High-speed Internet access may be coming to a flight near you. The FCC has voted to allow in-flight broadband, but is hesitating on green-lighting cell phone usage.
Read Story @ ARS Technica
Google the Fisher Price of desktop indexing?
I just installed the beta of Microsoft Desktop search which is part of their newly updated toolbar suite. I have to tell you Microsoft’s version makes Google’s product look like the Fisher Price of desktop searching. The Microsoft product even in its beta stage is highly customizable and has a much more polished interface than Google’s version. Don’t take my word for it give it a spin, the link below will take you to the beta download page.
The end of an era.
It seems IBM is calling it quits and will sell of its PC business. The sale which is estimated to be in the 1-2 billion mark would include desktops as well as notebooks. A year or so ago the giant sold off its hard drive business to Hitachi. For more information visit the New York Times article.
Microsoft Blogging Service?
Microsoft seems to bet set to invade the blogging world. It seems as if MSN spaces is going to compete with Blogger, Live Journal and Typepad just to name a few. It also looks like you might be able to post your blogs from the upcoming version 7 of msn messenger. For more information please visit Microsoft Watch for the following article:
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1733781,00.asp?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535
The problem With Apple
Apple’s problems can be characterized by using to human traits: stubborn and vain. Now if you have ever watched Pirate’s of Silicon Valley which basically covers the rise of Apple and Microsoft their depiction of Jobs fits those two traits as well. Back in the 70s and 80s there was money to be made in hardware. In this day and age the hardware business is a cut throat business with slim margins. The exception to that is Apple, since there is no competition they set the market for themselves. This advantage is also there downfall and inevitable drum beat of their death march. Why do I say this? Well here is my reasoning behind it. In 1991 Apple’s market share was in the range of 9.6% then they dropped to the 2% range last year. The problem is two fold hardware and software. Last time you walked into a CompUSA how many shelves were lined with PC software as compared to Mac software? A lot of this boils down to cost of ownership. You can buy a pretty powerful fully equipped Dell for around $500 and change. In comparison the least expensive Mac an eMac fully equipped will set you back $900 and change. You’re paying a hefty difference for a machine that is not as upgradeable ant not even close to the raw power as the PC counterpart. Now don’t get me wrong I like Apple’s products and their OS is beautiful but their hardware is just too damn expensive for what you’re getting. Their operating system ‘OS/X’ runs on top of a BSD UNIX operating system. If there was ever a chance for Apple to make a mark for itself in the industry it would be now. Since their OS is sting on top of a UNIX kernel it shouldn’t be that difficult to port it to the x86 (Intel/AMD) platform. They would see an overnight boom in Operating System sales and give Microsoft a run for their money in the desktop OS arena. Apple has seen the writing on the wall for some time now but has ignored it. Had they ignored it when they rolled out the first Ipods that were only Mac compatible they would not be sitting on the hottest portable music player on the market. At first it seemed like a way to get people to buy Macs to use their Ipods, but who is really going to cough up thousands just to use an audio player. Soon after the initial release they came out with a PC version of the Ipod and thus began their dominance in the mp3 player market.
