Kind Words From Kiplinger’s

Good grief! Kiplinger’s Personal Finance has published its Best of Everything 2009 feature, which provides picks for everything from mutual funds to cars to colleges to travel deals. It’s also got a category for “Best Tech Gadget Guru,” and Kiplinger’s choice in that category is…me!

Whether he’s discussing Microsoft’s mobile-phone software or praising a cool netbook,HARRY MCCRACKEN doesn’t mince words. His Technologizer site (www.technologizer.com) is a fast and furious way to keep up on the latest tech trends. His blog has quickly become one of the most influential sites for tech news and opinion.

I’m flattered–many thanks to the good folks at Kiplinger’s for such a nice honor.

5Words: Free Airport Wi-Fi? Thanks, Google!

Google springs for airport Wi-Fi.

Blockbuster’s memory-card movie rentals.

Nvidia shows off tablet prototype.

How many Droids? Maybe 100,000.

LinkedIn talks to Twitter now.

Nokia starts shipping N900 handset.

A whole new Google coming?

Blu-Ray managed copy: looks awful!

A projector dock for iPhones.

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Kindle for PC Now Available

[UPDATE: I tried again, and Kindle for PC is now downloading all my books swiftly and reliably. Not sure why it wasn't before...]

Last month, one of the few new pieces of news at the Windows 7 rollout was the fact that Amazon was releasing a piece of Windows software for reading Kindle e-books. The software is now available for download–and the site says that a Mac version is coming soon.

I’d like to tell you what I think of Kindle for PC, but I can’t just yet–any time the software tries to download a book (including one I just plunked down $9.99 for), it gives me a cryptic error and tells me to try again later. Which I’ll do. But I like the concept, at least–I don’t see myself curling up with a laptop to read a novel, but I own several hundred dollars’ worth of books in Kindle form, and getting access to them on another device is a boon.

(Although I just realized: What I’d really like is a Kindle for the Web that would let me read everything I’d paid for on any Web-connected device, no downloads required. Wonder if Amazon’s contemplated such an app?)

Over at Wired’s Gadget Lab, Charlie Sorrel is intrigued by the fact that Amazon’s artwork for the Kindle for PC download page shows a book with color art, and he wonders whether the company’s hinting that a color Kindle is in the works.  Actually, a color Kindle has been available since March–it’s known as the Apple iPhone, and it became a Kindle when Amazon released e-reader software for it. The iPhone app has always been able to display color images.

If Amazon keeps on selling Kindle hardware, it’ll presumably sell a color device someday, although someday may take a long time to arrive if the company is committed to the E-Ink technology. (I doubt that color E-Ink screens that are good enough to display satisfying pictures are going to arrive anytime soon.) But you gotta think Amazon wants to be prepared for the eventuality of color Kindle e-readers, and it’s already been saying that it wants to put Kindle books on a variety of devices. Color images in Kindle e-books are just concrete evidence that Amazon thinks of Kindle as being something greater than a single hardware platform that happens to be monochrome-only at the moment.

[CLARIFICATION/UPDATE: The Kindle for iPhone app displays some stuff that could be in color in color, but not everything. My copy of Nikon D90 for Dummies shows the cover and spot illustrations in color, but not photos...]

The 25 Most Notable Quotes in Tech History

It’s not love, war, or baseball. But over the years some memorable things have been said about technology. Some have been memorably eloquent; others are unforgettably shortsighted, wrongheaded, or just plain weird. Let’s celebrate them, shall we?

A few ground rules for the list that follows: I considered only statements attributable to a specific individual, which ruled out most ad slogans (“Think Different”) and many durable Internet memes (“You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike”). I did, however, include individuals who happened to be fictional, or canine, or inanimate. I also let a couple of quotes slip in that are not strictly speaking about technology, though neither would exist without it–one from 1876, and one from earlier this decade. Sue me.

It’s hard to rank quotes by how notable they are. So I faked it by listing them using an imprecise, unscientific factor I call Googleosity: the number of results Google reports that reference (or riff upon) each quote. (You may quibble with the queries I performed to determine Googleosity, but I tried my best.) Googleosity tends to reward quotes that are not only famous but fun–they’re the ones that people like to allude to, to parody, and to generally weave into blog posts and other online conversation.

