Faster Forward

Will News Corp. shut out Google for a Bing bribe?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:16:31 -0500

There's been a fair amount of chatter among journalism types this week about the possibility of News Corp. -- whose chief executive Rupert Murdoch seems to have a visceral hatred of Google's ability to make money off Web-search advertising -- blocking Google from indexing its properties and instead letting Microsoft pay it for the privilege. As recent reports in the Financial Times and the New York Times explain, under this deal Microsoft would pay News Corp. an unspecified sum to stop Google from indexing its sites -- an option the Web search giant and every other legitimate search engine has long supported -- and then make its stories available through its Bing search site. Understand that I love competition and I think Bing is a pretty good search engine, but I doubt this will work for either Microsoft or News Corp. (I know Murdoch's media properties -- including Fox News,

Another helping of Thanksgiving tech-support tips

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:15:08 -0500

If you spend enough time in front of a computer at home or the office, you can expect to hear one or more relatives make this request over the Thanksgiving weekend: "Hey, do you mind taking a look at my computer to make sure it's working alright?" So for the past few years, I've been trying to ease that task by suggesting tools to fix current problems and prevent future ones. See, for example, my advice for 2008, 2007 and 2006. Since most computing problems don't change that much year over year, this year's advice doesn't depart significantly from last year's: * As before, your first priority should be getting a good backup of the data already on the computer. Pack a USB flash-memory drive with plenty of capacity--4-gigabyte models now sell at commodity prices--or get a cheap external hard drive. I reviewed backup software in late 2008; most of

Augmenting my 'augmented reality' review (updated)

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:10:46 -0500

If you've been wondering why some people have started walked around while holding a smartphone a foot in front of their face, today's column may explain the phenomenon. My story covers something called "augmented reality." That might sound like something you experience after knocking back a few beers, but in the realm of smartphone software it can be a lot more useful. By superimposing links to Web resources on a phone camera's view of your surroundings, these applications give you a way to inform yourself about the world around you that's both giggle-inducing and elegantly simple. As Yelp's iPhone product manager Eric Singley explained, an augmented-reality interface like Yelp's Monocle can be both a "a party trick" and a big help anytime you're not sure of the nearest street address. After playing around with a few "AR" apps -- first on Google Android phones, where most of these programs have

Google previews Chrome OS

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:51:50 -0500

Earlier today, Google gave a detailed presentation about Chrome OS, the open-source, Web-centric operating system -- built around its Chrome browser -- that it announced in July to general excitement among tech types. During an event at their Mountain View, Calif., campus, Google developers and executives outlined the basic structure of this operating system, intended for use on small, lightweight netbooks: * It will, in fact, feature only one conventional program, Google's Chrome browser (plus a few browser plug-ins, such as Adobe's Flash and Acrobat). * It's built to boot up as quickly as possible, going from a cold start to online in about 10 seconds. * From then on, you'll be able to run any Web-based program you want. The browser will also be able to play or display your own music, movies, photos and e-books. * Chrome OS will synchronize your Web-hosted data to flash memory, then encrypt

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Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:51:50 -0500

Help File help: Syncing an Android phone with iTunes

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:46:02 -0500

All of my recent reviews of phones running Google's Android software have had to include one yes-but line, words to the effect of: Yes, this is a smart little device, but you can't sync it to an iTunes music library. That's as much Apple's fault as it is Google's or individual phone manufacturers'. Although Apple once supported some non-iPod players in iTunes, it now goes out of its way to stop other devices from connecting to its music program. But Google and such device vendors as Motorola haven't shipped extra software to bridge this gap either. (Update: Motorola does offer a free, Windows-only sync program called MediaLink but doesn't exactly advertise its existence. See my comment below for a quick review.) That leaves users on their own, and I'd like to provide some assistance in a future Help File column. Assuming you want to synchronize a randomly chosen set of

