Mereja

Author: John Herrman

  • How Nerdy Is Your City, In Dollars? [Data]

    How much do single mothers in Akron spend on electronics? What about married Chicagoans, without kids, on their phone service? Bachelors, on cable, in New York? If only there was an interactive web app to tell you this stuff!

    Bundle, a strange joint venture between Microsoft, Citi and Morningstar, scrapes data from government sources, Citi customers’ purchase history, and god knows where else. The important thing is, it’s a ton of data, about a ton of subjects: namely, how much different demographics spend on a variety of stuff, from household wares and gadgets to travel and eating out, as well as where they do their spending.

    Some of the conclusions—single dudes spend a shit-ton on cable!—are entirely predictable. Others—people who make between $50k and $75k seem to spend more on electronics than people who make from $75k to $100k—don’t make much sense at all. I wish the data was a little more granular, because then the cheap jokes about indolent losers spending too much on premium cable TV and too little on, I don’t know, “health”, would come so much easier, and cut so much deeper.

    Oh well! Lazy jokes about cities are among the top 20 best kinds of jokes, so we’ll be fine. Fat people who talk on the phone a lot live in place x, and not place y! Now you go. [Bundle via Consumerist]






  • Why Netflix Doesn’t Really Care About HD [NetFlix]

    Only one in 12 Netflixers subscribe to the Blu-ray service, and at just 6% of their total streaming catalog, HD content is “underwhelming,” according to Netflix. Two stories, one lesson: HD just isn’t what matters right now to Netflix.

    For all the marketing dollars thrown behind HD, Blu-ray is still a marginal technology when compared to DVD, the obsoleting of which is taking longer than many expected. That less than 10% of Netflix subscribers opt for the Blu-ray option isn’t that surprising. In the larger context of Blu-ray adoption, this isn’t too surprising.

    What is surprising, though, is hearing Netflix actively downplaying the importance of HD content in this interview with The Wiire:

    PS3 and Xbox users have 1 in 17 titles available in HD, and it’s streamed in 720… it’s not in 1080, and it’s not in 5.1 surround sound or anything…So, the HD experience at Netflix Instant Watching isn’t that overwhelming. It’s a little bit underwhelming. So the Wii folks aren’t going to miss that much.

    Yep, that’s Netflix Communications VP Steve Swasey. His job is specifically to make Netflix sound whelming, without the “under.” And yet, in the context of the Wii, deflation. It’s obvious why Nintendo would talk like that, but Netflix? Really?

    Rest assured, there’s a plan here. Netflix is wrestling with two inevitabilities: HD content will supplant SD content, and physical media for video will die. Netflix knows this, which is why they were willing to go along with Warner Brothers’ irritating disc availability delays in the service of streaming deals.

    By downplaying Netflix’s HD content to help ease their Wii rollout, Netflix is rightly choosing customer expansion over video quality, which many customers wouldn’t even notice. I mean honestly, it won’t be long before recording movies to a disc, sending that disc in an envelope, inserting that disc into a DVD player and sending the disc back in the mail will sound like some kind of Rube Goldberg contrivance (when you put it that way, it sort of already does…), and when streaming video over IP will be the only way to watch movies, so if making 26 million Wii owners feel like their lack of HD support isn’t a big deal is what it takes to convert them into subscribers in your eventual streaming mega-empire, Netflix, deflate all you want. [TheWiire, HomeMediaMagazine]






  • From Wiiitis to Wii Fractures: A Guide to Nintendoid Medical Conditions [Medicine]

    A British doctor was so kind as to write a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, handily summarizing what is known about Nintendo-related injuries. The gist: Your Wii wants you dead.

    The point of the letter was to highlight a new case, in which a girl hurt her foot playing Wii Fit. But in the process, it provides a tidy little history of ways people have managed to injure themselves playing video games.

    • Nintendinitis: This is the classic videogame injury, and one you’ve probably heard of before. This is a repetitive stress injury in the “extensor tendon of [the] thumb,” which you can get from pretty much any game console.

