CES 2010: What did we learn this week?
Without a doubt, Android has emerged from CES 2010 as the software platform story of the year. In a strange way, the sudden surge of activity for the platform prior to CES, and even prior to Google's Nexus One announcement the day before CES, is what substantiated the presence of Android in the public discussion this year. Up until now, Linux on the smartphone has been perceived as an "alternative" to the branded systems -- last year, Android seemed to be the culmination of something going on in the "open" space, out there somewhere, categorized under "Other."
Android is not "other" any more. It is here, and very much at the center of things.
So as we look back on our flashpoints from last Tuesday -- the topics we set out to watch throughout the show -- what we find are fewer surprises...but the few we got were big ones.
This is my first story about Apple's tablet, and here's why
For months, I have watched in disbelief at the hysteria over Apple's rumored-to-be-upcoming tablet device without devoting a single article to it. It troubled me by how quickly unconfirmed reports could become concrete facts simply because they've been repeated enough. Even after all. My fellow. Betanews contributors...added their opinions unto the noise, I didn't want to pollute the air with my grumblings.
But just after Christmas, Technologizer's Harry McCracken wrote what became my favorite story about the Apple tablet, and it isn't even about the tablet itself. It's called "The Speculative Pre-History of the iPhone" and it shows how dozens of reporters drew dozens of different conclusions about the iPhone before it was released, yet they were all based on pretty much the same set of "facts."
Google lacks Humanity
One classic Star Trek episode asks: "Is there in truth no beauty?" For most people, the answer is no, and that's something Google had better come to understand as it releases more consumer products. Successful brands and products are all about humanity, about assigning human attributes to them, about making people feel good. Most people make purchase decisions -- even seemingly intellectual ones -- for emotional reasons.
Since Wednesday, I've been using Google's Nexus One, which could replace the Nokia N900. Nexus One is simply the best smartphone I have ever used, yet I struggle to want to keep it. There is something missing about the device. My initial excitement about Nexus One ended with the unboxing. I looked at the device and went, "Huh?" Nexus One looks so drab, so utilitarian. I searched the box for a "Designed by Dell" logo. For years, drab defined Dell industrial design, and that's exactly how I felt when first looking at the Google phone: Designed by Dell. That's no compliment.
Android gets a Web-based app store and manager with Dazzboard 2.0
I recently wrote about Dazzboard in considering what it would take for the iPod to be fully replaced by a non-iPhone smartphone. The Web-based media manager filled the gap between the desktop and the portable device where iTunes has been such an invaluable bridge.
It allows the user to plug in his mobile device to pretty much any Windows computer with Internet Explorer or Firefox and transport photos, music, and videos simply by accessing a Web-based interface. I have personally grown quite fond of it because it offers support for a significant amount of smartphones, including Android and WebOS devices.
CES 2010: Highlights from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski public forum
US Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski was interviewed by CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro at a Super Session panel January 8 at CES 2010. Topics of discussion included Chairman Genachowski's efforts to modernize the FCC and his vision for the agency in the coming decade.
Genachowski and Shapiro also discussed developments in crafting new pro-competition policy, and the ability to develop incentives to keep mobile and hardwired broadband cheap.
Comcast may get legal leverage to stop net neutrality enforcement
According to multiple eyewitness reports Friday, including from the Associated Press and from participants in the hearings, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in Washington yesterday, hearing oral arguments in the Comcast v. FCC case challenging possible net neutrality regulation, appeared skeptical of the FCC's authority to enforce such regulation based on a policy statement, rather than law.
At issue in this landmark case is whether the US Federal Communications Commission has the authority under law to force Comcast not to implement per-application throttling techniques in the name of network management -- for instance, slowing down BitTorrent traffic. Back in August 2008, the FCC found Comcast in violation of rules, and ordered the company to cease any network management practice that discriminated against lawful services that customers could use for lawful purposes.
CES 2010: Hands-on with Qualcomm's Mirasol full-color e-reader screen
What is so fascinating about the display technology being developed for e-readers is that it gives us a long-range peek into the possible, and even likely, functionality of PCs several years down the road. Today, Amazon's Kindle series, Sony's Reader series, and Barnes & Noble's two readers all utilize electrophoretic "E-paper" displays, and we've found plenty of other screen technologies being employed in e-readers on the show floor at CES 2010. Some companies, like Jetbook makers Ectaco, favor technologies like passive TFT in their screens because they consume less power but supply color and support higher-frame rate animations.
But this week, Qualcomm said it's ready to begin selling screens using its own unique technology called interferometric modulation (IMOD), which Qualcomm's marketing director Cheryl Goodman told Betanews today is a reflective technique comparable to the prismatic effect created when a diamond is held up to a light.
