Tech-Ex

"Geohot" Jailbreaks the iPhone 3GS

2009-07-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

George Hotz, AKA Geohot, who came up with the first unlock for the original iPhone, has beaten the iPhone Dev Team to the punch. He's released a jailbreaking app for the iPhone 3GS code-named purplera1n.

However, if you troll through the comments on the blog post he write announcing the jailbreak, it seems clear that the break isn't bulletproof. At the same time, however, Hotz throws down the gauntlet to the iPhone Dev Team.

Normally I don't make tools for the general public, and rather wait for the dev team to do it. But guys, whats up with waiting until 3.1? That isn't how the game is played. We release, Apple fixes, we find new holes. It isn't worth waiting because you might have the "last" hole in the iPhone. What last hole...this isn't golf. I'll find a new one next week. Also your purplera1nyday files ensure that you can always get back to a jailbroken state, so if you have it it's just a matter of tools.

The Dev Team has said they were waiting for the iPhone 3.1 release to release their own jailbreaking app. Meanwhile, they showed that they already have an unlock using ultrasn0w ready to go.

Watch their video below.

Virtual Embezzlement Used to Pay for Real World Debts

2009-07-04T14:38:00.000-07:00

Virtual goods are big business nowadays, in online worlds like Second Life and World of Warcraft, so much so there is discussion over taxing profits made from such goods. Real as the virtual reality is, someone in the online game EVE Online stole virtual money from the virtual bank he ran and exchanged it for real cash.

Think of it as virtual embezzlement. Not only that, once word of the theft spread, a run was made on the bank, EBank, making things worse.

The CEO of EBank, was a 27-year-old Australian tech worker with the handle Ricdic. Only his first name has been revealed (Richard); he embezzled about 200 billion interstellar kredits (ISK), the game's virtual currency.

He exchanged the ISK for $5,100 with players who prefer to buy funds rather than earn it playing the game. Not unusual for players to do so; it's the reason there is a market for virtual goods in these types of games.

Ned Coker, of Icelandic company CCP which runs Eve, told Reuters:

"Basically this character was one of the people who had been running EBank for a while. He took a bunch of (virtual) money out of the bank, and traded it away for real money."

Meanwhile, Ricdic told Reuters:

"I'm not proud of it at all, that's why I didn't brag about it. But you know, if I had to do it again, I probably would've chosen the same path based on the same situation."

Ricdic apparently used the resulting cash to put down a deposit on a house and to pay medical bills. The medical bills I could probably forgive; the deposit? Not so much.

Eve Online has about 300,000 players inhabiting an online universe. The game centers around interstellar trade, mining asteroids and player-controlled corporations. Interestingly, in 2006 the EVE Interstellar Bank had a similar theft, with the proprietor of the EIB, known as "Cally," stole around 790 billion ISK.

iPhone 3GS Generates Best Retail Day for AT&T Ever

2009-07-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

A leaked AT&T memo notes that the launch day for the iPhone 3GS generated their "best-ever sales day in our retail stores." Note, this is for AT&T stores, not Apple stores. Unfortunately, while the memo had some numbers regarding text messages on the day Michael Jackson died, it had nothing numbers-wise about the iPhone 3GS, but lots of superlatives.

1. Fact of the Week: On June 25, the day Michael Jackson died, text messages sent on our network spiked at 65,000 messages per second — the largest volume ever recorded — surpassing events like American Idol voting and New Year's Eve, when millions of our customers wish their friends and family a happy new year via text."

2. "iLaunch day 2009 was one for the record books, as AT&T customers scrambled to get their hands on the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet.

Here's a look at some of the milestones we achieved:
Best-ever sales day in our retail stores
Second-largest traffic day in our retail stores
Most transactions processed via our IT systems in a single day
Most upgrade eligibility checks in a single day
Largest order day in att.com history
Largest features sales day in att.com history
On this year's launch day, iPhone sales exceeded sales recorded on 2008's iPhone launch day, Black Friday 2008 and Dec. 26, 2008 — all heavy-volume sales days. In fact, this year we surpassed 2008's launch day sales at about noon Central time, and sustained our previous peak hour record, also set in 2008, for 11 straight hours.

