Senate votes to delay DTV transition, House may be next
A bipartisan compromise bill drawn up over the weekend by Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D - W.V.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R - Tex.), which would delay the US' transfer date for over-the-air TV broadcasts to digital to June 12, passed the Senate early Monday evening. A bill with similar language being debated in the House, could pass there as early as tomorrow.
The ink on the bill is so fresh that the Library of Congress' online reporting service does not yet have the text. So it is believed that the matter of how Congress would appropriate the money necessary to extend the deadline, was actually left up in the air. Prior to the other important transition that happened in Washington -- the change of administrations -- government accountants reported the coupon program was running dry of funds.
Hey hey, ho ho, where's Obama's CTO?
As Senate hearings for the new Administration's cabinet members continue, tech folk are eagerly awaiting word on the status of the brand-new CTO position. So who's it going to be?
Speculation at this point seems to alight on candidates who already hold the job in other organizations. In the public service sector, the name that seems to come up most frequently is that of Vivek Kundra, currently serving as CTO of Washington, DC and a recent veteran of Obama's transition team.
Texas Instruments tallies and cuts
Texas Instruments on Monday delivered a quarterly report showing a drop in quarterly profits -- but it's not as bad as some were expecting. The nation's second-largest chipmaker also announced plans to cut 12% of its workforce over the next two quarters, and said that factory utilization is expected to dip to 35% during the current quarter.
The cuts are expected to include both layoffs (1800 people) and voluntary retirements (1600 people, or so the company hopes). The firm estimated on its earnings call that the effort will cost around $300 million in severance and related expenses.
Jimmy Wales wants Wikipedia edit flags
It appears that last week's Inauguration Day uproar over Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd's health has ended Jimmy Wales' patience with not having the Flagged Revisions options switched on at Wikipedia.
During a post-Inaugural luncheon, Senator Kennedy was taken ill and Senator Byrd left the room in obvious distress. Both men subsequently recovered, but for a few minutes, Wikipedia said they had died -- much to the chagrin of Wales, Wikipedia's founder.
Is Motorola dropping Windows Mobile for Android?
Last week, Motorola told the State of Florida that it's handing out 77 pink slips in Plantation, FL, only about a week after its mid-January announcement of 4,000 job layoffs company-wide. Motorola also intends to shut down all Windows Mobile development in Plantation. Earlier, a Motorola executive in Spain told European press that Motorola intended to tail down production on Symbian devices this year so as to focus on a new family of Android phones for the 2009 holiday season.
Even last year, Motorola had already announced plans to build some sort of Android device in 2009, although details remained hazy. With Motorola now in dire financial straits, and a still economically thriving Google readying a multitouch interface for Android, speculation is rampant that Motorola will now embrace Android as its only smartphone platform, to the exclusion of both Windows and Symbian.
Open mouth, insert BlackBerry
RIM CEO Jim Balsillie may wish he'd stuck to texting and gesturing last week. A statement to the press that buggy new hardware is just a fact of life isn't engendering much love from consumers who invested hundreds in that "new reality."
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Balsillie described the mad rush to get the new touchscreen BlackBerry Storm out the door before the holiday "Black Friday" shopping frenzy. When queried about the fairly widespread reports of weird and/or sluggish behavior from the handsets, Balsillie called the bugginess and necessary subsequent fixes part of the "new reality" of smartphones.
T-Mobile takes the G1 Android phone nationwide
The US geographic market for the G1 Android phone is now expanding a second time, while also this week, T-Mobile USA lobbies the US Congress for new funding around broadband wireless.
Extending across only 95 US cities on the G1's launch date last October, availability of the Android smartphone grew to 130 cities by the end of 2008 as T-Mobile USA further built out its 3G wireless network.
Microsoft accelerates in 2009 with RC1 of IE8
In the clearest sign to date that the company's roadmap really is being fast-forwarded, Release Candidate 1 of Internet Explorer 8 -- a critical component of Windows 7 -- was released this morning.
.tel landrush begins February 3
The .tel top level domain, which strives to become the standard for virtual contact information will finally be available for public purchase on February 3, more than two and a half years after it received ICANN approval. A .tel domain is intended to be a virtual rolodex card, a place where a business or individual can store phone numbers, addresses, userIDs and even GPS coordinates that launch appropriate communications protocols when clicked.
Corporate launch for the domains took place on December 3, and the global consumer landrush will begin on February 3. During that time, it will be around $300 to purchase a .tel domain for three years. Normal pricing will then go into effect on March 24, when it will be about $10 to $20 for a name per year. Pricing will vary by registrar.
Symantec launches beta of GoEverywhere cloud workspace
Symantec today opened the first beta of its GoEverywhere service, a browser-accessible cloud workspace that centralizes user data from a variety of cloud services and makes them available through a single interface and single user ID and password. GoEverywhere features more than 100 of the popular communications and productivity apps available on the Web today, and it could be described as something of a cloud-based virtual machine. Interested users can sign up on goeverywhere.com to participate in the free beta.
Pirates get to keep their ISP accounts...in the UK, anyway
It looks as though the UK won't cut off music pirates from the Internet after all, even though the global music industry is now promoting this form of punishment over fines and prison.
UK Culture Secretary Andy Burnham stated last year that the government had "serious legislative intent" to force ISPs to sever the Internet connections of music pirates. But in a recent interview with The Times of London, Intellectual Property Minister David Lammy said the UK government has now decided not to forge laws that would disconnect pirates.
CompUSA makes light of Circuit City closure
Systemax Inc, the company which owns TigerDirect, purchased nearly defunct computer retailer CompUSA's remaining assets at the beginning of the month in January 2008. The acquisition swept up the remaining CompUSA stores (around 16 of the formerly 104) and the ever-important brand name into Systemax's portfolio.
However ironically, CompUSA this morning issued a press release offering shopping tips "in light of recent big box electronics store closings," which cautioned consumers not to succumb to the pressure of buying from "disorganized sales" because of their closeout prices.
First look at a multitouch Android phone
Over the weekend, a proof of concept and downloadable demos for multi-touch on the Android open source mobile operating system were made available to the community.
In the time that I've been an Android user and owner of the HTC/T-Mobile G1, I've seen one thing happen dozens of times: when people ask to play with my phone, one of the first things they do is open the browser and try the iPhone "screen pinch." I don't know why, but it has happened literally dozens of times. Work and social colleagues, strangers, male, female, young and old, from the random people sitting next to me in airports to BlackBerry-faithful family members, almost everyone does it.
Apple iLife '09 launches tomorrow
Apple's iLife '09 creativity suite will be released tomorrow, according to the company. The software package will include updates to the iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, and IDVD products made famous for being pre-installed on Macs.
iMovie '09 received the a new Precision Editor mode, video stabilization, animated travel maps and improved drag and drop functionality. iPhoto '09 now recognizes GPS tags, face detection and face recognition technologies for improved indexing of photos. GarageBand '09 has added instruction modes with 18 lessons on how to play piano and guitar, bolstered by the star power of Sara Bareilles, John Fogerty, Norah Jones, and Sting.
Verizon Wireless femtocell launches yesterday, AT&T plays catch-up
Right on schedule, the nation's largest carrier is rolling out the first deployment of cellular signal-boosting femtocell equipment on private premises, using high-speed Internet as the backbone.
In perhaps one of its more radical experiments -- at least for Verizon Wireless -- the carrier is offering its Wireless Network Extender device for a lump-sum payment of $250. It's not a service, you don't subscribe to it, but you also don't need Verizon's wireless Internet service to use it either.
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