Archive | March, 2010
How Long Do You Give the Desktop?
One of the big subjects of debate on the Interwebs this morning is a big, existential technological question: Are phones on the cusp of replacing PCs?
Don Dodge (presently of Google, formerly of Microsoft) thinks so:
The future of computing is that your cell phone will become your primary computer, communicator, camera, and entertainment device, all in one. The exciting new applications are running in the browser, with application code and data in the cloud, and the cell phone as a major platform. I think in the near future there will be docking stations everywhere with a screen and a keyboard. You simply pull out your phone, plug it into the docking station, and instantly all your applications and data are available to you.
So does Google Europe sales chief John Herlihy, as quoted by a Silicon Republic story:
“In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant. In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs,” Herlihy told a baffled audience, echoing comments by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the recent GSM Association Mobile World Congress 2010 that everything the company will do going forward will be via a mobile lens, centring on the cloud, computing and connectivity.
BetaNews’s Joe Wilcox basically agrees with Herlihy:
Three years — most certainly five — is not an unrealistic time horizon at all. Even if it proves wrong, Google is acting like change will come rapidly. Last month, Google CEO Eric Schmidt asserted the company would put mobile first — yes, before the PC. There is no Windows monopoly on mobile handsets to stop Google, Apple or any other would-be mobile competitor from rapidly advancing. Cloud services, whether delivered by applications or browsers, promise anytime and anywhere access to anything.
Modern Warfare to Become a Litigious Mess
3. March 2010
Some really strange things happened this week between Call of Duty publisher Activision and Infinity Ward, the studio that created the franchise and developed last year’s blockbuster Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
Long story short: The studio’s two heads, Jason West and Vince Zampella were abruptly fired for “breaches of contract and insubordination,” according to an SEC filing. Shortly thereafter, Activision announced that one of its internal studios, Sledgehammer Games, would be making a Call of Duty game for 2011. Infinity Ward developed the last two Call of Duty games released in odd-numbered years.
It makes for high drama, but it’s mostly inside baseball. Things just got interesting, however, with the announcement of a lawsuit from West and Zampella against Activision. In addition to seeking compensation for royalties Activision allegedly owes, the former Infinity Ward heads are looking for control over “Modern Warfare-branded games,” reports G4′s Patrick Klepek.
If West and Zampella prevail, think of the implications. Activision’s already releasing Call of Duty games annually, alternating between studios to keep things fresh. Modern Warfare, as its own franchise, could theoretically become its own franchise and sit next to Call of Duty on store shelves. You could get three games with the same DNA in a two-year span (and somehow I don’t think gamers will get tired of this).
The funny thing is, last year I wildly predicted that a full Modern Warfare spinoff was conceivable. Of course I had no idea it might happen through messy internal politics and lawsuits.
Apple’s Lawsuit Against HTC: Bad for Consumers?
3. March 2010
Apple’s lawsuit against Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC is meant to prevent smartphones that resemble the iPhone from competing in the U.S. market, limiting consumer choice, but protecting Apple’s incentive to innovate, legal experts say.
Yesterday, news broke that Apple had filed suit against HTC with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and U.S. District Court in Delaware for allegedly violating a slew of iPhone related patents. HTC derives nearly half of its annual smartphone sales from the U.S. market, and the majority sold are Android phones, including Google’s Nexus One, according to UBS.
A Better Deal on Prepaid Wireless Broadband
3. March 2010
Virgin Mobile’s prepaid Broadband2Go wireless Internet access service (which runs on Sprint’s network) has been an intriguing option for folks who need to go wireless only sporadically, or who don’t want to commit to a long-term contract. But at $40 for 1GB of data, it’s been pretty pricey.
Now Virgin has a new plan: 5GB for $60. That happens to be exactly what I pay Verizon Wireless. If I wasn’t only one year into a two-year agreement, Broadband2Go would be awfully tempting…
Real Loses RealDVD Case
3. March 2010
RealDVD, the DVD-copying software which I reviewed and sort of liked during the five minutes in 2008 it was actually for sale, is dead. Real has settled with the Motion Picture Association of America and a permanent injunction bars it from ever selling the software again.
Bad news for Real, and equally bad news for consumers. Bad news for copyright laws that aren’t kind of a joke, too: Real tried to make Hollywood happy and its product was sued into extinction, but with Handbrake alive and well, bootleg movies are at least as commonplace as bootleg hooch during Prohibition…
Apple-HTC: The Grim, Dystopian Scenario
3. March 2010
I promise I’ll stop talking about Apple’s suit against smartphone rival HTC until further developments warrant. But the more I think about it, the more I’m struck by the parallels to Apple’s 1988 suit against Microsoft and HP over Windows and HP’s New Wave interface.
Here’s a good story over at Low End Mac on the case, as well as Apple’s earlier threats to take Microsoft to court and the agreement between the two companies that postponed the courtroom battle for a few years. In the 1988 case, the role of the iPhone was played, of course, by the Mac. And Android phones like the models mentioned in Apple’s filing are played by Windows PCs.