    • Wiiitis: Sounds like something a lot of people have probably just slept off:

    A healthy 29-year-old medical resident awoke one Sunday morning with intense pain in the right shoulder. He did not recall any recent injuries or trauma and had not participated in any sports or physical exercise recently. He consulted a rheumatology colleague. The Patte’s test was positive, consistent with acute tendonitis isolated to the right infraspinatus.

    After just a day with the Wii, this kid was out of commission for a week. What does Nintendo have against healthy tendons?

    • Traumatic Hemothorax: If this sounds terrifying, you probably did well in Latin class. Doctors have apparently documented the cavities around patients’ lungs filling with blood after Wii-related falls. This can kill you.

    • Dislocations: This one is the most predictable of the lot, since honestly, who hasn’t gotten carried away trying to Happy-Gilmore-bowl their way through Wii Sports? And anyway, fake sport/real injury humor is universal.

    • Head Injuries: Wiimote straps may save your HDTV, but they won’t save your kid sister from getting clocked in the skull while you’re playing Zelda.

    • Wii Fracture: This is the new one:

    In the United Kingdom, a healthy 14-year-old girl presented to the emergency department at Horton General Hospital in Banbury (near Oxford), having sustained an injury to her right foot with associated difficulty in mobilization. She had been playing on her Wii Fit balance board and had fallen off, sustaining an inversion injury.

    Apparently, rolling your foot off the side of the balance board—which, really, anyone who’s played Wii Fit has done multiple times—can be enough to crack a bone in your foot.

    So basically your Wii is actively trying to maim you and your children, the end. [NEJM—Thanks, Michael from Medgadget!]






  • LG Arena Max Is Awfully Brawny For a Feature Phone [Lg]

    As we become more aware of the various viscera inside our gadgets, otherwise unremarkable gadgets seem suddenly… strange. Take the LG Arena Max LU9400: It’s almost definitely a feature phone, but it’s got the spec sheet of a Nexus One.

    The Arena Max is a 3.5-inch screen handset with all the iron you’d expect, including a Wi-Fi, GPS and a five-megapixel camera, and a little you wouldn’t, like a 1GHz Snapdragon processor—the same brain you’d find in the Nexus One, the HTC Touch HD2, and the Sony Xperia X10. In other words, it’s a monster.

    But if it’s anything like its predecessor—and these early shots seem to indicate that it is—it’ll be treated to (burdened by?) an in-house OS and UI, most probably LG’s flashy-but-limited S-Class experiment. If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t fret over your phone’s spec sheet this probably won’t matter; if you are, you’d probably just buy a real smartphone anyway.

    Anyway! The Arena Max is expected to launch in Korea soon, with a wide—including stateside—release following right after. [All About Phones via Slashgear]






  • The Inevitable Future of iPad Apps [IPad Apps]

    After launch, It took the iPhone 3G a few weeks to attract its first batch of silly, completely superfluous apps. So how long will it take the iPad? Oh, about -54 days.






  • T-Mobile Finally Moving Out of Deutsche Telekom’s Basement [Rumor]

    Hey, T-Mobile customer, do you have any idea that your wireless carrier is actually owned and operated by German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom? No? Well, ignore everything I just said, because it probably won’t be true soon.

    If you’re interested in why DT would spin off their entire US arm, it’s just a matter of numbers:

    T-Mobile USA has languished under perceptions that its wireless network is inferior and lacks reach, a major shortcoming as customers turn to their cell phones to surf the Internet and stream video. In the third quarter, 77,000 users walked away from T-Mobile USA, while AT&T and Verizon Wireless added millions of customers.

    DT is a conservative company, T-Mobile USA, while massive, represents a fraction of their business, or a medium-sized liability, depending on how you look at it.

    The excision could come as either a partial spinoff, a merger with another American carrier (and not an AT&T or a Verizon—we’re talking the likes of MetroPCS), or an IPO. Whatever happens, we’ll probably hear about it within “the next two months.” [WSJ]






  • Microsoft On Claims of Lameness: It’s the Scale, Stupid [Microsoft]

    After former VP Dick Brass publicly excoriated Microsoft’s management and philosophy in an NYT Op-Ed this morning, the company had three good options: fully discredit his claims, let it pass, or admit shortcomings. Or, I guess, none of the above.

