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Google Chrome 4: Yes, it's fast, but is it usable?
As Betanews readers have responded to our stories about Chrome's JavaScript superiority...Does that mean we'd actually use this browser? Well...
Verizon Wireless launches new Android, Chocolate, and ruggedized phones
The lower-priced Eris joins the Droid, while the Chocolate gets a touchscreen and more music playback.
Early sales figures for Windows 7 nicely high, but do we know why?
Fans of triple-digit surges in figures quoted by Betanews will love this one, as it appears Microsoft rediscovered how to pull off a software launch.
Myka announces its latest Linux-based 'net top box'
Myka's ION brings Boxee, XMBC, and much more to HDTVs.
What hath Mac wrought? A remembrance after a quarter-century
The reason there's a Macintosh today is not because of some brilliant flash of engineering genius, but because Apple had the audacity to learn from its mistakes.
Early build of Moblin 2.1 improves connectivity, but not device support
The Linux Foundation's Atom-centric OS yesterday received a major overhaul with the project release of Moblin 2.1 for netbooks and nettops.
The iPhone's China syndrome: Sales of 5,000 and climbing
There's actually a country where Apple's device is not a godsend, where sales can be measured in the dozens.
New European counterpart to FCC will ensure 'a more neutral net'
Late Thursday night, the ruling telecom administrators of the EU's member nations signed away their final authority to a new entity overseen by the EC.
Sophos study suggests Windows 7 UAC's default setting is self-defeating
Without any anti-virus installed, a Sophos test showed, User Account Control was only capable of thwarting just one malware package out of ten samples chosen.
Indiscreet tweet trips awareness of Web SSL vulnerability
A group of high-level security engineers had been making progress on thwarting a low-level threat to the Web, until somebody blurted it all out on Twitter.
Myka announces its latest Linux-based 'net top box'
By Tim Conneally on November 6, 2009, 5:45 PM
3 Comments
Early in the summer, IPTV startup Myka delivered an impressive Linux-based device which was not quite a set-top box and not quite a home theater PC (HTPC). Though the device's identity was sort of nebulous, the company's goal was crystal clear: to easily make the tons of different types of Internet video content viewable on the TV.
This week, the company has announced its second device, the Myka ION, which pushes itself up against the HTPC category. Because it's equipped with a 1.6 GHz dual core Intel Atom 330 CPU, it could even be called a "net-top box."
Continue reading Myka announces its latest Linux-based 'net top box'...
Video: Netflix on PlayStation 3
By Tim Conneally on November 6, 2009, 2:52 PM
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As a PlayStation 3 owner, I did not have the luxury of Netflix Instant streaming through my video game console until today. Now, with the aid of Blu-ray's BD-Live and a free Netflix disc which must remain loaded in the PS3, I now have access to an experience similar to the one Xbox Live Gold subscribers had on their 360s.
These discs shipped out to subscribers this week and started landing in mailboxes today.
Apple's App Store hits 100K apps: News or rhetoric?
By Tim Conneally on November 4, 2009, 2:19 PM
23 Comments
Apple today announced that its App store has more than 100,000 apps available for download and use on the iPhone and iPod Touch. The number of applications available on the platform has been a major selling point for Apple's iPhone, and the company has made sure to keep the public informed when its catalog grows. In July, the company announced when it had hit 65,000 available apps; and In September, it let us know when it had exceeded 85,000.
In fact, ever since July 2008, when the App Store debuted with only 500 apps, the number of available applications has been used as a running tally to illustrate how much more viable a platform the iPhone is than its competitors.
Continue reading Apple's App Store hits 100K apps: News or rhetoric?...
CinemaNow streaming movies coming to Best Buy
By Tim Conneally on November 3, 2009, 2:22 PM
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It was a short couple of weeks ago that Best Buy announced it had partnered with Netflix to equip its in-house brand of Insignia connected Blu-Ray players with support for Netflix Instant streaming like Sony, LG, and Samsung all had done to their own players.
Now, Best Buy is following the lead of companies like TiVo, LG, and, Pioneer by partnering with Sonic Solutions to include CinemaNow streaming in more devices. The company says CinemaNow will become a standard feature in "connected consumer electronics devices sold throughout US Best Buy retail stores," and online.
