Copps to Serve As Acting FCC Chief

President Obama has selected current Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps as acting head of the Federal Communications Commission in the wake of Kevin Martin’s resignation, the Administration announced late Thursday. The Commissioner has served with the FCC since 2001.

The selection of Copps is somewhat interesting, and his philosophy is quite different from that of Martin. He opposes media consolidation and often has come down on the opposite site of his predecessor when it comes to deregulation, so as long as Copps is the head of the FCC, expect things to be run a bit differently.

You may remember my earlier reporting indicating Julius Genachowski would head the FCC: apparently that is still rumor as it has not been announced yet, nor are any confirmation hearings scheduled.

Obama still needs to fill two more spots: there are two vacancies, one Democratic and one Republican. Typically, the majority in the agency is held by the party holding power in the White House.

Today’s Financial Results Mixed

Okay, so I can’t be 100 percent negative about this economy all the time. Besides Microsoft’s poor results and resulting job cuts which Harry covered this morning, other big name tech companies also reported results today.

Google’s results were quite respectable: $4.22 billion in revenue and earnings of $5.10 per share. This beat Wall Street expectations, who were looking for $4.12 billion and $4.96 respectively. How many times these days do you hear about a company beating The Street lately? Not much.

It’s advertising business, essentially the core of Google’s revenues, actually increased ever so slightly which came as a surprise to many. In a weakening ad market, it was expected that the so called “cost per click” would decrease during the quarter.

Employees will be happy: Google is launching a program for “underwater” stock options — where the cost of the option is higher than the current stock price — for new options that will be priced at the share price at close on March 2.

But don’t get too excited. AMD rains on our parade with results that come in below what Wall Street was expecting. The chipmaker was already struggling, so this hits doubly hard.

The company lost $1.424 billion on revenues of $1.162 billion, which means that its losses outpaced revenues. However, lets be far to AMD: this included $996 million in one-time charges, including $684 in impairment charges related to its buy of ATI.

Still, taking all that out, the company lost about 68 cents a share, considerably worse than the Wall Street predictions of 54 cents. AMD doesn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel yet: it warns that Q1 could even be worse.

Nokia joined the bad news bandwagon too, posting sales of 12.67 billion euros, down a staggering 20 percent year-over-year. Worse yet the company sees a 10 percent drop in handset sales in 2009 over the year previous.

That’s Nokia’s bread and butter, so essentially expect a full year of financial bad news out of the Finnish phone manufacturer. CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo seems concerned, saying “in recent weeks, the macroeconomic environment has deteriorated rapidly,” and the company is taking steps to insulate itself.

Meet the Technologizers: All About Ed

When I started Technologizer back in June of last year, it was never my intention to be a one man band. I knew I wanted a bunch of other folks contributing–in part because I can’t crank out an unlimited number of words a day, but mostly because I wanted the site to benefit from the voices of multiple contributors with different sensibilities and areas of expertise. I’ve been remiss in not telling you more about the people behind the bylines. I’ll correct that in a series of posts I’m calling Meet the Technologizers.

It’s utterly obvious that the first such post should be about Ed Oswald. Other than yours truly, Ed is Technologizer’s longest serving, most prolific author: He contributes one or most posts most days, and sometimes tackles stories before I’ve gotten up in the morning or after I’ve hit the hay. (He does work a different shift from me that gives him a head start–he’s based in Reading, Pennsylvania–but as far as I can tell, he never sleeps)

I first came across Ed’s work when he was a reporter over at BetaNews, a site where he worked for four years before going freelance last year. But tech reporting, it turns out, was not always in his blood:

Journalism was actually not my first choice of profession. Actually as a kid I wanted to be a TV weatherman. Seriously. However, once high school came around I joined the TV crew and took an interest in reporting. My grades in math and science just weren’t there, so I decide to pursue a career in journalism.

Getting into tech journalism seemed natural to me. I have been a tech geek for as long as I can remember. My first computer back in the early 1990s was an old Panasonic portable computer with an included thermal printer and two floppy drives that I picked up at a ham radio swap meet. Couldn’t do much on it, but I could get on Prodigy, and I was in heaven. I can even tell you my first username on there–VSJT79A. Yeah, I’m a dork.

Writing about technology is great fun to me, and comes natural. I love gadgets, and I’ll say the best part of this job is the chance to play with all the latest and greatest stuff. A techie couldn’t ask for anything more.

As you can tell from his Technologizer contributions, Ed is a generalist–but he’s particularly passionate about anything relating to digital media, as well as the products of a certain company headquartered in Cupertino, California. Other beats include “net censorship,  the intersection of politics and the Internet, and online copyright.”

