Google’s Little Translation Miracle

When I was a kid, one of my favorite fictional characters was Norman Hunter’s Professor Branestawm, the ultimate absent-minded professor. His inventions were brilliant, but always ended up causing immense trouble for anyone who used them. The one I remember in most vivid detail is an automatic translating machine, which let tourists speak one language into a microphone and have any other language come out the other end. As I recall, it ended up wreaking havoc, but I still thought it was about the neatest idea I’d ever heard.

Fast-forward almost forty years, and Professor Branestawm’s gizmo is no longer the stuff of playful science fiction. Times Online is reporting that Google is working on phone software that does precisely what his creation did–with, one hopes, better results. The company thinks it should have it working reasonably well within a few years.

That doesn’t sound like an irrationally exuberant expectation. Voice recognition already works really well; text-to-speech voice synthesis isn’t bad these days, either. The tricky part is the translation. But I saw a Google translation research project almost half a decade ago that knocked my socks off. And if the company focused on the sort of simple things that travelers might want to say to locals (“Can you tell me how to get to the Louvre?”) it might get better results more quickly than if attempted to provide a perfect rendition of every idea that human beings are capable of expressing in words.

As someone who loves to travel but lacks the gift that several of my relatives have for learning foreign languages, I can’t wait. And I’m sorry that Norman Hunter, who died at 95 three years before Google’s debut, won’t be around to give it  whirl.

iPad Prices Could Drop Quickly

Credit Suisse analysts met with Apple executives, and has come out of those meetings with an interesting point of view: that Apple’s pricing on the iPad may actually be fluid, and the company may be ready to bring prices down if it’s not selling to the company’s expectations.

Such aggressiveness seems to indicate that Cupertino is very serious about carving out a market for its newest device. It also comes as a shock to much of the technorati, who for quite awhile expected the tablet to have a price of at least $700 if not much higher.

“While it remains to be seen how much traction the iPad gets initially, management noted that it will remain nimble,” Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope was reported as writing in a Sunday research note by the Wall Street Journal.

It’s not all too clear how well the iPad will do. While netbooks in general have sold quite well, Apple’s device (while not exactly a netbook) is priced above the average price of its competitors. Add to this that getting the most benefit (adding the 3G capabilities) will set you back $629, it may be a bit above most people’s price range.

Personally, the magic price for me with this device (which includes the 3G) would be under $500. I’m curious: what’s yours?

Fifteen Consumer Electronics Design Mistakes

You saved and you saved until you could finally buy that shiny new $1000 gadget that promised you everything under the stars. When it came time to plug it in, you found your joy being subsumed by abject horror. Your stomach plunged deep into your gut and you (yes, mortal non-designer you) recognized a fundamental flaw in your flashy gizmo so obvious that it made you want to pick up the device and smash it over the designer’s head.

Even the best designers make mistakes…but this article isn’t about them. We’re about to, ahem, celebrate the worst consumer electronics designers through the lens of their faulty creations. Since I’m far from an all-knowing technology god, I’ve limited our survey to fifteen design problems that have not only bugged me through the years, but that are widespread enough to have bugged many of you too. These problems aren’t limited to current technology, but they all fall into the nebulous realm known as “consumer electronics.” You know: TVs, telephones, VCRs, DVD players, MP3 players, and more.

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Your Biggest iPad Questions Answered

[Here's another column I wrote for FoxNews.com. In this one, I try to summarize some of the major things that non-geeks need to know about the iPad.]

When Apple finally announced its iPad tablet computer at a San Francisco press event last week, we learned that it was “magical.” And “revolutionary.” And that the price was “unbelievable.”

That’s the truth according to Steve Jobs, at least. As usual, the facts are a bit more complex. The iPad is an ambitious product that’s hard to sum up in a few words, or to assess at all until it’s actually available for sale, which won’t be for weeks. Herewith, some early answers to major questions about the device, based on what I learned at Apple’s launch and the hands-on time I got with one after the great unveiling concluded.

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Am I the Only One Who Likes My Facebook Inbox the Way It Is?

Over at TechCrunch, Michael Arrington is reporting that a source has told him that Facebook is working on a full-blown e-mail service. It’s supposedly known internally as Project Titan, or “Gmail Killer.”

The only details Arrington mentions are that the new version is said to offer POP3/IMAP access (so you can get into your Facebook messages from anywhere) and that your e-mail address will be in the format harrymccracken@facebook.com.

Sounds good–but one of the things I like about my Facebook inbox is that it’s a spam-free island unto itself, populated only by people who I’ve granted permission to contact me. Whatever Project Titan is, I hope it doesn’t turn Facebook messaging into…well, e-mail as we know it.