While AT&T didn't leak any numbers, CNNMoney did some calculations, based on history, and came up with numbers (which seemed to hold across more than one "event") of 35% of Apple's sales also being AT&T's.

Given that Apple sold, by its own calculations, more than 1 million iPhones in the space of the first three days, CNNMoney stated:

Assuming the 35% ratio holds up, it’s not unlikely that AT&T will eventually activate about 350,000 of the new iPhones sold the weekend of June 19 — many of them Apple Stores — and that actually unit sales at AT&T outlets that weekend could easily exceed 300,000.

Anyone continuing to wonder why AT&T wants to extend its exclusivity for the iPhone in the U.S.?

Evidence Emerges of Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack

2009-07-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

When Windows 7 pricing was announced, the half-price promotions they announced for upgrades to Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional were applauded, while at the same time the question emerged: what, no Family Pack? While there's still no official announcement, there is evidence that such a pack may exist.

Those with decent memories will recall that just before Vista launched Microsoft announced a "Family Pack" deal for those who bought Ultimate: two additional copies of Home Premium for a lower price.

Here's what Ed Bott found embedded in the the license folder in the latest leaked builds of Windows 7:

b) Family Pack. If you are a "Qualified Family Pack User", you may install one copy of the software marked as "Family Pack" on three computers in your household for use by people who reside there. These computers are the "licensed computers" and are subject to these license terms.

This would be a nice deal, but speaking of nice deals, how about a deal for Windows Vista Ultimate owners, who were suckered, er, convinced to buy an OS with promises of all these Extras which turned out to be largely worthless.

While you can buy a Windows 7 Professional version for your PC, you'd have to do a fresh install and basically "downgrade" your PC. Personally, I'm not interested in spending the full amount for an Ultimate upgrade, and will deal with a downgrade.

Judge Throws Out Lori Drew's "MySpace Suicide" Convictions

2009-07-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge George Wu tossed out the convictions against Lori Drew in the so-called "MySpace Suicide" case, thus acquitting her of misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization.

Last November, Lori Drew, was found innocent of felony charges in the MySpace hoax that eventually resulted in the suicide of Megan Meier. Drew was indicted in May of 2008 on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization. The charges each carried a maximum of 5 years in prison.

While found innocent of the felony charges, Drew was in fact convicted of three misdemeanors, of accessing a computer without authorization. Judge Wu threw out the verdict, saying that if she was found to be guilty, anyone who has ever violated the social networking site's terms of service would be guilty of a misdemeanor.

Megan Meier committed suicide in October of 2006 after a MySpace romance went bad. The romance itself and the boy involved were in fact fictional, reportedly perpetrated as a vindictive prank by Drew, the mother of a former friend who lived down the street.

As I said when charges were first filed against Drew, they were a stretch. The jury apparently didn't believe the prosecutors' argument that that violating MySpace's terms of service to inflict emotional distress on someone was equivalent to hacking. Nice try, but ...

At the time of the incident, the state of resident of Megan Meier, Missouri, had no cyberbullying laws. That has since been changed.

OMG, Microsoft Decides Vomit-Based IE8 Ad Over the Top

2009-07-02T12:05:00.000-07:00

OMGIGP was the acronym of one of Microsoft's latest advertisements, and despite the presence of Superman, Dean Cain, the ad (which is really Oh, my God, I'm Gonna Puke" has been removed from from the IE8videos channel on YouTube, and also from the BrowsefortheBetter.com site, which is part of the ad campaign.

A wife asks her husband to borrow his laptop. Once she does, she says: "What's this?" and then vomits.

This is really an ad for IE8's In-Private browsing, commonly known as "porn mode." While a humorous ad for some, for others it was a little over the top.

While removed from both Microsoft's sites and the site of Bradley and Montgomery, the agency responsible for the whole campaign, the ad can still be viewed on YouTube (though not via Microsoft) on Friday.

Watch the video below (downloaded from YouTube, just in case). What do you think? Going too far? Or funny? Either way, it's generated buzz, and that's what an ad is supposed to do.

