A case study in improving software: What Office 2010 can learn from Notion 3
On the surface, this is a review of a music composition product entitled Notion 3, from Notion Software, priced at $249 suggested retail, born out of the original VirtuosoWorks product produced in 2005 by music professor Dr. Jack Jarrett, and which produces realistic orchestral sound from precisely notated sheet music on a standard Windows-based PC or Mac. But if you've never composed music before, and even if you don't plan on doing so in the future, I urge you to read on anyway, because this is about the business that we are all engaged in.
Kindle 2 update adds battery life, native PDF reader
Today, Amazon announced that an automatic update to its popular Kindle 2 e-reader will extend the device's battery life by 85% and add a native PDF reader to its repertoire of functions.
The Kindle 2 could previously stay on for four days with wireless connectivity activated, following the firmware update, Amazon says the device will be able to stay turned on for a whole week.
Safari on iPhone gets competition from a $1 browser app
If you search for "browser" in the App Store, you'll get dozens of applications, each purporting to be an alternative to the iPhone and iPod touch's built-in Safari browser. In a sense, they are alternatives, since they look different and might have a few unique features. But they're really all Safari underneath -- Apple will only approve browsers that are basically built with Safari guts using a reworked user interface.
On the down side, this means we won't be seeing alternative browsers from the likes of Mozilla or Opera any time soon, and there's no official challenger to Safari in terms of speed or compatibility with various Web standards.
Will Firefox beat IE9 to Direct2D rendering?
It was a principal element of the Day 2 keynote at Microsoft's PDC 2009 conference last week in Los Angeles: an early demonstration of code being worked into Internet Explorer 9 that replaces the browser's outdated reliance upon the (very) old GDI rendering library, with new code utilizing Direct2D -- a library that borrows processing power from the GPU. But with the project only having begun last October, it could still be several months before Microsoft creates still more features to make IE9 worthy of a point-release.
By that time, Mozilla could very well have absorbed Direct2D capability into Firefox, if it accepts the contribution of engineer Bas Schouten. By modifying a recent daily build of the organization's "Minefield" track for Firefox 3.7 Alpha 1 for Windows, Shouten was able to graft Direct2D support onto the browser, which also usually relies on the old GDI library. The results were Web pages that were as instantaneous to the eyes as the demos we saw of Direct2D rendering on IE9 test code last week.
Action Replay maker sues Microsoft for Xbox 360 'predatory technological barriers'
Microsoft's Xbox 360 is no longer compatible with the first -- and only -- third party memory card, Datel's Max Memory, after the distribution of a Dashboard software update. In response, Datel has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft.
"Microsoft has taken steps to render inoperable the competing Datel memory card for no visible purpose other than to have that market entirely to themselves," said Marty Glick, the senior attorney representing Datel. "They accomplished their recent update by making a system change that will not recognize or allow operation of a memory card with greater capacity than their own. We believe that with the power Microsoft enjoys in the market for Xbox accessories this conduct is unlawful."
Where there's smoke: Apple warranty stance raises troubling questions
I'm the last person who would ever come out in support of smoking. It's a noxious, nasty habit that according to the US Centers for Disease Control kills 443,000 Americans every year. The CDC says smoking is the root cause of over 30% of all cancer-related deaths, 80% of all lung cancer-related deaths, and 80% of deaths due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
These are big, ugly numbers, for sure. But I'll be selfish and focus only on one: My father was a secret smoker for years -- a secret that ultimately landed him in hospital with a compromised heart, and a secret that ultimately killed him.
Can you come up with a better brand for AOL than 'Aol.'?
The new, much maligned "Aol." logo has upped its failworthiness. Newest buzz: A 27-year-old with no marketing expertise was the driving force behind AOL becoming Aol.; that has many people wondering what the company was thinking.
Age isn't so much concern as lack of marketing expertise. What was AOL thinking, particularly with the rebranding being so important to a company spinoff planned for early December?
AOL's decision to rebrand as Aol. takes a bad brand and makes it worse
Not since AT&T gobbled up Cingular and rebranded as at&t with that ugly Death Star-like logo has a company erred so far from sensibility. The new AOL brand, Aol., is coming soon to frighten you. AOL's attempt to be hip is anything but. Not that AOL, distributor of a billion CD coasters, was ever cool. The service may have been the biggest online community of the 1990s, but it was never hip. Nor will the lame rebranding make it so.
AOL previewed the new brand identity overnight ahead of its unveiling on December 10th, for the company's spin-off from Time Warner. By measure of big tech sites and Twitter, the rebranding is a total fail before even being officially launched.
