Why Mozilla is committed to Gecko as WebKit popularity grows

By Ryan Paul

Webkit's strengths

In the wake of Google's release of the new WebKit-based Chrome browser, some technology enthusiasts are beginning to wonder if the days are numbered for Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine. Despite the growing popularity of WebKit, those who understand the differences between the two rendering engines and have an appreciation of Gecko's technical strengths, recognize that there is no basis for speculation about the possibility of Mozilla adopting it for future versions of Firefox.

WebKit is an open-source HTML rendering engine that was developed by Apple with code from KDE's KHTML project. As we noted in our Chrome review, WebKit is an extremely lightweight renderer that is often praised for its tight and clean code base, excellent standards-compliance, and small memory footprint. These characteristics have made it a popular choice for browser implementers and numerous other adopters.

WebKit is primarily used in Apple's Safari web browser and on the iPhone, but high-profile third-party users include Adobe, Nokia, and Trolltech. WebKit is also used by a multitude of other lesser-known browsers, including iCab, Omniweb, Shiira, and Epiphany. It's a favorite in the alternative-OS community as well, and is making its way to Haiku, Syllable, and even Amiga. On the Linux desktop, programmers (including myself) are increasingly using it to build rich Internet applications. After evaluating all of the available choices, Google saw WebKit as the obvious choice for both its Android mobile browser and for Chrome on the desktop.

The consensus of the developers who are using WebKit is clear: it's an outstanding rendering engine that lends itself to an extremely diverse assortment of practical uses. It is everywhere, and it is gaining traction at a very impressive rate. That traction is causing some developers to question whether Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine is still relevant.

Why Apple rejected Gecko

Gecko, which originated at Netscape and predates KHTML, is often criticized for its large and infamously complex code base. Gecko has always been extraordinarily powerful, but its richest and most impressive capabilities originally came at a high cost in size, complexity, and memory overhead. The consequence is that Gecko is unsuitable for adoption in many places where its additional functionality is an impediment instead of an asset.

One of the primary reasons for the enormous complexity of the Gecko code base is that it aims to provide much more than just an HTML renderer. Mozilla's early goals were extremely ambitious—the original Mozilla application suite included a browser, a complete mail and newsgroup program, a web design tool, and an IRC client. In addition to rendering HTML, Gecko also provides a versatile XML-based user interface rendering framework called XUL that was used extensively in those applications. XUL is still used today to create the Firefox user interface, and it facilitates that browser's support for extensions, which are regarded by many enthusiasts as one of the most valuable features offered by Firefox.

Another reason for much of the complexity in Gecko is the use of XPCOM, a powerful component system. Although XPCOM brings a lot of really compelling capabilities to Gecko and made the entire engine highly modular, some developers embraced it too enthusiastically and used it in places where it was probably not wise to do so. When Ars interviewed former Mozilla developer Scott Collins back in 2004, he listed the excessive use of XPCOM among Mozilla's top mistakes.

With all of the complexity introduced by XUL and XPCOM, it made sense for Apple to choose something lighter for Safari. Apple wanted to make a browser that could be integrated tightly with Mac OS X. It's also possible that they foresaw the need for a rendering engine that could scale down to a mobile device, a factor that also made KHTML a better solution than Gecko at the time.

When Apple chose to use KHTML for Safari in 2003, Mozilla's Mike Shaver responded with a blog entry acknowledging Gecko's weaknesses. He also astutely predicted that Apple would become an ally in promoting open web standards and that Apple's decision to create its own browser would provide many opportunities for mutual learning and improvement.

"Gecko missed its 'small and lean' target by an area code, and we've been slogging back towards the goal, dragging our profilers and benchmarks behind us, for years. If I had to write a new browser, and I was going to have to touch the layout code in a serious way, I would think about Mozilla alternatives," he wrote back in 2003. "I really really hope that Mozilla will learn from Safari/KHTML, because they've done a lot of great work in about a tenth of the code."