We’ll start with the quote with the lowest Googleosity factor, and work our way up from there.

Continue reading this story…

5Words: Firefox is Five–and Vulnerable

Happy birthday, Firefox! You’re vulnerable!

Firefox: the good, the bad.

NVidia won’t take on Intel.

Hey, where’s TweetDeck for iPhone?

Google invests in mobile advertising.

Android’s app storage problem continues.

AT&T’s faster laptop broadband adapter.

Will Google take on Skype?

Shazam launches a paid app.

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Will EA Lead a Games Industry Deflation?

Electronic Arts shared some good news and bad news today. First, the company acquired Facebook game maker Playfish for up to $400 million, but then EA announced that it will lay off 1,500 employees and close some of its game development studios.

VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi has a good summary of today’s events, if you’re into the business side of things, but what’s really interesting is the way that EA is scooping out a significant chunk of the company.

Think of EA as a gigantic tower of game publishing. At the top are your high-budget, high-sales franchises, such Madden football, FIFA soccer, Need for Speed, Rock Band, Mass Effect and Left 4 Dead 2. At the bottom are EA’s smaller-scale ventures, such as mobile games and now social networking games from Playfish. The higher up the tower you go, the higher the production values, and the bigger the risk if the game tanks.

EA is essentially chopping off the middle part of the tower. Chief executive John Riccitiello said the company will now invest more in high-priority games (the stuff at the top) and digital businesses (the stuff at the bottom). Smart move, I think.

As I’ve written before, the games industry is facing a crisis now, and not just because of the recession. The cost of game development is spiraling exponentially upwards, leaving less room than ever for error. This is not a sustainable strategy, especially for B-list video games, because a gamer could easily limit his or her $60 game purchases to the best dozen titles of the year and still be perfectly happy.

The way down from this endless spiral is to focus on smaller-scale gaming. One way to do this is with cheaper, simpler downloadable games, such as the Xbox 360 hit Shadow Complex. EA, meanwhile, is muscling up in the mobile and social space. All these strategies are good antidotes for out-of-control game development costs.

So while it pains me to see that 1,500 people will lose their jobs, it had to happen this way.

Mr. Murdoch, Build Up That Content Wall!

Like many media moguls, Rupert Murdoch keeps accusing Google of unfairly monetizing his sites’ content by indexing and selling ads next to search results that contain links to it. Now he’s talking about fighting back, by taking the simple step of instituting fees for access to News Corp. online properties and then blocking Google from indexing them.

As Staci Kramer of PaidContent points out, it’s not entirely clear what Murdoch is talking about, or even that he knows what he’s talking about. He says this strategy would be similar to what the Wall Street Journal does, but while the Journal does indeed have a pay wall, it actually lowers it for visitors who arrive from Google.

As far as I know, no major media sites are currently actively preventing Google from crawling their content or otherwise trying to prevent the company from helping people find stories and making money along the way. (A half a decade ago, some publishers–including IDG, where I worked at the time–checked to see if visitors were arriving from Google and told ones who were to come back via the home page–but the experiment was futile, self-destructive, and short-lived.)

I’m probably in the the minority among my media-industry peers here–and it may be a minority of one–but I (A) think Murdoch’s plan is a silly, self-defeating idea, and (B) hope that he does indeed put it into action.

Here’s why:

• I’m tired of hearing media executives whine about Google without doing anything about its alleged misconduct. It’s extremely easy to configure a Web site to prevent Google from crawling it. So why don’t these sites that are so nonplussed about being in Google’s index opt out? If Murdoch blocks Google, he’ll at least be safe from charges of inconsistency and/or hypocrisy.
• I’m in favor of multiple business models for content sites. Technologizer is doing fine as a mostly ad-supported enterprise, thank you very much, but the media business will ultimately be healthier if there are multiple potential revenue streams–ads, monthly subscriptions, maybe even pay-per-use for some stuff. You know, kind of like TV. If News Corp. goes through with this, I’ll at least give it credit for experimenting rather than dithering.
• I’m willing to pay for some stuff. Yes, that attitude is colored to some degree by the fact that I’m in the media biz myself, and no, I can’t think offhand of any News Corp. properties I’m dying to shower in money. (I don’t even have a WSJ subscription at the moment.) But I’d rather live in a world in which some consumers get used to paying for some online content than in one in which sites are doomed if they can’t make a go of things based on advertising alone.
• Watching other people gamble is constructive. If the Murdoch paywall flops as spectacularly as most folks think it will, it’ll be a useful confirmation that everybody was right in the first place. If it’s disappointing, but less so than everyone expects, that’s useful information, too. And if it somehow pays off, other media sites can claim they knew it would all along, and rush to imitate the News Corp. approach.

