Archive | March, 2010
Skype on Verizon: Coming This Thursday
Last month, Verizon and Verizon Wireless announced that they were working together to bring a mobile version of Skype to users of BlackBerry and Android handsets on the Verizon network. Today at the CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas, they’re divulging the details, including the precise timeframe: Skype Mobile will begin to be available for download this Thursday at 3am ET.
Russ Shaw, general manager for mobile at Skype, told me that the version of Skype that BlackBerry- and Android-toting Verizon customers will get has been optimized for the Verizon network and the devices in question. For instance, it runs in the background in always-on mode, but won’t drain the battery too quickly, he said.
Opera Submits Opera Mini to the App Store. Your Move, Apple
23. March 2010
Norwegian browser company Opera Software wants to be the second company to release a browser for the iPhone–after Apple, of course. And so it’s announcing today that it’s submitted Opera Mini to Apple for App Store approval. Opera says that it considered charging for the app, but has decided to give it away.
The company touts its server-side compression technology as making Opera Mini up to six times faster than Apple’s Mobile Safari. When I tried Mini on the iPhone last week at the South by Southwest conference, I didn’t see that speed boost–but an Opera representative recently told me that Mini was misconfigured at SxSW. And I was impressed with the browser in other ways.
Will Apple approve Mini? Assuming that it follows the iPhone developer agreement and doesn’t involve security risks, I think it would be a horrible mistake if it didn’t. Safari is going to be the iPhone’s dominant browser no matter what, and spiking Mini would resurrect Google Voice-like concerns that Apple is unwilling to permit competitors to build iPhone apps that rational people might prefer to Apple’s own wares.
It’ll be good for iPhone owners, Opera, Apple, and the American way if Apple approves Mini without delay. And I’m in an optimistic mood. So I’m hereby predicting that it’ll show up on the App Store within the next couple of weeks.
Hey, There’s a Piece of (Fictional) Apple History in My Hotel Room!
23. March 2010
Remember the nifty tech-company reference in Robert Zemeckis’s 1994 blockbuster Forrest Gump? After Forrest (Tom Hanks) and his friend Lt. Dan (Gary Sinese) found the Bubba-Gump Shrimp Company in the 1970s, Lt. Dan invests its profits in a company called…Apple Computer. Forrest makes a mint and showers riches on others. Here, watch it to referesh your memory.
That letter Forrest gets from Apple? I found it in my room when I checked into my hotel in Las Vegas on Monday afternoon for the CTIA Wireless show.
Google’s China Move
22. March 2010
A little over two months ago, Google declared that it had been the victim of a massive hacker attack originating within China, and had decided as a result that it would no longer participate in government-imposed self-censorship within mainland China. It said it would discuss its next steps with the Chinese government, and while the company hasn’t disclosed the nature of those discussions, we now know their upshot: Google has shut down its censored Chinese version and is now giving mainlanders an uncensored search engine in Simplified Chinese, delivered from its servers in Hong Kong.
SanDisk Takes MicroSD to 32GB
22. March 2010
More CTIA news: SanDisk has announced that it’s shipping the world’s highest capacity MicroSDHC card. It’s a 32GB model, big enough to let any phone with an SDHC slot match the memory of the highest-capacity iPhone 3GS. As usual for a new high-end memory card, it’s pricey in terms of the cost per gigabyte: SanDisk is offering it for $199.99, but the company will also sell you four 8GB MicroSD cards for a total of $120. If history is any indication–and it is–the 32GB cards will get cheaper, especially once 64GB models (which require slots compatible with the newer MicroSDXC standard) arrive and claim the maximum-capacity bragging rights.
Palm and Dell Phones on AT&T
22. March 2010
I’ve landed in Las Vegas for CTIA Wireless, the U.S.’s biggest phone confab. The show floor doesn’t open until tomorrow, but news is already breaking. AT&T, for instance, has announced that it’s adding Palm’s Pre Plus and Pixi Plus to its lineup, as well as Dell’s Android-based Aero–the first Dell phone to ship in the U.S.
At the moment, it’s fashionable to declare Palm to be dead. It’s true that things look bleak at the moment, but pundits have been writing premature obituaries for the company for years, so I’d take the current round of knowing analysis with a grain of salt. With the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus’s arrival on AT&T, there are Palm handsets on ever major U.S. carrier except T-Mobile. That can’t hurt, and might help.
(I’m sorry that the AT&T Pre Plus lacks the nifty Mobile HotSpot feature that’s available on the Verizon version. But I’m not surprised: If AT&T had enabled MHS on the Pre while continuing to deny iPhone users the tethering it said was “coming soon” back in 2008, iPhone users would have headed towards AT&T headquarters with pitchforks.)
