Google Has Good News for Lala Fans. Apple Isn’t Talking.

Some of us are a wee bit fixated on the fate of nifty music service Lala now that it’s part of Apple. Peter Burroughs has a story in BusinessWeek with a hopeful-sounding headline: “Apple Will Let Google Continue Using Lala.” It refers to the agreement between Google and Lala that puts links to free Lala music (and purchase options) in some of Google’s music-related search results.

After reading Burroughs’ story, I’m not so sure how hopeful to feel. Google’s RJ Pittman told him that Apple and Google “are agreeing to continue to leave the service as is” and that Lala will “remain live for the forseeable future.” But it’s Apple that’s going to determine Lala’s future–and Apple spokesman Steve Downling’s only comment to Burroughs was that Apple doesn’t comment on acquisitions.

So I’m left with all the same questions I’ve had since news of the acquisition broke.

How much (if any) of Lala will make its way into iTunes and/or other Apple services such as MobileMe? Lala lets you buy streaming only-songs for a dime apiece (and listen to them via an interface that already looks like iTunes in your browser); it gives you access to streaming versions of songs you possess in MP3 form; and it has some cool community features that let you peek at what your pals are listening to. A Lala-ized iTunes could be wonderful, but it’s also possible that Apple bought Lala for its engineering talent, not its service.

Will the Lala site and service continue on? It’s hard to believe that Apple would just leave it as. Over time, it’s surely either going to get sucked into iTunes, or cease to exist.

Will Apple put Lala’s impressive iPhone app on the iPhone App Store? (“Approve” doesn’t feel like the right word when you’re talking about a piece of software now owned by Apple.) It’s not necessarily a terrible sign if it doesn’t show up–Apple may merely be so excited about the app that it’s working on an Apple-ized version.

Will the Google deal continue on? I hope so, but I won’t be traumatized if it doesn’t–in part because Google has a similar arrangement with iLike.

Apple almost certainly isn’t going to share any of its intentions for Lala–whatever happens will just  happen. Building any of the service’s capabilities into iTunes would take a while, so I’m not going to feel downright pessimistic until (A) any aspects of Lala in its current form go away, and /or (B) major new releases of iTunes and/or the iPhone arrive with no signs of Lala influence. In the short term, no news may well be good news…

Twitter Hacked

Twitter’s home page was replaced this evening by a message claiming to be the work of “the Iranian Cyber Army.” Then most of the site went down. At the moment, it seems to back up, but only sort of–I still can’t get into the status page and blog.  You gotta wonder whether Twitter’s doing everything it can to keep the site safe, and whether it’ll give us all the gory details on how this happened…

The Tech Media’s Complete Loss of Rationality

I have been sitting here watching in disbelief over the past few days, feeling somewhat embarrassed about my profession at large.  Much of the tech media that has been tripping over themselves to treat Dan Lyons’ satirical movement to bring AT&T’s network to its knees as something akin to the Boston Tea Party — a defining moment that affects real change.

It’s been called by some as a “grassroots movement.” Another says that this, and I quote, “should be big lesson to any company about how social media is changing customer relations.” Others are lashing out at Lyons himself, calling him irresponsible for using his blog for exactly what it is, a satirical look into the world of Apple. To say the amount of bloviating on this topic has been astounding would be an understatement.

Earth to the media: Dan Lyons is a satirist, not Che Guevara!

Lets be clear here: there is absolutely no evidence that “Chokehold” will be anything more than a blip on AT&T’s daily graphs of data traffic. All of the hype surrounding the event has been manufactured by the tech media itself — and unfortunately, by some who have a large readership and lots of influence — and not by Lyons himself. If anything, I believe Mr. Lyons has been unfairly attacked and criticized for something that we have all essentially foisted upon him.

Remember that Facebook group we talked about in our initial coverage? It’s only up to 3,800 members — way smaller than other protest groups which have effected real change. If we are going to gauge participation by social media, we should look to Twitter too. A cursory look shows a lot of discussion, but its exactly that — talk. Call me skeptical, but its very hard to get an actual effective protest together. People are just too lazy these days, frankly.

If this is even in the least bit successful, we shouldn’t thank its creator. Rather, we should blame the tech media for making a huge deal out of a joke. Have we become so desperate for news that we’re practically manufacturing an event?

No, I’m not denying AT&T’s network sucks. In a lot of the country it does. But its not that bad that its going to bring hordes of people to the point of streaming their hearts out at 12 noon pacific tomorrow in some wild attempt at sabotage wireless data style. It’s just not going to happen. It’s time that the tech media takes a step back, and turns the hype machine off. Our readers deserve more than this.