But enough about my reaction to Rupert’s ruminations. You?

Five Reasons to Celebrate Firefox’s Fifth Birthday

Mozilla’s Firefox 1.0 officially became available on November 9th, 2004–which means that the Little Browser That Could officially turns five today. It’s not the world’s dominant browser–while market share estimates vary widely, all show that Internet Explorer still has a sizable lead–but it’s surely the most beloved browser on the planet.

(It’s definitely the dominant browser in the Technologizer community–around 40 percent of visits have been made using it this month, via 28 percent with IE, 18 percent with Safari, and nine percent with Chrome.)

In celebration of Firefox’s first half-decade, here are some quick reflections on why it’s one of the most significant software products of this or any other era:

1. It reignited the browser wars. Back in 2004, Internet Explorer had more than ninety percent of the market and seemed to be on its way to as close to 100 percent as any product could conceivably attain. Other alternative browsers, such as Opera and earlier versions of Mozilla, had market shares that looked like rounding errors. Then Firefox appeared and quickly gained traction. Its strategy for success was a clever one: It was just a good browser, period. And today, there are more significant browsers than during any period since the inception of the Web: IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, and the Firefox variant I have a soft spot for, Flock. There’s probably some alternate world in which Firefox didn’t come along, IE’s market share is still monopolistic, and the Web is a much less interesting place.

2. It helped enable powerful Web apps. The leading browser of the pre-Firefox era, IE 6, was notoriously, willfully contemptuous of Web standards. Writing sophisticated Web-based applications such as e-mail clients that work with it was an exercise in frustration, albeit one which any company that wanted to write such apps had to go through. But Firefox set a good example by adhering to standards such as CSS and JavaScript that enable today’s Web apps. And Safari (which predated Firefox), Chrome, and even IE 8 all get it, too.

3. It’s the most mainstream open-source project to date. Linux is a remarkable accomplishment, but its domain remains servers and geeks who are passionate about software. Firefox showed the open-source community could build something that appealed to just about everybody–including folks who have no idea what open-source software is.

4. It’s spurned bloat. In many ways, today’s Firefox 3.5 doesn’t feel radically different from 2004′s Firefox 1.0. That’s a good thing–Mozilla has added features sparingly and avoided the temptation to lard its browser up with “improvements” that mostly add clutter. Instead, it offers one of the richest platforms for add-ons that the software world has ever known, allowing every Firefox user to build a browser that has exactly the features that he or she wants.

5. It gave the Netscape story an unexpectedly happy ending. The tale of the once-mighty Netscape Navigator was a sad one, whether you believed that its fall was due to unfair tactics by Microsoft or self-inflicted wounds (or a bit of both). By 2004, Navigator appeared to be well on its way to irrelevance. But Firefox, which exists only because of Netscape’s long-ago decision to open-source its code, is in effect the next-generation Navigator. With all due respect to F. Scott Fitzgerald, its success shows that there are indeed second acts in American lives. At least if the American in question happens to be a piece of software.

No, Firefox isn’t perfect–if I get a moment, I’ll write about five challenges it faces–but its huge influence made the world a better place. Even if you use IE or one of its other competitors.

Your thoughts, celebratory or otherwise?

Political Caricature? There’s No App For That

I long ago gave up on trying to cover every weird rejection of an application intended for Apple’s iPhone App Store, but this one merits quick mention. Tom Richmond, the excellent caricaturist whose work appears in MAD these days, has blogged about an app he co-created. It’s a guide to senators and members of congress that lets you look up any elected official by GPS or Zip code and get some basic information about him or her, including contact info. Useful, no?

Well, it also includes a depiction of each public servant as a bobblehead doll, using Richmond’s caricatures, and you can bobble their heads by nudging them with your finger. Pretty clever, and no more offensive than any other well-done example of political cartooning. But it apparently ran afoul of an App Store regulation that forbids apps which “Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.”

