Author: matt buchanan

That’s the moral of this NYT story about the bubbling war in mobile chips. They’re expensive to make. And, no one’s better at making them than Intel, whose manufacturing tech is years ahead of anybody else.

Until recently, foundries which manufactured chips on contract stuck to simpler chip designs because that’s what their tech was suited for. But now smartphones, and the chips inside of them, are a BFD, so competition’s ramping up, with $3 billion plants. GlobalFoundries, which was spun out of AMD, is one of the hot-and-heavy new guys, and about to open a massively advanced (and expensive) new plant in Germany. The first chips they’re making? For mobile devices.

Also expensive? Designing chips. The NYT pegs the cost of simply designing a chip at a billion dollars. (Exactly just how much “from scratch” they mean is debatable, since Apple’s A4 chip and Nvidia’s Tegra use off-the-shelf designs from ARM and others.)

Where things will get interesting is when these mobile chips, mostly ARM-flavored, finally start crossing the same line as Intel’s, since ARM chips are scaling up as Intel scales down, and the intersection’s not too far away. And that’s where Intel’s got a chance to really show what it’s made of, since they’re the last game in town that still designs and makes its own chips. [NYT]

If you enjoy 33-page camera reviews, today’s your lucky day, friend, with DP Review’s epic page-turner on Canon’s 1D Mark IV. Solid low-light performance, the fastest full-res shooting on the planet, and they’ve fixed the AF. Video? Dicier: [DP Review]

Well, if you’re sent by Getty Images, the standard issue kit contains: two Nikon D3ses, 24-70mm lens, 400mm lens, 500/600mm lens, 1.4x teleconverter, batteries and memory cards. And you get to haul all that up a mountain!

Basically, all of this stuff, plus two of those giant cameras up there. But on top of all the layers of clothing you have to wear, and you have to stand in place for hours and hours. What a blast! [Pocket Lint]

Talking to the WSJ about the new Motorola, CEO Sanjay Jha had some interesting stuff to say. Like, if Motorola wasn’t poor, they’d develop their own OS. And now that Windows Phone doesn’t suck, they’re open to using it again.

Motorola has been balls-out Android since its resurrection—when Windows Mobile ran into delays, Jha killed product development with the OS to keep the company afloat. Motorola’s less wobbly now, especially since the spinoff, so now Jha’s planning things like using the Motoblur interface with Motorola’s set-top boxes, just like its phones. But it’s still curious to hear him openly step away from Android, the software that arguably saved Motorola, telling the WSJ, “If I had more money for R&D, I’d be developing an operating platform.”

And talking more specifically about phones and Windows Phone 7, Jha says, “I’m open to it…I think I need diversity in our portfolio.” Who needs diversity when you’ve got love? Oh, well, nevermind. [WSJ via PhoneScoop]

Everybody in this photo: Jared Cohen, US State Department; Dave Morin, Facebook; John Cusack; Dean Kamen; Bill Gates; Arianna Huffington; Michael Shermer, Skeptic Magazine; and (sorta) Xeni Jardin, BoingBoing. So, uh, you guys tell us what’s going on here. [BoingBoing]

Apple’s had ambitious TV plans. Standing in the way, industry execs. Apple supposedly wants to offer subscriptions to packages for $30 a month, and to sell shows for a buck. Funny then, what CBS’s CEO said during an earnings call.

The relevant Q&A from CBS’s most recent earnings call, via Seeking Alpha’s full transcript, with my emphasis added:

Doug Mitchelson – Deutsche Bank
And the secondary is just online distribution of your TV shows, I don’t want to belabor it because we have talked a lot about over the last year, year or two, but there is a story out there that Apple wants to try to get prices down $0.99 per episode on the sales side and we are all still wondering if this is a right ad load on the free streaming shows. I mean any thoughts on your comfort level with the business models that are out there online?

Leslie Moonves
Yes, I mean the interesting thing about online ads and once again the reason we are happy we are controlling our own content is the advertising thing it’s sort of a trial in process. And we are experimenting with different ad loads and as you know authentication TV everywhere would involve the same load that is on the network with similar pricing. So in all these, once again, they are all short-term deals and it is a moving target. There are a certain shows that will be sold on Apple for $0.99, I don’t know yet which will be – and we will talk to them about it. But look the great news for us is are we are up in every single demographic category, at the same time we are increasing our revenue from online and other sources. So it all looks good for the future.

The catch, as it were, is that Moonves might not have meant what he said quite so specifically. That is, Peter Kafka’s sources tell him that what he meant is that CBS is “open to talks with Apple,” but there aren’t any specific plans to cut TV shows prices. (In other words, CBS kinda wishes he hadn’t said it, but they’re not saying it it’s flat wrong.)

