Archive | May, 2010
Hey, I’m a Blogginghead!
I’ve had fun watching the (mostly political) “diavlogs” on Bloggingheads.tv for years. Late last week, I had fun making one with Bloggingheads impressario Robert Wright. This time the topic was tech–we discussed the iPad, Facebook, Android fragmentation, and the Palm Pre (Bob is smitten, and I told him he could go ahead and buy one).
Here are the results, which in normal Bloggingheads fashion go on for close to an hour (you can go here to jump from topic to topic):
The IBM Muppet Show
31. May 2010
IBM. The Muppets. Two venerable institutions-but not ones we tend to associate with each other. Yet in the late 1960s, before most people had ever seen a computer in person or could identify a Muppet on sight, the two teamed up when IBM contracted with Jim Henson for a series of short films designed to help its sales staff. Little known today, these remain fresh, funny, and surprisingly irreverent. Henson would return to their gags and situations in his famous later works–and he plucked the Cookie Monster from one of them when assembling the Muppet cast for Sesame Street in 1969.
Whose idea was this unique collaboration? Well, Henson had already established himself in the advertising field. He was best known at the time for the Muppets’ guest skits on variety shows and Rowlf the Dog’s appearances on The Jimmy Dean Show. But he was busier making a wide array of commercials and longer sales films for regional and national products from Esskay Meats to Marathon Gasoline.
For its own part, IBM was keenly aware that its products–including computers, electric typewriters, and very early word processors–had to be explained to both the public and IBM’s own employees. So it formed its own advertising group, including a film and television division. An executive named David Lazer headed this division, overseeing the production of training and sales films.
In Search of Microsoft’s Tablet Strategy
31. May 2010
It’s Memorial Day in the U.S., but in Taipei, it’s time for Computex–the show that serves as an excellent freeze-frame of what the PC industry is excited about at the moment. Judging from the news so far, what it’s excited about is the iPad.
As Engadget is reporting, Asus is showing off something called the Eee Pad at the show–a vaguely iPad-esque looking device that runs Windows 7, packs an Intel ultra-low voltage CPU, and (like the iPad) claims ten hours of battery life on a charge. It’s safe to say that Asus still has heavy lifting to do to make the Eee Pad a reality: It isn’t planning to ship it until next year. By then, it’ll face competition from other Windows 7 tablets, such as this Computex debutante from MSI, not to mention Android tablets (MSI is showing one of those, too)
Kindle Rumor De Jour
28. May 2010
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Thinner, shaper, more responsive, but still-no-color Kindle in August?
Um, Are These All the Privacy Changes You’ve Got For Us, Facebook?
28. May 2010
The new-and-improved privacy settings which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday have landed in my Facebook account. When I read Zuckerberg’s description of them, I was cautiously optimistic. Having spent a bit of time exploring them, I’m way less enthusiastic.
Facebook privacy is such a complex topic that you could write a book about it. (Seriously.) But most gripes fall into two general, seemingly contradictory categories:
- Facebook doesn’t give users enough control over privacy!
- Hey, Facebook provides such a dizzying array of privacy controls that it’s hard to figure out what’s going on!
Making privacy easy while providing lots of control is a fundamentally thorny challenge. If Facebook has failed to nail it, it’s not because the company is stupid, evil, or careless–it’s because this stuff is hard. Its response seems to be based in part on the philosophy that privacy is to a great extent about what you want shared with which types of people.
So the centerpiece of the new settings is a grid that shows three kinds of people (“Everyone,” Friends of Friends,” and “Friends Only”) and a bunch of types of information you store on Facebook, from your status to your snail-mail address. But there’s no explanation of what the grid is showing you. It’s just not that obvious whether it indicates your current settings, or ones you might want, or what.
App(le) TV?
