Verizon Talks 4G Speed

Verizon Wireless has disclosed some test data about the next-generation 4G LTE wireless network it’s working on building out. The bad news is that the average download speeds–five to twelve Mbps–fall far short of LTE’s theoretical 100Mbps capability. The good news is that even a dependable 5Mbps would be pretty sweet…

5Words: Newegg Sells Fake Intel Processors?

Fake Intel chips hit Newegg?

First iPad ad during Oscars.

Blockbuster CEO: time for…caution?

Ubisoft’s DRM servers fail spectacularly.

Chrome OS gets business edition?

Frameless, touch-keyboard Acer laptop?

Gizmodo tries HTC’s Legend handset.

Could iPad do handwriting recognition?

Techmeme launches media news site.

_______________________

Like 5Words? Subscribe via RSS.

Android Market Needs Stars

The quantity of software in Google’s Android Market app store is growing rapidly. But compared to Apple’s App Store, the Android one is still short on stuff by rockstar developers like this one. Wonder what Google is doing to make it worth their while to build great stuff for its platform?

The Future of Windows

In 1985, almost all PCs sat on desktops, the Internet was a Defense Department research project, and the cell phone revolution had barely gotten underway. It was also the year that Microsoft launched a DOS front-end called Windows 1.0.

Over the past quarter century, Windows has evolved many times, and it will change again in light of Microsoft’s investments in cloud services, mobile platforms, and other new technologies. And as the way people compute and communicate morphs faster than ever, the challenges ahead for Windows are huge.

With that in mind, Technologizer asked some of the industry’s big brains about what Microsoft needs to do to keep its operating system relevant in the years to come. Their advice ranges from merely simplifying the interface to borrowing ideas from other Microsoft products such as the Xbox to giving the OS a complete reboot. Here’s what they (and we) have to say.
–David Worthington, story editor

Continue reading this story…

The Big Guide to Little Netbooks

(Here’s my latest story from FoxNews.com.)

As a technology journalist, I meet with lots of companies who want to show me their latest stuff. Not surprisingly, they tend to be in a self-congratulatory mood. But when the new item in question is a netbook–one of those low-cost, undersized laptops–something odd happens. Otherwise exuberant corporate executives start knocking their own products. Netbooks, they remind me, are cramped and underpowered. Yes, the very netbooks they sell.

Why the lack of love for this wildly popular class of computer? In part, it’s about profit — or lack thereof. Most netbooks cost between $230 and $400, so it’s hard for PC makers to make a buck selling them. But in the insanely competitive PC market, no major manufacturer is willing to ignore netbooks. They take a deep breath, grumble, and then offer them anyway.

Continue reading this story…

Windows Phone Series 7: Enter the Developers

Later this month, Microsoft is holding its MIX Web conference in Las Vegas. The big news promises to involve Windows Phone 7 Series, which will be introduced to developers for the first time. It’s an important moment for the all-new mobile OS: One of Microsoft’s biggest challenges will be spurring programmers to write large quantities of appealing apps, thereby getting the company back in the smartphone app race in which the iPhone is out in front, Android is in second place, and everybody else is far, far behind.

Charlie Kindel, one of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 honchos, has a blog post up in which he previews MIX and tries to reassure developers that their existing knowledge will help them build good stuff: Phone 7 may be all new, but programmers will be able to use existing Microsoft technologies such as SilverLight and XNA.

In his post, Kindel mentions a San Francisco event for industry watchers which was held last night. I was there–and got to see a prototype Windows Phone 7 Series handset in person for the first time. But we didn’t get a full walkthrough, and I didn’t get any hands-on time. So my take on the OS remains “Hey, that looks like it’s slick and full of new ideas, and it doesn’t look much of anything like the iPhone” rather than “Hey, that looks terrifically useful and usable.” I look forward to learning (and seeing, and touching) more…

Gay Xbox Live Gamers May Now Spell It Out

Microsoft took a bold step today by letting gamers include their sexual orientation in their Xbox Live nicknames, or Gamertags.

Previously, Microsoft deemed the words “gay,” “straight,” “lesbian,” “bi” and “transgender” to be unacceptable, fearing that players would use them in a derogatory way. Those fears are justified to anyone who spends a few hours playing Modern Warfare 2 or Halo 3. Anonymity does some revolting things to human behavior.

Players’ Gamertags can now include all the words mentioned above, but the service’s updated code of conduct strictly limits the terminology to those five words only. Marc Whitten, Xbox Live’s general manager, explained Microsoft’s reasoning in an open letter:

Under our previous policy, some of these expressions of self-identification were not allowed in Gamertags or profiles to prevent the use of these terms as insults or slurs. However we have since heard feedback from our customers that while the spirit of this approach was genuine, it inadvertently excluded a part of our Xbox LIVE community.

