voicegene.com

But given Microsoft’s success with building the
Xbox hardware division, it’s interesting to ponder whether it would try and turn the mediocre-at-best performance of the Zune group into a phone.

But Miniman came away from the summit with two thoughts. One, Microsoft won’t be ready to release Windows Mobile 7 until 2009, and maybe not until the second half of the year. That’s a bit of speculation on his part, but he makes the point that Apple, RIM, Google, and even Palm will probably have released improved operating systems by mid-2009, and Microsoft will just be catching up.

Microsoft just held a summit on the next version of Windows Mobile, and one attendee is excited about the product, but worried about the timing.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

Windows Mobile 7 is expected to be a dramatic improvement over 6.1, shown here, but when will it arrive?

Microsoft just released Windows Mobile 6.1 at the
CTIA show on April 1. The latest version was a pretty incremental improvement to Windows Mobile 6, with a redesigned home screen as the most prominent change. Microsoft’s Robbie Bach spent much of his keynote address to CTIA attendees talking about how Microsoft needs to make Windows Mobile easier for consumers to use and enjoy.

His second suspicion is that Microsoft is going to use the talent it acquired from Danger to build a Microsoft-branded hardware phone. As recently as last month, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told my colleague Ina Fried that Microsoft wanted Danger’s expertise in delivering applications to handhelds, not the handhelds themselves, when it acquired the company.

Miniman closes by saying: “Microsoft is working like mad to make Windows Mobile 7 be an OS that we all drool over (both for businesses and consumers), and they’ve listened pretty well to our bitching and complaining over the last few years.” However, he points out that if the company waits too long, it might not matter.

Brandon Miniman of PocketNow posted a recap (thanks, Gizmodo) of his trip to Redmond for the Microsoft MVP Summit to check out Windows Mobile 7. He couldn’t get into details, as he had signed an NDA about the event, but hinted that the leaked screenshots earlier this year are pretty close to what you should expect from Windows Mobile 7.

While he honored the terms of his NDA, Miniman said “as icing on the cake, think of your biggest complaint with Windows Mobile 5.0 or 6…it’s likely that in Windows Mobile 7, it’s been fixed.” Most Windows Mobile users in the unofficial smartphone survey I conducted last month complained about a stodgy user interface that looks pedestrian compared to Apple’s
iPhone, so that’s the biggest hint of what might be to come.

[Via Engadget]

Currently, the Inspiron 530 desktop and Inspiron 1420 laptop are the only two Dell computers to come preloaded with Ubuntu 7.10. While those looking to put Linux on a higher-end XPS model can always go the self-install route, purchasing a preloaded Ubuntu config saves you the cost of having to purchase Windows.

(Credit:
CNET Networks, Inc.)

Dell is expanding its open-source offerings. The XPS M1330 laptop is now available with Ubuntu in Germany, the U.K., France, and Spain. On its Direct2Dell blog, Dell instructs would-be U.S. purchasers to “hold on a week or so.”

Ubuntu on the XPS M1330: Give it about a week, denizens of the U.S.

Update 1:50 p.m. PDT: iTunes is now showing the update as available. I should have noted that I already upgraded to the latest version of iTunes. That wasn’t the problem–Apple’s servers were.

This is in addition to what my CNET News colleague Erica Ogg reported on Friday: some existing iPhones have been bricked by software update glitches. At least that didn’t happen to me.

What is surprising is that approximately 36 hours after Apple said the new system software would be available for existing customers to access, it still isn’t. At least not for everyone.

I have the first-generation iPhone I bought a year ago–and as of midday Saturday, the new v2.0 firmware was unavailable for download. iTunes tells me, incorrectly, that “this version of the iPhone software (1.1.4) is the current version.” See the above screenshot.

Approximately 36 hours after the release of the iPhone 2.0 firmware, existing iPhone customers still can’t download it. iTunes says it’s unavailable. Apple should have done better.

This is understandable, perhaps, but it’s disappointing–especially because this should have been preventable with even a modicum of advance planning.

I’m not exactly desperate to upgrade to the new system software (I’m at a political conference in Las Vegas and am mostly focused on what’s happening here).

But this points to a bad miscalculation on Apple’s part. Why didn’t it come up with a better estimate of how many people would be connecting to its servers and add sufficient capacity? Apple probably is curbing existing customers’ access to software updates to prevent its servers from overheating (this is at least a better failure mode than yesterday morning’s odd errors).

We already know that on Friday, there were severe activation problems with the
iPhone 3G. This isn’t exactly a surprise, perhaps, after the new in-store activation procedures and AT&T’s dismal performance last year.

In sizing up the nation’s status as a world leader in science and technology, here’s a little good news-bad news from a study released Thursday by the nonprofit think tank Rand.

The U.S. remains the worldwide leader in science and technology, based on R&D spending, the number of Nobel Prize winners who call the U.S. home, and the number of top universities sitting on U.S. turf.