28. May 2010
Over at Engadget, Josh Topolosky has written about a tip his site received about the next Apple TV–which supposedly is essentially a $99 screenless, diskless iPhone which streams 1080p content from the Internet or a Time Capsule network drive. It would presumably tie into a service along the lines of the one described in a musty old rumor known as iTunes Replay. And it would clearly compete with existing boxes such as Roku and future ones based on Google TV.
(One major Google TV selling point which Apple TV definitely won’t match, at least in our lifetime: Google’s gizmo will play all the Flash-based video on the Web.)
Josh’s tipster didn’t say anything about whether the next-generation Apple TV would run apps. But if it runs iPhone OS, it feels kind of inevitable that it would–if not at first, at least eventually. Stock iPhone and iPad apps would make no sense at all on an HDTV screen, but ones scaled to the right size and aspect ratio might. Netflix, for instance, could create something akin to the Netflix interface on Roku. And games would be a no-brainer.
Verizon Wireless’s New Plan: So Long Unlimited Data, Hello Buckets?
27. May 2010
Remember the bad old days, before the advent of unlimited wireless data plans? Well unfortunately, with the vaunted arrival of 4G, it looks like those times might be returning if Verizon Wireless has its way. At the Barclays Capital conference in New York City this week, Verizon Wireless’s CEO Lowell McAdam said he hopes to ditch unlimited plans entirely on the company’s upcoming 4G LTE network, charging instead for “buckets” of megabytes.
McAdam also noted that, after the release of the first LTE-enabled device, Verizon anticipates using its 4G LTE network for voice starting in 2011. It remains unclear, however, whether Verizon’s LTE will also spell the end of unlimited voice calling plans.
Meanwhile, big carriers haven’t even been waiting for 4G to get here before doing whatever they can to increase people’s phone bills. A survey released this week by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) shows that one in six mobile phone users has been hit by “bill shock,” or an unanticipated hike in their monthly service fee not caused by a change in their calling plan. The majority–or 52 percent–of these “shocks” added $25 or more to the consumer’s monthly bill, with the hikes amounting to $100 or more 23 percent of the time.
Good News for Android’s User Interface?
27. May 2010
All Things Digital’s John Paczkowksi, is reporting that Matias Duarte, the guy in charge of the user interface of Palm’s WebOS mobile operating system, has left Palm and appears to be headed to Google, presumably to work on Android. WebOS is the only phone OS that’s in the same league as Apple’s iPhone OS when it comes to general usability, so Duarte clearly knows what he’s doing.
I’ve said before that the one Android upgrade I most want isn’t tethering or automated translation or built-in music streaming–it’s an overhaul of the interface that makes the OS, core programs, and third-party apps more consistent, efficient, and enjoyable. If Duarte is charged with making something like that happen, he could work wonders.
Roku Launches New Netflix, More
27. May 2010
As I’ve chatted with various folks about Google TV over the past week, one question has come up repeatedly: What does this mean for Roku? The inexpensive little box is currently one of the simplest, most effective ways to get Internet video onto an HDTV, and I’ve never met anyone who owned one who wasn’t a fan. Products based on Google TV won’t be carbon copies of Roku boxes by any means, but they’ll surely compete with them.
The good news is that Roku’s player has a solid track record of getting better over time. Earlier this month, the company announced a major makeover of its Netflix channel, and plans to begin to push this update out to Roku owners this Friday.
Barnes & Noble’s eReader Arrives on the iPad
27. May 2010
Unlike Apple and Amazon, bookselling behemoth Barnes & Noble didn’t have an e-reading app available for the iPad on day one. But it’s just released an iPad version of its eReader–please don’t call it Nook–thereby bringing all the e-books B&N sells to the iPad, including any you’ve already bought on a Nook or in other versions of eReader. And it’s good enough that it feels like the iPad e-reader race is currently a three-way tie.
Norton Plans to Go Beyond the PC
27. May 2010
Symantec’s Norton product line has been all but synonymous with utilities designed to fix PC problems since Peter Norton himself wrote some of the first utilities shortly after the IBM PC was released in 1981. Now the company’s announcing a big initiative to bring its software and services to devices other than Windows PCs and Macs–phones, set-top boxes, and just about anything else that connects to the Internet. It’s calling its plans Norton Everywhere, and they involve a variety of new releases.
