When Robert McLaws does not like something, he has no issues speaking his mind about it. Robert is what’s called an “MVP,” which are people who essentially are unpaid evangelists for a particular product as well as beta testers for their particular product. His target this time is Windows Mobile, and particularly IE Mobile, which he seems to suggest is pretty much rubbish. He is calling on fellow Windows fanatics to boycott the browser until Redmond “gets its act together,” and making whatever enhancements come a downloadable update. Will Robert get what he wants?
Author Archive | Ed Oswald
Seven Things Windows 7 Needs To Accomplish
With Windows 7 set to make its public debut Wednesday at CES (it already has, if you count the BitTorrent leak), in honor of the seventh major version of Microsoft’s operating system, I’ve come up with seven things I think Windows 7 must do.
Redmond is at a crossroads. Apple is resurgent–the iPod and now the iPhone Effect are driving users away from Windows. Vista isn’t helping much either: the negative feedback loop caused by Microsoft’s bungled launch and marketing is also contributing to the exodus.
Windows 7 could be considered a critical release for Ballmer and Co. Either the new operating system plugs the hole in the dam, or the cracks grow bigger and wider. Microsoft needs Windows 7 to be a success more than I think it currently realizes. The threat from Apple is real.
So what does Windows 7 need to do?
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Microsoft May Have Made $1.5 Billion from Vista Capable Program
Microsoft’s “Vista Capable” program has gotten it into a good deal of hot water, including a class-action lawsuit that accuses the company of allowing the sticker to be placed on PCs that could only run the most basic version of Vista. That version came without all the bells and whistles, including the Aero UI which was the signature feature of the new OS.
Well, a monetary figure can now be attached to this program, showing the windfall profit Microsoft made from just allowing manufacturers to put a simple sticker on the PC. $1.5 billion. Yes, with a “b.”
That is the opinion of expert Keith Leffler, called on by the plaintiffs to estimate how much Microsoft may have made from the program. Leffler is a associate professor of economics with the University of Washington.
In a statement for the court, Dr. Leffler says his calculations indicate that Microsoft made $1.505 billion in licensing fees from the licensing program. A portion of his statement was redacted, but it seems as if Leffler estimated his figure from data from data provided by Redmond itself.
$1.5 billion is not chump change by any means. In fact, its practically pure profit as the company has to do little if anything other than print out the stickers for the manufacturers to use.
If the courts do find that Microsoft did indeed mislead consumers, you better believe they’ll be looking for the company to forfeit some of that money.
(Hat tip Seattle P-I)
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Digital Music Continues to Take Off
One has to wonder if RIAA’s decision to stop suing file sharers may have anything to do with the fact that digital music is quickly becoming the format of choice among consumers. A survey released by Nielsen indicates that digital music continues to become a larger portion of the overall music pie.
A record number of both digital albums and tracks were sold during 2008, sporting increases of 32 and 27 percent respectively. 1.07 billion digital tracks were purchased, while 65.8 million albums were downloaded.
Overall, albums seem to be falling out of favor, with a 8.5 percent decrease in sales to 535.4 million units. Interesting factoid? Vinyl is back in style apparently: 1.8 milion LPs were sold during the year, nearly double that from last year.
In the digital realm, Leona Lews “Bleeding Love” took top honors in the singles category, followed by Flo Rida’s “Low” and Rhianna’s “Disturbia.” In albums, Coldplay’s Viva La Vida was the best selling album, followed by Jack Johnson’s Sleep Through The Static and the soundtrack to the 2007 film Juno.
Universal Music Group continues to be the largest purveyor of digital albums and tracks, garnering market shares of 27.8 and 31.8 percent respectively.
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Happy New Year Microsofties, Here’s Your Pink Slip?
Happy New Year Technologizer readers. Of course we have to start 2009 off right with some fresh layoff rumors from the world of tech, and this time it’s coming from Redmond.
Yes, Microsoft. The one who likes to point out it never lays people off (well at least officially). It’s no small pruning either: anywhere from 10 to 17 percent of the company’s workforce will be let go–or so the scuttlebutt says.
Pink slips are set to be handed out January 15 if you believe what’s being written, which would put it a week before the company announces its quarterly earnings.
The company is declining to comment on the reports, calling them “rumors and speculation.” Nobody seems to have any way to confirm it either, so I guess we’ll have to wait for folks to begin walking out of their offices with cardboard boxes in tow. If they indeed do.
We’ll probably find out sooner than that, however, as Microsoft is mandated by securities law to inform stockholders of actions that may affect its stock price within 24 hours.
Blogger Mini-Microsoft seems to think that layoffs may not be in the cards, however at the same time he seemed to suggest that the pullbacks might come in another way, such as reorganizations, phasing out of projects, and the like.
I guess we’ll see what happens, no?
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LG to Debut 3G Wrist Phone at CES
Okay, this excites my inner nerd to no end — probably because it is one of those things seen in science fiction movies becoming reality. Korean cell phone manufacturer LG plans to debut a wrist-worn cellular phone at CES next month.