Hughes tries to relaunch satellite Internet's image

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:02:31 -0500

Satellite-based Internet access suffers from a reputation as the broadband of last resort: It should work anywhere with a clear view of the southern sky, but it's expensive, it's slow, it limits your use, it can suffer the same "rain fade" as satellite TV, and the 44,472-mile round trip data takes to and from a satellite parked in geosynchronous Earth orbit hobbles many interactive services. That image doesn't exactly excite potential customers. It also makes it easy for government officials charged with expanding broadband coverage to overlook satellite service. And so the largest satellite Internet provider, Germantown-based Hughes Network Systems, spent Monday and Tuesday demonstrating current and upcoming services in a suite at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel -- next door to the offices of the Federal Communications Commission. When I stopped by late Monday afternoon, the first thing the company's reps wanted to communicate was, "Hey, we're not that bad."

'Unfriend' goes into the books

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:32:05 -0500

Yesterday, the Oxford University Press announced its 2009 Word of the Year: "unfriend." For the dwindling minority of Internet users who haven't at least looked at a social-networking site like Facebook, the verb refers to the act of removing somebody from your "friends list" -- the contingent of people whose news appears when you log into the site. The OUP, publisher of the New Oxford American Dictionary, chose that verb for its clarity and relative novelty: "It has both currency and potential longevity," notes Christine Lindberg, senior lexicographer for Oxford's U.S. dictionary program. "In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year. Most "un-" prefixed words are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant), and there are certainly some familiar "un-" verbs (uncap, unpack), but "unfriend" is different from the norm. It assumes a verb

Palm cuts prices with Pixi smartphone, may not clarify its prospects

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:30:51 -0500

Yesterday, Palm shipped the second device to run the webOS operating system it debuted this summer. Its new Pixi smartphone offers many of the same features as its Pre at a lower cost -- but in the six months since that gadget shipped, Palm's competitive position has eroded. Like the Pre, the Pixi combines a miniaturized physical keyboard with a sharp touchscreen that responds to iPhone-esque gestures -- spread two fingers apart to zoom into a Web page or map, pinch two together to zoom out. Its Web browser, like the software on its older brother, the iPhone and devices running on Google's Android software (all sharing the same open-source code framework), easily displays full-sized Web pages. But the Pixi is a good deal thinner, at 0.43 inches, and cheaper, at $199.99 before a $100 mail-in rebate from its exclusive carrier Sprint, than most of its competitors. (Walmart's Web site

ACTA puts digital rights on the table, locks the public out of the room

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:16:46 -0500

For the more than 10 years I've been writing this column, I keep coming back to copyright-policy issues, and not just because I work in Washington. Laws and court decisions constrain the hardware, software and services we buy -- this was a subject of one of my first copyright-overreach rants, back in 2000. The fact that these legal and judicial barriers don't seem to stop software fraud (I prefer not to use the term "piracy") or even halt the distribution of tools used to unlock "protected" digital files and formats doesn't seem to stop larger copyright holders from asking for new laws to defend their interests. That brings me to today's column, a look at an international negotiation underway for a deal called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. ACTA shares the defects of such existing, unbalanced copyright laws as the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, then wraps them up in a

Studios could provide new movies later to Netflix and Redbox, earlier to "protected" digital cable

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:28:52 -0500

A new proposal from some major movie studios intended to increase sales of DVDs would push back the availability of new DVD releases for Netflix subscribers and Redbox customers. As a story from the trade journal Video Business explains, the idea is to hold back new releases from these companies for a month -- a proposition Los Gatos, Calif.-based Netflix is prepared to accept in return for a drastic cut in the prices it pays studios for new movies. Adds writer Susanne Ault: "None of the studios has agreed to drop prices as much as Netflix wants." (Traditional rental shops don't worry the studios that much, Ault writes: "Blockbuster has been left out of the window discussion because it orders more product from the studios than Netflix and Redbox and pays a relatively high price for titles.") The DVD-kiosk operation Redbox is not so fond of the idea. The Oakbrook

