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Summary Box: Review of Verizon iPhone (AP) : Technet |
- Summary Box: Review of Verizon iPhone (AP)
- Is $3M worth it for a Super Bowl ad? Ask GoDaddy (AP)
- Hackers attack Egyptian gov't sites; Internet back (AP)
- Google launches Android Market for the Web, shows off Honeycomb (Ben Patterson)
- T-Mobile details “3D-capable,” Honeycomb-powered G-Slate tablet (Ben Patterson)
- Sandy Bridge flaw halts sales of affected Dell, MSI and Gigabyte products (Digital Trends)
- Charles Manson found with cell phone again (Reuters)
- The Daily: It's a Second-Rate iPad Magazine, Not a Newspaper [OP-ED] (Mashable)
- Five things to know about Newscorp’s The Daily iPad app (Appolicious)
- AT&T Announces Mobile Hotspot, Expands Tethering (PC World)
- Famous Facebook Flip-Flops (PC World)
- Viacom returns Stewart, Colbert to Hulu (Reuters)
- Remains of the Day: iPad 2--Electric Boogaloo (Macworld)
- Microsoft Office Alternatives: Productivity Software Showdown (PC World)
- Dell, IBM CEOs Push for Gov't Focus on Competitiveness (PC World)
| Summary Box: Review of Verizon iPhone (AP) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 09:05 PM PST WHAT IT IS: The Verizon Wireless version of Apple Inc.'s iPhone will begin selling next week. It will cost $200 or $300 (depending on included memory) with a two-year Verizon contract. THE DIFFERENCES: On the surface, the Verizon iPhone is nearly identical to the AT&T Inc. version of the iPhone. A major difference will probably be network performance — AT&T's network tends to be congested in some cities, while Verizon has wider broadband data coverage in rural areas. But where not clogged AT&T's network can be faster than Verizon's in some places. ONE MORE THING: Apple is likely to release a new iPhone model this summer, though it's not clear if this would arrive at Verizon immediately. For some, this may make it even trickier to decide whether or not to pick up Verizon's iPhone now. |
| Is $3M worth it for a Super Bowl ad? Ask GoDaddy (AP) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 03:18 PM PST LOS ANGELES – GoDaddy.com was almost unheard of six years ago. Then it ran the most talked-about ad of Super Bowl XXXIX — a spoof of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" in which a busty woman appears before a censorship board and a strap breaks on her skimpy top. The spot was so racy that Fox yanked a second airing scheduled for later in the game. The other fallout? The Super Bowl ad rolled out each year by GoDaddy, which registers Internet domain names, is now almost as eagerly awaited as the halftime show. Fox is charging about $3 million for 30 seconds of ad time this Sunday during Super Bowl XLV. So is the gamble worth it for companies? "It's not a bet," GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons says, "if you know the outcome." Online businesses in particular reap big benefits from pitching during the big game. Viewers see the ads, then rush to the Web to see uncut versions of the commercial or snag freebies — and they end up becoming paying customers. Take Homeaway.com, which last year hired Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo to send up the old National Lampoon movies in a Super Bowl ad. (A snooty concierge tells Chase he's booked in the "Napoleon Suite," which turns out to have a comically low ceiling.) The ad, the site's first during a Super Bowl, resulted in a huge increase in traffic, which lets vacationers book rental properties. The new business from the Super Bowl ad allowed the site to recoup 60 percent to 70 percent of the cost. "The rest you're attributing to future value," co-founder and CEO Brian Sharples says. The company is buying time during Sunday's Packers-Steelers game and will save money on production by not using celebrities. It already spent $1 million on servers to handle the Internet traffic bump last year and can reuse the equipment. CareerBuilder's ads helped the job-listing site leapfrog rival Monster after its first Super Bowl ad in 2005. The amount of money billed to companies posting new job listings in the month after the Super Bowl has risen, on average, by 39 percent above the same month the previous year. It's back again this year, despite the tough economy. "What we've found year in and year out is that it effectively moves our business," says chief marketing officer Richard Castellini. And then there's GoDaddy. After Super Bowl XXXIX, it added race car driver Danica Patrick as a "GoDaddy girl," and last year signed "The Biggest Loser" trainer Jillian Michaels. It's already encouraging customers to check out this year's Super Bowl for "our hottest ads yet." Since the Jackson spoof in 2005, GoDaddy has gone from single digits to nearly 50 percent of market share in domain-name registry. On average, the site says, it has picked up 5 percentage points of market share within the first 48 hours after a Super Bowl ad. It posted almost $1 billion in revenue last year. For other big brands, the link between sales and awareness is harder to measure. Most people knew Budweiser before its helmet-wearing bottles squared off in the first Bud Bowl, and most people had tried McDonald's before Larry Bird and Michael Jordan played extreme Horse for a Big Mac. Still, this year, several major companies are returning to the game after absences to save cash or try different marketing strategies. General Motors, which was under majority government ownership this time last year but has since gone public, will try to drum up excitement for its small Chevrolet Cruze. PepsiCo wants to put Pepsi Max back on people's radars as a zero-calorie drink after a year of focusing on community grants. The attraction for advertisers is playing to an audience of about 100 million people all at once. The 68 spots were sold out by Fox in October, an indication that companies are more eager than ever to appeal to the masses. Last year, some spots remained unsold until six days before kickoff. In some cases, the ads can work too well, especially if they're linked to online giveaways. Dockers, a Levi Strauss & Co. brand, promised free pants in its ad last year and ended up mailing out twice as many pairs as it expected. Jen Sey, senior vice president of global marketing, says the strategy paid off by revitalizing the brand and helping the company find new distributors. But this year, it's doing a cheaper pre-game ad and not promising any freebies. "We're taking those resources and spreading them throughout the year," says Sey. And Denny's Corp., whose free Grand Slam breakfast campaign created huge lines around the country last year, is staying clear of the game. It has a new ad campaign that won't be shown during the Super Bowl and won't offer anything for free. |
