Technologizer » Quickies

Windows Mobile 7 to Debut at WMC 2010

Ed Oswald — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:58:06 +0000

You may have remembered our reporting about two weeks ago putting the future of Windows Mobile 7 into doubt, and pushing its release further into the future. Enter DigiTimes, who its refuting some of that reporting saying Microsoft is ready to debut WM7 at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona complete with a release date.

DigiTimes says that Microsoft will announce an OEM availability in September, translating to a retail availability by the end of the year or early in 2011. This would be for English and European languages: Asian translations will come later, probably in 2011.

So who’s right? DigiTimes is probably a more reputable source than whomever Bright Side of News is, but their track record in accurate scoops isn’t much better. Guess we will see…

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Mysterious Random SMS Tweets: Still Mysterious!

Harry McCracken — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:32:01 +0000

Earlier today I blogged about widespread instances of folks getting random tweets delivered to them by SMS for no apparent reason. TechCrunch’s MG Siegler has written about the same issue, and notes that Twitter has acknowledged the problem. But it looks like Twitter hasn’t yet completely diagnosed the problem–it’s asking for people to post information on the mystery tweets they see, (As of a couple of hours ago, I was still getting them.)

Both MG and Twitter’s items indicate that some people are seeing the tweets online as well as via SMS, and MG says that some of the tweets are from users who have protected their accounts so their items are (theoretically) private. Oops!

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Parrot’s new Wi-Fi Picture Frame and Wireless Speakers

David Spark — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:14:50 +0000

(This post is part of the Traveling Geeks tech tour of Paris. David Spark (@dspark) is the founder of Spark Media Solutions and a tech journalist that blogs at Spark Minute and can be heard and seen regularly on ABC Radio and on John C. Dvorak’s “Cranky Geeks.”)

At a visit at phone-accessory and gadget maker Parrot in Paris, I interviewed Parrot’s CEO, Henri Seydoux, about a couple of new products: Grande Specchio, a wi-fi picture frame that just came out a few weeks ago, and some giant wireless speakers.

Grande Specchio has a few fun features such as retrieving geo-tagged photos from Picasa and the ability to send photos to the frame. In the video demo Seydoux tries to send a picture of me to the frame. He didn’t succeed at the moment. For a pricey 500 Euros ($750 US) you would hope it would be a little easier. But to give him a break, it wasn’t a prepared demo, and he wasn’t already connected to a network at the time.

As for the wireless speakers they’re only wireless in the transmission of music, not power. I haven’t seen a good solution to wireless power without lots of batteries. My feeling is if you have to drag a power cable, then the “wireless” aspect really isn’t that attractive because you’re still physically tethered. At 1200 Euros ($1800 US) it’s definitely only for audiophiles.

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Dick Tracy Watch from LG/Orange

David Spark — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:15:01 +0000

At the end of the first day of the Traveling Geeks tour in Paris, we went to the demonstration labs of Orange, the European telco company. They showed us what they’re offering in the areas of IPTV and 3D TV. Completely unrelated, I saw a quick demo of a very cool Internet watch by LG that can do video conferencing. Cool phone, but you now need to find the second person who has that watch just so you can have a video chat. Same problem I have with my Nokia N82. It has video conferencing and I’ve never used it. I haven’t found a second person who has the phone. Check out the video. BTW, the quality is much better, but I shot it with a Flip video camera and it doesn’t have macro focus so that’s why it’s a little blurry.

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Google Reveals Chrome OS

Harry McCracken — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:28:03 +0000

I’m at the Googleplex this morning, where Google is showing off Chrome OS for the first time. More details to come, but I’m tweeting the news fast and furious at the moment–follow me at Twitter to see the news as fast as I learn it.

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Sidekick Sales Resuming

Ed Oswald — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:46:37 +0000

If you’re brave enough to want a Sidekick from T-Mobile after last month’s data loss fiasco, wait no longer. The carrier has resumed sales of the device, even throwing a price cut in for good measure. The older Sidekick 2008 is $49.99, and the fancier Sidekick LX will retail for $149.99, both with a two-year contract commitment. The meager price drops (about $25) may not be enough for many to take a chance on the company, however.

At least two states, California and Washington, are in the process of suing the company over the data loss. T-Mobile itself has done a little damage control by giving $100 credits to unhappy customers. All in all, October was a month the carrier would like to forget. Let’s just hope this time they have a backup…

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Hey, I’m Chiming in at Another Webcast

Harry McCracken — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:30:12 +0000

Back in September, I was asked to watch a Webcast with Wired’s Chris Anderson and tweet my thoughts as I took it in. I had fun, so I was happy when I was asked to serve as a greek chorus for another Webcast hosted by HP. This one’s an interview with George Halvorson, CEO of health insurance megacompany Kaiser Permanente, and it’ll cover technology’s role in reforming health care in this country. (Timely, no?)

The Webcast is this Wednesday November 18th starting at 2:30pm ET; you can find it here. Stop by if you have a chance–it’ll feature tweets selected from everyone in the audience, and you’ll be able to submit questions for Halvorson via Twitter…

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Nokia N-Gage Gets the Boot

Ed Oswald — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:49:36 +0000

When Nokia failed to generate enough buzz with its gaming phone offerings under the N-Gage name, it switched gears in 2008 to offer the platform instead as a gaming service. It now appears that strategy was a failure as well: N-Gage is set to be phased out in 2010.

Games would be able to be purchased through September of next year. The community site attached to the N-Gage platform would stay online through 2010, Nokia said. A complete exit from gaming is not happening however: the manufacturer said its Ovi service would still offer a selection of games.

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Windows 7 PCs: Slow Going

Harry McCracken — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:19:41 +0000

Yesterday, I wrote about the fact that Microsoft is now stripping crudware off Windows 7 PCs and selling them with its own lower-impact software suite. Here’s evidence of why that makes sense: British computer magazine PC Pro has published “The Crapware Con,” an ambitious report on the third-party software that PC manufacturers pile on top of Windows. Thanks to such apps, the slowest PCs took more than twice as long to boot up as the fastest ones, and PC Pro is skeptical of the quality of much of the software that PC makers add. (Me too: I’ve lost track of how many Windows machines I’ve used with proprietary Wi-Fi utilities that don’t seem to do anything except make it harder to connect to a network.)

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Google Previews Social Search, Talks Twitter

Harry McCracken — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:30:00 +0000

More news from the Web 2.0 Summit: Search honcho Marissa Mayer just previewed Social Search, a feature the company plans to launch as a Google Labs experiment. It’ll place user-generated content–blog posts, photos, and the like–at the bottom of search results. And that content will come from your circle of friends, which includes both people you have a direct connection with via services such as Gmail and Twitter and people those people have a direction connection with. (It’s all opt in–folks must agree to participate.)

Conference cochair John Battelle also asked Mayer about Google’s deal to put items from Twitter into its search results. She clarified the company’s plans a bit, saying it sees Tweets as a useful way to get some information on breaking news into search results before the definitive news article or blog post on the subject has been written.

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