Saturday’s Quick Tech Notes
Here are some quick notes in the world of tech:
- Remember the Panasonic/Sanyo merger? Well, it will happen, according to several recent press reports. It will cost Panasonic about $9 billion or so, and it creates Japan’s largest electronics company. They stated it was mainly because of Sanyo’s position in the rechargable batteries business for devices and cars. Does this portend more mergers in the future? Perhaps. In this economy, it makes sense.
- AT&T bought Centennial, a small rural wireless company, for $944 million on Friday. The company has about 1.1 million subscribers, about half of which are in Puerto Rico. AT&T sure seems to be in the buying mood of late, so heaven knows what their motivation is. Perhaps just expanding using the buyer’s market of the economic climate right now? The deal still has to be approved by Centennial shareholders early next year to go through (not expected to be a problem).
- Google is 10 years old, and still pretty strong in the web economy, despite some bumps in the road. CEO Eric Schmidt did an interview with the NY Times about how Google is surviving despite massive slowdowns in many sectors. Careful hiring and reigning in spending is the gist; imagine that? Read more here.
You knew it would happen: YouTube to offer feature length films
Hollywood has discovered YouTube. Some would say “It’s about time!”, and some would say, “Long movie clips and copyrighted stuff are already on YouTube, so what’s the big deal?”
YouTube will begin offering feature films produced by at least one of the biggest Hollywood movie studios, probably starting in December, according to an inside executive with an entertainment company.
For months, Google, YouTube’s parent company, has been talking to the major film companies about launching a strreaming movie service that would be ad-supported, according to reports on a number of websites. It’s expected to launch (assuming things go well) in the next “30-90 days” according to insider statements.
The usual concerns are springing up: why bring ads to the site, will the site start charging at some point for services that are already free, etc. but this could be a boom for the small indie films to help them get an audience without the expense typically associated with getting one.
More of the details here: Link
Antitrust worries destroy the proposed Yahoo!-Google “partnership”, and Yahoo isn’t happy
Well, it was an interesting thought, anyway. But it won’t happen, thanks to the paranoia that is the Justice Department. The deal was scrapped due to worries about legal entanglements that would follow such a formal partnership.
Yahoo! and Google were going to partner up, it was announced in June, to offer search results to one another and share some revenue. Yahoo was due to make about $800 million off the deal, for a company that really needed the cash after rebuffing Microsoft’s buyout offer and declining ad revenue.
What was wrong with this deal, you ask? According to the DoJ, a lot, I guess. Mainly they stated it would negatively affect prices and competition. Valid to a degree.
Here’s more detail about the proceedings: Link
New Google Chrome browser beta due out in a few days
Google will soon begin seeding a third beta version of its Chrome Web browser, a release that fixes up bugs, improves performance, and shores up security weaknesses. Chrome is Google’s foray into browsers that’s supposedly faster and more flexible than IE. Many say over time, it could supplant IE, but it still needs a good amount of polish.
Features in the new version include: better performance for plug-ins such as Flash and Silverlight; fewer crashes, support for scrolling with a touchpad, and better performance for people who browse the Web through a proxy.
More details about the new update and improvements here: Link
This product could be an essential part of Google’s strategy with Android going forward, so we’ll keep an eye on it as it develops.
Interesting tech legal news: Google agrees to pay authors $125 million
Google will be awarding authors and publishers $125 million as part of a settlement that resolves a lawsuit against its Google Book Search initiative, the Authors Guild and a group of publishers announced Tuesday. The suit has been ongoing for 3+ years now.
The settlement enables authors and publishers to receive compensation for online displaying and cataloging of their works, which is a huge victory in the online vs. real world battle many have played about in legal circles.
Paul Aiken, director of the Authors Guild, called the settlement “the biggest book deal in U.S. publishing history.” And it certainly is.
Google is converting and digitizing the works from a number of major libraries, including the New York Public Library and Harvard Library, and is making those texts searchable on pages (with ads of course). The Authors Guild, which represents more than 8,000 authors, sued Google in September 2005, alleging that the company’s digitizing initiative amounted to mass copyright infringement.
Under the terms of the settlement, Google has agreed to pay the named authors and publishers $125 million, and will also be responsible for selling access to copyrighted works in its vault. Most of the revenues from this feature would go directly to the authors and publishers, with Google keeping a bit for operating expenses.
This is something that could affect future copyright lawsuits, and removing the myth that things posted online are free for distribution just because they’re online.
Big security flaw found in T-Mobile’s Android Phone
Just a few days after the T-Mobile G1 smartphone was released, a group of security people have found what they call a “serious flaw” in the Android software from Google. Not exactly the start they were looking for out of the gate.
One of the researchers notified Google of the flaw on Friday and said he was releasing details about it now because he believed that cellphone users weren’t informed that increasingly connected smartphones now faced the same type of threats that plague personal computers that are internet-connected.
The flaw itself could be exploited by an attacker who might trick a G1 user into visiting a trapped Web site with malicious code.