The rejection doesn’t exactly come as a surprise. Actually, we already knew that Apple doesn’t like apps that have fun at the expense of public figures: an app called Someecards with snarky, topical e-cards only got accepted after its creators edited out cards that Apple didn’t like like. The rejection of Richmond’s app, Bobble Rep, seems to suggest that even gentle humor of the sort that this nation has enjoyed for, oh, its entire existence is beyond the pale.

As TechCrunch’s MG Siegler reported, Google’s Android folks took note of Someecards’ woes, reached out, and invited the company behind it to create an uncensored Android edition. Maybe Bobble Rep will go Android, too. But does anyone out there want to argue that Apple shouldn’t take a deep breath and permit these apps onto the App Store? Isn’t political humor a positively American activity?

I mean, how is Bobble Rep different from the item below, which the iTunes Store cheerfully offers–except that it’s an iPhone app, not a Will Ferrell movie?

Verizon Wireless: The iPhone is a Misfit Toy

Once again, Verizon is bashing away at the iPhone in a commercial–one that places an animated iPhone lookalike on the Island of Misfit Toys from the classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special:

For entertainment value and diligent recreation of the Rankin-Bass studio’s stop-motion puppetry style, this ad gets an A. I do wonder, however, just how effective a marketing strategy it is to paint the iPhone as an unloved loser–we’re talking about a gizmo with astounding levels of consumer satisfaction. The Droid is a nifty phone overall, but it has a long way to go before it matches the iPhone’s sales stats and consumer approval.

Of course, the real message of this ad is pertinent and straightforward: Verizon has far more 3G coverage than AT&T. Wonder whether AT&T will feel like suing over this spot, too?

Verizon also has a couple of other Christmas-themed AT&T-attacking commercials, which you can see over at Engadget. The gist is similar, but they’re nowhere near as amusing as this one…

iPhone Tethering on AT&T: One Year and Counting

Exactly one year ago, on November 6th, 2008, I was siting in the audience at the Web 2.0 Summit when AT&T Mobility President Ralph De La Vega shared good news from the stage: The company would “soon” be permitting iPhone users to tether their phones for use. I assumed he was a reliable source and blogged the glad tidings.

I also assumed that “soon” meant a matter of weeks or a month or two, so it was startling when Apple announced that iPhone OS 3.0 would support tethering seven months later and named 22 carriers who would be ready on day of launch–and AT&T was not among them. The carrier merely said that it would support tethering at some unspecified date–which turned out not to be early August. Most recently it’s said that it needs to upgrade its network and that “We expect to offer tethering in the future,” which falls short of a promise that it will ever do so.

All along, of course, some folks have tethered their iPhones via hacks, software  that runs only on jailbroken iPhones, and even a program that was very briefly available on Apple’s App Store. But they’ve risked the wrath of AT&T, since tethering violates the carrier’s current terms of service.

As far as I know, nobody at AT&T has publicly explained what its president was doing whipping up excitement for tethering when allowing it without time-consuming infrastructure improvements would have been imprudent. But it seems likely that it now wants to go to extreme measures not to get anyone’s hopes up until it’s absolutely, positively sure that tethering is ready to go. I hope that day comes soon.

But I also keep asking myself an ugly question: If the company still seems to be having trouble dealing with the quantity of data being consumed by iPhone users who can’t tether, what does that say about the chances that it’ll allow them to hog even more bandwidth via their laptops anytime soon?

Steam Snag: Digital Retailers Boycott Modern Warfare 2

Just days before Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is released, several digital retailers have decided not to sell the game.

Is it because of that controversial scene where the player acts out a terrorist attack? Nope. It’s because the game’s PC version uses Steamworks, a software platform for multiplayer match creation, downloadable content and anti-piracy measures. Direct2Drive, Impulse and GamersGate say they oppose the forced installation of third-party software on players’ computers (Direct2Drive calls Steamworks “a Trojan Horse”), and so they are sitting out on the biggest computer game of 2009. Bold move.

Of course, that’s only the official story. Steamworks is a part of Steam, Valve’s digital distribution service that happens to compete with the boycotting retailers. As 1UP so eloquently put it, “having to fire up Steam to play the game you bought from Direct2Drive is a lot like having to walk through a McDonald’s every time you want to eat a Whopper,” so you can understand the retailers’ position.

