R.I.P Steve Jobs - Memorial

On October 5, 2011, we said goodbye to arguably the person most singularly responsible for the way we have been using computers (and, more recently, entertaining ourselves and making phone calls) for nearly 30 years.

In the interest of full and fair disclosure, I should state up front for the record that I have never personally purchased an Apple product. It was (and is) easy at times to poke fun at the “Cult of Apple”. Like so many of my contemporaries, though, many of my formative computing cycles came on an Apple ][, and I have always admired the design (and marketing!) of Apple products.

Visionary Innovator

In the hours and days following the death of Steve Jobs, there were a lot of comments in the world of social media asserting that he had never actually invented anything. This is not only completely untrue (Jobs is listed as the primary or co-inventor on almost 350 US patents or patent applications), but completely irrelevant: claiming that Steve Jobs was not an innovator because he “didn’t invent anything” is like saying that Nikola Tesla wasn’t an innovator because he didn’t invent electricity, or that Henry Ford wasn’t an innovator because he didn’t invent the internal combustion engine.

Contributions

It is beyond the scope of this Tech Tip to serve as an exhaustive compendium of all things Apple, all things Steve Jobs, or even as a complete list of all of Jobs’ groundbreaking and innovative contributions to the world of computers and consumer electronics, but here are a notable few:

The Mouse & GUI

This one almost goes without saying. Nearly everyone knows the story of how Jobs “stole” the ideas of the mouse and the GUI (Graphical User Interface) from Xerox PARC to develop the Lisa and, later, Macintosh computers. Remember using computers before they had mice? I do. Were it not for Jobs and the success of the Mac, which of course inspired Microsoft Windows, who knows how or when the mouse and GUI would have made their way into mainstream computing.

“Fonts”

Before 1984, you got any computer font you wanted – as long as what you wanted was the default system font. One of the biggest features of the early, black and white-only Macintosh computers was the ability to use different typefaces not only on-screen, but in print. This seems incredibly pedestrian now, but for a home computer user to be able to do this back then was revolutionary. My friends and I joked that “everyone with a Mac was a ‘desktop publisher’. ” The joke was on us, though: that was the idea all along.

USB

This one’s for the EE (Electrical Engineering) Geeks out there, but no less relevant for all of us. Obviously, Apple didn’t invent the Universal Serial Bus. But they probably inspired it: The Apple Desktop Bus (invented by Steve Wozniak) was simple, inexpensive method for connecting a variety of external devices, including keyboards and mice, to a host computer. ADB had four pins: Data, Power on, +5 VDC, and Ground. Sound familiar? The first system to use ADB was the Apple IIGS in 1986. The USB working group didn’t begin development until 1994.

AppleTalk

AppleTalk as a networking protocol has, for all practical purposes, been gone for a long time now, having been deprecated by Ethernet (TCP/IP). The point though, is that AppleTalk shipped with every Macintosh computer beginning in 1984. This meant that all Macs were “networkable” right out of the box. Ever try to network a few IBM “clone” computers together before, say, 1990? I did, and two words come to mind: “expensive”, and “nightmare”. Clearly, Jobs and Apple understood very early on the importance of easily and inexpensively connecting people, by way of their computers, together. After all, that’s what they set out to do.

PDA

Anyone remember the Apple Newton? I do. It was generally considered the first commercially-viable Personal Digital Assistant (remember those?) Incidentally, “personal digital assistant” was a term coined by Apple CEO John Sculley to describe the Newton. It didn’t work particularly well, and was later supplanted primarily by the Palm Pilot (and variants). But like a number of other products on this list, it was an industry first – a concept, if not a product, that changed the way we work with information and with each other.

iPod/iPhone/iPad

The iPod, iPhone, and iPad aren’t category killers. Like the Newton, they’re category creators. There were no digital music players to speak of before the iPod, no “smartphones” as we define them today before the iPhone, and no tablets (other than in Star Trek) before the iPad. These devices have changed the way we listen to music, read books, watch movies and TV, and connect with our friends and family.

iTunes

Without a doubt, one of Steve Jobs’ single greatest contributions to the world was convincing the archaic, slow-moving music industry to not only break up its product (overpriced CDs) and sell songs à la carte, but also to stop insisting on useless, annoying, and fair use-infringing copy-protection schemes. He was still working on applying the same concepts to movies and TV shows.

MacOS/iOS

A quick nod to the powerful, intuitive, aesthetically-brilliant software that powers Apple’s computers and mobile devices.

The Personal Computer

“PC” became a hardware, software, and ideological “them” to Jobs’ “us” at Apple, but of course it always really stood for “Personal Computer”. Jobs didn’t invent computers, or even personally-owned computers – I remember seeing ads for Tandy Corporation’s TRS-80 “PC” for $999 in 1977. I used an IBM “PC Jr. ” in 1985. But Steve Wozniak and Apple, through the vision of Steve Jobs, made computers personal.

