September 2005 Archives

Word is out that T-Mobile and Danger, Inc. will be rolling out a new over-the-air (OTA) update for the Sidekick phone. This update, as per the Danger site, is likely to be well-received because it answers several user complaints.

Some of my favorites:

1. The Web Browser will now support Javascript, quite an accomplishment for mobile devices. The Hiptop forums are full of posts where the nontechnical users get Java (which powers every application on the device) and Javascript confused- hopefully this will cut down on that noise in addition to making the web browser usable on modern sites. An interesting test will be to use it on AJAX sites and see if it can keep up. I also wonder how the device handles Javascript pop-ups or other annoyances and vulnerabilities. Perhaps they are filtered out at the proxy server.
2. Text Editing now has Undo! Such a basic UI refinement on PCs will be welcome on the mobile front, lthough I'm sure the beefier smart phones and PDAs have had this for some time.
3. Search text in web pages. I've often loaded large web pages from Google results, only to find myself  scrolling... and scrolling... and scrolling to find what specifically I was searching for.
4. Camera app now supports slideshows and can rotate your images on the phone.
5. Select multiple messages from the email app, allowing them to be moved or deleted.
6. Moving contacts between the Sidekick and your SIM card.

Although it's not listed explicitly, there seems to be some kind of contextual menu functionality added. The page refers to default link actions (by hitting enter) versus hitting Menu and having alternative link actions appear.

Source: http://gigaom.com/2005/09/21/google-made-opera-browser-free/

Blogger Om Malik discovers how Oslo-based Opera was able to maintain revenue while making their browsers free (as in beer):

Well, little digging around, and hounding the Opera PR team, I found out that the decision to give away the browser came after the company struck ìcompensation dealsî with some of the search engines. Apparently, the premier tenant for browserís built-in search window, is Google. ìThe current most important deal now is with Google,î company spokesperson Eskil Siversten wrote in an email. The company indicated that it has similar referral-for-dollars agreements with the likes of eBay and Amazon.

Opera is a very nice browser. I don't know anybody that uses it except for webmasters and people using the mobile version on their PDA/phones, so perhaps the zero-cost will help drive adoption up for this browser with a history of innovation.

Google seems to have declared that size doesn't matter in the latest development in their continual jockeying for top index size position with rival Yahoo!

Quoting Google's Marissa Mayer, the Yahoo! News article reports:
"Mayer said that since apples-to-apples comparison are no longer possible, Google decided to stop listing the size of its index and instead invite Web surfers to conduct the equivalent of a "taste test" to see which engine consistently delivers the most results, Mayer said."

Google initially launched a debate with Yahoo! over whose index was the larger after Yahoo! disclosed that their index had topped 20.8 billion documents. Now that it appears they can't compete on size, they will have to reframe the argument to be about how they use it.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050927/ap_on_hi_te/google_page_count;_ylt=AhapTrRmbPG6fDYizcfg8gFk24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3cjE0b2MwBHNlYwM3Mzg-

Just got an interesting announcement email from SixApart. They are developing a comprehensive upgrade to the Typepad service, to be launched in 2006, which appears to be centered around adding social features.

From the announcement:

Community Aggregation: Gives you the ability to create individual blogs and share sections of them with other users in an elegant and customizable way.

Multiple Streams: Provides a single place to keep everything that is important to you. A record of your life is created by incorporating streams from various media, like music, photos, videos and other blogs into a single customized blog with an identity of its own.

From this language, it seems like they are going to be using more RSS technology, along with some kind of content management and aggregation features. Additional information gleaned from their site alludes to their learnings from LiveJournal and will include permissions-based content management of some sort.

I've always wanted some aggregation features built into Typepad. It would be nice to be able to hit your own site, see outside content that perhaps you want to comment upon, and begin writing. So your site becomes more than a publishing medium; it's a resource for yourself. Kind of like what's going on with the Backpack site.

Sun Microsystems has been making noise lately, directly taking on Dell in their new ad campaign.
Their site features bold ads, and includes an amusing section showing advertisements that
were actually rejected by the magazines in which they attempted to place the pieces.
This buzz is surrounding the launch of several new products featuring x64 processors
that can run Linux, Solaris, and Windows, with the low-end model starting at $745 US.

See their page http://www.sun.com/emrkt/rejected/index.html to view these edgy adverts, including
"100% More Bitchin Than Dell", "Now That's What We Call An Ass-Whoopin", and "Benchmark Studies Prove
That Dell Sucks." The site even solicits new ad slogan ideas along these lines.

Tyler Cowen writes about Google's internal use of market forecasting to create a predictive tool for launch dates and other decisions. Market forecasting uses competitive bidding to determine the likelihood that an event will occur, and on a specific date.

Says Google: "We designed the market so that the price of an event should, in theory, reflect a consensus probability that the event will occur. To determine accuracy of the market, we looked at the connection between prices of events and the frequency with which they actually occurred. If prices are correct, events priced at 10 cents should occur about 10 percent of the time."