A revamped Gecko puts the fire in Firefox 3

A lot of things have changed since 2003, and the Gecko code base has come a long way. Gecko is still very complex, but many of its historical weaknesses have been addressed by Mozilla's engineering efforts. Gecko received a massive overhaul for Firefox 3, with countless changes that significantly improved the entire browsing experience.

Gecko 1.9 uses the cross-platform Cairo rendering framework. This greatly improved SVG support simplified many aspects of the code base and facilitated some cool features, like support for full-page zooming. The overhaul also included significant refactoring of the reflow algorithm, making it possible for Gecko to pass the Acid 2 test. Mozilla also aggressively reduced memory consumption, coming out ahead of both Safari and Opera.

Usage of XPCOM has been decreased in many places over the years, and its resource overhead was reduced by the new cycle collector. This work will continue as Mozilla purges XPCOM more extensively from Gecko in preparation for Firefox 4 and replaces XPCOM reference counting with real garbage collection. Ongoing development efforts are addressing other Gecko weaknesses, too. For instance, Gecko improvements that landed in the first Firefox 3.1 alpha add support for some CSS 3 features that are implemented in WebKit. There are also lots of performance improvements that make Gecko more competitive. Mozilla's TraceMonkey engine landed in recent nightly builds and will likely be included in 3.1; it massively boosts JavaScript performance.

From a technical perspective, Gecko is now very solid and no longer lags behind WebKit. A testament to the rate at which Gecko has been improving is its newfound viability in the mobile space, where it was practically considered a nonstarter not too long ago. Mozilla clearly has the resources, developer expertise, and community support to take Gecko anywhere that WebKit can go.

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10 things we'd like to see in Chrome

Posted by Josh Lowensohn

So far we're pretty smitten with Google's Chrome. It's certainly not without its faults, but for version 1.0 of a browser it's pretty sharp. We've compiled a list of 10 things we'd really like to see added or tweaked. Some come from other browsers, and some are just improvements on some of the existing features. Google, we hope you're listening.

1. Profile roaming between multiple browsers. This may be a pipe dream, but if Foxmarks for Firefox has proved anything, syncing up your bookmarks between multiple machines is awesome. Doing the same with passwords, settings, and history would be even better. Considering Google already has a way for your browser to send data back to the mothership, and a hosted Web history service of its own, a little sync using my Google account doesn't seem that hard does it?

2. Better bookmark management. Speaking of bookmarks, the bookmarking system in Chrome is about as basic as it gets. "Stripped-down" might be a better way to describe it. On the outset, it seems as robust as Firefox 3's with a really simple one-click way to save links. Where the system falls apart is the lack of tools for organization, and a complete lack of a back-up tool to save your short (or long) list of favorite sites. Of course, a bookmarks plug-in like Delicious would help sort this out, which brings us to the next yearning...

Chrome's bookmark management is incredibly sparse compared with some of the more mature offerings from browsers like Firefox 3. (click to enlarge)

(Credit: CBS Interactive)

3. Plug-ins. Google has acknowledged that plug-ins are on the road map, which is a good thing. Here's how the search giant can totally one-up Mozilla, though: let me install and make changes to extensions without having to restart the browser. Nothing is worse than having 30 tabs open and having to restart, even if it remembers what I had open before. This reminds me...

4. Saved sessions/Warning messages when closing multiple tabs. Firefox's little warning for when you're closing a group of tabs was a huge lifesaver in version two. Firefox 3 brought with it a way to save that grouping of open tabs for later. Chrome has neither of these features. Accidentally closing your browser with a slew of tabs open means they're gone for good--that is unless you set it from the default option of clearing what you were looking at. Chrome is also nice enough to tell you some of the most recently closed tabs back on its special start page, but that's it.

This warning feature in Firefox has saved this author many hours of hardship over the years. Sadly it is missing from Google's Chrome.

(Credit: CBS Interactive)

5. A full-screen mode. I love the minimalism of Chrome, but sometimes I just want those extra 60-90 vertical pixels back. Give me a keyboard shortcut for this too, and I'll be in screen hog heaven.