Continue reading CinemaNow streaming movies coming to Best Buy...
Verizon's Droid claims 10,000 apps, graphics co-processor, and 'a map for that'
By Jacqueline Emigh on October 29, 2009, 4:18 PM
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At a sneak preview in New York City on Thursday night, execs from Verizon Wireless, Motorola, and Google gave reporters from Betanews and elsewhere a point-by-point illustration, supported by a few of Android's 10,000-plus apps. They also showed off some features not even mentioned in Verizon's anti-iPhone marketing blitz: a stellar 3.7-inch high res display, turn-by-turn GPS voice navigation with Google Latitude and Street Views, and innovative peripherals like a car mount and multimedia station.
In a scathing new ad campaign, Verizon takes aim at everything Apple's rival iPhone doesn't do. "iDon't have a real keyboard," according to an ad. "iDon't run simultaneous apps," and so on, and so forth.
Continue reading Verizon's Droid claims 10,000 apps, graphics co-processor, and 'a map for that'...
Nintendo makes DSi screens bigger than competitors
By Tim Conneally on October 29, 2009, 2:23 PM
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This morning, Nintendo announced the third upgrade to the DS family, the DSi LL (or DSi XL), will be released in Japan on November 21, one year after the DSi debuted, for ¥20,000 (approx. $220). The LL's main improvement is the size of its screens, which have been increased from 3.25" to 4.2" with a moderate increase to the size of the chassis. The device also includes a much bigger stylus, which looks to be the size of a ballpoint pen, and battery life has reportedly been increased to five hours at maximum screen brightness.
Handheld gaming has been a strong suit for Nintendo since the early '80s, and it has consistently led the category despite the constant string of capable competitors touting higher quality or more innovative portable gaming platforms. Of Atari, Sega, NEC, Tiger, Bandai, SNK, and a handful of other notables, few video game and toy companies have been able to engage the handheld market for more than a single generation.
Continue reading Nintendo makes DSi screens bigger than competitors...
Bad Vista-to-Windows 7 upgrade experiences #1: 'Hosed' Intel SSDs
By Scott M. Fulton, III on October 28, 2009, 12:05 PM
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Although we had good reason to expect that most folks' experiences with Windows 7 upgrades this past week would be, as we put it, "without the crap," the exceptions are starting to show up. One of the more serious cases involves Intel, which has withdrawn its latest solid-state drive firmware update after multiple reports from disgruntled users of complete storage system failure following their Windows 7 upgrades.
The new firmware, along with Windows 7, was supposed to support a new internal file management methodology called TRIM. Its purpose was to compensate for a problem typical of memory-based storage, as opposed to traditional magnetic disks: Since memory systems must keep track of their contents even some of those contents aren't really in use, over time, SSDs' performance can lag. While traditional disks don't have to retain a memory of the contents of sectors pointing to "deleted" files, SSDs do...and they can't wipe the contents of those sectors individually. Instead, they have to wait until entire blocks become disused -- which happens less and less often as drives become more and more fragmented. TRIM was supposed to overcome that deficiency with a kind of self-optimizing mechanism, letting SSDs wipe blocks more often, thus overcoming lags and keeping performance levels high over time.
Continue reading Bad Vista-to-Windows 7 upgrade experiences #1: 'Hosed' Intel SSDs...
All the right moves: Roku's Netflix streamer branches out
By Tim Conneally on October 27, 2009, 12:06 PM
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One of the major attractions of the Netflix Instant streaming service is its low cost of entry. For $9 a month, subscribers have access to a substantial and ever-growing library of content on their PC, available whenever they have a connection and some time to spare. And if a subscriber wanted to view that content on his HDTV, he can do so through game consoles, DVRs, connected optical media players, and of course, through the branded Netflix player by Roku which debuted in spring 2008.
The $99 streaming device certainly proved to be a breakout hit for Roku, providing the simplest, cheapest, and most elegant way to access Netflix Instant in the living room.
Continue reading All the right moves: Roku's Netflix streamer branches out...
