Zune is Fine, Microsoft Insists

Microsoft was quick to tamp down any rumor-mongering in the blogosphere about its 54% drop in Zune revenues, cautioning that the industry as a whole was down, and that its sales were in line with its expectations. In comments to Seattle P-I’s Joseph Tartakoff, Entertainment and Devices chief Robbie Bach repeatedly assured that the sales of the device were “fine.” Zune marketing chief Adam Sohn furthered Bach’s comments by adding that Zune’s limited distribution (US and Canada only) gave it little room for error — iPod is sold worldwide, thus the weakness here at home was offset by some strength abroad, and a lineup change also cannabalized sales.

What we’re still missing here Microsoft is hard numbers, so we can see exactly what your definition of “fine” really is.

My.BarackObama.com’s Porn-and-Malware Problem

An online community burgeoned out of Barack Obama’s use of Web 2.0 technologies during his campaign for the U.S. presidency. Supporters flocked to My.BarackObama.com to share blogs, videos and organized events. In the wake of that success, malicious hackers are leveraging the site in a socially engineered scheme to infect PCs with a trojan.

The hackers are embedding their My.BarackObama.com Web pages (content on the site is user generated) with links to Web sites that masquerade as YouTube, according to a report by Websense Security Labs ThreatSeeker Network. The fraudulent YouTube sites are filled with pornography, and prompt visitors to install a codec for video playback, which is really the trojan.

The good news is that today’s Web browsers don’t just automatically install software: end user interaction is required. While some people may be fooled into installing the trojan because the domain is legitimate, many will not simply because they did not recognize the My.BarackObama.com user’s Web page that directed them to it.

My.BarackObama.com is a community where people have reputations and interact with one another. I participated in the “blog wars” during the Democratic primary, and know whose URLs I would trust to click on. The trojan’s creators are plastering links to the malicious pages around the Web without regard for that community dynamic. My bet: Virus definitions will be updated to foil these scams, and they won’t spread far.

Microsoft Nudges Internet Explorer 8 Closer to Release With RC1

It’s been almost eleven months since Microsoft first released a preview edition of Internet Explorer 8. It’s still not shipping in final form, but it looks like we’re getting close: Microsoft has given me a heads’ up that it’s unveiling a Release Candidate 1 version–that is, a nearly-final one–today. Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch tells me that IE 8 will go final when it’s ready, but he doesn’t expect this final stretch before release to be long and arduous.

Here’s the download page for the Windows XP version. Here’s the 32-bit Windows Vista version. And this one’s for 64-bit Vista. So far, there’s no Windows 7 one.

More soon, including some thoughts on the state of Microsoft’s browser…

Grumbling About GrandCentral

Like me, WebWorkerDaily’s Judi Sohn uses Google’s GrandCentral phone service, which sports an array of fancy tricks like auto-forwarding to multiple numbers at once. When Judi logged in this morning, she found her browser telling her that GrandCentral’s SSL security certificate had expired. She uses that as a springboard to fret about the future of GrandCentral in general: It’s been in closed-beta limbo for eons, and Google shows no signs of readying it for general release. She ends with the ultimate vote of no confidence: a request that Google shut down GrandCentral and help people transfer their phone numbers elsewhere.

I didn’t have the certificate problem myself, but I’ve wondered what the heck is going on with GrandCentral in these quarters before. Confession: Despite the fact that GrandCentral is beta, I use a GrandCentral number as Technologizer’s main business phone number. For the most part, I’m happy with it. But  Judi’s skepticism that GrandCentral will ever emerge from beta has me paranoid that it may go away, and that I’ll be sorry I handed out all those business cards with a GrandCentral number on them.

If nothing else, I should probably be worried about the fact that GrandCentral’s home page no longer trumpets the slogan “One Number…for Life” (here’s what the tagline looked like back when it was there, plus some additional promises about the service’s permanence):

I guess “One Number…Until Google Decides to Direct Its Attention Elsewhere and Quietly Shutters the Service” doesn’t have the same ring to it…

To be clear, Google hasn’t said that GrandCentral is at risk. Actually, it hasn’t said much of anything about the service since it acquired it. It’s conceivable that it’ll add new features and/or take it out of beta any day now. And I’ll choose to take it as a good sign that it wasn’t among the services that Google did kill or scale back a couple of weeks ago.