| Hackers attack Egyptian gov't sites; Internet back (AP) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 01:34 PM PST NEW YORK – Hacker activists started attacking Egyptian government websites on Wednesday, apparently taking them offline soon after the country restored Internet service. An Internet forum run by a loose international group that calls itself "Anonymous" directed participants to attack the websites of the Egyptian Ministry of Information and the ruling National Democratic Party. Neither was accessible from New York on Wednesday afternoon. In a Twitter post, the group claimed credit for taking down the ministry's website and said the group was motivated by a desire to support Egyptian protesters. The same group rallied to support WikiLeaks in November and December, attacking websites of companies it saw as hampering the document-distribution site. The Egyptian government cut off all Internet service in the country on Friday, then restored it early Wednesday. One member of Anonymous, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the possibly illegal nature of its activities, said the number of participants in the attacks was much lower than it was in December. Thousands of young people then joined in attacks on such sites as MasterCard.com and Visa.com — in those cases because the payment processors declined to transfer money to WikiLeaks. But because the Egyptian government websites are much easier to take down, the lower number of participants is still adequate, the member said. The member said the weapon of choice for the hackers is the same as in December: a small program called Low Orbit Ion Cannon. It sends out a flood of fake traffic to a selected website, swamping it if it doesn't have enough capacity. |
| Google launches Android Market for the Web, shows off Honeycomb (Ben Patterson) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 11:55 AM PST The just-launched Android Web store lets you find, purchase, and remotely install new Android apps onto your device, all straight from a browser. Also: Google demonstrates some of the new bells and whistles in Honeycomb, the upcoming tablet-centric version of Android. You can check out the new, Web-based Android Market right here, although some users (including me) were having trouble logging in to the site Wednesday afternoon. (Word had it that the glitch would be fixed later in the day.) Update (3:15 p.m. ET): Looks like it's working now. The online market looks a bit like a pared-down version of Apple's App Store on iTunes, complete with jumbo-sized promos and an abundance of users reviews.
A series of categories sits in the left-hand column of the page, while tabs to the right let you check out featured apps, as well as the most popular paid and free applications. An info page for a given app contains the usual screenshots and user ratings, while users will also be able to recommend the app to friends, watch an embedded demo video (a feature sorely lacking in the Apple App Store), or tweet their latest app discoveries. Click the "buy" button, and an info screen pops up with permissions and access warnings (telling you, for example, whether the app will be tapping into any personal or location data), and giving you a choice of stored credit cards. Once that's all done, just hit '"install," and (here's the really clever part) the app will begin installing itself on your Android device, no syncing required. (A "My Devices" page in the Android Web store will let you name and manage your various Android apps, by the way.) Google also announced that it's finally enabling support for in-app purchases, good for unlocking new "premium" features, buying extra ammo or weapons in a shooter game, and so on.
Google also took some time during Wednesday's briefing to demo Honeycomb, the upcoming, tablet-focused version of Android that'll be powering new dual-core tablets from Motorola and LG. Among the improvements: revamped home-screen navigation, including a snazzy multitasking view that lets you see thumbnails of running apps in their respective frozen states. During CES, we already saw the trio of on-screen buttons in the lower-left corner of the display: one for home, one for back, and another for … something else. Well, that something else turns out to be multitasking, and Honeycomb take a clever approach to letting you switch between apps. Rather than just swiping back and forth between a series of static icons, tapping the multitasking button calls up a column of medium-sized thumbnails showing your running apps frozen in the background; tap one, and it'll jump back to life. Nice. Also new is a rejiggered notification bar, which sits in the bottom-right corner of the display. The new, expanded notifications will show both contact names and images for incoming texts and IMs, play and pause controls for music, and other features depending on the whim of a given developer. Tapping on the notifications bar will call up a pane showing all your notifications at once, which you can dismiss individually by clicking the "X" next to the item. Not bad, but the most compelling new features for Honeycomb lie under the hood, with developers getting a custom toolkit allowing them to easily revamp their apps for use on both a smaller smartphone screen and a jumbo tablet display. That's not to say existing Android apps won't already work on Honeycomb-powered tablets, with a Google exec showing off how Fruit Ninja, a causal game built before Honeycomb even existed, works "amazing" well on a tablet—and indeed, a live demo showed the exec slicing away at various animated fruits and vegetables on the Honeycomb-running Motorola Xoom, complete with a series of multi-finger swipes.
But developers will now be able to funnel the content and features of their apps into so-called application "fragments," which can be exposed, hidden, and rearranged depending on the device and screen size. A demo of Gmail, for example, showed the app running in a two-pane view, with the left-hand pane sliding off the screen to make room for the body of a message. Those various columns in Gmail are essentially chopped up into different app "fragments" that behave differently for smaller smartphone screens or bigger tablet displays (which can also be oriented vertically or horizontally). The Gmail demo also showed off a few other impressive Honeycomb-native features, such as a "drag manager" that allows users to drag a message from the list pane into the neighboring folder pane.