Knockoff iPhones Impressing in Their iPhoney-ness

2009-07-02T06:38:00.001-07:00

When Japan first started to produce goods, many said they marveled at how well Japan could copy things. Now many such knock-offs come from China. In terms of the iPhone, such replicas could easily spotted. Now, not so much.

A consumer delivered a device to MacMedics that he had purchased from eBay. While at first glance it sure looks like an iPhone, when running it sure isn't Apple-like: sluggish, clunky, and with an Apple logo on the back, a counterfeit rather than a clone.

Even the box looks pretty iPhone-ish. MacMedics said in the video below:

“As you can see it looks xactly like an iPhone. It does not work very well, and when it does work it is incredibly slow.

It comes with some weird accessories that should clue you into fake-ness. A dock (which Apple does not provide), a stylus (same), the dock even includes a speaker.

Lesson to be learned: don't buy an iPhone from eBay if the deal sounds too good. MacMedics has been asked, in this case, to write a letter to PayPal explaining why we think the "iPhone" is fake. Plenty of reasons, right?

Check out the video below:

Gmail Labels Get Drag-and-Drop, Less Cluttered

2009-07-02T00:07:00.000-07:00

Google's made more changes to the way labels work in Gmail. In February, Google made labels more like folders, and now they've moved their position on your sidebar up next to your system labels, and also reduced some of your label clutter.

Instead of having their own section, your labels are now above your chat list, grouped together with Inbox, Drafts, Chats and other system labels. Additionally, Google has hidden a number of your less used labels (as shown above). You can show, hide, or delete a label by clicking the down-arrow to the left of that label. Or you can go to Settings, Labels to show / hide multiple labels at once.

You can now drag messages into labels. This does the exact same thing as the "Move to" menu item, labeling and archiving in one step. You can do the reverse as well, drag a label onto a mesasge, which works like the label menu item. If you select a set of messages and then drag and drop, you can label or move many messages at once.

However, with these changes, Google has also taken another first step, the first Gmail Labs feature to be retired: Right-side Labels. It's obvious the usefulness of Right-side Labels is reduced with these changes.

Landscape Mode Hack for webOS Email

2009-07-02T00:03:00.000-07:00

With the release of the 1.04 update for Palm webOS, the Palm Pre's email application now has landscape mode, if you enable it with a hack.

If you type RocknRollHax at in the "top" of the email app (meaning, the list view of your accounts). If you do so, you can now rotate the Pre and get a landscape. Of course, this could be disabled at any time, and you have to enter it every time you launch the email app.

Of course, since the Pre has background processing, unlike the iPhone (hint, hint), you can just keep the "card" open all the time and have no worries.

iPhone OS 3.1 Beta Released to Developers

2009-07-01T07:52:00.000-07:00

iPhone OS 3.0 and the iPhone 3GS are scarcely out the door, and already developers have been seed with a new beta version (3.1) of the OS. Interesting that they've already reached beta status so quickly after the 3.0 release.

Here's what's in the 3.1 beta, according to The iPhone Blog.

Voice Control works over Bluetooth (let's be honest, it was a major omission in Voice Control, but probably done for time-to-market reasons).
Non-destructive video editing; trimming a video no longer overwrites the original but instead gives you the option to “Save as copy…”
When moving icons, the iPhone vibrates
Updated AT&T profile to 4.2 (MMS is now enabled)
Updated modem firmware to 5.08.01
Improvements to OpenGL and Quartz.
APIs to allow third party apps to access videos and edit them.

It will be nice to see if MMS is really enabled for AT&T customers. Now, will tethering make it into the release as well?

China to Delay Indefinitely Green Dam Filtering Software

2009-07-01T00:04:00.000-07:00

I've written about China's Green Dam censorware a couple of times, and there's no doubt it's drawn a great deal of criticism. On Tuesday, China announced it would be indefinitely delaying the rollout of the product, which it had earlier said would have to be installed (or at least provided) on all PCs sold in the country as of July 1st.

The change in plans was reported late on Tuesday by the official Xinhua news agency, which said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology would "delay the mandatory installation of the controversial 'Green Dam-Youth Escort' filtering software on new computers."