Nokia lawyers up, chooses to fight Apple in court rather than the market
By Carmi Levy on October 26, 2009, 7:16 PM
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If timing is everything in business, Nokia apparently didn't get the memo. Apple's iPhone has been on sale for about 28 months now, but only last week did Nokia file a wide-ranging lawsuit in Delaware District Court that covers no fewer than ten alleged patent infringements.
This isn't anything new in the tech industry. In a business where intellectual property accounts for a disproportionately huge slice of any given product's value proposition -- and ultimately its market success -- fights over who came up with what idea first are common. For example, Research in Motion has paid out over a billion dollars over the last three years to settle two significant patent lawsuits that, if left unresolved, could have shuttered its popular BlackBerry devices for good.
Continue reading Nokia lawyers up, chooses to fight Apple in court rather than the market...
PS3 Netflix: The best use of BD-Live yet
By Tim Conneally on October 26, 2009, 2:20 PM
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Finally, Sony's PlayStation 3 home video game console and Blu-ray player will be receiving Netflix Instant streaming, a feature which has appeared on a number of other pieces of hardware, including rival console Xbox 360 and connected Blu-ray players from manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, and even Sony itself.
But unlike those other platforms, which connect to Netflix Instant Streaming through an interface native to the console, PlayStation 3 users will be required to boot up the service from a Netflix Blu-ray disc, which utilizes BD-Live to access the online content. BD-Live is a Blu-ray standard which lets a disc have downloadable bonus content instead of limiting it to content burned onto the disc.
Continue reading PS3 Netflix: The best use of BD-Live yet...
Palm Pixi lands Nov. 15, indicates a third webOS device
By Tim Conneally on October 26, 2009, 11:06 AM
4 Comments
Today, Palm announced that the Pixi, the company's second webOS device and slimmer, lighter-weight cousin to the Pre, will be available for the holiday season on November 15 exclusively through Sprint.
With a 2.63" multi-touchscreen, 8 GB of internal memory, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, a 2 megapixel LED flash camera, and integrated GPS, the Pixi lightens up on many of the Pre's specs (smaller screen, slower processor) and eliminates the Wi-Fi radio entirely.
Continue reading Palm Pixi lands Nov. 15, indicates a third webOS device...
Microsoft wows Windows 7 crowd with Internet TV
By Jacqueline Emigh on October 22, 2009, 6:17 PM
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While most of the Windows 7 features demo'd at today's New York City launch were already known about far and wide, Microsoft surprised a lot of the crowd with Internet TV, a streaming media capability that just might some day spur consumers to ditch pricey cable TV services like Time Warner and Cablevision.
Internet TV lets you stream video and audio programming directly into Windows 7 Media Center, without the hassles of going to myriad Web sites and downloading multiple players, said Microsoft rep Brian Yee, in an interview with Betanews at the Microsoft bash.
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Barnes & Noble mashes up iPhone & Kindle for 'nook' e-reader
By Tim Conneally on October 20, 2009, 3:00 PM
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Bookseller Barnes & Noble has finally unveiled its e-book reader, which many have already slated to be the Amazon Kindle's biggest competition yet. Called the nook, Barnes & Noble's $259 e-reader includes a full-color touch panel interface in addition to its 6" e-ink display, and is the first e-reader to run on Google's Android Operating system.
There is something instantly amazing about the nook, but it's not because of a single, readily visible feature. It's the fact that Barnes & Noble has combined the feel of two extremely popular devices both regarded as total "walled gardens" -- Apple's iPhone and Amazon's Kindle -- and effectively mashed them up in the open source Android framework. The result is a compelling new take on the e-book experience that has been more or less homogenous across the many devices currently available.
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Now, even Apple's mouse is multi-touch
By Tim Conneally on October 20, 2009, 1:15 PM
57 Comments
Continuing Apple's incremental shift away from button-based interfaces and toward multi-touch everything, Cupertino today unveiled the Magic Mouse, an acrylic Bluetooth mouse where "the entire surface is a button."
Apple has done to the mouse almost exactly what it did to the trackpad in 2008, it has turned it into a multi-finger reactive surface, where common navigation tasks are given iPhone-like gestures.
