Archive | March, 2011
Maybe They Should Call It 2 3/4th G?
PCMag’s Sascha Segan is ticked off over AT&T’s 4G phones–which he says don’t even meet the company’s not-so-rigorous definition of “4G.”
Voyurl: A Cool, Creepy Way to Browse the Web
14. March 2011
Want to see every website that I’ve visited over the last day or two? Sign up for Voyurl, and then knock yourself out.
Voyurl is a web service that obliterates the conventions of privacy on the Internet. Once you’ve signed up for the service and installed an extension in Firefox, Chrome or Safari, it tracks your every move and automatically posts your history on the web. You’re free to look at the browsing history of all users in one giant timeline, and you can follow specific users as well.
Yes, there are privacy safeguards. At any time, you can shut the extension off, stream your history anonymously or just share links on a site-by-site basis. But the main idea behind Voyurl is that there’s nothing wrong with sharing your activity on the Internet or snooping on the activity of others. (Voyurl’s motto: “It’s okay to look.”)
We Know Zune Hardware is Dead. Is the Zune Name Dead Too?
14. March 2011
It’s not official until someone at Microsoft says it’s official, but Bloomberg’s Dina Bass is reporting that Microsoft will “cease introducing new versions of the Zune music and video-player amid tepid demand, helping the company shift its focus to mobile phones, according to a person familiar with the decision.”
Cease introducing new Zunes? Actually, that’s not really a breaking development. The last meaningful addition to the Zune line was the Zune HD, released almost exactly eighteen months ago. It was in some ways a nifty device, but like all Zunes before it, it felt like arrived about a year after it should have. Andwith consumer electronics, if you leave a product line fester for a year and a half, you’re telling the world that you’ve lost interest.
iLines Part Deux: Some Apple Stores to Open Early Tuesday
14. March 2011
By all accounts, Friday’s launch of the iPad 2 was a success. Analysts say the company likely sold at least 500,000 units over the weekend — with some saying Apple may have sold close to a million units. If you found an iPad on Sunday, consider yourself lucky: most places had sold out of the device on Saturday if not on launch day itself.
This success may be the reason why Apple may be quietly planning to open some of its stores an hour early on Tuesday, according to the Apple Bitch blog. Those walking into Apple Stores today are being told that even if they receive shipments today to replenish stocks, iPad 2s will not available until Tuesday.
With many stores opening typically at 10:00am, this would mean those stores would open at 9:00am instead.
A Sharing Site Called Circles? Hey, It’s Been Done
14. March 2011
One of the biggest stories so far here at the South by Southwest conference in Austin has been Google Circles–a major new social service that, according to ReadWriteWeb, will let users share photos, videos, and updates with their friends, with total control over who sees what. Tech guru Tim O’Reilly, who got a preview, thinks it looks “awesome.”
Except…All Things Digital’s Liz Gannes reports that Google says the whole thing is wrong. It’s not working on Circles and isn’t announcing anything at SxSW. The denial doesn’t quite eliminate all possibility that there’s truth somewhere in RWW’s story–actually, it would be a shocker if Google never introduces anything involving sharing stuff with friends–but it does sound like it’s not unveiling Circles here. Apparently.
But psssst–Circles isn’t a fantasy. In fact, it already launched. More than six years ago. From once-major Google competitor Lycos. Continue reading this story…
Twitter to Third-Party Clients: Drop Dead
12. March 2011
Twitter isn’t wild about third-party Twitter clients. In a new message to developers, Ryan Sarver of Twitter’s platform team dwells on the downside of Twitter clients that aren’t controlled by Twitter. saying that they can be confusing and may not follow good privacy practices or adequately hew to the service’s terms of service. What Twitter users need, Sarver says, is a consistent experience across multiple platforms. So the company doesn’t want anyone developing new Twitter clients aimed at consumers, and says it’s going to hold developers of existing clients to “high standards” of consistency and privacy.
This philosophy isn’t going to have any impact on me–at least not immediately and directly. I mostly use Twitter’s own Web site, the official Twitter clients for iOS and Android, and the excellent, still-okay-because-it’s-n0t-aimed-at-consumers service HootSuite. But I still regret what Twitter is doing.
The statement expresses concern over the possibility of third-party apps baffling users by being inconsistent with Twitter’s own apps and experiences. But the company’s statement says that 90 percent of Twitter members use official Twitter apps, and that the top five ones all come from Twitter itself. Sounds like the teeming masses are already mostly fully onboard with Twitter’s version of Twitter. So why stand in the way of users who want something different? Isn’t it possible that the ten percent who choose to use something other than Twitter’s own clients are smart people who know what they’re doing, not confused newbies?
Samsung and LG Bicker Over Lie-Down 3D, Miss the Point
11. March 2011
The Wall Street Journal brings us an amusing story about the battle between LG and Samsung over 3D TV standards. Although the heart of the debate — whether active shutter systems are superior to polarized displays, or vice versa — is perfectly legitimate, the two companies are busy having a silly argument about whether you can watch 3D TV while lying down.
LG started it. A company advertisement in Korean reads, “Finally, you will have a comfortable way to watch 3-D.” But Samsung says this isn’t possible without inducing dizziness and nausea. LG says lying sideways merely diminishes the 3D effect. The Journal steps in and says the 3D effect nearly disappears when viewing a polarized display horizontally, but with active shutter glasses the picture goes completely black.
Missing from the debate is one key point: Why would you want to watch 3D TV lying down in the first place?
I understand that, for a lot of people, lying down in front of the tube is the natural way of things. But 3D TV isn’t natural. It tricks your brain and creates a 3D illusion that’s best-viewed in short sittings — say, the length of a movie. Put another way, 3D TV is an event. It’s meant for action movies and sports, not sitcoms and the nightly news. If you’re lying down to watch Avatar’s alien beasts pop out of the screen, you’re doing it wrong.