Along the top of the display, a dynamic application bar includes controls that change depending on a given situation—for example, enabling bulk actions if you've got multiple e-mail messages selected versus individual actions for a single selected message. Google execs also showed off Honeycomb's native video chat features, even pulling in Grammy nominee Cee Lo Green (who chose "Lady Killer" as his handle) for an impromptu call. Games in Honeycomb will be able to take advantage of 2D hardware acceleration with the addition of a single line of code, Google execs said, while a new 3D rendering engine, dubbed "RenderScript," will allow for polished 3D graphics. The developers of the PlayStation 3 title Monster Madness showed off a reasonably slick-looking, RenderScript-powered port of the game for Honeycomb, while the hundreds of marching troops in strategy title "Great Battles Medieval" was said to push the Xoom's dual-core processor "to the limit." CNN was also on hand to demonstrate a Honeycomb version of its tablet news app, complete with streaming video and the ability to upload video snippets to the network's iReport site. — Ben Patterson is a technology blogger for Yahoo! News. |
| T-Mobile details “3D-capable,” Honeycomb-powered G-Slate tablet (Ben Patterson) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 06:43 AM PST After getting little more than a fleeting glimpse at the LG-built G-Slate at CES last month, T-Mobile has finally spilled the beans about its upcoming Honeycomb-based Android tablet, including the news that the device will boast a 3D display—well, "3D-capable," anyway. Expect the G-Slate to arrive this spring, T-Mobile said Wednesday, complete with a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, support for T-Mobile's 4G HSPA+ network, and Honeycomb—the latest, tablet-centric version of Android—under the hood. Still no word on pricing.
As for the G-Slate's display: it'll be 8.9 inches, a little smaller than those on the current iPad and the upcoming Motorola Xoom, but bigger than the seven-inch screens on the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the new Dell Streak 7. T-Mobile didn't reveal the exact resolution of the G-Slate's screen, although the carrier promised that it'll handle both 720p video playback and 3D. So, wait—are we talking another glasses-free 3D display, like those on the Nintendo 3DS and the upcoming LG Optimus 3D? Well … probably not, given that T-Mobile says only that the G-Slate's screen is "3D capable." In other word, get ready for glasses. Update: A T-Mobile rep has confirmed that the G-Slate will ship with a pair of anaglyph 3D glasses (think red and blue lenses). In back, the G-Slate will boast a stereoscopic camera in back, good for shooting 1080p-quality 3D video that you'll be able to view on a 3D-ready HDTV via the tablet's HDMI-out port, T-Mobile said. You'll also be able to shoot stills with the rear camera's 5MP sensor, while a front-facing lens (no details on the resolution) will handle video chat. Other details include a built-in gyroscope and accelerometer, 32GB of internal storage, and support for in-browser Flash video. Still to be determined: whether the G-Slate will come with a USB port or an SD card slot, as well as details on battery life. News of the G-Slate comes on the heels of the Dell Streak 7, another Android tablet that went on sale through T-Mobile Wednesday. There's also Samsung's Galaxy Tab, which all four of the big carriers began selling late last year. While the Streak and the Tab are both running on Android 2.2, an earlier version of the Android OS, the G-Slate and upcoming competitors from Motorola and Samsung are powered by Android 3.0 "Honeycomb," the first iteration of Google's mobile OS to be designed specifically for larger tablet screens. — Ben Patterson is a technology blogger for Yahoo! News. |
| Sandy Bridge flaw halts sales of affected Dell, MSI and Gigabyte products (Digital Trends) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 08:50 AM PST
The news surfaced earlier this week when Intel revealed that the CPU is affected by a flaw in the chipset. Now computer manufacturers and distributors are scrambling to address the situation before it spirals out of control. Hewlett-Packard reported that sales of select machines would be "impacted" by the flaws, while Dell revealed that four of its PC models under the XPS, Vostro and Alienware brands were affected, BusinessWeek reports. Component manufacturers are responding as well. Gigabyte and MSI have both stopped sales of affected products while Asus is working things out with its distrubutors, according to PC & Tech Authority. Intel's press release points to a flaw in the chipset's SATA ports — the inputs to which hard drives and optical drives are connected — which causes them to degrade over time, "potentially impacting the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD-drives." With the issue identified, manufacturing has already begun on fresh CPUs. Engadget managed to get its hands on an Intel customer service chat log, which indicates that the product recall only affects "some desktop boards based on [the] Intel P67 chipset." The P67 chipset will typically be found on higher-end systems, as the integrated graphics processor is disabled and a proper video adapter is required. Chips with an integrated GPU run on the H67 chipset, with the downside for power gamers being that they don't support overclocking. No matter how you slice it, this is a sticky situation for Intel. The company fortunately seems to be responding quickly and decisively, and affected customers will hopefully not be waiting too long for the situation to be corrected. |
| Charles Manson found with cell phone again (Reuters) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 06:19 PM PST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Mass murderer Charles Manson was caught with a cell phone behind bars for the second time in two years, a California prison official said on Wednesday. The state bars mobile phones for all inmates, out of a concern they could use the devices to mastermind crimes in the outside world, or arrange attacks on inmates or guards. Guards at Corcoran State Prison found Manson's contraband phone in a routine search of his prison cell on January 6, said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Prison authorities are still investigating how Manson got the phone and who he might have called, she said. Manson, 76, is one of America's most notorious mass murderers who, along with his cult followers, was convicted in the 1969 murders of seven victims, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate, who was the wife of director Roman Polanski. Thornton said prison officials take their cell phone policy seriously, even though one slipped through to Manson. "If you were to visit a prison, we would ask you to leave your cell phone in the car. No one is to have a cell phone in the prison," she said. In 2009, Manson was also caught with a cell phone. He used it to call people in California, New Jersey, Florida and the Canadian province of British Columbia; and he received calls from Florida, Massachusetts and Indiana, Thornton said. Thornton said she did not know if any crimes resulted from those calls. As punishment, Manson lost 30 days of good behavior credit. Thornton said Manson will face a hearing that will decide a penalty for the second cell phone offense. Manson, who is serving a life sentence, was denied parole for the 11th time in 2007. He is eligible for another hearing in 2012. (Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Peter Bohan) |
| The Daily: It's a Second-Rate iPad Magazine, Not a Newspaper [OP-ED] (Mashable) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 11:14 AM PST
News Corp Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch took the stage at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City Wednesday morning to unveil The Daily, a newspaper designed specifically for the iPad. Murdoch has sunk $30 million into the project thus far, and says it will cost less than half a million dollars to produce each week -- meaning that The Daily will cost approximately $53 million to produce in its first year. Subscriptions, priced at $0.99 per week or $39.99 per year, are expected to generate the majority of revenue; Murdoch hopes that, in time, advertising will come to make up half of that figure.