10 Games You’ll Miss for First-Gen Xbox Live

On April 15, Microsoft will kill online play for original Xbox games. Even if you own an Xbox 360, you’ll no longer be able to play original Xbox games online, including backwards-compatible discs and downloadable Xbox Originals. While it’s probably for the best — Microsoft is promising new, yet-unspecified features that weren’t possible while still supporting the old Xbox — some games are just irreplaceable. Here are 10 original Xbox games that have no equal on the Xbox 360 (which means no Halo 2 or Call of Duty 3):

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Siri, a Promising “Virtual Personal Assistant” for the iPhone 3GS

Siri, an ambitious new free iPhone application, is now available in the App Store–and it’s not Just Another iPhone Application. Based on $150 million of research by the Stanford Research Institute and DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Products Agency), Siri aims to be a “virtual personal assistant” that understands your spoken requests–”best sushi in san francisco,” “remind me to order flowers,” “order tickets to a show at the Castro Theater”–and takes action on your behalf.

Retrieving information by voice on the iPhone is nothing new–Google’s Mobile App is just one of several that let you search the Web by speaking. But Siri isn’t Web search. It’s all about actions you want to take, and it returns information and opportunities to do things, not search results. And it uses the iPhone’s GPS to refine its responses to your local area.

(Right now, Siri is designed for the iPhone 3GS; versions for the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch, as well as other mobile platforms, are in the works.)

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Apple Will Reject Apps that Use GPS for Location-Aware Ads

Apple is now advising App Store developers that it will reject any application submitted for review if the location-aware capabilities of the iPhone API is used to provide the user with location-aware ads, MacNN has reported. The move could be a signal that the company itself plans to move into the space, and that wouldn’t be that surprising.

Consider that Apple did look into a buyout of AdMob, which ended up being purchased by Google. It bought out mobile advertiser Quattro Wireless, and has said it wants to offer its developers advertising solutions within their apps.

Add this all up, and it certainly seems like Apple is ready to move into the mobile advertising space — and is clearing out any possibe competitors to do it. This is Cupertino’s M.O., so its not that surprising. Developers are certainly speaking out on the issue, such as Craig Hockenberry of Twitterific.

“Looks like Apple is going to keep location-based advertising to themselves,” he said- not surprisingly in a tweet on Wednesday.

I can certainly see why Apple would like to do this, but i certainly do view it as quite anticompetitive. If this is used as a way to give Quattro the leg up on advertising on the iPhone, I’d think it would be frowned upon by competition regulators. Then again, Apple has been doing things like this for years, and nothing has ever been done…

5Words: Multi-touch on Droid (Sorta)

Droid gets (some) multi-touch.

E-book prices are going up.

Comics will rock on iPad

Sling? Us? Work with AT&T?

Malware sneaks into Firefox extensions.

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Best Buy, Wal-Mart End Used Game Kiosk Flirtation

When it comes to trading in used games, there really is no stopping Gamestop.

Best Buy and Wal-Mart, who both experimented with used game kiosks last year, are pulling out, according to IndustryGamers. Both companies relied on a third-party, E-Play, to run the kiosks, and will remove the machines over the next few weeks. E-Play’s Web site has a sombre little message saying they’ve suspended operations, and thanking customers.

In addition to offering credit or debit card credit in exchange for used games, the kiosks rented DVDs (as long as there wasn’t a Redbox machine in the store as well), Blu-ray discs and video games.

A couple guesses why the pilot programs failed: Unlike Gamestop, where you can call to find out a game’s trade-in value, a kiosk is unpredictable, and the prices E-Play offered — $25 for new titles down to 50 cents for throwaways — isn’t better than anywhere else.  Marketing and awareness could’ve come into play as well. If you call Gamestop, you’ll likely hear, “Thank you for calling Gamestop, where we buy and sell used games” on the other end. Somehow, “Welcome to Wal-Mart, check out that kiosk over there” doesn’t have the same ring.

All’s not lost for trading games outside of GameStop. Toys R’ Us, which began buying used games in select markets last year, expanded the program nationwide in September. Amazon will buy your old games in exchange for online store credit, and Wal-Mart still sells used games online, but does not buy them. Still, none of these competitors offer the whole package of buying and selling used games. Local stores and smaller chains, such as Game Crazy, are still around (barely), and thrifty gamers will still rely on Craigslist, eBay and Goozex.

But for most of the United States, for quickly unloading a used game and getting another one in its place, GameStop’s got it locked down.

The Trouble With Microsoft: An Insider’s Perspective

Former Microsoft VP Dick Brass has an interesting piece in the New York Times on the software giant’s woes. He says that opportunities to be innovative often fizzle because of internecine warfare in Redmond, giving two projects he was responsible for (ClearType and the Tablet PC) as examples. He also says that the company has lousy timing–Web TV was too much too soon, and the Zune was too little too late. And he says that Microsoft’s emphasis on building software for other companies’ devices–once a huge strength–has turned into a weakness in the era of the iPh0ne and the Kindle.

Microsoft took the blunt criticism from a former Microsoftie seriously enough that PR head Frank Shaw responded on the Official Microsoft Blog. If nothing else, Shaw’s post is graceful and good humored, and it makes at least one reasonable point: Brass’s dismissal of Xbox (“at best an equal contender”) seems unfair. If every new Microsoft enterprise were as slick, innovative, and successful as the Xbox 360 platform, you’d tend to Brass’s charges as those of a disgruntled ex-employee. But they’re not, and you can’t.

