If the rumors are to be believed, the next generation iPod Touch will close even more of the gap with its bigger cousin, the iPhone.
According to Wired, Apple is in full production on the third generation iPod Touch, and it will be receiving some major changes. How does it get there? Well, basically they give you everything but the actual phone… oh wait… that isn’t totally gone.
According to the source, the new iPod Touch will have a camera, a first for the iPod line, but not wholly unexpected. When the iPhone 3G S added the ability to shoot video, people pretty much assumed the iPod version would finally be getting a camera. However, if you’re going to shoot video, you need a way to record audio, so that’s where the addition of a microphone comes into play.
So it looks like the Touch will be doing a lot of new things, but… wait, if it has a microphone…
Well, it isn’t confirmed yet, but it looks like you could use the Skype app to make VoIP calls oer Wi-Fi, so the iPod Touch will indeed have phone functions it looks like. The only difference will be the lack of access to a cellular network, but anywhere you are in the range of Wi-Fi, you’ll have a phone. Imagine dumping your landline at home and walking around your house with a Skype-enabled iPod Touch in your pocket. This could be a real game changer not just for Apple, but for cell phone companies in general.
An announcement will probably come in September at the suspected iPod media event.
Firefox 3.5 isn’t even out of its diapers yet, but already Mozilla is hard at work on 3.7.
Yes, you read that right, 3.7. It seems that will be the next major change for one of the most used browsers on the Internet. None of this is due to hit until 2010, but it is nice to see Mozilla is treating Firefox like any other major software release from a company and working out far in advance.
Of course Mozilla is looking to improve the software side of things with more personalization features, increased speed and performance tweaks, new navigation and more. It isn’t just the way the program works that they are looking at, but also changing up the physical appearance of the program. Below you’ll find some images from the Mozilla Wiki that gives you some idea of what to expect when you open up your browser come the day in 2010. Read More »
When cell phone carriers and handset manufacturers make exclusive deals there are always losers. Sometimes it is consumers, sometimes it is the handset manufacturers, and the only solid winner is the carrier. However, it is beginning to look like these sorts of deals may become more and more a thing of the past, but expect the carriers to fight it tooth and nail.
Are rural users being shut out of the latest technology because the majors’ networks don’t reach them?
Do exclusive deals limit access to technology?
Do they discourage innovation?
While all are good questions, there are also questions of pricing being effected by the lack of competition, and the current question of overall service issues.
We already covered how AT&T was lagging behind other countries in adding MMS and tethering for the iPhone, but now the biggest complaint is just a general level of sub-par service. MG Siegler of TechCrunch, who is possibly one of the biggest self confessed Apple/iPhone fan boys on the planet, is saying that if Apple does not break away from AT&T at the end of the current 2010 exclusivity that he will either change phones or hack his phone to work with another carrier.
Earlier this week it seemed like there was a light at the end of the tunnel as Verizon said it would end exclusivity deals after six months, but after you got past the headline you discovered it was about the most empty gesture in history. While it is true that Verizon will allow other cellular carriers sell its exclusive handsets after only six months, it will only apply to carriers that hae 500,000 or less subscribers. Seeing as the four major carriers (AT&T, Sprint, TMobile, Verizon) control 86% of the market in the United States, this basically that Cecil’s Rural Cellular and Bait Shop will be about the only carriers able to take advantage of this decision.
Hopefully this is something the FCC will look into, although it is surprising it hasn’t done so sooner than this. While it is certain that the iPhone is the most obvious example of the problem, there are plenty of other exclusive phone deals that are just as infuriating, such as the Palm Pre only being on Sprint.
The best way for consumers to let the world know how you do feel about this is to simply vote with your pocketbooks. On a personal level, I’ve wanted an iPhone since the day it was announced, but due to my deep hatred of AT&T, I carry a BlackBerry on Sprint’s network along with an iPod Touch. Who loses here? Well, me on one level, but also Apple as they have lost a sale. I am not alone in my feelings so by Apple or any other handset manufacturer signing these deals, and while there is no doubt that they have made a tremendous amount of money from the device, but couldn’t they be making more if it was offered to more carriers? Sure it was a nice deal when the iPhone needed to gain ground in the highly competitive market, the same for Palm signing with Sprint, but the launches are over, it’s time to move on, and it’s time to end those sorts of deals as a whole.
On July 17th, 2009, some owners of the Amazon Kindle ebook reader awoke to find out that books they had purchased from the seller had been deleted from their devices, and their accounts credited for the purchase. What followed is a fascinating study in ownership in the digital age.
