And you thought it was the cicadas. Nope, they’re working up into a high whine over next week’s product announcements, with all signs pointing to this serious makeover of the otherwise underwhelming Apple TV set-top media box. This Fast Company post features FC’s usual unrestrained overzeal (while trying to pass the buck on to Kevin Rose of Digg, but we know better, right?) about the coming total revolution in all human communication that will be caused by the iTV. And Wired, also known for its willigness to get down on all fours for the PR boys from Cupertino, couldn’t wait to tell us how awesome it would be to rent TV shows from iTunes for 99 cents with our new awesome life-changing devices, which will make everything awesome. The one lone voice of sanity that I heard was over at CrunchGear, where writer John Biggs flat out says the existing Apple TV sucks and that the new one, which will bring the tightly-controlled content delivery mechanisms of the iPhone/iPad and iOS, is likely to be even less adaptable to anything but Total Submission To Steve.
While Hollywood still seems intent on turning every movie made into a 3D extravamaganza whether it needs to be or not, apparently TV makers are now running away from 3D like residents of Tokyo in a Godzilla movie. Two years ago, they couldn’t get on board with the upcoming All-3D-All-The-Time Revolution fast enough, but the 3D backlash is so in full-swing that even Time Magazine has reported on it. CrunchGear says that with four months to go before CES 2011, electronics makers have already stopped promoting 3DTV and have moved on to another fad: apps. And by “apps”, they mean the combination of built-in wireless networking (a feature that has been coming along without too much fanfare for a while) and software widgets that let viewers access Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and so on. Verizon added that functionality into its FiOS service last year, but this would be independent of your service provider because it would be controlled by the television itself.
The reason they’re all talking about this now instead of waiting for CES? The Apple fanboi propaganda machine started spinning in overdrive this week for what might be the Next Big Announcement at Apple’s September press event: the much-anticipated overhaul of Apple TV into a cloud-based set top box redubbed (what else?) iTV. All the gadget websites are talking about the leaked details this morning, but here’s Fast Company’s run-down. The box will drop Mac OS for iOS, and the video output will only be 720p, but in addition to streaming video and music, the iTV will be able to download and run iTunes App Store apps natively because it will essentially be that ginormous iPad we all joked about. Unlike some of the more fanciful pre-launch rumors about the iPad, the stories in the tech press are all pretty consistent and reasonable, and Apple needs to do something to make up for the gaffes with the iPhone 4, so I think the confidence level about this should be a lock.
Nothing says “douchebag” like wearing one of those bluetooth headsets. In fact, there’s a whole website called Bluetooth Douchebag.com devoted to calling them out.
Now you can send a not-so-subtle message to the bluetooth douchebag in your world with this:
It’s a toy handgun modified to work as a bluetooth headset. Just hold it up to your ear, and when a call comes in, pull the trigger:
Now, normally, someone walking around talking to themselves loudly while holding a gun to their temple might attract some attention from the local authorities, but once you explain to them that it’s just the latest in communications technology, I’m SURE they won’t think anything of it.
Earlier this year, Cisco finally did away with the Linksys brand name on their home wireless networking gear (they had acquired Linksys all the way back in 2003). They added some swoopy industrial design, redid the configuration UI to be “easier”, renamed the product the “Cisco Valet”, and jacked up the price of a basic home wireless router from about $75 to $129.
My blog-buddy “Going Like Sixty” found himself of a new router the other day and bought one on the premise that it would be very simple to set up, but, as he tells us here, any visions of “breezing through the simple screens” quickly disappeared into that sucking morass known as “Bangalore Tech Support Madness”. He’s a little bitter about the whole thing.
Frankly, I’m having a hard time imagining why the marketeering geniuses at Cisco thought setting up a wireless router needed to be “easier”, since wireless routers have been probably the simplest bit of home computer tech ever created. In fact, they have been, to some degree, TOO easy because it has always been possible to just plug one in and have it work with very little intervention required, with the result being tons of home wireless networks being set up with nobody ever changing the default admin passwords or implementing the built-in (and equally simple-to-enable) encryption. And now most people don’t even need to bother with their own wireless router, since the cable companies wised up and built them right into their cable modems. Jacking the price and alienating the technically-disinclined doesn’t really seem like a great business plan…but, then again, we are talking about Cisco.
While everybody has been obsessing over the iPhone 4G “Antennagate” issue, the British IT news website The Register notes that Apple has submitted a continuation of a patent they submitted in 2009 that integrates advertisements into the operating system in a way that literally stops everything the computer is doing and forces the user to watch the ad before letting them continue working.
The code would allow the user to temporarily delay the ad, as shown in the diagram above. The revised code in the new patent filing does remove provisions that would deter users from disabling or tampering with the function by causing the OS to stop responding to an input device (keyboard, mouse, etc.) or by causing the application that was running to “cease generating output”.
Apple explains the idea as a way to let people have “free” OS upgrades — instead of paying the typical $69-$129 that Apple charges for a major upgrade, you could have it for free in return for letting your computer be crippled by occasional advertisements popping up, with no way of escaping them. Building in ads in return for free software isn’t a new idea — I have a couple of apps that I use all the time that always display an ad because I didn’t want to fork over fifty bucks — and there were even some PC makers who literally gave away their computers to people but forced them to have a frame of ads around their web browser window at all times, so I suppose it was just a matter of time before somebody applied the idea to the whole damn OS. It’s just disappointing (not surprising, just disappointing) that Apple might be the first one to implement it.
Well, that’s ONE way to make lemons into lemonade…or should I say apples into apple cider?
Steve Jobs is making a big public announcement today, and it’s expected that Apple will announce that they’re going to do something to fix the problem with the antenna on the iPhone 4G. Personally, I think it would be AWESOME if Apple promised to send each and every iPhone user a big ol’ roll of duct tape, but that’s probably not what’s going to happen.
Also probably not gonna happen: no official endorsement by Steverino of this awesome faux bacon carrying case for your iPhone (via bookofjoe), but I’m betting that Steve himself probably carries his duct-taped iPhone 4G in one of these beauties and shows it off to all the other bajillionaires at his Bajillionaire Club meetings.
Meanwhile, to much less fanfare…Apple has quietly announced that they are beginning a fix-or-repair program for Time Capsules purchased between February and June 2008. You will recall that there has been a well-documented problem with the hard drives inside Time Capsules overheating and failing after about 18 months of use. I’m guessing this isn’t high on Steve’s deck of Powerpoint slides today, either.
Dear Harvey, Pete, Barry, Kevin, and every other weathermonkey on Boston-area TV: Enough is enough. The fucking blizzard was THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO. It’s time to stop trotting out the same blurry videotape of cars stuck on Rt. 128 that is older than some of the people who are actually on your broadcast, just so we [...]
It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT. Since you cannot click [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and neatly into [...]