Xfinity: New Name for the Same Old Comcast?

Comcast, the nation’s dominant provider of cable TV and broadband services, has apparently decided it doesn’t like its 40-year-old moniker. The company isn’t changing its corporate name, but it’s announced plans to rebrand its consumer services–TV, Internet access, and phone–as Xfinity. (The name has already been in use for the past six weeks for Comcast’s subscriber-only Internet TV service.) The Xfinity name will be rolled out to eleven cities next week, with more to come as the year progresses.

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Five Possible Superkindles. Which One(s) Will Amazon Build?

So Amazon.com has bought itself a startup with an innovative touch-screen technology. The only logical assumption is that it intends to build a touch-enabled Kindle. You’ve gotta think that it’ll take a while to incorporate the new technology into a future Kindle. And given that the last all-new Kindle shipped nearly a year ago, there are probably at least two future Kindles in the works: a next-generation one and a next-next-generation one.

Trying to figure out where the Kindle is headed was aways interesting food for thought, but it got even more interesting when Apple showed off the iPad last week. The current Kindle and the iPad are a study in contrasts: The Kindle is a monochrome, long-life device, button-driven built almost entirely for reading books; the iPad is a color, short-life, touch-screen Swiss Army Knife.

But the only scenario in which the Kindle is unaffected by the iPad (and possibly iPad-like gizmos from other companies) is one in which the iPad flops almost instantaneously. That seems unlikely. So here are five possible  ”Superkindles” (to steal New York Times times reporter Nick Bilton’s term).

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5Words: Amazon Buys Touch for Superkindle

Amazon gears up for Superkindle.

Will Sony take on iPad?

(Sternless) Sirius XM on BlackBerry.

Twitter adds Hovercard user profiles.

Engadget turns comments back on.

Palm’s Mobile Hotspot Speed: Disappointing.

Tragically, prematurely, CSPAN abandons RealVideo.

IE flaw allows file access.

Teenagers lose interest in blogging.

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3G SlingPlayer for iPhone. Finally!

Way back in June of 2008, Sling Media began showing off a version of its SlingPlayer software–which works with the company’s SlingBox gadget to route TV across the Internet–for the iPhone. It took another eleven months until the app went on sale. And when it did, it turned out that AT&T had prohibited Sling from letting it work over the 3G network. You could watch your TV from your iPhone, but only over Wi-Fi. At the time, I wrote:

Maybe I’m a wild-eyed optimist, but I’m hoping that Sling will eventually be permitted to add 3G support, and that those of us who have paid thirty bucks for this first version will get free upgrades.

Then I sort of forgot about the whole thing, since I rarely used the Wi-Fi version of the app. (In fact I stopped using my SlingBox much, period–I still can’t figure out why the iPhone version was verboten but the Windows Mobile one was OK..) But I hadn’t hoped in vain. Today, AT&T and Sling issued a joint press release saying that the 3G version of the app now passes muster. It’ll be available (and a free upgrade to existing customers) once Apple approves it.

“Just as we’ve worked with Sling Media in this instance, we look forward to collaborating with other developers so that mobile customers can access a wider, more bandwidth-sensitive, and powerful range of applications in the future,” said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “Collaboration with developers like Sling Media ensures that all apps are optimized for our 3G network to conserve wireless spectrum and reduce the risk that an app will cause such extreme levels of congestion that they disrupt the experience of other wireless customers. Our focus continues to be on delivering the nation’s most advanced mobile broadband experience and giving our customers the widest possible array of mobile applications.”

Good news, even if the process moved at a glacial pace. Presumably there are some interesting possibilities for video applications that developers didn’t even bother to consider after Sling was forced to hobble the original version of SlingPlayer. Now writing them won’t seem like a pointless exercise.

Reports: Apple Will Sell Eight Million iPads by 2012

An analyst with Needham & Company has projected that Apple will sell 2 million iPads this year with an additional 6M being sold in 2011. The sales will come at the expense of Apple’s iPod Touch, according to reports today.

Sales will begin moderately. The anticipated spike in sales will occur after “the arrival of a catalyst,” but the report did not specify what that incentive would be. The iTunes store worked before, and it may work again.

That is evidenced by reports of interactive textbooks headed to the iPad. The iPad also could appeal to people who have light computing requirements such as seniors.

In comparison, the iPhone was much more mass market. Over 1 million iPhones were sold within 71 days of its introduction, and sold over 8 million units last quarter. The iPhone has contributed remarkably to Apple’s revenues–without massively cannibalizing the sales of iPods. The iPad could be viewed as a substitute for the iPod Touch.

The thing to keep in mind is that this is only the first iteration of the iPad. There’s no shortage of speculation about what Apple may or may deliver when the iPad ships – from evidence of a camera to an “intelligent bezel.” We don’t know the entire story of what “it” is yet, or what it will become. The iPad could very well end up carrying other Apple products.

Whether those reports are accurate or not, they do prove one thing: there is no shortage of potential for the tablet category. Even if Google enters the market, increased category awareness and growth should only support Apple’s sales.