Google executives acknowledged the issue but said that the built-in security features of the phone would limit any damage that could be done by an rogue app, compared with today’s PCs and other cellphones. Unlike personal computers and other advanced smartphones like the iPhone, the Google phone creates a series of software “baskets” that limit the access of an intruder to a single application.
Smart in theory, but it’s only a matter of time before some hacker breaks that barrier. So the best advice is: keep your guard up.
Vista SP2 in beta testing - But will anyone care?
The next update to Windows Vista will enter beta next week, bringing with it support for Blu-ray drives and Bluetooth, and a few bug fixes, among other enhancements.
In a blog posting on Friday, Microsoft confirmed that a beta version of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 will be released next week, probably later in the week.
The software maker said earlier this week that it was working on Vista SP2, but wouldn’t go into detail.
In addition to the above fixes, it will include Windows Search 4.0, the latest version of Microsoft’s desktop search technology. Why they think it will replace Google is anyone’s guess, but it’ll be there anyhow.
I think at this point, those that use and like Vista will use it regardless, and those who could care less, won’t care about this service pack at all. It may be time for MS to cut their losses and move on to “Windows 7″ at this point.
Google, Android and The Not-So-Secret Plan
Android may be an open-source operating system (and has been widely celebrated as such), but Google isn’t shy about the idea that it hopes to profit by underwriting its development. And with Google’s first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1, just about here it’s becoming clearer exactly how they want to benefit.
T-Mobile’s G1, otherwise known as the HTC Dream, is the first phone to go on sale with Google’s Android operating system built in.
Google executives have spoken about Android’s general benefits: the company wants to use it to accelerate the use and sophistication of mobile Internet browsing, and open the “hood” so to speak, for tinkering by outside parties. But judging from my testing of a G1 phone, it appears Google wants a more direct benefit for their own bottom line, too: more users of Google’s various online services.
Although there’s nothing stopping a G1 owner from using search engines and other services from Google rivals such as Microsoft and Yahoo (though most web users on PC/Mac desktop systems predominently use Google as their SE of choice), Google technology is built deeply into the G1 by design, and that trend will continue.
The hooks get a little more obvious when things get more personal. The Android phone asks you for your Google account information when you first start it up, and if you have a Google account, it immediately grabs your contacts, calendar appointments, and Gmail messages and loads them up for you. Convenient you might say, but very deliberate as well. This function does NOT exist for their rivals, such as Yahoo.
The tie-in to these personal services is telling. Google has dominated its competition when it comes to the search engine market, but it hasn’t been as successful when it comes to more more personal uses of its services such as e-mail and social networking. With Android, Google apparently hopes to establish more of this direct contact with Internet users and use the OS to leverage its position in the market.
And it’s still the very early days for Android. At the same time Google or others could write applications that dovetail with various services. And by the same thought process, given Android’s free software development kit and open Android Market for offering new applications, I’d expect mobile applications from Google rivals like Yahoo and MS as well. Whether they’ll be able to take center stage in Android is another matter.
Google launches AdSense for Games
You knew it was only a matter of time until ads were in games. The precursors were already in place for several games. Now Google is getting into the race with AdSense for Games.
The beta launch was announced last week, and ads are already starting to appear in a few games to test out the system. At the start, Google will work with partners like PlayFish, Mochi Media, Demand Media and Konami, incorporating ads into Flash games and popular games like Dance Dance Revolution.
It will include models for revenue through click-throughs and impressions.
More intricate details included here: Link
Smartphones: Not just for business anymore
No longer is the smartphone the domain of stuffy business people. It’s a living, breathing thing, alive with possibilities, and yes…fun. Regular everyday people are using and developing for the smartphone, which has opened all kinds of possibilities.
With the advent of the iPhone and the App Store, the masses were intrigued with the prospect of cool games being developed for the platform, pushing into markets formerly only occupied by the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. “Real” games for the iPhone platform are already being released, such as the ultra-slick Super Monkey Ball. But with Apple, you have to be “approved” to gain entry to the App Store, meaning red tape and (sometimes) a lack of innovation from those “garage” developers out there who don’t wish to jump through Apple’s sometimes cryptic approval process. Android could change that.
Google Android, an open-source platform, could prop open the door for a seemingly endless array of possibilities presented to the everyday joes out there to step up and develop something groundbreaking. But…Will it be able to compete with the iPhone and the App Store, and the Apple hype machine?
iPhone has the upper hand in having been out for awhile, so devs know the intricacies of the OS and the platform. With Android being unregulated, things like platform/console emulators become a possibility, opening new doors for everyday developers to reach a wide, new audience. Can the graphics be sophisticated enough for the avid gamer? It could be a viable gaming platform.
Yes, there will be limits. Memory card limitations, and screen size issues too. But with a touchscreen, plus a trackball, so lots of different and cool control schemes become possible. This is a truly exciting time to be a mobile phone developer, and as Android matures, it could provide a real opening for devs to stake their place on the ground floor of a blooming new market. If price are kept on a similar plane as iPhone apps, I can see very interesting stuff going on.
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