While being advertised as primarily preventing access to pornography, the software was to perform just as the "Great Firewall of China" does, blocking access to Web sites that might contain material critical of the Chinese government.

Interestingly, the software would not have had to have been pre-installed on the PC, but could have been shipped on a separate CD. There would also have been no restrictions on removing the software, and no prior mention made of any punitive measures taken against a PC maker that did not comply.

Apple, Others Agree to Standardized EU Cell Phone Charger

2009-07-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

China previously announced plans (way back in 2007) to enforce an universal cell phone charger, which was (and still is) a great idea. Now the European Commission has struck a deal with Apple and other cell phone manufacturers to start selling phones with universal cell phone chargers starting next year.

The EC has decided on the same adapter as China, a micro-USB connector. In a way, it's surprising that Apple would go along with it. Why? They are pretty picky about the voltage that goes into their iPhones. For example, if you take just any old plug adapter that plugs into a socket, and stick an Apple iPhone USB cable into it, it may or may not work. In fact, there's a company that sells an adapter to take care of that problem.

Motorola has been the same way in the past; some of their older phones that took mini-USB adapters wouldn't "just work" with any old adapter.

In February the GSMA, a trade association for GSM-based mobile carriers, announced that it had brokered a deal with handset manufacturers to standardize around the micro-USB adapter in chargers by 2012. And in April of this year, the CTIA, the U.S. wireless trade association, backed the standard.

It's obvious why this would be great for the consumer. No need to keep multiple chargers around. Right now, for example, I have one charger for my headset and one for my iPhone. My wife is in a similar situation with her headset and Samsung.

Additionally, I have tons of old adapters lying around for old phones, as well. It's a pile of trashed electronics that may enter landfills in third-world countries.

Legit at Last: BitTorrent Site The Pirate Bay is Acquired

2009-06-30T06:33:00.001-07:00

The Pirate Bay, the world's most notorious BitTorrent tracking site, has faced the brunt of legal battles of late. Specifically, this includes the founders of The Pirate Bay, Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde, as well as Carl Lundstrom, who provided financing, all of who were found guilty of facilitating copyright infringement. Now, however, it looks to go legit, as Swedish tech company Global Gaming Factory X (GGF) said Tuesday that it has reached an agreement to it for about $7.7 million.

While an appeal has already been filed, The Pirate Bay hasn't been sitting still either, with a recent closed beta for a logless VPN, iPREDator being launched. Additionally, there was this deal, behind the scenes.

According to the press release:

GGF intends to launch new business models that allow compensation to the content providers and copyright owners. The responsibility for, and operation of the site will be taken over by GGF in connection with closing of the transaction, which is scheduled for August 2009.

"We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site, " said Hans Pandeya, CEO GGF.

That sounds totally legit. One has to wonder how The Pirate Party, unaffiliated but reportedly inspired by The Pirate Bay, will feel about this. The Pirate Party recently managed to gain a seatin the European Parliament in the latest election (two if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified).

Also on Tuesday, GGF added that it agreed to acquire Peerialism, which is a Swedish company that specializes in the development of P2P file sharing technology. The move is obviously related to GGF's acquisition of The Pirate Bay.

In the same press release as above, Johan Ljungberg, CEO of Peerialism said:

"Peerialism has developed a new data distribution technology which now can be introduced on the best known file sharing site — The Pirate Bay."

While GGF said that The Pirate Bay produces huge traffic (and yes, it's obvious), it's hard to believe that said traffic will remain unabated if things change at the site. We'll see what happens, and watch with interest.

iPhone 3GS Overheating Due to Battery Issues?

2009-06-29T18:20:00.000-07:00

When some Palm Pre owners complained of screen distortion, I warned iPhone users to expect some sort of problem with their new iPhone 3GS phones. After all, nothing is perfect. Right now the issue that's causing some consternation for iPhone 3GS owners is overheating, to the point that white iPhone 3GS phone have turned brown.

There's actually not that much activity at the Apple Support Forums, though the issue has been reported.

At the same time, Rapid Repair which performs teardowns of hardware gadgetry (such as this Palm Pre teardown), said overheating could point to a problem with faulty battery cells. Rapid Repair points to the fact that the brown marks on the back of the iPhone 3GS phones that have the problem basically outline the battery.

