Sony Playstation: The Kitchen Sink Approach Continues

Marketing taglines usually serve as little more than memory triggers, but there’s actually some truth to Sony’s claim that the Playstation “only does everything.” Today’s press conference showed a company desperate to make its console the jack of all trades, adding 3D gaming and motion controls to the Playstation 3.

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Nintendo Plunders the Classics, Pleases the Crowd

For a while yesterday, I thought Nintendo would have a weak presence at E3. It’s a silly thought to have about the top-selling console maker of this generation, but the Wii and Nintendo DS were almost invisible during Monday’s press events for Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Activision. But at its own press conference, Nintendo came out firing.

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Failwhale Resurgent

Thanks in part to World Cup chatter, Twitter is having its worst reliability problems in months–but kudos to the company for acknowledging them with an unflinching honesty that’s rare in corporate communications of any sort.

A Really Big Droid

Engadget’s Joanna Stern got her hands on Verizon’s upcoming, unannounced Droid X. With a 4.4″ display, it looks like a handful indeed, and a neat one–Verizon and Motorola’s answer to Sprint and HTC’s EVO 4G. I don’t expect supersized phone displays to completely take over–too many people want a smaller device-but I’d love to own a phone with one someday. Wonder if there’s even the slightest chance of Apple unveiling an iPhone 4XL?

Office 2010 Hits Store Shelves

The last bit of Microsoft’s Office 2010 rollout is now in place: The suite upgrade has gone on sale at retail stores, and is now being shipped in a pre-installed version on new PCs. (Even if the Windows machine you buy doesn’t include a paid-for copy of Office 2010, chances are pretty high that it includes a trial version which can be unlocked, or used indefinitely in a dumbed-down, ad-supported Starter mode.

For people who care about office-suite upgrades at all, I think Office 2010 is a good bet overall–especially the $150 Home and Student edition, which can be installed on three machines simultaneously, providing impressive bang for the buck as long as you don’t need Outlook.

But I seem to be way less impressed with the new Office Web Apps than the average tech pundit (here’s Walt Mossberg’s cautiously positive take). I get that Microsoft sees them as a complement to traditional Office rather than a substitute, and appreciate the much-better-than-average file compatibility and rendering fidelity. But too many very, very basic features are absent: For instance, I don’t quite understand how anyone could release a presentation app in 2010 that doesn’t let you draw a square or circle.

I attended an Office launch event last night, and Microsoft executives said they plan to beef up the Office Web Apps on an ongoing basis; I’ll keep tabs on further developments. And maybe the company’s contention that the current versions provide most of the features that most real people want is closer to being right than I think it is–if you try out the Web Apps (or Office 2010 itself) I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Report: AT&T Didn’t Test iPhone Preorder System Thoroughly

As the iPhone 4 preorder disaster worsens by the minute, the blame looks to fall squarely on AT&T’s shoulders as we learn more about what went wrong. The most damaging of these may be an source close to the carrier which now claims the system which AT&T was not tested before the launch.

The source works at a third party facility that processes the orders for AT&T. Apparently, the reports of users being able to login to others accounts even though they were attempting to log into their own could be related to a botched update on AT&T’s side related to fraud.

It’s not clear if those attempting to upgrade are the only ones that may have had their information opened up to others, but the source did say problems like this have happened before. As of the time I write this, neither AT&T nor Apple have made any public statements on the matter.

AT&T’s iPhone 4 eligibility page remains down, although its online account application has been put back online. I have a request for comment out to both companies.

[Hat tip: Gizmodo]

New Toshiba Satellite Laptops: 3D, Thin-and-Lights, and a $300 Netbook

Toshiba announced new notebooks today–a bevy of updates to its consumery Satellite line, which encompasses everything from basic low-cost laptops to powerful entertainment machines. Laptopmag.com has a nice summary. Herewith, notes on a few models I found particularly interesting when Toshiba briefed me on them recently.