Market tools like this have been getting some attention in the media lately as they continue to be applied in new and interesting ways. It's an intriguing model to say the least, though I'm not sure if there are limits to their accuracy when, as in the Google case, no actual money is at stake on the part of the bidders themselves.

John Batelle, among others, mention that some telling Google URLs have been floating around. http://wifi.google.com/faq.html
being the only one that doesn't redirect you to the Google search page, proves most informative.

Many have been speculating about Google using its newly-acquired dark fiber network to create a second Internet,
or to launch its own nationwide free wifi service. While I believe the simplest explanation for that dark fiber is the most
likely - they need that fiber to move their massive datasets around - there is a faint possibility of something very exciting coming
out of it.

Enter wifi.google.com with its beta (of course) download of Google Secure Access. From reading the FAQ, I think the rumor-mill is missing
the point on this one. This IS a relevant, exciting development in and of itself! Secure Access appears to be a simple VPN or encrypted proxy client meant for
users to employ on their laptops when using public, and therefore untrusted, wifi networks. This really is huge because of the security vulnerabilities inherent
in public wifi acccess. The FAQ states that a Google employee used his 20% time to develop this app, which tunnels traffic through a Google proxy server via an encrypted
connection. Does this remind anyone of the Web Accelerator? Let's put privacy implications aside for one moment and trust that Google won't be executing man in the middle attacks
against our data... this could help drive the adoption of public wifi usage, especially for security-minded businessfolk.

Google Secure Access is also reminiscent of the older peer-to-peer proxy networks designed to secure traffic against prying corporate
firewalls. But for those who don't want to be running a P2P traffic app on their machine, thus providing free bandwidth to unknown entities,
the public encrypted proxy model becomes more attractive.

Although it seems that Google does in fact have a few public wifi networks in operation now, and this client is meant for use there specifically,
the FAQ does state that the Secure Access system should work with other networks. It would certainly be exciting to see a large-scale deployment of free wifi,
but for now, let's recognize this small but greatly significant development for its own merit.

It seems the ROKR phone, which I regarded as a tentative and incomplete but reasonable first step in testing the waters of a music player/phone convergence device, has not impressed the tech media and the bloggers.

Keep in mind that this is not an Apple phone, and was not designed by Apple's industrial design gurus. To see the iPod Nano and try and compare the Nano to the ROKR is comparing apples and bananas- there are similarities but there's more to contrast than there is to compare. Instead, the ROKR is a Motorola phone that runs a mobile version of the iTunes software. The distinction is an important one to make- if you view the ROKR alongside other Motorola phones, you see it fits in with their design style. Whether for good or ill is another discussion; I certainly have mixed feelings about Motorola phones in terms of design but they have a solid functional offering.

The ROKR E1 may be a testing of the waters. Perhaps Apple wanted to start small so as to avoid cannibalizing precious iPod sales. Rather than make the huge investment into building their own iPhone, which would have large R&D costs due to the high level of Mac integration that will be required for such a device to succeed, they partnered with an established phone manufacturer so that the risk is not as great.

If the ROKR concept takes off, great. If the market decides that phones are not good mp3 players, the damage will be kept somewhat at bay. But the biggest risk may be in not producing such a phone at all- there are other players in this space, and if the market takes off, Apple risks being left behind.

Put in that light, the ROKR might be good business strategy as a test balloon.

The Apple Matters site is running a contest to help drive forum membership.
Beginning 9am EST September 19th, 2005. until 12 AM October 21st, 2005 any forum
post counts as an entry for the first prize of a Mac Mini and 250 GB Newer Tech miniStack.
There will also be five copies of Hadley Sternís iPod and iTunes Hacks book given
out as a runner-up prize.

A 32 GB flash iPod may be in our future. Samsung has announced that they've
developed a 16 Gb (that's giga-BIT, not -BYTE) flash memory chip. These chips, when
assembled into a flash memory card for use in, for instance, USB keys, mp3 players, or
digital cameras, would constitute a 32 GB (that's -BYTE) flash memory card.

With the positive buzz surrounding the iPod Nano, which at present has a 2- and a 4-
GB version, I forsee a future with larger and larger mp3 devices, sans hard disk technology.
Even more interesting is the proposition that these drives, if made at a large enough
scala that their price points would be affordable, could also go into portable computing
devices and mobile phones, which seem to be held back in part by the power and size requirements
of mini hard disks, and which instead remain in the low-capacity flash realm.

Alongside the Motorola/iTunes ROKR phone announcement came word of another impressive design achievement out of 1 Infinite Loop. The iPod Nano takes advantage of recent drops in flash memory prices and increases in capacity to create an iPod completely based on flash. Yes, we've already seen that with the iPod Shuffle, but the Nano has a full color display and clickwheel, allowing the user to choose exactly what they want to hear.

