Inside a Google Data Center

Google, unlike Facebook, isn’t open-sourcing the technologies it’s created for its data centers. But it is providing a video tour of one of the centers:

That iOS File With Your Location Data

Here’s a good, clear story by Brian X. Chen of Wired on the facts about Apple’s CONSOLIDATED.DB file, which contains information on where iPhone and iPad users have been. It’s not a conspiracy or a terrifying security hole–but it is worth being concerned about.

That Didn’t Take Long

The other shoe–the Samsung-suing-Apple shoe–has dropped.

No 3D for He, See?

TechRepublic’s Jason Hiner is even less impressed with 3D movies and TV than I am. Actually, he says they’re a scam.

Google Takes Issue With Roku’s YouTube Channel

While Roku doesn’t offer an officially sanctioned YouTube channel, many of us have been enjoying that content through a “private” offering created by The Nowhereman. In fact, he’s such an exceptional developer, Roku brought him on as an employee (where he’s known as Chris). Yet that puts them in an even more awkward position now that Google has taken issue with the unlicensed YouTube channel.

A blog comment tipped me off to the situation, that I confirmed on the forum… The YouTube channel remains functional for the folks who’ve previously activated it, yet no new subscribers are permitted. I reached out to Roku who also corroborated the situation, saying “we received a takedown notice from YouTube’s legal team and are in the midst of negotiations with them.” They’re hopeful of having more information to share with the community next week.

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Going Totally Digital

My friend Louis Gray says he’s swearing off physical media altogether. (He even turns his nose up at USB drives.) I appreciate his initiative, even though I’m not going there myself–I just bought a Blu-ray player and still have several hundred VHS tapes…

The Era of Beta Hardware

My TIME.com Technologizer column this week is a hands-on look at RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Like other reviewers, I was startled by the lack of full-blown e-mail, disappointed by Flash Player’s quirkiness, and bedeviled by bugs. All of which led me to what seems to be a near-universal conclusion among PlayBook reviewers: you probably don’t want to buy this thing yet.

Still, there’s much that remains appealing about the PlayBook. The hardware is nice and the WebOS-like interface is fun. With a serious software update or three–and more apps–today’s disappointing PlayBook could be the powerful, professional-grade tablet that RIM has been bragging about for months. It’s just that the company essentially released an unfinished product, presumably because it was so very anxious to get into the tablet market before other iPad alternatives had a chance to get an edge.

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Smartphone Users are Concerned About Privacy

In light of the news that iOS4 likes to track your every move, Nielsen’s poll results released Thursday appear especially prescient. The firm found that a majority of both women and men have privacy concerns when it comes to check-ins and location-based apps on their smartphones.

Women appear a bit more concerned about the issue, with 59 percent saying so versus 52 percent of men. Concerns about big brother watching you seemed to build with age: those 25-34 showed the least concern (half of all respondents), which increased to 63 percent of those 55 and older.

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So, Amazon’s Building An Android Tablet…

Amazon is said to be in the process of developing its own Android tablet, according to gdgt’s Peter Rojas. Calling it an “open secret,” Rojas believes that the device may not be yet another garden-variety Android tablet, but rather akin to what Barnes & Noble did with the new Nook. There, Android was used as the core of a customized experience.

Like B&N, Amazon has a vested interest in seeing you buy things from them: thus the device itself would probably not be as expensive as most Android tablets. However the retailer sells music and movies as well as e-books: this means the company potentially would have multiple revenue streams to lean on for its “tablet.” And that new Android App Store? And all those Android developer hires? Is it making sense now?

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Playstation Network is Down for a Day or Two

Sony’s Playstation Network is down, and it may not come back up for a couple of days, according to the official Playstation Blog.

“While we are investigating the cause of the Network outage, we wanted to alert you that it may be a full day or two before we’re able to get the service completely back up and running,” Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold wrote.

Europe’s Playstation blog previously said the company was investigating “the possibility of targeted behavior by an outside party,” but that message has since been removed. Hacking group Anonymous, which attacked Sony’s servers earlier this month, claims no involvement.

Talk about terrible timing. This week saw the launch of Mortal Kombat, Portal 2 and SOCOM 4, all of which have an online component. SOCOM 4 is a Playstation 3 exclusive geared mainly towards online play, and includes big incentives to buy the game new. In addition to disabling online play, the PSN outage affects the Qriocity music service, Netflix, MLB.tv and any other service requiring a PSN login.

Still, this isn’t quite as severe as the PSN problems that occurred in March 2010, when a leap year issue caused some users to lose data just by turning on their consoles. Sony didn’t relay that message to its customers until 16 hours after the first reports emerged.

[UPDATE: Sony says that the outage--still ongoing--is due to it taking down the network after a security breach.]