Oh, and his post about a weird auction site called Swoopo ranks among this site’s biggest hits–he wrote it four months ago, and commenters continue the conversation to this day.

Outside of tech, Ed is still a weather buff. And a Volkswagen fan. And a snowboarding newbie. I’m very happy to have him on board–and I’m glad that he’s happy too.

Okay, that’s one Technologizer introduced; stay tuned, and I’ll tell you about the rest of the crew…

Seagate Ships Firmware Fix

Just in from Seagate: “Seagate has isolated a potential firmware issue in limited number of Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives and related SATA drives based on this product platform, manufactured through December 2008 … Seagate is offering a free firmware upgrade to proactively address those with potentially affected products.  This new firmware upgrade corrects compatibility issues that occurred with the firmware download provided on our support website on Jan. 16.” Customers affected are being urged to check this support page.

Pandora Placing Ads in Audio Streams

With Pandora’s struggle to stay afloat in the news a lot lately, the idea that ads may make their way into its streams did not seem such an impossibility. While it was nice to listen to the company’s offerings free of advertisement, Pandora has come dangerously close several times to shutting down simply because it was running out of money.

Venture capital, especially in this economy, is only going to get you so far.

The ads at least for now are not that intrusive. They are 15-seconds in length, and are used sporadically. Chief exec Tim Westergren says they have actually been around for quite awhile, although in recent days their use has become much more widespread.

The ads only appear in the desktop stream, but ads for the mobile stream are in the works. It may be a good idea: for whatever reason, click-through rates are higher in Pandora’s mobile applications, the company says. They will be targeted based on a user’s profile.

Westergren seems to be trying to deny this has anything to do with its ongoing issues over royalty rates, which I have a hard time believing. If you know you’re going to be paying more for something, you’re going to try to make more more money to recoup your losses. That’s just common sense.

What Does Microsoft’s Bad News Day Means For the Future of Windows?

Quarterly financial results are in from Microsoft, and they’re pretty ugly: The company’s revenue fell short of guidance by $900 million, and net income was down by 11 percent. In reaction to these numbers and general economic gloom, the company says it’s eliminating 1400 jobs today and a total of 5000 positions over the next 18 months (while hiring in some areas where the company sees growth or opportunity). At least that headcount cut is less severe than the worst rumors would have had it.

The sentence in the announcement with the most profound long-term implications for the company is this one: “Client revenue declined 8% as a result of PC market weakness and a continued shift to lower priced netbooks.” Translation: Windows Vista sold poorly during the quarter, and it did so in part because folks were buying low-cost computers that didn’t run it. Vista has been a poor fit for notebooks for two reasons–it’s too resource-hungry to run well on many of them, and it costs PC manufacturers too much. End result: Many netbooks run Windows XP or Linux.

The country’s economic mood at the moment is so miserable that it’s difficult to extrapolate what current news might mean for the future. (In fact, Microsoft announced today that it’s not giving guidance on its likely results for the rest of the year.) So it would be dangerous to assume that disappointing sales for Windows in one quarter means that the OS is entering an era of decline.But it’s fascinating to see Microsoft’s money machine break down. And if a meaningful percentage of PCs are going to cost so little from now on that Windows will be an unaffordable luxury, it means that the financial model that made Microsoft a monopolistic monolith could crumble in the years to come.

Sluggish Vista sales show just how important it is to Microsoft that Windows 7 be a reasonable operating system for netbooks. That definitely means that it must run respectably on PCs that sport low-end CPUs and skimpy amounts of RAM. But it may also force Microsoft to charge PC manufacturers less for the OS, in hopes of preventing them from opting out of Windows altogether. (I was in a Target recently that had two Asus Eee PCs for sale side-by-side: A $300 Linux model and a $350 Windows one. I’d love to know what the sales breakdown is…)

Anyone out there care to guess where Windows will be, say, three years from now? It ain’t going to disappear, and if Microsoft is fast enough on its feet it might be doing okay. But it’s possible, at least, that the planet will be noticeably less Windows-centric come 2012…

The ObamaBerry: It’s Real!

Yes, you can be the President of the United States and a denizen of the 21st century, apparently–at least when it comes to cell phones. The U.S. government has figured out how to mod a BlackBerry for super-secure communications, giving President Obama the ability to use the gizmo he feared losing for routing and personal communications. He’s relieved, I’m sure. And I’m relieved–the position is enough of a guy in a plastic bubble already, and there’s something basically unhealthy about the notion that the job is incompatible with modern means of communications. (Let’s hope we never have another leader of the free world who thinks it’s called “the Google.”)

