2018 Gold Earrings blog

Sources: Apple to expand DRM-free music, new pricing

Logitech to slash 15 percent of workforce

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Today’s stories:

Green-tech VC jumps nearly 40 percent in 2008

Macworld–the last Macworld with Apple as a participant–got under way in San Francisco on Tuesday, with Apple unveiling plans to expand DRM-free tunes. CNET News’ Greg Sandoval, who broke that story Monday, also talks about Apple’s plans to roll out a flexible pricing strategy for selling music.

Cisco’s home-networking push

New HP ultraportable first to use AMD Neo chip

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BARCELONA–Intel announced here Monday at the GSMA Mobile World Congress that LG Electronics will use its latest generation technology to build a new class of device called mobile Internet devices, or MIDs.

Now, the companies are working on a new class of product that are mini-computers that can also be used to make phone calls using a wireless Internet connection. Intel sees the category of product as something that is somewhere between a smartphone, like the
Apple iPhone, and a Netbook, a scaled-down version of a notebook computer.

Intel sees mobile devices, and specifically the MID market, as an important area for growth. While the overall cell phone market was down about 12.6 percent worldwide in the fourth quarter, according to IDC, smartphones were actually up about 22.5 percent.

Data service for laptops and Netbooks service generally costs about $60 a month. Meanwhile, carriers are also charging smartphone users an additional $30 a month on their bill for unlimited Internet access. All told, a single consumer could have to come up with about $90 a month just for mobile Internet access on two devices. Compare this with the $30 a month that DSL broadband subscribers pay, which allows them to connect multiple devices at much higher speeds to the Internet.

Intel and LG have already been working closely together on other products. In the fourth quarter last year, LG launched a Netbook using Intel’s Atom processor. And LG also ships full-fledged notebooks using Intel’s Core processor.

So far, wireless operators have done a poor job of providing people with a single subscription for multiple devices. Some carriers allow certain smartphone devices to be used as modems for laptops that essentially share the same data service. But some devices, like the Apple iPhone, can’t be used in this way, which means that consumers who want wireless 3G Internet access on their laptop and on their phone have to subscribe to separate services.

Not surprisingly, Intel’s vision of a MID is exactly why many people want to buy a smartphone like the iPhone. And this is essentially the conundrum that Intel faces. It has to convince consumers that they need to spend a few hundred dollars or more on an additional device.

Specifically, Intel and LG will work together to build these new devices using a processor that Intel has code-named Moorestown. The devices will also use a version of the Linux open-source operating system called Moblin. The LG device is expected to be one of the first Moorestown designs to market. And Intel has said that devices using the new Moorestown chips will hit the market by 2010.

But Intel wants a piece of the pie. So the company has been pushing this new category of device. Intel argues that consumers need a device that’s more powerful than a smartphone but not as bulky as a Netbook or laptop. The idea is that consumers who buy a MID could use it to watch high-definition video, make phone calls using the Internet, or download information from the Web while on the go.

To date, Intel hasn’t really played in this growing market. Instead, other players, such as ARM, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments, have divvied up considerable market share in the cell phone market.

As the global economy continues to deteriorate, Intel, like many other large companies, is looking for growth markets. The company’s bread-and-butter PC processor business is suffering as people stop buying desktop computers.

Most likely when these MIDs rollout, mobile operators will have a more affordable plan in place. Operators, such as AT&T and Sprint Nextel have already expressed interest in rethinking data plans to accommodate more devices that will access the Internet wirelessly. But one thing is certain. An expensive data plan could hurt MIDs before they even get out of the gate.

But since this mobile device will also require wireless Internet access, Intel is also tacitly asking consumers to sign up for yet another wireless service plan. Of course, these devices will likely have Wi-Fi, but Wi-Fi isn’t everywhere. And if someone wants a device with ubiquitous coverage, he’ll have to pony-up an extra fee for a service plan.

(Credit:
CNET News)

The latest developer release of Chrome.

(Credit:
CNET News)

Another change comes to the browser’s pop-up blocker. Previously, it “just minimized pop-up windows to the lower-right corner of the browser window,” with a window for each pop-up. Now there’s a notification number and a menu to open a specific pop-up window if desired.

It’s a developer release, so only those who’ve subscribed to the Chrome developer channel will get the new version.