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iPhone 4 Ordering an Embarrassment for AT&T, Apple

If you are even attempting to pre-order an iPhone 4 today, our best advice is: don’t! Both Apple and AT&T are experiencing a multitude of problems just keeping the system up–and Gizmodo has even reported that AT&T’s online system is exposing upgraders’ accounts to others.

From what people are reporting, the problem  seems to be that both AT&T employees and at-home shoppers are using a similar web interface. Now, we can’t confirm that both are one and the same, but if they are it means thousands of orders every minute are dumping into the same application.

AT&T retail stores have resorted to using pen and paper to take down names, credit card numbers, and phone numbers as the entire online system has been taken down. Don’t expect to visit Apple’s site to complete your transaction either –it’s not working either.

Worst of all, it appears the mad rush for iPhone 4 has exposed a serious hole in AT&T’s servers. Gizmodo reports that it has received several reports of users logging into their own accounts (or I should say attempting to), and being greeted with the account information of somebody else.

So who’s to blame for this one? Let’s hear from our always opinionated Technologizer readers in the comments…

Update 1: Harry McCracken reports on Twitter that the Apple Store iPhone application reservation system is appearing to fail, which makes it hard to discern whether your reservation has actually been submitted. I’ve also received an unconfirmed report that neither AT&T nor Apple are accepting phone calls at this point.

Update 2: One of our regular readers Steven Fisher makes a very good point: “Thousands of queries per minute into the same application shouldn’t be a problem. Thousands of queries per SECOND shouldn’t be a problem. Perhaps the application or the database behind it performs like crap, but scalable web interfaces are not exactly an unattainable holy grail.”

Mac Mini Gets Nicer and Pricier

Last week’s WWDC keynote may have been all iPhone all the time, but there’s a new Mac this week–a heavily revised version of the Mac Mini, Apple’s teeny-tiny desktop machine.

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Consumers Put 3D TV to the Test

We’re hearing a lot about 3D television these days– from TV manufacturers, directors, journalists and pundits. But do consumers like it? And will they pay for it?

To find out, I convened a mini focus group of adults in their 30s, 40s, and 50s,; a teenager; and a pair of kids under 10. We met at the Samsung Experience store in New York City a few weeks ago. After watching a wild assortment of clips–from The Daily Show to a Dunkin Donuts commercial to Monsters vs. Aliens–they had a mildly favorable impression. But no one was jumping up to buy a new TV and a pile of expensive active-shutter LCD glasses.
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Nokia’s N8 Hands On: The Game of Catch-Up Continues

If you compiled a list of the biggest big-bang moments in tech history, Apple’s January, 2007 introduction of the first iPhone would rank mighty high. Three and a half years later, the companies that dominated smartphones back then are still scrambling to compete with Apple’s phone. Especially from a software standpoint, and none more so than Nokia, the Finnish giant who has struggled to build even vaguely plausible iPhone competitors on its long-in-the-tooth Symbian OS.

Nokia’s newest flagship smartphone, the N8, won’t arrive until sometime in the next quarter, and when it does it may have a low profile in the U.S.: There’s no reason to think that AT&T or T-Mobile will pick it up and sell it at a subsidized price. Unsubsidized, Nokia is saying it’s a 370-Euro phone, which works out to about $450–aggressive given its pretty meaty features, but not a price most Americans will pay.

I got a demo of a beta version of the N8 today, and while it’s the clearest sign to date that Nokia is moving in the right direction, it’s also obvious that modernizing Symbian is a years-long project that’s still in progress.

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Microsoft’s E3 Surprises: ESPN, New Xbox 360, Shameless Bribe

Short on shocking moments and big reveals, Microsoft pulled the trump card at the end of its E3 press conference today: Everyone in attendance would get a brand new, redesigned Xbox 360 for free. For all the journalists in the audience, it was time to make an ethical decision. For the rest of us, it was suddenly clear why Microsoft chose a small venue for the event, forcing many reporters, myself included, to watch via live video feed.

