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Posts Tagged ‘Assertion’

Judge throws out Microsoft WGA spyware case
Windows Genuine Advantage software might be many things (annoying and by no means error-free, to name but two) but it ain’t spyware — at least according to a judge in the District Court for the Western District of Washington, who dismissed the lawsuit that we first caught wind of back in ‘06. The news comes a month after the plaintiffs failed to have the suit certified as a class action, which is never a good sign — and which bears out Microsoft’s assertion that the case is “fictional” and from an “alternate universe.” Zing! Both parties are being mum on the subject of any settlement that might have been reached, but if it were us we’d have at least held out for one of those world famous Windows 7 Whoppers.

Judge throws out Microsoft WGA spyware case originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Analyst: There’s a market of four to five million iPhones a year in China

Filed under: Apple Financial, Apple, iPhone

I thought Apple sounded a tad bit defensive about China on the conference call Monday, but Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty says there’s nothing to worry about: she expects Apple to sell up to four or five million iPhones in China per year. Apple told us on Monday that they’ve activated about 200,000 iPhones in China so far, but Huberty claims that there’s a market for maybe 50 million iPhones over there, and echoes Tim Cook’s assertion that price is the main issue. “Hardware pricing, service plan pricing and the large up-front payment,” she says in her report, “were cited by 85%, 66% and 56% of respondents respectively, as reasons they were not likely to purchase an iPhone.”

Keep in mind that the four to five million figure is a top end — in the first year, Apple has said that they’re aiming for more like one or two million. But there is definitely a solid market to be found in China, and significant sales there could help buoy Apple earnings reports over here for sure.

TUAWAnalyst: There’s a market of four to five million iPhones a year in China originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Shadow is Nexus Two with sliding QWERTY keyboard?

Fan-made render? Very possible, but we’re intrigued by the notion. The gang at Mobile01 have laid out two photos of what is being called the Motorola Shadow (not to be confused with the T-Mobile Shadow), which in a nutshell looks like Droid / Milestone with a white keyboard and wrist strap. Even more interesting is the assertion that this could be Google’s next flagship device, here lovingly dubbed the Nexus Two. Now while there is no way to corroborate at this point, we could totally buy this as feasible. After all, what better way to complement the Nexus One slate than with one with physical QWERTY? And who better than the company whose Android 2.0 device increased the platform’s mindshare at supersonic speeds, with a CEO willing to signify support even at the launch event for a competitor’s product? Color us curious — wrist strap-laden render after the break

[Thanks, Serge]

Continue reading Motorola Shadow is Nexus Two with sliding QWERTY keyboard?

Motorola Shadow is Nexus Two with sliding QWERTY keyboard? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Contemplating the uncertain future of Macworld Expo

Filed under: Macworld, Apple

Jim Dalrymple has been around the Mac community for years, so when he talks, people listen. That’s why yesterday’s post at Dalrymple’s blog, LoopInsight, was so fascinating and got me thinking about whether or not Dalrymple was right in his assertion that things don’t look good for the future of Macworld Expo.

The post was titled “Macworld Expo 2010: Success story or a disaster waiting to happen,” and it outlined the reasons why this year’s Expo in San Francisco could very well be the last. Dalrymple begins tolling the death knell with a list of the big names that won’t be attending the show this year — Apple (of course), Adobe, Epson, and Griffin to name a few. He then brings up the fact that with a month to go until the doors open on the Expo, there are only 157 listed exhibitors. Many of those exhibitors are familiar to Apple fans, but then again, there are a lot of small and unknown iPhone developers on the list as well.

Dalrymple’s point that even the press is turning away from the Expo is more daunting. Without a Steve Jobs keynote to attract the world media, the show seems to be entering its death throes. Less media attention means less attention to exhibitor products, which means fewer exhibitors are going to find it worthwhile to pay the price to display their wares.
I’m an optimist by nature. I’d love to be attending Macworld Expo for years to come. I’ve been attending Macworld Expo on and off between the late 1980s, when the show was vibrant and thriving, and last year’s wild ride. But the signs seem pretty clear to me that my trip to San Francisco in February to the Expo may be my last. As much as it pained me to agree with Dalrymple’s rather negative appraisal of the future of Macworld Expo, I had to agree that his comments had a lot of merit.

There are some compelling reasons why this could very well be the last year for Macworld Expo — at least Macworld Expo as we know it. To begin with, the very name of the Expo shows just how out of touch with the realities of Apple the organizers must be. Anyone who has attended Macworld Expo in the last two years knows that the iPhone, not the Mac, has been the real star of the show. Apple is more than a one-trick pony now, and with a new class of device just around the corner, perhaps a new name and new expo acknowledging the company as a worldwide force in the consumer electronics business would breathe new life into the confab.

