“Always On,” Eh?

T-Mobile may have halted sales of Sidekicks, but its marketing materials for the phone are still up and available. And they seem to be mocking T-Mobile and Microsoft/Danger. I wonder if references to “always on” apps henceforth will have to be asterisked with a disclaimer: “Unless we suffer a lengthy outage and turn out to have lost most of our customers’ data…”

Waiting on the Widgets

The highlight of CES 2009 for me back in January was the unveiling of Yahoo’s Internet TV widget platform. Given so many partner announcements (Intel, Samsung, Vizio, Sony, LG) and demos, I was hopeful we’d see a glut of Yahoo Connected TV products, including HDTVs and set-top boxes, by mid-year. Yet Yahoo’s Linux-based SDK hasn’t even hit v1.0 with fewer than three months left in the year. And the widgets that have been deployed are fairly basic. Internet-sourced info is a good start, but where’s the high definition Netflix and Showtime streaming video? The concept is sound, and inevitable at this point, but can we speed things up a bit? I’m looking at you Vizio, with that QWERTY remote. (See DirecTV and Verizon’s FiOS TV for different variations on widgetized television experience.)

(This post republished from Zatz Not Funny.)

Sidekick Disaster: How to Make Amends?

A little more news on the Sidekick data disaster: CNET’s Ina Fried is reporting that T-Mobile has halted sales of the device. And John Herrman of Gizmodo has a post about offers apparently being made by T-Mobile reps to affected customers, none of which sound like appropriate responses to the enormity of what’s apparently happened: a month of free service, a small discount on another phone, and the ability to get out of a contract without paying a penalty.

Presumably, what Sidekick users really want is to keep on using their Sidekicks with the data they thought was safe and sound. But if their stuff really is gone, what would be an adequate action on the part of T-Mobile and/or Microsoft? Free service for a year? Two years? Three? A cash payment of $250? $500? $1000? Immediate upgrade to any device sold by the carrier at no cost?

I’m dying to know what you think–especially if you’re a Sidekick owner…

Tell Us About Your Bad PC, Win a New Laptop

Our search for the single most embarrassingly lousy computer in our great nation continues! We’ve received some great nominees so far, which you can check out here. But I’m hoping that more of you will fess up to owning truly crummy machines, especially since we’ll pick one person who enters the contest to win a slick new HP Envy 13 laptop, courtesy of HP.

The contest continues until this Friday, October  16th at 5pm PDT. Here are the official rules and details on entering. Tell your friends–especially the ones who still have terrible old computers lurking in their closets…

Sidekick Disaster: A Sign of Things to Come?

There’s no new news this Monday morning on Microsoft’s apparent loss of vast quantities of data belonging to users of T-Mobile Sidekick phones–T-Mobile’s most recent missive to customers is still the apologetic forum message telling them not to power down their Sidekicks if they can possibly avoid it. You gotta think there’s more pain to come–for Sidekick owners who have lost photos, address books, and other data, and for T-Mobile and Sidekick, who may end up with permanently tarnished reputations.

I’m still scratching my head and trying to think of any remotely comparable examples of large companies simply losing huge amounts of essential customer information, and I’m coming up short. (The closest parallel–instances of companies leaving customers in the lurch by intentionally shutting down services-isn’t really comparable.)

This incident may be unique, at least for the moment. But do you think it’s an early warning sign of danger to come as we all live more and more of our lives on the Web?

5Words: The End of E-Mail?

E-Mail is no longer king.

LG’s e-reader is sun-powered.

Twitter doing video? Actually, no.

PSP Go: a gamer’s nightmare.

It’s a video iPod Shuffle!

Make existing USB gadgets wireless.

Homeland security, Wii Fit style!

Gizmodo reviews Nokia’s Booklet netbook.

Does Windows 7 boot slowly?

So long iTunes, hello DoubleTwist.

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Lufthansa Brings Wi-Fi Back

The longer the airplane flight, the harder it is to go without Internet access. So as happy as I am with the ongoing adoption of Wi-Fi by U.S. carriers for their domestic flights, I’ve been glum about the fact that the widely-used Gogo service is cellular-based and doesn’t work for international service. And I’m pleased to hear that Lufthansa is bringing back Wi-Fi after being forced to abandon it in 2006 when Boeing discontinued its brief-lived Connexion service.

As Glen Fleishman is reporting at Wi-Fi Net News, Lufthansa is working with Panasonic to put satellite-based Internet (and cell-phone) service on 120 long-haul flights. Wi-Fi will cost $12 an hour or $22 per day–as Glen says, on the pricey side, although not unreasonable if you take a long flight and stay online for hours at a time.