Interestingly, there are quite a few responses to a post about problems with the battery, but not in terms of overheating, but in terms of battery life.

So it seems that when users say the iPhone 3GS is hot, they mean in more than just trendiness. We'll see if this continues to be an issue for end users.

Mozilla Set to Release Firefox 3.5 on Tuesday

2009-06-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

Mozilla has confirmed that the next release of their browser, Firefox 3.5, will go live on Tuesday, June 30th. The versioning on the new release was originally set to be 3.1, but was bumped once it became apparent just how many changes were going into the product.

Additionally, the 3.5 (nee 3.1) browser release was initially scheduled for the end of 2008. However, the addition of changes such as a new, faster JavaScript engine named TraceMonkey; privacy mode (AKA "porn mode"), and location-aware browsing bumped the version number.

The most recent data from market research firm Net Applications shows Firefox with a 22.5% of the browser market. However, rather than seeing the browser market shake-out, Mozilla has seen competitors in the marketplace increase, with both Chrome and Safari making inroads, and in fact, causing it to make modifications to TraceMonkey to keep up with the speed of the other browsers.

Microsoft also recently released Internet Explorer 8, less of a speed demon but still ubiquitous.

If things are like last year, when Mozilla released the 3.0 version of Firefox, many may see delays in managing to download the darn thing, though Mozilla hasn't been promoting "Download Day" as it did last year.

Apple Runs Short on iPhone 3GS Phones

2009-06-29T00:21:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that Apple was somewhat disappointed with the lines (or lack thereof) for the new iPhone 3GS on launch day, it sold over 1 million of the new, faster iPhone version in the first weekend. Thus, the new and improved iPhone availability widget is a boon, disappointing as search results might be.

At the time of this writing, for example, the widget shows things aren't looking so good in California for availability at Apple stores. Click the above image to enlarge.

It's improved this year previously, availability numbers were updated at the end of each business day. In fact, the page was usually taken down during the business day. However, this year, according to IFOAppleStore, the page is linked directly to Apple’s internal POS computers, and the data is updated hourly for each store.

California's needn't complain however: they could live in Delaware, which has only one Apple store, and is currently sold out across the board.

Apple Sued Over Gift Cards, Tiered Pricing

2009-06-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

On April 7th, iTunes went 100% DRM-free, but at the same time Apple introduced tiered pricing. And therein lies the crux of this new lawsuit against Apple.

Daniel and Barbara Owens of Illinois have filed a class action lawsuit against Apple. The couple has purchased "numerous" iTunes gift cards over the years, but in this case the gift cards were bought on March 1 from Sam's Club and on May 19 from Wal-Mart.

Here's what the lawsuit says, in part:

The above-mentioned 99¢ iTunes cards that were purchased on March 1, 2008 from a Sam’s Club in O’Fallon, Illinois both state: “Download $25 worth of entertainment to enjoy your Mac or Windows PC. And, of course, your iPod. Songs are 99¢ and videos start at 1.99.”

The above-mentioned 99¢ iTunes card purchased on May 19, 2009 at a Wal-Mart in O’Fallon, Illinois states: “Download $15 worth of entertainment to enjoy your Mac or Windows PC. And, of course, your iPod. Songs are 99¢ and videos start at $1.99.”

It's the text that says "Songs are 99 cents and videos start at $1.99" that is the problem, according to the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit adds:

Defendant knowingly and fraudulently misrepresented, concealed, omitted, and/or suppressed the cost to purchase individual songs from its iTunes internet website. As a result, Plaintiffs and members of the putative class have suffered economic harm in that they have paid monies for a product that was worth less than what was represented and/or they have been denied the benefit of their bargain to purchase any song from Defendant’s iTunes Store for $0.99.

The Owens want Apple to refund the 30¢people have had to pay to buy certain songs with the so-called "99¢ iTunes gift cards," which would amount to as much as $5 million, according to the lawsuit.