People could import bookmarks to the earlier versions of the browser, but version 0.4.154.18 adds the a bookmark manager. “You can search bookmarks, create folders, and drag and drop bookmarks to new locations,” said Chrome Program Manager Mark Larson in an e-mail announcement.

Google Chrome 0.4.154.18 gets a bookmark manager.

The release notes have further details about disabling spell-check, improving Japanese input, and other matters.

Google has released a new developer-oriented version of Chrome that brings better bookmark management to the Web browser.

A “moderate” security issue also is fixed in which “downloaded HTML files (could) read other files on your computer and send them to sites on the Internet,” Google said.

This is, in fact, a true story from MindTouch’s sales team, and it’s the sort of thing I’d love to see within SugarCRM. It makes CRM a flexible, living business tool, something that is more than simply a record of past transactions and instead a glimpse into the future.

Unfortunately for IBM Global Services and other consulting organizations that make a lot of money on complex software, Deki and SnapLogic’s CRM solution is easy to deploy. Drag-and-drop easy. Maybe HP should return EDS before all software becomes this useful and easy to set up and administer.

Suddenly my team would be able to see what our customers were doing after the sale: when they were invoiced and when they paid. We’d be able to take deeper notes on account activity. And we’d be able to see information in our CRM system that we’d never otherwise see or, at least, not in context.

Consider: sales guy calls lead and as he’s talking he notices in his Deki-enhanced SugarCRM account page commentary from the lead’s executive management in a blog and/or Twitter talking about an issue related to the sales guy’s product. He mentions it, develops a rapport and clearly sells his value proposition against that executive commentary, and closes the deal as a result.

When I first saw the headline “MindTouch and SnapLogic Announce Deki for CRM to
Enhance the Value of Leading CRM Solutions,” I didn’t think much of it. Despite being an adviser to MindTouch and watching SnapLogic for the past few years, I couldn’t get excited. How sexy can it be to “enhance the value” of SugarCRM and Salesforce.com?

Reading through the press release, it became much more interesting. My company uses SugarCRM, and the idea of connecting SugarCRM with our accounts payable system (through SnapLogic) and integrating the ability to take free-form wiki notes in SugarCRM’s set page structures made a lot of sense to me.

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Costs remains a significant challenge for GM’s Volt program and for all electric vehicles aimed at the mass market. GM executives have said they expect to lose money on the first version of the Volt–expected to be priced around $40,000–which makes federal and state tax credits for electric-car purchases very important.

Its second- and third-generation battery programs are focused primarily on bringing down the cost, GM executives said. Engineers are looking to take advantage of the latest battery technologies and find efficiencies in manufacturing, such as using fewer parts.

General Motors plans to build prototypes of its Chevy Volt electric
car this summer based on successful development of its battery powertrain technology to this point.

Batteries could be used for other applications, after they have run their useful life in cars, said Andrew Farah, the chief engineer of the Chevrolet Volt. For example, they could be used for backup power. Utilities, too, are exploring lithium ion batteries for storage.

(Credit:
Screen capture by Martin LaMonica/CNET)

“The first-generation technology is expensive. That’s why some of the incentives at the state and federal (level) help with vehicle electrification,” Kruse said. “I think it makes a fairly viable business proposition for first-generation technology.”

During the call, executives said GM engineers have been able to meet its battery performance goals and that the company is already working on second- and third-generation battery systems.

(Credit:
Screen capture by Martin LaMonica/CNET)

The shape of the battery, where a “battery tunnel” runs down the middle of the car, means that the Chevy Volt will be a four-passenger car because there is only space for two seats in the back.

“I will tell you that a $1.50 (gallon of) gasoline is not necessarily helping with the business case (for the Volt), but who knows what the cost of petroleum will be in the future?” he said.

Automakers have played with the idea of owning the actual auto batteries, which would allow consumers to get new and presumably better batteries after a few years. Kruse said GM still has not decided on its “go to market strategy,” with regard to batteries.

The battery cells themselves will be supplied by Korean company LG Chem. At a Michigan facility, GM worked with an industrial-design partner on the battery pack, which holds more than 200 cells, and the associated control systems. That battery design plant will be officially opened later this year, Kruse said.