    Microsoft’s response came in the form of a blog post from the company’s VP of Communications. It moves through Dick’s piece point by point, sort of, so we’ll move through his post point by point, sort of.

    Dick Brass accused Microsoft of stifling innovation, and stretching even small projects—like the implementation of ClearType, a font antialiasing feature for Windows—into years-long fiascos. Their response?

    For the record, ClearType now ships with every copy of Windows we make, and is installed on around a billion PCs around the world. This is a great example of innovation with impact: innovation at scale.

    Now, you could argue that this should have happened faster. And sometimes it does. But for a company whose products touch vast numbers of people, what matters is innovation at scale, not just innovation at speed.

    The thing is, all Brass was doing was arguing that this should have happened faster. To say that scale is all that matters is to imply that lots of people potentially using ClearType was what slowed its implementation, which doesn’t really make sense. Scale is obviously—and rightly—important to Microsoft, but I think Brass’s point is that scale and speed don’t have to be perfectly inverse.

    Brass also claimed that elements in the Office team were so resistant to the idea of tablets that they refused to make a touch-specific interface for the suite. Microsoft’s response?

    I’ll simply point to this product called OneNote that was essentially created for the Tablet and is a key part of Office today.

    OneNote is a notetaking application. You can draw in it, and it excels at recording stylus input in various ways. It’s a good app! What it doesn’t do, though, is make using any of the other Office apps any easier to use with a tablet. The first generation of Windows tablet PCs needed a touch Office suite, not a single new app.

    One point where Shaw nails it, though, is on gaming. For Brass to say that the Xbox 360 is “at best an equal contender in the game console business” doesn’t ring true:

    Fact is, Xbox 360 was the first high-definition console. It was the first to digitally deliver games, music, TV shows and movies in 1080p high definition. The first to bring Facebook and Twitter to the living room. And with Project Natal for Xbox 360 launching this year, it will be the first to deliver controller-free experiences that anyone can enjoy-a magical experience for everyone that Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and Time magazine each named one of the top inventions of 2009.

    The 360 is as close to a vindication of Microsoft’s broader philosophy as there is: it was borne of the original Xbox project, which was a response to Microsoft finally identifying gaming consoles as a thing they wanted to do, with a scale that was worth it to them. In the long term, it paid off. That said, the success of the Xbox 360 depended hugely on Microsoft’s incredible patience, which doesn’t do much to shake the perception that the company moves too slowly, which is Brass’ main concern anyway.

    And that’s the core problem here: While you can quibble about anecdotes and details, stories like this morning’s are just illustrations of a problem that’s painfully obvious to anyone who’s been watching. For a company with so much money and talent to be so late on so many things—a worthy followup to Windows XP, a competitive mobile OS, a portable media player that isn’t a punchline—makes it plenty clear what Microsoft’s problem is. Brass just gave it some texture. [Microsoft]






  • What’s In Windows Mobile 6.5.3 [Microsoft]

    The first and only time I saw Windows Mobile 6.5.3 in action, it was a grim scene. But according to Mary Jo Foley, the OS, which is now shipping on a single device, it’s more than a questionable makeover.

    6.5.3’s changes fall into two categories: the UI updates, which are piecemeal changes to 6.5 standard, and the platform updates, which fix some—some—of 6.5.x’s core shortcomings. Here’s the full list:

    Ease of Use features

    * Capacitive touchscreen support
    * Platform to enable multitouch
    * Touch controls throughout system (no need for stylus)
    * Consistent Navigation
    * Horizontal scroll bar replaces tabs (think settings>system>about
    screen)
    * Magnifier brings touch support to legacy applications
    * Simplified out-of-box experience with fewer steps
    * Drag and drop icons on Start Screen

    IE Browser Performance

    * Page load time decreased
    * Memory management improved
    * Pan & flick gestures smoothed
    * Zoom & rotation speed increased

    Quality and Customer Satisfaction features

    * Updated runtime tools (.NET CF 3.5, SQL CE 3.1)
    * Arabic read/write document support
    * Watson (error reporting) improvements and bug fixes