For now, I’m still using and liking GrandCentral, and I’m certainly not willing to join Judi Sohn’s call for Google to euthanize it. An encouraging word or two from Google would be nice, though–especially if the gist was “we’re investing in GrandCentral and intend to roll it out to all comers as soon as we think it’s ready.”

These Speakers Sound Great. And They’re…Invisible!

I had two hands-down favorites at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. One of them was the one that was everybody’s favorite: Palm’s upcoming Pre phone. The other was a little-known technology which I saw demoed in a private preview. It’s from a Boston-area startup called Emo Labs, and it’s a new technology for loudspeakers that called Edge Motion. Emo says that Edge Motion lets it build “invisible loudspeakers” for incorporation into TVs, computer displays, notebooks, and another devices with screens–and that its technology is the first all-new development in speaker design in decades. Judging from the sneak peek I saw, that isn’t hype.

Continue reading this story…

Want the Windows 7 Beta? Act Fast!

Microsoft was planning to pull the public beta of Windows 7 off its site today. Based on popular demand, it’s decided to extend availability–but only until February 10th. (If you start snagging the beta by February 10th, you have until the 12th to complete the download.) More details here, and here’s the download page itself.

Should you try Windows 7 at this point? Yes, if you’re intrigued, have some time to devote to the project, and can do it without messing up an installation of Windows which you need to preserve as it is for work or play. (The beta will time out in August.) It’s the most promising Windows beta since…well, let’s see. Probably Windows 2000. It’s not perfect or even close, but I’d much rather spend time in it than in Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

Next big question: With the beta winding down, what’s Microsoft’s roadmap for all the rest of the steps between right now and general availability of the operating system? I hope we’ll get at least a few details in the not-too-distant future

25 Ways to Celebrate the Mac’s 25th Anniversary

As my colleague Ed Oswald noted yesterday, today marks the 25th anniversary of Apple’s original Macintosh. That first Mac wasn’t an utter departure from anything else on the market (you could make the case that Apple’s 1983 Lisa was the more innovative machine, albeit an unsuccessful one). And it wasn’t perfect (with only 128K of RAM, in fact, it was downright unusable). But the first Mac was and is the most influential computer ever released, and if you insisted that its unveiling was the most important technology product announcement of all time, I wouldn’t try to argue you out of it.

So its anniversary is worth celebrating–whether or not you remember the launch, and even if you’ve never used a Mac in your life. After the jump, 25 ways you can do so right now, without even leaving your seat…

Continue reading this story…

Apple Nano Settlement Reached, Lawyers Make a Windfall

Shortly after the first-generation iPod Nano launched, it became apparent that they scratched far too easily. That inspired one disgruntled customer to blog about his complaints, leading some enterprising lawyers to contacted him. A lawsuit was born, and four years on, a $22 million settlement has been reached.

Apple tacitly acknowledged the problem when it began to ship Nanos with protective slipcovers. Customers that bought their Nanos before protective covers were included with the product are entitled to recover $25 in restitution; customers that received covers will be eligible for $15, according to CNBC. The lawyers that sued Apple stand to gain $4 million–a very lucrative payout.

The suit alleged that the Nanos’ screens were not coated to protect against scratches. Jason Tomczak, the gentleman whose blogging inspired the lawsuit, said that his nano had become unreadable after a relatively short period of time.

I highly doubt that many of those first generation Nano owners still use their devices–including Mr. Tomczak (his is probably sequestered in an evidence bag). I’ll postulate that Apple understood its customers upgrade frequently, and decided that scratch resistance was not worth the expense.

Apple should not have shipped the Nano with such a defect. There is no way that Apple could not know that the devices would be passing in and out of people’s pockets, colliding with coins and keys. It would have been simpler and more cost effective to issue $25 checks four years ago, when its customers were unhappy in the first place.

Zune’s Swoon–Doom Soon?

Podcasting News’s Elisabeth Lewin notes an interesting tidbit in Microsoft’s Form 10-Q SEC filing: Microsoft says that its Zune-related revenue “decreased by $100 or 54% reflecting a decrease in device sales.”

The 10-Q doesn’t seem to say how many Zunes Microsoft sold, and the company has slashed prices. So it’s a little tough to tell whether the plummeting revenue stems from consumers not buying Zunes or from them buying cheaper Zunes. As a frame of reference, Apple reported earlier this week that it sold three percent more iPods in the last quarter than it did a year ago, but made 16 percent less dough doing so.