Leading up to this, the Financial Times has reported on two separate occasions that Apple’s pushing for 99-cent shows, and that they’ll happen, possibly in time for the iPad launch in April. And then there’s the WSJ’s persistent report that Apple’s pursuing $30 monthly subscriptions for packages of TV shows. Which sound nice. Desirable, even, to the point that Apple would sell way more TV shows.

But TV execs thus far—aside from Moonves’ slip here—aren’t exactly bubbling about selling their stuff for cheaper, even given the possibility of pushing a greater volume. At best, we could see certain shows sell for cheaper, like Moonves but they’ll likely be shows that have less “value.” (Like say, Season 1 of VH1’s Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab, which goes for 99 cents a pop right now.) In other words, not Lost. It’s the same reason the book guys don’t like the idea behind Amazon’s flat $9.99 rate for ebooks, or really anybody who produces any kind of content seems to be acting like such a paranoid, entrenched asshat to the average person who just wants to buy digital content cheaply and easily—they don’t want you to think the stuff they make is worth less than it already is. (Though in the case of TV guys, it’s not just losing value they’re worried about, it’s making more money to cover the expensive production costs of quality, hence their hot-on-the-balls desire to turn Hulu into something you pay for, since the ad revenue’s not quite cutting it yet). Oh, and cable guys, like Time Warner, really aren’t thrilled with an iTunes that sells subscriptions to TV packages, which is, you know, the same business they’re in.

Point being, if this revitalized TV segment of iTunes happens, it’s going to take a lot of coaxing, leveraging and browbeating to happen. If it does. [MediaMemo, Seeking Alpha, Mucho props to Peter Kafka]

The guys at 9to5Mac have put together a profile you can install on your iPhone using a corporate development kit that gives you an alphanumeric passcode lock—versus the standard 4-digit PIN-style lock.

The settings profile’s easily removed if you don’t like it, but make sure you don’t lock yourself out of your phone by forgetting the passcode. Also, it’s entirely at your own risk, you know, in case it does blow up your phone forever. [9to5Mac]

Looks like our hunches about what’s inside the next MacBook Pros are panning out: AppleInsider hears that Apple’s got new MacBook Pros running that can switch between integrated and discrete graphics automagically, which exactly describes Nvidia’s Optimus dual graphics tech.

If you remember, the unibody MacBooks from Oct. 2008 were the first to use Nvidia’s GeForce 9400M, a combination chipset/integrated GPU that ridiculously outperformed Intel’s own integrated graphics, and the Pro models at the time could switch between power-saving integrated and beefier discrete graphics, though it requires a logout.

Nvidia got cockblocked from making chipsets for Intel’s latest-gen chips (read: Core i3, Core i5, Core i7), ruling out using Nvidia’s better integrated graphics; Nvidia canned their chipset business entirely. So! Nvidia’s Optimus tech works with Intel’s crappier integrated graphics that are built onto the same die as the newer Core processors, but even more seamlessly than before—the computer automatically switches between Intel’s power-sipping integrated and Nvidia’s monster discrete graphics, depending on what you’re doing. No logouts required.

In the demo we saw on a Windows machine, the automatic part of the tech has some drawbacks—namely, it’s entirely dependent on software to tell your computer which graphics card to run. But Apple’s obviously worked pretty closely with Nvidia on graphics before, so it seems logical they’re doing so here, too. Though I don’t expect we’ll know until the new MacBooks finally arrive, whenever that happens (hopefully, soon). [AppleInsider]

MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka hears that Hulu and its three owners want to be on the iPad, but if it happens—which won’t be soon—it’ll mostly likely be as part of a paid subscription package to get Hulu everywhere.

Technical challenge of switching from Flash to an iPad-friendly format aside (which isn’t a huge one), here’s the bigger question: Would Apple allow it on the iPad as an app, since it would compete with iTunes? (Especially if Apple’s pushing for their own TV subscription plan, why would they somebody else’s TV subscription app on their device?) More likely, Hulu’d have to able to run completely in the browser, where there’s not much Apple could do to block it. But that’s ultimately trivial.

Still, the bigger hurdle is that Hulu hasn’t quite decided how it’s going to move to a paid service yet—they want to keep the main site free, Kafka hears, while charging for the extras, which will most likely come in the form of some package that lets you watch Hulu on multiple screens (computer, TV, mobile). Also, they need mobile rights to shows from content producers. Not work that can be done overnight, or at least in time for the March launch.

