Gogo, the big name in in-flight Wi-Fi, is getting ready to go public. There are some fascinating facts in its paperwork, as reporred by SplatF’s Dan Frommer. (At least airplane Wi-Fi addicts like me will find them fascinating.)
One of them is potentially scary: Gogo says that as it gets more popular, maintaining the quality of the service may be challenging. (Ony 4 percent of the people on Gogo-equipped flights now use the service on average, and I usually find the speed and reliability to worth the dough.)
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Samsung: TouchWiz Trumps Ice Cream Sandwich
Geez, Samsung says that it won’t update its Galaxy S smartphones–like my Verizon Fascinate–to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich:
The company’s argument is that they lack sufficient RAM and ROM to run the new OS alongside TouchWiz and other “experience-enhancing” software. This will come as a massive blow to the great many users of the Galaxy S, who would have rightly expected the 1GHz Hummingbird processor and accompanying memory to be able to handle ICS — it’s the same hardware as you’ll find inside the Nexus S, and that phone is receiving Android 4.0 over the air right now.
I’d gladly give up TouchWiz for Ice Cream Sandwich. In a heartbeat. Would you?
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CES Pay for Play? No Way
Yesterday, I received an e-mail from an employee of Ogilvy, a gigantic public-relations firm, that I found startling:
Now, I get strange, questionable propositions over the transom–this one arrived via Technologizer’s contact form–all the time. I also receive offers which I choose to decline, such as ones involving companies footing the bill for travel to their media events. But a big PR firm offering what amounted to cash payments for coverage on behalf of a major tech company was a new one.
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Resolutions and Keynotes
In case you’re keeping track, here’s some stuff I’ve written for other sites this week:
For TIME, I proposed a few new year’s resolutions for tech companies.
Also at TIME, I mused on the fact that at CES, everyone’s keynoter.
And at CNET, Microsoft’s CES departure made me think of IBM”s COMDEX departure.
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Apple Posits Fuel-Cell Powered Laptops
Imagine futuristic laptops even thinner and lighter than the MacBook Air, capable of running for several days or even weeks without recharging–Apple certainly is, as a couple U.S. patents published yesterday reveal.
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Republic Wireless Unlimited Service: Now Less Limiting
When Republic Wireless announced its $19-a-month hybrid Wi-Fi/cellular phone service last month, I found it intriguing –but I also couldn’t figure out why the company kept calling it “unlimited” when it had a policy to (eventually) boot customers who used too much cellular. It was really “Unlimited Wi-Fi plus limited cellular,” which I guess doesn’t make for snappy slogans.
Now Republic is saying that it’s doing away with the cellular cap. For as long as the service is in beta, at least, it’ll be truly unlimited–or at least unlimited enough to please virtually everybody.
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Fusion Garage: Not Dead. Also, Not Selling Products
Fusion Garage, the strange company behind the JooJoo and Grid 10 tablets, is still in business. But once again, it’s in trouble. From an Engadget interview with its founder, the never-boring Chandra Rathakrishnan:
Is it possible to buy a device right now? Can I go on the website and buy a Grid 10?
No. We’ve stopped selling the device at the moment. We think that until we resolve the future of the company, it’s not fair to continue selling it. Until this situation with the existing customers has been resolved satisfactorily from their point of view, and until the future of the company is decided one way or the other, I do not think it’s fair to continue selling the device.
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A Brief History of Microsoft Vegas Keynotes (Now That They’re Going Away)
The Rock and Bill Gates introduce the original Xbox at CES in 2001.
Microsoft has announced that next month’s Steve Ballmer keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas will be its last, and that it won’t have its own booth at the show. The move is unquestionably reminiscent of Apple’s 2008 decision to pull out of Macworld Expo, although Microsoft will still be a part of the show in other ways. It’s just ending its traditional, high-profile presence.
And what a long tradition it’s been. It started, of course, not with Ballmer but with Bill Gates. And it didn’t begin with CES. For years, a Gates keynote kicked off the now-defunct COMDEX show: He did them in Vegas in November and sometimes at Spring COMDEX in other cities.
(I’m not sure when Gates did his first COMDEX keynote, but he was doing them as early as 1983, and they became a ritual in the 1990s.)
I’ve always wondered just how much Microsoft benefited from all these keynotes. It’s used them as an opportunity to present its perspective on the future of computing. But as I wrote back in 2008, an awful lot of the things it unveiled at COMDEX and CES never amounted to much, including the Tablet PC, Windows Smart Displays, the Smart Watch, and the amazingly short-lived Urge music service. Unlike Apple, Microsoft rarely if ever saved up a big announcement until a keynote, so the PR bump wasn’t remotely in the same league as Apple’s Macworld events. And the copious use of uncomfortable-looking celebrity guest stars usually didn’t help matters.
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Mozilla and Google Renew Firefox Advertising Pact
From Mozilla, news that makes me say “whew”:
We’re pleased to announce that we have negotiated a significant and mutually beneficial revenue agreement with Google. This new agreement extends our long term search relationship with Google for at least three additional years.
“Under this multi-year agreement, Google Search will continue to be the default search provider for hundreds of millions of Firefox users around the world,” said Gary Kovacs, CEO, Mozilla.
The money that funds Firefox comes principally from all the clicks by Firefox users who use Google in the browser. Until this renewal deal was signed, people wondered about a disastrous scenario in which the Firefox product was essentially defunded. Now we know that won’t happen.
In its 2010 fiscal year, by the way, Mozilla made $123 million, mostly from search revenues from Google and other partners. That makes it a rather well-funded non-profit. Fodder for further discussion: How well is it translating that money into a better Firefox (and other products), better Web technologies, and a better Web, period?
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AT&T Gives Up T-Mobile Bid
It’s official, and not the least bit surprising at this point: AT&T has ended its attempt to acquire T-Mobile USA. It’s not happy about it, either:
The actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to block this transaction do not change the realities of the U.S. wireless industry. It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world, with a mounting need for more spectrum that has not diminished and must be addressed immediately. The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.
AT&T’s agreement with T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom requires it to fork over $4 billion in penalties, which probably doesn’t make AT&T any less cranky.I’m glad that the merger didn’t happen, simply because I don’t want to see AT&T and Verizon share a wireless-industry duopoly. The continued existence of T-Mobile USA in some form–it may well be bought out by someone else–helps prevent that eventuality. I wonder what AT&T’s backup plan is, and whether we’ll even remember this non-merger five or ten years from now?