Read the filing in full below:

webOS "Classic" App Compatibility Site Launches

2009-06-28T17:25:00.000-07:00

MotionApps, which I wrote about earlier, has released one of the few apps available for Palm's Pre and its webOS platform: an emulator that allows you to run Palm OS applications. On Friday, they launched Classic Well, a community-driven Web site that tracks Palm OS "Classic" app compatibility.

Here's what the site says:

Classic Well is a user driven forum where Palm OS user community can report on and discuss Palm OS apps run in Classic. Users can share how those apps behaved and provide recommendations and feedback valuable to both other users and Palm OS developers.

Obviously, not everything will run in the emulator, which is called (naturally) Classic. The more self-contained an application is, the better its odds of running in Classic. Honestly, while people wait for the sparse App Catalog to gain more entries (and some of that is Palm's fault, for withholding the SDK), the large number of Palm OS applications gives consumers some solace, particularly since many have large Palm OS program libraries.

It's also no secret that its never been to hack trial versions of Palm OS applications into believing they have been registered, but that's another story.

MotionApps also has a "Classic Certification" program. For $99, a developer can have applications certified for use with the Classic emulator. Think of it as WHQL certification for PalmOS apps. You submit your application to MotionApps and they run a series of tests on it for compatibility purposes.

A couple of the already-certified apps which many PalmOS users will remember are Agendus and HanDBase.

Michael Jackson Downloads on File-Sharing Sites Surge

2009-06-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson's unexpected death has not just flooded the web with those seeking information about the tragic event, it's also energized the file-sharing community. Not only are new sites and Twitter being bombarded by users and news-seekers, but file-sharing aficionados are downloading Michael Jackson music at a fast clip.

Michael Jackson suffered a cardiac arrest on Thursday afternoon, which at this time appears linked to an injection of Demerol possibly administered by his physician, Dr. Conrad Murray.

On Friday afternoon, if you checked the most popular downloads in the music section of Mininova, the largest Bittorrent tracking site, the top seven were all Michael Jackson downloads.

Similarly, at The Pirate Bay, the most notorious (infamous?) Bittorrent tracker, the top two downloads in the music section were Michael Jackson downloads, while a total of six of the top 10 were Michael Jackson downloads.

For those wondering about the Beatles' back catalog, it will go to Sir Paul McCartney, who has been estranged from Michael Jackson since he lost a bidding war for the rights to 200 of the Beatles’ songs.

Additionally, according to biographer Ian Halperin, there's a huge set of unreleased music that Jackson has held back, and that's probably the next large set of Michael Jackson torrents, right?

This March report states that:

Michael Jackson has recorded more than 100 songs in secret, but is refusing to release the tracks until after his death, according to biographer Ian Halperin.

The singer has amassed a stack of tunes but only wants them to be heard by his children, 11-year-old Prince, 10-year-old Paris Katherine, and five-year-old Prince Michael II, after he dies, said Halperin, author of forthcoming book "Unmasked, The Michael Jackson Story".

Halperin said, "I was astonished by the number of songs which have been held back. I was told that he will not let them come out now but wants to leave them for his kids, a very personal legacy to them."

16GB iPhone 3GS Costs Apple $179 to Make: iSuppli

2009-06-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

Apple's lower-spec iPhone 3GS model costs approximately $179 in materials and manufacturing, according to a teardown analysis released on Wednesday by research group iSuppli.

The 16GB version of the iPhone 3GS carries a bill of materials of $172.46 and costs $6.50 to make, iSuppli estimated. This compares with last year's estimate of $174.33 for the 8GB iPhone 3G, and the first generation 8GB iPhone's estimate of $227.

The 16GB model retails for $199, but of course is heavily subsidized. Interestingly, the 8GB iPhone 3G continues to be sold, at $99, which would place that price (stiil subsidized, mind you) below the cost of the device.

ISuppli analyst Andrew Rassweiler said in a statement:

"By leveraging this commonality to optimize materials costs, and taking advantage of price erosion in the electronic component marketplace, Apple can provide a higher-performing product with more memory and features at only a slightly higher materials and manufacturing cost."

According to Apple, the iPhone 3GS, which went on sale last Friday, sold more than 1 million units in the first three days of launch.

