Nokia N900: The future of the 'MID' form factor?
There have been a couple of form factors in recent years that have completely failed to capture the public's imagination, despite their promising capabilities: Tablets and Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs).
However, with the dramatic level of rumor circulating about Steve Jobs and Apple's pet tablet project, there may be hope for that form factor after all. And with Nokia's announcement of the N900 today, the MID concept looks like it might stick around too.
FCC launches investigation of wireless industry
This afternoon, the Federal Communications Commission gingerly passed measures that will result in the publication of three "Notices of Inquiry," seeking public input not only on the status of wireless broadband communications in this country, but what measures it should take to better judge just what "good" or "bad" means for that industry. While all those positive words were being spoken on the industry's behalf, however -- references to "the spirit of American innovation" abounded from both sides of the bench today -- from the other end of the building this afternoon, the FCC formally announced it will be launching an inquiry to "identify concrete steps the Commission can take to support and encourage further innovation and investment in the wireless marketplace."
"Wireless mobility has become central to the economic, civic, and social lives of over 270 million Americans," a statement from the FCC said this afternoon. "We are now in the midst of a transition from reliance on mobile voice services to increasing use of and reliance on mobile broadband services, which promise to connect American citizens in new and profound ways. A robustly competitive mobile wireless market will be essential to realizing the full benefits to American consumers and channeling investment into vitally important national infrastructure. The FCC is seeking to ensure that competition in the mobile wireless market continues to bring substantial benefits to American consumers."
Google News caught in Italian antitrust probe
Following complaints from the Italian Newspaper Publisher's Federation (FIEG), Italian authorities have launched a probe to find out whether Google abuses its position of the world's most popular search engine to deprive others of advertising revenue.
At the heart of FEIG's complaint is Google News and its mystery algorithms for listing top stories. FEIG complained that since it is unknown how Google News decides which stories are listed at the top, content providers don't know how their stories should be written so as to gain top billing in Google News listings. Conversely, sites also have no say if they do not want their content listed on Google News.
Home video game console prices reach equilibrium with Xbox 360 drop
Court upholds pro-Verizon ruling in 'largest cybersquatting case ever'
A federal court in the Northern District of California has upheld the December 2008 ruling which awarded Verizon $33.15 million in a cybersquatting case against domain registry company OnlineNIC.
The 2008 ruling gave Verizon $50,000 for each of the 663 domain names OnlineNIC registered that were "confusingly similar" or in some cases identical to Verizon trademarks with the intention of attracting users who were looking to access legitimate Verizon sites.
TiVo brings the time-shifting fight to AT&T, Verizon
TiVo has been in a legal battle with Dish Network and its former parent company EchoStar for more than four years over the design of their digital video recorders (DVR), which TiVo claims are patent-infringing. Now, the company has challenged Verizon and AT&T for the designs of their FiOS and U-verse DVRs.
Yesterday, TiVo filed complaints in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas for infringement of the same three patents that Dish Network allegedly infringed upon back in 2005. The complaints seek damages for past infringement and permanent injunctions on the infringing hardware.
Third party mobile browser Skyfire releases version 1.1
It's been about three months since Skyfire officially launched on Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 3rd Edition, and this week the popular mobile browser has been given a general performance upgrade.
Skyfire's Senior Director of Product Management Robert Oberhofer said in his team blog that Version 1.1 has an upgraded algorithm to shorten load times, improved reconnect (the browser disconnects from pages to save battery), support for WML markup language, and upgrades to its support for Flash, Quicktime, and Silverlight. This final upgrade is central to Skyfire, as it is one of the best mobile browsers for watching streaming video.
Rumor: Motorola Android devices go international Sept. 15
For the last few months, there's been a steady stream of rumors about Motorola's forthcoming Android handsets; speculating on form factor, carrier and OS version. Earlier this week, the Schaumburg, Illinois telecommunications company sent out invitations to a San Francisco press event on Thursday, September 10 adorned with the lime green Android logo.
Since the invitations didn't contain many details, the rumors have thusly picked up steam. It is widely expected that the two devices shown on September 10 will be the "Morrison" on T-Mobile, and the "Sholes" on Verizon.