No matter how you slice it, you can’t turn Microsoft’s Zune revenue number into evidence that the company is making any real inroads on the iPod hegemony. In an era of Microsoft layoffs, cutbacks, and other tough decisions, does that mean that Zune is toast? Tough to say. If you consider Zune to be an MP3 player, it appears to be a disappointing seller that’s in decline, and doing away with it might make sense. But I’m assuming that Microsoft sees Zune as a platform–involving devices, services, and software–and that there’s a good chance it sees it as being strategic enough that’ll continue to invest.

Even so, the Zune name feels permanently tarnished. Suggestion: Microsoft has another entertainment-related brand that’s thriving and which overlaps increasingly with the Zune’s domain. That would be Xbox. Might it be time to retire the Zune name and roll the platform into the Xbox universe?

Al Gore+Google Earth=?

Google Earth has scheduled an event for Monday after next to “announce the next big step in the evolution of Google Earth.” It’s at the snazzy new California Academy of Sciences science museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, and among the speakers is former Vice President Al Gore. Also attending are representatives of the National Geographic Society, including ocean explorer Sylvia Earle.

I don’t know the specifics of the news, but over at CNet, Stephen Shankland is speculating that it might involve 3D maps of the world’s oceans. Sounds logical enough. I plan to attend the event, and will let you know what transpires.

Hey Microsoft, Got a Spare $8.5 Billion Lying Around?

I’ve used this metaphor before, but I can’t shake it out of my head: In the case of the class-action lawsuits over the “Windows Vista Capable” stickers that were slapped on PCs before Vista’s release, Microsoft resembles nobody so much as Wile E. “Super Genius” Coyote. I’m not a fan of most class-action lawsuits and don’t instinctively root against big corporations. But by leading consumers to think that PCs would run Vista decently when they could in fact only run the most basic version–the one without the “Aero” interface that was Vista’s signature feature–Microsoft catapulted a giant boulder into the air over its own head. It may not deserve to get crushed by it, but it finds itself in an exceptionally sticky situation as a direct result of its own actions.

Over at Computerworld, Gregg Keizer has an update on the case. The judge has unsealed documents including expert testimony for the plaintiffs that says that if Microsoft were to forced to spring for upgrades for every single PC sold as being “Windows Vista Capable” that wasn’t Aero-read–which was nearly 20 million laptops and desktops–it could cost the company between $3.92 and $8.52 billion. Which, even if you’re Microsoft, doesn’t meet any standard definition of chump change.

I haven’t done the math on whether those calculations are realistic, and last time I checked, I wasn’t a judge or a lawyer. But I do think that Microsoft gave millions of people a false impression in order to spur PC sales when it would have been entirely possible to avoid doing so. Even if it wins this case, it’s presumably poured a heck of a lot of time and money into defending itself that it would have preferred not to invest. I hope that the company, unlike Wile E., learns a lesson here–and doesn’t propel this particular type of boulder into the air again. (The company hasn’t released any news yet about certification programs for Windows 7, but I’m assuming it’ll be very, very careful this time around…)

Is EA Trying to Sims-ify Spore?

My, how Spore is multiplying.

When the much-hyped evolution sim was released in September, along with it came Spore Creatures for the Nintendo DS and Spore Origins for mobile phones. In November, we got the Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack — basically a cache of extra appendages to tinker with — and come springtime we’ll get a full expansion in Spore: Galactic Adventures.

But wait, there’s more.

Yesterday, Electronic Arts confirmed Spore Hero for the Wii and Spore Hero Arena for the DS, plus a PC spin-off called Spore Creature Keeper. If you lost count, that’s seven additional Spore games, spin-offs and expansions to hit shelves within more or less a year of the original game’s release.

It occurs to me that EA is trying to “Sims-ify” Spore — i.e., turn it into a massive brand that can be continually milked for more revenue. This isn’t a major revelation, given that the guy behind Spore, Will Wright, also created the Sims, and that the franchise has sold over 100 million copies worldwide. Still, this time around it seems forced.

Wikipedia, of all places, gives a nice, scanable overview of how the Sims brand was distributed over time. It started with the main game in January 2000, followed by the “Livin’ Large” expansion pack in August 2000. The next add-on didn’t come until April 2001, and after that it was a steady stream of roughly bi-annual expansions. The official sequel came in 2004, and a third title is coming this year.

