Up For Auction: The Prehistory of the iPhone

This we know: Apple likes to release products which, in terms of general polish (if not features and reliability) feel as close to perfect as possible. This we can assume: It only gets there after making plenty of imperfect prototypes. And here’s what seems to be a rare glance of the process at work: German site iFun.de is reporting on an eBay auction for two iPhone prototypes from 2006, the year before the phone was announced–one running a primitive version of the iPhone OS.

I’m not expert enough to declare the auction legit rather than an enjoyable hoax, and the seller doesn’t explain the provenance of the phones. But judging from his feedback, he seems to be a solid eBay citizen, and the notion of getting a peek at a piece of Apple software that’s nowhere near ready for public consumption is fascinating. It lacks all of the final product’s visual splendor and contains some entertaining in-jokes (it claims it’s a Newton MessagePad 3000), but is supposedly in good enough shape to make calls and surf the Web.

Here’s a video on YouTube of the proto-OS in action:

As I write, the auction is in progress and bidding stands at $940. I suspect that Apple may ask eBay to pull the auction–it did so just a couple of weeks ago when an early iPod prototype went up for auction–but if the sale concludes successfully, someone will have himself or herself quite a conversation piece.

I still wonder, though: How would these rarities get out on the open market? You’d think that if any company on earth would keep careful tabs on its prototypes and get them back from whoever it entrusted them with, it would be Steve Jobs’ company….

The Microsoft/Yahoo Saga Continues. Again!

Microsoft may have officially ended its bid to buy Yahoo ten months ago, but its perennial flirtations with the venerable, vulnerable Web giant persist. Kevin Turner, chief operating officer of Microsoft, said that the company was keen on establishing a partnership with Yahoo’s search business, in an interview published today in the UK-based newspaper The Times.

Turner’s comments were directed toward Carol Bartz, the new chief executive of Yahoo. Privately, Microsoft has made its intentions known to Bartz and Yahoo’s board of directors, he told The Times. In November, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer raised the possibility of a search partnership between the two companies.

Ballmer then reported met with Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock in January, and Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell sung the merits of a partnership last month.

While all of this was happening, Microsoft was gearing up for a new search push behind the scenes. The company is internally testing the next generation of Windows Live Search that it presently calls “Kumo,” according to reports.

Newsflash to both companies: A partnership is your only option. In order for either company to crawl up and tackle Google, they need to combine resources. Some analysts believe that Google’s market share may be stabilizing, but Microsoft and Yahoo aren’t gaining either. It’s high time for the companies to quit the foreplay and consummate a working relationship.

Watch Out, Video Games Will Kill You!

There’s a lot of bile flying around over a British government ad campaign that takes a hearty crack at video games.

“Change4Life,” a joint effort by the British Heart Foundation, Diabetes UK and Cancer Research, encourages families to exercise and eat better — noble goals, for sure, except that the adverts behind the initiative use video games as a scapegoat, to the chagrin of the games industry. Most recently, a print ad surfaced with the text “Risk an early death, just do nothing” and an image of a child holding a Playstation controller, looking lethargic. This follows a video from Janaury that shows a clay figure playing a video game, and then zooms in to show fat cells growing inside the body.

So, now there’s an editorial by MCV’s Tim Ingham, taking the British government to task.

“Change4Life’s heart-in-mouth scapegoating of the video games industry is a troubling indictment of a hypocritical Government which flashes us grins when we generate £4 billion a year for its depleted coffers; but which then turns its back and explicitly tells parents that we’re KILLING THEIR CHILDREN,” Ingham writes. He also talks about how the big three console makers “have all moved Heaven and Earth to provide a more socially embedded and (whisper it) healthy interactive experience with this generation of consoles.”

I’m not partial to the “rah-rah, video games are perfect” argument — they are an inherently relaxed pastime, and no amount of controller-waggling can change that — but I wince whenever games are painted as the root of any particular brand of evil.

Still, I’ve got to hand it to the Brits for doing their job. They got eyes on the initiative, which, judging by the Web page, is pretty rational compared to its advertisements. The “60 Active Minutes” section doesn’t specifically attack video games; it only says that “in this modern world [children have] other things to do and plenty of reasons not to go outside and play or run around.”

Sounds about right to me, and it will be a shame if parents don’t get that far, instead taking the ads at face value and fearing video games more than they already do.

eBay Looking to Expand PayPal’s Reach

With its auction business struggling, eBay is turning to its Paypal arm for salvation. According to an BusinessWeek article, the company plans to use its annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday to focus on its plans for its payment arm.

