Archive | May, 2011
Veer: Almost Here
I’m not in the market for a new phone. But if I were, I’d at least toy with the idea of getting HP’s Veer, the tiny new WebOS phone. And AT&T has announced it’ll be on sale starting May 15th, for $99 on a two-year contract.
If Cord Cutting Isn’t Real Yet, Just Wait: It Will Be
4. May 2011
96.7 percent of us Americans have one or more TVs in the household. That’s a lot of TVs–but it’s fewer than before, say a new study by the Nielsen Company. Previously, 98.9 percent of us had TVs in the house.
So did the drop–the first one in two decades–happen because people are watching Internet TV in lieu of old-fashioned cable or terrestrial TV? Nielsen says it’s a factor, but it stresses another (distressing) one: low-income households which can’t afford TVs, especially after the digital transition rendered old analog sets useless without an adapter.
Cord-cutting is sometimes dismissed as a myth. And it’s true that no data shows TV watchers fleeing to the net in massive numbers just yet. But I feel in my bones that an awful lot of people are going to do so over the next few years–it’s just a matter of how many and how quickly. I mean, wouldn’t there have been a time in the 1990s when any study would have showed that only a tiny group of folks were listening to MP3s instead of CDs? And wouldn’t it have been a mistake to conclude then that this digital-music stuff wasn’t going to amount to much?
(Photo by Flickr user avlxyz)
Apple Updates iMacs With Thunderbolt, HD FaceTime
3. May 2011
Apple has updated its iMac line of desktops, adding in Thunderbolt support, new quad-core chips, and an HD-ready built in camera. The moves indicate that while consumers as a whole seem to be moving to portables, the Cupertino company itself still is committed to its iconic desktop line.
Pricing will remain the same for the base model at $1,199. It claims the iMac is the first desktop with Thunderbolt support, and the 21.5-inch model includes one port and the 27-inch model two. Engadget put this to the test, showing off two 30-inch displays being powered off these ports in a video posted to its side. Pretty darn cool.
The HD camera now will support high-definition FaceTime calls between other capable iMacs, and standard definition calls with all other enabled devices. The iMac now comes with the option to order the Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad at no extra cost. If for some reason you still want the old wired version, you can get that too.
Another new option is the solid state drive on both models. The desktop would also include the traditional hard drive, however Apple would install the operating system on the faster flash-based SSD.
Will you be picking up one of these nice shiny new iMacs?
DOJ Wants More Time for AT&T-Mobile Review
3. May 2011
The Justice Department has sent a second round of questions on the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile to the two companies, sources told Bloomberg on Tuesday. In addition, so-called “civil investigative demands” have also been sent to the companies’ competitors, in an attempt to measure the mergers possible effects.
With these actions, the merger review now has no timetable for completion — which means AT&T and T-Mobile’s stated goal to get the review completed within a year could be in serious jeopardy. It also highlights the complexity of the situation, and how difficult it might be for the deal to win approval.
Surprise! Microsoft <3 RIM
3. May 2011
I don’t think anyone saw this one coming. This week is the BlackBerry World conference, probably something a lot of us didn’t know (except for Harry maybe?). Well, Steve Ballmer — yes, the CEO of Microsoft — made news at the conference.
The surprise guest of a talk starring president and co-CEO Mike Lazardis, Ballmer was on hand to announce Microsoft has signed a deal with RIM to become the exclusive provider of search and mapping functions on BlackBerry devices. Even more surprising? Bing and Microsoft would find itself deeply integrated into BlackBerry OS 7, coming later this year.
“This goes way beyond search box,” Ballmer was quoted by ReadWriteWeb as saying to attendees. “It’s about real tools that help real people get things done.” All in all, it really looks like RIM just handed the keys to the services component of the OS right over to the Redmond company.
Wii Vitality Sensor: Not Dead, Still Vapor
3. May 2011
When Nintendo announced its plans for a next-generation video game console in late April, I wondered if we could unequivocally declare that the Wii Vitality Sensor was vaporware. The answer, according to Nintendo Chief Executive Satoru Iwata, is no.
In a question-and-answer on Nintendo’s website (via Eurogamer), Iwata explains that the Wii Vitality Sensor is very much a work in progress. The problem, he said, is that only 80 percent of test users felt that the sensor naturally detected their biological information. Nintendo doesn’t want to release a product until 99 percent of users feel comfortable. Iwata said “it is difficult to overcome this hurdle,” and wouldn’t commit to a launch date.