The lithium within the batteries could also be recycled and reused, Kruse noted. With so many automakers choosing lithium ion batteries, there are growing questions over the available supply of lithium, much of which comes from China and Chile.

Even though the price of gasoline has fallen to below $2 a gallon in many places in the United States, Kruse said GM continues to add resources to the Volt program because electric powertrains are the future of the industry. The price of gasoline when GM releases the Volt will play into how the company fixes its price, he added.

A look at how the T-shaped battery pack affects the interior of the Volt.

Inside the Chevy Volt's battery pack.

GM expects to reuse different elements of the T-shaped battery pack in the Chevy Volt in other vehicles. For cars that are about the same size as the Volt, a very similar battery pack can be used. Other vehicles can borrow the thermal management and power electronics that GM is developing for the battery pack.

Despite GM’s grave financial problems, the Chevy Volt is still scheduled for release in November 2010, company executives said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. The four-door sedan can go 40 miles on a full charge and has an internal combustion engine to charge the battery for longer trips.

The T-shape battery pack, able to hold 16 kilowatt-hours of electricity, fits under the car and can be assembled in a way similar to gasoline cars, Kruse said.

GM in January announced that it intends to do auto battery engineering itself, rather than rely exclusively on partners, because it is strategic to its long-term plans. The company applied for and received a Michigan state grant to build a manufacturing facility, said Bob Kruse, GM’s executive director of global hybrid, electric-vehicle, and battery engineering.

What will Apple's next iPhone look like? The only changes might be under the hood.

The original iPhone was labeled “1,1″, while the iPhone 3G was model “1,2.” The iPod Touch has already advanced to a second-generation design, as the iPod Touch released at September’s music event received the “2,1″ label inside its firmware.

Before that, however, I still think there’s a solid chance Apple doubles the capacity of the iPhone and iPod Touch without making any other major changes, just as it did last February.

Little else is known about iPhone “2,1.” It’s reasonable to assume that since the iPod Touch number changed significantly with the addition of a new processor, that such an upgrade might be coming to the next iPhone. P.A. Semi has been working on iPhone chips since last spring, and other evidence has surfaced indicating that Apple might be planning to upgrade the iPhone’s graphics sometime in the near future.

(Credit:
Apple)

MacRumors has discovered code inside the OS X 2.2.1 firmware released earlier this week that describes an “IPhone 2,1″ model. Previous discoveries have shown that Apple uses this labeling nomenclature for both the iPhone and the
iPod Touch.

Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller seemed to imply earlier this year that Apple was locked into a June/July upgrade cycle with the iPhone, noting that Macworld’s January date conflicted with a number of Apple’s regular product cycles. So, perhaps another summer iPhone release is on tap.

As might be expected, it doesn’t seem that the
iPhone 3G will be Apple’s last iPhone.

The most recent tip was a survey that Apple conducted online on Tuesday, which has since disappeared from the company’s Web site although was captured by AppleInsider. In that survey, Apple asked Apple TV owners a number of questions about the sources of video they are watching on the device, as well as asking owners to describe the one thing they would change about the device.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

During Apple’s last earnings conference call, COO Tim Cook noted that Apple TV sales in its first fiscal quarter were three times greater than the quarter a year ago, without breaking out the exact number, of course. But he also said “… let me be clear. We still consider this a hobby. It is clear that the movie rental business has really helped Apple TV and there are more and more customers that want to try it.”

The company’s link between the computer and the big-screen television has long been considered a “hobby” in the eyes of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, at least when viewed against major projects like the
Mac, the
iPod, and the
iPhone. But signs have been growing that Apple is thinking about making a more significant investment behind Apple TV.

Connecting the television to the Internet and home networks in a simple manner is a dream that has eluded the tech industry for a very long time. More and more devices like the Apple TV and the Roku media player are taking a stab at this market with increasing interest from consumers, but no one seems to have hit on the magic combination of features, services and price just yet.

Last week, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster wrote that Apple is planning on adding TiVo-like DVR capabilities to a new version of Apple TV later this year, and Sanford Bernstein’s Toni Sacconaghi predicted Apple would find a way to incorporate the Tru2way software into a future Apple TV in order to let it communicate with cable networks. While the latter seems like a bit of a stretch–Apple often likes to go its own way when it comes to fledgling industry standards–opening up Apple TV to video sources other than just the iTunes Store and YouTube could make it a much more interesting device.