A quick read on Amazon's Kindle for PC software

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:22:52 -0500

Amazon turned a page in its electronic-book story yesterday with the overdue release of a program to read Kindle e-books on some regular computers, without first having to buy one of the Seattle retailer's $259-and-up Kindle e-reader tablets. The new Kindle for PC software -- a free download for Windows XP, Vista and 7, with a Mac version "coming soon" -- fills a space in Amazon's e-book portfolio that's bothered me since the debut of the first Kindle reader. But it also looks and works like a first draft, even more so than its "Beta" label would suggest. Like Amazon's earlier Kindle for iPhone program, Kindle for PC downloads older purchases in seconds, lets you buy other Kindle titles using your regular Web browser, and remembers the last page you read in a title and synchronizes your progress to other Kindle devices and programs. It also matches that phone program's

Apple ships second major patch for Snow Leopard

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:44:02 -0500

Yesterday afternoon, Apple released Mac OS X 10.6.2, its second maintenance update to the Snow Leopard operating system it shipped in late August. Like most of Apple's decimal-point updates, this large download -- 157.7 megabytes -- installed without any problems, but didn't offer any obvious improvements either. If you haven't found Snow Leopard a groundbreaking improvement, this probably won't change your mind. Instead, you have to turn to Apple's vague release notes to see what you're getting out of this update. One terse document skims over 10.6.2's changes, a second provides only a little more detail. Both are frustratingly generic when describing problems this patch fixes: "an issue adding images to contacts in Address Book," "a graphics distortion issue in Safari Top Sites," or "an issue that caused data to be deleted when using a guest account." That last item grossly understates the extent of the problem: In some rare

Firefox turns five

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:49:34 -0500

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (watching that happen on TV remains one of my favorite memories from college). But Nov. 9 also marks the anniversary of a different sort of opening--five years ago, a Web browser called Mozilla Firefox began chipping away at Microsoft's near-total monopoly of the browser market. At the time, there was little reason to think that a program with a name more likely to evoke memories of a Clint Eastwood Cold War flick would do any better against Microsoft's aging Internet Explorer than other competitors. But while such IE rivals as the browser-plus-e-mail-plus-Web-authoring Mozilla Suite and Opera Software's self-titled browser emphasized features and configurability, Firefox put simplicity and security first. You didn't have to "get" tabbed browsing, play around with add-on software or tinker with configuration settings to get a browser that was fast, blocked pop-up ads and didn't

Facebook game offers slammed as scams

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:26:36 -0500

Those weird games that half your friends on Facebook can't seem to leave alone might be more than a harmless waste of time. In a series of blog posts over the past two weeks, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington has attacked the developers of these games for deceptive in-game ads that lure the unwary into signing up for irrelevant or outright useless subscriptions to third-party services. In a post titled "ScamVille: The Social Gaming Ecosystem of Hell," Arrington described ads on Facebook and other social-networking sites that offer players of such games as Mafia Wars and FarmVille "free" points to upgrade their characters. Instead of directly paying to get ahead in the game, all people have to do is fill out a survey or accept an allegedly free trial offer. But as ever, there's a catch: Most of these offers are bad for consumers because it confusingly gets them to pay

Verizon's Droid reboots its smartphone business

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:07:05 -0500

Whatever happened to the Verizon Wireless we knew -- the carrier with the great network but the boring, uncompetitive phones, the company that never met a phone feature it didn't want to limit or disable? The Motorola Droid, this carrier's first phone to run Google's Android software, doesn't come from the Verizon I've gotten used to. As I write in today's column, this phone reboots the company's presence in the smartphone industry. (I suppose Verizon's PR types are wondering what happened to the Rob Pegoraro they knew, the guy who kept trashing every device they shipped.) The Droid isn't cheap, at $299.99 before a $100 mail-in rebate and with service starting at $69.98 before text messaging and visual voicemail. But like the first Apple iPhone, it justifies that price and lives up to its advance billing with its fusion of advanced hardware and smart, capable software. Let me share a