubt that I’ll ever own an Audi A8–I’m still perfectly pleased with my 2004 Mazda 3. But the new A8 does have an option I’d kill for: built-in Google Earth.

With the exception of a search appliance for internal use by businesses, Google has stayed out of the hardware business. Now rumor has it that we may see a Google-branded phone shortly, and maybe even a Google netbook late next year. My friend Jason Hiner says that Google needs to be cautious if it plans to go into the physical-object biz in a big way.

T-Poll time:

This is certainly comforting: US officials have disclosed that Iraqi militants have found a way to hack into US Predator drone aircraft in an effort that is possibly being funded by Iran. The breach could be providing them with information that could help them evade capture by US authorities, and they could be doing it for as little as $25.95.

I wish I was kidding here, but the insurgents have used programs like SkyGrabber — a program that allows for satellite data capture — to obtain access into the drone’s video fees. I guess there’s some good news here: that’s all they’ve apparently been able to access, and officials stress they have not lost control of any aircraft as a result of the break-ins.

Military officials have apparently known about the issue since late last year, when a laptop from a Shiite militant contained drone video feeds. Since then several other laptops have been confiscated with similar data found. Evidence has been found in Afghanistan of hacking as well, indicating our enemies may also be spreading this information. So, where is this loophole that’s allowing people to get in? According to officials, its in the the downlink which has no encryption. They have known about the issue since the 1990s, but never did anything about it because they assumed our enemies wouldn’t know about it.

It’s not immediately clear if anything will be done in the short term. Encrypting data would necessitate that all drones be retrofitted with new hardware, which the government says it is concerned would cause delays. Additionally, encryption could pose issues in sharing data with the military and its allies, they argue.

“There’s a balance between pragmatics and sophistication,” former Air Force Secretary Mike Wynne told the WSJ. Doesn’t provide me much comfort. Any way you look at it, our Predator drones have a serious security hole, which should worry any of us with loved ones over there that these things are supposed to be protecting.