Did Flip Have to Die?

The New York Times’ David Pogue has a nice, angry elegy for the Flip camcorder, which Cisco killed earlier this week. David mentions that Cisco recently briefed him on the next-generation Flips, which it had planned to introduce yesterday. I saw ‘em too, earlier this month–they had built-in Wi-Fi which permitted both wireless transfers to a computer and live streaming to the Web, and while they weren’t a transcendent advance on earlier Flips, they did look like fun. I wonder what happened to all the new Flips which were manufactured but which won’t ever reach store shelves?

While I’m linking to smart coverage of the Flipocalypse : Michael Mace points out that the emergence of smartphones that do good video didn’t have to render Flip irrelevant (he quotes me at the end, but I’d like his post even if he didn’t).

BlackBerry PlayBook Reviews: This Could be a Cool Product. Eventually!

I haven’t laid hands on RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook myself yet–except at trade-show booths–but the first reviews are in for the long-awaited tablet, which goes on sale on April 19th. They all praise certain things about it–the interface, the multitasking muscle–but none of them are raves. A high percentage, in fact, advice against buying it right now, pointing out its dependence on a BlackBerry handset, the lack of true native e-mail and calendaring, and bugginess. (Although RIM says that 3000 apps will be available at launch–which isn’t iPad numbers, but does sounds respectable to me for a brand-new platform.)

After the break, my traditional look at the last paragraphs of the initial reviews.

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Not a Rumor! Apple to Release White iPhone 4 This Spring

This time for sure: Apple says that that it’ll be ready to ship the white iPhone 4 real soon now. I wonder how many people out there wanted an iPhone but refused to buy one until the white model arrived?

Comcast Ultra-High Speed Internet Expands

Need really, really fast Internet? Comcast on Thursday bragged that its ‘Extreme 105′ ultra-high speed internet is now available in about 40 million homes across many major markets, or about 85 percent of their coverage area. For those geekier types who care, the service provides 105Mbps downstream and 10Mbps upstream.

It’s not cheap, though. It set you back $450 initially — that’s a $250 installation fee and then $200 per month for the service itself when it was first introduced last year. But for those speed hungry, Comcast is now offering it for $105 per month for a full year if ordered as part of their Triple Play offering.

You have to have a frame of reference to understand how fast this is: a high definition movie that would have taken an hour and a half on a standard cable connection now takes five minutes: an album from your favorite band that would have taken almost a minute before now takes only three seconds.

Don’t go all nuts though, as there still is a bandwidth cap. Comcast says connections would be throttled after 250GB of bandwidth, which while unfortunate begins to make sense at speeds like this. If everybody’s downloading high-definition movies at the same time, you’d have to think it would slow everybody down!

After 10 Months, The White iPhone Is Coming (Maybe)!

It’s taken the company forever, but Apple is about to launch the white iPhone 4 (more evidence of no iPhone 5 yet, perhaps?), according to Bloomberg. There’s been a few guesses as to why this phone has yet to see the light of day — leaking light is one — and for some the wait has been so unbearable, they’ve taken matters into their own hands.

Bloomberg says several issues prevented  the device from being launched, including white paint that begun to peel due to the heat of the phone. In any case, the device is supposedly set to debut on both AT&T and Verizon by the end of the month.

Could the white model be part of a plan by Apple to placate those anxiously waiting for the next-generation model, which seems destined for a late release this year?

Confirmed: Asus Eee Pad Transformer Starts at $399, Coming Soon

Those retracted product pages on Best Buy and Newegg were no fluke. Asus’ Eee Pad Transformer, a 10-inch tablet running Google’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system, will start at $399 when it ships later this month.

Former Engadgeteer Joanna Stern confirmed the launch details with a contact at Asus. The $399 price is for a 16 GB Wi-Fi model, but she had no details on the 32 GB version (once listed for $499 on Best Buy and Newegg). The Transformer’s optional keyboard and trackpad dock, which props up the tablet like a laptop, will sell for $149.

Not counting tablets that don’t run proper tablet operating systems, such as the Archos 70, Asus’ Eee Pad Transformer will be the cheapest tablet on the market, despite having nearly identical specs to the $599 Motorola Xoom (except for the lesser storage). A couple months ago, Harry wondered if we’d ever see a tablet that beat Apple’s iPad on price. Looks like it’s finally happening.

Also worth noting: I’ve seen the concerns that Android tablet makers will struggle to differentiate themselves, given that they’re all running the same operating system. But from what I can tell, the Eee Pad Transformer is generating a good deal of excitement on its pricing and clever — but optional — keyboard dock. I’m unconvinced that tablet makers need to mutilate the Android software to stand out.

A Look At WebOS 3.0 Beta

Precentral.net got its hands on the first beta bits of the next generation of WebOS (Their site may be down, looks like the influx of traffic got the best of them!). Of course, this is an early beta, but I’m certainly impressed at where the platform is going. Of course it always comes down to apps, but it’s a start…

WordPress.com Hit Again: This Time Hacked

It’s been a rough go for WordPress. Its been the target of several attacks lately, including a denial-of-service attack last month that severely crippled its servers for several hours. This time, its potentially more embarrassing for the blogging service, as it apparently has been hacked.

Whoever did it pretty much has full access: founder Matt Mullenweg said in a post to the company blog that the hacker has “root” access. In plain English? The WordPress server is this hacker’s oyster, and he or she is free to do whatever they want because they have administrative privileges.

