In Praise of Wires

“It would have been more logical if silent pictures had grown out of the talkies instead of the other way around.” America’s sweetheart, Mary Pickford, said that. I’m not completely sure I understand what she meant–but I think of the quote often. And lately, I’ve been thinking that it would have more logical if wired connections had grown out of wireless.

A few weeks ago, I bought a gadget I’d been contemplating for awhile: an Eye-Fi wireless SD card, designed to transfer photos from camera to computer over a home network. Its slogan: “No wires. No hassles. No kidding.” Every once in awhile, it works as advertised. But mostly, I’ve spent more time unsuccessfully troubleshooting it than shooting pictures with it.

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5Words: Windows Mobile: Not Dead!

Will Windows Mobile bounce back?

You can sell used software.

Time Inc.’s “Hulu for magazines.”

Google sinks the Pirate Bay.

A lousy PSP Go review.

A Flip remote control? Why?

Why are good headphones expensive?

Don’t mess with the mouse.

A Windows 7 compatibility site.

#1 Windows speed-up tweak.

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Windows XP Mode is Ready to Roll

Over at ZDNet, Mary-Jo Foley reports that Microsoft has finished up Windows XP mode, the Windows 7 feature that lets you run programs that are incompatible with Win 7 in a window that’s really a virtualized copy of Windows XP. Windows XP mode isn’t quite a feature: It’s an optional 350MB download that requires Microsoft’s Virtual PC and only works with Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. Yes,the end result is similar to what you can already get via VMWare or Parallels (or Virtual PC), but if you buy one of the qualifying versions of Win 7, XP mode doesn’t require you to pay for virtualization software or a copy of XP.

I have a hunch that Microsoft devised it as much to provide cautious business customers with a security blanket as because it think that XP mode will be widely used. For every company that actually uses it, there will probably be several who are a little more likely to make the leap to Win 7 sooner rather than later because they know it’s available if they need it.

Your take?

Sony Stumbles With Blu-ray to PSP Copy

Starting in November, Sony will revert to its old, closed-system ways by packing a PSP-ready digital copy on its Blu-ray discs.

The reasoning is obvious: If you’re an owner of one device, you’ve got a reason to pick up the other. Why buy an iPod for video when the PSP gives you a chunk of your Blu-ray collection in digital form?

Here’s the problem: Of the two Blu-ray films that Sony Pictures will launch with a PSP-ready copy, only one will include a separate digital copy on DVD, playable on your PC, according to Home Media Magazine. So while Sony is offering the full range of choices for people who buy The Ugly Truth, those who purchase Godzilla won’t get a digital copy unless they have both a Playstation 3 and a PSP.

Sony calls this a “multi-platform” solution, but the only platforms being supported are Sony’s. To me, that seems like a backwards step for the company, which in May was professing its newfound love for open systems. Here’s what Sony chief executive Howard Stringer told Nikkei Electronics Asia in an interview:

“There was a time when it made sense to divide the market with closed technology, and monopolize a divided market, but that’s just not an effective strategy any more. In the Internet universe, there are millions of stars – millions of options that have been created through open technology.”

Indeed, Sony is turning a new leaf in some ways, such as its support for the open ePub format in its e-readers. But the Blu-ray promotion sends a mixed message: We want our hardware to support lots of media, but our media will only work with our hardware.

For perspective, see how Disney’s digital copies are available as a download in either Windows Media or iTunes format, whatever the customer chooses. I’m not sure that Sony could offer those proprietary formats through its competing Playstation Network, but by removing PC-ready digital copies, the company is headed down the wrong path.

Google Gets a Better Sense of Time

Google has added some new features to its Search Options feature, a list of search-refinement features that you can choose to turn on over on the left-hand side of search results pages. They include the ability to increase and decrease the number of shopping sites that appear in results; to filter for blogs, books, or news; and to see only sites you’ve already visited, or only sites you’ve never visited. But the new features I find most intriguing are two that involve restricting results to a specific timeframe: either the last hour, or any range you specify.

This latter one is an enormously helpful research tool–it lets you, for instance, instantly find articles about Osama Bin Laden published prior to September 11th, 2001. It’s not like the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, which can call up cached versions of old sites as they once appeared; pages only come up if they’re still in a site’s current version. But I’m already giddy thinking about the time this feature will save me when I dig into old stories, and the items it’ll help me find which I would otherwise have missed.

Google clearly has an ongoing interest in understanding the Web based on the factor of time: For instance, it added a timeline search feature to Google News a few months ago. I’d love to see it meld all these tools together into one cohesive time-based search feature.