New eBay CEO John Donohoe has already said that he believes PayPal will overtake its auction revenues in the not-too-distant future. That wouldn’t be hard to believe either: even with PayPal’s popularity as an online payment medium, here in the US where it used the most, only 12 percent of all online payments are processed through the service.

Obviously PayPal has a lot of room to grow. So how is eBay going to do it? By going after those companies and organizations that use online payments everyday. Charities and organizations rely on a lot of online donations, and some government services allow for online payments of taxes, bills, and fines. Both could easily integrate PayPal into their offerings.

In addition, the service plans to offer an SDK of sorts to encourage developers of e-commerce apps to fully integrate paypal into their offerings, such as Apple has within iTunes. This could also increase the company’s share of online payments.

With people moving away from credit cards with the recession, using services like PayPal may make sense. Like the BusinessWeek article infers, people only want to spend the money they have. Expanding at a time like this could pay dividends later as people get used to using the service regularly.

5Words for March 9th, 2009

Hello. Here’s news for you:

Apple touch-screen netbook rumors.

Best Buy visits Circuit City.

Windows Mobile Marketplace teaser appears.

Wolfram Alpha: important as Google?

The Watchmen on your iPhone.

Google eyeing Twitter? No. Yes.

Should Firefox open a store?

The compact disc turns thirty.

The world’s fastest hard disk.

The megapixel wars: over. Hopefully.

CeBit attendance down twenty percent.

Teen launches YouTube music service.

Google Docs shares documents. Accidentally.

Favorite Photos From Dooce

[NOTE FROM HARRY: Digital Media Central guest posts continue with a contribution from blogging superstar Heather Armstrong, better known as Dooce. This post--republished from Heather's site--shows off a few photos she took on a 2006 trip to Amsterdam.]

Continue reading this story…

Specs: Not Meaningless. But Getting There.

[NOTE: Here's a post that first appeared in our free T-Week newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.]

Once upon a time, I could quote every major speed and feed associated with each computer I owned from memory. I knew the CPU’s clockspeed and how much RAM I had; I knew how much memory the graphics card held and what my screen resolution was; I knew how much hard disk space I had, and how fast the CD-ROM drive was. That was just the beginning. come to think of it: I could also tell you how many megabytes were free on the hard drive, and–in the days of DOS, at least–how much free memory I had once the PC had booted. All of this made sense–every spec had a meaningful impact on my everyday productivity.

Today? I’m not saying I ignore specs–I do pay some attention when I’m making a major investment in new stuff. But I don’t obssess over them like I once did. I’m too busy thinking about other factors which play at least as big a role in determining whether I’ll be pleased with my tech investments.

Continue reading this story…

The Last Will and Testament of Circuit City

For Circuit City, it passed for good news: On Friday, a press release trumpeted the “record shopper turnout” at the failed retailer’s going-out-of-business sale and said that the liquidation proceedings were ahead of schedule. All U.S. stores are therefore closing forever as of tomorrow. And so I made what will almost certainly be my last visit ever to my local Circuit City today, six days after I found it had been reduced to selling used cleaning supplies.  Back on Monday, it still stocked some factory-fresh consumer electronics products, too–albeit at discounts too low to send anyone into a shopping frenzy. Today, with 24 hours to go, very little worth buying at any price was still available…

After the jump, a final set of fuzzy iPhone photos from the scene of the sale. I wonder how long it’ll take the landlord to fill the space, and what will replace Circuit City there–and in the 566 other storefronts that the chain’s failure leaves without a tenant?

Continue reading this story…

Hulu Goes Medieval on Boxee

At first, the kerfuffle involving the way startup Boxee used clever software to bring Hulu’s Internet TV service to TV sets was rather gentlemanly. Hulu asked Boxee to remove it, and explained why in a blog post that was almost apologetic–and which pretty much blamed it all on Hollywood content owners. Boxee thoughtfully replied in a post of its own–and complied. Unfortunate, yes, but civil.

And then Boxee cleverly used Hulu’s public RSS to bring back access to Hulu content. This time, there was no socratic dialog or genteel request–Hulu blocked Boxee from accessing its feeds.

I’m still sorting out my feelings here–the contrarian in me still believes in Letting People Make Their Own Damn Mistakes–but there’s no question that Hulu’s actions run contrary to the spirit of RSS feeds (which were designed to let folks access contact from whatever tool they pleased) and are a setback for Internet TV’s migration from the computer onto the TV. Which is a migration that’s inevitable, and a boon for consumers.

