Apple says iPad is a million-seller
In the 28 days between April 3 and April 30, Apple sold one million iPads, the Cupertino company announced this morning.
"One million iPads in 28 days -- that's less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone," said oft-quoted Apple CEO Steve Jobs today. "Demand continues to exceed supply and we're working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers."
Mint.com: 'Android is just more logical'
Web-based financial planning service Mint.com had an iPhone app available a full year before it was acquired by Mountain View software company Intuit in late 2009. Today, the company has finally released a version of its personal budgeting app in the Android Market.
Like its iPhone counterpart, Mint for Android gives users mobile access to all of the banking, investment, and budgetary records that Mint.com organizes for them, but it adds features that are unique to the Android platform. These include: a home screen widget that gives a real-time view of the user's overall cash flow, a live folder dedicated to all the user's recent transactions, and the ability to make the user's Mint.com data searchable in the Quick Search box. The entire app can then be equipped with a four-digit PIN number so the user's financial data won't be exposed if his phone is lost or stolen.
Sarah Palin hacker convicted
In late 2008, David C. Kennel obtained the Yahoo e-mail address of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, and then used simple deduction to answer the "challenge question" that would grant access to her password and subsequently to her e-mail inbox.
Kennel, son of Tennessee Democratic state representative Mike Kennel, got access to Palin's Yahoo e-mail account while the former Governor was on the Republican presidential campaign trail with Arizona Senator John McCain. Kennel posted some of the contents of Palin's e-mail account online, including both "work-related" and personal information, such as the mobile phone number of her daughter Bristol Palin.
Twitter finally releases its official Android app
It's been quite a week for Android apps. It started with the early release of two major browsers and has closed out with the release of the platform's first official Twitter app.
Until now, Android has been a battleground for third-party Twitter solutions with more than 20 major competitors jockeying to be the "most official" Twitter app for the platform.
Response to Jobs' remarks about Android porn: iPad 3G porn
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has made numerous disparaging remarks about Google's Android platform because of the availability of X-rated material on it, statements that obviously downplayed the ubiquity of pornography.
"You know, there's a porn store for Android," Jobs said. "You can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That's a place we don't want to go -- so we're not going to go there."
The real reasons why Apple silenced Lala (and bought it, too)
As dorky character Ned Ryerson said in movie "Groundhog Day": "Am I right or am I right? Or am I right? Am I right?" Apple is shuttering the Lala service on May 31. While pundits galore said Apple was moving into the streaming music business, I asserted something else: That Apple bought Lala to improve music discovery and to combat Google music search.
Apple announced the Lala acquisition in December, when I blogged "Lala could make iTunes' Genius smarter." As I explained then, the acquisition is about "improving iTunes music discovery and competitively combating Google search." About two months before Apple bought Lala, Google improved its music search capabilities, which included free streams from various services, including Lala.
'Free' and 'open' Web video may be impossible after Microsoft backs H.264 only
The good news should be, everyone with a major stake in the outcome of the Web video standards debate has now publicly expressed support for something called "open" or "openness." But that's where the similarities, and even the niceness, end. Yesterday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs personally weighed in on the subject by making it an "us against them" battle, with Adobe and Flash the villains.
Late yesterday, the head of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 project, Dean Hachamovitch, followed suit, representing the company whose decisions about what standards to support -- or not support -- have historically steered the course of Web development, for better or worse. Assuming a far more civil tone than Jobs, but with a message no less significant, Hachamovitch solidified Microsoft's stance on high-definition Web video standards by announcing that IE9 would support H.264 for HTML 5 built-in video...and only H.264.
New beta unshackles Mac users from iTunes' sync shortcomings
Windows users have a lot of alternatives to the "mainstream" media players (Windows Media Player and iTunes). However, Mac OS users are not so fortunate. Aside from a couple of minor exceptions, Mac OS is an iTunes-dominated platform.
And as such, it means support for portable media players that don't have an "i" at the beginning of their name is scarce.
Software update may turn all Kindle users into a cloud-based book club
Today, Amazon posted an overview of what Kindle owners can expect in its version 2.5 software update now slated for late May.
This will be the first major feature upgrade to Amazon's e-paper device line since the launch of the Kindle DX last year. After the launch of that model, there was a single software update, which moderately improved the user experience by stretching battery life and adding native .PDF support.
