Archive | October, 2010
Microsoft Smears OpenOffice in Video
Microsoft must really be feeling some pressure from OpenOffice, because it recently published a YouTube video that spreads a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt about the free open-source word processor.
Using case studies and press releases that have previously been published on Microsoft’s website, the video quotes OpenOffice users who had problems with compatibility, performance and tech support. The overall gist is that OpenOffice may be free, but it isn’t worth the trouble.
Beware the Virus-Laden Touch Screen
14. October 2010
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Gross. A story in the Sacramento Bee says mobile phones carry 18 times more bacteria than a men’s room toilet flush handle, and glass touch screens are great for spreading pathogens.
Netflix for Playstation 3 Drops the Disc Next Week
14. October 2010
Compared to the Xbox 360, the Playstation 3′s Netflix app was a lesser version for one simple reason: To watch streaming video, you had to get up from your comfy couch and put in a disc.
On Monday, October 18, Sony will get the upper hand. Not only will Netflix for Playstation 3 go disc-free, it will also add Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 surround sound, subtitles and, for a small number of videos, 1080i streaming. The Xbox 360 doesn’t yet offer these features, and the Wii, which still requires a disc for Netflix streaming, runs only in 480p.
Roku Hits Retail, Thanks to Netgear
13. October 2010
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I once asked an executive from Roku whether the company planned to sell its little Internet TV boxes–available from Roku itself as well as Amazon.com–through retailers. The answer? Not really, since the device’s low pricetag didn’t leave much room for markup. But times change: A Roku box is now available at Best Buy, RadioShack, and Fry’s. This one’s not a Roku product, though: Networking-product maker is selling the Netgear Roku Player NTV250, which it says will for for under $90. It looks like a doppelganger of Roku’s own XD model, and gets all the content (Netflix Watch Instantly, Amazon Video on Demand, Major League Baseball, much more) that’s available on Roku’s own gizmos. Sounds like a smart move as Roku girds up to do battle with Apple, Google, and other much larger companies that are intruding on its territory.
Join Me for Live Coverage of Apple’s Mac/OS X Event Next Wednesday
13. October 2010
Apple is holding a media event next Wednesday at 10am PT at its headquarters in Cupertino. Its invite is–for Apple–relatively non-cryptic: The event is called Back to the Mac, and Apple promises a look at “what’s new for the Mac…including a sneak peek of the next major version of Mac OS X.”
I’ll be in the audience that morning liveblogging my heart out. You can join me at technologizer.com/macfuture, and I hope you will.
Meanwhile, we have a week to muse about what the future holds for Apple’s operating system. It’s been almost exactly three years since OS X 10.5 Leopard was released–back in a very different era for Apple. (The iPhone had just barely shipped and wasn’t yet a platform for third-party apps; the iPad as we know it may not even have been a glint in Steve Jobs’s eye.)
Last year’s 10.6 Snow Leopard was almost entirely about modernization below the surface, not new features. And if past Apple practice holds true this time around, it’ll be well into 2011 before Lion, or whatever it’s called, shows up. So the time would be right for a major upgrade–one which aims to keep the Mac relevant for a long time to come. That’s what I’m rooting for, anyhow, and I’ll share my wish list before the event happens.
Mac users, what do you want to see in a big new OS X update?
Tango, the Little Video Calling App That Could
13. October 2010
Have you noticed? Facebook, the world’s favorite social networking tool, has been jockeying for position lately. So have Skype and Twitter. These giants lost their lead after an unprecedented run-up from newcomer Tango, a new free mobile-to-mobile video calling service. Hours after launching on September 30, Tango became the #1 free social networking app—knocking off Twitter, Skype and Facebook in the App Store—in nine countries including the United States, Hong Kong, France, Taiwan, Spain and South Korea. And, just yesterday, Tango announced its 1 millionth download from the App Store and Android Marketplace. (At the moment, it’s slipped to the #2 spot, after Facebook.)
Without any cheerleading by Apple or any existing brand awareness or installed user base to speak of, Tango’s explosive rise is a feat of virality that every app developer dreams of. “It’s unheard of,” says Patrick Mork of GetJar, the world’s largest independent app store. Clearly, there is pent-up demand for free, two-way video calls that work reliably across platforms (Android and iOS) over 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi. Yahoo is moving in fast, too, with its newest version of Yahoo Messenger, announced Monday, which does video chats on iOs devices over 3G and Wi-Fi and allows users to place video calls to and from desktops: it’s already #4 in the App Store’s “Top Free” social networking category, just behind Tango (#2) and Skype (#3).
Redbox Gaming is Expanding
13. October 2010
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Video games seem like a natural way for Redbox to grow, so I wasn’t surprised when the kiosk operator started testing video game rentals last year. According to Variety, Redbox will soon expand video game rentals to “a few thousand” of its 24,000 kiosks, across 40 markets.
But Redbox isn’t going all in just yet. The company is still deliberating whether to take video game rentals nationwide, and hopes to get a better sense of customer interest by adding games to more kiosks.
