Using your iPhone as a modem may once again become possible -- at least, if you believe an e-mail said to be from Steve Jobs.
The e-mail, forwarded to tech blog Gizmodo, has the Apple CEO saying his company is in talks with AT&T to develop a tethering plan for the device. In short, that'd mean you could pay a monthly fee to be able to connect your phone to your computer and surf the Web through its 3G network. The option is already offered on other AT&T phones. A third-party app called Netshare did provide the service for iPhones for a while, but then Apple killed it without explanation on the final day of July. Oddly, it returned to the App Store a day later -- then disappeared again within hours.
Fake Steve Jobs Makes a Comeback?
Continue reading "Tethering May Return to iPhone, Says Report"
It's been a bumpy ride for Apple and its iPhone over the past couple months.
Three million iPhones have been sold since the product's July 11 launch. Despite enormous success of both the iPhone and the Apple iTunes App Store, the problems keep coming. This week alone Apple was a hit with what is becoming a regular pounding of bad news.
First off there was the revelation that private information stored in Apple's iPhone and protected by a lock code can be accessed by anyone with just a few button presses. The issue only affected those iPhones running the new 2.02 version of the OS. Apple responded saying it would fix what it called a "minor iPhone security flaw" in September.
After a British iPhone 3G customer found pictures of a Foxconn Chinese factory worker giving the "V" sign on his phone, the "iPhone Girl" has become an Internet superstar. The story, and photos, has gone "viral" traveling across the globe seemingly instantaneously reminding us how small the world has become.
The story behind "iPhone Girl" is this: A British iPhone customer turned on his new iPhone only to discover a picture of a cute young Chinese factory "girl" assembling iPhones. In the photo she gives the victory (or maybe peace) sign. The iPhone owner reported his finding on MacRumors.com along with posting three pictures of the "girl" he found on his phone.
Continue reading "iPhone Girl Becomes Internet Superstar"
Funny..
G-d save her from her family and from the government when they find out about this.
If you hoped Amazon would release its much anticipated next-generation Kindle 2.0 e-book reader this year, you are out of luck.
Amazon spokesperson Craig Bergman said Amazon will not be introducing a new version of the Kindle in '08, adding the debut of the e-book was expected "sometime next year at the earliest."
Rumors emerged earlier this week about Kindle 2.0 after financial analyst Tim Bueneman, with McAdams Wright Ragen, discussed what he believed was the strong likelihood Amazon's next generation e-book reader would target the textbook market.
Continue reading "Amazon: No New Kindle This Year"
I'm not surprised that Amazon is copy-catting Apple tactics, but hey, they are no Apple. I love my Kindle, though, and for the price I paid for it, I won't be upgrading for awhile anyway. Found a great case thanks to a Kindle Chat room - heads above that worthless case Amazon sent out with it. Worth sharing
http://www.sfbags.com/products/kindle/kindlecase.htm
The Obama campaign trotted out its new text messaging trick again tonight.
Last week the campaign said it would text message announce Obama's pick for running mate via text message. It was only partly successful, but the Dems collected thousands and thousands of phone numbers from people who signed up to receive the Veep text message.
Tonight the Democrats had another game for us. On the jumbo video screens inside INVESCO Field, attendees were asked to text in their answer to the following question: "What led you to join the 'campaign for change'?"
Looking around, I was surprised to see how many people with handset in hand typing in their answer. After a while, some of the text messaged answers scrolled across the jumbo screens inside the stadium.
Continue reading "DNC: Text Messaging May Have Big Future in Politics"
In the near future I'm guessing that people will cast their votes by text or internet; could be a more reliable source than the current voting machines. Obama's powerful message of change makes so many things seem possible--even a fair election.
Microsoft's newly released Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 is generating plenty of buzz around the Web, but there are a few things you should know before you decide to install it. The update, released late Wednesday, comes with some caveats:
1) You might not be able to uninstall beta.
Users of Windows XP who have Service Pack 3 installed may find it impossible to uninstall the new beta once the deed is done. It gets a little dicey, but here's the deal: If you installed SP3 after installing IE8 beta 1, your beta 2 installation will become permanent. Microsoft says you'll be able to upgrade as new versions come out, but you'll never be able to remove any of them from your system.
Continue reading "Ready to Try Out IE8? Better Read This First"
Have you ever heard about Firefox! :P
Let's try to keep the flames to a minimum. It's a BETA, not a RC. There are bound to be problems, and it's nice to know about some of them up front.
Although I have not used it yet, it looks like some of the new features are pretty handy.
I'm a die-hard Firefox user, but I'll probably install IE8 beta 2 this weekend on my non-critical PC and give it a whirl.
This is good news. I have been using XP SP2 and decided to give IE8 a try because IE7, Firefox, Flock, and Safari have all been buggy. IE8 was okay to run, ran a little better than IE8, but I found the new beta browser to be extremely annoying. For starts the url delete option on the address bar is an annoyance, I was always deleting URLs by accident because they put it right in the way were you would move the mouse down after clicking on the drop down arrow. Then there's the problem with using Google to search, for some reason IE8 hides mostly all of your search results leaving you with 3-4 choices. Why is this the behavior, is unknown. 3rd is that Microsoft has still failed to implement a text spell markup checker which Firefox has had since 2.0, and even the Safari browser for Windows has.
Fed up with IE8, I uninstalled it back to IE7. Now Windows automatic updates says its time I install SP3.
Many news organizations write obituaries for celebrities before they actually die. It's practical; then the information is on hand in case of an untimely demise. The only problem comes when an obit accidentally leaks into mainstream media. The latest victim of this itchy trigger finger is Steve Jobs.
Yesterday, Jobs's obituary was leaked on the Bloomberg financial newswire. Gawker nabbed the entire 17-page memoriam. The obit details Jobs's ascent from a college dropout to a prominent figure in personal computing and technology style. It states that he was responsible for "making white ear buds fashionable" and revolutionizing computer animation with Pixar Studios. It even mentions Jobs's propensity to call employees "stupid" and speculation about the Apple CEO's health. Jobs underwent successful surgery in 2005. Later, his weight fluctuated drastically, leading the morbid to believe his cancer had returned. Jobs rarely comments on his health.
In its retraction of the obit, Bloomberg oddly does not mention Jobs's name, but instead "an incomplete story referencing Apple Inc."
"The item was never meant for publication," the redaction states. Well, not yet.
Accidentally released obits happen all the time, the most prominent example being Pope John Paul II, whose death was falsely publicized on three separate occasions. A list of prematurely released obits can be found on Wikipedia their numbers are stunning.
Today I'm going to go through my accounts and change the "forgot your password?" security questions for all of my accounts. Why? Because according to the recent findings of Herbert Thompson, the chief security strategist at People Security, if I don't I'm leaving myself wide open for identity theft.
Thompson performed a test to see if he could break into a casual acquaintance's bank account (with the victim's permission, of course) using only the most basic information about that person that can be found online. Well, he did it, and with very little difficulty.
The main snag Thompson ran into came with the bank's password recovery system. When he tried to recover the password for the bank account, it sent a confirmation email to the customer's e-mail account, which in this case was Gmail. When Thompson tried to obtain the victim's Gmail account password (through the "forgot your password?" feature), Gmail sent the confirmation e-mail to an old college account--but Gmail helpfully told Thompson its domain name. When Thompson clicked the "forgot your password?" link on the college account, that system's security procedure was to ask for some quick personal information, which Thompson easily found on the person's personal blog. That gave Thompson access to the college account, which led to the Gmail account and then to the bank account. Thompson says that the information he found on the person's blog could just as easily be found through Facebook, Myspace, a friend or relative's blog, or any number of sources that can easily be found through a Google search.
The biggest problem that I see is that people are too honest online. It's not just disclosure in their personal blogs, but in their account recovery questions, too. Most of the time a Website will give you a choice of password recovery questions such as "what is your pet's name?" or "what is your mother's maiden name?" Why not try to throw off any would-be hacker by giving false information? When it asks for your pet's name, give your address, or better yet, your neighbor's address. Since you can set your own answer to the security questions there isn't anything stopping you from typing in whatever answer you want. Just make sure it's something you can still remember, because then you would really be in trouble.
The Facebook story is coming soon to a cineplex near you. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin confirmed yesterday on a Facebook group that he is writing a movie about the founding of the popular social network.
A day after Facebook announced that it reached 100 million users around the world, Sorkin (or his assistant) wrote on the group page that he "just agreed to write a movie for Sony and producer Scott Rudin about how Facebook was invented."
Facebook Goes To Hollywood
Apple's latest iPhone ad has been banned from the UK's airwaves -- and it's not the first time the company's faced claims of misleading its customers.
The latest ruling comes from Great Britain's Advertising Standards Authority. The watchdog organization had gotten viewer complaints over the ad's statement that "all the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone." The iPhone doesn't actually support Flash or Java, the viewers pointed out, so you can't actually access all of the Internet on it.
Continue reading "iPhone Ad Ban Brings Back Memories"
I just bought a iphone theme for pocket PC at http://www.iphonethemeforpocketpc.com/. Can anyone suggest me more about this theme?
Social media tracking service RelevantNoise says Obama's choice of Joe Biden as his running mate caused a dramatic spike in blogging and other social media traffic. But the blogosphere's feelings about Biden remained just as before--mixed.
The volume of posts about Barack Obama rose more than 45 percent on Sunday, when news of Biden's selection came out. RelevantNoise says it monitors more than 100 million blogs, as well as numerous message boards and other online communities.
RelevantNoise also monitors the opinion and tone of blog posts on a particular person, thing or issue.. On that scale, no detectable change took place on the day news about Biden's selection became known--posts on announcement day were 50 percent negative and 50 positive, the firm says.
Typcical "Pro" opinion: Biden brings more experience to the ticket, is a "core Democrat" with solid Democratic values, and has the ability to "work across the aisles" with Republicans.
Typical "Con" opinion: Biden was a "safe" and "politics as usual" candidate that went against Obama's campaign message of change and snubbed Vice Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Biden will give the main, prime-time speech here tonight. He will almost certainly use his time to paint a picture of what sort of guy he really is, beyond the "white male veteran Congressman" impression of him most of us have now.
RelevantNoise expects the speech to create even more online buzz than the Biden Veep announcement. Whether Biden can begin to swing online communities in his favor tonight depends entirely on his speech.
I'm headed to the Denver Democratic Convention, Obama Acceptance Speech Simulcast, here in Monterey, CA tomorrow night. 1000 people will be there and we are all really excited!
Great blog! What a fantastic writer! Thanks for the inside info.
We have really enjoyed your on-the-scene reporting. Terrific writing! Biden seems like an okay choice for VP, but the Clintons shone when they spoke at the convention.
Tom & Shirley
A picture may be worth a thousand words -- but when it comes to online photo printing, a picture is worth as little as 5 cents a print.
In case you didn't notice, an online photo processing price war has broken out, with sites such as Snapfish, Shutterfly, and SmugMug dropping the cost of having your digital images turned into prints by as much as 30 percent compared to two years ago. Competition is also fierce from entrants you may have never heard of, such as PhotoFun -- which is offering photo processing of 4x6 images for as little as $0.05 a pop.
Two years ago, a PC World review of the leading online photo companies found an average cost of about 15 cents for a 4x6 print, with the low-end bottoming out at 12 cents. Today, you can snag a snapshot from those same services for less than a dime.
Snapfish has dropped prices for photo processing an average of 25 percent over the past two years. A 4x6 print will run you $0.09, compared to $0.12 two years ago at Snapfish. Two years ago, SmugMug was charging $2.99 for 8x10 prints. Today, it charges $1.99. Prices for 5x7 prints have also dipped over the past two years, from $0.99 to $0.79.
Where to Find the Cheapest Prints
Continue reading "Prices Plummet at Photo Processing Web Sites"
Embattled open computer manufacturer Psystar plans to file an antitrust lawsuit against the very company it copies for a living. Even after Apple sued Psystar for copyright infringement in July, Psystar refused to close down its offices or discontinue shipping its product. Lawyers for Psystar are pulling the Robin Hood defense, claiming that the intertwined relationship between Apple's OS and its machines involve illegal "anticompetitive tactics."
"My goal is to provide an alternative, not to free the Mac OS," said Rudy Pedraza, owner of Psystar. in an interview. He went on to say that the Mac OS is "essentially generic software" and wished to provide a cheaper option for those interested in the system but not the "exorbitant" Apple prices.
That's hard to argue with. Anyone who's looked at a MacBook Air price tag lately knows the cost of Apple's sex appeal.
