Entries for June 2008

RealNetworks says its Rhapsody store will now offer music for sale. But more than just another digital music store, Rhapsody is using cellular downloads to end-run Apple's iTunes service and other competitors.

Verizon Wireless customers are hearing today that they now can get a wide variety of tunes on their handsets without copy protection through Rhapsody. Use the cellular network to download music from Rhapsody's huge library, and know that the music can play on any device. It's a unique pitch, if not entirely true.

Rhapsody's move into selling tracks is a big departure for the service, which until now focused on a subscription model. Music lovers can still get unlimited tunes from Rhapsody, as long as they pay $15 a month. Quit paying and the music stops, literally, which is among the downsides to subscribing for music.

After today, major PC makers can no longer sell new computers with Windows XP preinstalled. Microsoft is enforcing its ban on XP despite continued discontent with Windows Vista, which even chipmaker and Microsoft partner Intel is reportedly avoiding.

There are loopholes—for a price. Consumers can buy a PC with premium versions of Vista that can be downgraded to XP, or they can find a non-name-brand PC maker—a "white box" vendor—who might still sell an XP box.

But most consumers will blindly and perhaps reluctantly accept Vista. They'll have little choice.

Here's a new twist on Internet calling: T-Mobile plans to offer a supercheap version, essentially a loss leader to get and keep wireless customers. For $10 a month, T-Mobile customers will be able to make all the calls they want from traditional handsets at home across the Internet. The offer will be available in July.

If the quality is good enough to attract customers, the move is sure to put pressure on AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which already offer Internet phone service. Their service starts at around $30 a month, which is also what cable companies have been charging for their unlimited Internet calls. Even independent competitors like Vonage charge about $25 for comparable service.

The music industry's troubles continue to mount, with Starbucks now pulling back from the CD-selling business, reports Peter Kafka at Silicon Valley Insider. Record labels once viewed Starbucks as a promising outlet for the struggling music business.

Word about Starbucks came as deep staff cuts were underway at music labels owned by EMI, including Capitol Records. EMI in January announced it would reduce staff by about 2,000 because of falling sales of recorded music. The cuts amount to 30 to 40 percent of those working in recorded music at EMI, says Bruce Houghton at Hypebot.

Others are criticizing the obvious conflict at Time Warner Cable over Internet video. The company's CEO says he wants to encourage customers to download video from the Web. But the company also threatens to hit those "bandwidth hogs" with steep fees.

The mixed message is either an evil scheme to sponge more money from its subscribers, says Colin Dixon at the Diffusion Group, or a classic example of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

"It is hard to be generous and assume this is simply ignorance on TWC's part," Dixon writes. "Yet when the person talking up the TV/broadband connection is Time Warner CEO Glenn Britt, your sense of generosity is bound to overflow."

Ouch.

Still more on Blu-ray's future: The next-generation disks will surpass DVDs in sales by 2012, says the Entertainment Merchants Association. That's about as optimistic a prediction as is out there for Blu-ray, which faces stiff competition from traditional DVDs and Internet downloads.

Maybe the merchants association has to be optimistic. Its board is dominated by retailers who sell disks. Another analysis is less rosy, predicting that consumers will still buy twice as many DVDs as Blu-ray disks in 2012.

Blu-ray "will never achieve the mammoth numbers that DVD achieved in its heyday," write the analysts at Digital Tech Consulting.

The smartphone race accelerated with word today that Nokia would buy software maker Symbian. The move brings a more focused competitor to the iPhone, Windows Mobile, and the BlackBerry.

Nokia wants to better exploit Symbian, which packs underappreciated power in many cellphones. While Nokia smartphones dominate in Europe, they aren't big sellers here. And of the Nokia smartphone owners I know, most don't even realize what they have. They just wanted a Nokia phone with a good Internet browser or a good camera. They don't take advantage of the phone's power. They're not downloading the software that developers write for the Nokia phones.

Now smartphone makers sense opportunity because of the excitement that Apple has generated with the iPhone. But Nokia was stymied because it only half controlled Symbian. It shared Symbian with a group of phone makers who used different versions of the software on their smartphones.

Nokia realized it had to cut through the clutter with Symbian. The company decided to buy the system. Other phone makers can still use the system, and a foundation will guide its development. But make no mistake. The developers will work for Nokia, and Symbian will gain needed clarity.

The five-word limit on acceptance speeches at the Webby Awards often encourages creative hilarity. So it seemed it might be fun to Twitter-limit the Obama and McCain campaigns to 140-character retorts in a debate on tech policy.

It isn't.

Following the still-running debate on Twitter is like watching a Ping-Pong match with contestants in different rooms. Or like trying to switch back and forth between different channels, as Peter Kafka put it at Silicon Valley Insider. It gets a little easier on a Tweetboard that lays out a grid of the three participants, one from each camp and original Wonkette Ana Marie Cox as moderator.

She also seems to be the only one having much fun. The serious wonks didn't find room to be funny. At best, they've just been snippy in their snippets.

Here's a gadget with a lot of potential: a projector smaller than most smart phones. Optoma said it will introduce its Pico Projector later this year in Europe and Asia, with plans to take it worldwide next year.

I remember seeing a tiny projector demonstrated about 18 months ago at a booth by Texas Instruments engineers, whose technology is at the core of the Pico. The image was impressive for such a small projector. Not HD quality but plenty sharp and vivid, at least in a darkened room.