6. A more customizable interface. The blue is neat, but getting that great deep purple found in incognito mode is enough of a tease to make me want to change the way it looks based on how I'm feeling. Plus, you've taken away the nice special Windows-theme coloring I had when you got rid of the top of the application, so let me choose how I want it to look. Bonus points for a tie-dye mode or something that changes depending on what time of day it is--like your personalized homepage service iGoogle.

Dragging tabs in and out of windows is really cool. Trying to do this with sites you've designated as applications does not work though.

7. A way to drag "applications" back into the main browser. The option to turn a certain site into a self-contained browser window with a stripped-down interface is great. However, the inability to drag it back into an open Chrome browser window is maddening when you're trying to re-open some real estate on the task bar. You can do this with existing tabs and windows, and it works great.

8. A Mac/Linux version. The lack of a Mac client has left the growing percentage of Mac users in a bit of a tizzy. Worse yet, based on Google's track record with some of its other cross-platform software offerings like Google Earth and Google Desktop search, the Mac has fared a little worse with slower release schedules and less features than its PC siblings. Hopefully new features will be rolled out to all the platforms at about the same time.

9. A pop-up blocker that blocks. Clearly Google is trying to shake things up with a pop-up blocker that really should be called a "pop-up relocator," since it not only lets them open but also load. Frankly, this drives me nuts since I have to close them down to get them off the screen. Also if it's really important and something I meant to click, I have to go drag it off from the bottom of the screen.

10. A regular old search box. Yes progress is good and the "omnibar" does a pretty slam-dunk job of getting new searches going, but let's get some of the ambiguity away from that thing and have an option to leave it for URLs only. Also, a separate search box would let me pick from the other multitude of search providers in addition to Google without compromising my screen real estate.

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The Linux laptop goes to school

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn

The best way to see how a Linux laptop really works is to let someone else try it out.

Someone else, in this case, is my daughter Robin (right). She did her first review for me when she was 3. I sat her on my lap in front of a huge PC and she checked out some learning software.

She has gotten bigger, and the computers have gotten smaller. She had never seen Linux before, but within five minutes with the Asus EeePC 900 she had found several games, including one called Tux Typing, which is under the Learn menu.

The game taught me something important about the keyboard I complained about yesterday. It’s really designed for four-finger typing. Keep the others out of the way and you can move along at about 30 words per minute with a minimum of mistakes.

Then, as promised, she brought it to her junior college classes this morning and showed it around.

“When I showed one of my classmates in my Calculus class, he said that the size reminded him of something called, My First Laptop. I thought that was funny.”

One really big advantage over her seven-pound Lifebook is its two-pound weight.

“I was carrying everything for Calculus. I was going to do a little cramming before the test. It did not really add any weight. and my Calculus book is pretty big and heavy on its own.

“Also because it starts up pretty fast and even shuts down fast it is something that everyone can use anywhere in the library or wherever they are.”

I know some people might think this $400 Linux laptop is a Microsoft killer. It’s more like a Dell killer. There are no moving parts — it’s just chips and a screen. For extra memory there’s an SD card slot, or plug in a hard drive through a USB port.

This makes for long battery life and ruggedness. Plus, each unit is the same — no need for Dell’s mass customization.

While I focused on the tiny keyboard (which she also noticed) Robin’s biggest complaint was the slow response of the mouse buttons. But it’s something you can get used to, she said.

There’s one point missing from Robin’s review and it’s an important one. There were no ease-of-use issues. Everything was point-and-click, Windows-like. She didn’t learn Linux. She didn’t have to.

This is not a PC you load with additional hardware, or much additional software. This is more like a cell phone, something you toss in your backpack and use on-the-run. I can see a lot of Airport road warriors grabbing these babies.

So what do you think? Grandpa going to put it in a grandkid’s stocking this Christmas? Could be. It’s cheap as chips.

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The meek shall inherit the web

THE World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body that leads the development of technical standards for the web, usually concerns itself with nerdy matters such as extensible mark-up languages and cascading style sheets. So the new interest group it launched in May is rather unusual. It will focus on the use of the mobile web for social development—the sort of vague concept that techie types tend to avoid, because it is more than simply a technical matter of codes and protocols. Why is the W3C interested in it?