(Actually, the parallels between Windows a couple of decades ago and Android right now are uncanny: Windows was nowhere near as slick and well-designed as the Mac, but it was good enough that Microsoft’s licensing strategy paid off hugely. Android is nowhere near as slick and well-designed as the iPhone, but it’s good enough that Google’s licensing strategy seems to be on the cusp of paying off hugely.)
5Words: Being Sued is a Drag
3. March 2010
Comments Off
HTC won’t enjoy Apple lawsuit.
A Palm Pre-like BlackBerry slider?
Daily Show, Colbert depart Hulu.
Twitter and Microsoft: crazy idea?
Analyst: Microsoft Palm buyout unlikely.
Twitter employee quits his blog.
Western Digital’s Solid State Drives.
Apple and Amazon’s music squabble.
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TiVo Series 5: What Should Be
3. March 2010
When TiVo announced its next-generation Series 4 Premiere boxes yesterday, I read about the news with a combination of intrigue and relief. The changes–including a spiffed-up HD interface, better integration of disparate video sources, easy access to more information about shows and movies, a slimmer case, and an optional QWERTY remote–sound nice. But the Premieres are evolutionary advances on the TiVo HD that sits in my entertainment center–and whose hard drive I just replaced after the original one conked out. There’s nothing in the new models that makes the old ones feel like instant dinosaurs.
Here’s Dave Zatz’s extensive look at the new TiVos, which ship next month. As Dave says, TiVo is clearly trying to reposition its box from a DVR into a TV box that does a bunch of things. That makes sense. But my mind is already racing forward to think about all the things a next-next-generation TiVo might do. Here’s my wish list for the TiVo Series 5–and since it’s just a wish list and the Premieres’ replacements are years off, I’m going to ask for some things that may be technically or logistically impossible at the moment.
ZoneAlarm’s DataLock: BitLocker for the Rest of Us
2. March 2010
If you’re supercautious about protecting your PC’s data from prying eyes–especially when it comes to a laptop that might get lost–you could use Windows 7′s BitLocker disk encryption to secure every last file. But BitLocker only comes with Windows’ two priciest versions, Windows 7 Enterprise and Windows 7 Ultimate. Encryption, Microsoft clearly thinks, is of interest mostly to big-business types and hardcore users.
Enter DataLock, a new utility from Check Point Software’s ZoneAlarm division. Like Bit-Locker, it does full-drive encryption–the whole thing gets locked up, and you have to enter a password before the boot process starts to get access to Windows and your data. Unlike BitLocker, DataLock is aimed at consumers and small businesses, with a price to match: $19.95 (an introductory price–list is $29.95). And just in case you encrypt your drive and then forget the password–hey, I’ll bet it’s been know to happen–the software comes with a phone-based password recovery service that’s available 24/7.
DataLock was announced this week at the RSA security conference in San Francisco, and is available now as a download from ZoneAlarm’s site.
Eight Naïve Questions About Apple’s Suit Against HTC
2. March 2010
I’m not a reflexive enemy of the U.S. patent system. But having spent the day mulling over Apple’s lawsuit against HTC over smartphone-related patents, it still feels like the move is bad for consumers, bad for any smartphone-related company that isn’t headquartered in Cupertino–and quite possibly bad for Apple, too.
Now that this shoe has dropped, you gotta think that lots of other shoes are poised to drop all over Silicon Valley and Asia. Here are some questions I’m scratching my head over tonight. I suspect some people will maintain that the answers are obvious, but they’re not (yet) obvious to me…
Help!
2. March 2010
It’s a PC convention that dates to the 1980s: Press the F1 key, and you’ll pull up online help. Except Microsoft is now warning Windows XP users to ignore any Web site that asks them to press F1.
As Gregg Keizer is reporting over at Computerworld, a Polish researcher has discovered an XP (and Windows 2000) vulnerability that would let a Web page trick an unsuspecting user into pressing F1 and thereby launching a malicious program disguised as a Windows Help file. Microsoft has published an advisory recommending that users not press F1, and explaining how to disable Help altogether.
It’s a way more fascinating security hole than your average exploit, since it could let a bad guy make trouble for a Windows user at the particularly vulnerable moment when that person is seeking help. But it’s a sobering argument in favor of choosing a modern operating system–be it Windows 7 or Snow Leopard or Ubuntu–over a creaky old one that dates to the start of the last decade.
Apple Sues HTC
2. March 2010
I’m not a patent lawyer. So I don’t know what to make of the news that Apple is suing Taiwanese phone kingpin HTC over iPhone-related patents from a legal standpoint. It seems obvious, though, that the suit–which mentions the Nexus One and other HTC phones that run Google’s Android OS by name–is meant in part to put a chill down the spine of Google any company that makes Android phones, and maybe any company involved in the making of vaguely iPhone-esque phones, period. It’s not surprising given that Steve Jobs started bragging about Apple’s phone patents the moment he introduced the iPhone, and the company has specifically talked about suing infringing competitors.