The current cycle with Spore seems to be moving faster. Granted, that’s because the approach is different, with EA immediately expanding the brand beyond the PC, but I wonder how effective that will be for Wii and DS owners who haven’t played the main game. Even if you are a big Spore fan and are willing to enjoy the franchise across multiple platforms, all these auxiliary releases — so soon from the original launch date — must feel like an overload.

Palm Responds to Apple iPhone Patent Warnings

First, Apple COO Tim Cook seemed to throw a brushback pitch at Palm’s upcoming Pre phone by talking about how vigorously Apple would defend its intellectual property immediately after a financial analyst had mentioned the Pre. Which left lots of folks with the impression that he might be suggesting that the Pre violated Apple patents on multi-touch interfaces and/or other iPhone-related patents.

Now Palm PR head Lynn Fox has responded to the idea that the Pre might tread too closely to iPhone territory, in the form of a quote in a story by All Things Digital’s John Paczkowski:

Palm has a long history of innovation that is reflected in our products and robust patent portfolio (31 pages of patents in Google Patent Search), and we have long been recognized for our fundamental patents in the mobile space,” she told Digital Daily. “If faced with legal action, we are confident that we have the tools necessary to defend ourselves.”

I’ve said that I hope Apple doesn’t sue Palm, but I should clarify: Apple has every right to enforce its patents, but I hope it turns out that it doesn’t have grounds to sue Palm. The Pre has some iPhone-like characteristics, but overall, it’s no iPhone wannabee.  It’s a strikingly imaginative device–the most inventive new phone since the first iPhone–and it would be a shame if legal woes interfered with its release. We’ll see.

I’ll end with an image from a 1996 Palm patent filing that probably won’t protect the company from Apple’s current legal maneuverings, should there be any…but so help me, I love old patent drawings:

Has Microsoft Flight Simulator Been Canceled after 29 Years?

Reports this morning have it that Microsoft’s venerable Flight Simulator game may be realistically simulating the fate of Pan Am, Eastern, and TWA: Supposedly the Microsoft layoffs announced yesterday include the program’s entire development team, and it’s therefore being discontinued. I hope it’s a false alarm. I’ve never sat inside FS’s cockpit even once, but I feel like it’s been part of my life for almost as long as I’ve been using personal computers (that would be 31 years as of this summer).

Continue reading this story…

Happy 25th, Apple Macintosh

Saturday, January 24 marks the 25th anniversary of the computer that arguably changed the PC forever: the Apple Macintosh. That winter day in 1984, a much younger (and healthier) Steve Jobs ignited the PC revolution with a computer that was easy to use, featured the first consumer computer GUI, and a mouse.

Macintosh’s introduction was heralded by what many consider one of the best commercials of all time, a spot which aired during Super Bowl XVIII two days before its release.

The first Mac was not light on the pocketbook: it set the consumer back $2,495 (in today’s dollars, that would be around $5,000). The rest of its stats by todays standards would be laughable: a 8MHz Motorola processor, 128KB of DRAM, a 9-inch black and white CRT screen, a 3.5-inch floppy drive, and no internal hard-disk storage.

In fact, to run programs, you first had to load the OS onto RAM, then eject and run whatever disk containing the program you desired. MacPaint and MacWrite came bundled with the product: Microsoft Word was also available.

One thing killed the first Macintosh, and that was its lack of memory and inability to be upgraded. This problem would eventually all but orphan the original Mac, as Apple moved on to a 512KB memory model and the Plus, which could run more advanced programs.

Essentially one year after its launch, the Macintosh 128K was already obsolete.

Boxee Gets ABC

Minor confession: I’m not much of a watcher of current episodic network television. So even though I’m trying to do as much of my TV watching via Boxee’s media center software as possible, the fact that Boxee is adding Lost and ABC’s streaming shows to its lineup doesn’t mean much to me personally. I’ll be more psyched when more news and really old shows (What’s My Line, anyone?) are available.

But I’m still pleased by the ABC news: The biggest issue about Internet TV in general and Boxee in specific is that the selection of stuff is extremely scattershot, so the more quickly Boxee adds as much programming as possible, the better. It’ll be fabulous when there’s a way to get convenient access to all major-media streaming TV programming in one place, and it would be nifty if an inventive startup like Boxee got there first.

ABC is available in Boxee’s Mac version now; the company hopes to have it working in the Apple TV version in a few days; Linux and Windows support is in the works.