Enough With the Wii Fitness Studies

Every week, it seems like there’s a new study that either praises or decries Nintendo’s Wii as a vehicle for getting into shape.

The most recent comes from the University of Mississippi. The study loaned Wii Fit units to eight families, who spent three months without the console and Balance Board, and three months using it. In conclusion, moderate Wii Fit use “may have provided insufficient stimulus for fitness changes,” said the study.

Nintendo would beg to differ. The company recently funded a study by the National Institute of Health and Nutrition in Tokyo, which found that a third of the games in Wii Fit and Wii Sports meet the American Health Association’s guidelines for moderate exercise.

Yet another recent study from the American Council on Exercise found that the Wii Fit provides “underwhelming” health benefits. However, ACE conceded that Wii Sports is more strenuous, and could help people meet minimum intensity guidelines for exercise.

Do we really need all these studies to declare whether the Wii is an exercise machine? Of course not. If you’re sweating a little after a round of Wii Sports Boxing, chances are you got some exercise. You also probably understand that it’s less of a work out than actual boxing, but it’s better than sitting on the couch. Duh.

The bigger problem with trying to quantify the Wii’s fitness value is that there are too many variables. You can play Wii Sports Tennis from your couch, or you can flail around like maniac. You can play Wii Fit every day for two months, and then never touch it again. Like any exercise, the Wii is totally dependent on what you put into it.

Indeed, the most important point in the University of Mississippi study is glossed over as an afterthought: After three months, the amount of time families spent playing Wii Fit dropped by 82 percent. Sounds a lot like my gym-going habits.

I can’t say it better than Kotaku editor Brian Crecente did in a Forbes feature on the matter: “What Nintendo did is they tapped into that desire people have to be healthier… Everyone wants to work out, but nobody really wants to put the effort into it.”

No amount of scientific fitness measurements can account for that.

Audi A8 is Google-Ready

I kinda doubt that I’ll ever own an Audi A8–I’m still perfectly pleased with my 2004 Mazda 3. But the new A8 does have an option I’d kill for: built-in Google Earth.

Should Google Get Into the Hardware Game?

With the exception of a search appliance for internal use by businesses, Google has stayed out of the hardware business. Now rumor has it that we may see a Google-branded phone shortly, and maybe even a Google netbook late next year. My friend Jason Hiner says that Google needs to be cautious if it plans to go into the physical-object biz in a big way.

T-Poll time:

$26 Gets You Into A Predator Drone

This is certainly comforting: US officials have disclosed that Iraqi militants have found a way to hack into US Predator drone aircraft in an effort that is possibly being funded by Iran. The breach could be providing them with information that could help them evade capture by US authorities, and they could be doing it for as little as $25.95.

I wish I was kidding here, but the insurgents have used programs like SkyGrabber — a program that allows for satellite data capture — to obtain access into the drone’s video fees. I guess there’s some good news here: that’s all they’ve apparently been able to access, and officials stress they have not lost control of any aircraft as a result of the break-ins.

Military officials have apparently known about the issue since late last year, when a laptop from a Shiite militant contained drone video feeds. Since then several other laptops have been confiscated with similar data found. Evidence has been found in Afghanistan of hacking as well, indicating our enemies may also be spreading this information. So, where is this loophole that’s allowing people to get in? According to officials, its in the the downlink which has no encryption. They have known about the issue since the 1990s, but never did anything about it because they assumed our enemies wouldn’t know about it.

It’s not immediately clear if anything will be done in the short term. Encrypting data would necessitate that all drones be retrofitted with new hardware, which the government says it is concerned would cause delays. Additionally, encryption could pose issues in sharing data with the military and its allies, they argue.

“There’s a balance between pragmatics and sophistication,” former Air Force Secretary Mike Wynne told the WSJ. Doesn’t provide me much comfort. Any way you look at it, our Predator drones have a serious security hole, which should worry any of us with loved ones over there that these things are supposed to be protecting.

Sony Readers Getting Subscriptions

Sony’s Reader e-readers have a decent selection of books, but–unlike the Kindle and Nook–they haven’t done newspapers or magazines. (There’s an RSS reader feature, but as far as I can tell, it’s been busted for months.) But Sony just struck a deal to bring News Corp. content, including the Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, and the New York Post, to its e-readers. I hope more’s on the way–especially now that the company’s launching the Reader Daily Edition, which can snag periodical content wirelessly as it’s available.