The simple answer is that the number of mobile phones that can access the internet is growing at a phenomenal rate, especially in the developing world. In China, for example, over 73m people, or 29% of all internet users in the country, use mobile phones to get online. And the number of people doing so grew by 45% in the six months to June—far higher than the rate of access growth using laptops, according to the China Internet Network Information Centre.

This year China overtook America as the country with the largest number of internet users—currently over 250m. And China also has some 600m mobile-phone subscribers, more than any other country, so the potential for the mobile internet is enormous. Companies that stake their reputations on being at the technological forefront understand this. Last year Lee Kai-fu, Google’s president in China, announced that Google was redesigning its products for a market where “most Chinese users who touch the mobile internet will have no PC at all.”

It is not just China. Opera Software, a firm that makes web-browser software for mobile phones, reports rapid growth in mobile-web browsing in developing countries. The number of web pages viewed in June by the 14m users of its software was over 3 billion, a 300% increase on a year earlier. The fastest growth was in developing countries including Russia, Indonesia, India and South Africa.

Behind these statistics lies a more profound social change. A couple of years ago, a favourite example of mobile phones’ impact in the developing world was that of an Indian fisherman calling different ports from his boat to get a better price for his catch. But mobile phones are increasingly being used to access more elaborate data services.

A case in point is M-PESA, a mobile-payment service introduced by Safaricom Kenya, a mobile operator, in 2007. It allows subscribers to deposit and withdraw money via Safaricom’s airtime-sales agents, and send funds to each other by text message. The service is now used by around a quarter of Safaricom’s 10m customers. Casual workers can be paid quickly by phone; taxi drivers can accept payment without having to carry cash around; money can be sent to friends and family in emergencies. Safaricom’s parent company, Vodafone, has launched M-PESA in Tanzania and Afghanistan, and plans to introduce it in India.

Similar services have also proved popular in South Africa and the Philippines. Mobile banking is now being introduced into the Maldives, a group of islands in the Indian Ocean where many people lost their life savings, held in cash, in the tsunami of December 2004.

For the W3C, M-PESA and its ilk are harbingers of far more sophisticated services to come. If mobile banking is possible using a simple system of text messages, imagine what might be possible with full web access. But it will require standards to ensure that services and devices are compatible. Stéphane Boyera, co-chair of the new W3C interest group, says its aim is to track the social impact of the mobile web in the developing world, to ensure that the web’s technical standards evolve to serve this rapidly emerging constituency.

The right approach, Mr Boyera argues, is not to create “walled gardens” of specially adapted protocols for mobile devices, but to make sure that as much as possible of the information on the web can be accessed easily on mobile phones. That is a worthy goal. But Ken Banks, the other co-chair of the W3C’s new interest group and the founder of kiwanja.net, which helps non-profit organisations exploit mobile technologies in the developing world, points out that simple services based on text messages are likely to predominate for some time to come, for several reasons. All mobile phones, however cheap, can send text messages. Mobile-web access requires more sophisticated handsets and is not always supported by operators. And users know what it costs to send a text message.

As countries work their way up the development ladder, however, the situation changes in favour of full mobile-web access. Jim Lee, a manager at Nokia’s Beijing office, says he was surprised to find that university students in remote regions of China were buying Nokia Nseries smart-phones, costing several months of their disposable income. Such handsets are status symbols, but there are also pragmatic reasons to buy them. With up to eight students in each dorm room, phones are often the only practical way for students to access the web for their studies. And smart-phones are expensive, but operators often provide great deals on data tariffs to attract new customers.

Xuehui Zhao, a recent graduate of the Anyang Institute of Technology in Henan province, explains that a typical monthly package for five yuan ($0.73) includes 10 megabytes of data transfer—more than enough to allow her to spend a couple of hours each day surfing the web and instant-messaging with friends. It is also much cheaper than paying 200 yuan per month for a fixed-broadband connection.

As this young generation of sophisticated mobile-web users grows up, what sort of new services will they want? Many NGOs and local governments are trying things out. Several examples were discussed at a workshop in June organised by the W3C in São Paolo, Brazil. The government of the Brazilian state of Paraná, for instance, is using text messages and voice-menu systems to notify the unemployed about job opportunities and farmers about agricultural prices.

