5Words for Thursday, July 16 2009

How to sync Pre music now.

Twitter talks about document leak.

Will Twitter sue over leak?

IDC: Apple’s sales rank slips.

Bad news, everybody: spam works.

The joy of Polaroid SX-70.

The cost of smartphone ownership.

Microsoft Stores Won’t Fall Far from Apple’s Tree

When Microsoft opens its retail stores this far, look no further than your local Apple store to find one. The software giant has designs to open many of its store in close proximity to its rival, according to reports.

Microsoft announced its intention to open retail stores in February. It placed David Porter, a new Microsoft corporate vice president and 25-year Wal-Mart veteran, as the executive in charge of its retail endeavors.

The notion that a Microsoft store could succeed has faced skepticism. Apple sells complete systems; whereas, Microsoft primarily remains a software company. Porter is working with Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, but throwing an Xbox in a window doesn’t exactly replicate the shopping experience of the Apple store.

When Microsoft announced its intentions to open store, I wrote that selling software in retail stores should be about as successful as opening a video rental business in 2010 (and made a crack comparing its stores to Wasabi flavored ice cream). My colleague Harry McCracken believes that a Microsoft store makes as much sense as a Procter & Gamble store.

Without having been privy to Microsoft’s plans, I still feel that way. I recently stopped by the Apple store at Fifth Avenue in Manhattan (the one with the giant glass cube out front) to exchange a faulty iPhone, and was amazed by how psyched people were to be giving their money to Apple. That store alone clears nearly $500 million a year in sales.

What’s more, it’s located across the street from Central Park, and it was a beautiful day when I visited. People seemed to be just as happy inside of the store as they were strolling by the park. Anyone out there want to argue that Microsoft customers have the same affinity for that company’s products?

Apple to the Pre: Your Masquerade is Over

File this one under Utterly Unsurprising News Stories: Apple’s new version of iTunes blocks the technique that the Palm Pre was using to provide seamless of music and video with the Apple application. That was, of course, by far the likeliest scenario all along. Pre owners can sidestep Apple’s move by keeping with the old version of iTunes for the moment, but long-term, the Pre’s iTunes syncing–which was accomplished by tricking iTunes into thinking the Pre was an iPod–is dead.

I know it would be better for consumers if Apple opened up iTunes enough to let the Pre and other non-Apple devices sync with the application. (It might even be better for Apple, since it would help it sell music to folks who don’t own its music players and phones.) But given that iTunes isn’t designed to sync with other companies’ devices, I can’t be bitterly angry at Apple for cutting off Pre owners. Or at least this ranks pretty low on my list of things to be irked at Apple about.

I remain a little mystified by Palm’s actions to date, since the company used iTunes syncing as a selling point, even though it’s run by smart people who knew that Apple probably wouldn’t stand for it. There’s a a pretty obvious step it can take now, if it so chooses: release a piece of software for Windows and Macs that handles the iTunes syncing that it’s been doing directly. It can license the technology if it needs to. It may not be morally obligated to do something like this–at the moment, the Palm site still touts iTunes sync and uses fine print (in light gray type) to say it may not work forever:

…but I still think it would be classy on Palm’s part. Maybe it’s been planning to do something like that all along.

Resolved: Gadgets Are Incredibly Cheap

My pals at Gizmodo are conducting a fun week-long exercise in nostalgia in the form of Gizmodo ’79, a series of features about technology that’s thirty years old, and how it compares to tech circa 2009. One of the stories is Sean Fallon’s “Why You Can’t Complain About the Price of Today’s Gadgets,” which compares the price of gizmos from 1979 with current ones, taking inflation into account.

Boy, do we ever have it good today. I was a gadget hound and a PC user in 1979, but I was also fifteen years old and broke. So I mostly used stuff that belonged to other people (thanks, pop) and lusted after products I couldn’t afford, such as game consoles, VCRs, and, now that I think about it, color TV.