Best Buy's Blu-ray players now stream Netflix
By Tim Conneally on October 20, 2009, 11:58 AM
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In the last year, Netflix on-demand video streaming has made its way into connected optical media players by LG, Samsung, and Sony, and at the beginning of the last quarter, CEO Reed Hastings said the public could expect new Netflix-enabled consumer electronics products every quarter. Today, Best Buy's Insignia brand became the latest to support Netflix streaming with a firmware update to two of the brand's connected Blu-ray players.
This is another important partnership to differentiate Best Buy's exclusive store brand from lower-quality department store brands, which often have more in common with Chinese knock-offs than with products by major manufacturers. In July, for example, Best Buy announced a partnership with TiVo that would improve the interface and search in Insignia and Dynex televisions.
Continue reading Best Buy's Blu-ray players now stream Netflix...
The new iPod nano: A flop?
By Tim Conneally on October 19, 2009, 6:06 PM
51 Comments
The good news in Apple's earnings call this afternoon, according to CFO Peter Oppenheimer, is that the Cupertino company has sold more Macs and iPhones than it ever has in the past, beating previous Mac sales records by 444,000 or 17% year over year and beating iPhone records by 7% unit growth year over year.
The bad news is that the MP3 player product class where Apple has actual market dominance, not just dominant mindshare (as with the iPhone), has begun to slide, despite a 100% increase in iPod touch sales year over year.
How do you define performance?
By Carmi Levy on October 15, 2009, 4:26 PM
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System performance is an interesting concept; everyone seems to define it differently. To some, it involves chewing through a complex spreadsheet. To others, it's how fast a 3D video sequence can be rendered, or how easily Web pages are served up.
Call me a rebel, but after years of living off of a BlackBerry, my thinking has evolved. As much as I focused on megahertz and gigahertz for much of my computing life, the most important criteria for me these days are how fast the thing turns on, and how long it stays on before I have to recharge it.
Microsoft takes credit for resolving Sidekick data loss, but not for causing it
By Scott M. Fulton, III on October 15, 2009, 11:00 AM
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It's been no secret that the Premium Mobile Services group at Microsoft, headed by Corporate Vice President Roz Ho, has been working on a secret class of consumer-facing mobile projects, least secretly of all a wireless content service code-named Pink. As late as last Tuesday, speculation centered around Pink's connection with Danger, the data service for T-Mobile's Sidekick device, and ground zero for last weekend's colossal service failure. Surely Danger should be tied in somehow with Microsoft's big plans in mobile, enthusiasts thought.
But this morning, in the midst of damage control, Ms. Ho found herself revealing a card she might not have been ready to play just yet: In a message to customers published on T-Mobile's Web site, she apologized on behalf of Microsoft for the service failure, while announcing the near-complete recovery of users' lost data. But she then revealed -- and a spokesperson also confirmed to the Los Angeles Times -- that Danger had not actually been using Microsoft's technology for Sidekick service, despite having had since April of last year to implement it.
Continue reading Microsoft takes credit for resolving Sidekick data loss, but not for causing it...
Facing down irrelevance: What Palm can learn from RAZR
By Carmi Levy on October 8, 2009, 9:26 PM
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The half-life of any piece of modern electronics, which was once measured in years, is now barely a few months. It's no one's fault, of course, but it's a reality that vendors need to integrate into their own life cycle planning lest they get caught with the product line equivalent of grandma's wardrobe.
Simply put, the half-life of today's uber-hot phones is shrinking. Fast.
Continue reading Facing down irrelevance: What Palm can learn from RAZR...
Qualcomm's FLO TV debuts its own mobile television
By Tim Conneally on October 7, 2009, 1:09 PM
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Qualcomm subsidiary FLO TV, the company responsible for the MediaFLO mobile content delivery system used in Verizon V Cast Mobile TV and AT&T Mobile TV, has launched its first piece of branded hardware, the FLO TV Personal Television.
The device looks almost exactly like a smartphone or a touchscreen media player, and has the specs to match. The main difference, of course, is that the FLO TV Personal Television is built with the single purpose of watching subscription FLO TV streams. The $249.99 TV is made by HTC, has a 3.5" capacitive touchscreen, and built-in stereo speakers.
Continue reading Qualcomm's FLO TV debuts its own mobile television...
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