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RBC: Apple To Change iPhone Sales Model, Sell 14 Million Phones This Year

2008-05-05T16:13:00.003-04:00

Apple's 10 million iPhones in 2008 goal? Too low, says RBC analyst Mark Abramsky in a note today. He thinks Apple (AAPL) will sell 14 million phones this year, up 40% from his previous prediction of 10 million -- and more than 8 times the 1.7 million phones the company sold in the first three months of the year. He also thinks Apple will sell 24 million iPhones in 2009.

Why? The most obvious helper: A new iPhone, which should be able to access faster, "3G" wireless Internet service. Also: Broader distribution through new carrier deals in Europe and Asia, broader consumer interest thanks to Apple's forthcoming apps platform, and broader corporate interest thanks to the "iPhone 2.0" upgrade, planned for June, which adds corporate email support, etc.

But Abramsky also thinks Apple is going to change the way it sells the iPhone by loosening its distribution strategy. Specifically, he thinks Apple could:

Drop or reduce exclusivity in some markets. This would let people buy iPhones without being forced to use Apple's hand-picked carrier partner -- e.g. T-Mobile (DT) subscribers in the U.S. who don't want to switch to AT&T (T).
Allow carriers to subsidize pricing, as rumored. For example, a $200 iPhone could sell 50-100% better, he says. AT&T would happily pay $200 to steal a subscriber from Verizon Wireless -- it's already doing it for every other phone it sells.
Sell official "unlocked" phones that can work with any wireless carrier. This could help iPhone sales momentum jump 2-3x outside of North America, he says.

All of this points to Apple getting lower (or zero) kickbacks from wireless operators -- highly profitable service fees it gets now in exchange for carrier exclusivity/early adopter status. (RBC estimates $8 per subscriber, per month, on average.)

To make up for it, we expect unlocked iPhones to sell for a hefty premium -- Abramsky's guess of an additional $200 sounds right to us. But for the rest of the market, Apple will need to find new ways to boost or maintain its margins -- or settle for lower profitability in exchange for greater market share.

Either way, Abramsky says, the iPhone is "solidly accretive" to Apple's profits. He estimates an unlocked $400 iPhone still gets a 35% gross margin for Apple; last quarter, its overall gross margin was 32.9%.

(Silicone Alley Insider)

Microsoft says XP is dead in June, Dell says it ll' keep selling it

2008-04-28T14:42:00.003-04:00

Steve Ballmer kicked up a little dirt last week when he said that Microsoft could "wake up smarter" and keep selling XP after the June 30 cutoff date if customer feedback demanded it, but as you'd expect, the company is busily trying to "clarify" that statement by saying that while it always listens to customers, XP is definitely going to die on the 30th. Well, apart from the ultraportable exception that'll last until 2012 or so. And the backlog of licenses still in reseller's hands. Oh, and a little company called Dell, which, as rumored, is going to take advantage of a Vista licensing loophole that allows it to sell a copy of Vista but preload XP instead. Yep, that's the plan -- Dell's going to report a Vista sale to Microsoft, but deliver an XP box with Vista upgrade DVD to customers. (That sound you just heard was a million accountants sighing in appreciation.) The program will be available for Latitude, OptiPlex, Precision, Vostro, and XPS systems (some with a minor fee), and Dell says it'll keep going as long as Microsoft supports the "downgrade" license option, which could be forever. Looks like June 30 just got a lot less scary for XP fans, no?

Read - Microsoft clarification of Ballmer's comments
Read - Dell to keep selling XP

(Engadget)

Apple Buys Chipmaker P.A. Semi For $278 Million

2008-04-23T06:26:00.002-04:00

Wondering what Apple (AAPL) was going to do with all that cash? Here's one answer: The company has acquired small chip designer P.A. Semi for $278 million in cash, Forbes.com reports.

Late Tuesday, in response to questions from Forbes.com, Apple's top spokesman said the deal is done. "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not comment on our purposes and plans," Steve Dowling said. The company is due to announce its quarterly earnings Wednesday.

The decision to center the iPhone design around a chip that Apple could own marks a significant strategic choice by Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs, and is aimed at ensuring Apple can continue to differentiate its flagship phone as a raft of competitors flood the market. According to a source affiliated with the chip company, Jobs and Senior Vice President Tony Fadell led the tiny group of executives who spearheaded the acquisition, which included negotiations that took place in Jobs' home.

