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Google Announces "Chrome" Operating System

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:29:10 -0500

Google calls the new Web-centric, laptop operating system it announced last night "Chrome OS," but the company could just as well have titled this software "Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's Revenge." Jackson, you may recall, presided over much of United States. v. Microsoft, the antitrust case in which Microsoft was found guilty of abusing its market power. In that role, Jackson wrote a "Findings of Fact" document outlining an alternative to the Redmond, Wash., company's domination of the personal-computing market--applications that ran inside a Web browser, thus making the browser into a software platform he called "middleware." ... to the extent the array of applications relying solely on middleware comes to satisfy all of a user's needs, the user will not care whether there exists a large number of other applications that are directly compatible with the underlying operating system. A federal appeals court took Jackson off the Microsoft case in

Web Radio Royalties Resolved*

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:07:10 -0500

Our long national Web-radio nightmare is over--sort of, at least for the next five years or so. Yesterday, representatives of the recording and Web-radio industries announced an agreement on a lower set of royalties that Webcasters would pay to musicians and record labels for the use of their recordings. Instead of the financially destructive fees--per song and per listener--that Webcasters were set to cough up, courtesy of an ill-informed panel of copyright judges, Web radio sites could pay either lower rates or a percentage of their revenues or expenses if they opt into this new royalty structure. Tim Westergren, founder of the popular but royalty-threatened Web-radio site Pandora, characterized the news in glowing terms: For more than two years now I have been eagerly anticipating the day when I could finally write these words: the royalty crisis is over! Webcasters, artists, and record labels have reached a resolution to the

Gmail, Other Google Apps Escape Beta Status

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:40:23 -0500

If you have a Gmail account and you haven't checked it yet today, log in and see if anything on that site looks different. Notice anything missing? Do you feel a vague sense of absence when you gaze over your inbox? That's right: The "beta" subtitle that has graced the Gmail logo since April 1, 2004 is gone. (If you need to take a moment to compose yourself--maybe to rush to the nearest window to verify that the sky is still blue on this planet--I understand.) Google explained this stunning news in a blog post this morning. Short version: Corporate America made them do it. We've come to appreciate that the beta tag just doesn't fit for large enterprises that aren't keen to run their business on software that sounds like it's still in the trial phase. So we've focused our efforts on reaching our high bar for taking products

Following Up On Firefox 3.5, Safari 4 and Chrome 2

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:30:03 -0500

Yesterday's review of three Web browsers--Mozilla Firefox 3.5, Apple's Safari 4 and Google's Chrome 2--didn't mark a huge departure from my recent history of browser reviews. I still like Firefox best overall, I still think Safari is a good fit on a Mac but not elsewhere, and I still think Chrome is missing some features I use too often to give up. But I had a little more trouble choosing between newest versions of these browsers. I can see there are smart people at work behind all three--and they all seem to have their priorities straight, to judge from the emphasis on performance in each program. Things look promising for Firefox 4, Safari 5 and Chrome 3, in other words. Here, a few more details about the review: * For my JavaScript testing, I used a benchmark routine called SunSpider. That was developed by the authors of the WebKit software

Gmail Makes Labels Act More Like Folders

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:43:32 -0500

Before I take leave of this computer for the long weekend, it's time to attend to one of the most contentious issues on the Web: the Gmail folders-versus-labels controversy. Since Google launched its free Web-mail service on April Fool's day of 2004, it has insisted that Gmail's labeling system--in which you can tag messages with one or more labels like "work," "repeatedly forwarded jokes," "spam," etc.--works better than traditional folders for organizing your messages. That argument has some logic to it: With labels, you can file a message in more than one place, just as playlists work in a music program. But many Gmail users have spent too much time with folder-centric mail programs to give that up. Many others don't bother with labels at all--at one point, only 29 percent of Gmail users had created even one, the Mountain View, Calif., company revealed in a blog post yesterday. Back

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Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:43:32 -0500