But the bad news is the U.S. educational system, kindergarten through high school, continues to underperform in developing bright minds in math and science. Europe and China are both graduating more university-educated engineers and scientists on a yearly basis than the U.S. As a result the U.S. may face an increasing reliance on foreign-born workers and foreign students in science and engineering to aid the nation in maintaining its lead, according to the report.

The study found that roughly 70 percent of foreign scientists and engineers who received Ph.D.s from U.S. universities remained in the country after receiving their degree, but that situation could change as salaries and research opportunities improve overseas, the report notes.

“Much of the concern about the U.S. losing its edge as the world’s leader in science and technology appears to be unfounded,” Titus Galama, a co-author of the Rand study, said in a statement. “But the United States cannot afford to be complacent. Effort is needed to make sure the nation maintains or even extends its standing.”

According to the study, the U.S. accounts for 40 percent of all scientific R&D spending in the world, employs 70 percent of the world’s Nobel Prize winners and houses 75 percent of the world’s top 40 universities.

In order to maintain its lead, the Rand issued several recommendations:

• Establish a permanent commitment to fund a chartered body that would periodically monitor and analyze U.S. science and technology performance and the condition of the nation’s science and engineering workforce.

• Make it easier for foreigners who have graduated from U.S. universities with science and engineering degrees to stay indefinitely in the U.S.

• Make it easier for highly skilled labor to immigrate to the U.S. to ensure the benefits of expanded innovation are captured in the U.S. and to help the U.S. remain competitive in research and innovation.

• Increase the United States’ capacity to learn from science centers in Europe, Japan, China, India, and other countries.

The study further notes that issues related to skilled immigrant H-1B visas could lead to more domestic corporations outsourcing their research to foreign countries.

commentary

I found this article on how Google manages its internal IT fascinating. Google basically sets its users free to download software from the Internet, among other things, and take care of themselves. Imagine that.

Of course, Google can do this because Google is, well, Google. Google is heavy on engineers who understand security. This is becoming less and less true over time, however, which brings to mind the real reason Google can have a policy like this:

It trusts the system, not the nodes within the system.

Done right, this sort of policy reflects the obvious–there’s not much IT can truly do to protect users from themselves–and sets employees free to experiment, which is critical to a company like Google’s success.

Maybe for a financial services company it’s less important that it experiment in this way. But for a technology company…critical.

Update 3:15 p.m. PDT: The headline and opening sentence have been changed to clarify that VeriSign is expanding its Project Titan initiative to strengthen and secure Net infrastructure.

On Thursday, VeriSign announced plans to increase the level of security within Project Titan, a global initiative to expand the infrastructure of the Internet to anticipate future demand brought by increased e-commerce transactions.

In its announcement, VeriSign said that it is going to spend more than the $100 million-plus initially budgeted.

One of the goals of Project Titan is to increase the overall capacity of the Internet to sustain a predicted increase in the daily load of Domain Name Server (DNS) queries. DNS is how a domain’s common name (say CNET.com) is converted to its Internet address consisting of numbers. It also allows major companies to move their Internet-facing servers yet keep the common name for its customers.

Currently the DNS system handles about 400 billion queries today; VeriSign predicts a load of 4 trillion queries by 2010. To do this, Project Titan will better distribute the current infrastructure so that the .com and .net systems will have greater redundancy and reduced latency. This should improve the end-user experience for users by reducing bottlenecks and increasing speed despite ever increasing demand. It will also introduce more security to prevent attacks on the DNS system.

Gazelle on Monday relaunched its Web service that finds a home for unwanted electronic toys.

Originally called Second Rotation, the year-old site has been redesigned to make it quicker to sell electronics in more categories. It also adds a feature that lets people recycle goods that have no resell value.

So if you have an
iPhone that you no longer want, you type in the product name and input information on its condition to find out what it’s worth. Gazelle will send you a shipping slip and/or a box. Once received, Gazelle wipes the data clean and sells it online. You get paid by check or PayPal.

Gazelle’s software generates a price by analyzing buying and selling prices from online sources like eBay and Amazon. The company says that many consumers prefer to sell through a specialized resell service like Gazelle rather than sell directly on eBay.

Gazelle, formerly called Second Rotation, gives people a price and shipping slip to sell electronics goods online.

The relaunched service adds an enhanced search engine and broader catalog that includes laptops, satellite radios, and portable hard drives in addition to cellular phones, digital cameras, and digital music players.

It’s also added social networking features like a customer-referral program and the ability to get prices for items not already listed in its catalog.

“We’re trying to make it as easy as Netflix,” said President and Chief Operating Officer Israel Ganot.

The company raised $4.4 million in January and expects to raise another round of funding in the next 12 to 18 months, he said.

First step to recycling
Gazelle calls its service “reCommerce” rather than recycling since, for the most part, goods are being repurposed. But that still addresses the problem of electronic waste, argues Ganot. “The first step to recycling is putting a product back in the marketplace,” he said.

A new feature of the redesigned site is the ability to have gadgets with no resale value be recycled.