Final Thoughts

In the end, Steve Jobs’ legacy is so much more than a vast laundry list of cool inventions and fun gadgets: Steve Jobs set out to change the world. He succeeded.

Why Starting Justin.tv Was A Really Bad Idea, But I’m Glad We Did It Anyway

Editor’s note: The following guest post was written by Justin Kan, founder of Justin.tv. 

Right now I’m neck deep in product launch mode, putting the finishing touches on our new mobile video application—Socialcam. Of course, I’ve been here before . . .

Years ago when we launched the Justin.tv show we had no idea what we were doing. This much was obvious to anyone who watched. Outsiders attribute far more strategic thought to the venture than we gave it. Some think that we planned all along to start a live platform, and that the Justin.tv show itself was a way of promoting that platform. While this ended up happening, none of it had crossed our minds at the time.

Emmett Shear and I had been working on Kiko, the first Javascript web calendaring application in the Microsoft Outlook style. We prototyped the application in our final year at Yale, went on to raise money from Y Combinator, then continued working on it for over a year.

Then Google Calendar was released—boom—absorbing most of our nascent user base and capturing most of the early adopter mindshare. But to be perfectly honest, Kiko would have failed regardless. We were too easily distracted and hadn’t really thought through the strategic implications of owning a standalone calendaring property (hint: no one wants a calendar without email). A short time later we were burned out and spending most of our time playing Xbox with the Reddit guys in Davis Square—hardly a startup success story.

Emmett and I started thinking about possible ways to get out of the calendar business. At the same time, I was startup fatigued. We had spent over a year paying ourselves nothing. The seed and angel investment market conditions were the polar opposite of what they are today. It had been a struggle to even raise a paltry $70,000, and we had failed to build a product with real traction. I was starting to think about moving back to Seattle to try something new, maybe in a different industry.

Still, we learned a ton and it was fun to be part of the early Y Combinator startup community (then largely in Boston). We became friends with Matt Brezina and Adam Smith (of Xobni), Trip Adler, Tikhon Bernstam and Jared Friedman (of Scribd), and many others. It’s amazing to see how many of those friendships persist today, and even more amazing how well many of those companies are doing.

Coming back from one particular YC dinner, Emmett and I were discussing strategic ideas for Kiko, and I remember telling Emmett an idea that popped into my head: what if you could hear an audio feed on the web of our discussion? Wouldn’t that be interesting to other like-minded entrepreneurial types? We kept going, and eventually the idea morphed into a video feed. Then it became a live video feed. Then it became a continuous live video feed that followed someone around 24/7. Then it had chat, and a community built around watching this live show, which was now a new form of entertainment. I was hooked.

I couldn’t stop talking about the idea. I mentioned it at YC dinners and to other friends. I even came up with a perfect name for it: Justin.tv. On one trip to DC, I told my Dad and my college friend Michael Seibel what I was thinking. Eventually, in-between drinking sessions, we thought of a brilliant idea for divesting ourselves of Kiko, which is a story for another day. After that, Emmett and I were coming up with other startup ideas (I guess we got excited about staying in the industry after all). One particular favorite was the idea of a web app that would ingest your blog’s RSS feed and then allow you to layout and print physical magazines from it. Excitedly, we drove one afternoon to Paul Graham’s house to pitch it.

We explained the idea to Paul and Robert Morris, who just happened to be at the house visiting. I vaguely recall there also being a “this will kill academic publishing” angle, although I can’t figure out how that sensibly fits in now. Paul didn’t particularly like the idea: he didn’t think people would use it. “Well,” he said, “what else do you have?”

I said the only thing I could think of: “Justin.tv.”

Because it was something I was clearly passionate about, and because creating a new form of entertainment was clearly a big market (if you could invent one!), Paul was actually into it. Robert’s addition to the conversation was “I’ll fund that just to see you make a fool of yourself.” Emmett and I walked out of there with a check for $50,000.

Six months later, we’d recruited two other cofounders (Kyle Vogt, our hardware hacker, who we convinced to drop out of MIT on a temporary leave of absence, and Michael Seibel, my college friend from DC, who became our “producer”). We built a site with a video player and chat and two prototype cameras that captured, encoded and streamed live video over cell data networks, negotiated with a CDN to carry our live video traffic, and raised an additional couple hundred thousand dollars. Our plan? Launch the show and see what happens.

Now, let me just tell you why this was a bad idea:

• We didn’t have a plan. We loosely figured if the show became popular we could sell sponsorships or advertising, but we didn’t have a plan to scale the number of shows, nor did we understand what our marginal costs on streaming, customer acquisition, or actually selling ads were.
• We didn’t understand the industry. We didn’t know what kinds of content advertisers would pay for. We didn’t have good insight into what kind of content people wanted to watch, either.
• We relied on proprietary hardware that we were going to mass-produce ourselves. Smart angels told us to drop the hardware and figure out how to do it with commodity equipment, but we wouldn’t listen because we thought hardware would be easy (or at least, doable). Ironically, months after we were told this we switched to using a laptop.
• We were trying to build a “hits” based business without any experience making hits. We knew a lot about websites, but little about content creation. Smart VCs (who took our calls because Paul referred us) told us as much: nobody really likes investing in hits based businesses, because it requires the continual generation of new hits to be successful (instead of, say, building a platform like eBay or Google whose success is built on masses of regular users).