The issue is far from simple, though, and the Internet is abuzz with arguments pro and con Psystar. Over at Slashdot, commenters believe that if Psystar wins, Apple will discontinue retail sales of OSX upgrades. One Wired.com commenter claims Psystar is "bastardizing the hard work and great products of Apple." Some CNET readers are cheering for the underdog.
Apple has yet to comment on the countersuit, but this may shape up to be the next United States v. Microsoft. Is Apple an unfair monopoly? Is Psystar being competitive or stepping over the line? What do you think?
Psystar? They don't have a leg to stand on! Apple builds each part of the machine, from binary to bolts, and therefore has a right to say what each component part of the product can be used for. They don't license their software for others to install, they reserve that right. Psystar's new attempt, if successful, will do nothing to help innovation in the industry and everything to hamper development. No company would hold the real right to their product, no matter what, because their competitor would be able to use it scot free after a day at the courts. What would be the point, then, to create new things?
This is, of course, my opinion.
Rest assured, though, that everyone I know will be advised against Psystar.
Nokia used to market its new phones as part of a "Revolution" of new devices that would change the cell phone industry and the world. Its latest offerings, the N79, N85, and N96, should be branded the "evolution" instead - they are bland and boring.
Hey Nokia, what happened?
All three handsets are based on design cues from previously successful models, and besides internal technical advancements, many failed to be impressed.
No More Revolution?
The focus of Monday night's speeches here at the DNC was to help white undecided voters get to know Barack Obama. Tonight, Tuesday, was all about energy and the economy, how the current administration has failed in those areas, and how the Democrats would improve them in an Obama presidency.
Tonight we heard the first mentions of the quality and quantity of our broadband infrastructure, and some prime-time explanation of how the growth of that infrastructure relates to the health of our economy.
Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, who sits on several high-profile tech and telecom committees in the Senate, broached the subject this way during his address:
"Unlike John McCain, for whom the Internet is a mystery, Barack Obama understands that rural communities can't be competitive until we have high-speed Internet access across the heartland," Leahy said.
The Democrats' position on broadband is to treat it more like critical infrastructure--like roads, bridges and the water supply. From the Party Platform: "We will implement a national broadband strategy, especially in rural areas, that enables every American household, school, library and hospital to connect to a world-class communications infrastructure."
It continues: "In an increasingly technology-rich, knowledge-based economy, connectivity is a key part of the solution to many of our most important challenges: job creation, economic growth, energy, health care and education."
The Democrats even propose to create a cabinet-level Chief Technology Officer position to help organize government efforts to develop and manage broadband infrastructure.
Continue reading "Broadband Gets Some Attention on DNC's Second Night"
A new transportation system hack is making headlines, this time in California's Bay Area. A security researcher says he's found a way to get around the community's FasTrak toll system without having to pay. The news comes just weeks after a group of MIT students discovered a flaw in Boston's subway system, setting off a legal battle over their rights to reveal the information.
This time, though, the details are out -- and there's no getting them back in. The hack, exposed at the Black Hat security conference by Root Labs' Nate Lawson, involves overwriting the unique ID number on a car's wireless transponder. The transponder is what communicates with the toll system to electronically pay a driver's fee. By overwriting the number, then, a hacker could use someone else's digits...and thus, someone else's dime.
Continue reading "Transportation Hack 2.0: Flaw Found Calif.'s FasTrak System"
Google Suggest is a new feature on the Google.com homepage that may help with your searches. With the new function, when you begin typing into the search bar, Google Suggest automatically parses through the database of other Google searches and displays in real-time the most popular ones based on what you've entered. Google Suggest instantly creates a drop-down menu, and from there, you can use the mouse or arrow keys to select the word or phrase best suited for your search.
The feature works like the "did you mean?" suggestions. Google Suggest also spell checks and specifies. It will be unrolled throughout the week with a wide release slated for Friday.
Google Suggest has a pretty long history, and you've probably seen it before. According to the Official Google Blog it "originally started as a 20% project in 2004, and has since expanded to Google Labs, Toolbar, Firefox search box, Maps and Web Search for select countries, the iPhone and BlackBerry, YouTube, and now Google.com."
If you're like me, nine times out of ten you already know what you're looking for, and the automatic drop-down menu can be distracting and overly simplistic. I also rarely use Google.com for searches, but instead the search bar located on my iGoogle personalized homepage, which, as of now, does not have Google Suggest built-in.
Yahoo's Search Assist does the same thing, but its search suggestions add more clutter to the already manic nature of the Yahoo homepage. Given the relative sparseness of Google's homepage, this drop-down clutter isn't as invasive or annoying.
To gauge suggestion results, I searched for my unique first name using Google Suggest, Yahoo's Search Assist, and Ask.com's Search Suggestions. Google put my full name at No. 5; Yahoo only found my Facebook page; and Ask.com had no idea about any Brennon.
So where does Google get these suggetions? In Google's FAQs, the "do no evil" company assures us that its new feature "does not base its suggestions on your personal searches, although it does use information about the relative popularity of common searches to rank its suggestions." Basically, they're not watching you; they're watching everybody.
For the unimpressed, Google Suggest can be turned off in your account preferences page. Click "Do not provide query suggestions" in the search box.
Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Sony are trying to right the Vista-OS wrongs with each creating their own software to be pre-installed on new computers in the hope of fixing perceived ease-of-use problems with Vista, according to a interesting report in today's Wall Street Journal.
The idea, according to PC makers cited in the story, is to make Vista run faster and be more user friendly to new customers. That's ironic - don't you think - considering Vista was supposed to be faster and more user friendly than XP to begin with.
Dell has taken its first steps toward "fixing" Vista when it introduced the Dell Dock in June (see image right). The Dell Dock organizes desktop icons into a quickstart menu very similar to the quickstart bar available on Apple machines. Apparently Dell was so displeased with Windows that it wants to try and hide its PCs as Macs. The idea is to make it easier for people to start the programs that they want. Personally, I've never had a problem before with double-clicking an icon on my desktop, so it seems like a rather unnecessary addition to me.
Gizmodo has a nice write up on Dell Dock.
Continue reading "PC Makers Attempt to 'Fix' Vista OS Themselves"
After you get rid of Vista's UAC, it operates as smoothly as XP, in fact if you have a quad processor and 4 gig of ram, it operates better. I have 29 quick launch icons on my taskbar. Using Firefox 3 with Vista is a real joy!!!! I am happy with Vista just as it is, and have no desire to go back to XP!!!! If you can find ways to make Vista more user friendly, then do it. A lot of the things proposed to do this are not as user friendly as advertised.
I also got rid of UAC only because I didn't have it on XP don't need it on Vista, it would also only confuse my users. We only have meager dual cores (4) here but all are running our software collection on 1-4 gig ram slightly faster then they did on XP. The only difference I can say is Vista looks more smoother on the LCD's which I like, the folders are separate and have different names (no more My stuff) and the start menu is different, other wise my assorted collection from very old to almost new software all runs fine if not better on Vista then it did on XP. I also turn off all the fluff same as I did with XP, about the only things I leave on is smooth fonts.
I've been running Vista since it's release. I've been very satisfied from the beginning. Of course there were some driver problems as would be expected in a new release, but by and large it is great. Today I run 64 Bit Vista ultimate on my home machine to accomodate 8 Gigs of RAM. it is pretty well rock solid. I really think that Vista's greatest weakness is bad marketing - people just don't know what it offers. As a parent, I can tell you that the Parental controls are reason enough to upgrade.
Kindle, Amazon's e-book reader, is reportedly heading to a college near you, as the book vendor is working on a redesign to accommodate academics' needs.
As reported back in July, various versions of Kindles are on the way. The "College Kindle" is said to have an improved interface and operating controls, issues noted by earlier buyers.
Tim Bueneman, an analyst for McAdams Wright Ragen, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer "there are already several new, improved versions of the Kindle in the works." Priced at $359, the current Kindle weighs 10 ounces and measures 7.5 by 5.3 inches and is 0.7 inches thick.
It is not clear yet which of the two new Kindles in development will be the one aimed at colleges, but reports say that one of them will have the same dimensions as the existing Kindle, while the second is slated to be larger, measuring 8.5 by 11 inches. Nevertheless, we can easily assume that with students' need for lightweight portability, the academic version will be the smaller one.
Reports suggest that Kindle's functionality refresh will not include a much-awaited MP3 playing feature. Even though audio plays an important part in the learning process these days, with podcasts and audiobooks ever present in universities across the world, Amazon seems not to be very keen on taking Kindle a step further. Still, the online bookseller plans on adding note-taking features, again, quite helpful when it comes to learning, also taking full advantage of Kindle's complete keyboard.
Even though Kindle's revolution feels more like plain evolution, it becomes clear very easily who is Amazon's model when it comes to strategy. Like back in the early iPod days, just a device is not enough to take the market by surprise. That is why Amazon unveiled an online store (PC and Mac compatible) that will deliver wirelessly any book, newspapers or other subscription to the Kindle, similar to Apple's over-the-air iTunes Music store. And coming back to college, using this distribution method, IT administrators could easily leverage on-demand textbooks and lecture notes to students.
Amazon sold about 280.000 Kindles so far, but if the device really takes off, we could see another iPod-like frenzy. If the device has have a cooler UI (user interface) and countless colors, success among college students may be within reach.
Adobe may be the number one name in desktop graphics (and its Flash technology still rules Web video), but image editing is slowly but surely escaping the bounds of the traditional computer, and Adobe is working hard to create a presence in those new areas.
So today, while also announcing new versions of its consumer-level still and video image editors (Photoshop Elements 7 and Premier Elements 7), Adobe also revealed plans to release a beta of its first Windows Mobile application, with support for a limited number of handsets, next month.
The mobile app will work with Adobe's existing Web-based image editing and storage service, Photoshop Express, which is being rebranded as Photoshop.com. While a basic version with 5GB storage will remain available for free, regardless of whether you buy Elements or Premiere, Adobe will offer people who purchase either of the packages separately ($100 each) or the two as a $150 bundle, the option of upgrading to Photoshop.com Plus, with 20GB of storage, for $50 a year.
The idea is for all these products to integrate with each other. The Windows Mobile app won't have image-editing features per se, but it will let you organize and easily upload your camera phone creatons to Photoshop.com for sharing and editing. (In the next day or so we will be posting a roundup review of Web-based image editors, including the app formerly known as Photoshop Express).
At launch, the Photoshop.com Windows Mobile app will be available only for the Motorola Q9 Music and Q9 Global; Samsung's Blackjack I and II; and several members of the Treo 700 series.
However, Adobe says you'll be able to use Shozu to move images to Photoshop.com from an iPhone, BlackBerry Pearl, Motorola Razr, Nokia 5310, and Nokia 6301.
After Michelle Obama's keynote speech at the Democratic Convention's opening night tonight, the party had planned a "surprise" video video call from Barack, who was out campaigning in Kansas.
The mood was electric in the hall after Michelle Obama's rousing speech, but soured somewhat as the video call began. As soon as the video call began it seemed like something was technically awry.
(Photo courtesy AP)
Why did the Obamas keep talking over each other, as if they could not hear one another, throughout most of the live video call? Why did the Obama daughters (Sasha and Malia, who had joined their mother onstage after the speech) keep blurting out questions while Barack was talking? Why couldn't we see the Girardo family, from whose Kansas City, Kansas home Barack was calling? The camera stayed fixed on Barack as he introduced them, and for some time afterwards.
Continue reading "Rough Video Call Closes Night One of the Dems' Big Show in Denver"
In addition to its bevy of point-and-shoot digital cameras announced today, Canon has introduced its new Canon EOS 50D. Based on Canon's marketing pitch, it's the successor to the current 40D, and is intended to address the growing enthusiast market by offering a bump over the 40D's spec--at a fair savings over the 5D, a professional model.
Due to ship in October, the 50D carries an attractive $1400 price (body only). Specs step up to 15.1 megapixels--a sizable increase over the 40D's 10.1 megapixels, even though the sensor size remains the same. I'll be interested to see how the higher megapixel count impacts the noise level--according to Canon, the new 50D is the first SLR to use the company's DIGIC 4 image processor, which the company says has improved speed and noise performance. The camera can handle ISO 100 to 12800, another big chnage (previously, the 40D topped out at ISO 3200).
This model also carries a rating of 6.3 frames per second (a wash with the 40D's 6.5 frames per second), and a burst mode of up to 90 JPEGS using UDMA CompactFlash cards (the 40D is rated for just 75 consecutive JPEGs).