    While it’s not the most riveting set of updates, these features are nothing to scoff at, if just for the addition of capacitive screen and multitouch support. Of course, with Mobile World congress less than two weeks away, Windows Mobile 7 is on everyone’s mind, and if it shows (we think it will) it’ll obviously be the star of the show. Just don’t expect to see Microsoft disowning their current mobile platform quite yet, or really, anytime soon. [ZDNet]






  • TiVo HD Disappears, Making Room For _______ [TiVo]

    TiVo’s website is listing the TiVo HD—the company’s core product—as completely out of stock. This isn’t a retailer we’re talking about here: TiVo is official out of TiVos. Is TiVo clearing the way for new models? Basically, yes.

    The TiVo Premiere, which looks like a minor hardware evolution of the existing TiVo HD, was first shown to the public back in December, when TiVo accidentally sent a manual for the device with an existing box. So, at the very least, we’re probably in for an announcement about the Premiere sometime soon.

    Unfortunately, TiVo letting their box supply run dry doesn’t tell us much of anything new. We could have safely assumed that the Premiere was imminent already, and we still don’t know what—if any—software improvements TiVo will ship with it. And just because one box has been obsoleted doesn’t mean that two couldn’t sprout up in its place.

    So, er, watch that space! [TiVo via Crunchgear]






  • Mystery Motorola Android Prototype Spied In Brazil [Android]

    Our colegas at Gizmodo Brazil got themselves a nice little get: A previously unseen Motorola Android prototype, which was apparently shown to employees of the company last week. So, what is this thing?

    Giz.br editor Pedro accurately describes it as a sort of keyboardless version of the Backflip we saw at CES. The front styling is a bit more garish than the Backflip’s, but the size, general aesthetic, Android build (1.5) and software skin (Motoblur) all fit the Backflip/CLIQ mold. UPDATE: And given the familiar rear styling, we may have a (code)name: The Zeppelin. It’s apparently hitting Brazilian streets within a month—still no word on a US release.

    The more pressing question is whether or not we’ll ever see this phone. Motorola’s now pumping Motoblur’d handsets out through two—count ’em—major US carriers, and as a presumed budget piece, it’d fit nicely in either Verizon or AT&T’s product lines, if they’d have it. But stateside, we’ve got nothing—that the first pics of this prototype device showed up in one of its potential markets, as opposed to its place of manufacture, and that this market is nowhere near the US, means Motorola’s latest may never pass through immigration. Or maybe it will! My breath, it is bated.

    Full gallery and (Portuguese) writeup at [Giz Brazil]






  • This Is What Firefox on Android Looks Like Right Now [Android]

    When I first saw this, I was tempted to call fake. I mean, why the hell is a desktop version of Firefox running on Android? What happened to Fennec? But rest assured, this is real—and actually, very encouraging.

    Explaining the awkward UI, developer Vladimir Vukićević:

    You’ll note that this is the full Firefox interface, and not the Fennec/Firefox Mobile UI; we’re testing with the full interface because it’s significantly more complex than the mobile UI and stresses Gecko much more. So, if the full UI works, then Fennec should work fine as well.

    He goes on to say that in its current state, keyboard entry doesn’t work and the browser is not at all ready for primetime, but that Android has been “pretty great to work with so far” and that development has been “progressing at a good clip.”

    While this is clearly more than an experiment and destined for a wide release someday, he doesn’t provide a estimate of when Joe Android will be able to download Firefox/Fennec/whatever. For now, knowing that it’s more than a myth will have to do. [Vlad1 via AndroidCentral]






  • Verizon Devour Is a Baby Droid With Motoblur [Android]

    Why hello there, slightly smaller Droid! I have so many questions for you. Like, why do you have Motoblur? How much do you cost? When can people buy you? Why aren’t you officially part of the “Droid” line?