Apple's choice is a blow for chip maker Intel (INTC), which has been trying to convince Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple to rely on Intel's chips--particularly its latest low-power line up, called Atom.

In February 2007, P.A. Semi debuted a 64-bit dual core microprocessor which the company asserted was 300% more efficient than any comparable chips. It consumes only 5 to 13 watts running at 2 gigahertz. Telecommunications, networking and wireless companies embraced P.A. Semi's work.

It will probably take more than a year before Apple products incorporate any of P.A.'s chips, Forbes.com says.

(Silicone Alley Insider)

Revenge of the desktop app

2008-04-22T08:55:00.003-04:00

The cloud is taking over the world of applications, casting a shadow on the desktop. The browser rules. Operating systems are simply plumbing. The Web is the new OS.

Hello folks, Dan Farber has written an interesting article over at Cnet, about the new world of software which is largely RIA ( Rich Internet Application) and how is desktop apps are fitting into this crazy world of software when everything is browser based?

Why would any one even want a desktop application when everything just runs off the web browser?

Blockbuster offers $1 billion for Circuit City

2008-04-14T15:07:00.003-04:00

Video rental giant Blockbuster on Monday announced it has offered to purchase Circuit City Stores for $6 to $8 per share, or about $1 billion to $1.3 billion.

Blockbuster initially made the proposal on February 17, but says Circuit City has not provided the due diligence it needs to make a more definitive offer. On Monday, Blockbuster decided to go public. In a letter to Circuit City CEO Philip Schoonover, Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes notes that the two companies have been discussing proposed tie-ups since December.

(Credit: Blockbuster)

Blockbuster says the offer is intended to "capitalize on the growing convergence of media content and electronic devices."

"Our proposal offers Circuit City a significant premium to its existing stock price and creates a game-changing retail concept with a sustainable competitive advantage. We believe the combination will result in a compelling consumer proposition that will drive significant revenue and margin enhancements as well as cost synergies," Keyes said in a statement.

Circuit City issued its own statement saying it had received the offer, and was still evaluating its options.

A combination of the two companies would add up to an $18 billion business, according to Blockbuster's calculations. Both companies have struggled in the past year--Circuit City posted a $200 million loss near the end of 2008, and Blockbuster has been fending off Netflix's success in online video rentals, as well as the growing threat of digital movie downloads.

Last week news leaked out that Blockbuster had a set-top box under development that would stream video content directly into homes, which was seen by many as a last-ditch effort to adapt its business.

( Erica Ogg, Cnet)

Now playing: Adobe Media Player 1.0

2008-04-09T12:47:00.003-04:00

Adobe Systems on Wednesday plans to release Adobe Media Player (AMP), a free download for playing Flash-based Web videos on Macs or PCs.

Written with Adobe's AIR, AMP is a hybrid online/offline application that lets people subscribe to different video Webcasts. Adobe has signed on some initial partners including CBS, PBS, MTV Networks, Universal Music Group, CondeNet, and Scripps Networks. (See my colleague Rafe Needleman's review of AMP on Webware.)

The videos are either streamed from the content producer's Web site or they can be downloaded. Adobe will host a catalog, called Adobe TV, on its site where people can find videos. Because it's written with AIR, people can be offline or online when they watch.

Initially, many of the videos available will have advertising attached to them. Using Adobe's digital rights management server, content producers are able to put controls on their media.

Later, Adobe intends to enhance the client software so that different business models can be used, such as paying to download a video or renting videos, said Ashley Still, a senior product manager at Adobe.

There are already a number of existing media players, like iTunes. But Adobe thinks that having its own player will be strategic for a number of reasons, Still said.

PBS is one of the content partners to use the Adobe Media Player.

(Credit: Adobe)

Adobe is trying to garner more revenue from online services; the company will be sharing revenue from advertising with content producers.

The player complements Adobe's multimedia content-creation multimedia products and Adobe wants to make sure there is a high-quality way to deliver that video to consumers, Still said.

"This is the first time Adobe is participating directly in the playback of Internet video content," she said.

With the 1.0 version, the player will only display Flash content, but Adobe could add support for other formats, Still said.

( Martin LaMonica, Cnet)

I've tested the player and it works, really well even with slower connections internet, what's even cooler is that unlike others Adobe allows international users to enjoy ad supported US television content. (though selection is still extremely limited).