Mullenweg says the company isn’t clear on what exactly may have been revealed and is going over its logs. He guessed they took a look at the source code, parts of which he called “sensitive.” The company is busy securing the server to prevent a repeat, and wouldn’t share much more.

Until we know exactly what happened, its hard to judge the potential effects. If you have an account on the service, and especially a “VIP” account, it may just be a good idea to change your password.

Aldus Pagemaker: The Mac’s Savior?

Guy Kawasaki claims that a single piece of software was responsible for saving the Macintosh platform — a claim that while seemingly a bit outlandish may actually make sense. That piece of software was Aldus Pagemaker, one of the first visual page-layout programs.

Speaking at the Ad:Tech conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, the former chief evangelist at Apple said that the original Mac did not do tasks such as spreadsheet creation or database management all that well. But desktop publishing was a natural fit.

Indeed, Mac aficionados will tell you that one of the platform’s biggest strengths is that it is visually driven — which is exactly what you need for a task such as what Pagemaker did. Kawasaki was frank: “Desktop publishing — it saved Apple.”

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Report: iPhone 5 “Production Roadmap”‘ Nowhere to Be Found

DigiTimes says that touch-panel manufacturers have yet to receive a roadmap for production of the next-generation iPhone, giving more credence to increasing reports that the device will not be released this summer as usual.

There’s been a variety of different reasons mentioned as to why Apple is deciding to “delay” the launch of the iPhone 5: whether it be to line up with the holiday shopping season, the (late) launch of the Verizon model, or as DigiTimes claims component shortages and continued high sales of the iPhone 4.

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Wii Price Cut Rumor: And So It Begins

Engadget’s Sean Hollister just re-kindled a great video game tradition: the pre-E3 price cut rumor.

A “trusted source” tells the blog that on May 15, Nintendo will drop the Wii’s price from $200 to $150. A May price cut would actually preempt E3, which starts on June 7, but could also set the stage for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 price cuts during the trade show.

It’s been more than a year and a half since any console maker reduced prices. Nintendo cut the Wii’s price from $250 to $200 in September 2009, just after Sony slashed prices on the PS3 from $400 to $300. Microsoft cut the mid-range Xbox 360′s price to $300 in September 2008, and has only redesigned the hardware and boosted specs since then.

The console market could use a boost, too. Although revenue was up in February, the industry shrunk in 2010 according to NPD. The Wii in particular has seen its dominance challenged in the United States by the Xbox 360.

But so far, the rumor mill has been fairly quiet. Michael Pachter, the oft-quoted analyst for Wedbush Morgan, said in March that he expects an Xbox 360 price cut at E3, with the Wii and PS3 to follow, but that’s just speculation. Juicy rumors have been in short supply. With E3 less than two months away, expect that to change.

When DRM Goes Wrong, the Dragon Age Edition

In case you ever need an example of digital rights management that punishes paying customers, here you go.

Rock On: Guitar Hero Not Dead Yet

Activision gave the wrong impression when it announced in February that it would disband the Guitar Hero development team and stop working on a Guitar Hero game for 2011.

Most of the press (myself included) assumed that this meant Guitar Hero was finished, but now Activision is clearing the air. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Activision’s Dan Winters clarified that the series is on “hiatus.”

“We’re releasing products out of the vault – we’ll continue to sustain the channel, the brand won’t go away. We’re just not making a new one for next year, that’s all,” Winters said.

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Report: Demand for iPad 2 Up 40% Over Original

If you’re still having trouble finding an iPad 2, there’s a reaso. ChangeWave says that its own research shows demand for the tablet is some 40% higher than the original iPad, lending credence to the increasing chorus of analysts who expectApple to announce some blockbuster sales numbers in its quarterly conference call April 20.

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Flock: Officially Dead

I regret to say that this is almost certainly the last thing I’ll ever write about Flock. There was a time when it was my favorite Web browser. But being based on the Mozilla engine turned to be tricky, and last year Flock started all over again as a Chrome variant–one which was quite different from its earlier incarnation. Even if the move was logical, it was confusing.

In January, social gaming behemoth Zynga snapped up the team behind Flock–but not the browser or the company. (Most of the stories about the buyout, including mine, inaccurately said that Zynga had acquired Flock itself.) When Flock CEO Shawn Hardin’s blog post about the news didn’t say anything about the browser surviving, it was ominous. Today, it’s official: Flock is dead.

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Bing + Yahoo = Search Success?

While at first some of us (myself included) may have looked at Microsoft’s deal last August to power Yahoo searches with skepticism, the move may finally be paying off–and could be eating into Google’s dominance in search.

Hitwise found in March that the two sites combined now account for 30.01% of all searches in the US, up about a point and a half from the previous month. Google on the other hand dropped, moving from 66.69% to 64.42%, indicating that the people who weren’t using it were likely headed to Bing.

What’s behind this change? It could be that Microsoft’s algorithms are doing a better job at finding what searchers want. Experian Hitwise — who provided this data — found that on Yahoo and Bing, about 81 percent of all searches resulted in a visit to a website. Compare this to Google, which is significantly lower at 65 percent of all queries.

Could it really be that Bing just has a better handle on search? Sounds like Internet blasphemy (Google even accused Microsoft of stealing its search results) but that really could be the case. Microsoft has been hard at work behind the scenes making changes, and it’s clear it’s serious about becoming a player.

I’m still a Google guy, but hey technology changes fast, and that might not always be the case. Go ahead Bing, impress me…