All of which leaves one burning question: Just which BlackBerry model does the president tote? I suspect he’s an 8800 man, although I wouldn’t rule out the idea that he’s upgraded to a Bold.

In a semi-related story, the Washington Post has a good (if alarming) story on the very low-tech White House that the Obama administration is inheriting, with a great quote from spokesman Bull Burton: ” “It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari.”

Help is On Its Way

I get messages yelling–no, pleading–for help: “My PC has [fill in the blank] and I can’t [fill in another blank].” I read all of them and pluck those with universal appeal for use in the newsletter and upcoming blog. Unfortunately, I can’t personally answer every message. (Hey, it’s not that I don’t love you; it’s that I don’t have the time and wherewithal, a word I don’t often get to use, to research the dozen Help! e-mails I get each day.)

The truth is that fairly often the unique, PC-specific problems that ail you are things I can’t replicate on my PC. And believe it or not, I don’t know everything. Just ask my wife.

So this week, I’ll tell you how I find solutions for common computing woes. With my help, and your perseverance, maybe you’ll learn how to find solutions on your own and, of course, stop haranguing me for answers. (I know, it’s the old learn how-to-fish cop-out.)

Continue reading this story…

Welcome Steve Bass

During my almost fourteen years as an editor at PC World, there was no question who our most popular writer was. It was Steve Bass, who was associated with PCW for even longer than I was. As the author of a well-read column, newsletter, and blog, as well as lots of feature articles, Steve was sort of the fearless leader of a sizable army of loyal, outspoken fans. He created a community long before anyone talked about online communities, and when readers told us what they liked about PCW, it was often, essentially, “reviews, news, tips…and Steve Bass.”

Like me, Steve is still a contributing editor for PC World, but is now focusing most of his energies on his own startup gig. In his case that’s TechBite, a newsletter and site that are all Steve, all the time. I’m delighted to announce that Steve has agreed to let us borrow some of his material. It’ll appear on Technologizer in the form of blog posts, but if you want to make sure you get a full weekly dose of Bass, head over to TechBite and sign up for his newsletter, which comes out on Wednesdays.

It’s great to be associated with Steve again–and I know you’ll enjoy his contributions, whether you’re an old fan or will be encountering him for the first time.

For What They’re Worth, Some Apple Phone Patent Filings

I have no idea whether Apple will sue Palm or any other competitor for violating its intellectual property rights. But I do know this: I love patent drawings. So here are a few from Apple patent filings relating to touch interfaces and phones, which I dug up, as usual, at Google Patents. They shed no light whatsoever on Apple COO Tim Cook’s comments today about protecting the iPhone–and some are from filings for patents that haven’t been granted as of yet–but they’re fun to look at…

Report: Windows Mobile 6.5 to Launch Midyear

Microsoft will distribute Windows Mobile 6.5 to its partners after it launches the OS at the Mobile World Congress in February, according to a report by DigiTimes. Microsoft will continue to rely upon current business model of working with phone manufacuters to deliver Windows Mobile based products on the market, the report said.

DigiTimes’ sources told it that Windows Mobile 6.5-based mobile devices will hit the market in the third and fourth quarters of the year. They also threw salt on rumors that Microsoft was preparing to launch its own Zune phone.

In November, I wrote that it was plausible that rumors about Microsoft being close to announcing its answer to the iPhone, a Zune device code-named “Pink,” were true. Other coverage in the media corroborated the rumors, including a CNBC report.

Part of my reasoning was that Microsoft did not acquire Sidekick creator Danger Inc. for nothing, and it did appoint Roz Ho (former head of its Mac business unit) to steer its efforts to absorb Danger into its Entertainment and Devices division. Since that time, my opinion has evolved.

I won’t completely rule out that Microsoft could eventually ship a Zune phone, but a knowledgeable source has since convinced me that Microsoft was more interested in Danger’s services. Customers that purchase Windows Mobile devices will have access to those services, which may be branded under Zune.

With Windows Mobile 7 far on the horizon, tailored services could go a long way toward keeping the platform competitive with the likes of Apple, Google and RIM. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what is announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month. Until then, here are some leaked Windows Mobile 6.5 screen shots as posted at WMPowerUser.com.

Is Apple Going to Sue Palm Over Multi-Touch?

I don’t want to start any wild, unfounded rumors, but I just got off Apple’s conference call on its quarterly financial results, and towards the end of the call Apple COO Tim Cook started getting very protective of Apple’s intellectual property in the form of iPhone related patents. In answer to a question about iPhone competitors, he had the following to say:

“We’re very, very comfortable with where we are competitively…we like competition, as long as they don’t rip off our [intellectual property]…and if they do, we’ll go after them.”