Paramount defies Fox, Warner, tries out $1 Redbox rentals
Like Sony Pictures and Lionsgate Entertainment before it, Paramount Pictures has agreed to supply its films to Redbox DVD rental kiosks. The $1 per night rentals that Redbox offers have caused a good deal of controversy among motion picture studios and has resulted in legal actions on the part of 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., both of whose opinions are clearly on record: Cheap rentals devalue their DVDs.
Paramount's availability on Redbox will only be a trial, where the studio receives detailed rental metrics from the kiosks until the end of 2009. The studio will then evaluate the impact and viability of Redbox, to decide if it wants to stick with the program. At the end of the four-month trial, Paramount will have the option to extend it to 2014, with an "out clause" after two years.
With e-readers becoming a real market, battle lines are drawn over DRM
The e-reader market is hot, and everyone loves the competition. Thanks to the heightened activity in the sector, market research group NPD's DisplaySearch this morning forecasts an astonishing growth in e-paper displays.
This year, 22 million units were shipped, resulting in $431 million in revenue. E-paper displays aren't limited to the Kindle/Reader set either, they're being used in cell phones, watches and clocks, advertisements, and more. Because of this, NPD forecasts a 64% compound annual growth rate in unit sales and a 41% growth rate in revenues. By that formula, the market will be worth $9.6 billion by 2018, with 1.8 billion e-paper displays shipped out for use.
Mininova is next to get takedown orders from Netherlands court
The world's largest torrent indexing site Mininova is the next site to fall to anti-piracy group Stichting BREIN, Dutch news services are reporting today.
A civil court order handed down today has given Mininova three months to remove all copyrighted works from its servers or face a €5 million fine. Stichting BREIN (lit: "The Brain Foundation"), which represents copyright holders, took action against The Pirate Bay earlier in the summer and won on similar grounds. However, that particular case is in appeal and awaiting its retrial on October 5.
Nokia to roll out its mobile Money platform
Nokia has been quite busy this week. In advance of Nokia World 09, the company introduced its first PC in more than 18 years and two new handsets (the 5800 navigation edition and the 5230.) Today, the Finnish mobile phone leader introduced Nokia Money, a mobile banking platform that will continue the company's advancement into the "wallet phone" model.
Working in cooperation with Obopay, Nokia Money will let users buy merchandise and pay bills with their mobile device.
Skype doubles connection fees for many international calls
Skype's connection fee for placing calls to landline and mobile phones in certain countries will increase 100% on September 6th, the company's site now says.
For Skype users who are not on an unlimited calling plan, calls that connect to landline or cellular numbers incur a one-time connection fee and a per-minute charge.
Mac malware poses as popular freeware PDF viewer
Foxit Reader, a free, lightweight PDF viewer and printer popular in our FileForum, has an evil twin.
Today, the Foxit Corporation warned that a malware claiming to be Foxit Reader for Macintosh has been perpetrating attacks on users thinking they were downloading an official version of the free PDF reader. The thing is, there is no Foxit Reader for OS X. The software is available for Windows, Windows Mobile, Embedded Linux, Desktop Linux, and U3.
Analyst: Blu-ray may never replace DVD in PCs
Even though Blu-ray player sales are on a rapid climb, and Sony's new PS3 Slim and cheaper PlayStation 3 are expected to cause an explosion in Blu-ray penetration, market research company iSuppli says the drives haven't even begun to break the PC market.
According to the firm's tallies of the global PC market, only 3.6% of all computers shipped this year were equipped with Blu-ray drives, and the growth rate will remain low.
Tim's Bio
Tim Conneally was born into dumpster tech. His father was an ARPANET research pioneer and equipped his kids with discarded tech gear, second-hand musical instruments, and government issue foreign language instruction tapes. After years of building Frankenstein computers from rubbish and playing raucous music in clubs across the country (and briefly on MTV) Tim grew into an adult with deep, twisted roots and an eye on the future. He most passionately covers mobile technology, user interfaces and applications, the science and policy of the wireless world, and watching different technologies shrink and converge.
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