The 50D's body is largely identical to the 40D, with a few small tweaks (for example, Live View mode now has a dedicated button). The metering and autofocus systems are identical to the 40D, but the 50D becomes Canon's first SLR with face detection mode (in both normal and Live View modes), and it features auto-focus fine-tuning to match your lens. Another, much-needed improvement: The 3-inch VGA LCD viewscreen has bumped the resolution up to 920,000 dots-per-inch.
The specs and pricing appear aggressive. The proof, will come in how this model performs. Look for our review when it ships in October.
When do you think the replacement for the 5D will happen?
Canon today announced the addition of four new point-and-shoot cameras to its 2008 lineup. Three of the models are additions to the company's entry-level A series of PowerShots, while one is a new addition to the zoom-heavy PowerShot SX line. All the new announcements are packed with optical image stabilization and the ability to run on AA batteries.
For the retro set, the PowerShot E1 (pictured above) comes in a range of Miami Vice-inspired colors (blue, pink, and Don-Johnson-pants white) and offers a 10-megapixel sensor, 4x optical zoom, a 2.5-inch LCD screen, and casual-snapshooter-friendly features such as face detection and Easy Mode, which optimizes exposure settings automatically in response to lighting and motion. The PowerShot E1 is priced at $200 and is slated to ship in September.
Offering the same basic specs in a sleeker, more manly case is the PowerShot A1000 IS (pictured below).
Just like the E1, it offers a 10-megapixel sensor, a 4x optical zoom, 2.5-inch LCD, face detection, and Easy Mode. It will also be available in September for $200, but in a different array of colors (brown, blue, silver, and black).
The 10-megapixel PowerShot A2000 IS (pictured below) offers a slight spec boost as compared to the A1000 IS for $50 more.
The A2000 IS bumps up the optical zoom to 6x and offers a 3-inch LCD screen, which Canon says is the biggest LCD yet for the entry-level A series. The A2000 IS also offers a slimmer frame than the A1000 IS; the A1000 has a protruding hand grip, while the A2000 has a flush, uniform faceplate. Shipping in September, it's priced at $250.
The PowerShot E1, A1000 IS, and A2000 IS all also offer the ability to shoot VGA video at 30 frames per second.
Rounding out Canon's new point-and-shoot offerings, the bulkier PowerShot SX110 IS offers a 10x optical zoom, 9-megapixel sensor, and a 3-inch LCD screen to go along with its optical image stabilization, flip-up flash, and AA battery-friendliness. It also ships in September and is priced at $300.
Microsoft posted a blog entry today detailing some of the new privacy features in the upcoming Internet Explorer 8. Among the new privacy features announced are InPrivate Browsing and InPrivate Blocking.
InPrivate Browsing gives users the option of browsing "off the record," as Microsoft puts it. That is, when InPrivate Browsing is active, IE 8 will not leave behind any trace of the browsing session: No history, cookies, passwords or anything of the sort will be saved. This could be useful when surfing the Web on a computer at a public library, for example.
The iPhone 3G's reported data speed problems may have more to do with the network and less with the phone itself, according to two different studies.
The results of Wired's 3G data speed survey indicate that network speed varies depending on where you are. For example, Australia has the worst overall 3G performance, while Germany and The Netherlands are on the other end of the spectrum. Wired also found that, "In some major metropolitan areas that are supposedly 3G-rich, 3G performance can be very slow. For example, zooming in on San Francisco, you'll see that 10 out of 30 participants reported very slow 3G speeds -- barely surpassing EDGE."
Second Test: Same Conclusions
Continue reading "iPhone 3G Slowness Traced to Network - Not Hardware"
The iPod Nano may be going through a significant redesign, so don't be surprised if Apple restructures its whole iPod family in the next two to three weeks, according to Kevin Rose.
The Digg founder and part-time Apple watcher put up a post on his blog over the weekend where he dishes on several leaks he claims he obtained through unnamed sources. The biggest news, according to Kevin, is that the iPod Nano is going to have a much larger widescreen that will be tapered and rounded and would be viewed by tilting the iPod sideways. Kevin also says Apple will tweak the iPod Touch and will be the first device to run iPhone/iPod Touch 2.1 software.
He also says that iTunes 8.0 will be coming out, and, while he is not at liberty to tell us what the big differences will be, the changes will be significant. Thanks, Kevin. The final and perhaps most interesting rumor is that Apple's OSX 10.5.6 will have Blu-ray support, and thus Apple will finally endorse the next generation of home video. Apple's 10.5.5 was recently seeded to developers, according to AppleInsider, so it's not too far off to predict that Apple is already thinking about 10.5.6. But Blu-ray support is something we've heard predicted before. So don't bet on it.
So what do we think of all this? Well, as with any Apple rumors, they're often tantalizing, often imaginative and often wrong. I will say this, however: Apple rumors about product launches tend to be accurate about timing. We've been hearing rumor about a new iPod line for some time, so don't be surprised if Apple really does release a new iPod line before the end of September. But will Kevin Rose's predictions be right? Gizmodo has a post this morning that says Chinese case makers are saying that they have received orders from Apple for iPod shells that match Rose's predictions.
However, things are getting even funkier since that announcement. Now the rumor is that the Nano will be GPS-enabled. Right. As Gizmodo points out, no touchscreen, no keyboard, no wi-fi, no cellular connection...but the Nano will have GPS. You just won't be able to use it. Remember, it's a rumor.
The Best Western Hotel Group had more than bathroom towels ripped off over the past year. According to reports over 8 million guest records were nabbed by hackers and, according to authorities, many of the hotel patrons personal information, including home addresses, phone numbers, place of employment and credit card details, are now for sale by the Russian Mafia.
The investigation led by The Sunday Herald discovered late last week that a previously unknown Indian hacker managed to breach the online booking system of the Best Western Hotel group, one of the largest hotel chains in the world.
The Indian hacker managed to gather the personal details of every customer booked into any of the Best Western group's hotels since 2007 and the stolen data contains addresses, telephone numbers, credit card details and employment places of Best Western hotel guests.
Continue reading "Hackers Rob Best Western Hotel Group, Steal 8M Guest Records"
Best Western now says only a handful of records were compromised, not millions. Data security investigations are complex, and they require patience. As we learned from the TJX experience, it is easy for the press and for authorities to over-react. --Ben http://legal-beagle.typepad.com/wrights_legal_beagle/2008/08/credit-card-iss.html
The fact that there is a lot of energy to be saved by increasing our use of broadband is well documented.
For example, if half of the movie rentals in the United State today were accessed by video-on-demand services rather than driving to and from a rental store, the country would save the equivalent of 200,000 household's annual electricity consumption, according to a report from the California Broadband Task Force.
If just one-quarter of 1 percent of the workforce were to telecommute one or two days per week, the presence of volatile organic compounds could be reduced by 25 tons in California's largest cities, according to the same report.
Smart building infrastructure, systems for real time demand management, and real time congestion control, are some other well known energy savers.
However, making it easier to use less energy is not enough according to Bill St. Arnaud, Chief Research Officer at Canarie, a non-profit organization focused on advanced Internet development.
"Research shows that people consume more when the cost of operating something is reduced. This means the benefits of energy efficiency are lost as consumers take advantage of energy savings to heat larger homes or drive bigger cars", he says.
As such, St. Arnaud is championing an innovative suggestion to overcome this behavior: use broadband as an incentive for people to reduce their carbon footprint.
Greetings from the Mile High City, a city that's indeed a little higher than usual this week--high on politics--and on the historic (presumptive) nomination later this week of a black American as the Democratic candidate for President.
I'm here to report what the Democrats have to say about technology issues--to get a close look at what an Obama administration might mean for technology developers, manufacturers and users. This could mean anything from broadband infrastructure growth to network neutrality to the rights of phone companies and other ISPs to monitor our phone calls and email.
The Obama campaign talks frequently about technology, even stating that it would create a (presumably cabinet-level) Chief Technology Officer position to spearhead tech policy initiatives.
Continue reading "Dems, GOP Talking Up Tech-savvy Conventions"
The 2008 DNC is expected to be the most blogged-about political convention in history.
The Democratic Party says it has granted press credentials to around 120 bloggers. That, of course, is just a tiny sliver of the estimated 15,000 total media here in Denver, but it's more than twice the number of credentials granted to bloggers at the 2004 DNC in Boston, I'm told.
The increased presence of the bloggers is interesting for a few reasons. The first is the immediacy we've come to expect of coverage of events like the one happening here; many of the bloggers will be blogging in real time from the floor of the convention center. Also, many of the bloggers are either one-man shows or small, independent "citizen journalism" pubs that may portray the convention in a very different way than larger "establishment" media outlets.
Continue reading "Bloggers' Presence Grows at 2008 Democratic National Convention"
Hey, tech companies -- Hollywood called, and it wants its business back.
I mean, seriously, when did Silicon Valley become a soundstage? First, we had Microsoft masquerading a certain unpopular operating system as "Mojave" to try to trick people into saying they liked it. Now, there's word that actors were actually paid to line up for iPhones on a European country's launch day.
Continue reading "Tech and Deception: The iPhone Actor Problem"
Anyone in China hoping to download some music through iTunes was sorely disappointed earlier this week when the Apple's iTunes Music Store locked up, banning people from logging into the service. The lockout began on Monday, the day after the organization Art of Peace Foundation released a 20-track album "Songs for Tibet - The Art of Peace" on iTunes in support of Tibet. Art of Peace also claimed over 40 Olympian athletes had already downloaded the album in solidarity with Tibet.
Apple has told reporters that it is aware of China's actions, but is unable to comment at this time.
Continue reading "China Blocks iTunes Over 'Songs of Tibet' Album"
AT&T has stepped into the repair and set-up service industry with ConnecTech.
ConnecTech is in direct competition with Best Buy's Geek Squad, so if you're tired of Squaders peeping in on your shower or want to shop prices, you now have another option.
AT&T technicians or local contractors come to your home or assist over the phone with the installation of HDTVs, PC and Apple computers, wireless networks, PC upgrades, virus protection, and more. You do not need to be an existing AT&T customer to use ConnecTech. What you do need is to be residential (no business customers right now) and to live in the United States.
The pricing scheme is decent, starting as low as $69 for PC/home network telephone support. Depending on the service and its complicated nature, ConnecTech's prices are in line or slightly cheaper than Geek Squad's.
Spam is a booming business and according to a recent poll almost 30% of you are the problem. The Internet security firm Marshal recently released a study that says that 29.1% of Internet users make purchases as a result of email spam.
Compounding the problem is that most spam customers have made two or more purchases, suggesting that some people are forming buying habits. The most common items purchased were sexual enhancement pills, software, adult material and luxury items such as watches, jewelery and clothing; most of which is either pirated material or brand name knock-offs.
Despite CanSpam laws and improved email filters, spam is still a popular way for shady front men to sell their wares and for people like the notorious spam King Eddie Davidson to cash in.
It may seem unbelievable that spam could be so successful, but consider that even in these hard economic times spam is a booming industry. Marshal says that global spam volumes have doubled in the last year, with approximately 150 billion spam messages sent out every day making up 85% of all email messages. More surprising is the fact that only 10 purchases are made for every million emails, and when you consider that most of these messages are blocked by filters, the success rate for spam that makes it to the inbox is probably much higher.
Spam has always been a relatively cheap way to deliver large amounts of advertising material to the masses, and the advent of botnets has made it far more cost effective. Botnets give spammers the ability to hijack a large number of computers and leave them to do the dirty work. As a result, distribution prices have plummeted. Current data from the FBI suggests that the cost for sending one million messages is about $5-10 USD.
The Marshal study shows a significant increase in spam buying activities when compared to a Forrester poll from 2004 that said only 20% bought from spam emails. But this new study should be taken with a grain of salt, because the sampling comes from a pool of only 622 respondents, compared with 6,000 from the Forester study.
Whether spam respondents comprise 20%, 30%, or more of the online community, as long as people want to get their hands on Viagra and imitation Gucci, it seems "unwanted" emails will keep on coming.
What I find amazing is that companies are still having trouble with Spam. We had a lot of problems a few years back and struggled just as much with the solution software as we did with the spam itself. The mail server anti-spam tasks interfered with our mail server and needed constant updating.
Today, our anti-spam is outsourced to a service which runs it against about 20 major filters. Anything considered to be spam gets redirected to spam@mycompany.com, all other mail makes it through.
On the rare occasions when we do actually get a spam message, all we have to do is forward it to the service company and let them deal with it. No more anti-spam issues for us to worry about - and since the service is used by lots of other companies, whenever they request updates to the rules, we all benefit.
Web site traffic watcher ComScore released figures this week that reveal Google's dominance is growing, when it comes to search, at the expense of Microsoft's search destinations and Yahoo, who continue to lose market share.