The questioner then brought up Palm’s upcoming Pre phone and its sophisticated multi-touch interface specifically. In response, Cook said:

“I don’t want to talk about any one company…but we will not stand for having our IP ripped off and will use whatever weapons are at our disposal. I don’t know how much clearer I could be than that.”

Okay, what should we make of that? Cook didn’t say that Apple’s about to sue Palm or any other company that makes an iPhone-like phone, but he surely unloaded a warning shot across the bow of any company that would make a phone that was too iPhone-like. And while he didn’t mention multi-touch specifically, Apple has a bunch of multi-touch patents that it surely filed to help keep the iPhone unique. Here’s a nifty drawing from a patent filed in 2006–love that antenna and the fact that the phone appears to be five times as big as its user’s hand!–which I didn’t include in my recent Apple-patent extravaganza:

Who else has a multi-touch phone? T-Mobile’s Android-based G1 doesn’t have multi-touch; RIM’s BlackBerry Storm does, although not in particularly iPhone-like form. All evidence suggests that the Pre will sport the most compelling touch-based interface alternative to the iPhone when it shows up (before mid-year in theory).

While the Pre has certain iPhone-esque characteristics, I’m more struck by the many things that are wildly imaginative about its interface; I’d hate to see attacked in court as an iPhone knockoff. Palm has presumably done its best to steer clear of Apple patents all along. So if Tim Cook’s comments this afternoon had a subtext, I hope that it wasn’t “We believe the Palm Pre violates our patents, and we’re not going to let that happen.”

Apple Quarterly Sales Results: What Depression?

I’m not a financial analyst, so I hesitate to do anything that smacks of analyzing finances. But Apple just released its financial results for its first fiscal quarter and hosted a conference call to discuss them, and the news seems mostly good, especially given the dire condition of the economy. The company reported record quarterly revenue and profit, and also revealed the following:

Macs: 2.5 million Macs were sold in the quarter, representing 9 percent growth. 71% of them were notebooks; desktop sales, not surprisingly, are down. Macs sold Apple pointed out that an IDC study says that the overall PC market shrunk during the quartert.

iPods: The company sold 22.7 million iPods, representing 3 percent growth. The players have 70 percent market share. iPod revenue, however, was down.

iPhones: 4.4 million  handsets were sold in the quarter. 13.7 million were sold in calendar 2008–above the company’s once-daunting 10 million goal.

Apple Stores: The company’s 251 stores in 10 countries sold $1.7 billion of stuff in the quarter, including 515,o000 Macs–”almost half to new owners.” But per-store sales were down because of the touch economy and discounts and deals offered by third-party sellers of Apple products.

A few tidbits based on questions asked by financial analysts who were in on the call–the quotes below are from Apple COO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer:

How’s Steve Jobs? How will Apple fare without him? “Steve is the CEO of Apple, and plans to remain involved in major strategic decisions, and Tim will be responsible for day-to-day operations.” There’s an “extraordinary breadth and tenure of senior Apple executives,” and they lead a team of “wicked-smart” employees. “The values of our company are extremely well-entrenched…We’re on the earth to make good products, and that’s not changing…We believe in saying no to thousands of products…I strongly believe that Apple is doing the best work in its history.”

Will Apple continue to open new Apple Stores given the economic climate? Yes. 25 new stores in FY09, half outside the U.S.

Would Apple sell more iPhones if they cost less? “$199 with contract is compelling…we see nothing else close to it…we’re years ahead of the competition.” Apple isn’t interested in selling cheap, basic phones.

Netbooks: They represent only 3 percent of PC sales. “It’s a category we watch, but right now we think the products there are inferior, and won’t provide an experience to consumers that they will be happy with.”

Apple TV: Sales are up by a factor of three, but it’s still “a hobby” that the company is investing in because it thinks there’s something there long-term.

Snow Leopard, the next version of OS X: They’re excited about it, but no comment beyond that, and no timetable for its release.

The sale of iPhones in Wal-Mart stores: Wal-Mart’s outlets “reach a tremendous amount more people than we could reach in our stores” in areas of the country with no Apple Stores.

iPhone competitors: Most aren’t for sale yet, so it’s hard to judge them. It’s tough for developers to build for platforms which involve devices with different size screens and other variances in features. “We’re very, very comfortable with where we are competitively…we like competition, as long as they don’t rip off our [intellectual property]…and if they do, we’ll go after them.”

Does the Palm Pre’s multi-touch screen violate Apple patents? “I don’t want to talk about any one company…but we will not stand for having our IP ripped off and will use whatever weapons are at our disposal. I don’t know how much clearer I could be than that.”