How did we get as far as we did?

• We were passionate. We honestly believed we could create a new form of reality entertainment. Put to the side that we had no experience with creating video (or any kind of content), by God, we were going to make this work.
• Early stage investing is often about the people, not the idea. Paul has said as much about what he looks for. As two-time YC founders he knew that we worked well together and even if we were working on something totally inane we were going to stick it out with the company and iterate until we found a business model.
• We sold the shit out of it. Everyone we knew was excited for Justin.tv. Why? Because our excitement was infectious. That’s how we got Kyle to drop out of school. That’s how we got Michael to quit his job and move across the country.

Ultimately, the show failed. But all told, I’m thankful every day that things went the way they did. Why?

• We built a strong team. The four of us started, and the four of us all still have leadership roles in the company. Along the way we recruited the smartest engineers and best product designers we could find.
• We were willing to learn, and to pivot. After quickly realizing the initial show wasn’t a sustainable model, we decided to go the platform route, and built the world’s largest live video platform (both on the web and in our mobile apps, which have millions of downloads).
• It got us started. Some people wait until the stars are aligned before they jump in. Maybe that’s the right move, but plenty of businesses get started with something that seems implausible, stupid, or not-a-real-business but turn into something of value (think Groupon). If we hadn’t started then, would we have later?

Today, I’m more excited about Justin.tv than I’ve been at any time since we launched the initial platform. Why? We’re taking everything we’ve gathered and learned over the past four and half years building the largest live video platform on the Web (17 million monthly unique visitors in Dec according to comScore’s MediaMetrix), and applying it to tackle a new generation of problems in mobile video. Our world class web and mobile engineering team, all of our product development knowledge, our substantial, scaled video infrastructure, and everything we’ve learned about building engineering teams has all been put to work on a new app that we think is going to change everything.

Our new app is called Socialcam, but that’s another story.

Is the Nokia-Microsoft deal a prelude to a merger?

Nokia is touting its Microsoft alliance on its Web page.

(Credit: Nokia)

 

Nokia and Microsoft have inextricably hitched their wagons to each other in the mobile market. Could this be a precursor to a mega technology merger?

Rumors of a Nokia-Microsoft merger first percolated last year, even before former Microsoft executive Stephen Elop took the reins at the troubled cell phone giant. And while many expected the company to at least be in discussions with Microsoft over a potential partnership, few had predicted the tight relationship announced in London this morning.

During a press conference at its annual investor meeting, the Nokia CEO and Microsoft's Steve Ballmer announced that Nokia will ditch its Symbian and Meego operating systems for Microsoft Windows Phone 7. Going forward Windows Phone 7 will be the predominate operating system for Nokia smartphones. The strategy is a bold one meant to combat the growing momentum by mobile competitors Google Android and Apple.

"We think this will make a three-horse race," Elop said during a press conference. "It's for Nokia and it's good for Microsoft. It allows us to move far faster than we could otherwise."

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, let, and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer explained their company's new tight alliance for mobile phones at an analyst and strategy meeting in London.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

 

The partnership between the two companies goes much deeper than just an agreement to install Microsoft's OS on Nokia's phones. The companies plan to build products and services together as well as share strategic plans. The vision is to create a "third ecosystem" that can compete directly against Apple's iOS and Google's Android platforms.

The partnership described by the executives is so close that it doesn't take much to wonder why the companies didn't decide to simply merge. Perhaps they are testing the waters much like a couple moving in together before they take the plunge into marriage.

Regardless of whether they ever consummate their relationship with a merger, it's clear that Nokia's and Microsoft's fates will soon be inextricably linked. If either company fails in its execution of strategy, it will hurt the other, something that will likely irk investors.

The deal

Unlike other reseller deals, Microsoft and Nokia plan to combine assets and collaborate on joint marketing initiatives, as well as share development plans and build products together.

From Microsoft's perspective, the company will bring broader integration of software from all its different products as well as its Bing search capabilities and advertising platform, which Nokia can leverage on its devices. Meanwhile, Nokia, the world's largest handset maker, will bring its hardware expertise, its vast manufacturing and distribution scale, operator billing relationships, and its Navteq maps and navigation business.

Through this collaboration the companies expect that they will be able to drive more revenue into each other's pockets through mobile applications, services, social-networking integration and gaming via the Xbox product line.

Microsoft has forged many partnerships in the past. The company's core software business is predicated on strong relationships with key partners, such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard. And it's attempted to partner with other handset makers in the past to get a stronger foothold in the mobile market.

