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Today's announcement about Michael Dell becoming CEO of his own company through me off guard, especially since the disposed CEO, Kevin Rollins, was at the big Windows Vista launch shindig in NYC just two days ago!
Wonder if anyone in the "C" suite at Dell (the company) knew this was going to happen ... and, if so, why not have Mr. Dell, whose roots in the PC biz go back nearly as far as Mr. Gates and company, at the event to espouse how solidly Dell is behind the Vista bandwagon?
After all, Dell (the company, again) did announce that a whole bunch of hardware with Vista was available even before Microsoft officially launched the product.
I get all kinds of stuff in my e-mail (you can only imagine!), but intrigued with today's Wal-Mart Wire, which featured -- can you believe it! -- Windows Vista! (Wire is the weekly e-flyer from the big bad boy of retailing.)
Funny (for me, not for Microsoft) to see this report about no one lining up to buy the new Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office when it went on sale in SF.
Well, if you attended the big soiree in NYC yesterday (yes, I did), you know what I mean about funny (as in ironic). The line to get into the Nokia Theatre in Times Square was plenty long and plenty slow moving. And it was plenty cold in 20 something degree weather with that great NYC wind whipping up and down Broadway (and across town, too).
The art of the deal ...
Now it's not surprising that Apple's iPhone would wind up with Cingular (er, I mean AT&T), but wouldn't you like to know why -- or at least why it didn't end up with a different wireless service provider, like Verizon, for instance.
Well, your dreams have been answered ... (if you were dreaming about this at all.)
While I'm getting ready for the launch celebration of Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office in New York City today (Bill Gates will come out of "retirement" for one of the presentations), it's very interesting to see how excited everyone is getting (or is supposed to be getting) about this product launch. (Catch the Bill webcast here.)
(Microsoft itself apparently can't wait -- new Wow home page can be viewed today. Wow, of course, now to be confused with World of Warcraft.)
While we all take great interest in Sony's foibles, let's talk PS3 problems at the retail sale level spelling trouble for gaming companies, according to this report.
Let's face it. The game manufacturers love to develop a game and then sell it on different platforms -- PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PSP, etc. (you get the picture).
Actiontec announced a new version of their VoSKY Skype gateway at ITEXPO, adding FXS functionality (previous model has FXO support). FXS support allows you to connects directly to PBX's FXS station posts, which enables you to to have global numbering plan. With the new model you can connect multiple PBXs together in various locations and have seemless dialing. Less developed countried where public IP addresses are hard to come by like Skype because of its NAT traversal.
Thus, they can use ActionTec's Skype gateway to bridge multiple PBXs with a single numbering plan.
I keep thinking that Celltop reminds me of Carrot Top, but I will get over that soon.
Anyway, Alltel Wireless would like us to help choose the next “cell” that might be added to Celltop, their exclusive, patent-pending technology that promises to offer an easier way to access, manage and organize a wide range of information already available on our mobile phones.
(To get more on Alltel and Celltop, click here.)
Don't me shy!
One of the things you will see that we're in the process of doing is adding a series of service providers that are partners of ours and add it to the GUI. The user can select their own service provider if they already have a VoIP service provider or they can get one directly from our GUI and it will be preconfigured.
Maybe there is something to this Second Life thing after all.
While IBM seems to think this is the next big thing (according to this report, many other companies are going their own way with bits and pieces of the "big idea." (Donny Deutsch may take that one ...)
U-Doo is a new program that lets you build personal ringtones with matching avatar characters.
Well, it seems like the dreams and wishes of music fans around the world will soon come true.
According a report in today's New York Times, at least one major record label considering taking the copy restrictions off of its downloadable MP3 files.
Now this would not make the MP3s free exactly, but would make them able to be copied and copied and copied from device to device to device ...
Hey, I'm all for companies making a buck on the products ands services they provide us consumers, but why does Apple have to charge $1.99 a month for faster wireless service on some of its MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops?
(Don't they make enough margin on the hardware to begin with?) More on that here.