It took a while to get here. In 2008, a player named theGAYERgamer made his case public after Microsoft banned his Gamertag. In late February, a player claimed her account was suspended because her profile said she is a lesbian. This prompted a blog post from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, among other responses, so I’m guessing Microsoft finally felt there was enough pressure to make some policy changes.

Whitten promised that the code of conduct will be enforced more stringently to prevent misuse of the terms. That probably entails taking a closer look at Gamertags to make sure they’re not being used as insults. But the real hard part will be monitoring players’ responses to these nicknames. Hopefully Xbox Live’s moderators can do a better job of booting people who toss around homophobic, ethnic and racial slurs without fear of repercussion.

“Dumb and Dangerous”

Good piece by Slate’s Farhad Manjoo on why Apple’s patent suit against HTC just isn’t a good idea for anyone involved.

Manjoo mentions another patent squabble I’d forgotten about: Creative’s case against Apple over the iPod, which resulted in a settlement that had Apple pay $100 million to Creative. (When I first used an iPod my immediate reaction was this: “Hey, the interface is a lot like the one on my Creative Nomad Jukebox–except not as powerful!”) Let’s face it: For all of Apple’s ingenuity, it’s borrowed copiously from competitors, too…

Microsoft’s Courier: Concept or Product?

Remember “Courier,” the cool Microsoft dual-screen concept tablet which Gizmodo uncovered last September? It’s back. This time, it’s Engadget that’s published Courier imagery, including a photo and new screens and videos.

Until now, there’s been no evidence that Courier was anything more than a slick idea that might or might not ever turn into a product–sort of like Apple’s Knowledge Navigator from 1987. But Engadget’s source talked about details that, if true, mean that Courier is indeed in the works. It’s supposedly based on Nvidia’s Tegra 2 processor and will show up in the third or fourth quarter of this year.

If so, neat–but for now, Courier doesn’t feel very tangible. The videos are animations that look like they were done in Flash; the screens don’t look real; even the photograph might be a mockup of some sort. Until Microsoft says something or more solid materials leak out, it’s tough to know what to think.

I’m a fan of genuinely new ideas in user interfaces, and Courier is full of them. I’m intrigued, however, by the fact that the whole idea seems to center around the idea that folks want to create handwritten digital notes. That was also the theory behind the Tablet PC, a product which Microsoft thought would come to dominate the notebook market–but which never really took off.

I remain skeptical about there being a critical mass of people who want to take notes with a stylus and then look at their own handwriting forever after. Of course Courier, in concept form, looks to be about a hundred times more elegant than the Tablet PC, so maybe it could be the breakthrough that the Tablet turned out not to be. I hope we get the chance to find out…

ReMail Lives! Maybe!

Last month, Google bought ReMail, a company that made a nifty e-mail program for the iPhone–then promptly yanked the app out of the App Store and announced plans to discontinue support for it. Today brings some news that sounds modestly hopeful: Google has decided to open-source the ReMail code. If there are any developers out there with the interest and technical chops, they’ll be able to adopt ReMail, get it back in the App Store, and release upgrades.

Of course, there are no guarantees that such developers will emerge and save ReMail. Last year, when Google decided to cease work on the Twitterlike Jaiku service it had bought, it released Jaiku as open-source code–and that’s pretty much the last time Jaiku attracted attention at all. But ReMail is a unique, useful product with a clear audience. Maybe someone out there will see an opportunity to make money by rescuing it–I hope so.

iPad: Revolutionary, Magical, and a Little Late

On January 27th, Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad and said it would be available in two months. Now Apple has announced the specifics concerning availability of the Wi-Fi version–and the company’s saying it’ll go on sale on Saturday, April 3rd. It’ll accept pre-orders starting on March 12th for both the Wi-Fi and 3G models, and buyers will be able to reserve a Wi-Fi model to pick up on the third.

(Apple didn’t say when the 3G model will go on sale, but based on the original timetable and barring any delays, it’ll presumably show up in late April or early May.)

I’m still not sure whether the arrival of the iPad will inspire large numbers of people to show up at Apple Stores at four in the morning. We also don’t know whether there will be enough iPads to go around. (For what it’s worth, there’s never been a shortage of iPhones on their launch days–in fact, the most efficient way to buy one has been to bide your time until late on the first sale day, and then stroll in and pick one up with little or no waiting.)