Free Android Tethering Blocked by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile
2. May 2011
So much for free tethering apps on Android phones, at least in the Android Market. AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile are now blocking these apps, which offer a free or cheap alternative to the carriers’ official, subscription-based offerings.
As Engadget points out, you can still see tethering apps like PDANet in the Android Market, but if you try to install them on any of the major U.S. carriers besides Sprint, you’ll be told that “This item is not available on your carrier.”
A Second Front in Hackers’ War on Sony?
2. May 2011
Sony Online Entertainment–the Sony group responsible for multiplayer games such as DC Universe Online–is down at the moment. The explanatory message at its site is vague: it refers to “the intrusion into our systems.” I’m not sure if that’s the PlayStation Network breach or another one. But Bloomberg’s Cliff Edwards, among others, is reporting that this involves a second Sony security breach. And Nikkei is apparently saying that credit card numbers have gone missing this time.
The Internet Costs More Today, Thanks to AT&T
2. May 2011
So long cheap Internet, we hardly knew ya: AT&T’s broadband data caps go into effect today, reigning in data gobblers and dashing the dreams of high volume file-sharing freebooters. Ahoy, thar be usage checks ahead.
Actually “data caps” isn’t accurate. They’re not caps at all. They don’t cork up your DSL or fiber line when you hit your plan’s magic number. Say you do–AT&T just dings you with an extra service fee. AT&T U-Verse customers ride free until they hit 250GB a month, while AT&T DSL customers top out at 150GB. Go over those marks, and you’ll now pay $10 a month more, plus $10 again every 50GB thereafter.
Question #1 for RIM: Will the New BlackBerries Make Lance Happy?
2. May 2011
One memory sticks in my mind from the Dive Into Mobile conference that All Things Digital held in San Francisco last December. It was when my friend Lance Ulanoff of PCMag.com waved his BlackBerry Torch at RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis and asked, basically, why RIM couldn’t give him a BlackBerry phone based on hardware as potent as a current iPhone or Android handset.
Lazaridis didn’t really have a good answer for Lance. Actually, it was hard to tell exactly what his response was, but it sounded like it involved RIM opting out of the current phone hardware wars and waiting until it can build BlackBerries that incorporate dual-core processors and run a version of the QNX-based operating system that’s on the BlackBerry PlayBook.
Well, RIM made a gaggle of announcements today at its BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, and among them are two new BlackBerries due this summer–the Bold 9900 and 9930–that come closer to being the phone that Lance was asking about than any BlackBerry to date. (They don’t run QNX, but do have BlackBerry OS 7–a new version of RIM’s old platform that isn’t backwards-compatible with earlier handsets.)
Consumer Reports: The White iPhone Isn’t Thicker
2. May 2011
Finally, Consumer Reports and Apple agree on something: the white iPhone is no thicker than its black counterpart.
Bin Laden Death: Web 1, TV 0
2. May 2011
For eons now, I’ve been struggling with a question that some of you have been confronting, too: is the Web a rich enough source of information and entertainment that I can get rid of cable TV service? So far, I haven’t cut the cable, and I keep saying that one big reason why is the usefulness of continuous TV news coverage of really big stories. But stories don’t get much bigger than yesterday’s discovery and killing of Osama Bin Laden. And the TV coverage I saw didn’t make a great case for cable being indispensable.
In the time before President Obama made his address, I mostly watched NBC News and CNN. Nobody who wasn’t involved in the operation knew much about it at this point, so the anchors on these channels mostly tapdanced to fill time. They told us, over and over again, that this was huge news. (Really?) But they didn’t even ask many of the questions I was asking–such as “how about al-Zawahiri?”–let alone attempt to answer them. The screen was full of talking heads, but they were saying very little.
Playstation Network Returns (Partly) This Week, Sony Apologizes
2. May 2011
Sony has finally opened up about the details of the Playstation Network attack, including how it occurred, when PSN service will return and what users will get in return for two weeks without service and a wealth of personal information stolen.
Sony also apologized, at last, during the Tokyo news conference where it announced these details, with three executives bowing for seven seconds in line with Japanese custom. “We’d like to extend our apologies to the many PlayStation Network and Qriocity users who we worried,” said Kaz Hirai, head of Sony’s gaming division. “We potentially compromised their customer data. We offer our sincerest apologies.”
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4. May 2011
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