The mobile market, however, is very different from the PC market. And it's clear that Microsoft sees the value in Apple's model of owning both the hardware and software of a mobile device. Microsoft has already demonstrated its willingness to move into the hardware business with the Xbox. And it has built a successful ecosystem around the product.


But the Zune, Microsoft's attempt to challenge Apple's iPod, have not been as successful, showing that building hardware from scratch is not always the best strategy. Even acquiring hardware hasn't been an easily achievable path for Microsoft, as demonstrated by the acquisition of Sidekick maker Danger in 2008. The fruits of that acquisition was the Kin cell phone, which was only on the market a few short months before Microsoft killed the effort and focused on Windows Mobile 7.

Even as it pursued its own hardware strategy, Microsoft has continue to seek partnerships with other mobile-hardware makers. In 2003 it partnered with Motorola to develop smartphones, which culminated in the BlackBerry Curve, a supposed BlackBerry killer. More recently, in 2009 Microsoft partnered with LG, which also planned to use the now defunct Windows Mobile platform as its primary platform.

While Microsoft has clearly been down this path before with other cell phone makers, Ballmer said the relationship with Nokia is "unique." Elop agreed and explained that executives from Nokia and Microsoft were already working together to align strategy.

Elop admitted that Nokia had considered using Google Android as its primary software for smartphones. But he said the company decided against it because, he and his team feared that they'd not have enough control over the development of the ecosystem. He said he didn't think that Nokia's assets would be valued enough and that eventually it would turn Nokia's products into commodities.

"The Google option is a valid option," he said. "But at the end of the day it felt a little bit like giving up and not enough like fighting back."

Ostensibly, Nokia could face a similar problem in a partnership with Microsoft. Windows Phone 7 will not be exclusive to Nokia, which means that Nokia's rivals Samsung, LG, Motorola, and HTC will be able to use the platform as well.

But Elop believes that being beholden to Microsoft is less dangerous in terms of commoditizing Nokia's core attributes than a partnership with Google. He emphasized that Nokia has structured its deal with Microsoft so that it would have some control in the development of Windows Phone 7, much more control than other hardware companies also using the software. In this way, he believes Nokia will be able to differentiate its product from competitors' products.

"Another concern is there is some degree of loss of control or being locked in," he said."In terms of what we established, it's very clear we have taken steps [to ensure] these risks are not a significant factor. We're not disclosing terms, but our critical assessment was we had flexibility, a degree of control, in a way that allowed us to take advantage of our differentiation going forward. This is not your mother's OEM deal."

Elop said that any advances that Nokia makes in developing the Windows Phone 7 platform or in the ecosystem will be shared among all hardware partners so that Nokia's efforts will also benefit its competitors.
Of course, this raises an important question: How comfortable will Nokia's competitors be in participating in an ecosystem where the largest player in the market has more influence than they do?

Perhaps, HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, LG Electronics, and Samsung, will double down their bets on Android. In that respect, Nokia could end up differentiating itself with Microsoft, because no one else will be willing to use the software. It could also pave the way for Nokia and Microsoft to merge into a single company.

Merger no easy road either

But mega mergers are never easy. Just getting the deals completed can be a challenge, as was the case with Microsoft's unrequited bid to acquire Yahoo. At least with Nokia and its new management team led by Elop, there is a friendly and possibly welcoming leader at the top.

But culturally Nokia and Microsoft are very different. Nokia is the pride of Finland. One former executive said that it was very telling that the company chose a Canadian instead of an American as its first non-Finnish CEO in its 150-year history. Being acquired by an American giant, such as Microsoft could be a hard pill to swallow for many at the company whose blood they say runs Nokia blue.

Then there is the question of Nokia's valuation. The company has a market capitalization of nearly $40 billion. Investors reacted negatively to the partnership announcement, which might indicate that a merger would be even less appealing to Wall Street. It didn't help that Nokia also announced lukewarm financial guidance as a result of the partnership for the coming year. Nokia said in a press release this morning that it "expects 2011 and 2012 to be transition years, as the company invests to build the planned winning ecosystem with Microsoft." After that the company's predictions for future growth are vague at best.

As a result after the deal was announced this morning, Nokia's stock in Helsinki, Finland, fell by almost 12 percent. The company's stock has been trading in heavy volumes in the U.S. all morning and shares are down.
Analysts had been hoping that Nokia would give up on its efforts to be a software maker and concentrate on building cool phones. But they likely would have preferred a relationship with Android, a strategy that has been successful for other handset makers.

Then of course there is history to contend with. While Elop and Ballmer claim that their product offerings complement one another, many people simply see Nokia and Microsoft as two slow-moving dinosaurs that have each tried but have been unable to crack the smartphone market on their own. Their common problem has been an inability to execute in a rapidly evolving market.

So it's hard to imagine that a combined version of the company--whether it be a strategic partnership or a merged company--would create a more nimble competitor to Google and Apple.