In Apple’s press release about the on-sale details, it calls the iPad “magical and revolutionary” not once but twice, including one such reference in a Jobs quote. The more the company repeats this mantra, the more I think of this guy, the product he promotes, and the catch phrase he’s been using for several decades:

Sony Phone and Tablet Will Take on Microsoft, Too

Sony’s got big plans for the Playstation brand, reports the Wall Street Journal, whose anonymous sources say a phone and tablet that run Playstation games are in development.

The prevailing thought is that these devices will compete with Apple’s iPhone and iPad, but that seems too obvious. All high-end smartphones and tablets are competing with the iPhone and iPad to some extent. The main target here is Microsoft and the Xbox brand, or at least it should be.

When Microsoft announced Windows Phone 7 Series, the gamer in me loved hearing that Xbox Live would play a role. We’re short on details, but Microsoft has at least confirmed that its WinPho7 phones will play some Xbox Live games. Depending on how Microsoft plays it, this could be the company’s first major foray into portable video games.

Meanwhile, Sony has repeatedly insisted that Apple isn’t a gaming competitor, as if iPhones exist in some bizarro market that isn’t stealing Sony’s business. It’s a hollow argument, but one that I’ve already refuted to death. If I was a Sony executive, I’d at least be worried about Microsoft.

To put all this another way, there’s a good chance the console wars will spill over to mobile phones, and that’s a good thing for gamers. It’s about time Sony’s gaming division and Sony Ericsson stopped pretending the other one exists (I know, the Sony Ericsson Aino has PS3 remote play, but not for games).

Just one question: If Sony’s planning on bringing Playstation games to a tablet and smartphone, what does that mean for sweet, sweet buttons?

Video Demo of the Enigma Machine

This video is part of David Spark’s (@dspark) coverage of the 2010 RSA Conference on security. For tons of video interviews and articles from the conference, check out the summary of Spark’s coverage on the Tripwire blog.

Our good friends at the NSA had a booth at the RSA Conference, and the highlight for me was the opportunity to see, touch, and play with the Enigma machine. It was the same machine the Nazis used for code creating and breaking during WWII. The U.S. broke the Enigma code, but the Nazis never realized we had. Our ability to decode their Enigma-written messages helped shorten the war considerably.

I had seen these machines before, but I never knew how they actually worked. So I asked one of the NSA staffers if he could demo the machine while I videotaped it, but he told me he couldn’t be on camera. Since I don’t work for the NSA, I can be on camera. After he showed me how it worked, I shot a demo.

The Enigma machine had a series of relays of which at each point the letter that you selected could be changed to any other of the other 26 letters in the alphabet. In total, a single press of a key stroke could change that letter between seven to nine times. But the rotors on the Enigma kept shifting, so if I pressed the same key twice, it would deliver a completely different result. Watch the video to see how it worked.

Those Facebook Ads for Free iPads

Last month, I wrote about mysterious Facebook ads that offered free iPads to 45-year-old males. Or 26-year-old females. Or people of whatever age and gender happened to be those of the Facebook member reading the ad.

Now the New York Times has weighed in, with an entertaining and illuminating article on weird Facebook ads (including ones claiming to be aimed at Eddie Izzard fans). It says that Facebook doesn’t approve ads individually, but that ones that mention factors that really have nothing to do with the subject of the ad–such as age, sex, and feelings about Eddie Izzard in the case of a “free iPad” ad–are prohibited and will be deleted when they’re found.

5Words: Sony’s Latest Apple-Trouncing Efforts

Sony’s Apple response: smartphone, tablet?

Apple yanks iPhone Wi-Fi finders.

YouTube rolls out autocaptioning feature.

Google introduces Android gesture search.

Google Apps: free disaster recovery.

Smartphone platforms are inherently fragmented.

Yahoo Mail gets Facebook Contacts.

Archos announces more Internet tablets.

_______________________

Like 5Words? Subscribe via RSS.

Microsoft Phones: Verizon in April?

Is Microsoft planning to introduce Microsoft-branded phones? Project “Pink” is a rumor that’s been floating around for months, and at this point it’s not that interesting a question. But here’s the latest scuttlebutt, courtesy of Gizmodo: A Sidekick-like Microsoft “social networking” phone will be coming to Verizon Wireless in April. It won’t be running Windows Phone 7 Series, or at least not Windows Phone 7 Series in the form that Microsoft has been talking about.

Maybe that’s Microsoft’s strategy for entering the phone business without ticking off its hardware partners: Use a different flavor of OS for its own phones, and restrict itself to a fairly narrow slice of the market…