Post-Review Thoughts On Palm's Pre

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:22:12 -0500

It's been almost three weeks since my review of Palm's Pre smartphone ran, and so it's due--um, overdue--to return to Palm's PR department. Since that story and its accompanying blog post, I've learned a few new things about this $200-ish smartphone. One is that keeping its system software and add-on applications current requires little more than a tap of its Updates tool to check for, download and install any updates. So far, Palm has shipped two minor revisions to the Pre's operating system--one with various bug fixes and performance tweaks, a second with security patches. The Pre's App Catalog of add-on programs remains nearly vacant, with only 29 applications listed on the review Pre today--but by a week ago, Pre users had still racked up one million software downloads. Palm has also announced that it will open its app-development program to the public by the end of the summer Sprint,

Tuesday Tidbits: Remote DVR Gets Court OK, Mozilla Firefox 3.5 Ships

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:34:19 -0500

The past 24 hours have brought news that a lot of tech enthusiasts have been waiting to see--no, not Apple's report that chief executive Steve Jobs is back on the job after a successful liver transplant. One item comes courtesy of the Supreme Court, which yesterday let a lower court ruling stand that permitted Cablevision Systems Corp. to offer a "remote storage" digital video recorder service to its subscribers. Cablevision's idea was fairly straightforward: Instead of putting an individual hard drive under each subscriber's TV, why not let customers save their recordings on a centralized server? But a long list of companies in the movie and TV business--to name a few, Major League Baseball, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the Screen Actors Guild and CNN--objected, claiming that Bethpage, N.Y.-based Cablevision was really offering a video-on-demand service and should pay them extra for the privilege. Individual viewers would be hard-pressed to see

Facebook Adding Overexposure Options

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:16:02 -0500

Extroverted Facebook users will soon have a new way to share their thoughts with passerby--an option to publish status updates not just to friends, but to everybody online. A post on the Palo Alto, Calif., company's blog explained the rationale behind this new feature: You may have some posts you want to share with a wide audience, such as whom you voted for or how great the weather is today. Other times you may have more personal updates like your new phone number or an invitation to join you at your favorite restaurant for dinner that are meant for only close or nearby friends. To allow that flexibility, Facebook is rolling out a new option for users who have made their profiles viewable by everyone. A new lock icon in the Publisher, the "what's on your mind?" form, will allow users to choose a potential audience for each status update:

Apple's iPhone 3GS: A Next Step, Not A Next Generation

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:10:40 -0500

I don't want to call Apple's iPhone old, but it is maturing. The new iPhone 3GS just doesn't bring the kind of groundbreaking improvements delivered by its predecessors--the original iPhone's gesture-driven touch screen, auto-correcting onscreen keyboard and Safari Web browser, or the iPhone 3G's App Store and Global Positioning System self-awareness. Today's review covers what I think is important about the 3GS--$199 to new and renewing AT&T Wireless customers in a 16-gigabyte version, $299 in a 32-GB version--and the iPhone OS 3.0 software inside it. I had a lot of ground to cover in that piece; please read it with a realization that what I deemed important may only reflect my own weird tastes. (For example, one of my favorite iPhone 3.0 features, the ability to sync notes to your computer, only merits a two-sentence mention on page 16 of Apple's reviewer's guide.) Unsurprisingly, I had to leave out some

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Microsoft Names Its Price(s) For Windows 7

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:43:43 -0500

This morning, Microsoft revealed the last major missing ingredient to Windows 7, the upcoming replacement for the flawed Windows Vista: what it will cost. A post on the Redmond, Wash., company's Windows Team Blog outlined four possible prices home users can pay in the United States: * Starting tomorrow, if you buy a computer with Vista Home Premium, Business or Ultimate from a vendor participating in Microsoft's Windows 7 Upgrade Option program, you'll pay "little or no cost" for an upgrade to 7 when it ships Oct. 22. (In other words, if you were going to buy a new PC today, wait until tomorrow.) * Also starting tomorrow, you'll be able to pre-order an upgrade copy of Windows 7 Home Premium for $49.99 (with an upgrade of 7 Professional going for $99.99). But this pre-order deal only runs through July 11 or "until supplies last" in the U.S., whichever comes