The phone will have 3G and HSDPA support, along with Bluetooth and MP3 playback capabilities. Since there is obviously no room for a keyboard on the 1.43 inch color screen that is the watchface, the device would also support text to speech as well.
Want even more geek? This puppy got a video camera on the watch face. Why you ask? For video conferencing of course. Sounds like something right out of Star Trek, don’t you think?
Availablity will come first early next year for Korea and Europe. Details on any US launch, as well as pricing, have not been announced as of yet.
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Shocker! Carriers are Profiting Handsomely from Texting
Here’s one that isn’t surprising to me in the least: a New York Times investigation into text messaging indicates that it costs carriers virtually nothing to provide the service. This means those extra fees you pay just for the privilege of texting are essentially pure profit for these folks.
Even further, text messaging fees are the subject of a new Congressional inquiry that is looking into why text messaging fees have doubled over the past few years.
As late as 2005 it only cost 10 cents for a user to send a text message. Then over the next three years all carriers increased the cost to 20 cents, without much of an explanation at all.
Sen. Herbert Kohl (D-Wis.) is the chairman of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee. Kohl has asked the big four carriers to justify the costs of text messaging to consumers.
Their responses? How their pricing plans work, but not a justification of their charges to actually provide the service. Obviously their stonewalling isn’t working: no less than 20 lawsuits are currently in progress around the country over text messaging fees.
Really, it costs these carriers nothing to transmit these messages, because they are so small. Furthermore, these come at no costs to degradation of service: texts travel on what is called a “control channel.” This is the same part of the network that instructs a tower how to handle a call, and is seperate from the rest of the network altogether.
So why the exhorbitant fees? That’s a good question. There was a point in time not so long ago when carriers (T-Mobile notably) offered texting as part of their plans.. and a good deal of them too. Now, they see that we’re all addicted to it, and plan to use that to their advantage and squeeze out every last penny that they can.
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Windows 7 Beta 1 Leaks Via BitTorrent
If you cannot wait for Windows 7 to make its public debut sometime next month, you can get on BitTorrent now and download it. The next generation operating system has appeared on the P2P service as an ISO file.
The build number is 7000, which is believed to be the one which will get the “Beta 1” label. It is a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, according to sources. About 1,500 seeders are available for the file and it is approxmately 2.5GB in size.
Windows 7 Beta 1’s leak onto BitTorrent follows a similar incident where an Alpha of the OS that was debuted at PDC also ended up being available on the service.
Reviews seem to indicate that overall the beta seems quite stable, probably indicating that we will only see one public beta of this OS before it rolls into the Release Candidate stage.
All in all, it appears as if Microsot is ready to push 7 out the door as fast as they can…
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Long URL Please Makes a Lot of Sense
No doubt if you use Twitter or some other sites, you have stumbled across those shortened URLs from services such as TinyURL and others. While it does work well for services where a short URL is necessary, they can just as easily be used for malicious purposes.
When you click on a shortened URL, there really is no way to tell where its going. Thus, you wont know if you’re being phished or worse yet hacked (IE exploit, anyone?) until it has already redirected. That’s a little scary.
This is where a service like Long URL Please comes in. The service is actually an extension for Firefox which peers inside those shortened URLs and actually gives you a shortened form of the actual hyperlink — allowing you to see where it is going ahead of time.
Fear not IE users: the site has also developed a bookmarklet for you to convert those links. Altogether about 30 shortened URL services are supported right now, according to Long URL’s website.
“I built longurlplease to scratch an itch – I don’t like short urls because I have to click on them to see where they link to. Please just show me a long url for a change,” developer Darragh Curran said. He has also told Ajaxian that he’d be willing to help services that make use of TinyURL and others in integrating the service into their own applications.
I think this would be a great idea. While the idea is good-intentioned, how shortened URLs are used and displayed can be potentially dangerous to the end user.
(Hat Tip Ajaxian)
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Shocker: Obama May Cut NASA Shuttle Replacement
I know this is a bit outside of Technologizer’s typical coverage area but it is interesting nonetheless. There has been some reports of bad feelings between the President-Elect and NASA, and we may be finding out why. Obama may be considering ending the Ares rocket program, intended to be the replacement for the space shuttle.
According to UK daily The Telegraph, Obama’s transition team has hammered the space agency on its budget issues. Over half of the 74 queries sent to NASA dealt with this topic, sources indicate.
This could mean potentially for the first time in over 40 years the agency may have no method to send astronauts into space. At the same time, the Ares program has been plagued by mismanagement and budget overruns, and in this time of cutbacks everywhere that certainly is not a good thing.
Obama has sent mixed messages on manned spaceflight. His earlier campaign comments seemed to suggest he was in favor of some type of delay in the program altogether, however this softened considerably as Florida became an important state.
NASA has said that it wants to put humans back on the moon by 2020, which is preparation for a permanent lunar base and manned mission to Mars a decade or so later. However if Ares is scrapped, that could put that timeline in jeopardy.
In any case, it will not be more of the same at the agency. “There will be changes,” Obama NASA liason and former adminstrator Lori Garver has said.