Now that news may get me a bit hot under the collar, but how about hotter still when we learn that Apple and Cingular (now AT&T) will make nearly a 50% margin (aka profit) on its first iPhones, according to this report.
Now those numbers set up some aggressive price cutting, according to sources, but I'm personally still waiting for CD prices to drop, like they were supposed to after the investment in the pressing plants was recouped.
I heard the news today, oh boy ...
Much buzz today about the apparent resolution of when and where (forget about if), the Beatles LPs/CDs will be available for download. More on that here.
Not too surprised that Apple (working with the Beatles' label, Apple Records -- nice coincidence, eh?) will apparently have a short, exclusive window to have the upcoming, newly remastered CDs available on iTunes.
Interesting article in today's New York Times about the lowly set-top box that brings TV into our homes today (or at least a large part of U.S. homes today) is undergoing a transformation.
(At least by what was shown by companies like Motorola at CES earlier this month.)
How about this piece of wacky news out of the UK that one in every eight guys would ditch their girlfriend for a hot new gadget?
Yes, indeed-ee, that's what we have here from a recently conducted survey.
The hot gadgets in question -- HDTV, iPod or some other desirable gadget.
On the other side of the coin, one out of every 16 of the ladies would ditch their boyfriends for some of that gadget glory, too.
Don't know why it took so long, but Netflix is finally offering movies and TV shows via download, rather than by its DVD-by-mail service.
Guess they finally took their collective eyes off of Blockbuster and now are contending with such other online movie delivery services as CinemaNow, MovieFlix, Movielink and Vongo. Oh, and how about Amazon.com's recently launched Unbox.
I have to admit that I was a bit surprised read this morning that more of us who rather see the Super Bowl at home on a High Def TV than see the game live.
(Can you believe it?)
Course the survey was commissioned by gadgets retailer Circuit City, which has quite a vested interest in selling you those HD TVs to watch the game.
Honestly, who can keep track of all of the Baby Bells, Ma Bell, the wireless services providers -- wasn't it supposed to be easier after the breakup of AT&T that began in 1974 with the U.S. Department of Justice anti-trust suit against the telephone monopoly. (Thanks Wiki! -- and more on that later.)
During Cisco's C-Scape analyst conference last month, I posted about how they have set up a corporate blog and that they are embracing new media to be more accessible and reach the online community. They were nice enough to invite me to post there, and I'm definitely one of the early adopters supporting their blog initiative.Jon Arnold is an interesting thinker with great insights into the VoIP industry. Jon will be headed to TMC's ITEXPO in a couple weeks, so I'll have to try and hook up with Jon and get his thoughts on the industry.
Make no mistake, that Apple iPhone is one great looking product -- would you expect anything less from Apple?
But what's really interested is taking a look past the shiny, attractive exterior and seeing what's inside -- the technology, what it does, what it can do for you. This is sort of the same as getting past how great a car looks to see if it's really the car for you. After all, a car is just four wheels to get you places, and isn't a phone really something to make calls (OK, "communicate") with?
While everybody hears about CES and MacWorld, another tech focused show is happening in Las Vegas -- StorageVisions 2007.
Not to be outdone by those two shows, we have some news from this one, too.
In a move to give the growing number of notebook PC users faster, more durable systems that run longer on a battery charge, Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate and Toshiba have formed a new organization called the Hybrid Storage Alliance.
With market research firm IDC predicting that hybrid hard disk drives will constitute 35% of all hard disk drives shipped with portable PCs by 2010, this technology is seen as the industry's answer to the growing demand for notebook PCs that deliver the speed and durability of desktop PCs.
The goals of the industry group are actually very simple:
According to the organization, hybrid technology combines the unmatched capacity and cost-effectiveness of hard drives with the responsiveness, power-efficiency and durability of flash memory.
From sharp minds come sharp products -- and how about big, really big products.
Making its debut at CES, Sharp's Aquos 108-inch High-Definition LCD TV is the world’s largest HD set -- larger than even its plasma rivals.