    Apparently nobody’s awake in Motorola land right now, so I’ll hazard a guess at answer these questions myself, in order: Because Motorola is inexplicably obsessed with Motoblur, which can make any Android phone feel like a feature phone; less than the Droid, and probably about the same as the Droid Eris ($100 or less); the beginning of next month; and I have no idea, because this phone has more in common with the Droid than the Droid Eris does. But anyway, here’s what Motorola does tell us the Devour comes with, much of which we were fully expecting:

    • A touch-sensitive navigation pad
    • A 3.1″ capacitive touch screen (to the Droid’s 3.7-inch screen)
    • Pre-loaded applications such as Gmail, Google Talk, YouTube, Google Search and Google Maps with Google Maps Navigation, which implies that the software is at least Android 1.6, though hopefully 2.0 or 2.1.
    • MOTOBLUR, and all the social network-y business that entails.
    • An 8 GB microSD card

    What we have here is a competent little phone, shrouded in artificially enforced mystery. Is it worth your time? I honestly have no idea, until we have a price. Here’s the Full press release below.

    UPDATE: Aaaand for a little perspective, here‘s what it looks like next to a Nexus One. That’s a bezelly phone, right there.

    Motorola DEVOUR Brings MOTOBLUR To Verizon Wireless’ 3G Data Network

    MOTOBLUR Service Gives Customers Home Screen Access to Content and Contacts
    February 03, 2010

    BASKING RIDGE, NJ, and LIBERTYVILLE, IL – Verizon Wireless and Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) today announced the availability of Motorola DEVOUR™ in March. Motorola DEVOUR will be the first Verizon Wireless phone to feature MOTOBLUR™, Motorola’s unique Android™-powered content delivery service created to make wireless phones more personal and customizable.

    MOTOBLUR is the first solution to sync contacts from work and personal e-mail services, including Gmail™, with posts, messages, photos and more from popular sites such as Facebook®, MySpace and Twitter. With MOTOBLUR, content is automatically delivered to the home screen and fed into easy-to-manage streams.

    Key features:

    * Touch-sensitive navigation pad
    * 3.1″ capacitive touch screen
    * Pre-loaded applications such as Gmail, Google Talk™, YouTube™, Google Search™ and Google Maps™ with Google Maps Navigation.
    * Android Market™ gives users access to more than 20,000 applications.
    * Happenings Widget – MOTOBLUR automatically pushes status updates, wall posts and photo updates from popular social networking sites to the Happenings Widget on the home screen. Customers can flick through the latest updates and fire back responses using the slide-out full QWERTY keyboard.
    * Universal Inbox – MOTOBLUR gathers texts, social network messages and e-mails into one home screen widget for quick response.
    * Back-Up and Security – Contacts, log-in information, home screen customizations, e-mail and social network messages are backed up automatically on the secure MOTOBLUR portal. The portal also allows customers to use the phone’s fully integrated aGPS to help locate the phone if misplaced. Remote wipe easily clears information from a lost device.
    * 8 GB microSD™ card pre-installed
    * Bluetooth® profiles supported: A2DP, HID, HSP, HFP, AVRCP and GAP

    Service plans:

    * To get the most from Motorola DEVOUR, customers will need to subscribe to a Nationwide Talk or Nationwide Talk & Text plan and a Data Package for smartphones. Nationwide Talk plans begin at $39.99 monthly access, and Nationwide Talk & Text plans begin at $59.99 monthly access. A Data Package for smartphones is $29.99 for unlimited monthly access.

    (EDITOR’S NOTE: Media can access high-resolution images of Motorola DEVOUR in the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.)

    MOTOROLA and the Stylized M Logo are registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office. Android, Google, Google Maps, Android Market, Google Search, Gmail, YouTube, Google Talk are trademarks of Google, Inc. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners. © Motorola, Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.






  • More Apps, More Problems: How the iPad Will Change the App Store [Apple]

    It doesn’t really matter what you think of the iPad itself, because love it or loathe it, it will irreversibly change the landscape of the App Store. Here’s how.

    Apple Will Finally Have to Fix Fragmentation

    Fragmentation in the App Store is a problem already. Even across devices with the same screen size, same core feature set and same product name, you find subtle differences in capability. A first-gen iPhone doesn’t have a compass, so it can’t run augmented reality apps. A second-gen iPod Touch can support mic input, while my first-gen model—purchased just a few months before—can’t. An iPhone 3GS will run a 3D game like N.O.V.A. beautifully, while a regular old 3G struggles to keep a viewable framerate playing Sonic the Hedgehog.