5Words: The Math Behind Free Googlephones

A free Googlephone? Could work!

Windows 7 needs less support.

Google’s own Chrome OS netbook?

The first AT&T Android phone?

How Europe’s browser ballot works.

Facebook shares ethnic usage data.

Intel antitrust issues: a history.

People click on iPhone ads.

________________________

Like 5Words? Subscribe via RSS.

Obama Set to Fund Broadband Expansion Initiative

The US government will be awarding $2 billion of federal stimulus money over the next 75 days to begin work to expand broadband to rural areas. The first $182 million is being distributed beginning today for 18 projects in 17 states, the Obama Administration said. Some $7.2 billion overall has been marked in the stimulus for work on broadband.

Government officials supporting the plan argue that the investment will stimulate the economy and create “tens of thousands of jobs.” The issue of unemployment has begun to nag the Adminstration, which for much of 2009 has been bogged down in the morass that has become health care reform.

Monies received through the broadband stimulus program may not be exactly for Internet access, however. Improvements to the electrical grid, work in electronic medical records, and high-speed rail projects are also set to receive some funds as a result of the move, officials say.

While I know some of Obama’s opponents will see this as a foolhardy way to spend money, I think it is a good idea to start investing in our broadband infrastructure. Lets put it this way: in the modern economy, broadband Internet access has become ever more vital to success. With the US falling behind globally, you could argue that our businesses are also suffering as well. Add to this the patchwork nature of our broadband footprint, and well, you get the point.

BlackBerry Outage

Bloomberg is reporting a BlackBerry outage that affects e-mail for every BlackBerry user–not a unique occurrence. Given that companies with BlackBerries run their own servers, I’d love to see a coherent explanation of why RIM’s technology is such that a single point of failure can cripple its entire customer base…

(UPDATE: RIM says the outage is over.)

Glide: An Amazing (and Sometimes Amazingly Confusing) Web Megasuite

Four years ago, I used my PC World blog to write about Glide, a “Web OS” that I said might be the most ambitious new service of 2005. Glide was trying to move much of a typical user’s computing experience from the PC to the cloud–even though the idea was so new at the time that almost nobody was talking about cloud computing yet. I said that the service was promising, but rough around the edges and frequently confusing. While Glide hasn’t ever become one of the Web’s household names, it’s continued on, adding gazillions of new features and repeatedly reworking its user interface. So I’m overdue for another look.

Continue reading this story…

Zune Twitter App Censors Tweets

Okay, who wants to make the case in favor of Microsoft’s decision to release a Zune HD Twitter app that censors naughty words out of tweets?

Will the EC’s Watchful Eye Hobble Microsoft’s Ability to Innovate?

Microsoft may have settled its differences with the EC over the antitrust complaint Opera Software’s levied against it, but I do not expect that the European Commission’s scrutiny of Microsoft will lapse. I just hope that the EC is judicious in exercising its regulatory authority against the company in the future.

Opera filed a complaint with the EC in 2007 alleging that Microsoft illegally bundled Internet Explorer with Windows. That complaint was settled today when Microsoft and the EC came to an agreement over a browser ballot for Windows that lets the end users choose which browser they would like to use as their default.

Continue reading this story…

5Words: YouTube Looks Back at 2009

YouTube: the year in review.

Google: only 16,000 Android apps.

More Google Fast Flip sources.

24GB of RAM–only $1300!

Twitter on the Zune HD.

Continental planes getting Wi-Fi.

Bing comes to the iPhone.

________________________

Like 5Words? Subscribe via RSS.

McDonald’s to Offer Free Wi-Fi By January

Soon the Golden Arches will become the spot to go if you wanna grab a bite to eat and check your e-mail for free: McDonald’s plans to drop its free for using Wi-Fi in 11,000 of its 14,000 US locations. Previously, two hours of access set the customer back $2.95.

I gotta say it: I’m loving it.

The change is part of an effort to continue drawing in a wider customer base. Part of it could have to do with its efforts in gourmet coffee — the McCafe offering has more than doubled sales of coffee and now is five percent of its overall sales.

Free Wi-Fi is something that can be found in many local coffeeshops, and certainly the two have almost become synonymous with one another. Starbucks charges a fee for access, but is one of the few that still do.

As McDonald’s remakes itself into more of a destination rather than a quick stop for a bite to eat, company officials say they don’t mind adding services that keep customers in stores longer. There will be no time limits on wireless access, the company said.

Both Starbucks and McDonald’s partner with AT&T to run their Wi-Fi offerings.