Microsoft's Bob Muglia and Ray Ozzie on Silverlight vs. standards
Last week at Microsoft's Professional Developers' Conference, Betanews had the honor of being invited to join a small cadre of reporters -- including noted blogger Long Zheng; TechCrunch's Steve Gillmor; and our good friend from SD Times and Technologizer, David Worthington -- for a luncheon with Microsoft's President of Server and Tools, Bob Muglia; and Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie. There, we discussed a handful of topics -- some of their comments were candid and off the record, and some were for the record.
The first issue on our plate Tuesday afternoon concerned Silverlight, and Microsoft's continuing efforts to entice developers to build Web sites around a platform that is not considered a "standard," and perhaps never will be. Some developers discount Adobe Flash as a "standard" for the same reason; while others suggest that Flash's ubiquity renders it a de facto standard.
The questions for Web developers have centered around whether they can afford to evolve any portion of their forward-facing online assets around a proprietary standard (around Silverlight) and still have it be on "the Web," whose values are based around platform neutrality. Those questions do seem a bit more pronounced for Microsoft than for other platform developers. But how should Microsoft handle the delicate issue of developing for a platform that's "ours" versus one that is "yours?" (And what's the difference really?)
Uh-oh, netbooks -- not Windows 7 -- will lift 2009 PC sales
Gartner is just full of bad news that will suck Windows PC manufacturers' thanks out of American Thanksgiving -- and Christmas along with it. Ho Ho Ho Ba Humbug. Today, the analyst firm predicted that based on fourth-quarter PC shipment estimates, for 2009, the market would grow -- but not because of Windows 7 -- and with deep declines in average selling prices. Combined, the latter two predictions spell lower profits for Windows PC OEMs and potentially overshipment of PCs for holiday 2009.
"We just don't see consumers buying new PCs solely because of Windows 7," Gartner research director George Shiffler said in a statement. "We are expecting a modest bump in fourth-quarter consumer demand as vendors promote new Windows 7-based PCs, but the attraction will be the new PCs, not Windows 7."
Microsoft's .NET Micro Framework is now free and open source
Microsoft announced at its Professional Developer Conference on Tuesday the release of version 4.0 under the Apache 2.0 license. The license transfer makes good on a longstanding promise from Redmond that it would make the popular .NET code base available as open source.
The gift to the open source community, however, does come with some strings attached -- or, rather, removed from the gift wrapping. Microsoft reduced some of the framework's functionality in making the Software Developer's Kit open source, according to Peter Galli, the Open Source Community Manager for Microsoft's Platform Strategy Group. In his blog post last Tuesday, Galli revealed details about the code release.
Google's value proposition for Chrome OS: Should we feel insulted?
Let's be absolutely honest and straightforward about this right up front: Google Chrome OS is not an operating system. It's a device, like the iPhone, only that Google wants to license its specifications to OEMs. Any OEM that builds it is making a Chrome device, whose profile will be so low that it could probably never be switched out to run Windows, even XP. Probably great connectivity, but not enough solid-state storage to manage local documents or store many media files.
More than an Android device, less than a Windows device.
10 things about Microsoft's PDC 2009: The good, the bad and the ugly
Microsoft's 2009 developer conference wrapped up yesterday in Los Angeles. Not since PDC 2003 has Microsoft talked so much and said so little. As I listened to the keynotes and have reviewed the sessions, words "series finale" repeatedly popped into my head -- like a TV show coming to its end after a long run. Good or bad for Microsoft, a computing era is ending. Perhaps PDC 2009 demarcates the transition.
PDC 2003 was memorable for demos that wooed but seemed insubstantial. Within weeks after that developer conference, I began telling my clients (I was a senior analyst for JupiterResearch then) to expect Microsoft to delay Windows Longhorn sometime in early 2004. The delay came, followed by several others, as Microsoft dumped features to get Windows Vista out the door -- late -- missing holiday 2006.
E-book readers will be in short supply this holiday season
Black Friday is just a week away and the demand for ebook readers looks to already be too great.
Earlier this week, Sony said its 3G-connected Daily Edition Reader may not arrive in time for the holidays. Preorders for the device began on Wednesday, but it will not ship until some time between December 18th and January 7th, and it is not expected to land in stores until after the holidays.
Sony looks to finally open a single storefront for downloads
Sony yesterday discussed its plans to open a download shop similar to iTunes or Amazon Digital Downloads.
Reportedly given the tentative name "Sony Online Service," the online store would make the many different types of Sony digital content available in a single place. The company has a number of content portals already, but each is geared toward a related piece of hardware and run by a different business unit of the giant Sony conglomerate.
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