They’re Watching You

Good, creepy reporting at the Wall Street Journal by Julia Angwin on how marketers use cookies to create detailed profiles of who you are based on your surfing habits. (I don’t think the standard defense–”none of the information is personally identifiable”–settles the matter. Unless you think it would be acceptable in the real world to spy on someone as long as you didn’t know his or her name.)

A Sign of Gmail to Come?

Looks like a Gmail feature I’d love may be on its way: The ability to jump between multiple accounts with a click.

Android 2.2 Headed for Droid

I was just wondering how long I’d have to wait for Android 2.2 to land on my original Verizon Droid. A few days, it looks like.

Twitter Helps You Find People You Might Actually Want to Follow

Twitter is rolling out a new feature–”Suggestions for You“–that aims to recommend Twitter users you might like based on factors such as the people you’re already following and who they follow. It sounds similar to the third-party service Mr. Tweet (which is currently undergoing renovations) and like a potentially massive improvement over Twitter’s old “Suggested Users” feature (which gave everyone the same list of people, including some pretty vapid celebs).

It’s not live on my account yet, though–do you see it on yours?

OpenAppMkt: The iPhone Gets a Web App Store

Plenty of websites and services use slick web apps in lieu of, or in addition to, native software for the iPhone App Store, but they had no storefront of their own until now.

OpenAppMkt is an HTML app store that launched today, with everything I’d expect to see in a mobile app market. It has a clean interface for searching or browsing by category, along with a website that’s equally polished. iPhone users can “install” OpenAppMkt by adding the website to their home screen, and individual apps are installed in the same way, creating icons on the home page as if they were native apps.

The app selection is small for now, with only a handful of apps in each category, but nicely curated. When installed, all of them run full screen, without Safari’s navigation bars. You’ll find a bunch of Google’s offerings, such as Google Voice and the excellent YouTube web app, plus some gems such as Glyphboard, which presents a chart of symbols and emoticons for copying and pasting.

Apple does have its own list of Web apps, which is much lengthier than OpenAppMkt, but it lacks user reviews and screenshot galleries, and there’s no iPhone-optimized storefront. It’s safe to assume that Apple is concentrating on the App Store and isn’t going to push web apps anytime soon.

The problem with OpenAppMkt has everything to do with the curent state of web apps. Most of them don’t compare with native apps, and a few selections in OpenAppMkt cheerfully remind you that a better experience awaits in the App Store. It’s true; native apps can handle high-end graphics, multitask, make better use of the accelerometer and allow easy billing through iTunes.

We may see HTML-based apps catch up some day, but right now the best ones are glorified web pages with killer interfaces. At least now there’s a reliable place to find them.

The Blackpad Cometh?

Bloomberg says that RIM will release an iPad-like tablet called the Blackpad in November, with a price similar to the iPad’s and integration with BlackBerry phones.

EVO 4G to Get Android 2.2

Weird but true: When wound down sales of its Nexus One, Android 2.2 went from being available to not being available. But owners of Sprint’s EVO 4G are apparently about to get it as an update. Wonder when people who have Verizon’s original Droid–like, for instance, me–will get in on the fun?

Barnes & Noble Doubles Down on the Nook

Amazon.com’s Kindle may have the highest profile of any e-reader, but Barnes & Noble seems to be pretty darn serious about its Nook. The New York Times reports that the company is planning to make space for Nook boutiques in its superstores, dedicating a thousand feet of floor space near their cafés to Nooks, Nook accessories, and in-person and video demonstrations.

B&N plans to free up room for Nooks in part by shrinking space devoted to CDs; in this era, you gotta think that it probably would be deemphasizing sales of music on shiny discs no matter what. It says it’s not going to carry fewer dead-tree books.

The move presumably means that B&N is in the hardware business for the long haul and already has future generations of Nooks in the works. The first-generation Nook got off to a somewhat bumpy start–its software was slow and buggy, and some promised features weren’t immediately available–but the company has improved it through multiple software updates. It’s also knocked the price down to $199 and introduced a $149 model with Wi-Fi but no 3G connection.

Barnes & Noble also offers e-reader software for the iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, PC, and Mac, and it powers the e-book stores for devices from Nook competitors such as Pandigital. The Times doesn’t say whether the new boutiques will spotlight any of these other ways to read digital books.

Facebook, Done the Open Source Way

Four New York University students have mobilized to produce a decentralized and open source alternative to Facebook called Diaspora that they say will give users full control over their privacy.

Today, Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) general counsel Karen Sandler told me that Diaspora was inspired by a lecture that Eben Moglen, director-counsel and chairman of the SFLC, gave in February. The organization provides legal services to open-source projects and organizations.

During his talk, Moglen cautioned that cloud computing has moved control over privacy far out of users’ hands, and that privacy laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. “The architecture is begging to be misused,” he said.

Continue reading this story…

YouTube Upload Limit Bumped to 15 Minutes

User-made YouTube videos have been limited to 10 minutes almost since the beginning, but now YouTube is ready to give people 15 minutes per video instead.

YouTube says its Content ID system makes the extra five minutes possible. With all major movie studios and music labels using Content ID to sniff out copyrighted material, and the technology improved enough, YouTube can afford to relax the upload limit, which was introduced to keep pirated television shows and movies off the site. Content partners, such as CBS, have always been able to upload longer videos, including full-length television shows and feature films.

The contrarian in me wants to lament the boosted upload limit. There’s something to be said for concision, and users might lose some editorial discipline with an extra five minutes to spare. But overall I’m happy to see YouTube raise the limit to 15 minutes. The number of videos that will benefit from the extra time — video game walkthroughs, homespun sitcoms, how-to videos and otherwise fascinating raw footage — probably outweigh the ones that would wear our their welcome.