Google Voice Invites Begin Trickling Out

2009-06-25T11:52:00.000-07:00

Google Voice, which was relaunched in March from the "ashes" of GrandCentral, has remained closed to non-GrandCentral users since then. On Thursday, Google announced it was again beginning to give out invitations to the still-not-fully-public service.

Since Google had gone months since adding any new users, you can see that there is probably quite a backlog of requests for entry queued up. In their blog post announcing the move, Google said:

We are happy to share that Google Voice is beginning to open up beyond former GrandCentral users. If you requested an invitation on the Google Voice site or previously on GrandCentral, keep your eye out for an invite email.

Once you receive your invitation, just click on the link and follow the instructions to setup your new Voice account. To help you find a Google number that is personalized to you, we've added a number picker that lets you search by area code and text. See if you can find a number that contains your name, a specific word or a number combination.

Now that's something new, the number picker. Previously you selected an area code and it would just give you a list of numbers. Dang, I would have picked any old area code if I could get some word or phrase for myself.

At any rate, the post above indicates that Google isn't opening the service up to just anyone yet. I could see a major landrush if they did.

Check out the Google Voice intro video below:

Microsoft Announces Windows 7 Pricing, Upgrade Program

2009-06-25T06:57:00.000-07:00

Microsoft on Thursday finally dished on upgrade options for Windows 7, international availability on launch day (Oct. 22) and pricing. It's hard to say which one is more important to me, 1) or 3), but in this economy, I'd go with 3).

So, to drag things out a bit, here's the info on the international versions first: on October 22nd, Windows 7 will launch in the following 14 languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Chinese (Hong Kong).

A little more than a week later, on Halloween, October 31st, the remaining 21 languages will become available: Turkish, Czech, Portuguese, Hungarian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Greek, Ukrainian, Romanian, Arabic, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Estonian, Slovenian, Hebrew, Thai, Croatian, Serbian Latin, and Latvian.

Actually, not bad; it used to take months for a full rollout to all languages.

In terms of Vista -> Windows upgrades, it all starts on Friday, June 26th. You can find full details here, but basically anyone who buys a PC from a participating OEM or retailer with Windows Vista Home Premium, Business or Ultimate on it will all receive an upgrade to the corresponding version of Windows 7 at little or no cost (why Microsoft can't get all OEMs to go with "no cost" is beyond me). The Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program will last through January 31st, 2010 and is global.

Finally, pricing. You'll remember a leaked memo I wrote about earlier contained info about aggressive promotions for early Best Buy pre-orders? The details in that memo were not just correct; the program itself is actually more widespread than it appeared.

Select markets will have the opportunity to buy upgrades at more than 50% off. In the U.S., you can pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for $49.99 or Windows 7 Professional Upgrade for $99.99. Microsoft says to come back to the promotional site here on June 26th for a full list of participating retailers, but they have already announced that Best Buy, Amazon, and the online Microsoft Store (in participating markets) will have promotional pricing.

This program begins tomorrow in the U.S., Canada and Japan. The offer ends July 11th in the U.S. and Canada and on July 5th for Japan or while supplies last. In the U.K., France and Germany, the program starts July 15th and will run until August 14th. In their blog post, Microsoft calls this a screaming deal, and it's certainly aggressive, no doubt.

I should note that this is only for upgrade versions; I'm still unclear if you can do a clean install with an upgrade version of Windows 7, or not. Prior to Vista, you could do so simply by providing your prior license key, but Microsoft didn't allow that in Vista. You had to use "double install workaround" to make it work, a loophole that was discovered.

All right, how about non-promotional pricing? Here you go (US):

Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade): $119.99
Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade): $199.99
Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade): $219.99
Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99
Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99
Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99

Watch an interview between that lays all this out (unfortunately, Silverlight required).

Announcing the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program & Windows 7 Pricing

Steve Jobs Liver Transplant Confirmed by Tennessee Transplant Center

2009-06-24T06:51:00.000-07:00

I haven't been as sick as Steve Jobs was, but the dearth of stories from this site have been because a) I threw out my back, b) I also got the flu. I am barely functional now. At any rate, back to Steve Jobs.

The Wall Street Journal reported last weekend that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a liver transplant, and that has now been confirmed by the Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in a short press release.