But the workshop also highlighted the limits of what such efforts can achieve. It quickly became apparent that more or less identical services are being developed from scratch repeatedly in different parts of the world. There is clearly room for more co-ordination of such efforts, which is exactly what the W3C has in mind.

Furthermore, many clever systems are being developed by NGOs with no apparent interest in setting up commercial services. As Mr Boyera points out, this raises the issue of sustainability. What happens when the NGO’s funding runs out? One conclusion from the workshop was that promoting social development through the mobile web will mean engaging with businesses. Regulators can also help by fostering cheap mobile access.

The developing world missed out on much of the excitement of the initial web revolution, the dotcom boom and Web 2.0, largely because it did not have an internet infrastructure. But developing countries may now be poised to leapfrog the industrialised world in the era of the mobile web.

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Google pledges 9 month anonymity on data

Google knows

Zoom

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Google has responded to mounting EU pressure on privacy by stating it will 'anonymize' users' IP addresses after nine months.

European Union regulators have been pushing Google to cut the time they keep personal data that can identify users to nine months, and it appears to have worked.

"About a year ago, in March 2007, we announced that we would limit the retention of [certain personal data] to 18 months," deputy counsel for Google Nicole Wong told Silicon Valley's Churchill Club. "We're now going to cut that 18 month retention period to nine months.

"When we went down to 18 months... we could continue to innovate with our services while still protecting users.

"Our engineers have continued to work on the computer science problem around this, and they now think that after nine months, they can get most of the utility out of the data in our server logs, while giving better privacy protection."

Top spin

Google continued to discuss their plans in their ever-reliable official blog, and although they put a positive spin on things, there is a note of annoyance at the pressure that has been brought to bear, with the bloggers suggesting that the decrease will negatively impact their information collection.

"After months of work our engineers developed methods for preserving more of the data's utility while also anonymizing IP addresses sooner," reads the blog.

"We haven't sorted out all of the implementation details, and we may not be able to use precisely the same methods for anonymizing as we do after 18 months, but we are committed to making it work.

"While we're glad that this will bring some additional improvement in privacy, we're also concerned about the potential loss of security, quality, and innovation that may result from having less data.

"As the period prior to anonymization gets shorter, the added privacy benefits are less significant and the utility lost from the data grows. So, it's difficult to find the perfect equilibrium between privacy on the one hand, and other factors, such as innovation and security, on the other."

By Patrick Goss

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Is the iPhone the Next Ad Frontier?

Om Malik

The iPhone Apps Store is turning out to be a hit not just for Apple, but for the dozens of others who have been selling their apps on the store. Those that have been giving away their applications for free are doing even better. And now they have a way to monetize their apps. Today, a whole gaggle of free ad-supported applications are making their debut, thanks in part to AdMob, a mobile advertising startup based in San Mateo, Calif.

The company has signed up brand-name advertisers such as Herbal Essences, Fox Searchlights’ Choke, MGMs’ College, Toshiba, CBS News, Luxor Hotel and DirecTV. These advertisements are going to be embedded into popular iPhone apps such as Tap Tap Revenge by Tapulous, Sports Tap, BubbleWrap and Loopt, in addition to other apps such as Whrrl and Moblyng that already run AdMob ads. AdMob clearly believes that there’s money to be made by embedding ads into these applications — both for them, and for the app developers.

The company claims that its new rich media ad units, which were designed for the iPhone, have hit 100 million impressions in less than a month. “The company’s new rich media ad units designed for the iPhone have been live for just over a month and now has a reach of more than 100 million impressions worldwide each month.

“Ads on the iPhone deliver strong engagement for advertisers with triple, on average, the already high click-through-rates seen on mobile,” the company claimed in a press release. If that does indeed turn out to be a sustainable metric, advertisers are likely to view as the iPhone as platform worth supporting.

I’m sure that with the availability of geo-location data, on-screen advertising can be made more relevant and thus lead to better clickthroughs. More advertising dollars on iPhone apps could encourage developers to write more apps for the platform, and that could make the platform itself more enticing to phone shoppers.