The flip side of Nexus One: Low early marks for Google, the retailer
The revolution, if there is one, may not be automated. In the early going for Google's Nexus One phone, made by HTC and announced Tuesday, customers are learning that "support" for this phone is about as personal as Google Maps. Amid the immersive purchasing experience touted by Google executives during their Tuesday barn-raising ceremony, customers are discovering a definitive lack of the personal touch.
Exemplifying many of the problems early customers are having this week is a post this morning to the Nexus One support site by customer Martin Thorborg. He was paying full price for the unlocked phone, but had the simple problem of trying to get Google to ship the phone to his new address, after having moved since first creating his Google account. Attempts to change his shipping address with both Google and FedEx were all met with automated responses, telling him he was not allowed to cancel his order -- which he wasn't trying to do. Then later, FedEx sent him an automated message telling him he could not change the shipping address on his order "for security reasons."
Prediction for 2010-2011: The market for broadband-connected point-and-shoot cameras will grow
Last year at CES, I spoke to someone who very accurately predicted that we'd be seeing lots more e-readers and 3G connected netbooks at this year's CES.
At the time, I dismissed it because his company wasn't really unveiling anything, and I was too hung up on covering all the breaking announcements. Later in 2009, I spoke to him again, and he reminded me about the e-reader market blowing up. When we spoke then, the Kindle 2 had launched, and there were probably three or four big names promising new products, but that was it.
The science behind Qualcomm's 'mirasol' color e-book displays
It sounds like a cleaning product and looks like butterfly wings. It's "mirasol" (yes, lowercase m, isn't that cute?) and it uses a reflective technology, called interferometric modulation (IMOD). The technology uses microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology to imitate the way butterfly wings shimmer -- a process called biomimetics, or imitating things found in nature.
That's a mouthful. The question is, is it an eyeful?
CES 2010: Hands-on with the Atom-based Windows 7 Pegatron slate
During his CES 2010 keynote Wednesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spent a little bit of time showing off the slate (or tablet, if you prefer) form factor, and Windows 7's integration with it. In addition to the top secret HP tablet which Microsoft told me was flown in just hours before the event and flown right back out again, Ballmer mentioned other slates with large screens.
One of them is the forthcoming Pegatron Slate, which I had the fortune of spending a good deal of time with this afternoon.
How close is 3D to a TV near you, really?
If this is CES, there must be 3D. Lots and lots of 3D. 3D televisions. 3D movies. 3D sporting events. Leave the exhibit hall and you expect the paintings on the wall to leap out at you. Never mind going to the bathroom.
And this year, they swear, will be the year you can have that thrilling experience at home, too.
XStreamHD begins pre-orders for its satellite HD system
We've been waiting for XStreamHD for over two years. 1080p high definition video with full 7.1 Dolby surround didn't sound possible over a satellite connection when we first spoke to the company, and after being in development for eight years, numerous delays and a false start at last year's CES, we lost hope in the company's ability to actually deliver on its promises.
But yesterday, XStreamHD began taking pre-orders for its Fixed Satellite System (FSS) hardware, and promises that it will land in homes on April 30, 2010.
Microsoft at CES: Finally, what to expect from Windows Mobile 7 and Windows Phone
Windows Mobile 7 is more than a year behind schedule, and Windows Mobile 6.5 has been dismissed by practically everyone in the media as a poor stopgap in Windows Mobile's hastened transition from an enterprise smartphone platform, to a smartphone platform for everyone.
But now that it is only two months away from its grand unveiling, Microsoft really isn't talking about Windows Mobile 7 specifically. However, Microsoft gave Betanews today a number of clues about what to expect toward its release, which show us what we can expect in the new, more consumer-oriented (and more than a bit tardy) mobile operating system.
Qualcomm CEO Jacobs reveals Chrome OS deal, color e-ink-like display
In his company's first-ever keynote address to the Consumer Electronics Show Friday morning, Qualcomm CEO Dr. Paul Jacobs made a kind of prediction that appears, given his position, to inevitably become a self-fulfilling prophecy: As consumer electronics devices throughout the home, mobile space, and workplace become endowed with systems-on-a-chip that are based on wireless phone reference designs, almost everything with an on-switch will inevitably become, at its core -- whether it's used for that purpose or not -- a telephone.
"Those same chips that we put...into the cell phone, those chips are now going to go into the consumer electronics devices themselves," Jacobs told attendees. "So we believe that consumer electronics devices are essentially going to be phones inside. I mean, they'll look different, right? Different shapes, different sensors, different buttons, a little different software. Fundamentally, inside though, they're going to be cell phones, I think. And it's Qualcomm that's helping to drive that innovation."
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