Now, I’m just wondering two things: When will the upload limit increase again, and why not extend it to 20 minutes right now? Product Manager Joshua Siegel didn’t give the most satisfying answer on YouTube’s blog, saying only that the site will do everything it can to release incremental improvements in the future. Maybe the content partners aren’t totally comfortable with user-made videos that match the length of a commercial-free television show, or perhaps YouTube fears the bandwidth demands a 20-minute limit may bring.

Whatever the case, it’s a good sign that YouTube’s moving beyond the upload limit it put in place four years ago. Any bets on when YouTube will allow two-hour feature films from its users?

Internet Explorer 9 Beta: September

The technical previews of Internet Explorer 9 haven’t been true betas–they’ve been all under-the-hood stuff, without a hint of any changes to the browser’s user interface. But as Mary Jo Foley reports, Microsoft says it plans to release an IE9 beta in September.

Apple Aware of iOS4 Problems on iPhone 3G

If you own an iPhone 3G and find iOS4 has slowed down your device considerably, you’re not alone. Apple’s support forums are littered with complaints, and the Wall Street Journal says that Apple is looking into the issue. In addition, it’s been reported that battery life has degraded and the phone has become hot to the touch.

It’s not clear why the phone may be heating up — then again, one could venture a guess that iOS4 may be taxing the phone a bit more that its predecessor. Any one with a iPhone 3G and iOS4 — are you seeing these problems?

The Case For a Microsoft Phone

Should Microsoft build a phone of its own? Over at Ars Technica, Peter Bright is arguing that it should. The case is pretty straightforward: The iPhone is as good as it is in large part because Apple designed (in Steve Jobs’ famous words) “the whole widget”–the hardware, the software, and the service. Same thing with the Xbox 360, Microsoft’s best and most successful hardware product to date.

Of course, building the whole widget hasn’t guaranteed Microsoft  anything in the past: The Zune HD hasn’t made much of a dent in the market. (It’s a nicely-designed product, actually–just one that didn’t show up until after the world had moved on to new classes of devices.) And the Kin–the closest thing to a “Microsoft phone” so far–didn’t quite work out. (Bright, oddly, doesn’t mention the Kin.)

I think there’s a good chance that Microsoft will build a “Microsoft phone” at some point, simply because the temptation may prove irresistible. But that doesn’t mean that putting Windows Phone 7 on different handsets from multiple manufacturers is an idea that’s doomed to fail. After all, it’s similar to what Google is doing with Android–and while the Android rollout isn’t without its bumps, it seems to be going pretty well.

Microsoft’s real danger with Windows Phone 7 isn’t that the basic business model doesn’t make sense. It’s closer to the overarching issue that rendered the Zune irrelevant: It’s possible that a phone OS that ships in late 2010 without cut-and-paste, multitasking, and other features which are universally available on competitors may be too little, too late. Even if the OS is appealing in other respects (and from what I’ve seen of Windows Phone 7 so far, it’s thoughtfully done and potentially neat).

Your take?

The Browser Wars’ Odd New Equilibrium

Apple released version 5.0.1 of its Safari browser yesterday. It fixes one major security vulnerability. More pleasantly, it turns on support for extensions, which Apple is now collecting in its new Extensions Gallery. The quantity of available add-ins is skimpy compared to Chrome or (especially) Firefox, but there’s already some good stuff–I like Gmail Counter, which adds a button indicating how many e-mails have arrived since you last checked your inbox, along with a banner that rotates through recent subject lines. And Safari extensions have the most seamless installation process I’ve seen to date–one click, and you’re good to go.

Until now, when folks have asked me how the major browsers stack up, I’ve mostly praised Safari but noted that the lack of extensions made for a less customizable working environment. Now it’s got ‘em. One more reason to consider using Safari, one less major distinguishing characteristic for the competition.

Continue reading this story…

Beat Madden 11, Meet a Virtual President Obama

In one of the most blatant uses I’ve seen of the U.S. President’s likeness in a video game, Barack Obama joins the festivities when you win the Super Bowl in Madden 11.

ESPN reports that as part of the victory celebration, players convene in front of the White House, where a virtual Obama gives a speech and unveils a team jersey with his name on it.

This isn’t the first time a likeness of the president has appeared in video games — notable examples include Bill Clinton in NBA Jam and “President Ronnie” in Bad Dudes — and Obama even advertised in some games when he was running for president. But the use of Obama’s name, while standing in front of the White House, takes the presidential imagery further than I’ve seen before.

Actually, I’m kind of surprised that EA Sports pulled it off. I don’t think using Obama’s image is illegal, but in January 2009 Bloomberg ran a story about how White House lawyers were trying to limit how the president’s image is used. The administration has cracked down on advertisements that look like a presidential endorsement, such as a Weatherproof jacket ad that appeared in Times Square. And the Bush administration tried to stop The Onion from using an image of the presidential seal.

But I guess if U.S. presidents can invite real athletes to the White House when they win the Super Bowl, the same courtesy ought to apply to virtual ones. My prediction: Obama throws out the first pitch on opening day in MLB 2K11.

Mossberg on iPhone Reception

The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg–who was the only early iPhone 4 reviewer to bring up reception as a potential problem–has written about his experiences after having used the phone for a few weeks. His verdict is similar to mine: In areas with good AT&T signal, the iPhone 4 is fine, but it (sometimes) struggles more than the 3GS when reception is poor. He still thinks it’s the best smartphone overall (and so do I).