A Magazine, Not a Newspaper
Murdoch and his cohorts stressed that The Daily is, first and foremost, a newspaper. Most content will be released in a single update in the morning, but breaking news will be added throughout the day and could include, for instance, a live feed from Twitter to deliver updates, executive editor Jesse Angelo said. There are two problems with this strategy: one, that most iPad owners don't use their iPads to access breaking news, and that The Daily, in its current iteration, isn't really a newspaper; it's a magazine. Let's take a look at the first issue. A recent study conducted by Read It Later found that most reading on the iPad occurs during "personal prime time": typically, between 8 and 10 p.m., after users have left work and eaten dinner. There's also a small spike in the morning, but otherwise relatively low usage throughout the day. Ray Pearce, VP of circulation at The New York Times, noted similar habits among readers of The Times's iPad app in a recent conversation with Mashable. "Usage is heaviest in the early morning and evening," he said, noting that the app attracted more readers on the weekends than during the week, as well. As such, it would have made more sense for The Daily to focus resources on end-of-day and weekend content -- which, it appears, is precisely the opposite of what it's done. As it stands, the news section is extremely weak. The first edition contains precisely two real news articles, one of which (a story about Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's global address) had been thoroughly covered by all the major news outlets the previous day; the other, about the snow storm currently hitting the U.S., was borrowed from the AP. (The third and fourth listed news articles, one about a prison where convicted murders make kid toys, and another about a late-night doggie disco in Manhattan, fail to qualify as "real news," in my opinion.) In general, there is far more visual content than editorial content, and the editorial content that exists is poorly written. Of the $30 million Murdoch says he has sunk into the publication thus far, little, it appears, has been invested in editorial talent, despite having pulled in editorial staff from admirably well-written publications like The Economist and The Atlantic. The writing also lacks a consistency in quality and a cohesive editorial voice. Molly Young's unauthoritative mandate to "pick stripes" in the Arts & Life section feels worlds -- not a handful of swipes -- away from Reihan Salam's on virtual entertainment; one belongs in Lucky, the other could have appeared, possibly, in the "Talk of the Town" section in The New Yorker. The strongest section is clearly the Sports section. It's also the biggest. Still, it's not anything you couldn't find for free -- and at far greater depth -- on the web.
Multimedia
The Daily's biggest strength is clearly multimedia. It's got a nice magazine layout with plenty of videos, slideshows and clickable graphics. (As for the quality of the videos, I can't say: Every time I clicked "play" on a video, I was met with an error message.) Somewhat counter-intuitively, users must rotate their iPads to horizontal mode to actually view the slideshows. In the future, Murdoch says, full-screen, 360-degree photographs will grace its pages.
Social Integration
Social media was, at best, an afterthought for the developers of The Daily -- disappointing, given the opportunity they had to essentially reengineer the news media experience on the tablet. Yes, one can share articles to Facebook and Twitter, which non-subscribers can view on the web. Yes, one can leave written -- and even audio -- comments in the app (or so it appears; I wasn't effectively able to register), although one won't be able to see the comments in-line with the article. One can't copy text (it's not selectable) to share to social networks, one cannot share to Tumblr, one cannot clip articles to Instapaper, one cannot enjoy live chats with fellow readers, and one cannot surface content that one's friends are reading -- among other things. One can pull up team tweets in the Sports section, but they aren't streaming and lack context.