Reading Giz’s story reminded me that I would have had to do more lusting than buying even I’d been a grown-up with a decent amount of disposable income. An Apple II home computer with 48KB of RAM went for $2638. I’ve owned scads of computers in my life, but have never paid more than $2000 for one, but that II really cost $7770 in 2009 dollars.

If computers cost $7770 today, would I own one? Probably. But it’s not a given, and if I did plunk down that much money–possibly after having taken out a loan–I wouldn’t have anything left to spend on cell phones and fancy color printers and Wi-Fi routers and Slingboxes. It would be more like a car–a huge purchase that prevented you from being able to afford other stuff.

A world in which technology had advanced as much as it has since 1979, but prices had remained roughly constant would be one in which only really well-heeled folks would be able to enjoy all the gadgets that are in within the reach of those of us who are fortunate enough to be middle-class Americans. Remember that the next time you feel like griping about iPhone pricing or the cost of satellite radio…

Bill Gates Sees Project Natal in Windows’ Future

Microsoft tricked us by revealing its 3D motion-sensing camera at E3. At the game industry’s biggest trade show, we all assumed Project Natal would be a console peripheral for gaming, but Bill Gates says the camera will have other uses in Windows.

As part of a lengthy interview with CNet, the Microsoft chairman said Project Natal is not just for games, “but for media consumption as a whole, and even if they connect it up to Windows PCs for interacting in terms of meetings, and collaboration, and communication.”

Gates stayed pretty vague when describing how Natal might be used away from the Xbox 360. He noted that motion control could come in handy when managing movies, music and “home system type stuff.” He also said “there’s incredible value as we use [Natal] in the office connected to a Windows PC,” but the rest is left to imagination.

It’s easy to see some common ground with the Xbox 360 and Windows PCs. The obvious use is gaming, but one of the things shown during Natal’s E3 demonstration was motion-controlled menus. Instead of using a joystick or remote control, the demonstrator moved through the Xbox 360 dashboard by flicking his hand in the air. That functionality might be useful for PC entertainment hubs, so maybe Natal will be integrated with Windows Media Center.

Beyond that, I’m at a loss for ideas. The key to Natal is that it senses three axes instead of two, but what office uses or collaborations would take advantage of that? Are we looking at a reinvention of the wheel, or just tacky gimmicks? Natal is an exciting prospect for gaming and entertainment, but I fail to see how it’ll work as an office tool. It could fail miserably in that regard if it doesn’t change everything.

I Want Search Everywhere.

Microsoft and Technologizer partner Federated Media have launched BingTweets, a sort of mashup of Twitter trends and Microsoft’s search engine. The site also includes some blog posts about where search is going, and I agreed to contribute a few of ‘em in the coming weeks. The first one’s up–I called it “Towards Persistent, Pervasive Search,” and it’s about the power of having access to search tools everywhere you go. I may be the only person on the planet who wears his phone on a lanyard around his around his neck, and that’s one reason why: The more quickly and easily I can get answers to any question that pops into my head, the smarter I feel. I don’t even want to have to fish in my pocket for my iPhone or remove it from a belt clip.

I dunno if lanyarded phones will ever catch on–if so, it’ll be the first time I’ve ever been on the leading edge of a fashion trend–but I am utterly convinced that in the long run, searching for stuff on phones and other mobile devices will change the world at least as much as doing so from a browser on a PC ever did…

Sen. Franken Questions Sotomayor on Net Neutrality

No doubt the hearts of net activists around the country went aflutter when Minnesota Senator Al Franken made his very first question to Supreme Court nominee Sonya Sotomayor about net neutrality. Franken asked for her opinion on the 2005 “Brand X” decision, which net activists argue allows companies with both ISP and content interests to give their traffic precedence over other Internet traffic.

Essentially, Brand X affirmed the FCC’s decision that the Internet was an information service, and thus free of any requirements that would require it to be “open.”

Franken seemed to try to prod Sotomayor for her position on net neutrality, and she for all intents and purposes demurred, placing the work back in Congress’ hands. Sotomayor did say that as a citizen she realized the value and importance of the Internet.