According to ComScore in July 11.8 billion queries were typed into search boxes in the U.S., registering a total 2 percent rise from June. Only three search engines recorded an increase in market share, with Google as a leader. In the U.S. Google's search share rose 0.4 percent from 61.5 to 61.9 percent, registering almost 7.3 billion search queries.
Continue reading "Google Gains in Search at Microsoft, Yahoo Expense"
comScore -- like Compete, Hitwise, and Nielsen -- does not accurately measure search market share. They are focusing on the number of queries performed, data which is heavily skewed in Google's favor by rank-checking software that thousands of Website operators and search engine optimizers run on a daily basis.
Although there are several possible other metrics, the best you can do to determine real search market share these days is to look at estimated monthly visitor counts (sources like Quantcast and Compete's traffic estimator tool provide this data).
Google still obtains less than 40% of real search market share, and Microsoft has long since surged past Yahoo! to rank a solid 2nd place.
Microsoft has a very real chance of challenging Google for the most visitors to a search destination by the end of this year.
We all know Jerry Seinfeld's into Superman. Now, the comedian may need to find his own inner Man of Steel if he's to succeed in changing the world's impression of Windows Vista.
Let me get you caught up: Seinfeld struck a deal this week to become the face of Microsoft's most expensive ad campaign ever. The goal, of course, is to undo the damage done by the bad rap Vista's gotten -- both from word-of-mouth and from that pesky Apple campaign portraying Windows as the outdated dork.
Rest assured, then, these new ads won't be about nothing. The $300 million campaign will center on the slogan "Windows, Not Walls." Seinfeld will appear with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates in the spots, securing a cool $10 million for his time -- and, Microsoft hopes, giving its struggling software a new start.
Seinfeld may be ad-worthy, but he has a big task ahead of him. We thought we'd take a look back at his predecessors to see what it truly takes to master Microsoft's domain. With that, I present the Top 10 Most Memorable Microsoft Ads of All Time. And by "memorable," I don't always mean good. Get ready to laugh.
1. MicroSex
Talk about targeted marketing. This XP ad shows a guy struggling to get his girl's bra off -- then, like magic, Windows shows up to save the day. If only he had the password...
Continue reading "Note to Seinfeld: Beware, Microsoft's Made Some Bad TV Ads"
this is a well-written article -- usually techies struggle with english -- you even spelled vandelay right -- i like the new slogan: it puts microsoft closer to linux, for instance, & farther from apple as far as control-freakdom goes -- my gut feeling is that the new iphone is apple's final peak because other smartphones will come along that will work like a mobile computer: for instance, that will make it easy to run a printer without needing to go through an intervening pc, something that apple is hesitant to allow because it would cut into apple pc sales, which are hardly large as it is
A very misleading title. Virutally none of these videos were ever intended to be TV commercials. Most were internal corporate morale videos or videos made for retailers or partners. Indeed, I'm not sure that ANY of these were actual TV commercials.
If you are like me Facebook's first iPhone App was cool, but it just was too limited in features and function. Perhaps Facebook knew this as well and that's why the king of social networks says it is prepping its second iPhone app, Facebook v2.0, which is slated for a September release. This upcoming Facebook app should be more to the liking of folks like myself who are eager for a no-compromises mobile Facebook experience.
The iPhone Facebook 2.0 app more closely matches the full Facebook experience accessible through a computer. Facebook 2.0 delivers your Facebook top stories, posted items, profiles and photo comments, and a host of other friend-related news to the iPhone.
Facebook is really paying attention to detail with this new Facebook app cleverly mashing the "wall" and your "mini-feed" together as well as including every sent and received Facebook mail message. Even the app's look mimics Facebook's tabbed homepage design.
Sony unveiled the latest iteration of the PlayStation Portable at the Leipzig Games Convention in Germany yesterday.
Dubbed the PSP 3000, the new device will double as a cheaper Internet handset with a built-in microphone for VoIP. Sony has bundled Skype with its PSP firmware for some time and the new mic may negate the need for an additional headset, depending on the quality of the mic. Sony also says the new mic will be compatible for in-game chat.
The 3000 will also have an anti-reflective screen that Sony claims will provide better colors and will be easier to see in well-lit places and outdoors. Sony also said the high-resolution PSP screen will be "dramatically enhanced."
Perhaps the best upgrade, though, is a new video output that can display a resolution of up to 480i on any TV screen that can interface with a composite or S-cable. Video output has been a bone of contention with the PSP. Customers have been clamoring for video output for the device from day one, but Sony decided against it. When the PSP 2000 came out, we finally saw a video output, and the recent announcement is a significant upgrade in resolution quality. An output resolution of 480i is not quite hi-res, but it's getting pretty close.
Sony has apparently not committed to a price, although in Europe it's US$294, which seems a bit high for North American sales. I can't believe anyone would pay $294 for a PSP; it seems more likely Sony will stick with the $199 bundle price point that has been standard in the U.S. for awhile. The PSP 3000 will come in black, white and silver.
I have criticized the PSP and Sony's support for it before, but finally the PSP is getting a lot of attention from the powers that be. At E3, Sony announced the PlayStation Video Store, which means you can finally get some worthwhile video for the device. This is especially great since UMDs have been a big bust. Put this together with the newest upgrades and Sony's intermittent improvements to the firmware, and one day the world may finally realize that the PSP is by far the best portable gaming device out there.
We've all heard about the iPhone 3G's notorious connection problems by now, but one Alabama woman decided that she wasn't going to put up with it and slapped Apple with a lawsuit. Jessica Smith on Tuesday filed a lawsuit claiming that Apple's iPhone 3G does not nearly live up to the marketing claims of "twice the speed at half the price" and is now seeking to up the ante to a class-action lawsuit demanding that Apple repair or replace all defective iPhone 3Gs as well as unspecified damages.
Apple claims that the new update for iPhones will fix connection problems but so far the lawsuit still stands.
I think that it's great that people are finally holding Apple accountable for shoddy hardware. I have friends who need to replace their iPods on a yearly basis because the device breaks down, and yet Apple seems to get a free ride in terms of PR. I'm not necessarily an Apple hater (just got my own iPod Touch recently and love it) but I hate the inconsistency in reactions between Apple and Microsoft. If a Microsoft product was having the problems that the iPhone 3G is having, there would be a lot more than just one lawsuit by now.
A day after the Federal Communications Commission released official sanctions against Comcast for interfering with its customers' Net traffic speed, the Internet provider is talking up a new plan to slow down traffic for heavy users.
In an interview Bloomberg, Mitch Bowling, Comcast's senior vice president and general manager of online services, announced the introduction of Fair Share, a new traffic managing system that will reduce the top internet speeds for targeted customers for periods between 10 and 20 minutes.
(See related content: Elude Your ISP's BitTorrent Blockade)
Continue reading "Comcast to Throttle Bandwidth Hogs For Up to 20 Minutes"
Commcast sells its customers an internet speed based on the cable program they buy. How in the hell are they then going to turn around and limit that speed or charge you more because you use what you purchased.
Another big business phucking the customer. Must be because of rising fuel cost.
Comcast's changes impact the network hogs and not the average user!
Hey, if I don't have any water pressure because the guy down the street is watering his 5 acre lawn 24x7, I am going to complain. The same applies for Internet performance. Why should the performance for 14.3 million subscribers suffer because 100,000 hog the networks? Seems fair to me. Hooray for Comcast and the ability to manage their company without government intervention.
Users, please realize that the Price for the Service has nothing to do with the Costs to provide that service. It's based on the Stock Price of the Company. When greed in the executive suite and failure to meet Wall Street's expectations occur. Someone has to pay! And that someone is anyone that they can figure out a way to fleece. Expect 'Pay by Minute' to happen in the next Economic Cycle.
If you're sick of robo-calls from telemarketers interrupting you at dinner to try and sell you stuff you don't want (or anything for that matter), you're not alone. Plenty of us have complained about these types of calls and now finally something is being done to stop them. The Federal Trade Commission passed a new law that aims to clamp down on this pernicious form of marketing.
Yesterday the FTC amended its Telemarketing Sales Rule (PDF) with stricter provisions for prerecorded telemarketing calls. Starting December 1, 2008, all prerecorded marketing calls must provide an automated, interactive opt-out mechanism. On September 1, 2009, to receive such calls, prerecorded telemarketers need our written permission.
Continue reading "FTC Cracks Down on Robo-Call Telemarketers"
There is a non-profit group working to create a Political Do Not Call list. Already 7 politicians have signed the "do not robo call" pledge.
Learn more:
http://www.stoppoliticalcalls.org/index.php
Shaun Dakin
CEO and Founder
The National Political Do Not Contact Registry
Commcast sells its customers an internet speed based on the cable program they buy. How in the hell are they then going to turn around and limit that speed or charge you more because you use what you purchased.
Another big business phucking the customer. Must be because of rising fuel cost.
Starting today American Airlines is offering Internet access on its flights using Aircell's Gogo service.
According to Aircell in-flight Net access will first be "tested" on American Airlines' 15 Boeing 767-200 on flights longer than three hours and will cost passengers $12.95. AA routes to get internet access will be New York and San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, and New York and Miami. Testing will occur over the next three to six months, and if all goes well then AA will begin rolling out the service on more flights.
Continue reading "In-Flight Net Access Takes Off With American Airlines"
I did a double-take logging on to Google News this morning when I noticed Google has given its interface a much-needed overhaul. Google has not mentioned the new interface on either its official Google Blog, where the company often announces new Google features and services, or in a press release. Google also is apparently not ready to roll out the new interface to everyone. The revamped interface, as of this writing, is only appearing in my Internet Explorer browser and not when I access Google News using Firefox. (click on above image, or here, for complete screenshot of new interface)
What's new about the interface? The most striking difference is that Google News now features content blocks that run along the right side of the Google News page, introducing modules such as Featured Video, Developing Stories, In The News, Featured Photo, Images, Popular Stories, and Interesting Stories. If you're familiar with Google News you know that the In The News content block was always there - but the others are new.
Online retailer eBay wants to stock its virtual shelves with more fixed-price items and reduce its dependency on auction sales.
The company announced today some drastic changes to its listings fees and commissions that are intended to encourage buyers to list more, and duplicate, items at fixed prices to sell via eBay's "Buy It Now" program. Starting in mid-September, sellers will be charged just 35 cents to place an item on eBay for 30 days, which is a drastic reduction from its current fee of $4 to list an item for seven days. In return for the reduced fees, eBay will take a larger commission for completed sales but has so far declined to say what that commission will be. The company will also limit methods of payment to credit cards and PayPal, cutting cash, check, and money orders out of its business entirely.
The new approach is designed to counter eBay's slowing sales growth. The New York Times says auction sales account for only 57 percent of eBay's revenue, with the rest coming from advertising, PayPal and global classifieds. The new business model is eBay's attempt to boost retail sales by favoring bulk sellers who make their living selling items on eBay. However, collectors and others who are trying to sell rarer items that could fetch a respectable price at auction may find it tougher to do business in the new eBay. Members of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance told the Associated Press that they are seeing fewer of their listed items on eBay sell and those that do move are being sold at lower prices.
eBay has been doing a lot of tinkering with its business platform recently. The auction company had already cut its commissions and listing fees for fixed price sales earlier in the year, and today's announcement drops them even further. It has partnered with Buy.com and is apparently allowing Buy to list items on eBay at no cost. EBay also adjusted its popular feedback program so that sellers can no longer rate buyers, but buyers can still rate sellers. But the feedback changes may not really matter, since a switch to electronic methods of payment is only likely to cut down on buying scams on the site. If you are one of the millions who love the auction platform, don't despair. As eBay's Lorrie Norrington told the New York Times, "We love the auction model. It's still a great model for certain types of sales."
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First, there were reports that problems with a chip inside the phone were leading to poor data connections and dropped calls. Apple didn't comment--but at least one iPhone owner reported getting e-mail from Steve Jobs himself saying the issue was real, although not widespread, and a fix was in the works.
Yesterday, Apple distributed an iPhone software update--version 2.02--via iTunes, with a typically terse note that it fixed unspecified bugs. Some users who installed it report that their iPhone 3Gs now show more bars of reception than before, but it didn't seem to be the promised patch for the connection issues.
Except...now Apple spokesperson Jennifer Bowcock is saying that yesterday's update does "[improve] communication with 3G networks." I'm guessing, though, that it's a partial fix rather than a definitive one; given all the bad press that the iPhone 3G is getting for connection snags, you would think that Apple would tell the world if it had solved them.
