WordPress iOS Update Brings Video, Still Flubs the Basics

Months ago, I gave up on the idea that Apple’s iPad could stand in for my laptop and get work done. My primary trade is blogging–oh yes, it sounds as strange to me as it does to you–and the iPad is not up for the job.

This was largely due to inadequacies with WordPress, the blogging platform we use at Technologizer. I’m a big fan of the platform on PC Web browsers, but the iPad app needs more features, and the Web site can’t access the iPad’s photo album. The release of WordPress 2.6 for iOS adds video and swats bugs, among other things, so I decided to revisit iPad blogging with renewed enthusiasm.

A few minutes playing around with the app was all it took for me to give up once again.

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The Flintstones: Fifty Years of Irresponsible Driving

Last night, I expressed concern that Google’s celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of The Flintstones appeared to involve a grisly scene with Bamm Bamm’s severed head stored on the roof of Fred’s car. My post has inspired some comments, including the suggestion that Bamm Bamm is alive and well and merely riding up there, as well as a “grassy knoll” theory.

The topic clearly merited additional research. My friend Andrew Leal found a number of relevant images–check ‘em out after the jump.

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Google Takes on JPEG

Stephen Shankland of Cnet reports that Google is about to introduce a graphics file format that stores photos and other images much more efficiently than JPEG, the planet’s dominant image format. Good luck with that: JPEG 2000, an earlier attempt to render JPEG obsolete, never caught on. Neither has JPEG XR, an open standard originally created by Microsoft which I haven’t thought about since it was announced back in 2006. (Back then, it was called Windows Media Photo; it was renamed HD Photo before ending up as JPEG XR.)

Bundle.com Crowdsources Reviews, Without the Crowd Knowing They’re Reviewing Anything

While trust in the pro media falls, faith in the views of regular folk keeps growing. In an April survey by PowerReviews, for example, over half of consumers said that they trust user reviews of products, and they are reading more of them.

But the more they read, the more confused they can get. According to users of Rotten Tomatoes, for example, the new movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is either a “Kick Ass, well research, solid story” or “an embarrassment.” It just depends on what review you read. (And the overall average rating of 56 percent doesn’t clarify.)

To remedy the user-review confusion, a new company called Bundle is committing the social-media blasphemy of rejecting what people say. Instead, it looks at what they do–mainly by analyzing credit card data to see how much money people spend, and where. (They also look at government statistics and third-party surveys.) Through a deal with Citibank, Bundle culls anonymous credit card info from 20 million shoppers to analyze spending habits. “So what if five people swear really wildly that this restaurant is lousy, if 95 percent [of the customers] go back,” says the company’s founder, Jaidev Shergill.

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How Many Spaces Users Are There, Anyhow?

One of the bigger pieces of news at this week’s TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco was Microsoft’s announcement that it would be winding down its Windows Live Spaces blogging platform and helping Spaces users move to WordPress.com. BetaNews’s Joe Wilcox has an interesting bit of followup: an internal Microsoft e-mail in which the (unidentified) authors say that they don’t expect all that many Spaces users to make the transition, and express angst over the fact that WordPress.com runs on Linux rather than Microsoft technologies.

In an earlier post, Joe had thought that Microsoft was saying that there are thirty million Spaces bloggers who will be affected by the shutdown and WordPress.com opportunity. It was a logical assumption, and one made by plenty of other folks–on the Windows Live blog, Microsoft honcho Darmesh Mehta had referred to thirty million Spaces “customers” and said they were “eagerly awaiting the next set of new blogging features.” But he didn’t define what a customer was.

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PlayOn Goes Native With iPhone App

With Apple’s approval, PlayOn finally has a native iOS app for skipping Hulu Plus and streaming heaps of web TV shows to the iPhone.

PlayOn uses PC software to pull in web video from Hulu, Comedy Central, ESPN3 and elsewhere, and then makes the content available to other networked devices, like game consoles, certain set-top boxes and now the iPhone. The iPhone app is free, but you’ll also need the PlayOn PC software, which costs $40 per year or $80 for life. You can try it free for 14 days.

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A Jawbone for Your Work Phone (and Your Mobile Phone, and Your Tablet)

Back in April, networking kingpin Cisco and Aliph, maker of the stylish and sophisticated Jawbone headset, announced they were working together. The first result of their partnership is being announced today, and it’s a pretty obvious one: a version of Aliph’s Jawbone Icon Bluetooth headset that supports Cisco VoIP business phones.

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Bamm Bamm Beheaded

I’m all for Google celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of The Flintstones on its homepage. But why the heck are they storing Bamm Bamm’s severed head on the roof of the car–and what explains Barney and Betty’s cheerful obliviousness to what seems to be a tragic situation? (Thanks to Andrew Leal for breaking the sad news to me.)