9000 school in swiss will switch to linux only

2008-04-05T10:59:00.005-04:00

Duvet-Dayz is reoprting that Beginning from next term, all computers at schools in the Swiss canton of Geneva will be switched to Ubuntu Linux only.
Geneva newspaper Tribune de Geneve reports today that from September 2008 all computers at schools that currently are dual-boot MS Windows and Linux will have MS Windows removed and become FOSS (Free Open Source Software) only.

Besides lower costs for the administration, students will also profit from the use of Ubuntu, as they then will be able to use the same applications at home without additional cost.

Manuel Grandjean, director for the schools (Ecoles-Médias) IT services pointed out that the use of FOSS “…encourages participation and the democratization of knowledge and provides product independent competences…“.
He also sees the use of FOSS as a “reinforcement of equal opportunities” for students. More information and the full text of the article at Tribune de Geneve (in French)

Intel trots out wireless chips, discusses eight cores at IDF

2008-04-02T14:41:00.002-04:00

Intel has started shipping its long awaited low-power chip for wireless devices, but the company is clearly starting at the high end of the market.

The Centrino Atom--which took almost four years to develop--is the world's fastest chip under 3 watts of power, according to Intel. The first Atoms run at speeds up to 1.8GHz and sport a thermal ceiling of 0.65 to 2.4 watts. By contrast, the average laptop chip runs at 3.3GHz and consumes 35 watts at a peak.

The company unveiled the chip at the Intel Developer Forum taking place in Shanghai this week. Intel also said that the first chips based around Nehalem, a new chip architecture for desktops, notebooks and servers, will come out this year. Nehalem is designed to go up to eight cores. (Hubba, hubba.)

Then there is a whole new architecture coming in 2010 code-named Sandy Bridge.

Atom will probably get the most attention at the show. Intel has been trying to play a bigger part in the wireless market for years and create new categories of devices for wireless, cranking out another chapter in the so-called "new users, new uses" strategy. Intel will initially aim Atom at "pocketable devices" which can play movies, hold hours of music, and let users scroll the Internet. A few companies like OQQ and Samsung have come out with ultra-portables like this. They haven't sold in huge numbers. The first devices with Atom will sell for around $400 to $600.

The mobile sector is the fastest-growing category in the semiconductor business and Intel wants to be in there to compete with companies such as Dallas-based Texas Instruments, Samsung Electronics, Qualcomm, and STMicroelectronics.

"The architecture is going to be able to bring all the PC functionalities, what you saw in the market in 2003 and 2004," Gary Willihnganz, director of marketing in Intel's mobile group, said in a conference call from Shanghai on Tuesday.

To help convince wireless handset makers to select its chip, Intel promises a "seven year extended life support." That is, handset makers will be able to get chips and support for seven years for the same processor. Handset and consumer electronics device makers change internal silicon slower than PC makers.

The company presented a list of around 20 manufacturers, 10 service providers, and a big group of software companies that have signed on to work with Intel. How many come out with devices remains to be seen, but it's a start. In the past, Intel has kicked off mobile phone efforts with less support.

(Carl-Gustav Linden, Cnet)

Facebook's goes hyper-viral with 'People You May Know'

2008-03-27T17:09:00.003-04:00

Facebook has about 67 million members. With the new "People You May Know" feature, the number of connections per member will skyrocket, extending the reach and stickiness of Facebook's social graph.

People You May Know finds people within six degrees or so of separation and suggests them as potential friends. It appears that the threshold is set at four, meaning you are connected to four of the same people as the suggested "friend." FriendFeed has taken a somewhat similar approach for recommending new people to "follow."

This type of recommendation engine, which taps into the social graph, is like a Las Vegas slot machine that keeps on giving. Every time you pull the lever you get a bunch of new friend connections, which makes you want to keep pulling the lever until it runs out of recommendations.

The end result is that Facebook generates some exponential growth, creating more density in its web of people connections. And, Facebook members now have an easy way to find new connections based on relationship proximity, as well as a potential source of irritation as they get inundated with friends of friends requesting connections.

Along with the new privacy options, the forthcoming chat service, and People You May Know, Facebook is making some smart moves to stay ahead in the social-networking game.

(Dan Farber Cnet)

Motorola to split in two

2008-03-26T15:35:00.001-04:00

In a clear move to keep Motorola’s flagging mobile phone sales from pulling down its lucrative broadband and switching enterprise services the company is splitting into two publicly-traded organizations. The Mobile Devices company will focus on mobile handsets while the Broadband and Mobility solutions sector will work on secure voice and data communication along with broadband for enterprises and government.