Gleaning somebody’s stance on an issue from two or three minutes of questioning on the subject is not easy, but I’m not so sure that Sotomayor may be inclined to side with net neutrality as she seems to think it is a legislative issue.

This may come down to how she’ll decide cases — and she seems to lean towards deciding from already settled law, of which Brand X is already there. That could mean net activists might not have Sotomayor to count on if any future net neutrality cases make it to the high court.

In any case, I do applaud Senator Franken for bringing the issue up front and center. Equal access regardless of the content provider or ISP is important, and is an issue that should concern Internet users regardless of our political beliefs.

Google Releases Google Voice App for BlackBerry and Android. Now Let’s Hope It Releases Google Voice.

Google Voice just got more useful for BlackBerry and Android users: Google has released apps for both platforms that provide access to the service’s features. Sounds like the most significant aspect is that they make dialing outgoing calls using your Google Voice number a whole lot easier. (If you use your phone’s “real” number to call folks, they can use Caller ID to see the number and may add it to their address books, thereby making it a lot tougher to train the world to use your Google Voice number as your only phone number.)

Here’s a video from Google explaining the new apps:

iPhone users (like me) don’t have an app yet–we can access Google Voice from Safari, but only via a pretty basic interface. But over at TechCrunch, Michael Arrington says that Google Voice’s Craig Walker told him that an iPhone app is in the works. Once it arrives,  I can try being All Google Voice, All the Time. (For business calls, that is–I’ll bet I’m not the only proprietor of a very small business who uses my phone-company phone number for personal calls, and my Google Voice number for work stuff.)

The most important remaining question about Google Voice remains the same: WHEN IS GOOGLE PLANNING TO OPEN UP THE SERVICE TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE WHO’D LIKE TO USE IT?!? Google still isn’t saying. But the fact that it’s rolling out these apps and steadily letting folks who requested invites months ago in is a good sign that the rest of world won’t have to wait forever. I hope. (I can’t think of another Web service that’s had such a high profile and received so many upgrades while remaining available only to a smalllish group of users.)

Recession Slams PC Industry, Shipments Shrink

PC shipments are set to decline for the first time since 2001, iSuppli said Tuesday. The call reverses an earlier one which had said the industry would be able to eke out a small gain for the year. In any case, it appears that the severe recession is at fault for the pullback.

A four percent decline is expected in PC shipments worldwide year over year to 287.4 million units. However, the drop would only be temporary as shipments are expected to grow 4.7 percent in 2010.

Desktops appear to be the industry’s weakest spot. Year over year, shipments plummeted 23 percent in the first quarter. iSuppli expects a similar number for the second quarter when figures are compiled in the next few weeks.

Notebooks are helping to buoy shipments. Shipments there will climb nearly 12 percent to 155.9 million units this year. That would be enough to give portables a majority market share for the first time.

This isn’t all that surprising considering notebooks have been growing in popularity rather quickly for several years now. It seems that consumers are increasingly choosing mobility over power — as a general rule, desktops are more powerful PCs (for cheaper) than the notebook.

Either way, iSuppli’s findings shouldn’t surprise any of us. In a economy like this, we’re more worried about the necessities in life. While many of us are addicted to the Internet these days, a shiny new computer is not that necessary to surf the web with.

iPhone Tethering Cat-and-Mouse Game Continues

MacRumors reports that the latest iPhone 3.1 beta 2 OS release breaks hacks that allow AT&T customers to tether their phones to their PCs for wireless access. As all iPhone enthusiasts know, “legal” tethering is available in most other countries already, but AT&T hasn’t yet rolled out the feature to US iPhone customers.

It’s not surprising the latest OS update breaks tethering hacks. Since the introduction of the iPhone, there has been a cat-and-mouse game between Apple/AT&T and hackers looking to make their phones a little more open than allowed under the iPhone operating agreement. Most hacks are wiped out by new OS upgrades, but are quickly re-hacked by enthusiastic coders looking to expand the iPhone’s capabilities and access functionality not yet officially available on the device, like video capture on the iPhone 3G (prior to the 3.0 OS release).

