I like Michael Mace’s take on Windows 8–hey, I know it’s smart, because it’s an awful lot like mine. (We both end with exactly the same thought: this is going to be fun.)
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Serendipity, Guaranteed
Serendipity is wonderful, but it doesn’t happen often. For every enriching coincidence – meeting someone who becomes a lifelong friend or lifelong partner, finding that fantastic hidden restaurant – we miss how many? Dozens, maybe hundreds of other lucky opportunities?
Now several tech startups are trying to increase the odds of connection.
How? By combining intimate knowledge of your comings and goings with understanding of your likes and dislikes – then connecting you with likeminded people and perfect places.
What do they ask in return? For most, an opportunity to push hyper-specific ads or discount offers.
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Mac Security Attacks: Keep Calm and Carry On
My TIME.com Technologizer column this week is a look at the recent Mac Defender trojan attacks, and how Mac users should respond to the first really meaningful security issue in OS X history.
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Windows 8: It’s the Applications, Stupid!
Word for Windows 1.0, 1989
In the end, operating systems are merely a means to an end. Nobody runs Windows to run Windows, or OS X to run OS X, or Linux to run Linux. They run them to get stuff done, and they get most of that stuff done in applications.
I’ve been pondering that fact as I’ve been processing the news about Windows 8, which Microsoft showed in public for the first time this week at the D9 conference. It’s got both a radically new touch-centric interface and the one I already am thinking of as “Windows Classic”–a duality that brings to mind the days when most people ran both DOS apps and Windows 3.x ones.
Windows 8 is a giant-sized, risky, fascinating bet–but in the end, it’s the apps that are going to matter.
During the D9 demo, both Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher brought up Office. Would it be reimagined for Windows’ new look? Windows interface kingpin Julie Larson-Green, as you’d expect, didn’t confirm or deny anything. She said “They may do some things in the future.” and “I’m sure the Office team will look at what we’re doing.”
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OnLive Befriends Intel, Joins Facebook
OnLive made a couple announcements today that might help people discover and use the streaming video game service.
The biggest news is a partnership with Intel that will enable OnLive on all connected TVs, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes that use Intel’s CE4100 embedded processor. OnLive expects to land on 25 million TVs by the end of this year, according to GigaOM. A new universal controller will work on any OnLive-enabled device.
This fits nicely with the idea of video games coming directly to televisions without the help of game consoles. OnLive processes and streams high-end video games from its own servers, so it doesn’t need fancy hardware on the user’s end to play modern games like Borderlands and Bioshock.
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Toshiba’s Android Tablet: Officially Official, a Little Ahead of Schedule
Toshiba wasn’t quite ready to share the full skinny on its Android Honeycomb tablet, which it first demoed back at CES in January. But Engadget managed to get its hands on the details, and rather than ignoring or denying the leak, Toshiba is fessing up earlier than it had planned.
The tablet will be known as the Thrive, and it’ll start at $429 for an 8GB, Wi-Fi-only version. As a child of the pre-iPad 2 era, it weighs in at a somewhat heavy 1.6 pounds and is on the thick side. But it uses its edge to good effect, with two full-size USB ports, HDMI, and an SD slot, making it feel a bit like a PC. (Makes sense for a tablet from Toshiba, no?)
The Thrive has a 10.1″ screen, the expected cameras front and back, and an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, and runs Android Honeycomb 3.1. It’ll hit Best Buy, Staples, OfficeMax, Office Depot, RadioShack, and Amazon.com in mid-July.
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Coming on Monday: WWDC 2011 Live Blog Coverage
On Monday June 6th at 10am PT, I’ll be at San Francisco’s Moscone West for Steve Jobs’ WWDC keynote. It sounds packed, packed, packed–we’ll get our last big look at OS X 10.7 Lion before it ships, and our first big looks at the next version of iOS, and the long-rumored service now known as iCloud. And rumor has it that there are occasionally surprise announcements at these events. (I’m told Jobs likes to keep them until the end.)
I’ll blog the keynote news as it happens, with color commentary from special guest Doug Aamoth of Techland. Tens of thousands of folks attended our last Apple live coverage (the iPad 2 announcement), but we’ll save room for you. Join us at technologizer.com/wwdc11–and go there now to sign up for an e-mail reminder if you like.
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Playstation Store Returns as Sony Hacking Continues
Sony just can’t get back on track. On Wednesday evening, the Playstation Store came back online, finally making the Playstation Network whole again after April’s devastating security breach.
But now, a group of hackers known as Lulz Security claims to have breached Sony Pictures’ website, stealing e-mails, passwords, addresses, birth dates and opt-in information for more than a million users. All of this information is now posted to the Internet.
To be clear, we’re talking about two different divisions of Sony. The hacking of Sony Pictures has no effect on the Playstation Network. Still, this is another embarrassing security breach for Sony, and a sign that the company isn’t finished fending off hackers. It’s not even the first attack since the breaches of PSN and Sony Online Entertainment in April. Other smaller attacks have included a leaked database in Japan and a phishing scam site on Sony’s Thai web domain.
On the bright side, the Playstation Network has remained relatively stable since online play resumed in mid-May. That’s the best way Sony Computer Entertainment can redeem itself, along with the “welcome back” package of free games and other benefits that’s reportedly in its final testing stages.
But as a whole, Sony needs to show its customers that it’s taking security more seriously. Obviously, the entire company is now a target, and customers are the innocent bystanders. Perhaps it’s time for CEO Howard Stringer to change his tone.
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If Cell Phones Cause Cancer, What About Laptops?
Cell phones are “possibly carcinogenic”? Potentially brain-cancer-causing? Comparable to pesticides and the stuff your car spits out? So sayeth the World Health Organization? The reputable science-minded subsidiary of the United Nations?
Bummer. Thank goodness I use ear buds, and don’t talk on the phone much—though when on the go, I do tote my iPhone in my pants pocket, where it’s usually pressed flush against my leg. So much for keeping the phone “as far as possible” from my body. Again, thank goodness I’m not “on the go” much.
My laptop’s a different story. Since I started writing full-time in late 2005, I’ve held laptops on my lap daily. And for the past eight months, I’ve been trying to have a kid. No luck so far, but then—all other things being equal—they say the odds of conception are still just one in four each month. I don’t blame my laptop, but I’m done taking chances. I recently opted for one of those “chill pad” coolers, to hold the machine an inch or so off my legs, and cool the all-aluminum frame—one guess what kind of laptop I own—with a fan.
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Fujitsu ScanSnap Giveaway: The Winners
We have winners in our ScanSnap scanner giveaway! Ruth Hiner won the ScanSnap S100. And Harvey Rogers won the ScanSnap S1300.
Thanks to Fujitsu for providing the scanners…and to everyone who entered here and on Twitter and told us about the paper documents in their lives.