Then again, it's not entirely clear why the company doesn't provide more detail on the software updates it releases in general; most folks wouldn't bother to wade through a lot of detail, but the geeks who want a full list of fixes really want a full list of fixes. And if Apple simply stated clearly what this new software does and doesn't do, I wouldn't be writing this blog post.
(Side note: I bought an iPhone 3G on the morning the phone was released. For weeks, I experienced few if any connection failures or dropped calls. Then reports of problems surfaced...and my phone started misbehaving. It's psychosomatic, I guess--and while I installed 2.02 yesterday, I haven't used the phone enough since to form an opinion of whether it's behaving better, although I could swear that Mobile Safari is now faster.)
The news about the possible iPhone 3G connection fix comes on a weird day in which other Apple developments included the company's stellar performance in a customer satisfaction survey--and new reports of iPod Nanos overheating and burning in Japan. Apple news can be happy or sad, but it's rarely boring.
Over at my Technologizer site, I've posted a story with more details and thoughts about Apple's run of good news and bad news, along with a poll you can use to share your take on things. Please drop by and visit--I'll be blogging here at Today @ PC World from time to time, but I'd also love to see you there...
We moved a few steps closer to seeing the launch of the much anticipated 'gPhone' this week as Google today released an update to the Android OS and on Monday the Federal Communications Commission gave T-Mobile the green light to rollout the first Android handset for use in the United States.
There is still no official launch date for the Android OS-based phone. However we do know that Taiwanese handset maker HTC has decided it will name the Android-based handset 'Dream,' according to FCC filings. T-Mobile will be the exclusive U.S. provider of the device. T-Mobile says the Dream will become a reality to consumers before the year's end.
Can T-Mobile Deliver on the Dream?
Continue reading "Google 'Dream' Handset Takes Important Steps to Becoming Reality"
I'm at the 2008 Intel Developers Forum in San Francisco, expecting the big production values, lots of hoopla and, of course, lots of pro-Intel rah-rah speechifying during the opening remarks from Intel's Chairman of the Board, Craig Barrett.
That wasn't what happened. In fact, it was a collection of interesting observations about the world and about how technology (and yes, some of it from Intel) can change how the world works.
The U.S. is falling behind the rest of the globe--especially the emerging markets. That is the main point Barrett drove home for about an hour this morning. A decidedly political comment in an historical election year. But maybe he's onto something.
Barrett says, "You need smart people (education), smart ideas (R&D), and you need the right collaborative environment" in order for us to succeed as a people.
"If I could only put one piece of technology in the classroom, it'd be better teachers," Barrett said. He goes on, pointing to the U.S.'s place in world education rankings. "That's because we don't have enough good, certified teachers in the math and sciences," he added.
Brian McCarthy, the MIT-bound third-place winner of the Intel Science Talent Search, might slightly disagree. He was mentored by many since about the 8th grade. One teacher got him an internship at Portland State.
His observation about the state of education was this--and I'm paraphrasing here because I completely agree with him: You read in the news about how our math and science scores are lower. Tests aren't the answer. Stop sweating scores and give students more hands-on experiences to get them excited. (In case you're curious, his project was looking at building economical solar cells with plastics.)
Dr. Johnny Chung Lee, an expert in computer-human interface also came to the stage. You may remember him from countless YouTube videos as the Wiihacker that created a whiteboard for about $50.
Using the IR camera in the front of the WiiMote in conjunction with a whiteboard (and some electronic components from RadioShack), Dr. Lee can create multitouch points on a whiteboard. According to Dr. Lee, since he's shared his hacks online, he says that he's not only received praise, but e-mails from teachers implementing this in classrooms.
And, yes, in case you're curious, Barrett did give a shout out to Intel's efforts pushing low-cost PCs into classrooms--you know, the whole Classmate PC movement, which is now blossoming into a whole wave of low-cost mini-notebooks.
Barrett took more shots at another policy: The lapse of R&D tax credits. We're basically de-incentivizing risk-takers and people with new, big ideas. He says that it is a huge mistake to cut this. Not only did he point to emerging nations that foster such growth, Barrett also discussed a new microloan Web site that is funding low-income innovators from them.
Kiva.org is one such site. The general idea is that instead of donating to a charity, you're providing loans to low-income entrepreneurs in third-world nations. (Right after the announcement, I jumped online, and I'm currently thinking of becoming a micro-VC overseas. Seriously.)
Another hot-button issue for Barrett is rising health care costs. How do you combat it? Telemedicine and, according to him, IT can change how health care is delivered. We need to bring the PC to the health care system.
He stopped mid-stream in the talk and posed a question to the crowd: "What piece of electronic equipment invented over 100 years ago can a doctor still not get reimbursed for? A telephone. Start there, then maybe we can get to the Internet one day."
One company already looking to bridge that gap is Groove Media and Technologies. The Columbian-based company demonstrated a new kind of health smart card that it is developing.
The card provides a user's medical information hidden as a special scanner code. Just take a photo with a cell phone camera, and it provides all the basic information you'd need to know in an emergency. Also, a button on it sends an alert to your physician anywhere worldwide.
Which provided a nice segue to him contacting "his doctors" in India. I wonder if Barrett includes intercontinental flight time into his wait time at the doctor's office. Speaking with doctors overseas, Barrett discussed how telephones are a necessity for them to deal with patients in overcrowded Indian cities.
In the way that we dial '911' here, there one can dial '104' for one level of emergencies and '108' for more critical care. Of course, that whole conversation was transmitted via WiMax--for the last few miles in India, at least. (Ding! score one more Intel plug for those playing at home!)
Winding down, Barrett dropped a saying ("A small deed done, is better than a great deed, planned.") and a challenge to the room: "We have the opportunity to perform many small deeds...and we are offering four $100,000 awards at Spring IDF." Awards will go to the best ideas in four different categories--health care, economic development, education, and the environment. The award money goes toward enacting the idea.
So much for the typical "rah-rah, Intel rules" speech.
Apple may be taking flak with its iPhone issues lately, but a new study released today shows the Mac-maker dominating its Windows-centric competitors when it comes to consumer satisfaction.
The University of Michigan's American Consumer Satisfaction Index, or ASCI, looks at how happy people are with their products throughout the year. This quarter, overall PC satisfaction has dropped a full percentage point since the last measure, falling to 74 percent -- but Apple's not too concerned.
The company, it turns out, is managing to fight the downward stream and inch its way up to a record-high satisfaction score. Eighty-five percent of Apple customers said they were happy with their products -- the highest number ever reported for any company in the PC category. What's more, it's a full 8 percent jump from Apple's last score, and get this: The next highest-rated company is a full 10 percentage points lower. Dell pulled in a 75 percent approval rating. HP follows at 73 percent, Gateway's next at 72, and Compaq computers have 70 percent of users reporting satisfaction.
The folks behind the ASCI report point to the strong success of the iPhone and iPod in helping make Apple shine, but they also see another interesting factor: the idea that Apple doesn't use Windows Vista, an OS that's taken a lot of heat and seen more than its share of user resistance this year. The Windows-based systems, fittingly then, saw the biggest drops in customer satisfaction this time around.
Other tech-related measurements worth noting: Google tops the list of search engine satisfaction, with an 86 percent rating. It took a full 10 percent jump from last year, while Yahoo -- following at 77 percent -- fell 3 percent from its last score. MSN is next at 75 percent, then Ask.com at 74, and AOL at the lowest ranking, with 69 percent.
Those are the scores -- but the true test, of course, is how happy you are with your own products and services. The floor is open. Please weigh in.
Yahoo's Digg-like service, Buzz, will be opening up to public contributors as of 7 p.m. PDT tonight. Since the service's launch in February, only a select 400 publishers could add new links to Buzz.
With so many submitting and rating sites out there, including the mighty Digg, Yahoo Buzz has a few advantages up its sleeve. Besides using the links submitted by contributors, Buzz's algorithms take into account search engine popularity, feeding the most popular stories to Yahoo's home page.
Making it to Yahoo's home page and getting server-melting traffic will likely create a new frenzy among Web traffic manipulators who are already pushing their luck with Digg and AOL's Propeller. Buzz wants to avoid this kind of exploitation by adding editorial discretion when determining headlines.
Another interesting feature that Yahoo brings is the possibility of adding any type of Web page to Buzz. This basically means that pages that aren't in a news or blog format could be submitted as new links on Buzz. Buzz pages could soon offer such diverse links as museum sites, Twitter messages and patent fillings alongside the select publishers' articles Yahoo favors today.
Shortly after Buzz's initial launch in February, the new service managed to overtake Digg in traffic scores, attracting nearly 7 million unique U.S. visitors. What's more, 51 percent were women, compared to Digg's 39 percent female users.
It is not clear how "clean" Yahoo is playing when bringing massive amounts of traffic to sites like Salon.com and GigaOm. It is said that Yahoo asked its select few publishers to join the company's Publishers Network, dropping their AdSense agreements with Google in exchange to buzzing-up to Yahoo's home page. It is not yet known if this rule is still applicable for the new publishers joining Buzz.
Yahoo's Buzz submit page will go live tonight. Meanwhile, you can get ready by adding the service's buttons to your site.
Overheating iPod Nanos are the source of several Tokyo fires, according to Japan's trade ministry which has been investigating reports of combustible iPods for months now. The fires are thought to be caused by overheating lithium-ion batteries used in older-generation iPods, which were discontinued in September 2006. There have been no reports of serious injuries.
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is reportedly in touch with Apple representatives regarding the matter.
One of the Nano fires occurred in January and a second as recently as August. The affected iPod Nano had the model number MA099J/A, according previous reports. Apple has shipped about 425,000 units of the affected model in Japan. The model was discontinued in September 2006.
Continue reading "iPod Nano Sparked Fires, Say Officials in Japan"
Video killed the radio star -- so who's to blame for putting the brick and mortar music store star in his grave? It may not be funeral time just yet, but new word this week that Wal-Mart is getting ready to slash into its music-selling strategy signals the start of a long-brewing change.
Here's the deal: The mass market CD section at Wally World is on its way out, the Wall Street Journal says. Execs are sick of seeing struggling sales and wasted space and are "preparing changes" to the store's approach -- likely a significant cutback in the amount of titles carried.
Continue reading "Cue the Curtain: In-Store CD Sales Nearing an End"
Toshiba is going on the offensive in the DVD wars with a new player that promises near HD quality from standard DVDs. The XD-E500 uses Toshiba's new eXtended Detail Enhancement (XDE) technology to deliver a 1080p picture on HDTVs.
The player also offers three modes to further enhance the quality of the picture. Sharp mode scans the entire picture that is being displayed and then adds detail enhancement to make images crisper. Color mode primarily enhances blues and greens and is recommended for outdoor scenes, while contrast mode helps bring more detail to scenes with less light. The new player will go for $149.99 and can also play DivX, MP3s, WMA and display JPEGs, a capability that is now standard in most DVD players.
The new DVD player will only improve the picture for an HDTV, but the XD-E500 is priced significantly lower than Blu-ray players and you don't have to trade in your old DVDs to get a better viewing experience. However, most Blu-ray players are also capable of upscaling your current DVD collection to 1080p.
Toshiba recently lost the High Definition DVD wars to Sony's Blu-ray technology, and this is their biggest foray into DVD upscaling since then. The company is planning a massive ad campaign to tout its new technology and will be launching a new website soon to show off the XD-E500.
The company told the Associated Press that the XD-E500 is not meant to compete with Blu-ray. Yet with consumers reluctant to switch over to the format war victor, Toshiba is definitely looking to tap into a market that Blu-ray cannot seem to conquer.
So much for MSRP. Amazon has priced this at 179.99
"Toshiba is going on the offensive in the DVD wars with a new player that promises near HD quality from standard DVDs."
Oh, just stop it!!! This is not only not true, it is misleading anc confusing. It adds more pixels. but no new picture information/detail is generated. They might say that it is not intended to compete with Bluray, but leading statements like the one opening this piece tells me otherwise.
This upcoming player is nothing but a sour grapes response from a loser.
- pepar
With this unit the standard dvd will be "enhanced" but won't be true HD. The Blueray players will be able to play Blueray, as well as do this enhancement of standard dvds, having the best of both worlds. So, why would I want to buy this one? I know it's cheaper but the payback isn't nearly as rewarding as if you just bought a Blueray player. I don't get it.
Lenovo gives MacBook Air a run for its money with a skinny new laptop, the ThinkPad X301. This latest Lenovo offering features both a built-in DVD drive and ethernet jack and a fast low-voltage Intel Core 2 Duo ULV 1.2GHz processor that make it a strong contender in the ultra-portable space. This sub-3-pound notebook is a direct successor to Lenovo's X300 model, delivering improved performance and a hefty price of $2600.