James D. Eason, M.D., program director at and chief of transplantation confirmed today, with the patient's permission, that Steve Jobs received a liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in partnership with the University of Tennessee in Memphis.

Mr. Jobs underwent a complete transplant evaluation and was listed for transplantation for an approved indication in accordance with the Transplant Institute policies and United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) policies.

He received a liver transplant because he was the patient with the highest MELD score (Model for End-Stage Liver Disease) of his blood type and, therefore, the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available. Mr. Jobs is now recovering well and has an excellent prognosis.

The Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute performed 120 liver transplants in 2008 making it one of the ten largest liver transplant centers in the United States. We provide transplants to patients regardless of race, sex, age, financial status, or place of residence. Our one year patient and graft survival rates are among the best in the nation and were a dominant reason in Mr. Jobs’s choice of transplant centers. We respect and protect every patient's private health information and cannot reveal any further information on the specifics of Mr. Jobs's case.

As indicated in the first paragraph, Jobs granted them permission to release the information. Some of this comes over speculation that, as liver transplants are hard to come by, could Steve Jobs "cut in line."

In reality, it's difficult if not imposible for anyone to "cut in line," but unlike most people, Jobs has the financial wherewithal to fly around the country and get into multiple lines, so to speak, at multiple "organ procurement organizations" (OPOs) . That's simply not possible for most people. It's hard enough for most people to afford the transplant in the first place.

In the Tennessee OPO where Jobs received his transplant, the median wait for a liver between 2002 and 2007 was just over four months. The national average was just over a year, and in some OPOs it was more than three years.

So, did Steve Jobs use his money to get "cuts?" Not really. Did his money help him? Certainly.

At any rate, it's also been reported that Steve Jobs is back at work, so all seems well, at least for now for Apple, Apple stock, and Steve Jobs.

D'oh! Sorry, Your GPS Unit Led You Astray

2009-06-22T00:08:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that even GPS units are subject to GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out), leading users astray due to incorrect map data.. People have even been led to the edge of cliffs. Wouldn't it be appropriate to hear the expression "D'oh!" if such a failure occurred?

Well, you won't, but you can directions via Homer Simpson, at least if you use TomTom navigation units. TomTom users can go to www.tomtom.com/simpsons and download the voice for $12.95 or €9.95. Sorry, it's not free. D'oh!

A couple of samples you can hear at the website include:

"Woo hoo! You have reached your destination, and you can hold your head up high, because you are a genius!"
"At the end of the road, turn left, then take the highway. Ah ha ha, he he. Woo hoo!"

D'oh! It's an iconic phrase, so iconic that its even in the Oxford English Dictionary as of 1998.It is defined as an interjection "used to comment on an action perceived as foolish or stupid".

You know, kind of like running off a cliff because your GPS tells you to, even though you can see it's a "bad idea."

Palm Promises web OS SDK Out Soon

2009-06-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

The Palm Pre has been out for about two weeks now, and despite that, Palm has not released the webOS SDK to the public. Only developers in their early access program have the SDK in their hands, and that's surely a mistake on Palm's part.

Right now there about 30 apps in the App Catalog, and granted, it's been a short time, but there's no reason why Palm shouldn't give the SDK to everyone. That said, som are making apples to oranges comparisons, forgetting about the millions of first-generation iPhones that were available to download those early App Store entries.

Still, I can't understand why Palm is holding back on the SDK. Here's what they say:

Our goal is to make the SDK available to everyone by the end of this summer, and to get there in stages:

Beginning immediately, we’ll accelerate the growth of the early access program, expanding as quickly as resources allow. Over the next few weeks, the program will grow from hundreds to thousands of developers.

Simultaneously, we’ll begin publishing more content outside the early access program, and we’ll launch new confidentiality rules that will allow early Mojo developers to communicate more freely with the rest of the world.

As soon as we can, we’ll open the SDK to all legitimate requests.

Legitimate requests? The original PalmOS was built with lots of content from small developers. It sounds like Palm is trying to restrict things to the biggies, and by doing so is shooting itself in the foot.

And end of summer? That's (seasonally) in September. That's a long time to wait, for both developers and end users.