Motorola shareholders will receive shares in each of the companies once the process is completed.

(Techcrunch)

Inspectd: Test your stock trading skills

2008-03-21T15:48:00.003-04:00

Hello folks,

Think you are good at trading stocks? Here’s a good Friday afternoon time waster for those of you who prefer more grown-up games than you can find on Mytopia.

Test your trading skills at Inspectd. The site, which has been around for a while, shows you a historical stock chart with nothing more than the price and the moving average. You are given $100,000 in fake money and you have to decide whether to buy, skip, or sell based on nothing other than the price. Once you decide, it tells you the name of the stock, what it actually did over the next 20 days, and adjusts your account accordingly.

It is pretty addictive, and cheaper than day trading with real money.

(Techcrunch)

Facebook to launch IM

2008-03-15T06:46:00.003-04:00

Facebook has been testing a new instant messaging service and will be launching it to the public soon, perhaps in the next week.

Our understanding is that the service will be built into user’s Facebook pages and allow them to web chat with their Facebook friends. We’ve also heard that, like Gtalk, it will be built on the Jabber open source platform, allowing users to add the service to many popular Instant messaging clients like Trillian (Windows) and Adium (Mac). I’d also expect web chat services like Meebo and eBuddy to add support for the service.

This spells trouble for a slew of instant messaging services that third parties have built on Facebook. Social.IM, for example, is one (funded) startup we’ve written about a couple of times. Those applications are now basically dead.

The timing on this certainly is interesting. Yesterday AOL talked extensively about marrying their AIM platform with their newly acquired Bebo social network.

There’s a screen shot of this floating around out there somewhere. We’re trying to get our hands on it now.

(Techcrunch)

AOL buys social network Bebo for $850 million

2008-03-13T14:06:00.003-04:00

AOL has acquired social-networking site Bebo. The price tag: $850 million in cash. (Techcrunch called it last month)

Rumors had floated over the past few months that Bebo, which has over 40 million members, was up for sale. Reports suggested a $1 billion price tag, but there were few hints as to potential buyers. Though Bebo had already partnered with AOL's AIM messaging client to facilitate friend-invite interoperability between the two services, even the most creative blogger speculation didn't seem to point to AOL eventually buying the social network.

Ironically, AOL itself has been talked about as an acquisition target. Jeffrey Bewkes, CEO of Time Warner, which operates AOL, has spoken recently about plans to spin off or sell divisions of the company.

AOL has made it clear that buying Bebo is a move geared toward international growth, as the youth-oriented social network is wildly popular in the U.K., Ireland, and New Zealand. AOL reported that it has launched "17 international web sites over the last year and has plans to expand to 30 countries outside the U.S. by the end of 2008," as well as international versions of its home page and some services. Bebo, meanwhile, plans to launch five localized versions of its service this year (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands), and AOL will make it a major part of the company's international expansion strategy.

"Bebo is the perfect complement to AOL's personal communications network and puts us in a leading position in social media," said AOL chairman and CEO Randy Falco in a statement. "What drew us to Bebo was its substantial and fast-growing worldwide user-base, its vision of a truly social web, and the monetization opportunities...This positions us to offer advertisers even greater reach and marketers significant insights into the desires and needs of consumers."

Additionally, despite the fact that performance monitoring firms have pegged it as sluggish, Bebo's technology was likely appealing to AOL. The social network's developer platform supports both OpenSocial and Facebook applications; it also has an "Open Media" platform for audio and video content from big-media names like CBS and MTV as well as online production outlets like Next New Networks and Ustream. AOL, meanwhile, has opened up AIM to developers.

Read on (Cnet.com)

iPhone: what's next?

2008-03-07T19:07:00.001-05:00

Hello folks, Apple on Thursday finally unveiled the much awaited iPhone SDK, as well as some other very interesting solutions for the enterprise.

Apple held a media event at its Cupertino headquarters where it previewed its iPhone 2.0 software, scheduled for release this June, and announced the immediate availability of a beta release of the software to selected developers and enterprise customers.

The iPhone 2.0 beta release includes both the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) as well as new enterprise features such as support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to provide secure, over-the-air push email, contacts and calendars as well as remote wipe, and the addition of Cisco IPsec VPN for encrypted access to private corporate networks.

"We’re excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community with potentially thousands of native applications for iPhone and iPod touch,” said Apple chief executive Steve Jobs. "iPhone’s enterprise features combined with its revolutionary Multi-Touch user interface and advanced software architecture provide the best user experience and the most advanced software platform ever for a mobile device."