The tethering hack though seems to be more of a stick in the eye to AT&T. Obviously, the iPhone is fully capable of supporting tethering via USB or Bluetooth, but customers say AT&T is dragging its feet when it comes rolling out the service. There is also the issue of how much extra change a tethering plan will cost iPhone customers, who already shell out $30 for unlimited data service. Other rumors peg tethering plans ranging from $10 to $55, depending on the source. AT&T has shot down the rumors though and says more details will be forthcoming as the unannounced launch date gets closer.

Personally, I want the MMS functionality turned on first. It’s ridiculous that my fancy iPhone can’t send or receive a picture message, but my wife’s basic cell phone on another network can.

With Online Passwords, Dishonesty Can Be the Best Policy

Well, this is embarrassing: A hacker who apparently broke into various online accounts associated with Twitter executives and employees has sent TechCrunch hundreds of documents he purloined, including everything from user-growth projections to staffers’ meal preferences. TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington says he’s going to publish the stuff that has a lot of news value.

I’m not that interested in sensitive Twitter documents, so the most interesting aspect of all this is how easily the hacker was apparently able to get into Twitter’s online accounts. Actually, he doesn’t appear to have done any true hacking–he was just able to determine or reset passwords at Gmail, AT&T, MobileMe, and elsewhere.

Observers are rightly saying that the pilfering is a potentially useful reminder of the risks associated with storing sensitive information on the Internet. And most specifically, it may show that some Web services’ password-recovery features are inherently dangerous. It’s possible that some Twitter employees chose passwords or password questions that were too easy to guess, but it’s also possible that they followed the advice and instructions at the services in question to the letter, and their accounts still weren’t safe.

When someone broke into Salma Hayek’s MobileMe account in April, I wrote that using easily-obtained information like a user’s birthday or the maiden name of his or her mother to protect an account is unacceptably risky. It’s alsodangerous to provide password recovery tools that let someone reset a password in one browser session, without having to access information sent by e-mail.

Even after the crummy publicity of Salma’s security breach, MobileMe is still suggesting to users that “What is my pet’s name?” is a reasonable secret question:

If you know (or can guess) a MobileMe user’s account name, birthday, and the answer to his or her secret question, you’re in.

Bottom line: It pays to be paranoid online, especially since some of the companies whose serves you may use are probably way too nonchalant. If a service asks for easy-to-find information, it’s not a bad idea to simply lie like a rug. Any fool can determine that your mom was a Benson, so why not decide that for the purposes of your online security, she was a McGillicuddy–and then never tell another living soul? Even when you can specify your own “Secret Question,” specifying an answer that’s wrong isn’t a bad safety measure.

Ridiculous: Premium Game Includes Night Vision Goggles

If you like playing video games, and tend to snoop around a lot in the dark, Activision’s got a proposition for you.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2′s Prestige Edition was revealed today, and it includes night vision goggles — not replica goggles that look good on your mantle, but fully-functioning, paint-everything-green night vision specs.

Mum’s the word on pricing for the package, which also includes typical collector’s edition fare such as a book of concept art. Most Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 console games cost $60, with collector’s editions often costing $80 or higher. The inclusion of night vision goggles in Modern Warfare 2′s Prestige Edition will likely drive the price way up.

Limited edition video game packages never appealed to me, as someone who tries to be frugal about gaming. When a special bundle costs more than $100, that’s money you could’ve spent on an oldie but goodie in the bargain bin. I’d rather have that than a Master Chief helmet on my mantle, but I understand the value in showing your gamer cred.

Still, night vision goggles? Those don’t even look good on display — despite the included head sculpture — unless your living room features a mannequin in military garb.

So my challenge is this: If anyone here is considering the Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Pack, please justify your purchase. I genuinely want to know what use for night vision goggles you have in mind. Only then can I understand where video game fandom ends and total ridiculousness begins.