To add a dash of rationality to my own arguments, I would like to point out that my thoughts are based on data from a single month and a single company working with a handful of brand advertisers. Let’s check in a few months and see how the story unfolds.

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AMD issues dramatic price cuts for triple-core CPUs

By Wolfgang Gruener

Sunnyvale (CA) – AMD’s triple-core Phenom X3 processor was designed as the firm’s answer to Intel’s 45 nm Core 2 Duo CPUs and as a buffer to protect the tray prices of its quad-core Phenom X4 models. However, since the launch in April, AMD has cut Phenom X3 prices nearly in half since their launch in March and has repositioned the chips to compete with Intel’s entry-level Core 2 Duos and dual-core Pentiums, which are mainly used for desktop PCs with prices of $500 and below. Bargain hunters could find the X3 increasingly appealing – there is a new chip targeted at overclockers and two new low-power models.

AMD’s recent product and market strategy leaves us scratching our heads. On one side, the company has a clear problem to keep average selling prices of its processors at high levels. On the other, it cuts the prices of what might have been the company’s arguably most important chips this year at unprecedented levels. The current pace of price cuts is unusual and makes us wonder whether AMD has enough 65 nm production efficiency to enable these price cuts or if the company has more channel and retail problems than we know of.

Today’s price for X3 processors cut is the second within two weeks. AMD now has four regular (95 watt) triple-core processors. The X3 8450 runs for $104 (down from $125 in July), the X3 8650 for $119 (down from $145), the X3 8750 for $129 (down from $175) as well as the new X3 8750 Black Edition with overclocking support, which is priced at $134. Pricegrabber.com average retail price data suggests that the lowest retail prices for AMD triple-core processors are within 5% of AMD’s tray prices.

Also new are 65 watt X3 8450e and 8250e processors with undisclosed prices.

A quick look at Intel’s price sheet reveals that AMD decided to price its X3 processors at the very low-end of Intel’s Core 2 Duo range. The 8450 is priced right between Intel’s budget 45 nm dual-core E5200 ($84) and the regular Core 2 Dup lineup, which begins at $113. AMD’s X2 dual-core CPUs are priced between $66 for the 5000+ version and $92 for the 6000+ model.

There is no doubt that AMD’s triple-cores are bargains in today’s PC market. According to Hot Hardware, a 2.4 GHz X3 8750 is outperformed by a Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0 GHz by just 6%. However, the X3 sells for $129, while the E6850 runs for $183, according to Intel’s latest processor price sheet.

If you are looking for a mainstream PC and have to stay within a certain budget, it might be a good idea to closely watch PCs with these processors.

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10 Everyday Technologies That Can Change the World

by Karen Rowan; extra reporting by Andrew Grant

A garden hose, a tin can, duct tape, metal piping, kitchen cleaner, and gasoline: That is all television icon MacGyver needed to make a flame-thrower to ward off a swarm of killer ants. In the real world, technologies that are affordable and practical are not so simple to create, but they can make a huge impact on people's lives. Instead of calling on complex solutions (reliant on engines and imported resources) for low-tech problems (such as cooking and lighting), some researchers are now developing what they call "confluent" technologies—ones that are effective, affordable, and sustainable for use in the developing world. Here's a look at the latest breakthroughs:

1 Energy in a Bucket of Dirt
Who needs nickel cadmium batteries or coal plants for electricity when you have soil? A Harvard team of faculty and African students have tapped into soil-dwelling microbes in order to provide electricity for families in Tanzania. When the microbes found in the soil digest organic materials, they naturally produce a small current, which can be harnessed with a simple device consisting of two electrodes and a small circuit board. One trash-barrel-sized unit filled with soil can produce enough electricity to light two bedrooms for a decade or more, says Harvard biology professor Peter Girguis. While each unit currently costs about $50, the team is testing new materials that would drive the price down to $7.

A Pelton turbine from the micro-hydroelectric system
currently providing renewable power to
Comunidad Nueva Alianza in Guatemala.