The iPhone SDK will provide developers with a rich set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and tools to create applications for both the iPhone and iPod touch. Starting today, anyone can download the beta iPhone SDK for free and run the iPhone Simulator on their Mac. Apple also introduced its new iPhone Developer Program, giving developers everything they need to create native applications, and the new App Store, which will allow those developers to wirelessly deliver their applications to iPhone and iPod touch users.

Apple also announced that it has licensed Exchange ActiveSync from Microsoft and is building it right into the iPhone, so that the handset will connect out-of-the-box to Microsoft Exchange Servers 2003 and 2007 for secure over-the-air push email, contacts, calendars and global address lists.

iPhone goes to the enterprise

Apple isn't just plotting out a way to enter big organizations. The iPhone is already there, having grabbed 28% market share in just eight months on the market. In addition, the phone has also become the most popular way to access the mobile web, swallowing up 71% of the US mobile browser market.

Apple introduced representatives from a series of major companies and institutions, including Todd Pierce, a VP of Genentech, who stated that “the iPhone is a watershed event in mobile computing for corporations” and has deployed thousands of iPhones within the company. The CIO of Nike called the iPhone a “plug-and-play enterprise solution.”

The senior VP of IT at Disney also endorsed Apple's enterprise strategy on the iPhone, stating "Apple has really done their homework, addressing issues of security, manageability, and integration. We currently have hundreds of iPhone users and expect the demand to grow significantly with this release."

Stanford University also reported having deployed hundreds of iPhones on its campus. Bill Clebsch, Stanford's CIO, reported, "The iPhone has worked effortlessly at Stanford and the user acceptance has just astounded us. We have been inundated with orders."

With all of the millions of iPhones already out there and in use by highly satisfied users -- including many corporate executives -- Apple has been pushed to add features to the iPhone to make it easier for IT staff to manage and integrate into the existing systems.

"We’ve been hard at work trying to understand what it takes to bring the iPhone out across enterprise," noted Phil Schiller, Apple's senior VP of Marketing. One key feature relates to support for Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007.

Exchange is Microsoft's proprietary email server, which talks to standard Internet mail servers over SMTP and can deliver email to standard clients like the iPhone over IMAP, but which prefers to use its own MAPI system for talking to email clients and devices. Exchange competes against IBM's Lotus Notes, which has also announced support for the iPhone, and Novell Groupware, as described in Apple's Open Calendar Server vs Microsoft Exchange.

Apple is also presenting its own email, directory, and calendaring services in Leopard Server, including its new open source, CalDAV-based Calendar Server, described in Using iPhone: iCal, CalDAV Calendar Servers, and Mac OS X Leopard.

In order to accommodate Enterprise users tied to Exchange, Apple has also licensed Microsoft's proprietary ActiveSync protocol and will be delivering built-in support for talking to Exchange using its native language. This will enable iPhone users to gain access to server updates pushed from Exchange as they are updated on the server, rather than requested by the client at regular intervals like a typical email program.

Push Email - delivers messages as they arrive
Push contacts - updates information as it is changed
Push calendar - delivers meeting requests and changes in real time
Global Address List - provides access to the company directory of employees.

Additionally, Apple is adding broader support for using the iPhone with secured networks. The iPhone 2.0 update, expected in late June, will add support for additional VPN protocol types, including the popular Cisco IPsec VPN. Virtual Private Networks allow remote users to authenticate with a company server and gain access to local resources, including email and private corporate Intranets, from anywhere on the open Internet.

Read on (Appleinsider)

Also Cnet has an extensive coverage on the iPhone SDK, check it out.

Apple Time Capsule unboxing and preview

2008-03-04T15:22:00.002-05:00

Hello folks, Appleinsider has posted a well detailed first take review of Apple latest gadget: Time Capsule, which is basically an Airport Extreme Base Station (a router in Apple's language) with an integrated hard drive and power adapter, or as Steve Jobs rerferd to it: A backup appliance.

It looks really good, the only question how well does it work for windows users and linux?

Obvieusly it originally made to cope with Time machine, Apple's Leopard biggest feature. But according to Apple it woks on Windows machines too.

I really want to get Time Capsule, I guess I would wait for an official full review.

Google investing in DNA sequencing project

2008-03-01T11:35:00.004-05:00

Google has financially backed a project from a Harvard University scientist to unlock the secrets of common diseases by decoding the DNA of 100,000 people.