[UPDATE 2: Still no end in sight. Sony now says it's rebuilding the network for added security.]

[UPDATE 3: Sony now says all users' personal information was compromised, and credit cards may have been compromised as well. More details here.]

Surprise! RIM’s PlayBook Launch a Success

Bet you weren’t expecting this news. Despite the multitude of negative reviews in the press (Harry has a nice roundup here and gave the tablet a decidedly mixed review over at TIME.com), The PlayBook’s launch was not a bust at all. In fact, one could argue that it even was a success. Estimates put the sales numbers on launch day at about 50,000 units.

Now before Apple fanboys come out in force and laugh at RIM’s minor victory, lets put this into perspective. That number is more than either the Samsung Galaxy Tab or the Motorola XOOM. While the latter appears to have pretty much flopped so far, the Tab is the single biggest competitor to Apple’s tablet dominance.

Could it be that the technorati was too full of themselves in believing we had the final judgement on the PlayBook, sending it to a premature death? Quite possibly. While its still early it does kind of look like we (well, most of us) may have been wrong to say this would be a flop.

RIM, the ball is now in your court. Fix the obvious issues with your tablet and get your act together with the apps: soon we may be discussing the PlayBook in the same sentence as the Tab and the iPad.

Chrome OS Notebooks: By Subscription?

Neowin reports an intriguing rumor: When the first batch of Google’s Chrome OS notebooks launch in June or July, customers will be able to lease them for $10 to $20 per month.

The Chrome OS subscription, as Neowin calls it, would entitle the user to free hardware upgrades, as well as replacement units if anything goes wrong. Full-priced laptops would also be available, and the Chrome OS notebooks would reportedly be distributed “in a fashion similar to the way Android is distributed,” which I assume means through wireless carriers and retail stores.

Neowin’s report is based on a single, unnamed source, and it’s wacky enough to consider with an ounce of skepticism. But it’s also rather plausible.

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AT&T Is Just Fine in the Verizon iPhone Era, Thank You

AT&T reported its quarterly numbers Wednesday morning, and they certainly showed that the iPhone is still a significant driver of growth for the carrier. 3.6 million iPhones were activated during the quarter, and iPhone subscriber churn (customers with the device who left for a competitor) was unchanged from the same period last year.

This is significant for one reason: it was the first quarter that the Verizon iPhone was available. Being able to keep churn flat is quite an accomplishment, considering that so many analysts said that Verizon would siphon customers away from Big Blue.

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FileMaker’s iOS Databases Get Printing, Charting, and Signatures

FileMaker Inc.’s FileMaker Go–which brings databases created with the Windows and OS X versions of FileMaker to iOS devices–just got a bit more powerful.

As before, the new 1.2 versions for iPhone and iPad aren’t fully standalone apps: You use it to view and edit databases created with full-blown Filemaker Pro, and can access databases both by syncing them onto the device and by connecting remotely. (That’s a different approach from FileMaker’s more consumery Bento database apps for iPhone and iPad, which can be used in conjunction with the Mac version or on their own.)

You can now use Apple’s AirPrint to print wirelessly to recent HP printers. Charts–a feature introduced in last year’s FileMaker Pro 11–can be viewed, updated, and edited. And you can capture signatures into FileMaker Go on an iPhone or iPad, and then transfer them back into a FileMaker Pro database. (The FileMaker folks say that Go is often used to automate processes that would otherwise be handled with paper and pen.)

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Blu-ray’s New Format War: The Old School DVD

Win the battle, lose the war. The saying might as well apply to Sony’s Blu-ray high definition disc format (I’ve used it before on this topic), which continues to struggle for relevancy. Even with player prices now as low as $70 through Walmart, consumers are still taking their good old time in adopting the format.

Strategy Analytics researcher Peter King told Foxnews.com that even through Sony won the format war against Toshiba and HD DVD more than three years ago, only now has the format been able to equally split the 20 million disc players sold evenly with standard DVD.

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Amazon To Offer Kindle Local Library Lending

It’s a sign of the times. Amazon on Wednesday said that it will allow Kindle users to borrow e-books from their local libraries. The service would be available at about 11,000 locations nationwide, and will also be open to those using Kindle applications.

The offering is part of a partnership with OverDrive, which already offers digital content solutions for libraries (and which has had a similar relationship with Sony for the latter’s Reader e-readers since 2009). Head to OverDrive’s website to see if your local library may be one of them — mine is!

Unlike regular library books, you’ll be able to annotate titles just like you can with purchased Kindle books. The notes will not appear to the next person checking out the book. But if you check it out again or even purchase the title from Amazon, your notes will still be there.

Amazon doesn’t have a solid release date for this, only saying in a press release that it would be available “later this year.” We’ll keep an eye on this and let you know when its available.