The 1080p LCD TV measures 93.9 inches wide by 52.9-inches high -- that's almost 8 feet by 4.5 feet; SuperBowl ba-bee! (A "baby" Sharp 65-inch set is pictured; this one is currently available.)
It's always amazing to me to hear about new products that are expected to do certain wonderful things and then simply fail to deliver.
Now I don't what to knock Microsoft's new Vista operating system (which isn't even here yet), but just checked a report that notes that certain next generation DVDs (you know, those HD ones) might not play on Vista!
(So much for the Microsoft Media Center experience -- the heart of the home!
The free, open source Ophcrack Live CD is a Windows account password cracking tool designed to help you recover lost Windows passwords.
After you download the 462mb .iso and burn it to a CD, just restart your computer and boot up the Live CD. Once the CD boots, Ophcrack automatically loads and is on its way to cracking your password. So how well does it work?
One of the key tenants of BitTorrent is that you have to contribute (upload) to receive (download). BitTyrant is a new client that finds a way to be selfish within the BT protocols by selectively uploading to peers based on their upload capacity. It was created by researchers to test the robustness of BT's incentives.
The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) clambake in the hot Las Vegas sun opened today after the obligatory Bill Gates keynote -- I'll point you to this spot here for what Microsoft is offering up at this year's show.
What I found particulary interesting instead was the CES Innovations Awards, which takes all of the gadgets at CES and breaks them down into 29 categories -- from Audio Accessories to Wireless Peripherals.
Amid all the excitement about big screen TVs, new cellphones and the like, here's a look at some of the winners in the Personal Electronics category:
Love the battle of the firsts and why should computer storage not leverage key features when one company has them and no one else does.
Well, today we have two separate reports -- one about Seagate and the other about Hitachi -- hitting the magical 1TB milestone for storing data on a hard disk drive for consumer use.
You can check out the speeds and feeds on both drives, but no matter how you slice it, 1TB of data is a heck of a lot of data to store.
Remember when 1GB seemed like more storage than anyone could possibly use?
Everybody (including me) wonders why music downloads all cost 99 cents (or so).
(OK, Wal-mart is 88 cents per song).
Well, now we have an interesting article today about wholesale music download pricing -- a fancy term for how much music download sites, like iTunes, etc., pay record labels for songs.
Hey, how about this news about a forwarding looking company making a play to end the next-gen HD DVD format wars and also making everybody happy at the same time?
Our report today comes from the New York Times about how Warner Bros. apparently plans to announce at the CES slugfest next week a single disc that would be able to play both rival next-gen DVD formats -- Blu-ray and HD-DVD. The new disc is reported to be called "Total HD."
(How about somebody implementing the obvious solution so we the consumer don't have to make a decision about which format to back with our wallets?)
Everybody loves thin, especially in TVs, so it's really not a surprise that HP is apparently getting out of the DLP TV business.
BTW, does anyone out there know what DLP stands for?
(I'll make it easy -- see below.)
According to reports, these rear projection TVs will be going the way of the dodo into oblivion.
January is always a fun month -- first with the superlarge, large, large CES shindig in Las Vegas for all things electronic (and more) and Macworld 2007 in San Francisco for all things Apple.
There's so much "new tech" and "updated tech" and "variations on a theme tech" coming to both shows that space won't allow any long crystal ball-gazing for either show.
But for those who want to get an idea of what might be there at Macworld (and the odds of it actually being at the show), there is only one place to go -- go here.
And one of the long shots is the iPhone ...
Is anybody really surprised that the Xbox 360 outsold every other gaming console out there this holiday season?
That's the report, and I'm not surprised.
What is surprising is how well the Wii did -- nearly matching the Xbox 360 sales totals.
Actually, when you talk to the gaming demo (local version), they love the Nintendo box because it offers a lot at at small (comparably) price, but they all have (or crave) the Xbox 360 for the power it offers.
What also seems to be working is that the Xbox 360 is backwards compatible the the plain vanilla Xbox so all of those Xbox games that cost lots of bucks when they came out can now be bought used for less than $10 -- and they look pretty snappy when upsized to Xbox 360 style.