IE9 RC debuts with 'do not track'

SAN FRANCISCO--The next generation of Internet Explorer is nearly ready for the public at large, as Microsoft announces the release candidate of Internet Explorer 9 at the Hang Art Gallery in San Francisco's Union Square this morning.

Internet Explorer 9's ActiveX filter in action.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

 

A massive list of improvements debuted in the new RC, available for 32-bit Windows 7; 64-bit Windows 7; 32-bit Windows Vista; and 64-bit Windows Vista. Among the most notable enhancements are the new ActiveX filter, expanded support for HTML5 and "future-tech" standards, and advertiser tracking protection, which also was introduced this week into a prerelease version of Firefox 4.

The feature changes from the first beta are focused largely, yet not exclusively, on security. Like the Firefox 4 feature, the new "do not track" feature will prevent Web advertisers from tracking your behavior using a header-based solution. Unlike Mozilla's implementation of the protection, IE9 uses both the header and customizable blacklists, Internet Explorer business and marketing senior director Ryan Gavin said in an interview yesterday. "Using only the header is too narrow a solution," he said, noting that Internet Explorer also allows users to create a whitelist for sites that people actively want to track online surfing behavior.
If you go to the Gear menu and then the Safety submenu, there's an option for tracking protection. Clicking it opens the Manage Add-ons window and defaults to the new Tracking Protection tab, from which you can add sites that you want to block. Once the feature has been enabled, simply start browsing. If you go back to the list after checking out a few sites, you ought to see that the list has auto-populated. The configurable number below the main list allows you to set your tolerance for being tracked. If you set it to three, for example, the tracking protection will wait until it sees a tracker on three or more sites before blocking it.
Also new is an ActiveX filter, which you can use to block all ActiveX content and then selectively activate it on a per-site basis. For people unfamiliar with why ActiveX technology is potentially dangerous, to function it requires full access to the operating system that the browser is running in. The new ActiveX filter gives you the ability to restrict ActiveX on a per-site basis, with a toggle in the location bar. If you go to the Gear menu and then the Safety sub-menu, you can block all ActiveX content with one click. Then on the right-side of the location bar, click the circle with a line through it to allow ActiveX content to load on a per-site basis.
Performance gains have been dramatic in the IE9 beta with Microsoft's new JavaScript engine Chakra, and the release candidate continues that trajectory. IE9 RC now places right in the same ballpark for speed as Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera, its four primary competitors. And according to Microsoft, IE9 actually placed fastest on WebKit's SunSpider test.

Also new in the release candidate is expanded support for HTML5 and other "future-Web" technologies. These include support for the geolocation feature, HTML5 semantic tags, CSS3 2D transforms, and support for the WebM video codec. These features are largely present in other browsers, so that they're finally coming to Internet Explorer must be a comfort to developers.

Internet Explorer 9 will come with advertiser tracking protection to make it easier for you to opt out of targeted Web ads.

(Credit: Microsoft)

 

Quite a few minor improvements have been made since the last beta was released, too. The default maximum temporary Internet file size has been increased to 250MB from 50MB, which means that while your cache will be significantly bigger on disk, IE can store more data locally and make it that much quicker to load Web content. Pinned sites have been extended to the trackless private browsing, and you can now set tabs to show on a row below the location bar, which gives them the width of the browser to be displayed. Background tabs have received a Close button, which appears on mouse-over, and Microsoft has tweaked the interface itself to cede more space back to the Web page being displayed. In other words, IE9 RC is thinner than IE9 beta.

While testing the release candidate yesterday, I was pleased to discover that the instability that had plagued the first beta was gone. The release candidate didn't crash once over a six-hour period of use, although it did hang for a few seconds several times. Sites loaded quickly, and most importantly the browser not only felt ready for daily use, but felt like it could stand comfortably next to other modern browsers.

Dell unveils 10-inch Windows 7 tablet

Dell expanded its foray into tablets today with a new 10-inch Windows 7-based device designed, the company said, for users "who need greater mobility, as well as IT organizations that demand control, security, manageability, and integration with existing infrastructure investments."

The Windows 7 Business Tablet, which will run on an Intel processor, could be available by the middle of the year (note that the tablet in the above photo is a nonworking mock-up of the machine).

The tablet was among 39 new products unveiled at the company's Dell Means Business event in San Francisco this morning. They include laptops, desktops, workstations, and a convertible tablet, the Latitude XT3 (a follow-up to the laptop/tablet hybrid XT2).

The Latitude XT3 is a follow-up to the laptop/tablet hybrid XT2 (click to enlarge).

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

 

But the news out of the event likely to grab the most attention is the Win tablet, even though details on specs remain scant and we don't yet have a price or a release date beyond sometime later this year.

Businesses want Windows because it fits into the IT management scheme, Steven Lalla, vice president and general manager of Dell's commercial client product group, said at the event. Not to say Android doesn't, he added, but he maintained that a bigger chunk of the business sector wants to go the Microsoft route.