The story boils down to that an unkown third-party uploaded copies of Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell using the self-service platform. It has now been brough to Amazon’s attention that there were unauthorized copies by the legal owners of the copyrights to those works. Amazon took the action of remotely deleting the works from each Kindle that had downloaded them, and a $.99 refund (the original purchase price) was placed into each account holders credit.
Amazon has stated they they have now taken steps that will not allow this to happen agaian, but how exactly they can assure that has not been disclosed.
This issue raises some very serious question about ownership in the digital age. Imagine if Barnes & Noble had bout copies of these books not knowing they were illegal knock offs. The copyright holder comes to them and informs them of this, are we then to expect employees of the book store coming into our homes in the middle of the night to take the book and leave us a check? Of course we wouldn’t tolerate that, but in the day and age of downloadable media this seems perfectly okay.
Similiar issues have been raised about people who purchase music with Digital Rights Management (DRM) encoded into it. Most people do not realize that a signal is occasionally sent back to the companies servers you purchased the song from to verify it. If that company should go out of business, their servers shut down and your music has no way to verify itself… you now have useless music files. This is part of the reason people have been calling out for an end to the draconian DRM system, but of course the music industry is fighting this tooth and nail.
Back to the current dilemna of Amazon, basically Amazon has just put all Kindle users on notice that they do not own these books they are purchasing. Fred Von Lohmann, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, looked into the terms of service Amazon set up for the Kindle, and what he found was that they never say you own your purchases, but they also never state they can take them away. Sure Amazon has said that this won’t happen again, but, really, what is to stop them?
The idea of digital media is very appealing, but until things like this are sorted out 100%, it makes me quite leery of trusting my library of books, movies and music to the concept.
If you’ve already downloaded Firefox 3.5, then you need to make an urgent update.
Firefox 3.5 is less than a month old and 3.5.1 is already out to fix a critical security problem with the new JavaScript engine. The flaw with the new TraceMonkey engine made it possible for malicious coders to run arbitrary code through JavaScript and inject malware into your system. The 3.5.1 update patches the hole and is considered a critical update.
To update do the following:
Click on “Help” in the upper toolbar.
Click on “Check For Updates”.
Follow the prompts.
In some cases your system will download the update automatically and then prompt you to run the patch.
Again, this is a critical update and you should not waste any time in doing it. It doesn’t take much time and will make your web browsing that much safer.
Okay, admit it, odds are that at least a few of you reading this post have responded to an advertisement in a spam email.
Don’t. Just… don’t.
According to a new study by the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), 52% of email users have clicked or read a spam email message, and even more frightening is that 12% of users say they have attempted to purchase a product advertised in spam. No wonder spammers keep attempting to get into our inboxes!
For the love of crimeny, you should not be buying items from spam, let alone reading them! A good portion of spam contains viruses, trojan horses and bots that will turn your computer into a spam generating zombie system. (no, I am not making that up) No matter how enticing you think the offer may look, do NOT open spam emails. They are nothing but a minefield of dangers, and seeing as 80% of respondents to the study of 800 email users with self-managed accounts think that they are at no risk from these dangers, it is obvious you need to be reminded.
Please, do not read spam emails, do not be tempted by insanely low prices for perscriptions or, even worse, think about buying pills that will… um… enlarge portions of your anatomy. There is a reason this stuff is called “spam”.
For what continues to be a free service, Google sure is putting a lot of work into Google Voice.
Just last month Google opened up Google Voice to more users, and now they are back less then a month later with applications to bring the service to both Android and BlackBerry phones. Now you can access your oice mail from anywhere and a whole lote more. Here are the highlights of the service:
Access your voicemail: read message transcripts, follow along with “karaoke-style” playback of messages, read SMS messages sent to your Google Voice number (even if your phone doesn’t receive SMS messages) and access your call history
Place calls that display your Google Voice number from your address book, the app dialer (Blackberry) or the native dialer (Android)
Send SMS messages that display your Google Voice number
Place international calls at low rates
Android users can find the application in the Marketplace, and BlackBerry users need to go to m.google.com/voice to download the program.
I have already used the service today on my BlackBerry 8830, and while there was a short lag time in the number dialing from when I entered it, it seemed fairly seamless. The caller ID on the end did indeed display my Google Voice number instead of my cell phone number. Very interesting and makes the whole service feel a bit more tangiable and real.
You can learn more about the new service in the video below.
