The new Wondertablet the guys at Gizmodo showed off last night looks cool. But you can’t actually touch one right now unless you know someone very connected at Microsoft. But you know what you can touch? Today? A PC you control by shoving your hands in a box full of mud. All you have to do is get yourself to Gizmodo’s awesome gadget gallery in New York during the next few days.
Napster says it has an awesome new iPhone app that will let you stream music directly to your phone–just like the one Apple approved for Spotify, the superhyped service you can’t even get in the U.S. yet. But Napster says you won’t be able to use its app anytime soon, and it blames the big bad music labels.
Sony did indeed have a bit of news to announce at the New York Public Library: Its most direct challenge to Amazon’s Kindle to date. Like the Kindle, the “Daily” reader will feature a wireless connection–Sony will use AT&T, while Amazon uses Sprint. And unlike current versions of the Kindle, the Sony device will feature a touchscreen.
But it will come at a price: The device will retail in December for $399. That’s $100 more than the current price of Amazon’s Kindle 2. And that price point is almost certain to drop in coming months.
If you find yourself constantly cursing as your laptop struggles to stream a video clip, perhaps it’s time to consider a move. If you live in Delaware, you’ve got better odds at getting a high-speed connection than in any other state in the U.S. And if you’re really serious about speedy surfing, get yourself to Japan or South Korea. Bonus video: Break-dancing babies on rollerskates!
Can Google’s boldest attack against Microsoft succeed? Absolutely. Even if it flops.
The newly announced Google Chrome OS won’t show up until the second half of 2010, when it will first appear on lightweight netbooks. Eventually, it’s supposed to run on full-sized PCs. But Chrome OS will start working long before consumers start booting it up next year as it forces Steve Ballmer and company to open up yet another front in their long-running war against Google.
The Web is full of armchair ad critics, particularly when it comes to spots from Apple and Microsoft. And the usual consensus from the chattering classes: Apple ads goooood. Microsoft ads baaaaaad.
But Microsoft’s latest campaign, which features documentary-like tales of youngish people priced out by Apple, may actually be working. At least when it comes to youngish people’s perceptions of the two brands.
Next to no news from the Apple earnings call this afternoon, which is just the way Apple execs like their earnings calls. Once again, the company provided no information about CEO Steve Jobs’s health except to note that he is still scheduled to come back to work in June. And the company continued to pooh-pooh the concept of netbooks–supercheap, supersmall laptops with very little horsepower that are the hottest part of the PC business right now.
Web video publishers are still trying to get their heads around their existing sites, which attract plenty of eyeballs but not much in the way of ad dollars. But at some point they’re going to have to figure out what will happen as video moves from the PC to the phone.
Here’s one small step in that evolution: Joost, the once-hyped video site, is going to start selling ads for stuff it shows via its iPhone app. Doing the heavy lifting will be FreeWheel, a well-regarded start-up that already handles ad-serving for some of the Web’s biggest video players.
That’s the offer, sort of, being made by something called Datz Music Lounge. Are there catches? You bet–this is the music business, after all. But it’s a potentially intriguing idea that could work both for music fans and the industry.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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