The project will be the largest human genome sequencing project in the world, and may lead to new cures for disease.

According to Bloomberg, the project will begin in the U.S., U.K., China and Sweden this year, initially deciphering the genetic makeup of 1,000 people at a cost of $50 million.

The new investment takes Google further towards its quest to index any and everything on the planet, having invested in genetics testing company 23andme last year, and more recently preparing Google Health for launch.

23andMe, the startup widely known as the company whose founder is the wife of Sergey Brin, has plans to make the human genome searchable.
Brin, along with Google, gave 23andMe $3.9 million as part of a series A in May of 2007.

The company, cleverly named after the number of paired chromosomes in humans, wants to help you understand what your genes mean by indexing them and highlighting significant findings. 23andMe will allow its clients/users to better understand their ancestry, genealogy, and inherited traits. For researchers and scientist, the company could provide invaluable amounts of neatly categorized and easily searchable data.

(Techrunch)

Apple announces special iPhone SDK event

2008-02-28T15:53:00.002-05:00

Finally weeks of speculation Apple has sent invites to limited members and reporters for an "iPhone Software Roadmap" event.

"Please join us to learn about the iPhone software roadmap, including the iPhone SDK and some exciting new enterprise features," the company wrote in a digital invite distributed by email.

The event is set to take place at 10:00 a.m. sharp Pacific time at the "Town Hall" on Apple's Cupertino campus -- the same venue used for the introduction of the Intel-based Mac mini and iPod Hi-Fi in February of 2006, and the aluminum iMacs this past August.

Per usual, seating for the event will be extremely limited due to the size of the Apple Town Hall, which appears to hold only a couple hundred at best.

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs had previously announced plans to unveil the iPhone SDK later this month, but true to recent rumors, delays forced the company to push out the unveiling by a couple of weeks. (Earlier information obtained by AppleInsider suggests that Apple had originally intended to present the SDK at an event on Thursday, February 21st.)

"Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February," Jobs wrote in a posting to Apple.com back in October. "We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users."
(Appleinsider)

Has Apple found the magic Touch?

2008-02-26T15:30:00.002-05:00

Cnet's Tom Krazit takes an interesting look at Apple's development of the multi- touch user interface.
As of this morning Apple also updated its line of Macbooks and expended its multi touch technology into the notebooks carrying it from the iPhone, and iPod touch and of course the highly profile Macbook air.

The question now is whether this is something that will boost Mac sales, which have been doing pretty well on their own up to this point. It's hard to assess the impact of the multitouch technology in the early days of the MacBook Air, which has only been out a little over a month and appeals to only a subset of the notebook-buying population.

It's clear, however, that the iPhone's multitouch user interface is perhaps its greatest asset. And Synaptics, which makes TouchPads used in a wide variety of notebooks PCs, expects several PC vendors to introduce similar technology later this year on their own notebooks.

Wired brought up an interesting point last week, however, as it looked into Apple's chances of patenting this technology. Apple secretly acquired Fingerworks, a company started by two professors at the University of Delaware, in 2005 in order to get its hands on the MultiTouch fingertip recognition technology.

If Apple is successful with its patent efforts, and other PC and smartphone companies develop their own gesture-recognition technology in response, we could see a world where pinching on a MacBook might zoom, but the same gesture might close a window on a ThinkPad, or open a file on a mobile phone.

AMD releases open-source code for multicore development

2008-02-21T16:12:00.003-05:00

Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday released the source code aimed at making it easier to build media applications for x86 multicore processors.

The AMD Performance Library, which is now called Framewave, is available on SourceForge.

The framework is a collection of routines that optimize performance of media-oriented applications on multicore processors. For example, a developer could link to a library that optimizes video display on a specific graphics card.

By starting a project at SourceForge.net, the chipmaker will allow programmers to customize and further optimize the software, which will work with compilers for Linux, Windows, and Solaris, said Margaret Lewis, AMD's director of commercial solutions and software strategy.

Experts say creating tools for developers to optimize their work for multicore processors is one of the biggest challenges the semiconductor industry faces.

Multimedia applications, in particular, get a relatively big performance boost by optimizing the code, Lewis said.

"Those particular applications are demanding and very complex, and a lot of the time, those routines are used repetitively," Lewis said.

AMD will continue contributing to the software and take outside contributions through the Framewave project, she added.

(Martin LaMonica, Cnet)

Multi-touch comming soon to a mac near you?