Apple’s market share: The company had 16 percent unit share, 32 percent revenue share in U.S. retail in the quarter. “I think those are fantastic results, and we’re extremely proud of them.”

What percentage of the 500,000 apps downloaded from the App store were free versus paid? The company isn’t disclosing that.

Others who know way more about crunching numbers will analyze these numbers in depth, and likely poke holes in Apple’s upbeat spin. (Silicon Alley Insider is already saying that iPhone sales were disappointing.) But Apple sold scads of products and made financial progress on multiple fronts in a quarter during which much of Silicon Valley was busy reporting dismal numbers, scaling back ambitions, and laying off employees. It may not live in a reality-distortion field of its own, but its contrarian instincts still seem to be serving it well.

Blu-ray: Why it Will Stay Blue

I just got finished reading two pieces on Blu-ray: one from David Carnoy from last week on why the format will succeed; and the other from Jeremy Toeman, who countered David’s argument that it actually may be closer to failure.

Blu-ray is in a lot of trouble at this moment. It’s kind of a one-two punch: with the sinking economy, people have less money to spend on expensive gadgets. Blu-ray is still one of them, with most players still well above $200 if not $300.

Add to this the fact that streaming media is really beginning to take flight (yesterday’s Inauguaral hiccups notwithstanding), and it isn’t looking good for Sony’s format.

Yeah, Sony may have finally won a format battle, but the protracted fight may have just taken too much time and ended up wounding Blu-ray just enough that it will never be able to replace DVD.

Like Jeremy says, there just is not a whole lot of value proposition to Blu-ray. People with HDTV’s are indeed finding their upscaling DVD player looks wonderful for a third of the price of the Blu-ray player.

The only way Blu-ray is going to stay afloat here is the PS3. And you all know my opinion on that subject.

SIRIUSly Expensive: Satellite Radio Rates to Go Up

Sirius Buzz is reporting that merged satellite-radio monopolist Sirius XM is planning a price hike in March for…its best customers. The cost of getting satellite radio on additional devices beyond the first one you own go will apparently go up by $2 a month; in addition, the streaming Internet service that’s now free will cost $2.99 a month.

When the FCC approved Sirius and XM’s merger last year, it was famously based in part on promises of a three-year price freeze for service. That guarantee apparently applied only to the basic $12.95 a month charge, leaving Sirius XM able to jack up other prices associated with its service. With no direct competitor, there’s less pressure to keep prices low for fear the other guy will undercut them.

Well, maybe. Satellite radio is in dire danger of being rendered irrelevant over the next few years by cell phones that stream a bevy of music, news, and talk stations for no cost beyond standard monthly data fees. Already, my iPhone gets Pandora, Last.FM, Slacker, AOL Radio, NPR, and a whole lot more. The company’s betting that locking up exclusive rights to stuff like Howard Stern and major-league sports will keep its services attractive, but that sounds like an expensive proposition for everybody involved.

News about price changes comes a few months after Sirius XM sprung channel changes on its customers without warning, driving some of its most faithful customers bonkers. (Take a look at the comments on the story Ed Oswald wrote at the time.) I’m still getting used to the combined company’s substitution of something called SIRIUSly Sinatra for the old High Standards station I enjoyed, and really, it’s the prospect of the Red Sox in the spring more than anything else that’s keeping me from defecting to the Internet. And the company’s apparent intention to continue with two separate brands with similar-but-not-identical channel lineups is incredibly kludgy; it leaves DJs having to give two channel numbers each time their identify the station they’re on.

I was hooked on XM for years, and would love to see satellite remain a viable, appealing broadcasting option. But Sirius XM is in a tight spot, and while raising rates may help whip its shaky balance sheet into shape, you’ve gotta think that it’ll prompt some longtime customers–especially those who own iPhones–to dump it.

Seagate to Fix Hard Drive Problems Soon

The hard drive company, which has seen its share of troubles due to the weakening economy, has another issue to worry about: failing hard drives. Users of its Barracuda 7200.11 desktop hard drive, as well as several other models including the DiamondMax 22 and other drives in the Barracuda line have been experiencing issues.

A bug in the firmware of these drives is causing them to either fail or lock-up. While data is not getting erased, it is rendered inaccessible to the user in some cases. Estimates of a rate of failure have approached 30%, although Seagate argues that it is not anywhere near that.

Seagate will offer free data recovery services to affected users through its i365 subsidiary. It also said it should have a firmware upgrade soon for those drives affected, although it looks like it will not bring back any data lost due to the fault.

More information on the exact cause of the issues may be released later today by the company, some news sources are reporting.

If you are one of the unlucky users having problems, either contact the company through the support website, or call 1-800-SEAGATE.