Comparing the iPhone 3G, Bold, and G1 on the inside
The fact that Apple's only phone is the iPhone may not be in Apple's favor when it comes to being able to purchase component parts in bulk. HTC, which makes a lot more than the G1, can produce T-Mobile's Android phone cheaply.
If we assume for a moment that the software and touch-screen controls offer exactly the same value to each of the three most prominent offerings among this year's smartphones -- Apple's iPhone 3G, Research in Motion's BlackBerry Bold, and HTC and T-Mobile's G1 -- which manufacturer gives you the most hardware value? The teardown artists at hardware analysis firm iSuppli have just torn apart a G1, and the surprise is that the one that does not have a touchscreen is actually more expensive than one that does, according to its estimates.
Dish Network pushes new DVR functions
Despite the looming potential for a permanent injunction on its DVR products from a litigant TiVo, Dish Network announced today new DVRs, including some that are also DTV converter boxes, and some that can be added to existing equipment.
In October, Echostar announced that it would pay $104 million to TiVo as a part of the two companies' nearly four year legal battle over DVR technology patents. This settled the 2006 jury decision in favor of TiVo, however, the "legal workaround" in Dish's DVR technology is still disputable, and TiVo continues to seek a permanent injunction.
Hitachi answers Seagate with its own half-terabyte self-encrypting HDD
In a week where all electronics manufacturers are considering how to tailor their value propositions for the demands of the new economy, Hitachi GST is not one to be left behind.
Just one day after Seagate's announcement that it will be introducing self-encrypting half-terabyte hard drives to the notebook market, Hitachi's Global Storage Technologies division is announcing its own entry in that category. For the past four years, Hitachi has been answering Seagate's Momentus series with its own Travelstar; and in this particular case, Hitachi has chosen to merge its low-power "green" focus with its secure and trusted campaign.
Motorola's new VoWLAN platform extends PBX to mobile devices
Motorola has unveiled a solution that leverages a business' existing Wireless LAN and PBX setups and merges their voice and data functions into a single platform, accessible through Windows Mobile 6.1 devices.
BT North America conducted an online survey of 226 businesses in October and found that 39% have controller-based WLAN architectures, and 22% are actively migrating or have plans to migrate. Though some $20 billion is still spent annually on Ethernet switching equipment, Motorola says its surveys show that 56% of enterprises plan to increase their spending on WLAN equipment next year.
NASA's Phoenix Mars lander: Long may it rest in peace
The Phoenix spacecraft appears to have finally passed away, although not before accomplishing its main NASA missions around exploring the terrain and weather conditions of the so-called "Red Planet."
On Monday, managers of the NASA spacecraft announced they are suspending any operations related to the vehicle until next spring, given that they haven't received any transmissions from it for a week.
Seagate intros 500 GB self-encrypting laptop drives
Today, Seagate announced it's rolling out two new self-encrypted laptop drives, designed to guard against information theft. Dell will be an initial OEM customer.
Seagate on Monday announced new full disk encryption (FDE) Momentus self-encrypted drives with capabilities of up to a half-terabyte, along with software from McAfee for encryption management. Although standalone editions of the 5,400 RPM and 7,200 RPM drives are available to consumers and organizations of all sizes, Seagate is also selling the FDEs to OEMs, starting with Dell.
Microsoft's Burley Kawasaki: How modeling will change programming
The first betas of Visual Studio 2010 are already introducing developers to a new and powerful concept of service modeling -- an incredible new way to make applications more scalable, as Microsoft's Oslo chief explained to BetaNews.
With the next 2010 edition of the venerable Visual Studio -- the betas for which are already being used by developers, probably even for some production work -- even in the Standard Editions, there will be a prominent and much-welcomed change that is already impacting the way they work. It concerns a concept that used to be virtually the private domain of organization's such as IBM's Rational division, and around which entire philosophies of work, workflow, and even life and living have sprung forth...though fortunately, Microsoft has more practical plans for it.
Silicon Valley, Prop 8, and the perils of boycott
As recriminations and talk of boycotts fly in the wake of the passage of California's Proposition 8, tech industries are turning up on both sides of the issue -- and technology may yet help focus further efforts.
Proposition 8 would amend California's constitution to state that the only marriages to be recognized in that state are between a man and a woman. Though it has not yet been officially ratified as votes await state certification on December 13, with over 96% of the vote currently tallied, 52.5% of respondents voted Yes. This despite active opposition from even California's Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Microsoft: 1 in 10 Vista printer driver installations fail
At a WinHEC session in Los Angeles last week, bloggers report, just during last September, of the driver installations for Windows Vista automatically reported back to Microsoft, over 11% of install attempts for printer drivers failed.
Although no video was produced for this specific WinHEC session last Wednesday, Angus Kidman of APC and John Lister of Blorge both report that a table presented by Microsoft Senior Program Manager Chris Matichuk showed that 11.24% of all Vista-based printer driver installations automatically reported back to Microsoft, were failures.
Malware testing gains some structure
An international group formed in May to lay some ground rules for anti-malware testing has delivered a pair of documents setting forth basic principles.
The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO), which includes representatives from most of the major vendors on its membership roster, has published two documents setting forth fundamental principles (PDF available here) and best practices for dynamic testing (PDF available here).
Vudu claims largest HD library, teams with Best Buy
After almost doubling its number of HD titles over the past three weeks to reach a grand total of 1,100, Vudu has teamed up with Best Buy on a $299.99 bundling deal.
Streaming media service Vudu contended today that, with 1,100 HD titles, it now holds the "largest library of HD content" available for on-demand viewing.
MySpace upgrades itself to 'Profile 2.0'
Based around what MySpace's Tom Anderson says are several years worth of user requests, the popular social networking site has rolled out the updated profile system that has been in beta since earlier this year.
The new profile improvements are based around four ideas: privacy, speed, customization, and Web standards. In Profile 2.0, the permissions to each section of a user's profile can be tailored, allowing certain users to see only sections of the profile. Sections can be hidden entirely or truncated to speed up load time, and layout can be tailored by dragging and dropping sections or by using pre-made layouts. Also, with the exception of the MySpace header and footer, the new profile pages are W3C compliant.
Court forces ex-IBMer to leave his job at Apple
A court has forced IBM exec Mark Papermaster to quit his new job at Apple, despite Papermaster's protests that he didn't violate a non-compete clause in his IBM contract.
A federal judge on Friday ordered Mark Papermaster, IBM's former guru of processors and blade servers, to leave his new position as head of engineering for Apple's iPhones and iPods until the dust settles around a suit by IBM accusing him of breaking a non-compete clause in his IBM contract.
Sun comes up in Microsoft Live Search
Yahoo-who? Microsoft and Sun Microsystems are getting together to more closely ally the Java Runtime Environment and Internet Explorer's search.
Microsoft announced on Monday that the MSN Toolbar will now be included in all US Java Runtime Environment downloads for Internet Explorer. That toolbar includes Live Search access, direct connections to Hotmail and Messenger, and buttons to take users to MSN content such as sports scores.
AT&T opens public beta of video search app
AT&T today began the public beta phase of VideoCrawler, a search and organization portal for rich Web media.
Powered by Divvio's "click-2-crawl" rich media indexing technology, VideoCrawler does not host content, but rather creates searches for relevant items hosted on the increasing number of dedicated content provider sites and allows them to be viewed from AT&T's portal. AT&T claims its search base is currently over 1,600 sites.
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