ConclusionThe Daily is a beautiful, multimedia-rich daily magazine. But I expected more from a product with such an enormous budget, produced in collaboration with Apple's own developer team. Still, I could have forgiven all had the quality of the content itself been better, if it had offered one item I couldn't have found for free, and more intelligently written, on the web. Content is still king. |
| Five things to know about Newscorp’s The Daily iPad app (Appolicious) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 03:29 PM PST |
| AT&T Announces Mobile Hotspot, Expands Tethering (PC World) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 03:15 PM PST AT&T is gearing up for a fight with the impending end of its iPhone exclusivity, and the launch of the Verizon iPhone. No longer able to rest idly on the fact that it is the only iPhone game in town, AT&T will have to be more aggressive about competing with rival wireless carriers in other ways. With that in mind, AT&T is embracing the Wi-Fi hotspot concept and expanding its data tethering program. While there are rumors that the upcoming iOS 4.3 update will add Wi-Fi hotspot functionality to the iPhone, the iPhone is not the smartphone AT&T is introducing the Mobile Hotspot app. According to a press release from AT&T, "The feature will first be available February 13, beginning with the in-store launch of the HTC Inspire 4G. Bundled with the AT&T Data Pro plan, customers will benefit from a total of 4GB for $45 per month." The new Mobile Hotspot feature combines 2GB of data usage for $20 per month, with the 2GB AT&T Data Pro plan for $25 per month for a total of 4GB of data to be shared collectively across all connected devices. An overage fee of $10 per GB will be incurred if users exceed the allotted bandwidth. Asked about the expected hotspot capabilities of iOS 4.3 and how that fits with the new Mobile Hotspot app, an AT&T spokesperson responded simply, "We are working with Apple to bring it to iPhone." To keep things fair and add value for its other data-sharing customers, AT&T is also tacking the same 2GB of data consumption onto the existing tethering plan. Currently, AT&T charges $20 per month for the privilege of tethering, but doesn't provide any additional data capacity. As of February 13, users will have 2GB of data on their smartphone, and an additional 2GB for the data tethering. The moves show that AT&T is willing to compete more aggressively, and might even help ease some frustration by users who feel that AT&T is intentionally exaggerating data usage. However, AT&T's wireless rivals still make a compelling case with their data plans as well. Verizon will offer iPhone 4 customers an unlimited data plan for $30 a month--the same plan which AT&T used to offer, but killed in favor of the tiered data plans it offers now (although some users are apparently still able to get the unlimited data plan back). Verizon will also offer a $20 tethering option for the iPhone 4 which includes an additional 2GB of data usage. So, Verizon is providing unlimited data plus tethering for $50, while AT&T is offering 4GB of data including tethering for $45. At face value that seems to be a win for Verizon, but there is a key difference. The 4GB of AT&T data is shared across all connected devices, while with Verizon the unlimited data is only on the iPhone and the tethered devices are limited to the 2GB. I'm still waiting for the wireless providers to pool data bandwidth for group or family plans the way they do with calling minutes or text messaging--and for AT&T to offer "rollover megabytes". I'm tired of having to pay separately for data on each device and manage the usage and data caps of each. |
| Famous Facebook Flip-Flops (PC World) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 06:00 PM PST In an interview at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco last year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that he has made a lot of mistakes with his company over the years. In response to a question from the audience about being a young entrepreneur, Zuckerberg said: "Oh man, I've made so many mistakes running a company so far. If you can think of a mistake, I've probably made it or will in the next few years." "The Facebook story is an example of if you're building a product that people love, you can make a lot of mistakes," Zuckerberg added. It seems, though, that even when Facebook is forced to back down, it rarely backs down completely. The net result is that, almost every time, a little more of our data at Facebook is made "public." Here's a brief history of Facebook's most notable flips and flops. Let's start in 2011 and work our way back. Giving It Up to Developers Flip: You know that screen that pops up the first time you play a game like FarmVille? The one that asks you if it's okay to give some of your personal data to the developer? Facebook announced on January 14 that it would be giving its developer partners the right to capture your home address and mobile phone number if you say yes at the bottom of that permissions box. The same permissions window pops up when you use your Facebook ID to log in to a third-party Website for the first time, so Facebook's many Facebook ID partners could have a shot at the data, too. Flop: After hearing complaints, Facebook reversed its decision to serve up home addresses and phone numbers to developers and partner sites. "Over the weekend, we got some useful feedback that we could make people more clearly aware of when they are granting access to [their home address and mobile phone number]," Facebook said in a blog post on January 17. "We agree, and we are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so. ... We look forward to re-enabling this improved feature in the next few weeks." Jousting With the Germans Flip: In August 2010, Hamburg's Data Collection Authority questioned Facebook's use of the e-mail addresses of non-Facebook users who were invited to join the site as part of Facebook's Friend Finder feature. Not only did those people not know how Facebook got their e-mail addresses, but it was unclear how Facebook would use the addresses once they were in the Facebook servers. Would Facebook hand them over to partners? Or would it just continue to pester the owners of the e-mail addresses to join Facebook? Flop: Facebook reached an agreement January 25 with Germany in which it backed off--somewhat. Facebook said that it would give the non-Facebook users a chance to opt out of further invitations to join Facebook. The company also said that it would explain to the owners of the e-mail addresses why they were being contacted. Facebook did not agree to stop capturing and keeping the e-mail addresses, however, and it became clear that Germany would have to sue to make that happen. Still More Data Made Public Flip: In April 2010, Facebook decided to widen the set of Facebook user information it classified as public, or sharable with partners or advertisers. Not only was users' basic personal information now public, but so was their current city, education, work, likes, interests, and friends. Privacy groups went into overdrive. In a letter to CEO Zuckerberg, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU of Northern California, and the Center for Democracy and Technology asked that users be required to opt-in to Instant Personalization before their data could be used in it, and that more privacy options be provided, including allowing users to "control every piece of information they can share via Facebook." Facebook insisted that making the data public would make Facebook a more social community and would ultimately benefit users. The reality, of course, was that Facebook--a free service--had simply raised the cost of using