Apple is fishing around for more information about how people are using their Apple TVs.

Apple TV’s shortcomings are well documented: it can’t play DVDs, it can’t connect to your cable or satellite service, and it doesn’t have a browser for accessing the millions of Internet videos that can’t be found on YouTube. But sales have nonetheless picked up in the year since Apple decided to open up the device to movie rentals through the iTunes Store, instead of requiring owners to purchase movies.

Apple appears to be preparing to get serious about Apple TV.

Once Apple gets the next big steps out of the way–the launch of Mac OS X Snow Leopard and a probable mid-year iPhone launch–tweaking the Apple TV might be a good strategy heading into the holiday season.

“It’s like a Woodstock for the 21st century,” said A.J. Malik, a technologist for the county of Arlington, Va., and one of the attendees.

Bourne and Fulton made their comments about meaningful citizen discussions during a session called “Engaging the Public and How You Define Success.”

Max Harper, a social-media consultant who worked for the Obama transition team, said Web 2.0 tools have to be refined to better meet the goals of civic engagement. For instance, if user questions and comments on a government Web site can be directed to a specific category, government officials can try to address every issue in an appropriate manner.

“We all want to hear from the public, but we want to hear meaningful stuff,” said Joy Fulton of the U.S. General Services Administration. “How do you filter what’s going to help us, and filter out what’s just noise?”

WASHINGTON–Washington may be a city of policy wonks, but the District’s self-proclaimed “tech geeks” are intent on adding some Silicon Valley flavor to the capital.

The user-driven nature of Web 2.0 technologies may create complications for the government, but it served as an effective format for the conference itself. The two-day Gov 2.0 Camp was billed as an “unconference,” in which the participants planned the entire event themselves in a collaborative manner on site.

“But if you’re not prepared to respond, don’t tell people you’re ready to respond,” he said. “People know when something is inauthentic.”

Leaders in government agencies have been slow to adopt Web 2.0 technologies, bemoaned many government-employed new-media strategists in attendance. Yet in a well-attended discussion at the event, the new-media directors admitted that if they were to use more online tools to engage citizens, they wouldn’t quite know how to tell whether it accomplished anything.

Bourne said that Mass.gov visitors often question whether anyone in the government even reads user comments on the site. Yet addressing user comments has proven to be a challenge, since they are often off topic.

“Part of it is showing a face inside an agency and letting people realize they’ve made a human impact,” he said.

After a brief introduction, the organizers turned the microphones over to the hundreds of attendees packed into the auditorium at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Over the course of an hour, each person there introduced himself and briefly described the issues he hoped to learn more about or lead a discussion on.

“I have no idea how to measure success,” said Sarah Bourne, chief technology strategist for the Massachusetts Web site Mass.gov.

The organizers jotted down notes during the introductions and quickly slotted together a schedule of discussions to take place. The attendees all set down their laptops and iPhones to crowd around the large piece of butcher paper with the schedule scribbled on it.

Hundreds of Web 2.0 evangelists flocked to a school auditorium in Washington Friday morning to kick off Government 2.0 Camp, the inaugural event of Government 2.0 Club, a national organization created to allow government, academia, and industry to collaborate on Web 2.0 solutions for government.

Whether a conversation is meaningful “has to be definied from the citizens’ perspective,” Bourne explained. Yet if they lead the discussion to a seemingly insignificant topic, is the discussion still a success?

Attendees of Gov 2.0 Camp wait for different discussions to start.

The Obama transition team, he said, was constantly critiquing its online engagement with citizens and refining the process. Even with the potential pitfalls, he said video discussions could significantly improve the government’s interactions with citizens.

“It’s kind of like the pot issue,” she said, referring to the deluge of marijuana-related questions users submitted to the White House on its “Open for Questions” tool–and which became the elephant in the room during President Obama’s online town hall on Thursday.

“If you’re talking about how our unemployment office can be improved and they go off on a rant on gay marriage, that’s not useful,” she said.

(Credit:
Stephanie Condon/CNET)

“If you’re talking about how our unemployment office can be improved and they go off on a rant on gay marriage, that’s not useful.” –Sarah Bourne, chief technology strategist, Mass.gov.