The lawsuit follows Nokia’s suit against Apple and Apple’s countersuit against Nokia, and the more I think about it, the more I wish that everyone involve would just concentrate on making cool smartphones.
Back in 1988, Apple sued Microsoft and HP, claiming that Windows and HP’s New Wave user interface violated the Mac’s copyrights. Thatlawsuit didn’t seem to do much other than distract Apple from its real work: doing well in the market by making better products.
After the jump, for no other reason than that I like patent drawings, a few sketches from the Apple patents in question in its suit against HTC.
Another Secret New Google
1. March 2010
Last November, I wrote about a test version of Google that left its search options sidebar open all the time. It never graduated to full public status. But I just stumbled upon what seems to be a variant. (It’s what I’m getting when I go to Google in Safari, but doesn’t show up in Chrome.)
Like the early test, it puts a left-hand sidebar of search options on the screen whenever you search–but this one’s sleeker, with fewer options (some stuff is hidden by default).
The PSN Problem, Or How Sony Got Scooped By Its Own Customers
1. March 2010
You know things are bad when Sony tells Playstation 3 owners not to turn on their consoles for fear of data loss, but they’re even worse when the warning comes 16 hours, and an entire night, after the company first acknowledged problems with the Playstation Network.
This morning, Sony announced that PS3 consoles, with the exception of the new PS3 Slim, can’t connect with the Playstation Network because of a bug in the system’s clock. What’s worse is that simply turning on the consoles can cause “errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.” As such, Sony advised staying away from the PS3 — unless you’ve got a Slim — until they can fix the problem, hopefully within 24 hours.
As with any tech service outage, it’s appropriate to look at whether the official response was adequate. In this case, Sony’s clearly was not.
Information moves astoundingly fast in the gaming world. I first got wind of the problem at around 4 p.m. PST, reading a Twitter update from Game Informer’s Philip Kollar. His PS3 Trophy information was gone, and he couldn’t play any games. That was two hours before Sony itself acknowledged the problem and said it was looking into it.
Before long, Sony’s customers blew the story open. Reports of internal clock issues were everywhere, mainly stemming from the popular gaming forum NeoGAF. By midnight, one user had posted a detailed FAQ on who was affected, what to do and what’s at risk by turning on your console.
That’s exactly what Sony should’ve done. Instead, the company sat on the issue until Monday morning, when spokesman Patrick Seybold posted a sterile message explaining the errors. The warning to PS3 Fat owners was buried in his blog post. That was the last we heard from Sony. Among the perfectly valid questions that were unanswered: How will a fix will be delivered to people who can’t go online? What other data is at risk of being lost? Will people get their trophies back?
Kotaku’s reporting that consoles are now coming back to life (but no word from Sony, mind you). Sony still has some explaining to do, and gamers deserve an apology not just for the outage itself, but for being kept in the dark.
Update: Sony’s made it official that service is back, that a non-existent leap year was to blame, and that the problem resolved itself once system clocks hit March 1.
Google Picks Up Picnik
1. March 2010
Picnik isn’t just my favorite online image editor–it’s one of my favorite Web-based applications, period, with a clever user interface that improves on that of desktop apps rather than just imitating them. And now Picnik is part of Google. Hearing that Google has acquired something I love always leaves me in a quandary, since you never know if the company in question will turn out to be the next YouTube or the next Jaiku. But this much is true: It should be pretty easy to figure out how to make Picnik’s cool tools into a welcome part of Picasa Web Albums…
Palm’s Pre, Plussed: The Technologizer Review
1. March 2010
From time to time, I’ve called Palm’s Pre the Most Interesting Smartphone That Isn’t the iPhone. It’s now been almost nine months since the Pre debuted on Sprint, and a bunch of other formidable handsets have since appeared, such as the Verizon Droid and Google Nexus One. But thanks to its exceptionally inventive WebOS software and distinctive form factor, the Pre still holds its own.
Now the Sprint Pre has been joined by the Pre Plus, which runs on Verizon Wireless and began shipping in January. After I recently said I was flirting with abandoning my AT&T iPhone, Palm offered to loan me a Plus for review. Here’s my take, following up on the story I did on the original Sprint Pre back in June. Executive summary: the Pre Plus isn’t a radically different phone from its predecessor, but it’s still a really good one–and while the WebOS third-party application situation pales in comparison to the iPhone, it’s better than I expected judged on the number of available apps alone.
(Note: Over the weekend, Palm pushed out WebOS 1.4, an OS upgrade that enables video capture and which supports Adobe’s Flash Player. However, it’s n0t yet available for Verizon’s WebOS phones, the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, and I haven’t tried it.)
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4. March 2010
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