A $150 Project Natal Wouldn’t Be So Terrible
26. May 2010
Edge probably sunk some hearts today by reporting a rumor that Microsoft’s motion-sensing Xbox 360 camera, codenamed Project Natal, will cost $150.
The “trusted source” who spoke to Edge pegs Natal at a much higher price than previously rumored. MCV reported in November that Microsoft would aim for roughly 50 pounds in the United Kingdom. Because both stories are based on anonymous sources, I don’t fully trust either right now. For all I know, someone inside Microsoft is priming the press for a higher price only to announce something shockingly reasonable at E3, a la the iPad.
Still, I don’t think $150 for Project Natal would so bad. The important thing to remember is that with Project Natal, the camera is the entire controller. There are no remote controls, wands or nunchuks, just human arms, legs and torsos. Beyond the initial sticker shock, there are no additional costs.
With the Wii console, you get one remote with a MotionPlus attachment and one Nunchuk for $200. Each additional remote/MotionPlus/Nunchuk combo costs $70. Accommodating three or four players on the Wii is equally or more expensive than Project Natal. Sony hasn’t announced pricing for its Playstation Move motion controller, but I’m guessing the cost of additional wands could also get pricey.
Even though I think the rumored pricing for Natal is fair, I agree with my pal Brad Gallaway of GameCritics, who said he’d need to see a “stupefyingly, mindblowingly awesome game” to even consider spending so much money on a peripheral. That’s always been true, and it’s true for the Playstation Move as well. The Wii is good enough to carry out motion control as a novelty. But novelty won’t cut it in motion control’s next generation. We need to be floored.
A Faster VMware Fusion
26. May 2010
VMware Fusion–along with Parallels Desktop, one of the two primary ways that folks virtualize Windows into running on Macs--just got an upgrade. The version number is only jumping from 3 to 3.1, but it sounds pretty meaty for a point release: VMware says it’s 35 percent faster (with a particular boost in 3D performance), has better features for migrating a real Windows PC’s OS onto a Mac, handles USB devices more gracefully, and makes Windows apps behave even more like Mac ones (including letting you use Mac keyboard combinations).
People who want to run Windows on a Mac are blessed with a difficult choice: Both Fusion and Parallels are outstanding pieces of software. But Parallels has outperformed Fusion in recent speed tests. If VMware’s claims are realistic, Fusion just eliminated performance as a major difference between the two products.
The upgrade is free for Fusion 3 owners, $39.99 for users of previous versions, and $79.99 for new customers.
Apple Overtakes Microsoft in Market Value
26. May 2010
In a sign of Apple’s continuing ascension to the top of the technology heap, at 2:30pm ET today the company became the most valuable technology company in the world with a market capitalization of $227.1 billion. This was slightly morethan Microsoft’s $226.3 billion.
Both shares took a significant tumble late in the afternoon as the market gave up its gains and then some in the final hour of trading. Even so, Apple still finished in front at $222.1 billion, far ahead of Redmond at $219.2 billion.
How important is this? On the entire New York Stock Exchange there is only one American company that is more value, and that is oil giant Exxon Mobil. It also completes what could really be called a stunning comeback for Apple, which as recently as teh years ago had been in bad financial shape.
One ironic point: Microsoft itself could be credited with helping bring back Apple from the dead: in 1997, the company made a $150 million investment in the company shortly after Steve Jobs returned for his second and current stint as CEO.
Investors in Microsoft cannot be happy with what they’re seeing here. Since 2005, Microsoft’s stock has been essentially flat, posting a meager four percent increase. Compare this with Apple, whose stock has risen a staggering 550 percent in that same time period.
That to me is just crazy.
(Disclosure: Ed Oswald has small holdings of stock in both Microsoft and Apple, Inc.)
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31. May 2010
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