    Part of the current problem is the lack of division between products in the App Store. Developers generally say what kind of device is supported in obvious cases—a compass-based app will most of the time be listed as 3GS-only—but there’s almost no enforcement by Apple, meaning that it’s easy to download an app that you can’t really use. It’s getting to the point that there needs to be separate sections for each device, or some kind of rudimentary search or sort parameter for filtering out incompatible software.

    We’ve needed a fix for fragmentation for a while, and hopefully the iPad, being such an obviously distinct device, will give Apple the kick in the ass they need to implement one. The iPad may run all iPhone apps, but the iPhone will not necessarily run all iPad apps, so assuming downloads aren’t required to be packaged together as dual-mode iPad/iPhone apps, there will have to be a way to prevent purchasers from accidentally purchasing something they can’t use at all on their iPhone. An improved, properly segmented App Store storefront or download system is inevitable; we’ll just have to wait and see what it looks like.

    Data Will Be Freed

    In some iterations, the iPad is a 3G-capable device, and in all, it has a microphone. What it never has is built-in voice capabilities—that is, unless you download them. According to early reports, the new iPad and iPhone SDK has lifted the restriction on voice calls over 3G data (VoIPo3G?). Opening up voice over data services for the iPad could have a larger effect on iPhone apps than on iPad apps, since, you know, they’re for phones.
    AT&T isn’t the first wireless company to allow voice over 3G data, and the iPhone is far from the first phone to support it, but for both to now be onboard with a technology that threatens a core feature of carriers’ business plans is a very, very good sign.

    In-App Purchasing Will Finally Take Off

    The iPad will ship with a book store, but what about all those fancy magazines? (Or to adopt their parlance, “WHITHER THE PERIODICAL?”) If print publications were placing their future success in Apple’s hands, Apple’s just handed it right back. Unlike books, which will be sold directly through an iTunes-style storefront and viewed through a common interface, magazines and newspapers will be in charge of selling their own apps, with their own interfaces, and their own business models. But this could turn out to be a good thing.

    Imagine an icon on your iPad. When you tap it, it’ll open up your favorite magazine, in full color, with magazine-style formatting and interactive content. The app itself is free, but the content is not—new issues come either individually, at newsstand-ish prices, or through a subscription. They will compete with one another to provide the best e-magazine experience. Unique, miniature storefronts, selling content for anything from a single publication to an entire publishing empire: this is the kind of thing the App Store’s in-app purchase system was made for.

    What’s funny about this is that in-app purchases are still App Store transactions, carried out through the same payment system and with a portion of revenues set aside for Apple. Nothing will change except the packaging, but that alone will be enough to fundamentally change the App Store economy, and how we pay for print content. (Increased dependence on in-app purchases could help stem the tide of piracy as well, but that’s another discussion entirely. Soon!)

    Note: Apple may be faced with some resistance in this model, though, since magazine publishers would much rather handle billing themselves, if just for the valuable data they could glean about their subscribers.

    “Apps” Will Grow Into “Applications”

    Apps are small, they’re simple, they’ve got a short title. They’re like applications, but nuggetized. And that’s fine! We call software on phones by a different name than we call software on PCs, because something about the products feels different. The iPad could bridge that gap.

    The SDK has been out for less than two days, so nobody has had time to really delve into the app potential of the iPad. Except, of course, Apple. Steve Jobs spent what probably seemed like too long on iWork for the iPad, a set of $10-a-pop apps that Apple fully redesigned for the iPad’s touch interface which are an order of magnitude more complex than anything on the iPhone right now. (Our friend John Mahoney at PopSci goes so far as to say these are a sneak preview of Apple’s entire future software philosophy. He could be right.)

    Of course, these are Apple apps, so you’d expect them to be executed well, and to use Apple’s device to its maximum potential. But with more screen real estate, more power, serious text entry abilities and a more mature SDK at their disposal, the developers are going to give us apps of an entirely new caliber, not just a new size.