2008-02-19T12:57:00.008-05:00

Looks like Apple is working to extend an advanced version of its multi-touch technology to future notebook trackpads that would include gesture concepts well beyond what is presently available on its handheld and MacBook Air products.

The January 2007 filing, dug up overnight by MacRumors, is titled "Gesturing with a multipoint sensing device" and lists among its inventors Wayne Westerman of Fingerworks, a company absorbed by Apple several years ago as part of its quest to deliver iPhone and a new generation of input devices.

Of particular interest are several drawings and descriptions of a new Mac OS X "Gesture Control Panel" nestled deep within the 72-page filing. The panel is split three-way, offering a distinct set of customizable options for "Standard," "Basic," and "Advanced" multi-touch operations.

Listed as part of the "Advanced" panel are several pre-defined multi-touch gesture sets for operations not yet supported by Apple's iPhone, iPod touch, or MacBook Air offerings. Among them are gestures for file operations, editing operations, and Web browser operations.

For example, Apple explains that by using a combination of the thumb and two other fingers, users of the advanced multi-touch trackpad technology would be able to invoke commands for copy, paste, cut, redo, and select all. Similarly, by using the thumb and just one other finger, users would be able to create new files or open, save and close existing ones.

It's presently unclear when Apple will be ready to deploy its software for "Advanced" gestures, but those Mac systems supporting the Basic gestures include a Broadcom multi-touch chip. The presence of that chip should allow owners to take full advantage of the Advanced gestures through a software upgrade. Current MacBook and MacBook Pro owners, however, are unlikely gain access to the technology due to the lack of supporting hardware.

Update: : Appleinsider has published another fascinating look at yet another Apple patent which aims at evolving multi-touch technology into a surface extension which may replace keyboards all together, or could be used at replacing traditional input devices such as the keyboard, mouse, and drawing tablet.

Amazon web service goes down takes many start up with it

2008-02-15T17:16:00.003-05:00

Amazon Web Services suffered a major outage this morning, affecting the thousands of Websites that rely on its storage (S3) and cloud computing (EC2) services. Startups including Twitter, SmugMug, 37Signals, and AdaptiveBlue, for instance, use Amazon’s S3 storage service to store all the data for their Websites. Reports started coming in across the Web, email, and Twitter about the outage (Twitter only uses S3 for file hosting, not its main messaging application). The major difficulties seem to have been fixed, but some issues persist. The outage started at around 4:30 AM PT.

This could just be growing pains for Amazon Web Services, as more startups and other companies come to rely on it for their Web-scale computing infrastructure. But even if the outage only lasted a couple hours, it is unacceptable. Nobody is going to trust their business to cloud computing unless it is more reliable than the data-center computing that is the current norm. So many Websites now rely on Amazon’s S3 storage service and, increasingly, on its EC2 compute cloud as well, that an outage takes down a lot of sites, or at least takes down some of their functionality. Cloud computing needs to be 99.999 percent reliable if Amazon and others want it to become more widely adopted.

Update: A response from Amazon PR:

For one of our services, the Amazon Simple Storage Service, one of our three geographic locations was unreachable for approximately two hours and was back to operating at over 99% of normal performance before 7 a.m. pst. We’ve been operating this service for two years and we’re proud of our uptime track record. Any amount of downtime is unacceptable and we won’t be satisfied until it’s perfect. We’ve been communicating with our customers all morning via our support forums and will be providing additional information as soon as we have it.
(Techcrunch)

Apple TV ads driving online search

2008-02-14T14:52:00.003-05:00

A new report suggests that Apple’s catchy TV advertisements for the iPod nano, iPod touch, and iPhone are having a ripple effect on online searches. According to the latest numbers from Compete, U.S. consumers made nearly 1 million queries for iPod related commercials or the underlying music from August 2007 to January 2008. 15 of the top 20 searches contained the word “song” or “music,” suggesting that many consumers are searching for the song in the commercial, as very little information is given about the songs and artists featured in Apple’s spots. In particular, research shows that over 425,000 people were actively searching in September for the song used in Apple’s popular spot for the iPod nano, Feist’s ”1-2-3-4." Traffic for the song’s music video on YouTube grew 1200% from the month prior to the commercial’s launch, and over 45 times when views of the actual commercial were included. Similar growth was seen for CSS’ ”Music is my hot hot sex,” featured in a user-inspired iPod touch ad, and for Yael Naim’s ”New Soul,” which is featured in Apple’s recent commercial for the MacBook Air.

