Author Archive | Ed Oswald

Yahoo Aims to Make Research Easier

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 7, 2009 at 10:38 am

YahooYahoo is adding a new feature to its search engine that it hopes will attract researchers to its product. Called Search Pad, the offering aims it make it easier to capture and organize information culled from search results. The feature could be useful if you spend a lot of time on search engines for research purposes.

The company plans to launch the feature at midnight, so if you want to check it out you’ll have to wait until then.

Essentially Search Pad would detect when a users is performing research, and offer options to save information in a central place. For example when research begins, links and thumbnails to websites are automatically saved. From there, the user can organize the information as they desire. Free-form note taking is also available.

If you see something that you’d like to include on the Search Pad that is not automatically added, drag and drop functionality will allow that, Yahoo says.

From there, if the user wishes to share their notes, printing and e-mail options are offered. Yahoo has also added social networking features, allowing Search Pad information to be shared over social networks such as Delicious, Facebook, and Twitter.

I’m not exactly sure whether Search Pad is a big enough feature to cause any great shift in market share to the #2 search engine, however it is something different. Differentiating yourself is a good thing these days.

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ABC Does Hulu, I’m Still Passing.

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 6, 2009 at 10:40 am

abc_logo_2.jpgABC is now officially a Hulu partner, as the network began adding its content to the service. Its hit show Grey’s Anatomy would be the first to be added to the YouTube rival with five episodes. The addition should be no surprise — the two sides announced a deal back in April as we reported here.

It only leaves CBS as the odd major network out here — and we know from the TV.com tiff that its likely you won’t be seeing Big Brother or CSI anytime soon.

According to a blog post on Hulu’s site, additional content is planned to be added each weekday during the summer. A calendar shows the new content (which today is Grey’s), although it doesn’t give a preview of what’s coming. I’d imagine the next few weeks will be filled with ABC content, including episodes of fellow ABC hits Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives and the like.

As I’ve said many times before, I have no intention of using Hulu because of their content usage policies. Once they change, I may consider using the site. Anyone else living life Hulu-free?

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Sirius XM Says 1 Million Have Downloaded iPhone App

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 6, 2009 at 7:59 am

While Sirius XM may not be having much success keeping customers, it seems to be having a good deal of good fortune attracting listeners through its App Store offering, apparently. In the first two weeks of availability, the Sirius XM application has been downloaded 1 million times.

Sirius XM Premium Online is free to download, however it requires a premium subscription to listen. For current Sirius XM customers, that means a $2.99/month extra fee — for non subscribers, that’s $12.99/month.

Regardless, its now the 7th most downloaded app overall, and #1 in the Music category. Lord knows if people are actually shelling out the $13 bucks for the service (I know I wouldn’t), but it’s a respectable showing.

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Employee Shot at Va. Apple Store in Apparent Robbery Attempt

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 3, 2009 at 11:43 am

DEVELOPING STORY: A employee of Apple Store Clarendon in Arlington, Va. has been shot in what is believed to be an attempted robbery, Washington, DC-based media is reporting. Although the name of the employee is not known, several sources are reporting it was a 26-year-old female who was shot in the shoulder around 10am ET, shortly after the store opened.

Police report that the robber, described as a middle-aged black male with a thin frame and fake beard, rang the back doorbell which the employee answered. When she opened the door, the would-be robber shot her and fled.

The store was closed while police investigated. It is not clear whether the location remains closed at this time.

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Porn Still Available on the iPhone

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 3, 2009 at 11:30 am

logoAfter Apple removed “The Hottest Girls” application from the App Store, you may have thought that porn was gone from the iPhone. Think again: a company called iPorn pointed out today that it’s still in business.

These are the same folks that trotted a horse-drawn carriage in front of the Moscone Center during WWDC, complete with five scantily-clad women to advertise their product. You can bet that Apple was likely none too happy about that.

iPorn is able to stay afloat amid Apple’s likely opposition because it is a web application, which the company does not regulate. It’s one of the pitfalls of the Web Application structure — while it may have allowed Apple to give developers an “in” to the iPhone, it also made it possible for just about anybody to create an app.

It’s apparently a hit — iPorn claims some 45,000 registered users. Social networking tools are available, as well as your typical porn site offerings. So in essence, its everything “The Hottest Girls” was, and more.

The fact that applications like iPorn exist bring into question the possible need for more regulation of these Web Applications. Do these services act much in the same that regular ones do, so that parents can block stuff like this out? Faking your age to gain access to adult websites is pretty easy.

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Stop Partying Microsofties, Mac Sales are Back

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 1, 2009 at 12:27 pm

imacWhen Apple’s sales numbers for its Mac computers began to falter in October of last year, fans of Redmond could barely contain their glee. My friend, a Microsoft evangelist, made sure he pointed out Cupertino’s struggles as much as possible. Well, it looks like Apple’s troubles are about to end.

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty says that the revised MacBook line has done much to get sales going again. It also seems cheaper Mac prices may be also doing a world of good for the manufacturer as well. She now expects 2.5 million Macs to be sold in the April-June quarter.

Year-over-year this would mean only a 1 percent decrease in sales, which in this tough economic climate is fairly respectable. She also goes on to say in May shipments were up 25 percent versus only 1 percent for the PC industry at large.