    Apple Will Rule With an Iron Fist, Or Learn to Let Things Go

    With iBooks, Apple is setting itself up for an awkward situation. Apple has strict (if sometimes inscrutable) rules about what types of apps are permitted, mostly concerning appropriateness of content and the safety and stability of the app’s code. The prohibition that always rubbed developers and customers the wrong way, though, is the ban on apps that duplicate the functionality of Apple’s apps, like email clients, new browsers, and by extension, alternative music stores and app stores. These are now joined by iBooks, which is unique in that its actually invading territory inhabited by preexisting apps, like Amazon’s Kindle app and indie favorites like Stanza. So what does Apple do? Do they purge Kindle and co. from the App Store, or mark ereader apps as incompatible with the iPad? The Kindle app is to iBooks what an Amazon MP3 store app would be to iTunes, all the way down to the competing file formats and DRM systems (iBooks renders a proprietary type of ePub file, while the Kindle sells books in a proprietary AZW format), so even if this would be a terribly dickish thing to do, it’s possible.

    The more likely path is a continuation of the gradual erosion of Apple’s tight grip on the App Store. Along with explicit, proactive feature additions like the ones we saw in OS 3.0, Apple’s been letting more and more types of apps slide through the approval process. The Rhapsody app may not provide a plain music download service like iTunes, but it is music that you pay for, in an app that doesn’t come from Apple. you may not be able to download a browser with an entirely new rendering engine, but now you can download a cornucopia of alternative browsers that render through WebKit. Some apps can stream video over 3G now; others can broadcast voice communication over AT&T’s data network. It’s too early to presume, but if iBooks doesn’t murder its competition, Apple could be charting a course toward a more open App Store, not a more tightly controlled one.

    [The iPad on Giz]






  • Monopoly Boards Are Circular Now. Circular! [Board Games]

    For its 75th anniversary, Monopoly’s getting a massive update, pitting brazen and new against proven and old: Circular board or quadrilateral? Cash currency or fake credit cards? This is the stuff of ruined relationships.

    In the monopoly wars, I’m imagining there will be two camps, not four. there will be people who are OK with the circular board and the switch to digital currency, and people who are fine with neither—the purists and the pragmatists. There will be a middle ground in this fight, but it will be drenched in blood.

    I think I might be one of the purists. I get that the new design makes a bit more sense, and that giving players credit cards is less trouble than managing a bank full of cash. But you know what would be even less trouble? A video game.

    Monopoly Revolution will be out in Fall, for $35. And don’t worry—you’ll still be able to find old-style boards, too.






  • Nexus Ones Plagued By Strange, Nationwide Data Outage [Nexus One]

    Tips are streaming in about the Nexus One‘s data problems. No, not those data problems! This is new, and it’s leaving virtually all Nexus Ones without any data coverage at all. What gives?

    It’s hard to say. Tipster Roberto says he’s been in touch with T-Mobile, and got a reassuring, if not particularly explanatory, response:

    I just got off the phone with T-Mobile who transferred me over to HTC Technical Support because I was not receiving data on my phone, opening the Android Browser indicated I needed to contact T-Mobile and add a DataConnect Plan in order to receive data on my phone.

    T-Mobile check everything on my account & appeared ok then transferred me to HTC Technical Support who indicated there currently is a problem with most Nexus One devices connecting to Data Services on the T-Mobile Network and they hope to have it fixed sometime this morning.

    Frustrating to say the least!

    This seems to be the common experience: The prompt to buy a new data plan, the call to T-Mobile, the transfer to HTC support, then the claim that everything will be fixed soon. Some users are reporting HTC reps saying all HTC devices are having issues on T-Mobile, but the evidence—the growing thread of reports from users—doesn’t seem to bear that out. This looks like a Nexus One problem, and a strange one: Without a carrier fault or software update, why would a phone just stop working?

    I’ll let you know when the dust settles—throw your theories in the comments. —Thanks, tipsters!

    UPDATE: The issue has been fixed. Nexus One owners were the only ones affected, though the blame seems to fall at T-Mobile’s feet. To anyone still having issues: just restart your superphones.