the site, not by asking for users' money but by asking for more data that the company could share with its advertising clients and partner sites. Flop: After a noisy backlash, Facebook announced that it would overhaul its privacy settings. During a May 2010 press conference at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California, CEO Zuckerberg said that Facebook had radically simplified its privacy changes: The previous 50 privacy settings were reduced to fewer than 15, and the number of sections in the privacy settings was consolidated from ten settings on three pages to seven settings on one page. In the end, the widened set of public data remained intact. Privacy Changes Make More Data Public Flip: In November 2009, Facebook decided to update its privacy settings, ostensibly to make them simpler and more user-friendly. The changes included the ability to assign certain privacy settings on a post-by-post basis. But as is often the case with changes in terms of service that Facebook announces as being benevolent to users, the revised policy offered a big benefit to Facebook as well. Here's what the Electronic Freedom Foundation had to say about the revisions, in a December 2009 blog post: "These new "privacy" changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before. Even worse, the changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data." Specifically, the new privacy controls set many key personal data points--including the user's list of friends--to "public" by default, meaning that thenceforth anybody could view the data. The changes also completely removed the users' option to keep private their gender, their hometown, and the names of pages that they had become a fan of. Flop: Facebook again relented only somewhat, reinstating a privacy control that hid friend lists on users' profile pages.The friend lists remained fair game for applications developers, however. Beacon" in November 2007 that permitted third-party sites to distribute "stories" on Facebook about users who expressed an interest in a product or service at the partner site. Less than a year later. a group of plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit "alleging that Facebook and its affiliates did not give users adequate notice and choice about Beacon and the collection and use of users' personal information." The suit also named a number of Facebook partners that had participated in Beacon, including Blockbuster, Fandango, Gamefly, Hotwire, Overstock.Com, STA Travel, and Zappos.com. This all happened amid growing discontent among Facebook users over the program. Flop: In early December 2009, Facebook, without admitting any wrongdoing, chose to shutter the Beacon program and give $9.5 million to an online privacy nonprofit, to settle the lawsuit. Beacon remains Facebook's most famous misstep. We Own You...Or Not Flip: On February 4, 2009, Facebook updated its terms of service to specify that the company retained ownership of a user's profile data indefinitely, even after the user canceled an account. The policy change amounted to removing two crucial lines from the Terms previously in force: "You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content." After the Consumerist Website noticed the change and reported it, howls of protest commenced. Flop: A few days later, Facebook relented, admitting it had gone too far and reversing the change by restoring the two lines to the terms of service. A notice posted on users' Facebook pages read: "Over the past few days, we have received a lot of good feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised." Memorial Sites Flip: By 2007 it had become common for people to mourn the deaths of friends by posting memorials to the deceased person's Facebook page. But Facebook's policy had been to deactivate the profile pages of deceased members 30 days after they died. Facebook cited privacy concerns for not allowing the pages to remain as memorials. Flop: After numerous complaints, Facebook changed its policy. Its new privacy verbiage on the issue reads: "If we are notified that a user is deceased, we may memorialize the user's account. In such cases, we restrict profile access to confirmed friends, and allow friends and family to write on the user's Wall in remembrance. We may close an account if we receive a formal request from the user's next of kin or other proper legal request to do so." The Site Was My Idea, but Here's $65 Million Flip: Flipping and flopping have beena big part of Facebook's history since the very beginning. Mark Zuckerberg denied that he took the idea for Facebook from fellow Harvard students Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss after the Winklevosses and their partner Divya Narendra filed suit in 2004. In 2003, the twins and Narendra said, they had hired Zuckerberg to work on their social networking site ConnectU (originally called Harvard Connection). Shortly thereafter, Zuckerberg launched a similar site called thefacebook (and later just Facebook). Flop: Zuckerberg strongly denied that he stole the idea from the Winklevoss twins, and at first he refused to settle. Eventually, however, Facebook paid a $65 million settlement. |
| Viacom returns Stewart, Colbert to Hulu (Reuters) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 06:10 PM PST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Viacom is returning popular comedy shows "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" to online video service Hulu in a deal that will also make other programs available to paying subscribers. Under their agreement, the two comedy shows, part of Comedy Central, will be available on the ad-supported free version of Hulu and on its paid subscription service. Viacom had withdrawn the two shows from Hulu last year amid a series of high-profile disputes over programming fees between broadcast companies and the companies delivering the content. Other Viacom shows, like Jersey Shore, Teen Mom 2 and Manswers, will be also be available on Hulu's subscription service. The two companies did not disclose their financial terms in a release announcing the deal on Wednesday. Hulu, backed by Walt Disney Co, General Electric Co's, NBC, News Corp and Providence Equity Partners, officially launched its Hulu Plus subscription service in November. (Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by Bernard Orr) |
| Remains of the Day: iPad 2--Electric Boogaloo (Macworld) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 04:30 PM PST I spy with my little eye…an iPad 2? Elsewhere, a surprising move in the Google H.264 chess game, and two Apple Stores find a loophole for the Sabbath. The remainders for Wednesday, February 2, 2010, are open seven five days a week. Unreleased Apple iPad spotted at news event (Reuters) Sure, The Daily got plenty of attention at its launch event on Wednesday morning, but not all of the attendees were focused on Rupert Murdoch's new media venture. A Reuters "eyewitness" claims to have spotted an elusive iPad 2 prototype in the wild, identifiable by its front-facing camera and blinding white aura of purity. Greater Interoperability for Windows Customers With HTML5 Video (MSDN Blogs) Google's move to drop H.264 support in Chrome raised a lot of eyebrows. Now help comes from an unlikely source, as Microsoft announces that it will distribute a Chrome extension returning H.264 support to Windows 7 users. Those two rascals! Tune in next week when Google superglues all of Microsoft's pens to its desk in retaliation. Blue Law Apple Stores To Open on Sundays (ifoAppleStore) Due to county blue laws, two New Jersey Apple Stores—the Garden State Plaza store in Paramus and the Tice's Corner store in Woodcliff Lake—have been prohibited from operating on Sundays, making them the only two of Apple's U.S. stores that aren't open seven days a week. Now the stores will open their doors on the day of rest for non-retail operations such as Genius Bar repairs, training sessions, and, naturally, paintball deathmatches. |