Connexion wasn’t perfect, but its main problem was clearly that it was ahead of its time. I wonder if Boeing regrets having killed it?

Windows Vista: A Review Recap

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer isn’t so sure about how folks are going to respond to Windows 7. As Mary-Jo Foley says in a ZDNet blog post, Ballmer told Bloomberg that “The test feedback (on Windows 7) has been good, but the test feedback on Vista was good. I am optimistic, but the proof will be in the pudding.”

Mary-Jo goes on to muse:

…I’m left wondering about Vista, as many are/were about the current financial crisis: Why didn’t anyone inform us sooner of the impending meltdown? Weren’t there warning signs? Where was everybody?

Most of Mary-Jo’s post involves Windows Vista beta testers’ reaction to the OS, but it got me wondering: How about the reviews that came out when Windows Vista was released? Negative reaction to Vista among consumers and businesses ended up preventing it from ever truly superseding Windows XP in the way it was supposed to do–but were the reviews among the first signs that something was amiss?

To find out, I dug up evaluations of Vista from late 2006 and early 2007 as they appeared in nine major publications, written by a bunch of distinguished Windows-watchers: BusinessWeek (Steve Wildstrom), CNET (Robert Vamosi), Forbes (Stephen Manes),  The New York Times (David Pogue), PC Magazine (John Clyman), Paul Thurrott’s Windows Supersite, PC World (Preston Gralla and Richard Baguley), USA Today (Ed Baig), The Wall Street Journal (Walt Mossberg), and ZDNet (Ed Bott). I reread them all, and in a moment I’ll summarize here what they said about Vista’s visuals, its performance and stability, its compatibility with existing products, and User Account Control security–as well as their overall take on the OS.

Continue reading this story…

Microsoft to Sidekick Users: We Seem to Have Lost Your Data

I’ve always admired the Sidekick smartphone–the first one was the first really good pocketable Web device–but found the name of the company behind it, Danger, kinda discordant. Now it appears to be prophetic: As Engadget is reporting, this week’s service disruption appears to be the least of Sidekick users’ worries. The T-Mobile forums have a message from T-Mobile and Danger (which is now part of Microsoft) saying that any data not currently on user’s devices has most likely been lost:

Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information.

Breathtaking. Extended Internet-related service outages are commonplace, but major examples of data loss involving large companies aren’t so common. (This brings to mind Ma.gnolia’s meltdown in January, but that service was run by one guy–not by the largest software company in the world.) It’s going to be fascinating to hear Microsoft’s explanation of what happened, and why it apparently has no usable backup of its customers’ data. And to see just what long-term effect this has on the Danger platform, which is supposedly the basis for Microsoft’s allegedly troubled “Pink” phone project.

My assumption is usually that big Internet-savvy companies are going to do a better job of religiously backing up data than I am, but this is a wake-up call: None of us really have a clue how safe our data is when it’s stored in the cloud. Not to mention a massive embarrassment for Microsoft

Use the Web to Find Anyone in the World

“You find my long-lost buddy and I’ll paint any room in your house.” I was talking to a couple of friends about how I had tracked down a wayward YahooGroup moderator.

It was a sweet deal (the kitchen has three colors, lots of cabinets, and needs painting) and I was up for the challenge.

Just the Facts, Please

There were no rules: I could use any Internet resource or even social engineering, the art of extracting information from people by e-mail or phone. As in, “Hi, I’m calling to update your free white pages listing. Can you confirm that…”

I used only free sites to do the digging; I also used data I picked up from fee-based services — without paying a thing.

My friend gave me all he knew. “His name is Jan Shepard. The last I heard he was in Corpus Christi, Texas, and he’s a bankruptcy attorney.”

“Are you sure of the spelling,” I asked. The Shepard name does have variations, and the fact that the guy had an ambiguous first name added to the challenge.

He was adamant–and as it turned out, wrong. The last name was actually “Shephard.”

“You have anything else?” I asked, wondering if we wanted to keep the kitchen white or go for another color.

“He was born in Binghamton, New York, but actually lived in Vestal, New York.” I was also told his mother’s maiden name, the name of his brother and sister, and that his birth year was 1944 or maybe 1946.

Continue reading this story…

The Great Tablet Debate

I had fun guesting on CNET’s Reporters’ Roundtable today, talking about tablets with host Rafe Needleman and fellow visitor Ryan Block of Gdgt. For some reason I’m having trouble embedding the video, but you can watch it here.

DVD: The Short Goodbye?