This shows that the company should be able to regain some market share it had lost as a result of weaker Mac sales. Huberty seems pretty confident that this would also result in solid performance over the next two quarters, typically Apple’s busiest. It will be interesting to watch.

(Hat tip: AppleInsider)

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Does iPhone 3.1 Signal MMS on AT&T Soon?

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 1, 2009 at 11:29 am

Apple’s beta of the iPhone OS 3.1 update has begun to circle the web, indicating the company is close to offering the first major update to the new OS. While none of the tweaks are overly groundbreaking, impatient iPhone users will likely be happy about one thing.

The beta appears to turn back on the MMS functionality for all iPhone users, including those on AT&T, as well as updating the “profile” for the carrier. These appear to be the first steps towards bringing the functionality to the consumer, at least on the device side.

It should be noted that installing 3.1 beta will not give you MMS. As AT&T has said, the carrier must enable it from it’s side before you will be able to picture (and video, if you have a 3GS) message to your hearts content.

Rumors had circulated on the Internets that AT&T was targeting a July timeframe for the debut of MMS. Seeing that 3.1 is already enabling the functionality, that’s surely a promising sign.

Besides MMS, most of the other tweaks are fairly minor, and seem to generally be 3GS centric. Non-destructive video editing seems to be the biggest addition (where editing will not destroy the original video), as well as bluetooth-enabled voice control.

Developer enhancements include improvements to OpenGL and Quartz, as well as an API to allow third-party apps to call up the video editor. A video picker API has also been added, according to reports.

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Palm Pre Selling Better than Expected: Analyst

Posted by Ed Oswald on June 30, 2009 at 1:00 pm

Palm PreBoth Sprint and Palm have a lot riding on the Palm Pre. In Sprint’s case, the carrier desperately needs a hit to help it stop bleeding customers. For Palm, its much more serious: either the Pre is a success, or the company itself may fail.

According to Charter Equity Research analyst Edward Snyder, neither company has anything to worry about. While early estimates pegged initial Pre sales at 150,000 units, Snyder believes that the actual number is about twice that.

He says that his own checks show that demand for Palm’s touch screen device remains strong, and Palm is churning out about 15,000 Pres per day. At that rate, Sprint should have about 1 million of the devices to sell in the upcoming summer quarter. Neither Palm nor Sprint have so far commented on the report.

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Comcast Turns to WiMAX in Portland

Posted by Ed Oswald on June 30, 2009 at 12:35 pm

ComcastComcast is using Clearwire’s network to offer its customers wireless high speed Internet in Portland, Oregon, and plans to launch the service in Chicago, Atlanta, and Philadelphia by the end of 2009. Called Comcast High-Speed 2go, it would offer speeds of up to 4 MBps.

To entice customers to sign up for the service, the cable provider is offering a “Fast Pack Metro” bundle deal which offers the 2go service along with 12 MBps home Internet for $49.99 per month for a full year. At the end of that period, the rate jumps to $73/month, which is still quite competitive considering.

Better yet, where Clearwire does not have service yet, Comcast is allowing those subscribing to the 2go service to add mobile 3G data nationwide for an extra $20 month. This part of the service is offered through Sprint, which owns a portion of Clearwire.

Adding WiMAX service to its portfolio gives Comcast a stake in the ever-more-competitive mobile data industry. With speeds of between 5 to 10 MBps possible, it gives the standard a leg up on LTE, which is the mobile data standard that most cellular providers have chosen.

While LTE rollouts are expected to begin in force in 2010 and beyond, WiMAX is already available in several major metropolitan markets. It will be interesting to watch over the next one to two years whether or not WiMAX can continue to be one step ahead of its competitor.

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The Pirate Bay Sold for $7.8 Million

Posted by Ed Oswald on June 30, 2009 at 11:10 am

the_pirate_bay_logo.jpgWell, you couldn’t say you didn’t see it coming. The Pirate Bay’s owners sentenced to one year jail terms, the site fined 30 million Swedish kronor. Obviously they needed a way to pay for those fines, and selling it off would be the easiest way to go. That’s what has happened — Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory will buy the site for 60 million SEK ($7.8 million).

Picking up The Pirate Bay brand is a huge get for Global Gaming factor, as it would have to do very little in the way of marketing due to its very strong brand. And unlike Napster, the site would never be taken down during the transition, meaning it would likely not lose much of its user base if any at all.

According to TorrentFreak, the change in ownership is scheduled to happen in August. Additionally, the new owners would likely take the site legal. This means that content owners would now get paid for their content being on TPB, a huge shift from the way the site previously worked.

Users would now need to pay for content, although they would be able to earn some revenue for sharing their own media files. In any case, GGF Hans Pandeya said that the change in business model was needed to satisfy “the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary.”

These changes are sure to ruffle the feathers of TPB’s long time users, which have grown accustomed to free content. However, one can not expect an illicit business model to last forever, don’t you think?

Either way, the site’s (now former?) owners remain defiant. “The old crew is still around in different ways. We will also not stop being active in the politics of the internets – quite the opposite. Now we’re fueling up for going into the next gear,” its owners said in a blog post.

Maybe part of that “next gear” is the Video Bay site we blogged about yesterday?

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