Microsoft aims to embed Media Center directly into HDTVs
"More and more people are getting excited about the opportunity of what PCs can do for them in their living rooms to improve their entertainment experience." That was the message I was getting as far back as 2005, as companies including AMD, Intel, Microsoft, and yes, even Sun were exploring form factors for "entertainment PCs." Soon, we'd be seeing brands like Intel Viiv, AMD Live, and Microsoft TV at a store near you.
It's five years later, and reality has officially set in. "Most people, from a consumer perspective, would not like to have a PC in their living room," said Irena Andonova, the director of product management for Windows Embedded 7 at Microsoft -- the company where entertainment PCs were once all the rage. Today, with HDTV manufacturers embedding Internet connectivity and versatile functionality directly into their sets, the PC is just one more box. Microsoft realizes that now, so with Windows Embedded 7 -- which released to manufacturing Tuesday -- it's aiming to put the operating system and the media player in the TV where it now says they belong.
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS gives Linux even more mainstream appeal
Download Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" LTS from Fileforum now.
As expected, Canonical today released the latest long-term support version of Ubuntu (v. 10.04, a.k.a., "Lucid Lynx"). This release carries considerably more weight than the usual bi-annual Desktop and Server updates because long-term support (LTS) come only biennially -- once every two years. They typically don't get treated to experimental feature additions, and are meant to be more stable. They do, however, include three years of package support for Ubuntu Desktop and five years for Ubuntu server. The last LTS versions Canonical released were "Dapper Drake" (4.0) in 2005 and "Hardy Heron" (8.04) in 2008.
Steve Jobs' 'Thoughts on Flash' is just smoke
Apple CEO Steve Jobs' "Thoughts on Flash" memo is a rare glimpse into the mind of the rarest breed: A high-tech, cult figure who isn't a geek. Apple posted the nearly 1,700-word essay earlier today, in response to the ongoing debate about Adobe Flash on iPhone OS devices. Or perhaps more directly: Adobe's April 20 announcement that it had abandoned Flash development for iPhone OS devices; primary focus is shifting to Android.
The Flash debate got ugly earlier this month after Apple announced iPhone OS 4 would not support the Adobe technology and made developer agreement changes that prohibited use of cross-platform tools that could enable rival platforms like Adobe's. Last week, Mike Chambers, Adobe's Flash platform Principal Product Manager for developer relations, sounded the retreat in a blog post.
Yet another major browser hits Android as Skyfire 2.0 beta launches
Skyfire, the third party mobile browser famous for its ability to handle nearly every major browser plug-in and web technology has finally arrived in the Android Market today.
At the beginning of April, the browser was released in a very limited alpha program which received overwhelming interest from users. The Skyfire team said it had to stop taking email requests for the software almost immediately because of the sheer volume of messages. Well, those masses now have something they can sink their teeth into.
Oh really? NAB head suggests to Congress FCC's Broadband Plan is 'voluntary'
There are a handful of issues of contention that broadcasters (who transmit content over the public airwaves) have with the Federal Communications Commission's Broadband Plan. One such outstanding dispute concerns the FCC's proposed reallocation of unused digital spectrum from broadcast to broadband purposes -- a way to get at least some of the estimated 180 MHz of spectrum wireless operators say they need, without another complete re-auction.
On Tuesday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the formation of a so-called Spectrum Task Force, which many see as his way of connecting the necessary dots between the public airwaves (the FCC's natural purview), wireless, and the Internet (the FCC's disputed territory). In his announcement yesterday, the Chairman said, "To lead the world in mobile, the FCC must ensure that our nation's spectrum is being put to its highest and best use."
Actual Analysis: NPD's Ross Rubin on the formula for making HP + Palm work
For the record, the connection between Hewlett-Packard and Palm, Inc. was not something most of us saw coming, and which very few reputable observers of this industry bet their reputations on.
In retrospect, one sees now some of the obvious connections we missed then: the fact that Todd Bradley, now chief of HP's Personal Systems Group, was Jon Rubinstein's predecessor as CEO of Palm; the fact that HP's smartphone market share fell last year to below one hundredth of one percent, and yet Bradley was still charged with the task of devising an instant comeback; and the fact that HP's latest iPaq, announced last December (pictured below) bears so little distinction from a BlackBerry Curve, Samsung BlackJack, or Motorola Q that it may as well be called the "Me2."
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