Over at Yahoo Tech, my friend Chris Null blogged about an interview the Motley Fool did with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings in which the DVD-by-mail tycoon says he thinks DVD has two years left as the primary delivery format for movies. That’s a little like hearing the president of McDonalds opining that burgers are on the way out. But it also sounds like as sensible a prediction as any.

As Chris says, Hastings didn’t make clear what he thinks will replace DVD, but the likely scenario presumably involves the format suffering at the hands of both digital downloads and Blu-Ray short-term, and virtually all distribution being digital over the long haul. (At least I’m assuming that we’ll all look back at Blu-Ray as a stopgap.) There’s still lots of work to do–relatively few of us have any way to watch content from the Internet on our TVs, for instance–but an awful lot can happen  in very little time.

I suspect that I’ll still pull out DVDs from time to time for years to come–for one thing, I have hundreds of them and no interest in repurchasing or recreating all of them in purely digital form. (Hey, I even watch VHS from time to time.) But I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if I buy my last new DVD in 2011. And I look forward to seeing how Netflix works to reinvent itself as the neat idea the company was founded on becomes obsolete. (Its Watch Instantly feature is a fun start.)

Your forecast, please:

5Words: FTC Questions Google Voice

FTC has Google Voice questions.

Adobe puts Photoshop on iPhones.

Using Kindle overseas: It’s pricey!

Ugh-video spam on YouTube.

Google Squared gets more useful.

More on free Office 2010′s ads.

Indies can’t afford iTunes LP.

Sergey Brin defends Google Books.

Sinclair, maker of amazing gadgets.

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Best Buy to Lump E-Readers With Other Random Stuff

Clearly, Best Buy doesn’t know what to do with all those e-readers that it plans to stock, because they’ll soon be thrown into a section that contains electronic Rubik’s Cubes, digital pens and — wait for it — Sharper Image products.

Dealerscope reports that Best Buy’s creating a new retail section called “Gadgets and eReaders,” located near the movies and music, and will soon launch a corresponding page on its Web site. Along with Sony’s Reader Daily and Touch Editions and the new iRex e-reader, you’ll find the Livescribe Smartpen and the Rubik’s Touchcube, among other things.

I understand where Best Buy is coming from. E-readers are hard to categorize. They’re not quite tablet computers, nor are they full-blown media players. They are their own category, but right now there just aren’t enough e-readers (or enough interest in them) to warrant a dedicated section of the store.

But lumping e-readers in with “Funky Gadgets You Don’t Need” (my terminology, not Best Buy’s) isn’t really the best way to foster market growth. Granted, someone who’s going to Best Buy with the intent of buying an e-reader won’t care where it’s located as long as it can be found, but to the casual shopper, e-readers’ placement in an obscure gadget section is just going to make them seem frivolous.

What to do then? Put the e-readers near the iPods and Zunes. After all, e-readers are high end entertainment devices, and they share some common features with media players, such as wireless connectivity, digital content and, in some cases, touch screens. Sony’s Reader Touch Edition can even play music.

The gimmicky gadgets can have their own section, but Best Buy should think a little harder about which devices earn the dubious distinction.

Snow Leopard Bug May Eat Your Data

Just as I was about to head to the Apple Store to pick up a copy of Snow Leopard, one of the most serious bugs yet is starting to get more play in the Apple media. Apparently, an issue in the way the new version of Mac OS X handles guest accounts could cause the computer to seemingly ‘delete’ all of a users files stored in their main account.

The gist of how it happens is this, according to user reports: shortly before the bug appears, a Guest folder appears in the /Users directory. Previous to this, no such folder exists. When the computer is restarted, the user is somehow logged in as a guest and all their files stored under their main account appear to have been deleted.

Apparently this issue is nothing new: CNet has an article from September 19 which seems to allude to the issues that people are experiencing, as well as offering a possible solution to your problems.

Note that this method does not restore your data. In order to do that, you’re going to need a backup. Moral of the story here? If you’re on Snow Leopard, start backing up your home folder regularly.

Apple is currently looking into the issue, however has not provided any guidance as to when the problem could be fixed.

I’m just guessing here, but disabling the guest account before upgrading to Snow Leopard might also be another way to prevent a problem if you’re still looking to upgrade. I just checked my accounts here and the Guest Account is labeled “sharing only.” I have to do some more research here to see if I’m safe.

I’m on CNET TV Today

I’m tickled to report that I’m going to be a guest today on Reporters’ Roundtable, a new CNET podcast. I’ll be in excellent company: The host is Webware’s Rafe Needleman and Gdgt’s Ryan Block is also guesting. And the topic’s a fun one: the past, present, and future of tablet computers.

The show is taping at 1pm PDT, and you can watch us live. The recorded version will show up here. Check it out, won’t you?