Electronic waste recycling appears to be getting more attention with recycling start-ups getting funding. Another venture-backed company that appears to have a similar business model is TechForward, which launched two years ago.

Retailers, too, are launching programs to take back electronics.

But on the whole, consumer electronics recycling rates are low. People in the industry talk about the millions of tons of metals inside gadgets that sit in consumers’ desk drawers. The Consumer Electronics Association estimates that U.S. households spend $1,400 a year on up to 24 items.

One reason that electronics recycling isn’t more common is that it’s difficult to make money doing it, according to people in the industry.

Gazelle operates its recycling program, through partners ReCellular for phones and TechTurn for laptops, at no profit.

Although the company is not profitable, its business model of reselling goods has a profit margin built into it, unlike recycling.

Garnot said that the company plans to extend its service to small and medium-size businesses that are looking to recycle or sell outdated computer gear and gadgets.

A mid-October MacBook launch misses the back-to-school rush, but has Apple in the right place for the holidays.

If that date comes to pass, Apple will have officially missed the back-to-school shopping season, which is generally one of the best-selling quarters for the Mac. Even if it launched the new notebooks tomorrow it would have missed most of the college students who were looking to upgrade before heading back to campus, but delays with the launch of Intel’s Centrino 2 mobile chips probably didn’t help.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball is reporting that Apple will roll out new MacBooks on October 14, which fits the usual Apple profile of launching new products on a Tuesday. We’ve expected that new Apple notebooks are coming for some time, with reports of a redesigned exterior for the MacBook to go along with Intel’s latest mobile chips.

By all appearances the Mac is still selling pretty well, but new notebooks never hurt, especially heading into the holiday season. I’ve also heard a few rumblings about new iMacs–perhaps just a speed bump–around the same time, but Gruber’s report didn’t elaborate on the iMac.

With new iPods out of the way, the next priority for Apple is the
Mac.

(Credit:
Apple)

“In the past six months the company has adopted a retail strategy that enables Dell to connect with customers it has not necessarily reached in the past,” the company said in a statement.

The computer maker said Wednesday that it will close all 140 of its U.S. kiosks as part of the company’s ongoing shift in how it sells its products. The company launched the kiosk effort in 2002 as a way for customers to see products firsthand before ordering online or by phone.

Dell is abruptly abandoning its Dell Direct Store effort, saying customers now have other ways to get their hands on the company’s products.

The move follows a similar one several years back by Gateway, which had built up a larger network of stores, but closed them as it acquired retail specialist eMachines and started selling more broadly in stores. Gateway has since been acquired by Acer.

“Moving into retail is a prime example of Dell listening to its customers,” said Tony Weiss, vice president for Dell’s Global Consumer business, in a statement. “Ever since we began our journey into retail, we wanted to give customers the opportunity to call, click, or visit Dell and have access to our award-winning products. This move fits in with how our broad global retail strategy is evolving.”

The company is not closing its kiosks outside the U.S. In recent months, the company has moved its products into a number of retailers, most notably Best Buy, but also Wal-Mart Stores and Staples.

Dell spokesman Bob Kaufman said the company plans to close the kiosks, the majority of which are in malls and shopping centers, in a matter of days. Kaufman declined to say how many workers are losing their jobs, or the cost to Dell of ending the effort, but said that affected workers would receive severance and outplacement assistance.

first, we want to emphasize that absolutely no decisions have been made–and, despite what some people have tried to suggest, there’s certainly no integration process underway. this proposal is just that–a proposal. and it was only made in the last 24 hours. you can be sure the board is going to review it thoughtfully and carefully, and do what’s right for our great company. microsoft’s proposal is one of many options that we’re evaluating in order to maximize value for our shareholders and employees over the long-term. that’s why we will respond to microsoft after our board has completed a careful review of all of our strategic alternatives.

second, we can’t let any of the noise we’re hearing around this situation distract us from our core mission. it’s critical that we continue to focus on running our business, executing our strategy and delivering value to all of our users, advertisers and publishers.

jerry and roy bostock (our new non-executive chairman)

fellow yahoos:

Here’s the text of the e-mail they sent to employees, which the company filed Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission:

-CONFIDENTIAL-

since we talked to you this morning, there’s been a lot of media coverage and industry chatter about microsoft’s unsolicited proposal to acquire yahoo!. we know you’ve been hearing and reading a lot about this. that’s why we wanted to reach out to all of you at the end of the day to emphasize a few things that we hope will give you some more context about this proposal, the process that our board is taking, and what you can expect in the days ahead.

Wonder what Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang and the company’s nonexecutive chairman, Roy Bostock, said to the troops on Friday, after Microsoft launched its unsolicited $44.6 billion bid?

finally, we realize that this may have been a tough day for many of you, especially those on the front lines of our business. we know you have many questions, and we’re committed to making sure you’re as informed as possible as this process moves forward. in the interim, we both want to thank you for your continued energy, focus and determination. we’ll continue to share information with you as we have it and can do so.

Subject: more on today’s news…