But if there’s a video service out there people will pay for besides Netflix, it’s Hulu. At least, if some of the restrictions on back episodes are lifted. I want the full run of Buffy at my fingertips, dammit. [MediaMemo]

I don’t understand Google Shopper. Not because the function—searching for books, CDs, DVDs and more by using the cover art or barcode—is confusing. But because they already have a visual search app built into new Android phones, Goggles.

Goggles does the same thing: You take a picture of something, like a book cover, and it searches for it. I get that Shopper is slightly different, with more of a direct Amazon-competitive slant, since you can bookmark products to buy them later (presumably through Google Checkout).

But why not just integrate that into Goggles? Why the hell does this separate other product exist? Like Fake Steve says, WTF is going on over there? Android and Chrome OS? Wave and Buzz? (Okay, Buzz and Wave aren’t an entirely fair comparison, though try explaining them to a normal person.) Now Goggles and Shopper? Am I just missing something? [Google]

Cafe Grumpy‘s one of the best coffeebars in NY. It’s known for two things: One of the few places that to get Clover-made coffee in NY, and it banned laptops. I was there last Sunday; it’s incredible. People were talking.

That is, instead of staring silently, glass-eyed and slack-jawed, faces aglow with the soft light of a laptop, occasionally slurping coffee, rows and rows of slumped-over humanity. The place was packed. Bustling. Alive. I couldn’t find a place to sit.

It’s a vibe I haven’t seen in a coffeebar in a long time, especially not in New York. (The closet-sized abraco excepted, where everybody always seems escstatic about being there, and perhaps not coincidentally, cannot sit.) People used to go to coffee shops to talk. Read. Or hell, enjoy coffee. Now they’re simply the other place to use a laptop: not home, not work. People sit affixed and silent. For hours. I’ve done it. But there’s no question: Laptops smother the atmosphere. So it’s amazingly refreshing to feel something different, people connecting to people, instead of gadgets.

Which brings us to the iPad. It’s supposed to be this third thing. Bigger than a phone, smaller than a laptop. It browses; it’s got books; it plays video. Can it possibly have a place in a laptop-free utopia? I asked Caroline Bell, who owns Cafe Grumpy, if she’s going to drop the banhammer on the iPad when they come out. Her reply surprised me:

I think iPads would make for some interesting conversations these days because you don’t see too many around yet…plus, they don’t take up much table space nor do they create a physical barrier between you the rest of the world when you put them down in front of you. So, I guess I won’t be adding no iPads to the signs just yet!

I wonder how long that’ll last.

Google’s looking intently at Catch Media, a little company that works on making media cross-platform—that is, make it easy to play music, videos and other media on any hardware or platform.

Catch’s tech lets companies track and move digital goods across different platforms. Right now, they’re supposedly focused on music, and have licensed music from all of the big four record labels. Google apparently started looking at them right after Apple purchased Lala, so it seems pretty clear that Google’s interest in music is more than passing, especially now that Apple’s about to launch a cloud-based iTunes. [Cnet]

More details coming out about Apple’s deals with book publishers, and it looks like Apple might have more leverage over prices than expected. The NYT says that “Apple inserted provisions requiring publishers to discount e-book prices on best sellers.”

Three people “with knowledge of the discussions” told the Times that Apple’s provisions allow it to discount books that hit the bestseller list—maybe down to $9.99, after all—with $12.99-$14.99 as simply a ceiling, that way Apple can compete with bookstores and Amazon’s Kindle that push bestsellers at a cut rate. And if publishers sell a hardcover at a discount, Apple wants to be able to cut the price on their ebook counterpart as well, even if it doesn’t go all bestseller.

Given that the reason publishers were giddy over dealing with Apple was the opportunity to set their own prices, if this report’s true, it sounds like they’re interested enough in creating a viable threat to Kindle that they’ll sell themselves a little shorter than they’d wanted to, just to give Apple a strong foothold in the market. Yep, this is going to be a dirty, dirty fight. [NYT]

Sony’s other new camera is the H55, which goes for the “stuffing a fat zoom lens into a tiny body” party trick (like Nikon’s S8000). It’s a 10x zoom, starting at a 25mm wide-angle. (I’m curious to see what kind of lens distortion we might get here, if any.)

It shoots 14MP photos and 720p video, plus it has the Sweep Panorama found in some of Sony’s other point-and-shoots that lets you shoot a panorama with one sweeping motion. It’s $250.