So I know who I’m ultimately rooting for here: Boxee and Boxee users (the latter group of which includes…me). Hulu hasn’t addressed this latest twist on its blog, but I hope it does so–it’s a company that’s built up a lot of cred for being surprisingly with-it for an enterprise formed by major media conglomerates, and it would be sad to see it backslide into a mode that’s paranoid, obtuse, and resistant to technological developments that help more people get at the cool things it’s doing.

One way or another, an awful lot of us will be watching Hulu or Hulu-like services on our TVs. Boxee is intrepid and innovative, and I hope it gets the opportunity to play a major role in getting us there…

[UPDATE: Dave Zatz right in the comments when he says this tug of war will be ongoing--Boxee is reporting in its blog that the Hulu feed is working again. For now.]

Microsoft Loosens its Grip on Windows Components

Fear (and fines) can be an excellent motivator. Microsoft is giving Windows 7 users more control over what Windows components are installed on their systems. In doing so, the company may appease antitrust regulators \enough to smooth the way for the OS’s release by October.

Windows 7 lets users choose which components they want installed on an à la carte basis. Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Windows DVD Maker, the Windows Gadget Platform, and the XPS document viewer, among others, are now optional.

Internet Explorer, long the bete noire of regulators, is not entirely gone. Microsoft is just removing the IE executable, and the guts of the browser remain integral parts of Windows. At this point, I do not think that it may not even be possible for Microsoft to remove it entirely without a major reinvention of Windows.

The US Department of Justice has had Windows 7 under its microscope for over a year. With the clock running on its authority to oversee Microsoft’s business practices, the DOJ has required Microsoft to submit Windows 7 for antitrust review, and has specifically expressed concerns over how Windows should handle middleware.

In January, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition notified Microsoft that it believes that company has been in violation of European competition law since 1996. The EU’s argument centers on Microsoft’s decision to bundle IE with Windows, and resolves that the remedies put in place by the company’s 2002 settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice do not make the inclusion of the browser in Windows legal under European law.

If regulators approve of the new course Microsoft has taken with middleware, it is a safe bet that Windows 7 will be preloaded on PCs by this holiday season. However, as first reported by Technologizer, Microsoft has an alternate plan to launch Windows 7 in January should it face mandates to modify the OS.

The Curious Case of Xbox Live Pricing

With video games, I’ve become accustomed to standardized prices. The exception is used games and dated titles, but most things cost the same no matter where you go. That hasn’t been the case lately with Xbox Live, Microsoft’s online gaming service.

Earlier this year, discounts on Xbox Live subscriptions started popping up in stores and online. Toys R Us, Amazon, Best Buy and Buy.com were all peddling a 13-month membership cards for $30. That’s $20 less than what Microsoft charges for a year.

When all this was going down, I sent multiple e-mails to our Microsoft PR contact, asking what’s up. Specifically, I wanted to know whether Microsoft has any pull when it comes to these price drops, and whether we’ll ever see them go away. I never got an answer.

While those dirt-cheap deals have come and gone, Microsoft itself is now getting in on the act, offering $10 discounts to anyone who upgrades from a Silver subscription to Gold (the one that lets you play online). A company rep tells Joystiq that this is a “limited time” offer, but doesn’t specify when it will end.

Meanwhile, Amazon, Newegg.com and Buy.com are still offering discounts of roughly $10. Unlike Microsoft’s offer, existing Gold subscribers can use these cards to renew their memberships.

And so the million dollar question emerges: Does all of this indicate a permanent price drop for Xbox Live? Microsoft says no, but at least $50 isn’t the be-all end-all subscription price — for now, at least. If you’re looking to start or renew your membership, shop around first.

5Words for March 6th, 2009

Not a huge news day:

Snow Leopard: June eighth? Maybe!

Buggy Firefox gets fixed fast.

Robert Scoble leaves Fast Company.

GameStop mocks Amazon resale program.

Craigslist sued over prostitution ads.

Unauthorized iPhone software stores emerge.

Palm investor has high hopes.

TV converter box coupons return.

Washington types bash BlackBerry Storm.

MacBook Pro graphics card woes?

Chinese officials are chatting online.

32-gig SD cards arrive.

Apple is going increasingly green.

Windows 7: turn off everything!

Circuit City To Close Down March 8th

All remaining Circuit City stores still open will shut down on March 8, the company said on Friday. While a few stores blew through inventory rather quickly, some still have a decent amount remaining (including mine, which had a lot of TVs and computers left). Liquidators originally planned to shut everything down by the end of this month or so, but the company has blown through the $1.7 billion in inventory rather quickly.