By comparison, the MacBook Air lacks an optical drive, and to connect to a network via ethernet, you must purchase a $29 USB adapter.
Lenovo will start taking orders for the new ThinkPad X301 on August 26.
The X301 features a 13.3-inch LED backlit display, a one-inch thick frame (MacBook Air is 0.75-inch-thick), and the fast Intel Core 2 Duo processors with 6MB L2 cache and 1066Mhz front side bus.
Continue reading "Battle of Ultra-Portables Heats Up With Lenovo's ThinkPad X301"
August 15 is the 10th anniversary of when the Apple iMac first shipped, and our cohorts at Macworld have a nice story up called "Eight Ways the iMac Changed Computing."
This prompted us here at PC World to look over our iMac coverage over the past decade.
First, we have our review of the original iMac in 1998. We delegated five pages to the little PC but grumpily headlined it: "iMac vs. Pentium: No Points for Good Looks."
Since this was still back in the days when PC users hadn't yet capitulated to the concept that Steve Jobs was a god, we picked the iMac apart.
The review harrumphed: "To see whether Apple would make believers out of us, we pitted the iMac against two Intel-based PCs: a pricier Pentium II-400 system and a Celeron-based machine that costs about $300 less than the iMac. The results: In its base $1299 configuration, the iMac finished last in each of our application tests. The system was nearly as easy to use as the company claims, but its poor performance means Apple failed in its core mission."
Take that, Apple!
Don't miss the System Comparison Chart at the end of the review, which shows the battle between the iMac's 32 MB of RAM against the mighty Packard Bell Multimedia 945's 64 MB of RAM (Packard Bell???).
Interview with the iMac's Designer
Also in 1998, our compatriots at IDG News Service scored an interview with Jonathan Ive, the principal designer of the iMac as well as the iPod and iPhone.
In it, Ive called the iMac the most important design achievement in his life so far and disclosed that earlier in his career, he had designed sinks and toilets.
Best quote from the story? Ive saying: "We could make a computer look like a grapefruit." I'd feel a little bit better about this interview, though, if it hadn't misspelled Ive's name all the way through as Ives.
Newer iMac Reviews
As the years went by, PC World got a little more friendly in its iMac reviews. In 2002, we called this version of the iMac "eye-catching" and a powerful home PC at a reasonable price ($1799). The headline on this review was: "iMac's Monitor Bends to User's Will."
And by 2004, the Apple style thing was growing on us. The iMac G5 impressed us as "another high-style revamp from Apple" but we were slightly dubious about the inability to adjust the monitor.
In the 21st century, PC World jumped firmly on the Apple train, in least in terms of reviewing products. (In the late 1990s and early years of this century, we would get complaints from our readers if we featured an Apple product in the magazine.)
But since 2006, we've had more fun with Macs in general as we can now put the Windows OS on them. And we knew things were changing when our former editor-in-chief, Harry McCracken, bought a MacBook laptop as his personal PC.
In 2006, we liked the 20-inch iMac G5, saying "This beautiful 20-inch wide-screen all-in-one combines entertaining multimedia features and a good price." It also bundled an iPod Shuffle-size remote control for the entertainment software.
And in one of our latest iMac reviews, that of the 24-inch version, we praised it as a striking system that will surely make you look twice.
Happy Anniversary, iMacs!
I prefer much more hardware customizability for PCs than iMacs...
For me, an iMac is pretty much a luxury to me, and not really a tool. Thus, I don't have the money to afford it and that I don't consider wasting my money on Mac Mini.
Anyway, Happy Anniversary to Apple iMac.
Note: My post is by all in my opinion, even if fanboys/advocates of Mac disagrees with me. "Happy Anniversary" is all I want to say, so it's not my place to start a Mac vs. PC discussion. Please try to keep it to the minimum, if you can.
happy 15th anniversary imac, kudos to apple for making an icatching product.
agent46, it is 10th not 15th anniversary -_-
All right, let me just say it: I'm glad I'm the one guy who didn't buy the iPhone. And it's not just because of all the talk of trouble with the trendy devices. It's also because of Android.
The highly hyped Google-based phone is finally on the way to store shelves -- on time -- according to new information obtained by the New York Times Friday. People with inside knowledge tell the Times despite ongoing rumors of delays, T-Mobile will have its HTC-manufactured model ready to roll before the year's end, most likely around October. And this thing looks pretty freakin' sweet.
Now, I know there's plenty of talk about how Android won't be able to touch Apple's holy ground. And admittedly, the iPhone has some devout disciples. But you also have to remember that the iPhone doesn't currently perform its most basic functions up to par.
In contrast, the upcoming Android release, unofficially dubbed "The Dream," looks...well, like a gadget geek's dream. In addition to the iPhone-style touchscreen, it has a slide-out keyboard, which is something I'd definitely appreciate. And the open source model, while it's had its hurdles along the way, promises to deliver some standout applications by the time the phone rolls around.
Oh yeah, and did I mention: The phone, one might assume, will actually work.
I realize it's a bit blasphemous not to fawn other everything Apple releases these days but I, for one, have never been happier that I didn't get an iPhone. I accept that the Android might not immediately rule the mobile field, but I'm excited to see what Google's OS can offer -- and that's one "I" you can definitely capitalize.
After all the rumors and discussions, it will be interesting to see if this one finally comes true. I'm not holding my breath.
http://kreuzer33.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/google-android-coming-to-t-mobile/
I've been a loyal Palm user since the 500s. I've been waiting for a new Palm OS phone (I have the Treo 680 with ATT), for what seems like a very long time. I refuse to buy any phone with Windows Mobile. Now it's time for a new phone and the iPhone is looking very tempting. But for lack of Memos type app and a couple of other features, I would have already made the switch. I suggest that if Palm is planning a new phone with the traditional Palm OS apps it had better start advance advertising. I'm sure third-party developers are already hard at work at new iPhone apps. I'm giving it a few more months and then iGo iPhone.
I am really behind the android OS buuuut.....the HTC Dream is not exactly "pretty freakin sweet" in terms of looks. In fact, nect to the iPhone, it looks like an 80s cellphone. They (Google) needs to find a better looking gadget to put their OS on ASAP
Movable Type is empowering its users to create social networks right in their own blogs with the release of Movable Type Pro. Bloggers will now be able to create their own communities on their own site with user registration and profiles, forums, content rating, 'friending,' and even a Twitter-style 'follow' feature. The new features will use the OpenID scheme and seek to lure the power of the social network away from corporate media companies.
In a blog post, Movable Type's Anil Dash said , "Almost seven years ago, when Movable Type was first being created, the power of publishing on the web was still largely in the hands of a few giant media companies. In the years since...that power has been unleashed, making it possible for anyone to publish...Today, we're bringing the same idea to social networking. Providing social features to your community doesn't mean you have to give up control of your community to a giant media entity."
Not to be left behind, WordPress has also been developing social ideas along the same lines with a set of plug-ins called BuddyPress. Still in development, BuddyPress will have features like profiles, groups, private messaging, status updates and so on. With two of the major blogging platforms going social, it's clear where the future of blogging is going, but will it work?
With blog readers typically reading content from a wide range of sites it seems unlikely that they will want to participate in a community on a majority of the blogs they visit. Not to mention the fact that many people use RSS readers so they can read posts without visiting blog sites at all.
Sure, some blogs, like the Movable Type-based sensation Today@PCWorld, may have a reader base large enough to support their own community. But for the most part blogs are already a part of the larger social web spread across 'home bases' like Facebook, MySpace, and Orkut and then spreading out to places like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Twitter. Do we really need more?
I don't know about you, but I am quite content to Digg content or post it to my Facebook profile or simply leave comments on a particular post. The way I see it, blogs have already found their place in social networking, let's leave it that way.
I think that BuddyPress is the next thing.
I'm going to build a full website around it in several domains, such as:
http://www.buddypress.me/
http://www.buddypress.tv/
http://www.buddypress.mobi/
http://www.buddypress.co.uk/
and more...
anybody who can help is invited!!!
I think that BuddyPress is the next thing.
I'm going to build a full website around it in several domains, such as:
http://www.buddypress.me/
http://www.buddypress.tv/
http://www.buddypress.mobi/
http://www.buddypress.co.uk/
and more...
anybody who can help is invited!!!
Palm leaked a new handset, the Treo Pro, part of the company's line-up for 2009. Deemed as "the best looking Palm ever," the Treo Pro will still use Windows Mobile instead of Palm's long-awaited Nova operating system.
The initial leak happened yesterday on Palm's website in form of a flash presentation and has since been taken down. Treo Pro has a much slimmer body than its predecessors and runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 over 3G.
Previously thought as the Treo 850, the leaked handset's design is somehow similar to one of Palm's past models, the Centro. Treo Pro features a glossy black and white color scheme with welcomed improvements like a 3.5mm headphone jack, wireless button on the side and a microUSB connector.
Featuring a 2.4-inch 320 by 320 pixels touchscreen display and running on a 400MHz with 100MB of RAM, the new device will use MicroSD cards for memory expansion. A 2-megapixel camera is also present on the back of the handset.
The release date of the Treo Pro has not been announced -- but may be soon. The speculations are further acknowledged by reports from this week, saying that Palm placed a 5 million-unit order for 2009 with Compal Communications, an Asian mobile phone manufacturer. These reports also confirmed the presence of Windows Mobile on the devices ordered, although Treo die-hard fans are still waiting a device based on Nova, Plam's future operating system based on Linux , expected in late 2009.
The blogosphere's been buzzing with frustrations over the new iPhone 3G, from slow data speeds to subpar call reception. Now, for the first time, we're getting some insight as to what might be driving the disappointing performance and what it could take to turn things around.
The problems have been blamed on everything from bad SIM cards to troublesome towers. Two separate "well-placed sources," however, now insist the German-made Infineon chips inside the phones are the sole reason for the issues, according to a report released by Business Week Thursday. Perhaps the bigger revelation: A fix, they say, could already be in the works.
Matching Stories
The claims echo predictions made by an industry analyst earlier this week. Nomura's Richard Windsor noted similarities between the current crop of complaints and the problems seen when 3G phones first surfaced in Europe five years ago.
"We believe that these issues are typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack where we are almost certain that Infineon is the 3G supplier," Windsor theorized.
Simple Solution
Chips or not, most iPhone users just want a solution. The good news: The new "inside sources" say Apple's already working on it -- and it may be far easier than initially suspected.
In contrast to theories of hardware replacement or even a full recall, Business Week's sources suggest a software upgrade will solve the widespread woes. It's a curious proposal, but a promising one -- if it proves to be true.
Apple's Answer
For its part, Apple is continuing to publicly take the "ignore it and it'll go away approach," insisting there is no problem and that the phones are working fine. The company even locked down a message board hread filled with angry comments (official reason: the thread was too long and was causing browser crashes). AT&T is following suit: The company went on the record with Business Week saying the iPhones are "performing great."
Regardless of any corporate public stance by vendors, though, it's clear customers aren't happy with the much-hyped product. Let's hope for the companies' sake that the simple software fix ends up playing out and putting the problems to rest -- and soon. Otherwise, Apple is going to be faced with some bitter customers looking for a better product.
U.K. Twitter users woke up this morning to an e-mail message from Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder, saying that they will no longer be able to receive outbound SMS over a U.K. phone number. The latest changes do not affect users in the United States, Canada, or India, where Twitter says it can still "provide full incoming and outgoing SMS service without passing along operator fees."
Twitter's cost of passing along messages had simply gotten too high, Stone's message says. Even if Twitter capped outgoing SMS messages to 250 per week for every Twitter user tied to the U.K. number, cost would still average $1000 yearly.
Some view Twitter's future now in a grim light, as Twitter is (proportionally) the most popular in the U.K. Angry users have set up a Facebook group asking U.K. mobile phone operators for decent deal on Twitter SMS costs.
Biz Stone explains that "mobile operators in most of the world charge users to send updates. When you send one message to Twitter and we send it to ten followers, you aren't charged ten times--that's because we've been footing the bill." But with Twitter's growth in popularity, the price of maintaining this service became too high for the company to keep subsidizing it. With the U.K. SMS service gone, users in other European countries using the U.K. number are cut off as well. Ongoing reactions to the European-wide cut can be found here.
Twitter is now urging its SMS service users to start receiving updates via e-mail, and also recommends various mobile alternatives. Also starting to emerge: Speculation about a premium rate SMS service from Twitter, as in Europe there is a mainstream adoption of extra SMS charges.