Bing Gets Facebook-ized
13. October 2010
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I’m at an event at Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus, where a bunch of Microsoft and Facebook executives (including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg) just finished showing some new Bing features that should start rolling out shortly. The two companies (which first established a partnership four years ago) are working together to integrate stuff Facebook knows about you and your friends into Bing search results, using Facebook’s Instant Personalization feature.
Mostly, what Bing is doing is looking at which Facebook Like buttons your buddies have clicked around the Web, then inserting a module into search results that spotlights pages they’ve given a thumbs-up. We saw examples involving searches relating to cars, San Francisco steakhouses, and the movie Waiting for Superman.
When you search for a person, Bing will also use your Facebook friendships to try and return relevant results–the example we saw involved a search for “Brian Lee” that returned a module with Brian Lees who were friends of the user’s friends.
Gmail Slowdowns Rile Up Some Users
13. October 2010
If hanging progress bars and “still working” messages have become the norm for your Gmail experience, you’re not alone.
A thread on Gmail’s slow behavior started a couple weeks ago and continues to see new posts. The problems users are reporting — hang-ups on basic tasks and painfully slow searches — apply across all browsers and platforms. (Full disclosure: Gmail has, at times, been quite slow for me over the last few weeks, so I have a heightened interest in what’s going on.)
From what I can tell, this isn’t a new problem. There are no less than four other Gmail slowdown threads, dating back to spring 2009. And in January 2008, Scott Karp posted similar observations, in a blog post that got dozens of responses. Users in the latest thread say they started having problems weeks or months ago.
IBM Storage Tech: DVRs in the Cloud, SSD Replacements
13. October 2010
An IBM data center in North Carolina
How is IBM funneling its vast resources into research around future products and services? At a press and analyst day last week in New York City, the company talked up projects around replacing today’s flash-based SSDs (solid state drives) with new PCM (phase change memory) technology and dropping DVRs (digital video recorders) in favor of video storage clouds.
IBM is about to start field tests with cable TV companies around new cloud-based video storage services for consumers, said Steve Canepa, general manager for IBM’s Global Media & Entertainment Industry Division.
Meanwhile, for businesses, Big Blue is eyeing the release in another four years of new storage servers based on PCM, according to other speakers at the press event on Thursday in midtown Manhattan.
Verizon and the iPhone: Perfect Together?
13. October 2010
The Wall Street Journal’s Spencer Ante says that Verizon’s network is ready for the iPhone, assuming (as Ante does) that a Verizon iPhone is indeed on its way.
HasWiFi, This Flight
12. October 2010
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Thank goodness HasWiFi tells you whether Internet is available on your next flight. Because for some reason, most airlines don’t.
Should Single-Player Be Safe Haven for StarCraft 2 Cheaters?
12. October 2010
Back when Game Genie gave unskilled gamers a way to cheat, Nintendo could do nothing but unsuccessfully sue the maker, Galoob, for copyright infringement. With the rise of online connectivity, game makers finally have a workaround to third-party cheats: They can punish the players instead.
Blizzard’s anti-cheat enforcement in StarCraft 2 is the most extreme I’ve seen. Even in the single-player campaign, players who cheat are subject to suspensions or lifetime bans from Battle.net. Enforcement is well underway, according Cheat Happens, a company that sells cheat programs for PC games. Because Battle.net is a necessary step for initial activation and updates, players who are banned for life could be locked out of StarCraft 2 forever if they move to a new computer, even if they never intend to play online.
Leaving Facebook: Feasible Forever?
12. October 2010
Over at Techland, I’m continuing to muse on the implications of not belonging to Facebook. Today, it’s eminently doable, but at what point does it become a weird, obstinate refusal to be part of society?
Windows Phone 7 Phones: Different, But Not Inconsistent
12. October 2010
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Wired’s Brian X. Chen has a good story on Microsoft’s strategy for Windows Phone 7: It’s working with handset makers to produce handsets that come closer to the iPhone’s feel of hardware/software integration than to Android’s sometimes patchy relationship with the devices it runs on. It’s too early to tell whether Microsoft has succeeded, but it’s certainly a worthy goal.
MobiTV Wants to Put TV Everywhere
12. October 2010
How many TV and movie services do I use? I’ve lost track. Depending on what I’m watching and which device I’m using, I might get my content from Comcast, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or one of a bunch of other services. I’m not complaining. But what I’d really like is to be able to turn on any gadget I own that can display video and watch everything that’s available anywhere.
Enter an upcoming TV-distribution platform created by MobiTV. The company is best known for its eponymous apps for watching TV on phones (available for the iPhone and many other handsets), but its real big business is providing private-labeled services for large companies–for instance, it powers Sprint’s Sprint TV. And it’s readying a service it plans to sell to cable-TV providers that will let consumers get one TV service that follows them from device to device. It gave me a demo of a rough draft of the technology last week at the CTIA Enterprise and Applications show in San Francisco.
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14. October 2010
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