Dell, meanwhile, is a company that hasn’t had much luck with handheld gizmos in the past (remember the DJ?). The Aero runs Dell’s own Android interface and is based on the Mini 3, which has only been available in China and Brazil until now. I’ll try to track one down before I head home from the show.
Life With Droid: The Good, the Bad, and the Bizarre
22. March 2010
From July 11th, 2008–the day the iPhone 3G went on sale–until February 15th, 2010, I was an iPhone user. But for all the things that are wonderful about the iPhone, I was increasingly fed up with one, um, minor weakness: I had trouble making and receiving phone calls on it. That’s in part because I spend a lot of time in the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco, much of which seems to be Bermuda Triangle of AT&T coverage.
So after thinking it over for a couple of weeks, I took dramatic action: I bought myself a Motrola Droid from Verizon Wireless. Why the Droid? Well, with the profusion of new apps for Android phones, I figured I needed an Android phone on hand to review them . And the Droid is on the famously dependable Verizon network, is available now (unlike the Verizon Nexus One), and has a keyboard (also unlike the Nexus one).
Oh, and Amazon had the Droid for $109 with a two-year contract, no rebate paperwork involved. Which sounded like a great deal until it knocked the price down to $49.99 shortly after I placed my order…
E-Reader Companies Ready Their iPad Apps
22. March 2010
Amazon is providing a sneak peek of its Kindle reader for the iPad. The page is titled “Kindle Apps for Tablet Computers Including the iPad,” which sounds like confirmation that other new versions for (mostly) still-to-come devices are also in the works–I’m guessing ones for Windows-based Slate PCs and for Android. And judging from the images on Amazon’s preview page, it looks like the apps may be slicker than the sparse and disappointing Kindle apps that the company has released to date.
Kindle will have company on the iPad: The New York Times is reporting that Barnes & Noble is also working on a reader. Engadget says that the Hearst-backed Skiff platform will “almost certainly” show up as well (an assertion for which its source is…me). And then there’s Apple’s own iBooks.
After the jump, a couple of screenshots of the Kindle app. No word on how quickly it’ll show up after the iPad does on April 3rd, but presumably it’s in Amazon’s interest to give Apple’s bookstore as little of a head start as possible.
Three Things I Want From Sonos
21. March 2010
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The Sonos S5 ($399) was one of my 2009 boxes of the year. With good reason. Sonos is a sophisticated but easy to implement and easy to operate whole-home audio solution. Featuring content from both our local music collections and various online sources. The S5 broke new ground in the Sonos lineup by integrating rich, powerful speakers into their connected receiver. Sonos is not an inexpensive solution (especially since you won’t stop with just one room), but it’s clearly the best at what it does. Yet, what’s next?
A Sonos email survey I received a few days ago alluded to several interesting expansion possibilities. As I still have a loaner unit on hand, I’ve got a few ideas….
1968 ASCII Animation from Russia
21. March 2010
There’s Up, there’s Shrek, and then there’s…this. It’s a bit of experimental computer animation of a cat done in Russia in 1968. The scientists who made it created hundreds of ASCII art images of the kitty, then printed them out and filmed them pose by pose.
It only took another eighteen years to get to Luxo Jr…
(Via Cartoon Brew.) (UPDATE: the Brew is suffering a malware attack at the moment–it’s fine on my Mac, but Firefox for Windows is apparently blocking it…)
Memo to Palm
19. March 2010
In WebOS, Palm has one of the best mobile operating systems on the planet–the basis of some very nice phones. But almost all the recent news for the company has been bleak. Engadget, which wrote a famous open letter to Palm in 2007–full of suggestions that mapped closely to the route Palm ended up taking–is providing advice again. It’s tough love, and it all makes sense to me.
App Store Dev Disses Apple, Messes With Prices, Pays
19. March 2010
An iPhone game developer has learned the hard way that one of the following we’ll get your app banned: Publicly slamming the iPhone App Store, or gradually increasing prices until someone pays hundreds of dollars for a simple time waster.
I’m inclined to think it’s the latter, but let’s backtrack.
According to Kotaku, Tommy Refenes’ game, Zits & Giggles (a simple pimple-popping game), disappeared from the App Store this week with no explanation from Apple. Refenes isn’t an unknown developer; he’s part of the team working on Super Meat Boy, a highly anticipated indie game for the Wii, Xbox 360 and PC.
As such, Refenes was one of the speakers during the “Indie Gamemakers Rant” at last week’s Game Developers Conference. These events encourage the speakers to vent on whatever they like, and Refenes chose the iPhone App Store as one of his targets. Not everything he said is suitable for our family-friendly blog, but he did liken the iPhone to those Tiger Electronics LCD games of the early 1990s, which often carried big brand names but weren’t particularly fun to play.