| Microsoft Office Alternatives: Productivity Software Showdown (PC World) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 06:00 PM PST We've taken a close look at five of the most compelling alternative suites for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. Three of them are free; those that aren't cost a whole lot less than the $280 price of Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Business--not to mention the Professional edition, which costs $500. Which competing suite is best for your business? That depends to a great extent on what you need and don't need (collaboration capabilities, for example). Read on, and you just may find a winning option. (Clicking on each main heading below--the name of the suite--will take you to a site it is available.) Price: Free Platform: Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X License: Proprietary Three applications make up IBM Lotus Symphony, which was originally launched in 2007: Lotus Symphony Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. A wide variety of plug-ins are also available. Version 3 of Lotus Symphony was released in October 2010. Based on OpenOffice.org code, the software is free. For a fee, however, IBM also offers a QuickStart solution to help companies evaluate the return on investment and feasibility of using the software enterprisewide, including training and best practices. Also available separately for a fee is IBM's LotusLive service for cloud-based solutions, collaboration, mobile capabilities, and more. based on OpenOffice, its user interface has a very different feel. One of the biggest differences that jumped out during testing is that you can have different types of files open in the same window, just in different tabs. For example, with most office suites you'd have to toggle between a spreadsheet window and a presentation window if you're working on both at the same time, but Symphony lets you have them side by side, which is nice. Version 3 includes a good selection of clip art, and we had no trouble opening document, spreadsheet, and presentation files from both OpenOffice and Microsoft Office. Similarly, a word processing file we created in Symphony--complete with bullets and hyperlinks--opened just fine in Office. Symphony's relatively limited set of tools all felt solid, and very similar to those in Office and other competitors. A new chart wizard is especially helpful. One thing that's a little quirky is that Symphony includes its own browser. So, when you click on a link from within a document or presentation, say, it launches into the Web itself, without going outside the application to your default browser. That's not a bad thing, per se, but it does feel unnecessary. Symphony is notable for its strong support for standards, including Open Document Format (ODF) 1.2 as well as those of Microsoft Office. Digital signatures are supported, as are Visual Basic macros. The software supports more than 20 languages.
IBM Lotus Symphony is a strong contender for basic desktop use in word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations, but the software's relatively limited scope makes it less attractive for users who need a wider range of functionality. And while IBM is reportedly planning a paid, hosted version of Symphony, the current lack of mobile, cloud, and collaborative support makes it less useful for teams that need to collaborate or access files from anywhere. Next page: An open-source option Price: Free Platform: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux License: LGPL public license Created as a result of the recent split between Oracle and the OpenOffice.org community, LibreOffice is a brand-new spin on OpenOffice.org that was just released by the Document Foundation. The software includes Writer, its word processor; Calc, a spreadsheet module; Impress, for presentations; Draw, for sketching and diagrams; Base, a database front end; and Math, a simple equation editor. Available in more than 30 languages, LibreOffice 3.3 offers strong support for standards including Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Open XML, Open Document Format, and PDF. A portable version of the software was recently launched for USB, removable, and cloud drives, enabling users to take it wherever they go. As open-source software, LibreOffice enjoys the support of a large worldwide community, including a raft of developers who can be tapped for custom solutions. Hands-on: Given that it's the first stable version of the OpenOffice.org fork, it shouldn't be too surprising that LibreOffice 3.3 feels a great deal like the software it's based on. Much as with OpenOffice, the interface is familiar for those used to Microsoft Office, but also easy to personalize. disagreements between Oracle and the open-source community in recent months, LibreOffice is clearly a better bet than OpenOffice.org for any organization that values open-source software, whether for philosophical or practical reasons. It's also a fuller-fledged option for desktop use than Lotus Symphony is, and the addition of a portable version is a help for employees on the go. True road warriors, however, may prefer to go with a suite that offers more cloud, mobile, and collaboration capabilities. Next page: Online software from a search giant Price: Free, or $50 per user per year as part of Google Apps for businesses. Platform: Online License: Proprietary Google Docs is perhaps the best-known name in cloud-based office software. The free service lets users import existing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, or create new ones from scratch. From there, they can be accessed, edited, and shared from anywhere using just a Web browser. Multiple people can share documents and make changes at the same time, making this a good platform for group collaboration. Mobile options, meanwhile, allow users to edit Google documents and spreadsheets in English on devices running Android Froyo or later and iOS 3.0 and up. For businesses, Google Docs is part of the paid Google Apps service, which also includes Gmail, Google Calendar, and more. Add-ons are available through Google Labs as well as the Google Apps Marketplace. Hands-on: Most of us are familiar with Google Docs for one reason or another, and the service has become almost synonymous with group collaboration and sharing. There's no doubt its cloud-based capabilities are a boon for groups and those who need to access files while on the road. Though improvements to the service's Documents List rolled out in January, finding and opening files that were created elsewhere feels like a bit of a hassle in Google Docs, which requires that files be uploaded and converted into its format. (By contrast, Zoho, discussed on the next page, makes the process feel much easier.) Busydocs program can take work offline.) Standards Supported:
Road warriors and groups that need to share files from multiple locations can, and do, make great use of Google Docs. Those who need software capable of supplying the finishing touches to lengthy or numerous documents, however, may want to look elsewhere, as may those for whom an attractive and user-friendly interface is important. Next page: A Web-based suite with many mobile options Price: Free for individuals; business pricing ranges from free for up to 1GB of storage and one workspace to $5 per user per month for 20 workspaces. Platform: Online License: Proprietary Like Google Docs, Zoho is a cloud-based office suite that's delivered via the user's Web browser. Zoho offers more than 20 different applications for collaboration, business, and productivity purposes. In the latter category are the word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, note-taking and organizer tools that compete most directly with Microsoft Office. All are available in multiple languages. with Google's Apps. There's also a version designed for Microsoft SharePoint. Hands-on: users who need to collaborate or access documents while on the road. At the same time, it even integrates with Microsoft tools and Google Apps, and the offline capabilities could be very helpful. Users who never travel or collaborate would probably be fine with a desktop package, but anyone else would do well to consider Zoho. Next page: Desktop productivity with robust tools and a low price Price: $80 includes three licenses for home and business use. Platform: Windows, Linux, Windows Mobile, and Windows CE License: Proprietary With a history extending back to 1989, SoftMaker Office is a Microsoft-compatible suite with versions for Windows, Linux, Windows Mobile, and Windows CE. SoftMaker Office 2010 is the latest version, and it includes modules for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations as well as a Visual Basic for Applications-like (VBA) scripting language and environment that lets you automate recurring tasks. Support for Microsoft formats as well as Open Document Format and PDF are included in the software, which is free to try. The full version's selling price is still much lower than that of Microsoft Office and includes three licenses for home and business use. Seamless support for the DOCX and XLSX file formats from Microsoft Office 2010 and 2007 is also included. Hands-on: SoftMaker Office's interface mimics that of Microsoft Office more closely than that of any other alternative we reviewed, and each module offers a power-packed array of features. The TextMaker word processor, for example, incorporates desktop publishing features above and beyond the scope of what's found in many other word processors, including master pages, flexible frames, object mode, contour wrap, and kerning. Spell-checking is available in 20 languages, and a built-in address database can help to build letters and mail merges easily. There's also an envelope creator. As with LibreOffice's portable version, you can install SoftMaker to a USB flash drive. Microsoft Office alternatives we looked at had particular strengths to recommend them, we preferred Zoho most on the online side and SoftMaker Office 2010 on the desktop. Zoho's interface and basic features outperformed those of Google Docs in numerous ways, and a raft of additional capabilities were well-conceived icing on the proverbial cake. Those for whom cloud capabilities are less important, however, won't go wrong with SoftMaker, a powerful and compatible desktop offering whose capabilities really outshone the more limited features of IBM Lotus Symphony and LibreOffice. Its price isn't quite free, but it's still just a fraction of what you would pay Microsoft. Of course, it should be kept in mind that several of these desktop packages--including SoftMaker--are decades old, whereas LibreOffice is in its first independent version. LibreOffice also has the advantage of being open source. In any case, all the offerings we looked at are free to take for a test drive. If you're in the market for a new office suite, it will be worth your while to do just that. |
| Dell, IBM CEOs Push for Gov't Focus on Competitiveness (PC World) Posted: 02 Feb 2011 01:50 PM PST The CEOs of IBM and Dell have called on U.S. government leaders to put aside their differences and create a long-term agenda to promote innovation and improve the country's competitive stature in the world. U.S. government leaders are too focused on partisan arguments and not focused enough on emerging competition from China, India and other nations, said both Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell, and Samuel Palmisano, chairman and CEO of IBM during a Wednesday forum in Washington, D.C. The government also needs to focus on its huge budget deficit and address its corporate tax rate, among the highest in the industrialized world, added Palmisano, speaking at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event. "None of us could run those kinds of debts and keep our jobs," Palmisano said. "We are in a financial crisis, so let's wake up and act like it." U.S. government officials seem to stay focused on partisan bickering while other countries are creating long-term plans for growth, Dell said. The partisan fights are "a formula for disaster," he said. Dell and Palmisano were among a group of CEOs that met with U.S. President Barack Obama this week to discuss competitiveness and other issues. Obama addressed U.S. competition issues in his State of the Union address Jan. 25, and Dell and Palmisano both said they were encouraged that the president seems more focused on those issues than he has in the past. During his visit to Washington, Palmisano has had to explain to "people who have never worked in the private sector" why a high corporate tax rate hurts investment, he said. The U.S. government needs a champion to sell an innovation and competitiveness agenda to voters, Palmisano added. The U.S. has several advantages over the rest of the world, but it lacks a leader focused on creating an innovation agenda, improving education and working other competitiveness issues, he said. "What is missing is someone saying, 'we're going to take the country from here to there,'" he said. "Then go out and sell the case. If you can't sell, and people say that's not what we want, then we have what we have today." But John Hamre, CSIS president and CEO, repeated a recent criticism of many U.S. companies by questioning why they weren't reinvesting more of their recently high profits back into the nation's economy. That question seemed to rile Palmisano. U.S. businesses, just like many consumers, have focused on reducing debt during the recent economic downturn, he said. "IBM's been around for 100 years," he said. "I don't want to be the guy who takes it down." IBM continues to invest in research and development and other projects in the U.S., he said. But the U.S. government also needs to realize that it has other countries competing for jobs and investment, he said. "Business can go anywhere in the world, growth flows anywhere in the world, and so does capital," he said. "The question is, 'why would they come here?' not, 'why aren't you spending enough?'" Dell and Palmisano also repeated recommendations made by the Technology CEO Council last October to consolidate its IT infrastructure, reduce its energy use and move to more Web-based citizen services. The government could save US$1 trillion over 10 years by following the recommendations from the advocacy group, they said. Government agencies can save huge money by consolidating their data centers, Dell said. "If [government officials] stand in the way of the enormous improvements in technology ... you do it at your own peril," he said. "You just lose relevance and you fall behind." In some cases, agencies could get a return or 30 percent or more on their investment when they consolidate data centers and take the other steps the tech group recommended, he said. Dell said he doesn't understand how the government budgeting process works. "But I do understand really high ROI," he said. Consolidating data centers isn't rocket science, Palmisano added. "All we're talking about is putting things together and sharing them," he said. Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's e-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com. |
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