The Nano is named appropriately for its physical size, but the storage space of 2- and 4- GB is anything but tiny. The pricing starts at $199, making this a nice midlevel (above Shuffle, but below the larger iPods) offering. I wonder what's to become of the hard disk based iPod Minis out there... perhaps they are getting more affordable on eBay this week.

Comparisions

Apple Looking at the detailed specs, the standard iPod weighs in at 5.9 or 6.4 ounces, while the Nano weighs a mere 1.9 ounces. The storage capacity is much less, but the Nano is also capable of photo slideshows on its LCD screen! There is, however, no video-out jack.

Also of interest to those familiar with Apple's ongoing difficulties with battery life is that the iPod Nano cuts charging time down to 3 hours while keeping the playback time to about 14 hours. This seems  a siginificant stride due in no small part to the use of flash memory rather than energy-hungry hard disks.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this product is headed in the future, and I'll be keeping my eye on the ROKR phone as well, posting updates as they become available.

Today, Apple Computer has released the rumored iPod Phone combination device, called the ROKR. At first glance it's quite a nice phone, featuring tri-band international GSM, a small and light formfactor, video recording, camera with zoom and flash. Add to that the iTunes mobile software which at present time can hold 100 songs, and the stereo playback, and you have a nice way of converging audio playback with mobile communications.

The ROKR, made by Motorola, is currently only supported by Cingular Wireless. Rumor has it that the other mobile carriers had problems with allowing the songs to be transferred to the phone directly from the users' iTunes installations on their desktops. The phone has Bluetooth technology, leading to speculation that song transferrence can take place wirelessly (though at Bluetooth's datarate I wouldn't want to transfer any more than the 100 songs this phone can hold!).

This phone looks to be a winner. The advantages of having its desktop sync software already installed on many home PCs, the nice touch of having music automatically pause when incoming calls occur, and a well-laid out interface will make the first iTunes-capable phone a worthy entry into the market.

I've finally had the chance to take a look at the Palm LifeDrive, which I wrote about back in June. In spite of the price, I'm quite impressed. The form factor is pleasing and is indeed a palmtop device. In the limited amount of time I had to experiment, I noticed the navigation is simple, fairly intuitive (at least as intuitive as the Sidekick II) and efficient.

The color screen is sharp, and can operate in both portrait and landscape mode. I entered the media viewer and was pleased to see that playback of video files is sharp and, at least for the file I watched, free of stutter and distortion. I did not have the opportunity to listen to any audio output, but I noted the iTunes-like interface, right down to the brushed metal look of the GUI.

The browser seems like it might be easy to use, but unfortunately there was not a WiFi connection available at the time I was inspecting the LifeDrive.

From my brief encounter with the device, the LifeDrive remains on my personal wishlist. I'd prefer to take a longer test drive to really get into detail and write a better review. Stay tuned; I'll see what the options are for getting that underway.

Okay, so the headline is deceiving in that the time to conserve fuel  supplies has been around for a long time now and will not go away. But the point is, the major media coverage of rising gas prices, at least in my area, hasn't really begun to hit on conservation until now.

But the message is clear: Labor Day weekend is here, when prices traditionally rise to take profit from increased demand generated by the three-day weekend. Hurricane Katrina disrupts our already tight fuel supply. The federal stockpile has been tapped. Critical fuel pipelines are not operating. Prices are rising and there's no end in site.

See: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20050901/bs_usatoday/motoristsurgedtodrivelessasgassuppliesdrop

What can we do? The obvious response is to find ways of driving less.

• Combine multiple errands into single trips whenever possible.
• Anybody that can telecommute, ought to make a habit of doing so. It's always been a good idea, and the case for working from home is becoming more and more compelling with every penny increase at the pump.
• Stay in! Instead of driving to the movies or to an amusement park, read a book, rent a movie at home, play boardgames, etc.  Warning: the side-effect for families might be increased bonding and enhanced relationships!
• Carpool.
• Short trips can be taken on foot or by riding your bike. Side effect: increased fitness and enjoyment of outdoors.

In situations where you can't drive less, optimize your driving:

• In multiple-car families, swap cars so the most efficient car does most of the traveling.
• Adjust your driving behaviors to maximize your car's fuel economy (see below)
• Calibrate! Calculate the mileage you actually get under different test conditions. I've been able to determine just how to drive my car in order to get almost a 5 mile-per-gallon (highway) boost in fuel economy through careful measurement.
• Keep your vehicle's maintenance up-to-date.

Recommended driving behaviours (Source: www.fueleconomy.gov)

• Observe the Speed Limit: Gas mileage decreases rapidly at speeds above 60 mph.
• Remove Excess Weight
• Avoid Excessive Idling (zero miles per gallon!)
• Use Cruise Control
• Use Overdrive Gears

I highly recommend visiting the US Department of Energy Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fuel Economy Site to learn more about how you can save money and protect the environment.