"It makes more sense for us to establish fair billing arrangements with mobile operators than it does to pass these high fees on to our users," Twitter's Stone tells the company's U.K. users. Twitter's business is already expanding and the company plans to soon enter more countries across Europe and Asia.
Most mobile carriers in the world charge ridiculous amounts of money for basic text messages so it's no surprise that Twitter had to pull the plug. Twitter tried to establish relationships with mobile operators around the world so its SMS services could become sustainable. Apparently the company did not manage to achieve this in the U.K., but it's not through trying. Some international deals actually bring in some revenue, according to Venture Beat, which could subsidize other regions.
Twitter says it will roll out local numbers for some European users in the coming months, so those who were using the U.K. number may see their service restored. Twitter also says it wants to negotiate with mobile carriers around the world so that users in every country will be able to use the outgoing service. Until then, U.K. and many European users will have to settle for the Web-based service, m.twitter.com, and most smart phone users can install an application for their device.
Ian Paul contributed to this report.
NEWS - www.twitsms.co.uk has already launched to give Twitter fans their SMS back! The site is very simple - allowing users to choose the friends they want to hear from and pay per SMS. From as little as 7pence per SMS (100 texts for 7pounds) it is an affordable way for fans who want to stay connected. Check it out and let us know what you think! You also get 5 free SMS to try it out.
Thanks!
Delia Timms, Co-founder, www.twitsms.co.uk
NEWS - www.twitsms.co.uk has already launched to give Twitter fans their SMS back! The site is very simple - allowing users to choose the friends they want to hear from and pay per SMS. From as little as 7pence per SMS (100 texts for 7pounds) it is an affordable way for fans who want to stay connected. Check it out and let us know what you think! You also get 5 free SMS to try it out.
Thanks!
Delia Timms, Co-founder, www.twitsms.co.uk
Things are about to heat up in the debate over three students' rights to publish a flaw they found in Boston's subway system.
The Web's been buzzing with the news for days now.
The students--from MIT--were set to present their discovery at the DEFCON 16 annual hackers' conference in Las Vegas last Sunday. The group had come up with what they called a simple way to hack into the CharlieCard system, used for fares on Boston's "T" transportation rail lines.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority quickly stepped in, though, filing a federal complaint and scoring a restraining order to keep the students from speaking about the matter. Days later, the full details of the hack hit the Internet as part of public record of the filing.
What's Next
So here's where we're at: A federal judge is scheduled to rule tomorrow on whether to extend the restraining order, currently set to expire on August 19.
The MBTA wants to have the ruling remain in place so it can properly address the security flaw--even though the entire world, it would seem, is already privy to the problem.
Continue reading "Boston Subway Hack Debate Intensifies"
The PDF file you linked to (Defcon Presentation.pdf) is not the confidential assessment. However, the assessment was accidentally filed unsealed with the court, and is now publically available. For instance, a copy is at http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/vulnerability_assessment_of_the_mtba_system.pdf
The PDF file you linked to (Defcon Presentation.pdf) is not the confidential assessment. However, the assessment was accidentally filed unsealed with the court, and is now publically available. For instance, a copy is at http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/vulnerability_assessment_of_the_mtba_system.pdf
T-Mobile USA is said to be offering the first Android based handset for presale on Sept. 17, according to TmoNews. The new development contradicts that the mobile platform could be delayed until 2009.
The Android-powered device will be manufactured by Taiwan-based HTC and will carry the name G1. G1 is said to have a large, 5-by-3-inch touchsreen display (larger than iPhone's 3.5-inch multitouch display) and a sliding Qwerty keyboard for those long e-mails, together with a 3-megapixel camera (iPhone 3G has a 2-megapixel camera). This rumoured handset is previously known as HTC Dream and videos depicting it emerged earlier on the Web.
A curious addition to G1's specs is the requirement of a working Gmail account in order to use the phone's features. Though many are already unhappy with this development, there is no need to panic. Anyone can sign up for a Gmail account now by simply visiting the service's page.
Price-wise, T-Mobile is said to start G1's pre-sales on Sept. 17 for only $150 with a two-year contract (iPhone 3G has a $199 starting price point). The offer will be open only to current T-Mobile customers for just one week. After this period, in early October, you will be able to grab the device for $250 while the full retail price is slated at $399. Further details on the data plans sold with G1 have not emerged yet.
As expected, G1 is supposed to be a 3G-capable device but T-Mobile's high-speed coverage is lagging far behind to its competitors. At the moment only New York and Las Vegas benefit from T-Mobile's 3G coverage. By 2009, the network plans to expand its 3G service to 25 cities.
If the latest rumors are true, we will see on Sept. 17 T-Mobile's G1 going head to head with Apple's iPhone and HTC's Windows Mobile counterparts, the Touch Diamond and Touch Pro. Will you be pre-ordering a G1?
Yup. I'm a longtime T-Mobile customer with a grandfather $20 vpn data plan. I'm already using T-Mobile's UMTS service on a Nokida 3555b in Brooklyn and getting slow DSL speed. The HTC Dream looks like my ticket to a second phone for my wife. The only thing left is to get a usb HSDPA dongle when they come out.
As for the slow rollout. It is what it is. Twenty-five cities in the new year is OK if they run as nicely as their 3G does right now in NYC.
Best Buy announced this morning that it will begin selling Apple's iPhone 3G Sept. 7 in all 970 stores nationwide and in its smaller Best Buy Mobile retail outlets. This is the first national chain to be cut into the iPhone market since the device was introduced in 2007. The deal is a big victory for Best Buy, which has been moving heavily into the cell phone market recently. The nationwide chain just completed a two-year roll out of the Best Buy Mobile brand into all of its stores and now boasts 95 devices from nine carriers.
This is all good news for iPhone fanatics who are still playing the waiting game to get their hands on the device. AT&T stores report , and some Apple stores in New York still have people lining up for one to two hours. Best Buy is hoping the iPhone will attract more customers during the holiday season, and the deal will surely help Apple reach its goal of selling 10 million iPhones. But if Apple can barely keep AT&T stores and its own stores in stock, it seems unlikely that it can handle supplying one of the largest electronics retailers in the country.
Anyone who has ever touched a Windows PC can tell you about how frustrating it is to encounter the Blue Screen of Death. Now just imagine that happening on the global stage.
In case you haven't yet heard, that's exactly what happened during the Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony. While the Olympic flame was being lit, the familiar blue screen with white text was projected around the Bird's Nest.
Yup, you guessed it: The PC used to project the images around the stadium apparently ran into some problems, according to our friends at Gizmodo. One Gizmodo reader points out that the blue screen also makes a brief appearance on the NBC broadcast. Of all the high technology on display during the Opening Ceremony, isn't it ironic that something so mundane as a PC was the one thing that failed?
And no, there is no evidence that Gizmodo was behind this despite their track record for pranks.
Global IP Solutions has released an SDK for developers to create Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications for the iPhone. The company says its SDK can be used to create stand alone VoIP applications or integrate VoIP into games, chat programs and even social networking. However, don't downgrade your AT&T talk plan just yet as VoIP only works over Wi-Fi and not the 3G or Edge network.
Truphone was the first, and so far only, iPhone app out of the gate with VoIP, but with Global IP Solutions' SDK, we will probably see an explosion of VoIP uses for the iPhone.
Yesterday a very large number of Gmail users were locked out of their accounts as Google scrambled to fix a problem with the service some trace back to an upgrade to the Contact feature in Gmail. For Google customers this was the latest outage in a string of many that are becoming all to routine for both free and business customers that pay Google for Web services. Sporadic and mystery outages have angered Google users with increasing frequency.
The good news is Google restored Gmail access late yesterday for most affected customers. It also offered apology. Gmail Product Manager Todd Jackson posted to the official Google Gmail Blog this statement: "We feel your pain, and we're sorry"
But for many Google's apology was not accepted. Messaging service Twitter was flooded yesterday with reports of Gmail's downtime with dozens of posts per second where Gmail users were highly critical of Google's inability to keep its service running smoothly.
Continue reading "Google Gmail Outage Fixed: Users Still Steamed"
As cloud services continue to become more mainstream, we will see this dependency.
According to this article, Gmail is one of Google's top disappointments. It's probably a little too harsh since it does have 100m users but the fact it's still in "beta" is beyond me.
Steve Jobs admits to putting a "kill switch" in the iPhone OS and raking in nearly $30 million in iTunes App Store sales over the past 30-days in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. The article also touched on the absurd I Am Rich $999 application and its disappearance from iTunes with an Apple PR representative, stating it was simply Apple's "judgment call" to discontinue the sale of the application.
Jobs defended the so-called "kill switch's" existence as a safeguard against potentially malicious software. "Hopefully we never have to pull that lever," Jobs said, "but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull."
Besides all this, the App Store is doing great said Jobs. Users downloaded 60 million programs in one month, raking in a total of $30 million, Jobs reports. If numbers persist, Apple stands to make $1 million per day on the App Store. These are remarkable numbers given the ratio of free downloads to paid downloads is at least ten-to-one, according to iPhone app developer analyst Pinch Media.
CREDIT: PC World contributor Brennon Slattery filed this blog.
Broadcaster NBC spent much of Friday furiously trying to prevent computer users in the United States from accessing streaming coverage of the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. Users were able to find streams and downloads on foreign newsfeeds, YouTube and other sites like Justin.tv.
While most of the world was able to watch the ceremonies live, Americans had to wait until the NBC prime-time broadcast of the ceremonies on tape delay. Those who watched via the Internet were certainly in the minority as most people still prefer to watch events like this on television, but some still wanted the experience of watching the ceremonies live.
Continue reading "Olympic Copyright Cops Snuff Rogue Web Vids"
Ah, the Android. Has a single cell phone platform ever created so much conflict?
The latest round of emotion comes over reports -- yes, new ones -- that Google's mobile offering is being delayed once again. This time, a Web site called Barron's Tech Trader Daily published a note from an equity firm saying handset maker HTC is having "structural problems" integrating Android into its devices. As such, the note implies, the phones could be pushed back until early 2009. The document quotes some unnamed "contacts" as revealing the news.
Yawn. This is starting to feel like a slightly more spread out version of the Microsoft-Yahoo merger: a new development every five seconds, none of them with any real substance or validity.
Continue reading "Google Android Delayed Until 2009: Google Saga Continues"
Things aren't getting better for Microsoft's oft-maligned Vista OS - released nearly one year and half ago. Last month, just days after Microsoft's PR machine began bragging nearly 180 million licenses of Vista have been sold, the tech site APC diminished those bragging rights reporting Hewlett-Packard (number one in PC sales worldwide) is still "overwhelmingly" shipping system pre-loaded with XP over Vista.
Dan Warne, of APC, reports HP is indeed selling Vista licenses but preloading almost all its machines with XP. That wasn't a talking point in Microsoft's Vista PR campaign.
Continue reading "XP Sales Still Outpace Vista"
Whoever transcribed the quotation from HP left out a very important fact and then ascribed that quote to the global situation.
The fact left out is the true source of the quote which is in the oritinal article which "said Jane Bradburn, Market Development Manager, Commercial Notebooks for HP Australia."
The quote and figures (not stated of course) are for Australia, not the U.S. and not the world, and even then only apply to machines shipped with a Vista Business license. It in fact does "sell" a copy of Vista. A check on the HP website for this option points out that this option is only available for businesses, including government and educational entities which are expected to purchase at least 25 units per year. A Vista install disc is also included.
Just think, - if Microsoft had only spent that $500 million on upgrading XPs Operating System, instead of an ad campaign about how great the Vista OS is, - what kind of great OS would windows have now?
Just think, - if Microsoft had only spent that $500 million on upgrading XPs Operating System, instead of an ad campaign about how great the Vista OS is, - what kind of great OS would we have now?
Each PC's power consumption is responsible for an average of 1000 pounds of CO2 emissions every year. And there are more than a billion of them in the world. Striving to go green, the technology industry focused mainly on the corporate sector to reduce its power use but now it's the home users' turn to do their bit.
Verdiem, in collaboration with Microsoft and with the nonprofit Climate Savers Computing Initiative, has
released a free downloadable application called Edison that helps users control their PCs' energy consumption. Based in Seattle, Verdiem sells its energy management software to corporations like Hewlett-Packard, and with Edison home users could enjoy the same benefits for free.
Windows XP and Vista already have power-saving settings, but Verdiem officials say that 90 percent of the world's computers have the energy management settings disabled because they are too complicated to use.
Verdiem's Edison gives you access to power-saving options through four main tabs. The first two tabs are used to tweak the settings of the work and non-work modes, with the help of a slider, from "Save more" to "Save less." The third tab is used to set your schedule while the forth gives access to intermediary settings.