Google Calendar Gets Its Own Labs

Has it only been thirteen months since Google introduced Gmail Labs? The warehouse of experimental features has become a defining aspect of Gmail’s personality, letting users pick and choose from dozens of features, including some that are utterly essential (like offline access) and some that are just plain weird (such as Mail Goggles, which aims to help you avoid sending drunken e-mail).

Today, Google Calendar is getting its own Labs. So far, it’s only got five features, and they skew towards the practical, not the wacky. You can display a wallpaper image behind your calendar; attach documents to appointments; view a world clock; jump to any date; see your next appointment; and see busy times for your colleagues.

If Google Calendar gets even a quarter of the Labs features that are in Gmail–the latter has nearly fifty at the moment–it’ll be a cool addition to what’s already one of Google’s cooler services. But a plea, in case anyone at Google is reading this: Please make Google Calendar’s Labs less of an undifferentiated heap than Gmail’s version. (These list of Gmail features you can turn on sits on one endless page, and is in no discernible order.)

Oh, and one piece of related news: Gmail’s Tasks manager, which is so useful that I forgot it was still technically an experiment, is now a standard Gmail feature. It had already migrated into Calendar.

On Demand Online: Reason to Stick With Comcast?

I keep talking about dumping Comcast, but I’m beginning to think it’s more inevitable than death or taxes. (I recently tried to cancel my Comcast phone line, and they told me that doing so would raise my monthly bill by $4. Checkmate!)

If I stick around with Comcast, I might as well enjoy it–and I’m guardedly optimistic about On Demand Online, the Web-based service which the company is cooking up. It’s signed up a respectable list of content providers: Time Warner, A&E, Starz, and others–and, most recently, CBS. They’ll provide programming for a Hulu-like site that’s supposed to start testing this month.

Unlike the free, ad-supported Hulu, Comcast’s service is apparently going to be available to paying Comcast subscribers only. I hope that means it’ll be ad-free and have access to some shows that Hulu can’t get–in other words, that it’ll be a true Web-based version of Comcast’s On Demand video-on-demand service. (Which, incidentally, I can’t get–it’s not compatible with my TiVo HD box.)

I persist in being perfectly willing to consider paying for content on the Web when opportunities arise–in part because vast amounts of content are simply going to disappear unless the people who own them figure out how to convince consumers to pay up. So even though I continue to flirt with the idea of canceling Comcast and subsisting on a diet of Hulu and iTunes, I’m actually rooting for On Demand Online to be really good. So good, in fact, that I stop talking about kissing Comcast goodbye.

Microsoft: Windows 7 is Not Done Yet!

Microsoft took to its official Windows blog Monday night to say that despite rumors to the contrary, it had not yet signed off on releasing Windows 7 to manufacturing (commonly called RTM). It reiterated its second half of July timeframe for the release of the next-gen Windows product.

Windows team member Brandon Leblanc said that there was quite a bit of work ahead before Windows 7 could RTM, especially in the area of localization. He also addressed the leaking of build 7600, which has begun to appear on file sharing services.

While not specifically saying it isn’t the final build, he did say that its leaking did not indicating hitting any type of particular milestone in Windows 7′s development. Here’s his own words:

Another thing to keep in mind is that when we do a specific build internally of Windows 7 we have an extensive step-by-step validation process to ensure quality. This process takes time. Just because a single build may have “leaked” it does not signal the completion of a milestone such as RTM. As always, don’t believe everything that you read on the Internet – except this post ;-).

In other words, wait a little longer. In any case it won’t be long – the “second half” of July starts tomorrow.

5Words for Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

Shouldn’t Acer skip Android netbooks?

Amazon buys Netflix? Try Microsoft.

Did Twitter users kill Bruno?

Windows 95 on your iPhone.

Why teenagers don’t like Twitter.

Bricks, sold as new iPods.

Does Samsung’s camcorder outflip Flip?

Samsung devices to stream Blockbuster.

Windows 7 users like it.