The bigger issue is that Modern Warfare 2 is taking away many of the things PC gamers love about PC gaming. Last month, chaos ensued when developer Infinity Ward said there would be no dedicated servers allowed for multiplayer matches. Instead, everything will be handled though a console-style matchmaking system, and the game won’t support user-created mods either. (Ars Technica has a nice rundown of how messy this situation has become).

The forced implementation of Steamworks ties into those earlier developments as a way of controlling the PC gaming environment, and making it more like the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. The problem is, that’s not what PC gamers want. Modern Warfare 2 will probably sell well on the PC anyway, but it’ll be a neutered experience, and one that hurts the free spirit of PC gaming as a whole.

Dell’s Adamo XPS: Incredibly Thin! Unexpectedly Odd!

Okay, now we know why Dell was being so secretive about its new Adamo XPS laptop: It’s not only remarkably thin (9.99mm) but also uses a design which is unique, as far as I know. The keyboard hinges to the display not at its edge but part way up,so the keyboard is angled upwards. As seen in the photo above, the ports are on the display half of the system rather than the keyboard part. And you swipe your finger across some sort of band to open the case. Very, very unusual.

Most attempts to “improve” laptop design have flopped, but the Adamo is intriguing, at least. It’s kind of hard to figure it out without seeing it in person–which I haven’t done–but reports from those who have are at least guardedly positive, and say the angled keyboard makes for comfy typing.
Props to Dell for trying something different, at least. It has a preview site up with basic specs for the new Adamo; it’ll cost $1799 and be out for the holiday season.

Any guesses as to whether the slanty keyboard will be successful? Can you envision other PC manufacturers plagiarizing the idea, or is this the 2009 equivalent of an IBM butterfly Thinkpad?

5Words: Cheapie iPhone 3GS Coming Shortly?

$99 iPhone 3GS for Xmas?

Droid: What you should know.

Skype legal hassles over! Please?

Twitter starts to test retweeting.

Windows 7 outselling Vista handily.

Band Hero sued? No doubt!

Slacker radio hits Android phones.

Orb media streaming for Macs.

It’s Wikipedia in handheld form.

Technology isn’t making us hermits.

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Google Magazines: Now Actually Findable!

I keep writing about the wonders of Google Books’ archive of scanned magazines–most notably, the utter delight that is the complete LIFE. Every time I do, I pause to wonder why it’s practically impossible to find a magazine unless you know it’s there. Problem solved, mostly: Google Books now has a page with thumbnail images of all the magazines to be found there.

Continue reading this story…

Is it Too Early to Start Designing the Verizon Droid II?

Verizon Wireless starts selling its first Android phone, the Droid (“by Motorola”) today. I’ve been using a unit loaned to me by Verizon for a week, and remain mostly impressed: The Droid couples impressive hardware with the much-improved Android 2.0 OS, and the result is the first Android phone that’s fully worthy of being compared to the iPhone 3GS and Palm’s Pre. (It’s most definitely an example of the class of device that Walt Mossberg calls “super-smart phones.”)

I don’t expect every Verizon customer who’s currently lusting after the iPhone to buy a Droid instead, but I think a meaningful percentage will–and that overall, they’ll be pleased.

But the Droid is hardly above criticism. As I’ve been using one and mostly enjoying the experience, my mind has been racing ahead to…next year’s model. (I’m assuming there will be one: Already, Verizon is releasing another phone in the Droid lineup, the Droid Eris.)

So here’s my quick wishlist for the phone I’m calling the Droid II–the next major collaboration between Verizon, Motorola,and Google.

A better keyboard. I want to like the Droid’s wide QWERTY keyboard, but so far I can’t muster much enthusiasm for its feel–the overall thinness of the phone has resulted in keys without enough travel for truly satisfying typing. (I do like the fact that it frees up all of the handsome screen’s 854-by-480 pixels for content, not virtual keys.)

It’s gotta be possible to squeeze a better keyboard into the space the Droid has–for one thing, the little five-way controller to the right of the keys seems superfluous on a touchscreen device. Dump it, and you could widen the keys and make them more comfy. I’d also be tickled if the Droid II took a cue from the AT&T Tilt I used to carry and angled the screen up when you slid out the keyboard.

Continue reading this story…