Now for the other facet of the story: Refenes had been playing around with the game’s pricing, noting that people continued to buy the game even as its cost reached $15, $50 and $299. On Monday, someone paid $400 for the game, the same day Apple pulled the plug.
It’s amusing to think that Apple squashed Zits & Giggles because of Refenes’ insolence during GDC, but I have a tough time believing the game’s price wasn’t to blame. It’s not like Apple hasn’t removed apps because of ridiculous prices before. Of course, all this speculation could have been avoided if Apple had explained to Refenes why the app was pulled, or given him a chance to settle on a price, but alas, communication isn’t Apple’s strong suit.
I’m tempted to dig into Refenes’ comments on the quality of iPhone gaming, but that’s an issue best saved for another day and a fresh blog post. On a related note, I do kind of miss those Tiger LCD games…
NASDAQ and Dave Contemplate Delisting Sirius XM
19. March 2010
Oh, the timing. Sirius XM (SIRI) has received a de-listing notice from the NASDAQ for their perpetual and non-compliant sub $1 closing bid price. Well, it just so happens I’m also considering dropping Sirius XM from my digital lineup (again) this week.
YouTube and Viacom Duke It Out
19. March 2010
Am I the only one who finds the current public squabble between YouTube and Viacom a tad unseemly? The opening briefs in Viacom’s copyright suit against YouTube were made public yesterday, and YouTube used the occasion as reason to post an item by its chief counsel accusing Viacom of secretly uploading its stuff “for years,” going out of its way to make it look pirated. Viacom has responded with a brief statement saying that YouTube’s founders thought their site needed to “steal” content to prosper; it doesn’t deny YouTube’s charges, but says they’re a red herring.
I’m not a judge, a lawyer, or an intellectual-property expert; neither are most of the folks who the YouTube and Viacom items are aimed at. That said, Mike Masnick of Techdirt has a good pro-YouTube analysis. And he links to the Hollwood Reporter’s coverage, which sides with Viacom.
USB Storage for the Xbox 360
18. March 2010
Joystiq’s Alexander Sliwinski reports a credible rumor: Come this spring, Microsoft will allow Xbox 360 owners to install and download games onto external USB storage. He’s got photo documentation supposedly written by a senior Microsoft engineer and confirmation from two anonymous sources to prove it.
The documents say you’ll be able to store Xbox Live Arcade games, downloadable content, full-scale Games on Demand and title updates on up to two connected storage devices at a time. Installing disc-based games to USB drives is also a possibility, but you’ll still need a disc in the tray, just like when you install a game to the hard drive now.
I still think the 120 GB hard drive on current Xbox 360 models is enough, but the earliest Xbox 360 models, which had 20 GB drives, can feel the squeeze. Microsoft gets a lot of heat for the price of its memory cards ($30 for 512 MB) and replacement hard drives ($130 for 120 GB), so this rumor will make Xbox 360 owners happy if it comes to fruition. This would definitely bolster the appeal of the $200 Xbox 360 Arcade, which lacks a hard drive. Joystiq says hard drives will be partitioned for 16 GB of storage maximum, but a 16 GB USB stick for $40 is still a better deal than Microsoft’s memory cards.
The question, of course, is why? I doubt we’ll ever hear an official explanation, but my best guess is that this has something to do with Datel’s antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. Until last November, Datel sold unofficial memory cards, which stored more data at a better cost-per-megabyte than Microsoft’s official products. Microsoft banned unauthorized storage products from the Xbox 360, and Datel claimed the console maker was being anti-competitive.
Maybe it’s wacky to assume that Datel’s lawsuit has anything to do with this, but the addition of USB storage would certainly take a bite out of Datel’s argument.
Cleaning Gunky, Dirty Keyboards
18. March 2010
My keyboard’s always catching junk–dust, bread crumbs, and unidentifiable schmutz. I know for a fact that a clean keyboard lets me type faster and more intelligently, and more important, lets me finish this newsletter more quickly.
My method is simple: I use a tissue and rubbing alcohol to remove the grime that builds up on the keys. To get rid of all the loose gunk, I take the keyboard outside and blast it with a can of air. It’s one of those low-cost ways to feel like you’ve accomplished something important.
On those rare occasions when I’m feeling ambitious, I remove the four screws at the bottom of my way too expensive Avant Stellar keyboard, detach the keyboard from the case, and use the air can there, too. Try it if you have the courage — and the handyman skills.
And if you tip a bottle of beer onto the keyboard, some people recommend you try popping it into the dishwasher.
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23. March 2010
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