Microsoft’s new Xbox 360 model ships today. It’s not officially dubbed the Xbox 360 Slim, but it’s smaller than its predecessors and includes a 250 GB hard drive and built-in wireless n. Previous models had only wired Ethernet jacks and maxed out at 120 GB hard drives. The new Xbox 360, which comes only in black, sells for the same $300 as the current Xbox 360 Elite.

The new Xbox 360, and its subsequent gifting to the to the press, were among a few surprises dotting an otherwise lackluster press conference. Most of the games Microsoft showed off were obvious Xbox 360 exclusives, and looked just as predictable in action. Halo: Reach was more Halo. Gears of War 3 was more Gears of War. Call of Duty: Black Ops was more Call of Duty. And almost every Kinect game on display had already debuted the night before (the exception being Metal Gear Solid: Rising, which may support motion-controlled sword combat). The conference’s only new blood was a game codenamed Kingdoms, and its short teaser video had so little concrete information that the game is hard to get excited about.

But for existing Xbox 360 owners, at least there was ESPN. Rumored by the New York Times in January, ESPN for Xbox 360 will offer more than 3,500 live and on demand sporting events, including Major League Baseball, the NBA, soccer, college football and college basketball. No mention of the NFL, which has lagged on new media in general. In addition to the games, Xbox 360′s ESPN support will include trivia, highlights and voice activation with Kinect. Best of all, it’s free for Xbox Live Gold subscribers. The unanswered questions: When will the service arrive, and how subservient will the live broadcasts be to cable and local broadcasters?

Strangely, Microsoft announced a November 4 launch date for Kinect, but no price, nor any console bundles. Maybe the previous rumor of $150 is still in dispute.

New Google Earth Recreates Your Adventures

Google is unleashing a new version of Google Earth, version 5.2, today. It’s the biggest update since Earth 5.0 added the oceans and Mars in February of 2009–and while it’s not that big, it’s got one major cool new feature and one modest-but-useful one. Google gave me a sneak peek of the new version last week.

The major cool new feature is aimed at folks who like to go adventuring and take a GPS navigation handheld along. If you tote a GPS unit such as the ones from Garmin and Magellan to track a hike, bike ride, sailing trip, or any other excursion, you can transfer the data to Google Earth once you’re home. In the past, doing so involved creating thousands of points of geographic information, but the new version of the software can create simpler plots of where you were at any given point in time. And it lets you view this data as birds-eye animations that track where you went, recreated with Earth’s wealth of geographic photography and 3D imagery. You can also share the reconstructions with other Google Earth users or publish them using the embeddable version of Earth.

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More on AT&T’s Smartphone Data Cap

Cnet’s Marguerite Reardon explains why developers may need to worry more about AT&T’s new, no-longer-unlimited smartphone data plans than consumers will.

News Corp. Buys Skiff

This is intriguing: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has bought Skiff, a spinoff from the Hearst Corporation that’s behind a still-unreleased platform for digital magazines and newspapers. I saw Skiff’s e-reader at CES in January and thought it was a pretty slick Kindle rival. Even then, I found Skiff as a platform more interesting than Skiff as a device. And that was before we entered the Technicolor world of the iPad, which makes even the nicest monochrome E-Ink devices look profoundly retro–especially for magazines, which cry out for color.

There hasn’t been much in the way of Skiff news since CES, except for the announcement of a partnership to put its reader software on Samsung phones–for instance, the release date and price of the Skiff gadget remain unknown. I still think that open standards like HTML5 will eventually eliminate the need for proprietary technologies designed to make digital reading materials look pretty and approachable. In the short term, though, Skiff has an opportunity–there’s still a need for what it’s doing. Here’s hoping that it’s hard at work on software for the iPad, Android tablets, and Windows–and that it’s the whole ecosystem rather than the E-Ink reader that got News Corp. excited.

Starbucks Wi-Fi Goes Free

Looks like Starbucks is finally getting with the program and offering truly free Wi-Fi, starting July 1st in partnership with Yahoo. (Until now it’s offered two free hours a day to Starbucks cardholders.) I don’t even drink coffee, and I have a Verizon Wireless MiFi mobile router that radically reduces my interest in free hotspots–but I’m pleased by the news.