Sony also is introducing the H55 model, which offers high zoom in a compact design. The H55 camera’s 10x optical zoom Sony G lens with 25mm wide-angle (equivalent) takes better shots from greater distances and of wider landscapes. With a 14.1 megapixel CCD sensor, this camera lets you take panoramic shots in one sweeping motion with Sweep Panorama™ mode. You can also frame and view photos on its three-inch (measured diagonally) Clear Photo™ LCD screen (230,400 pixels).

Featuring 720p movie recording, the H55 model offers Optical SteadyShot™ image stabilization to help reduce blur in photos without compromising image quality. It also adds Optical SteadyShot image stabilization with Active Mode, which lets you shoot smoother movie clips even if you are walking while shooting. Optical SteadyShot image stabilization with Active Mode allows a moveable lens element inside the camera to shift with greater range of motion-10 times the range of the Optical SteadyShot feature at wide end in standard mode-to compensate for camera shake.

The TX5 and H55 cameras share intelligent features including HD movie recording (1280 x 720 at 30p). Additionally, these cameras have a Self portrait timer that automatically takes the shot two seconds after one or two faces are detected, making hand held self-portraits easy. They also offer Smile Shutter™ technology to automatically capture smiles and iAUTO and Easy modes, which make it easy to get the best shot in nearly any lighting situation.

To give customers greater choice and enhance the overall customer experience, the TX5 and H55 cameras feature a memory card slot compatible with both Memory Stick® (PRO Duo™) and class-four and above SD/SDHC formats.

Pricing and Availability
The TX5 camera will be available in silver, black, pink, green, and red this April for about $350, and the H55 camera will be available in black and silver this April for about $250. Pre-sales begin in February.

Even if you hate Apple, you can’t deny they set the tone. The WSJ reports that while HP announced their Slate first, they waited for the iPad unveil to make changes, like the price—which they plan to undercut.

HP wants to come in under $630 for their full Windows 7 Slate. A tall order, considering that even Asus and MSI, skilled as they are in the art of undercutting, furrowed their collective brows at the iPad’s cheaper-than-expected pricing.

And apparently Acer’s already backtracking on their promise not to make iPad competitors, with Sumit Agnihotry, a marketing veep at Acer telling the WSJ that working on stuff in between a phone and laptop, and that “Acer plans to introduce possibly more iPad-like devices.” Then there’s Dell, who found via consumer research what they really want is a five-inch slate for browsing. So voila. Let’s not forget JooJoo or Lenovo, either. And Super Kindle!

Oh, this is going to be a fucking mess. [WSJ]

The iPhone app reMail is email search the way it should be:

iPhone mail search is fine. reMail iPhone mail search is actually good, if it works for you. Two things: there’s no Exchange support (sorry suits!), and there’s only support for one account at a time. But within that one IMAP or POP account, reMail archives all your message text as far back as you want, letting you search full text-not just subjects-without a network connection.

But now it’s gone from the App Store, because Google just bought the company, and its developer, Gabor Cselle, is now a Gmail product manager (he actually got his start working on Gmail).

Since Google and Cselle went so far as to pull the app from the App Store, you have to wonder what’s next. [Gabor Cselle via TechCrunch]

In beta for a while, HBO Go has launched: It’s a streaming site with access to over 600 hours of HBO programming, from original series like Big Love to Watchmen. The catch? You already have to be an HBO subscriber. Dumb.

You also have to have the right cable provider to have access (right now, Comcast or Verizon FiOS). (Update: Comcast people might be redirected to Fancast, but the same video’s available there. It should switch to the HBO site in the day or two.) The idea is that it gives subscribers more options to watch stuff, not to let everybody get some HBO action. HBO thinks of it like HBO On Demand, but able to offer 4x the content that they could On Demand, not a way to pull in new people. That is, even if I want to pay HBO $15 a month to get their awesome content, I can’t. Even though they’re tight with cable operators, seems like a missed opportunity—HBO is the kind of TV people might actually want to pay for.

Though for now, the amount of content has some serious holes—where the hell is True Blood, for instance? So even if you could subscribe to HBO online only, right now it wouldn’t quite be worth it anyway. [HBO, Bits]

Samsung’s the biggest TV maker in the world. It beat Sony 4 years ago. But it’s getting even bigger. Soon it will pass 20 percent marketshare, which the WSJ points out is “a threshold not reached by any manufacturer since the earliest days of the industry more than 60 years ago.” Think about that.

Also interesting! Number two is LG. Together, today, they make over 30 percent of TVs. (They actually make the TVs, too, instead of outsourcing the crap out of components.) They’ll own more than a third of the market soon. Seoulpower. Korea is the new Japan. [WSJ]