Thanks bad economy. Seems the only way people will buy anything these days is if it is discounted so much that nobody’s making any money.

Hulu Returns To Boxee (Kind of)

Talks have so far proven unsuccessful between Hulu and Boxee after the online TV giant asked the media-center software startup to remove its service from its application for Macs, Apple TV, and Windows.  (I’m guessing Hulu’s owners’ pet project is playing a part here), but the set-top box company has come up with a temporary workaround. Boxee’s calling it “bleeding edge.” Translation: its’s not even beta, so don’t expect it to work 100% — but it at least brings back some of the content from Hulu to the service.

Essentially, developers have opened up the service to accept RSS feeds with video. Hulu offers some of these feeds, which make it possible to stream the video included in these fees. It is not limited to Hulu: services that use RSS such as Google Video, Yahoo!, and YouTube are also compatible, as well as many other Web sites.

Also new is an “App Store” of sorts, which is being released with this update, as well as an automatic updating feature. Users would now be prompted to download software updates when they are released.

Twitter Finally Integrates Search. For Me, at Least. And for You, I Hope.

One of the great mysteries of Twitter–there are several of ‘em–is how incredibly slow it’s been to take the obvious step of making search a key feature. (Without it, Twitter is like the world’s largest, noisiest party, not that that’s bad; with it, it starts to get far more useful.) The problem seemed to get solved last July when the company bought the excellent Summize Twitter search engine. But then it failed to integrate Summize –basically, it stuck it in as a link in the footer, as if you were no more likely to use it than you were to read the privacy policy.

Today, at last, I was greeted with real, truly integrated Twitter search (which Twitter had said it was working on) when I popped into the site to see if anyone had Tweeted me. (I’m @harrymccracken there, incidentally.) It’s reportedly not available to everybody yet, but this is surely a good sign.

It’s pretty straightforward, as search should be. The upper right-hand corner of the page now sports a Trends drop-down list (which shows you hot topics at the moment)  and a search box:

Enter a search query, and results pop right in the Twitter look and feel (until now, they’ve still looked like Summize):

Twitter search, like Twitter itself, is wonderfully real-time–in fact, if you do a search and then pause for a few moments, it may tell you that there are new relevant results since you performed your initial query:

None of this is revolutionary in the least, but it’s fabulous to see it front and center. I bet it’ll have a profound effect on how folks use Twitter, and will probably increase the quality of the conversation, since it’ll be so much easier to track down relevant chatter. I know I’ll be using it a lot more, at least–I knew about the old Summize search all along, but it was always just a teensy bit too much of a hassle to call it up.

Obama Administration Appoints Top CIO

The White House press office announced today that Vivek Kundra, the current chief technology officer of Washington DC, will be assuming the position of Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the White House.

U.S. President Barack Obama rode into office backed by an unprecedentedly sophisticated grassroots campaign that leveraged Web 2.0 technologies to rally and organize his supporters. Kundra’s appointment fulfills a campaign promise to appoint a so-called technology czar to make the federal government operate more effectively.

The appointment of a top CIO is another first: the position did not exist in any previous administrations. Kundra will also have final say on government technology purchases , and will have the authority to overrule his peers at subordinate agencies.

He will likewise have responsibilities for making government information systems more interoperable to share information, while preserving (and in many cases establishing) security and privacy standards. The Washington Post has reported that Mundra will have a CTO to assist his efforts.

The impact all of this has on government contractors–as well as commercial software vendors–could be huge. Imagine if Kundra decides that the federal government should embrace open source software, for instance.

All I can say is “wow.” Government agencies have enjoyed incredible autonomy; getting CIOs to fall in line is an immense task and will require skillful political maneuvering. But it is an undertaking that may be long overdue.

Salon.com founder Scott Rosenberg’s book Dreaming in Code (a great read, btw) details how the Internal Revenue Service’s tax system modernization cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and ultimately failed.

The notion that someone could pull the plug on such bloated efforts offers taxpayers a measure of accountability, and in my opinion, that’s a very positive happening.

When President Obama took office, his staffers entered a White House that was years behind the technology curve –old, outdated equipment stymied staffers that were accustomed to the bleeding edge. Reports about security breaches persist to this day.

Kundra’s job will be a great experiment in streamlining bureaucracy, and is perhaps the most difficult a CIO has ever taken. Is a Federal CIO is a good idea, or will the position be relegated to failure?