Hook it up to your cellphone, iPod, or digital camera—or, if you must, to a laptop for a graphical presentation. The device will project a larger-than-life image on a nearby wall. No word yet on pricing.

Of course, what we all want is a projector built into our phone or media player, as illustrated at the site of a company called Microvision. Maybe it's not too far behind.

As predicted, Apple's own price reduction helped force down the price of the latest iPhone competitor. Sprint went further than it had announced, though, and is introducing the new Samsung Instinct for $130 tomorrow (with plan and after rebate).

Still, a $70 discount off the iPhone's price won't be enough to sway people. The iPhone has too much buzz. Much of it is well deserved, with the fun that software from Apple, and outside developers, is bringing to the phone.

Some people will choose the Instinct because they don't like the coverage or service offered by AT&T, which is the iPhone's exclusive carrier. Or true power users who wirelessly swap a lot of photos or surf the Web might be drawn to Sprint's $100 unlimited plan for voice, data, and text. The same $100 gets you only unlimited voice with AT&T.

Maybe the music labels are on to something. As they struggle to embrace a digital world, their execs have a keen interest in subscription services, in which they would sell access to all their tunes for a monthly or even one-time fee. Yet it seems consumers haven't bought into the idea. Subscription services like Rhapsody struggle to gain a foothold.

But young listeners like the idea, according to a new British survey. The poll of young people ages 14 to 22 was conducted on behalf of British Music Rights, a group that represents music writers and publishers. The authors conclude that young music lovers want a simple system in which they pay a monthly fee to access, enjoy, and swap music with others.

Digital trading has helped fan interest in music of all kinds, the survey points out. So the question is how the industry can get paid for making the music without stifling the fervor fanned by file sharing, CD burning, and other forms of swapping.

Young listeners are willing to pay. But they'd like it to be a simple, flat fee to, say, Internet providers or cellphone carriers. Then they want full rights to move the music to other devices, including those of friends.

Firefox 3.0 appears to be off to a roaring start. The new version already accounts for 3 to 5 percent of active browsers, according to a counter run by Net Applications. That means that perhaps a quarter of Firefox users have upgraded, calculates Josh Catone at the ReadWriteWeb blog, despite early problems at the download site.

The new Firefox has been working great for me. I love the bigger "back" button. It's a simple change that makes so much sense. Is there any button that we use more on a browser?

I'm always surprised how many people still rely on Internet Explorer just because it's pre-installed on Windows. Everyone depends too much on a browser to not consider alternatives.

I dabble with IE, as well as Apple's Safari and Opera. They're fine browsers. But I'm a committed Firefox fan, partly because of its versatility. It seems to have the most useful add-ons that are free, such as Tab Mix Plus for managing tabs within a window.

Oddly, Firefox says that particular add-on isn't supported in the browser's new version. But it's important enough to me that I sought out the author's site, where I found assurances it would work. That's just one of the bumps in trying software that's brand new. But despite my posting of yesterday, I'm happy with the upgrade—and happy that it hasn't locked up yet.

I've wondered if slapping a navigation device above my dashboard is a safe move. Convenient, yes, but it seems to be another distraction in the car's cockpit.

Relax, says a study commissioned by GPS maker TomTom. In fact, drivers appear more relaxed with a device guiding them, as well as more in control and more alert. That's even though many admit to fiddling with the GPS while driving.

Americans are especially bad about messing with the device in traffic. Only a third of us claim that we never operate the GPS while behind the wheel. That compares with nearly two thirds of Brits and Spaniards.

Sorry, TomTom, but I'm not sure I buy that I'm a safer driver with GPS. Perhaps. If I can keep my fingers off it while driving. Oh, yeah, as a bonus, the study says I'll at least save gas with more efficient routes.

The new Firefox browser is scheduled to be available today for download. I had grown frustrated with the most recent version, which would lock up several times a week. Version 3.0 seems much more stable. That's a good thing—I think.

Yes, it was irritating to have Firefox crash in the middle of a busy day. I might have 25 windows open, most of them with two or more tabs. Suddenly, they were gone. Most of the time I could get them back with the "session restore" feature. But not always. Once every couple of days, Firefox would crash, and all the windows would be gone. Painful.

So I'm going to download the new Firefox as soon as I can, which may not be today, judging from how busy Mozilla's servers are. Still, I'm tossing out the usual caution about waiting for early bugs to be fixed. The new version seems to be more about stability, speed, and security—though it does include new features.

Then again, part of me will miss the crashes. They are like a good cleaning. Many windows are open to pages I intend to read or study closely—as if I'll find the time. There they sit, nagging me as I tab through looking for something specific. In reality, I don't miss them once they're closed. They're like stacks of unread magazines on the floor that are soon forgotten once they're pitched into recycling.

Now Firefox promises to be more stable. Fine. Who's going to pitch my unread Web pages?

Notebook PC sales continued surging in the first quarter, with worldwide shipments up 35 percent from a year earlier, according to DisplaySearch data. Apple, continuing to gain ground, became the seventh-largest shipper of laptops, rising from the eighth-place ranking it had held for about a year. Apple was one of four companies that actually shipped more notebooks in the first quarter than in the fourth quarter of last year. Portable PC sales typically fall in the first quarter after the holiday-pumped fourth quarter. Toshiba, Dell, and Samsung also saw sales rise over the previous quarter. Hewlett-Packard remained the sales leader, a position it has held for seven quarters, with a 20 percent market share. With consumers increasingly gravitating to portable devices, notebooks already account for more than half of total PC sales.