Second, a lot of attendees I talked to felt that the “town meeting” at Macworld Expo 2009 at which the future of the event was discussed was a total farce. Sure, it appears that IDG World Expo took some of the attendee suggestions to heart, such as moving the event to February so it wouldn’t compete directly with CES. But other interesting ideas, such as taking the show on the road to a different city each year, did not seem to register with the organizers. San Francisco is a horrendously expensive city in which to stay during a trade show, and the huge taxes that are levied on hotel rooms, rental cars, and other staples of the tourist trade add insult to injury. Add to that the horror stories I’ve been told over the years by exhibitors who have had to pay huge “installation fees” to the union-controlled crews in Moscone Center, and it’s no wonder that exhibitors are dropping the show. Moving the show to a different city each year would offer a logistical challenge, but it would give more people a chance to attend the show and hopefully make attending less of a financial burden for both exhibitors and attendees.

Finally, the tired story that “it’s all about the networking” should be laid to rest. After Dalrymple’s post yesterday, I saw a flurry of tweets stating that the show would never die, since it’s the only place that Mac geeks can gather and bask in the warm glow of Apple-tinged fellowship. Well, it’s not.

There are still a number of very active Apple-related user groups throughout the country, so you don’t need to travel to San Francisco once a year to get the Apple love. Take a look at Chuck Joiner’s MUGCenter.com website, and you’ll see that there is constant activity all over the country. Even more than the physical meetings, there’s now a huge electronic community of Apple fandom. Want to get the latest scoop on all of the new products? Check out blogs like TUAW, follow ‘em on Twitter and Facebook, or even join the active chat forums on a number of sites. All of these electronic venues are much more up-to-date than an annual conference and expo. For that matter, even a weekly trip to a local Apple Store will give you tremendous insight into the new products, trends, and rumors that surround the world of Apple.

Some people go to Macworld Expo for the conference tracks, and in many cases those tracks are informative and taught by knowledgeable instructors. But there are other, less expensive training options available. There are local training venues in most major cities, and for those in the hinterlands, online training companies such as Lynda.com can provide the gentle hand of a tutor in a much more comfortable venue.

There are glimmers of hope in recent statements from IDG World Expo. For example, there are as many attendees pre-registered so far this year — about 30,000 — as were in attendance in total in 2009. IDG World Expo expects more than 300 companies to exhibit, which unfortunately sounds more like wishful thinking than hard numbers. Some of the featured presenters, such as David Pogue, Leo Laporte, John Gruber and Kevin Smith should ease the blow from the absence of Chairman Steve and the rest of the Apple team. But many of these presenters (Laporte and Gruber, for example) already have hundreds of thousands of faithful online followers who might find it too expensive to travel to San Francisco and get an overpriced hotel room just to see these folks in the flesh.

I’ve stated my views. I would love to eat my words and be attending the Expo again in 2011. Now I leave it up to TUAW’s readers to take up the discussion about the future of Macworld Expo. Take our short poll, and / or leave a comment below.

TUAWContemplating the uncertain future of Macworld Expo originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia shows off SNES on N900, quickly thinks better of it

A little bit of emulation is a basic rite of passage for a modern day device that allows open software development, and the N900 is no different. We first saw the device rocking some SNES way back in September, but apparently Nokia couldn’t pass up an opportunity to demonstrate the phone’s prowess and put up its own video of a few emulators in action. Unfortunately, while emulators are completely legal, the ROMs that run on them are rarely legit, and despite Nokia’s odd assertion in the video that “most publishers allow individual title usage provided that the user is in possession of the original title,” the phone giant has since pulled the video from the internets, and Nintendo is reportedly looking into the matter. Of course, N900 emulatin’ is still easy to come by from third parties — check one out after the break.

[Thanks, Nirvan]

Continue reading Nokia shows off SNES on N900, quickly thinks better of it

Nokia shows off SNES on N900, quickly thinks better of it originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Entelligence: Have we demonized DRM?

There was a lot of discussion when Steve Jobs wrote his famous letter about DRM a few years ago. I think the letter and the timing were brilliant back in the day and it put the issue of DRM squarely where it belongs, with the content companies and not companies such as Apple or Microsoft. I agree with the overall assertion that companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Real will sell more songs without DRM. But there’s more to the story, and asking consumers about DRM is a loaded question. The analogy best given to me by one of my non-digerati friends is asking, “would you rather get 3 slices of pizza for $5, or all you can eat at a buffet for $5?” The vast majority will likely opt for the latter, even though that same vast majority will still only eat three slices.

Continue reading Entelligence: Have we demonized DRM?

Entelligence: Have we demonized DRM? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Alpha 850 DLSR manual pops up on Hong Kong support site

Sony’s Alpha series DSLR cameras are almost notorious for how often they leak, and as is custom with an introductory assertion like that, we’ve got another one to show you. The company’s Hong Kong support site has an instruction manual available to download for an as-of-then unknown iteration, the α850. The gang at Dyxum forums have gone through it more thoroughly than we have so far, and the Initial reaction is that it’s similar to the α900 but with only three FPS, a smaller viewfinder, and still no video (unlike its competition). We’ve assembled some highlights from the guide, including full specs, in the gallery below. Hit up the read link to grab the full manual for yourself, but just a word of caution, even though the PDF’s only 3.54MB in size, the download has proven to be rather painfully slow.

[Via Dyxum forums; thanks, Doug]

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Sony Alpha 850 DLSR manual pops up on Hong Kong support site originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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