The new touch-screen tablet, however, will also come in a 10-inch Android version, apparently named the "10-inch Android Tablet," at least for now. That means neither version will fall under the Streak banner.

The Latitude-E series of laptops, meanwhile, has gotten a refresh. The new Latitude E5000 laptops, starting at $859, come in 12-, 13-, and 14-inch models that feature Intel second-generation core processors, new graphics and memory, and backlit keyboard options.

As expected from a business laptop, they have hard-drive accelerometers and remote IT features, including remote data deletion. The keyboard is also the same across the entire line, which the company says will make it easier for business workers to switch devices.

But while IDC estimates that one third of the world's workforce will be mobile by 2013, and Dell took great pains to emphasize that segment, the company also focused on its three new OptiPlex desktops, a new small form factor all-in-one design, and an update to its Precision workstation line.

"We have 30 years in which the PC has proven to be able to adapt itself to the environment," said Rick J. Echevarria, vice president of Intel's Architecture Group, adding that "rumors of the death of the PC have been greatly exaggerated."

The new Optiplex desktops start at $650. They have the new Intel vPro processors, planned compatibility with the desktop virtualization lineup, and tool-free access to system components (meaning the back just pops off). Dell also said that since none of these systems is scheduled to ship in the next 30 to 45 days, they should go out with the updated version of Intel's Cougar Point Sandy Bridge-compatible chipset, which does not contain the recently discovered Cougar Point SATA flaw.

Dell says it interviewed 7,000-plus Gen-Y customers, IT managers, and other business segment customers to figure out what people want out of Dell's business products.

To design its new business laptops, Dell hosted focus groups over 18 months.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

Microsoft this week began the process of paying Windows Phone 7 developers for their work

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft this week began the process of paying Windows Phone 7 developers for their work. For some, this comes three months after their apps appeared on Microsoft's new mobile applications marketplace.

According to some of the top downloaded game and app developers CNET talked with, their experience developing for Microsoft has been entirely positive, short of the wait to get paid and what those amounts have been. Developers were eager to gush about Microsoft's development tools and the back-and-forth communication with the company--both before and after their apps had been launched onto the marketplace.
They also said that expectations had been met in terms of early sales.
The key complaint across the board, though, continues to be size. The number of users with a Windows Phone 7 is simply not as large as it is for competing platforms, which is to be expected given that it launched just a few months ago. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that it had sold 2 million of the devices to OEMs and carriers, meaning the actual user base that's buying and downloading marketplace apps is somewhere below that. How big a size difference that actually is is unclear given that Microsoft does not share things like activation numbers or retail sales.

But the developers we talked with said they were more than happy to stick through this early period in hopes of the platform's expansion.René Schulte, a Microsoft Silverlight developer who created Pictures Lab--a $1.99 photo editing application that was ready in time for the Windows Phone 7 launch and has since been featured by Microsoft--said that sales have been "OK," but that he couldn't make a business out of it. "I'd be happy if Microsoft sells 10 times more devices and people continue to buy my app," he said via e-mail.
Until that expansion happens though, one of the best ways to get a substantial sales boost in mobile application stores is to be featured, a practice done by all the major app store owners. Applications that are featured on Microsoft's storefront get grouped together on their own page and can stay static while the top, new, and free categories change based on user behavior.

Several of the developers we talked with had been featured by Microsoft at one point in time and said that it had given sales, or downloads of their applications a healthy boost. Jason Kiesel, founder and chief architect of CitySourced, a city works reporting service that has a free app in the Windows Phone Marketplace, said the jump in downloads after being featured was "dramatic."

"In those first two days, we basically doubled the total number of downloads of the previous month," Kiesel said in a phone interview with CNET. Because Microsoft's reporting tools lag some five to six days behind, and City Sourced was just recently featured, Kiesel noted that they did not yet know the full extent of the promotion. "I'm confident the total number of downloads will be quite substantial once the week rolls around," he said.

But Microsoft's system for featuring apps has led to frustration for some who say that the company's selection process is skewed.
Developer Farseer Games, which expanded into Windows Phone 7 development after making Silverlight games for the Web, makes a title called Krashlander. The game has proven to be quite popular on the platform, but has never been featured, due to what developer Jeff Weber said was Microsoft's penchant for promoting games that made use of Xbox Live, the online social gaming service Microsoft first rolled out with the original Xbox, and has since brought to the Windows Phone 7 platform.

"Krashlander sales have been OK relative to other non-Xbox Live games, but the way things currently work if your game is not an Xbox Live game, it does not get featured in the marketplace," Weber said. "My game has been one of the top downloaded paid (non-Xbox Live) games since launch, it is currently the 10th highest rated app/game in the marketplace overall, but it has never once been featured."

So why doesn't Weber add the functionality? The simple answer is that not every game can get it. Developers have to pitch Microsoft to be a part of the Xbox Live portfolio, then code the Live APIs into their titles if they're accepted. That extra work can then pay dividends to the developer once people who are playing that game share that information with their friends through achievements or game status that gets beamed out through the service.