Got Questions About Samsung’s Galaxy Tab? Fire Away [Update]

Update: Questions answered. Here’s the full story.

Unlike Harry, I haven’t seen Samsung’s Galaxy Tab up close, but it looks like I’ll have a chance to try the 7-inch tablet and speak to Samsung executives tomorrow (Thursday) evening.

So here’s the deal: Post whatever questions you have about the Tab in the comments, or send them my way over Twitter, and I’ll try to get them answered, either by Samsung or with my own hands-on time. For reference material, check out Harry’s preview and other past Galaxy Tab coverage.

(By the way, I already intend to ask about pricing and release dates, but I don’t think Samsung is ready to answer.)

Even More on Gmail Conversation View

I suspect that ZDnet’s Christopher Dawson is right: Google decided to let users disable Gmail conversation view in part to make its e-mail service more appealing to great big companies with lots of employees who aren’t used to threaded discussions.

Star Wars 3D Will Be a Moment of Truth

Unlike the most die-hard Star Wars fans, I have no strong opinion on whether Star Wars should be re-released in 3D, but when the conversion is finished and released in 2012, I think it will be a pivotal moment for 3D movies.

This is only partly because of Star Wars’ ability to draw a crowd. Of course, Star Wars 3D will bring people to theaters — assuming 3D hasn’t been dismissed as a cheap gimmick in two years, and that’s not a given — but it will also prove, or disprove, that 2D-to-3D conversion can be done in a way that doesn’t completely stink.

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Still More Passionate Debate About Gmail Conversation View

Like me, my friend and former colleague Ed Albro has blogged about Gmail’s new option for shutting off Conversation View. Unlike me, he comes down on the side of conversations. Decisively so. You might even say he’s strident on the topic:

From what I can tell from reading through the complaints on the Gmail forum, people don’t like conversation view because they like to keep their inbox tidy and the threaded approach doesn’t let them kill off individual emails in a conversation. In other words, they want to keep their boss’s original email about the monthly budget, but not Joe’s harangue about people using too many pencils.

[snip]

Another common argument from anti-Conversation View crowd is that all those messages they can’t kill are making their inbox too bulky. Come on people: A basic Gmail account now provides 7.5 GB of storage. Unless your threaded conversations include lots of people attaching high-def video files, those individual messages you can’t kill aren’t making a dent in your overall storage.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t have the option to turn off Conversation View – I’m just saying you shouldn’t exercise it.

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LinkedIn Previews New Tools

I’m on Twitter all day long, and Facebook nearly as often–not just because they’re fun, but because they’re useful research tools. LinkedIn? I find it handy when I want to look up vital facts about a particular person, but I don’t spend that much time there otherwise.

Here at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, however, LinkedIn unveiled Signal, a set of still-in-beta tools for searching, filtering, and otherwise wrangling all the stuff that goes on among your LinkedIn contacts. They haven’t shown up in my account yet, but look interesting…

Eric Schmidt’s Frightening Futurism

Cnet’s Tom Krazit thinks that Google CEO Eric Schmidt should be careful with his visions of a profoundly computer-augmented future:

It’s not that Schmidt is wrong or misguided in making these predictions: the seeds for such a future were sown long ago. But Schmidt and Google never seem to understand how much they freak some people out when they evangelize a future that de-emphasizes the role of people in their day-to-day lives.

I agree that Schmidt’s enthusiasm can be unsettling, at least on first blush (which is not the same thing as saying that his predictions won’t come true, or that I won’t be happy if they do). When he talks about the end of human-driven cars, one of the questions that pops into my head is this: Does Google plan to run the computers that run the planet’s automobiles?

Roku and TiVo Will Get Hulu Plus This Year

Good news for Roku and TiVo fans: Roku and TiVo Premiere boxes are getting Hulu’s Hulu Plus service later this Fall. For ten bucks a month, Plus subscribers will be able to get scads of new TV episodes and a sizable back catalog of old stuff, and Roku and TiVo will let them watch it all on their TVs.

It’s good news for Roku and TiVo, too, since Hulu Plus will be an attractive offering that won’t be available on Apple’s Apple TV. I’ll be curious to see which is a bigger hit: Hulu Plus’s all-you-can-eat TV shows with ads, or Apple’s 99-cent HD TV rentals.

Coolest Apps From AppNation

David Spark is a veteran tech journalist and the founder of the firm Spark Media Solutions, which gives voice to companies by building their media network. Spark appeared on the last episode of Cranky Geeks this past week, and blogs regularly at Spark Minute. Follow him on Twitter @dspark.

A Couple weeks ago I attended the AppNation conference in San Francisco, an event for companies that create, distribute, and (try to) monetize mobile apps. (I was reporting on the event for Dice, the online job board for tech jobs). You can see a bunch of the videos I shot at the event at DiceOutLoud and DiceNews, but here’s a video showcasing some of the coolest apps I saw at the conference.

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