  • Alienware’s M11x Gaming “Netbook” Will Cost $800 [Laptops]

    What do you get when you mix a dedicated GPU, 50FPS Crysis gaming, A Core2Duo, an 11-inch screen, and a $800 price tag? An absurd(ly powerful) little laptop, which nobody—and apparently Alienware—is comfortable calling a netbook.

    We first saw the M11x back at CES—impressions here—where we were told it’d hit the market in about a month, for under $1000 dollars. Well, a tipster sent Engadget a little bit of info scraped from the HTML of the notnetbook’s official product page, which is currently holding some kind of “Guess the Price” sweepstakes:

    The Alienware M11x, with over 6.5 hours of battery life and weighing under 4.5 lbs. will start at an amazing $799! Leave it to the folks at Alienware to enable truly mobile performance gaming at an affordable price.

    Er, contest’s still open, folks!

    [Engadget]






  • Amazon Kindle Sales Are Officially Not Embarrassing [Amazon]

    Amazon’s announced its quarterly results for Q4 2009, and they’re pretty good! Lots of dollars, in this here document. But tucked somewhere between the currency symbols and financial jargon was a choice quote from Jeff Bezos, about a little secret he’s been keeping:

    Millions of people now own Kindles, and Kindle owners read, a lot. When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books.

    Amazon doesn’t provide Kindle sales figures. In fact, Amazon doesn’t even provide a Kindle sales ballpark, so “millions” is the most specific information we’ve ever seen about how well their ebook reader, and in turn the ebook reader as a product category, is doing. The answer? Not terribly, but not necessarily very well. Baby steps!

    Assuming their app runs on the iPad, which seems safe, those already impressive book sales rates could go through the roof. [Amazon via Ina Fried]






  • This Will Not End Well for Fujitsu [Blockquote]

    If you say “iPad” to Fujitsu PR director Masahiro Yamane, he doesn’t think about Apple. No, the only thing that comes to mind is Fujitsu’s Windows CE-based iPad, from 2002. And soon, lawyers. Lots of lawyers.

    This isn’t the first time Apple’s appropriated a name that existed before, but this time the story might not play out like it has in the past. According to the NYT:

    Fujitsu’s application to trademark the iPad name stalled because of an earlier filing by Mag-Tech, an information technology security company based Seal Beach, California, for a handheld number-encrypting device.

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office listed Fujitsu’s application as abandoned in early 2009, but the company revived its application in June.

    The following month, Apple used a proxy to apply for an international trademark for the iPad. It has since filed a string of requests with the U.S. Patent Office for more time to oppose Fujitsu’s application. Apple has until Feb. 28 to say whether it will oppose Fujitsu’s claims to the iPad name.

    This isn’t quite as clear cut as Apple marching in and snatching a name from someone, so instead of just paying Fujitsu off, there’s a good chance Apple will actually fight this. [NYT via DigitalDaily]






  • MenuPages App Hits the App Store: Delicious and Free [IPhone Apps]

    Do you live in New York, San Francisco, LA, Philly, Boston, Chicago, DC or South Florida? Then you have no reason not to download this app, which has stunningly complete restaurant listings with full menus for your entire city.

    Since MenuPages doesn’t do reservations (update: it does, though the restaurant’s profile page! But only on select, OpenTable-ready restaurants) or emphasize a social function like Yelp, its strengths lie in its completeness—I’ve got about twice as many proper restaurants listed in my neighborhood on here than in Yelp—and raw information. With MenuPages, you’re not looking up restaurants; you’re looking up specific dishes, usually with listed ingredients. The app itself is minimalist, but not to a fault: listings are easy to access either manually or according to your current location, the refinement tools are just like the ones you’re used to on MenuPages.com, and map/list search results are easy to sort through. And it’s free. SO WONDERFULLY FREE. [MenuPages]






  • There Are No Good Games On Android, If You Ignore All These Good Games On Android [Android]

    It gets tiresome, that old “Android doesn’t have any games!” refrain, especially now that it’s not really true. Disgruntled French site Android HD has compiled annotated video proof of at least 50 worthy titles. See, look! Right there! Fun. [AndroidHD]