Comcast, Time Warner Announce "TV Everywhere" Initiative

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:54:31 -0500

Comcast and Time Warner said this morning that they're working on plans for a big increase in the amount of TV shows watchable online for free--but only by people who also subscribe to their regular TV services. This scheme goes by the name of "TV Everywhere." The idea is that the best way to cover the costs of producing TV shows is to get online viewers to pay for them--not by charging them directly, but by requiring that they first show that they pay for a TV service. It's right there at the end of a list of bullet points in their press release: TV Everywhere is open and non-exclusive; cable, satellite or telco video distributors can enter into similar agreements with other programmers. Yes, you read that right: To watch this new batch of TV shows online, you'd have to sign up for a traditional pay-TV plan. The TV

The Bad News Network: Twitter, Facebook and Liveblogs

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:29:09 -0500

Yesterday was not a good day for the District of Columbia and its neighbors. And, like on many other bad-news days, the Internet was there to tell the story of Metro's two-train collision in real time. Somewhat to my surprise, nobody seems to have been Twittering from either train. But that status-update site quickly filled with updates about the event from people watching it online and on TV -- some of the first photos to emerge on the Web were screen captures of TV news reports. Facebook updates took a little longer to reflect the news -- the site definitely operates in a slower gear than Twitter -- but became the easiest way to verify that friends who live on the east end of the Red Line were alright (this was before I realized that the two trains were heading into the city, not out of it). Meanwhile, local blogs

Smartphone News: A Million-Plus iPhone 3G S Sales, One New Android Phone

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:37:59 -0500

Apparently, this iPhone thing isn't getting old: Apple announced this morning that it had sold more than one million units of its new iPhone 3G S through Sunday. The lines to buy an iPhone may not have been as long as in the previous two iPhone launches -- the Apple Store nearest my home had a mere 100 or so people in line at 9 a.m. on Friday. But the demand was still high enough to yield yet another round of stories of iPhone buyers who couldn't get their new $199-and-up gadgets activated on AT&T Wireless's network. (This morning's Apple press release is also notable for including a quote from chief executive Steve Jobs that is not followed by "he said while recovering from a recent, successful liver transplant." The Wall Street Journal broke one of this year's odder business stories over the weekend, reporting that Jobs had a liver

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Amazon's Kindle DX Turns A Page In E-Books

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:44:29 -0500

My commute to work this week hasn't left the usual amount of newsprint on my fingers. Instead of grabbing a section of the Post to read on the train (the Metro section usually fills that block of time perfectly), I've taken a Kindle DX loaned by Amazon's PR department. The experience was pleasant -- I was no longer limited to one section of the paper, I could listen to some music (using the MP3-playback function Amazon labels as "experimental") and, of course, I didn't have any gray ink leftovers on my fingertips. On the other hand, I didn't have to pay for the Kindle, since it's going back to Amazon's publicists next week. Today's column doesn't provide an unqualified endorsement of this device. I think the DX has some potential unavailable in the smaller, lighter and cheaper Kindle 2 (for one thing, as you can hear in today's tech podcast,

Tips For iPhone 3G S Shoppers

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:38:40 -0500

Tomorrow morning, as you may have heard, Apple will begin selling its new iPhone 3G S. Prior iPhone debuts have been a bit of a circus. In the hope of making this one a little saner, I'd like to make two suggestions: 1) Don't wait on line to buy the 3G S tomorrow. Seriously. That may have been a cool thing to do the first time around, but sleeping on a sidewalk to buy the third version of a gadget gets a little too close to a living-in-your-parents'-basement level of fandom. You'll spare yourself a wait, and possibly first-day phone-activation glitches, if you wait a few days--or even, perish the thought, weeks--to make your purchase. In other words, act like you've done this before. 2) If you bought an iPhone 3G last year, don't complain about not getting new-customer prices ($199 for a 16-gigabyte model, $299 for a 32-GB version)