Now comes the biggest monster to threaten Apple and if it doesn’t respond to it quickly and become friendly with the PC market, it will sign their own death warrant. The monster is called “Convergence”. What do I define as convergence in the computer market and home? A central computer that controls Internet, TV, Videos, Photos, Music and is able to share that information in multiple rooms and multiple peripheral devices seamlessly. Microsoft is about to pull the rug out from underneath Apple and its Ipod. Microsoft has over the past couple of years been quietly tweaking its Media Center edition of XP and has just released its 2005 version. Now what makes this so special and why do I think this will kill the Ipod? One word “Convergence”, this product finally does it all. Microsoft now has an online store that can rival iTunes and is also compatible with Napster and various other music providers. MCE2005 (Media Center Edition 2005) can run three tuners for TV. Two tuners for Cable/Satellite channels and the third an off air High Definition tuner. All three channels can be recorded simultaneously with its PVR functionality that rivals Tivo’s interface without the subscription fee. If you’re MCE is equipped with a DVD recorder you can press a button and it will transfer anything you have saved with the PVR onto a DVD automatically. The MCE will also display pictures you have saved to it and have the ability to touch them up inside MCE and then burn them to disc or send them to Kodak for printing and shipping it to friends and family all from one easy to use interface. MCE can tune in FM stations and pause and rewind live broadcast just as you would do with TV. Various vendors are signing up to offer services through MCE some of these vendors include XM radio, CinemaNow, Court TV Extra, Audible, MLB and various online downloadable music stores (Music Now, Pure Tracks, FYE, Wal-Mart). Why go to blockbuster or wait for you rental to come in from Netflix when you can just order it and download it online from CinemaNow. And you have the ability to plug in your portable MP3 player or Portable Video player and sync up your songs from you library or shows you recorded on your PVR. Now here comes the show stopper, drum roll please. You don’t have to have an MCE in every room to get the features listed above in every room of your house. Microsoft has engineered a way to use what they call extenders. Extenders are small somewhat inexpensive devices that hook up to your MCE via a wired or wireless network. With an extender you can browse all your music, photos and video from your MCE as well as watch live TV from one of the MCE’s tuners and have the ability to record, fast forward, reverse and pause just as you would from the MCE. Rather than have to buy an extender, if you have an Xbox you can purchase a package that will include software to install on the Xbox as well as equip you with a remote so you can use your Xbox as an extender. It’s this overall focus of convergence that is going to be the Apple/Ipod killer unless Apple responds to this quickly and embraces the PC user as well as its Mac users. If it doesn’t do this and only counteracts with a Mac only solution it will be over for them n short order.
TSS is dead..dead..dead!
Well after a very long a difficult time period during which TechTV was bought out by Comcast and merged with its G4 gaming network, The ScreenSaver’s show is officially dead in my opinion. Once the news came out that the merger was in progress the show slowly began losing all the talent that made the show what it is. The final curtain call was when G4 fired everyone of the set except for Kevin Rose and Sarah Lane, both of which by the way were not original members of the show and were somewhat recent additions to the show. Kevin Rose will no longer be a host as he has just announced but will be working on content for the show. G4 in all their infinite wisdom or lack thereof, have put two of their hosts from other gaming shows as the new hosts of the show. The ScreenSavers has gone from a serious technology show to basically a kiddy show full of product placement that is of no use to any Tech savvy individual. For more information visit the post on Kevin Rose’s website: http://www.kevinrose.com/index.php/weblog/comments/144/
RIP
T.S.S
1998-2004
Pirated software and Microsoft?
Say it ain’t so joe! According to an article over a Tom’s Hardware, nine wav files within Windows XP were created with a pirated version of Sound Forge. If the files in question are opened with a Hex editor one can read the line ‘000-04-06 IENG Deepz0ne ISFT Sound Forge 4.5’. Deepz0ne was part of a hacker group called Radium which has been disbanded for some time now. Don’t know which way this is going to go, but it sure is embarrassing for Microsoft if this is in fact true. Go to the link below to read the full article.
Firefox infiltrates Redmond
Talk about embarrassing yourself, but it seems Microsoft has just done that. In a publicity shot to show MSN search features you can clearly see the browser of choice was Firefox. Someone is going to get fired over that screw up. Makes you wonder how many users at Redmond prefer Firefox over their house brand browser Internet “found another hole” Explorer. To read more about this go to NRG, they have links to the actual articles that display the publicity shots in question.
My Precious!
This just arrived at my local T-Mobile today and I have been waiting for a “Crack”berry with bluetooth that didn’t make you look like a dork while you talked into it. I got off the train and headed directly to the store to pick mine up. This thing is uber-sweet, you have to use this thing to believe it. The one thing that is really cool is the built in AIM, Yahoo & ICQ messengers. The AIM client which is what I use is actually an AOL designed client, at least it behaves like it.
For more information go to the this Blackberry product link: http://www.blackberry.com/blackberry7100/
Opt Out! Malware In!
It seems there is an exploit making its rounds that takes advantage of opt-out links in spam emails. The link sends you to a site where you supposedly opt out of getting additional spam. Instead if you have an un-patched Internet Explorer you are hit with the “Drag and Drop” exploit. This then gives the remote party control of your system to with as they please.
For more information follow the link below to the ARS Technica article.