It took Apple nine months to get to 1 billion app downloads for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but it only took 3 months to get another half billion under its belt.
On July 11th, 2008 Apple launched the App Store as part of the iPhone 2.0 firmware update. By July 14th, 2008 there had already been 10 million applications downloaded. On April 24th, 2009 it was announced that Apple had hit a stunning 1 billion downloads. Now, a mere 3 months since the last milestone, and one year and three days since launch, they have hit 1.5 billion downloads.
Considering that last we heard there were over 54,000 applications in the App Store, it isn’t surprising that speed keeps picking up, but it is still amazing how fast this number keeps growing. It would be even more interesting to see how many of the downloads are paid apps verses free apps, but that isn’t the sort of thing Apple would ever share with the public. It would also be interesting to know how many of those apps actually get retained after download as I know I have deleted several off of my iPod Touch after downloading them.
Still, a heck of a milestone for Apple. Congratulations!
Microsoft can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to businesses accepting its new versions of Windows.
While many companies opted to skip updating from Windows XP to Windows Vista, it looks like Windows 7 may not be getting a whole lot of love from IT departments either. In a survey of 1,000 businesses conducted by ScriptLogic, 5.4% of respondents said they expect to upgrade to the new operating system this calendar year, over a third said they would do it in 2010 and the remaining 59.4% said they have no plans at this time.
This isn’t to say that the nearly two-thirds who said they have no plans won’t ever do it, but it sure doesn’t look too promising for Microsoft at the moment. As to why companies said they wouldn’t be rushing to the new system, it was a mixture of the economy and concerns over if there would be software incompatibilities with applications currently used.
This is another feather in the cap of those of us who said Microsoft should have just worked towards improving Windows XP instead of forcing Vista down every one’s throats, followed now by Windows 7. While it isn’t so difficult for individuals to move on to new systems, the lengthy list of incompatible peripherals such as printers and scanners between Windows XP and Vista was just too lengthy for most businesses. In the case of the StarterTech offices, we would have had to buy all new printers if we had gone to Vista. Being a small business, that was just never an option for us. We may go to Windows 7, but it will be a process of attrition more than a planned move.
Microsoft needs to realize that computer users are not ts personal ATMs, and we aren’t just going to snap to anytime they come out with a new piece of software.
Why won’t Internet Explorer 6 just die and go away?
This was the question engineers at Digg were asking themselves recently as they have to spend a considerable amount of time making sure the site works for the 5% of their traffic that still uses the 8-year-old browser. IE6 has become the thorn in the side of web designers everywhere because it handles coding differently than just about any browser out there, but since no site ever wants to just shut out visitors, every site still has to work towards making sure it works. (Although, oddly, many sites seem to have no issue with making it work only in Internet Explorer, and locking out Firefox users…)
Digg has actually contemplated locking IE6 users out of certain features, but no final decision has been made yet. You almost have to wonder if it wouldn’t be a good thing if major sites started ignoring this blight on the browser landscape. The problem is that as long as it continues to be supported, web design and accessibility will continue to be hindered due to that browsers inability to handle the latest advances in coding.
Just looking at our own numbers here at StarterTech, 3% of our visitors are still using IE6, and while we have written before about the reasons to stop using Internet Explorer 6, those folks are still out there. While obviously some of you can’t change which browser you use, if you do have the option, please, PLEASE change your browser to something a bit more current.
If the rumors are to be believed, the next generation iPod Touch will close even more of the gap with its bigger cousin, the iPhone.
Firefox 3.5 isn’t even out of its diapers yet, but already Mozilla is hard at work on 3.7.
When cell phone carriers and handset manufacturers make exclusive deals there are always losers. Sometimes it is consumers, sometimes it is the handset manufacturers, and the only solid winner is the carrier. However, it is beginning to look like these sorts of deals may become more and more a thing of the past, but expect the carriers to fight it tooth and nail.
On July 17th, 2009, some owners of the Amazon Kindle ebook reader awoke to find out that books they had purchased from the seller had been deleted from their devices, and their accounts credited for the purchase. What followed is a fascinating study in ownership in the digital age.
Okay, admit it, odds are that at least a few of you reading this post have responded to an advertisement in a spam email.
For what continues to be a free service, Google sure is putting a lot of work into Google Voice.
It took Apple nine months to get to 1 billion app downloads for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but it only took 3 months to get another half billion under its belt.
Microsoft can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to businesses accepting its new versions of Windows.
Why won’t Internet Explorer 6 just die and go away?