In a separate interview with the BBC, Canadian singer Leslie Feist admitted to being pleasantly surprised with the impact the iPod nano advertisement has had on career. “I felt a definite shift, it seemed to pique a lot of curiosity which luckily led back to an album and video that I believe in. It just shows you the power of that kind of thing, as opposed to some preconceived marketing ploy,” she said. “I was a little naive as to the impact it would have because I really didn’t have any idea it would be like that. But it did me nothing but favours because I’ve continued doing what I do, but with so many new open ears from so many more people than there were before.”

(iLounge)

Report: Yahoo board rejects Microsoft offer

2008-02-09T15:44:00.000-05:00

The Yahoo Board has mulled it over, and its answer for Microsoft is a simple "no." The "hostile" $44.6 billion bid was rejected by the board, as largely expected. The question now is, why?

Reported first this morning by the Wall Street Journal, a person "familiar" with the situation says that Yahoo believed the offer of $31 a share "massively undervalues" the company, and provides no protections for the risks Yahoo would incur by entering into a deal that would be heavily vetted and possibly overturned by regulators. According to the WSJ's source, Yahoo is looking for bids north of $40 per share, or something in the $56+ billion range. At $31 per share, the Board apparently feels as though Microsoft is trying to "steal" the company and take advantage of recent weaknesses. Such "weaknesses" aren't necessarily recent, however. Yahoo's stock price hasn't been north of $40 since the end of 2005.

$44.6 billion was already steep for Microsoft, which has admitted that the company would need to take on debt to get the deal done. Adding another $12+ billion to the price only makes it harder for Microsoft to convince shareholders that this is a good idea. Microsoft's other option is to push forward aggressively with this offer and attempt to battle or overturn the board, but who really expects Microsoft to risk royally irritating the very same people it needs to run Yahoo in the first place? How bad does Microsoft want it?

Yahoo may not truly be looking for $40 per share, however, and could just be stalling for time. Yesterday it was widely reported that the company might form a pact with Google in order to fend off Microsoft, but that move isn't without its own problems. At the very least, Microsoft is reportedly eager to argue that Google's involvement is inappropriate, inasmuch as the #1 player in search ads could be seen as having monopolistic intentions by doing a deal with the #2 player, Yahoo. We all know how Google feels about the deal.

According to the WSJ's source, the Yahoo Board will be sending Microsoft a letter on Monday detailing their position.

(Ars Technica)

Macbook Air reviews

2008-02-09T11:05:00.000-05:00

Hello folks, over the past week Apple has finally began shipping the new shiny Macbook Air, and reviews of the unit have been flying all around the web.

Basically there are two models the hard drive version and the more ($ 1300 extra) pricey SSD version. Ars Technica has published a great comprehensive review of the two units comparing their performances.

I advice all potential buyers and Apple fans to check it out.

Also Appleinsider has posted its insights and review about the new thin wonder.

Founder of MP3.com starts busines info wiki

2008-02-05T15:04:00.000-05:00

Serial entrepreneur Michael Robertson has started a new business-information site called Dealipedia.

Robertson, founder of such companies as MP3.com and Linspire, is relying on the wisdom of crowds to supply information on IPOs, mergers, acquisitions, closings, bankruptcies, and investments. He said that Wikipedia has proven that allowing the masses to provide and edit information works.

Dealipedia is a "combination (of) news, reference and perhaps a bit of gossip for business deals," Robertson said in an e-mail to CNET News.com.

At Dealipedia.com, I clicked on the site's "Who Made the Money" section to see if Robertson's own name was included. Sure enough, it was. According to the site, Robertson pocketed $115 million when he sold MP3.com to Vivendi Universal for $372 million in May 2001.

Jason Calcanis made $15 million and Mark Cuban made $5 million when Weblogs was sold to AOL. None of this is breaking news and the section is relatively bare of details. But Robertson is hoping the content will grow as greater numbers of business insiders contribute.

In one area, Robertson will also allow users to post info anonymously. He said this has supplied new details about Flickr, Delicious, and GrandCentral.

"After continually getting frustrated that I couldn't find historic data on business deals," Robertson said, "or easily keep track of new deals without reading a dozen different publications, I decided to remedy the problem."

The site is designed to appeal to investors, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs, Robertson said. His intent is to offer a "nice snapshot" of a company's life cycle from the first round of investment all the way to an IPO.

(Webware)