Weber said this practice has led to frustration and he views it as a disincentive to produce future indie titles for the platform but that he still likes the platform itself. "I think the Windows Phone 7 has great potential both from a consumer/user standpoint and a developer standpoint," he said. "I really hope Microsoft can make some adjustments and drive the popularity of the phone to where I think it deserves."

So what comes next? There could be a boost in sales, or at least exposure, for apps and games once the first system software update hits, since it will make applications easier to find through the Marketplace search tool. Currently Microsoft's search scours applications, games and music, mashing together the results. The updated version will let users sort which of those sub-genres they're looking for.

There's also the hope of continued growth. Microsoft's expansion into CDMA handsets later this year will certainly help that cause. The key thing still seems to be getting customers to want the device more than the competition. As the company was happy to trumpet not only during its earnings call yesterday, but in a phone interview with CNET earlier this week, people who have the device, "love" it. The question that still needs answering is how to get the people who don't have one to get one. Good applications are certainly one of the strongest steps in that direction.

Where the money is: 3 giants launch venture to fund energy tech startups

GE, Conoco­Phillips and NRG Energy have partnered to create a venture to invest $300 million in early-stage energy technology firms.

The partnership, Energy Technology Ventures, will help fund 30 companies over the next four years, focusing on investments in North America, Europe and Israel.

Target technologies will include renewable power generation — an area where GE is already busy - as well as smart grid technology, energy efficiency, oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear energy, emission controls, water and biofuels. 

"Ten years ago energy was getting just a fraction of that venture capital, one-tenth of one percent," said Kevin Skillern, the head of venture capital investing at GE Energy Financial Services. "The statement these three companies joining together makes is that there is a lot of opportunity for such investments today. And it's not just a one- or two- year trend, it's a generational thing."

Skillern said oil's return to around $90-a-barrel and ongoing talk of regulators wanting to reduce industry emissions is creating demand for new energy technology.

"And it's not just clean-tech we're talking about," Skillern said, "but advancements in conventional energy technologies too." 

The deals will give the three partners minority equity stakes while allowing the 30 firms a chance for commercial scale collaboration. The partners didn't disclose how much each is contributing to the $300 million pot.

Already 3 commitments

GE Energy Financial Service's investment team will be at the core of Energy Technology Ventures, but Conoco­Phillips and NRG will have input into how the $300 million is invested. 

The fund already has made commitments to three companies in which GE previously has invested:

Alta Devices of Santa Clara, Calif., which is aimed at improving the production economics of advanced materials for high-efficiency solar energy.

Ciris Energy of Centennial, Colo., which is developing technology to biochemically convert coal to methane.

CoolPlanetBioFuels of Camarillo, Calif., which is developing technology that converts biomass into high-grade fuel and carbon that can be sequestered.

NRG Energy and ConocoPhillips are new to the venture investing business, but GE, through its GE Energy Financial Services and GE Capital Equity units, has been one of the most active investors in early stage energy technology. 

Princeton, N.J.-based NRG operates nearly 450 megawatts of wind power and 20 megawatts of solar power, and also is rolling out a network of electric vehicle charging stations in Houston and Dallas. GE is a technology partner on the electric vehicle system.

Houston-based ConocoPhillips is not as well-known for its energy technology investments as other super majors, such as Exxon Mobil Corp., which has made a major biofuels push, or Chevron, which has run a technology venture investment fund for more than a decade.

Personal connections

But Richard Germain, manager of alternative energy at ConocoPhilips, said the company does have a number of projects in the works, including wind energy storage in North Texas, advanced biofuels and biomass, and producing electrodes for advanced lithium-ion batteries. 

"Energy innovation is at the core of the company," Germain said.

The combination of the companies may also be based, at least in part, on personal relationships.

NRG Chairman and CEO David Crane and ConocoPhillips Chairman and CEO Jim Mulva have gotten to know each other through the United States Climate Action Partnership, a group of businesses and environmental organizations that called for strong national legislation on reducing emissions.

New technology can be the best medicine

Doctors And New Technology

We all know that smartphones, tablet computers and big-screen TVs are transforming the workplace and home. But the newest gadgets could also be a tonic for medicine and health care.

Cellphones have already proven to be a potent medical instrument in improving patient outcomes. Diabetes patients who are sent videos on their cellphones and actually view them are more likely to check blood sugar levels and comply with their care regimens, said U.S. Army Col. Ron Poropatich, who spoke at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week.

And wounded veterans sent text messages via cellphone have better follow-up treatment routines and feel more connected to caregivers, said Poropatich, deputy director of the U.S. Army's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center at Fort Detrick, Md.

Several military-run treatment trials are testing the promise of cellphones and online apps in patient care. Poropatich foresees patients tracking their blood pressure and other measurements using computers and devices, and those findings being monitored remotely by caregivers. Similarly, cellphones and online video can connect care-intensive patients who want to remain in their homes with off-site doctors and families.