No iLine for Me This Year
11. March 2011
I got up at the crack of dawn and waited in a long, long line for the original iPhone. I did the same for the iPhone 3G. And the iPhone 3GS. And the iPad. (In all cases, I did it partially to acquire products to review, and partially to report on the all the wackiness associated with the iLine experience.
But I’m not in line right now to buy an iPad 2–instead, I’m on my way to Austin for the South by Southwest conference. (Or trying to get there, at least–a three-hour flight delay turned my flight to Austin into a flight to Houston, plus another three hours in a rent-a-car.) There are, however, still iLines around the country–maybe not of record-setting length, but still formidable. AppleInsider’s Daniel Eran Dilger has a report on the one at the flagship Apple Store in San Francisco. (I took the photo above at the same store during the 2007 iPhone launch.)
Want an iPad? Waiting in Line Will Be Faster
11. March 2011
If you want an iPad, go wait in line for one now. While online sales through Apple’ s website began at 1am Pacific Time, already shipping times are a matter of weeks. As of midday, those ordering through the website may be waiting 2-3 weeks for the tablet to show up.
Tegra 2 Phones and Tablets Will Get Playstation Suite
11. March 2011
When Sony announced its next-generation portable gaming device in January, it also took out an insurance policy with Playstation Suite, a gaming service for Android smartphones.
Smartphone gaming gives Sony a backup plan in case its fancy, dedicated gaming device falls flat, but until now, we haven’t known which devices will run Playstation Suite besides Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play (a.k.a. the Playstation phone).
Enter Nvidia, which says it’ll bring Playstation Suite to Tegra 2-powered smartphones and tablets this year. Nvidia announced the news (via Engadget) in its “TegraZone” Android app, a spotlight for games that take advantage of the Tegra 2 hardware.
Adobe’s Better Mobile Flash: Coming March 18th
11. March 2011
Adobe has announced that Flash Player 10.2 for Android–the first version that supports the tablet-friendly Android 3.0 Honeycomb and which supports the performance-boosting, power-minimizing Stage Video feature–will be available on March 18th. One way or another, Its arrival will surely restart the whole “Should iOS users be distraught over Apple’s refusal to permit Flash?” debate…
Are You Being Throttled By Clear?
11. March 2011
It certainly is a rocky time for WiMAX provider Clear. The company’s CEO Bill Morrow has suddenly resigned, citing “personal reasons” according to a company press release. But that’s not the only problem: it is now the subject of a lawsuit filed in Washington state last week.
Complaints began surfacing last fall, when customers claimed that Clear wasn’t being forthcoming on its throttling practices. In some cases, connections were being slowed to 256 kbps — and the reason why was different depending on who you talked to. For some, it was said they were exceeding the bandwidth cap of 8GB per month: others got told it was due to “network congestion.”
This schizophrenic explanation of what was going on upset customers, who began to complain on Internet forums. Clear did later admit that it was throttling, although it refused to specify which customers it was doing it to, or how.
Hate a Website? Block It From Google
11. March 2011
About a month ago, Google launched a Chrome browser extension that let users hide specific domains from search results. Soon, that feature will be available in multiple web browsers — no extension required.
The option to block websites from Google search results is rolling out on Friday for users of Chrome 9 and higher, Internet Explorer 8 and higher, and Firefox 3.5 and higher. Next to each search result, users will see a snippet of text that reads “block all example.com results.” Click it, and you’ll never see that domain on Google again.
To use the feature, you’ll have to be signed in to a Google account. This allows you to manage a list of blocked sites from search settings. Whenever a result is blocked from search, a notification will appear, so you can still view results from blacklisted domains on a case-by-case basis.
Some Quick Thoughts on GarageBand for iPad
10. March 2011
Don’t tell Apple, but I might’ve upgraded to an iPad 2 if GarageBand didn’t work on the original. As a lapsed musician, I’ve been cobbling together iPad music apps since last year, but I could never find the one that did it all — recording, sampling, looping, synthesizing — at least in an affordable package.
So for me, GarageBand was the highlight of Apple’s iPad 2 event. When the $5 app launched in the iOS App Store today, I grabbed it immediately. Here’s what I think so far:
The Tablet Bubble May Be Ready To Burst
10. March 2011
We may want to file this one in the so-obvious-it-doesn’t-need-an-analyst department: the tablet sector may be en route to a shakeout later this year. JP Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz wrote in a report released Wednesday that competitive pressures put on companies by the iPad 2 might be enough to cause the “bubble” to burst.
Let’s face it, CES 2011 was a sea of tablets from just about every company known to man. I’ve heard some accounts that the number of devices shown off the show was near a hundred, so it’s obvious some will fail in the marketplace or not even see the light of day.
The First (and Last) Words on the iPad 2
9. March 2011
The iPad doesn’t show up at retail stores until 5pm on Friday, but the first reviews of big tech products usually break on Wednesday evenings–and so a bunch of major sites rendered their verdicts on Apple’s second-generation tablet tonight.
There are no shockers. Everybody likes it. They find it a thoroughly pleasing refinement rather than a reinvention of iPad #1. They all find a nit or two to pick, but nobody identifies another company’s model as superior. Actually, they agree that it’s the best tablet on the market.
As usual, the last paragraphs–or, occasionally, the last two paragraphs–of the reviews tend to nicely summarize the author’s take. So here are a bunch of ‘em…
Now on Technologizer...
History Needs Piracy |
7 PC Building Tips |
My Favorite PC, the iPad |
The First Microprocessor |
|
14. March 2011
2 Comments