I’m also curious whether it’ll ever leave the Search Options panel open in search results’ default view. (Both Bing and the new Yahoo Search have left-hand menus.) Search Options is increasingly full of good stuff–but it’s way too easy to forget it’s there, and as far as I can tell there’s no way to tell Google that you want it open all the time.

Sony’s PSP Go is Go

Sony’s new $250 PSP Go gaming handheld debuts today. With its slide-out control pad, it’s the first PSP that’s truly pocketable (closed, it looks and feels a little like a BlackBerry Storm). It’s also dumped the tiny UMD optical disc drive of early PSP models, making it the first digital gaming portable from Sony or anyone else. It’s got 16GB of built-in memory for games, movies, and music, plus an M2 Micro slot (yes, another proprietary Sony format) for additional storage. Simultaneous with its release, Sony is introducing PSP Minis–cheaper, simpler, more casual games not unlike much of the stuff on Apple’s App Store. In short, it’s still a PSP, but one which reflects some of the trends in pocket-sized devices set off by the iPhone and ipod Touch.

I got a little hands-on time with a PSP Go earlier this week (there it is in the photo hanging out with my iPhone). Sony has a hundred games ready for launch, but the PSP isn’t a full-blown platform for third-party apps of all sorts. Still, it’s a pretty versatile device for a handheld gaming console: It provides access to movie and music downloads and even comes with Skype preinstalled.

Even though the PSP Go makes no pretenses to be a direct competitor to the iPhone and iPod Touch, it’s impossible–for me, at least–to think about it without thinking about how it compares. It remains gaming-centric (even though almost all of Apple’s marketing for the iPod Touch plays up games, it’s really a general-purpose computing device). And its single biggest asset is probably that it has the luxury of being designed to play games well, with a full complement of traditional gamepad buttons and an analog joystick.

Apple’s a company who only grudgingly puts even a single button on its handhelds, so it’s never going to pack a device with special-purpose controls in the way Sony has done. And as good as the best games for the iPhone/Touch are, there are plenty of titles–ones as mundane as Ms. Pac-Man–for which touch is not the most satisfactory means of input.

Apple certainly sees the PSP (and Nintendo DS) as competing with the Touch: As my colleague Jared Newman pointed out, Phil Schiller spent a sizable portion of the company’s recent music-themed event snarking at Sony and Nintendo for everything from the size of their libraries to the cost of their games. On a higher level, we’re going to see a battle play out between specialized devices like the PSP Go and Swiss Army Knives like the iPod Touch. It’s going to be fun to watch–and even though the PSP Go’s improvements are all evolutionary, they help to gird Sony for the war.

5Words: An Apple Mapping Mystery

What’s Apple doing with maps?

Google translates Web sites automatically.

Walt Mossberg likes HTC’s Hero.

Is Comcast kicking NBC’s tires?

Sony PSP Go, games arrive.

Hands-on with Google Wave.

BlackBerries finally sync with Macs.

Verizon dumps its Hub gizmo.

Ooma launches Telo VoIP system.

Nokia’s Booklet: Best Buy only.

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Squeezebox Embraces App Store Phenomenon

I’m a long-time fan of the Squeezebox and have been continually impressed by feature additions over the last three years. Today an email popped up in my inbox announcing another firmware update and some major feature upgrades. Most importantly, Logitech is introducing an App Gallery that will organize all of the Squeezebox service options in the now-familiar “App Store” format. It also appears that Logitech may have finally corrected the way it allows Squeezebox users to access their own music collection versus streaming services. Those two functions have had separate top-level menus until now, but it appears that is changing.

As I have an older Squeezebox version, I’m curious to see how some of the features are implemented. For example, on the website describing the new App Gallery, there are apps listed for Flickr and Facebook. My screen real estate would not seem to support those features. Also, while details of the new firmware mention that Squeezebox Duet owners don’t have to switch between SqueezeNetwork and SqueezeCenter menus anymore (streaming versus personal music collection), there is no mention of earlier Squeezebox hardware. I’m looking forward to checking these upgrades out at home tonight.

Meanwhile, Logitech has other Squeezebox news out today too. People who buy one of the new Squeezebox Radios (yes, they are now available), will get “early access to the new Queen Absolute Greatest Hits album before it hits stores.” So for any Bohemian Rhapsody fans, go pick up your new Squeezebox Radio now. Or, you could always hold out for the December launch of the new Squeezebox Touch.

(This post republished from Zatz Not Funny.)