Both of Poropatich's parents are alive and "I would like to be able to log onto my Blackberry and see how they are doing," he said.

Already, commercial firms are making their own evolutionary strides in telemedicine and personal health monitoring.

A look at some of the health and medical advances on display last week at CES:

•Homebound parents can stay connected online using VitalLink, a touch-screen based computer system that allows real-time video chatting using the phone line and webcam. The New Jersey-based company created online software that can be used with touchscreens, no mouse or keyboard required. "We're keeping it easy to use for the elderly who are computer-phobic and don't have the skills," says company president Rich Brown.

Photo galleries can also be uploaded for viewing. Chat and photo software features start at $4.99 monthly; touchscreens start at about $300 (vitallink.net).

In some assisted living and skilled nursing facilities, VitalLink is being tested with an additional activity monitor feature that lets caregivers and primary family members track the resident's involvement. "If they are not active, you can try and call or you can initiate a call from their end and see what's going on," Brown says.

•For elderly relatives who want to remain in their own homes, the My Guardian Angel service provides automated fall and wander detection, emergency readings and other behavioral and medical monitoring. Residents wear a wristwatch that tracks location, sends out fall alerts, records body temperature and can be upgraded to record pulse as well.

Additional health data from Bluetooth devices (blood pressure, glucose monitoring) can be captured by My Guardian, too. Base price for the system with watch, wireless Internet gateway, three wireless electrical plug-in routers and charging unit is under $1,000; $79.95 monthly service (atguardianangel.com).

The system is highly customizable. "My mom does not like to sleep with (the watch on) and she takes it off every night. If she doesn't have it on by 8 a.m. I get a text message to call my mom and tell to put it on," said CEO Ed Caracappa. "It's a very complete and fully functional system for those who wish to age in place."

•Data tracking can also help those who aim to get – and remain – physically fit. MapMyFitness records and tracks your workout progress using free iPhone apps and compatible devices such as hear monitors and GPS devices.

Runners and bicyclists can wirelessly input data from a heart rate sensor (made by Garmin, Wahoo, Adidas or Timex, for instance) to the iPhone or iPod Touch (also compatible with Blackberry and Android devices). " That gives you instant feedback," says MapMyFitness senior mobile development manager Chris Glode. "You can just look at your phone and know whether you are in your target zone or not."

Other data types that can be input include runner cadence and speed, power expenditure (good for cyclists) and weight ($130-up, www.mapmyfitness.com).

Beyond that, a Web-based subscription service lets you view workout charts and reports, as well as training plans (free to $100 annually). "More and more people are wanting to track every aspect of their life using more and more sophisticated types of sensors," Glode says. "The data you get, in addition to how you feel during the workout and how many calories you burned, is crucial to people."

•Workouts can tracked and more enjoyable by incorporating your big-screen TV. BodyMedia's Fit Armband BW ($249) tracks calories burned and consumed, physical activity, steps taken and sleep. The Bluetooth device lets you monitor activity on your iPhone or Android phone already, but starting in April Panasonic will let you access BodyMedia's software on its Viera HDTVs.

That will allow exercisers to watch their activity levels and calories burnt add up while they watch movies, TV shows or while playing video games. "Our partnership with Panasonic is on the cutting edge for adding important health and wellness information to everyday TV viewing," says BodyMedia chief information officer Steve Menke. "The integration of a body monitoring technology with the TV is enabling real-time health and wellness management."

The marrying of consumer electronics and medical technologies is going to be needed especially as baby boomers age, Poropatich says. "Electronic devices are going to hooked to the cloud. That's all happening."

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First Windows 7 service pack sent to OEMs

The first service pack for Windows 7 has been sent to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), according to a post on TechNet by Microsoft's Russian Windows Visualization team.

Microsoft launched the first release candidate for Windows 7 SP1, and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 in late October of last year, saying that it would be the only RC prior to the software being finalized and made available to manufacturers. The company also promised that SP1 would arrive in the hands of users in the "first half" of 2011.

Blog Winrumors, which reported the news earlier today, weighs in, saying that while SP1 is indeed going out to OEMs, it may be a while longer before consumers get their hands on it.

A Microsoft spokesperson told CNET, "we have nothing to share at this time but will keep you posted."

SP1 packs together a round of hotfixes, as well as an updated remote desktop client that makes use of RemoteFX. Besides bringing a boost to 3D applications, RemoteFX helps IT admins deploy Windows 7 through virtual machines using the technology, which it picked up with its acquisition of Calista Technologies back in 2008. Other SP1 adds include dynamic memory support for Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2, and all previous Windows security fixes.

Earlier this week, Microsoft released KB 976902 through its Windows Update software before having the knowledge base article to explain what the update was for. Security expert Brian Krebs dug a little deeper and found out it was an update to the Windows stack to get the OS ready for future updates, something the company did ahead of the SP1 beta back in July.