As an example, you can schedule your work time between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. with the "Save less" option, which can switch off the display after 30 minutes and the hard drive after 45, while the PC will be always on. But if you're just hanging around the PC after 5 p.m., in the non-work mode, you can choose the "Save more" option, which will switch off your display and hard drive after five minutes of inactivity, while the PC gets suspended after 10 minutes. Edison does not actually shut down your PC, but "suspends" it in a hibernation mode, using less energy. Once you've set up your schedule and your energy saving preferences, the application will silently reside in your system tray without being intrusive.
Verdiem says it has already saved its corporate customers around $28 million in energy costs and reduced CO2 emissions by 400 million pounds. Verdiem officials say that Edison can help home users cut their household electricity bills by $20 to $95 a year for each PC, depending on local power costs and the type of computer they use.
Other free energy management and saving tools are on the market, like Google's energy-saving gadget or CO2 saver. You could just use Windows' built-in power management settings, too. Why don't you give Edison a spin and tell us what you think?
For more tips on saving power with your PC, have a look at this PC World report.
Only a month ago Apple released the iPhone 3G, but analysts are already expecting another big announcement from the company next month. Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, expects Apple to announce redesigns of its iPod line this fall, just as it has for the past three years, as well as changes to the MacBook and MacBook Pro.
But if you're one of the thousands who are salivating over the imminent release of the MacBook Touch, keep dreaming.
According to Apple watchers this design is too far fetched from what we might actually see from Apple.
Continue reading "Apple Rumor-Rama: New MacBook, iPods On Tap?"
I don't believe a touch macbook is as far off as you claim. See Axiotron Modbooks as an example of how the tablet model works in a mac. I think Apple has learned a great deal with the touch track pads and it is not a great leap to extend that knowledge to a full UMM (Ultra-Mobile-Mac).
Headed for Beijing (lucky you)? Not a Chinese speaker? Then you might be interested in an instant Mandarin-English (and vice-versa) phone-accessible translation service developed by Jajah and IBM.
Just in time for the Olympics, the Jajah.Babel service lets you dial a JaJah-hosted number (you don't need to sign up for the company's voice-over-IP service), speak a phrase or two, and get the translation in a matter of moments. The only charge to you is for the airtime.
Of course, that could could get pricey if you're on international roaming rates: The only numbers Jajah gave me Wednesday afternoon were U.S. numbers. (The company said it expects to have local Beijing numbers sometime Thursday.) The numbers, if you're still interested, are 718-513-2969 and 718-513-2968.
I tried out the service just for kicks (since I have no way of telling whether any translation is accurate). When you dial in, you're first asked to specify whether you want an English-Chinese or Chinese-English translation by pressing 1 or 2 on the keypad.
You're then prompted to speak the phrase you want translated. After a moment or two, the service asks you to verify what it understood you to say by playing back a computer-generated version. If you confirm its accuracy, the service then generates a translation.
To me, the Chinese that came back sounded like it had an echo--I would not have been able to repeat what I heard to anyone. But the idea is that you might pass the phone to a Chinese speaker who could listen to the translation--say, a cab driver ("Can you wait here for five minutes?") or a hotel chambermaid ("Can I have more towels, please?"). I can envision many situations where it might well be worth the international roaming charges to overcome the language barrier.
Less than a year after unveiling its tiny, tapeless, and high-definition Vixia HF10 camcorder, Canon has just announced three new high-def additions to its Vixia camcorder line. All the new models use the AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition) format when capturing video to their flash drives, hard drives, or memory cards.
The tapeless Vixia HF11 ($1300) is the same physical size as the HF10, but packs in a 32GB flash drive as compared to the HF10's 16GB drive. Like the HF10, the HF11 also offers an SDHC card slot, which lets the user boost the camcorder's on-board storage by another 32GB. Class 4 SDHC cards are required to capture full high-def video footage.
Canon claims the HF11 holds three hours of footage at its highest-quality video setting and up to 12 hours of footage at its lowest-quality setting. The HF 11 writes video data at a 24Mbps bit rate, as compared to the HF10's 17Mbps bit rate; 24Mbps is the maximum bit rate that can be handled by the AVCHD codec. The new camcorder can also shoot 3-megapixel still images, as well as grab 2-megapixel still frames from video footage.
Also announced are two upgrades to Canon's hard-drive camcorder line: the $950 Vixia HG20 (60GB) and the $1300 Vixia HG21 (120GB). The two hard-drive models replace Canon's Vixia HG10 camcorder. New to the HG line updates is the ability to also record video to the camcorders' SDHC cards; the HG10 could only save stills to the card.
According to Canon, the 60GB Vixia HG20 will record up to 5.5 hours of video at its highest-quality setting, while the 120GB Vixia HG21 can store 11 hours of footage at the best setting.
New to all the camcorders is the ability to output video footage to Blu-ray disc after the on-camera footage is offloaded to a computer. All the new entries in the Vixia line can also print images directly when connected to a printer.
The Vixia HF11, HG20, and HG21 are all slated for availability in September 2008. No hard release date has been announced.
Nikon today announced its fall lineup of cameras, including a refresh of its Wi-Fi model. Due out in September, the new cameras are all 10 megapixels or greater, and most models are available in multiple colors.
A few models in particular have caught my attention--starting with the 10-megapixel, $350 Coolpix S60, which has a generous 3.5-inch multitouch LCD occupying the entire back surface of the camera. Just as with Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch, you can review your pictures with a swipe of the finger; you can also use an editing mode to write overlays onto pictures. This model, available in six different colors, also features Nikon's new scene auto selector mode, which adjusts the exposure of the image by choosing from the most popular six auto scenes; the camera's matrix metering system helps to determines which mode is appropriate based on the image's available light.
Also of note: the new Coolpix S610c, the wireless upgrade to the S52c. For $50 less than its predecessor, the $330 model bumps resolution to 10 megapixels, and includes free wireless access via any Wayport access point. (Wayport replaces previous Wi-Fi partner T-Mobile.) The Wayport deal is notable, not just because of Wayport's penetration at hotels, airports, and McDonald's locations; Nikon's deal with Wayport provides camera owners with free access via the camera through August 2011.
Finally, the Coolpix S710 is noteworthy for two reasons. Its sensor packs a whopping 14.5 megapixels--which will be helpful if you plan to crop into your images. And, it boasts ISO speeds of up to 12,800--a uniquely high ISO. In the demo I saw, the images shot at such high ISO speeds didn't show the noise and softness I'd have expected. Nikon says you can expect comparatively low noise, even at high ISOs, because this model's handling of high ISO speeds has been informed by the company's work in this area in its high-end digital SLRs, the Nikon D3 and the Nikon D300.
Sony's proprietary Memory Stick storage card isn't being phased out, but one of the company's two just-announced cameras comes equipped with 4GB of internal storage.
Pictured above, the 10-megapixel Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700's 4GB flash drive will store close to 1,000 full-resolution photos, and it also has a Memory Stick slot so that users can expand the storage capacity. Sony's other new offering, the Cyber-shot DSC-T77 (pictured below), comes with a Memory Stick slot only.
Both new cameras also have other enticing features going for them. Sony has officially climbed aboard the touchscreen bandwagon with both cameras; both offer roomy touchscreens with 16-by-9 aspect ratios. The DSC-T700 offers a whopping 3.5-inch diagonal LCD touchscreen with a 210 pixel-per-inch resolution; the DSC-T77 offers a smaller-but-still-big 3-inch LCD touchscreen.
Sony calls the DSC-T77 the thinnest model the company has ever made, at less than 5/8 of an inch. The DSC-T700 is slightly thicker, but not by much: Sony lists it as a bit thicker than 5/8 of an inch.
Other than the thickness, on-board storage, and LCD differences, both 10-megapixel cameras have similar specs: 4x optical Carl Zeiss lenses, direct video uploads to YouTube and social-networking sites, face-detection modes for both adults and children, and Smile Shutter, which snaps a photo when selected subjects in the scene smile. Sony is also touting the new cameras' ISO 3200 equivalency for low-light shots, as well as improved in-camera management features.
Both cameras are slated to ship in late September. The DSC-T700 will be available for around $400 in dark gray, silver, red, gold, and pink. The DSC-T77 will cost around $300 and comes in black, silver, brown, green, and pink.
For all of PC World's latest camera coverage, see our Cameras InfoCenter and Camera Buying Guide.
The latest versions of Firefox did not bring any drastic changes to the way people browse the Internet besides a few welcomed features like tabs. Now, Mozilla Labs placed a call to the online community to share their ideas on the future of the Web.
The project called "The Concept Series" is set to track and share future Web concepts submitted by users. "Everyone is welcome to participate" says the Mozilla Labs Blog. "We're particularly interested in engaging with designers who have not typically been involved with open source projects."
Continue reading "Mozilla Invites World to Shape Web's Future"
One feature I would love to have on Firefox is ability to disable/collaspe tables. When it's available I would fully moved to Firefox. Until then I will stick with Opera.
A small start-up company called Inigral is trying to bring back some student-centric functionality to Facebook with one of the first enterprise applications for the social network. The new application is called Schools and will allow students to view their courses via Facebook and communicate with classmates and friends that have opted in to the application.
Facebook users currently can track your courses and communicate with classmates and friends. In fact Inigral already has a Facebook app called Courses, which the company says is the most popular Course Management System on Facebook. Schools is different. The Facebook application is managed by the institution not the students and is plugged in to the school's database giving educational institutions more control over how and what information is shared.
Continue reading "Students Come First Again on Facebook With Inigral App"
Micron is rolling out its next generation solid state drives (SSD) for enterprise server and notebooks. The standout feature of these SSDs is the extremely fast 3Gb/s SATA-based sequential read and write speed that Micron claims will reduce power consumption, increase productivity, and boost performance in servers and notebooks.
The SSD offering will be part of Micron's RealSSD P200 line of drives for the enterprise servers, while the RealSSD C200 is aimed at the notebook market. The P200's read and write speed will be what the company says is the fastest to date at up to 250 Mb/s. The C200, meanwhile, will do a lower read speed up to 250Mb/s and a write speed of up to 100Mb/s.
Continue reading "Micron Adds Lightning Fast SSDs to Notebook and Server Line"
About eleven months ago I wrote about the third-generation FireWire
and USB specs that were on the boards. Recently the 1394 Trade Association approved the FireWire S1600 and S3200 formats,
with the final spec to be published in October. It's out of the gate first, but not by that large a margin: Intel's USB 3.0 spec is expected to be released by the end of the year. FireWire S1600 and S3200 will be backward-compatible with the current FireWire 400 and 800 formats.
FireWire has generally been the Betamax of plug-and-play port formats. It's technically a better format in terms of power efficiency and capabilities, and each generation has seen FireWire with a transfer-speed advantage over its USB counterpart. (That may not be the case this time: the new formats' theoretical throughputs will top out at 1.6 and 3.2 gigabits per second, compared to USB 3.0's target of 4.8 Gb/s.)
An Australian firm called Mint Trading says it will introduce what it claims is the world's smallest projector called the Mint V10 Projector. The 4.9 x 2.1 x 0.9-inch projector can musters up a 50-inch 640x480 resolution image (4:3 aspect ratio) from 5.9-feet away. No word when, or if, the projector will make to U.S. retails shelves, but Mint says Aussies can pick one up next month for about US$600.
Ok, so it's not HD quality, but it's really, really tiny and can hook up to nearly any peripheral, according to the company.
Equipped with an LED lamp, the V10 should illuminate that PowerPoint presentation of yours for up to 20,000 hours. A few added bonuses include 1GB of built-in storage, an SD memory card slot, stereo speakers, and the ability to playback a variety of formats that include MP4, AVI and MP3s should make this wonder from down under a 'must have' when it launches. No word on the battery life (I suspect it's not worth bragging about).
The V10 is not the first pico projector PC World has seen, but it may be the first to become commercially available.
Continue reading "New Pocket-Sized Projector Claims to be World's Smallest"
IPhone users jumped for joy last night, when, for a brief time, they were able to download a tethering application made by Nullriver called Netshare for $9.99 that allowed them to marry their iPhone's 3G Net access to their computer. However, the application was removed from the iTunes App Store within hours of its debut, and as of this writing there is no sign of Netshare on the App Store.
When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone 3G at WWDC in June, he proudly showed how 3G speeds were approaching those of Wi-Fi, but AT&T quickly said it wouldn't allow the iPhone 3G to be tethered.
Continue reading "Apple Quickly Kills Popular iPhone 'Tethering' App"