Photo: Xeni Jardin; courtesy of AIDG

2 Micro-Hydroelectric Power
Hilly land streaked with small streams makes an ideal spot for micro-hydroelectric power generators, each of which requires a meager water flow of just three gallons per second to turn. (To put this in perspective, the Mississippi's average flow at New Orleans is about 4.4 million gallons per second.) The Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG) has helped to build three systems in Guatemala, and more communities are now saving up money for local installations.

3 Biodigesters
At the end of Back to the Future, a little bit of garbage is all Doc Brown needs to fuel his DeLorean time machine. Biodigesters won’t quite generate "1.21 jigawatts" of power (as Doc's Mr. Fusion device seemed to), but they can create fuel for heating, cooking, and electricity while reducing waste and water contamination. In the salchicha-type biodigester (salchicha means "sausage" in Spanish), bacteria break down waste in a 15-to-30-foot-long polyethylene tube and release methane, which is captured and piped to a stove. The digested waste can then be used as a fertilizer. Biodigesters have been around since the 1870s, but current efforts focus on producing them on a larger scale. An award-winning system installed in Rwandan prisons reduced the need for firewood by half.

4 Wind Power on $2 a Day
Who said wind turbines have to spin? Shawn Frayne, founder of Humdinger Wind Energy, developed a turbine-less generator that harnesses energy from the rapid wind-induced vibration (50 cycles per second) of a seven-to-ten-foot flap of taffeta fabric. This is the same phenomenon—aeroelastic flutter—that civil engineers try to eliminate so bridges don’t sway in the wind, and on a small scale, it greatly increases the efficiency of capturing power from wind for a very small cost, says Frayne. "For people making a dollar or two a day, it could be in the realm of possibility to have electricity," says Peter Haas of AIDG, who is helping Frayne test the generators in Guatemala. Depending on wind conditions, the generators can be positioned to power efficient lights in a few rooms on small electrical grids. Frayne hopes to make the product available within a few years.

5 Sunlight Stored in LEDs
In rural Indian homes, kerosene lamps are ubiquitous, posing health concerns from fumes as well as a fire risk. Solar-charged lights designed by Patrick Walsh, founder of Greenlight Planet, are one solution to this problem. The lights run for four hours on their brightest setting after charging in the sun all day. The lights also reduce fuel costs for families and pay for themselves in just one year. After testing the market with 20 lamps, Walsh is now scaling up production.

6 Solar Water Heater
Solar water heaters are generally expensive (they can cost $400–$1,000), barring easy access to hot water for many who are far from an electric grid. But engineer Ashok Gadgil at the University of California, Berkeley, working with AIDG, cut back on materials and came up with a solar heater that costs $100. It can produce 26 gallons of water warmed to 104 degrees Fahrenheit by 4 p.m. each day—enough for four showers. Tests are ongoing in Guatemala, after which the team plans to fine-tune the design and begin distribution.

7 Pedal-Powered Grid
People who live off the grid in rural corners of the world may soon have a new source of energy: 12-volt batteries charged by pedaling. Using a simple alternator, six hours of pedaling can create and store enough electrical energy in batteries to light about six homes for 30 days (in areas where people use less electricity than in the U.S.). Dissigno, the San Francisco–based company that distributes the devices, has one prototype up and running in Haiti and next hopes to install a "grid" in Tanzania connected by a network of pedalers instead of power lines.

Charcoal briquettes made in Haiti from plant waste.

Photo: Jules Walter; courtesy of MIT News Office

8 Sugarcane Charcoal
In Haiti, most people cook using charcoal made from wood, but the country is now 98 percent deforested due largely to mismanagement of resources. MIT students and lecturer Amy Smith turned to widely available bagasse, the stalks of sugarcane plants left after squeezing the sugar out, and created a charcoal replacement by burning, compressing, and mixing the material with a binding agent. The team is currently looking to train prospective entrepreneurs interested in producing and distributing the product.

9 Irrigation by Foot
Most African farmers rely on seasonal rainfall, having no other means of irrigation for crops. So Martin Fisher, the CEO of KickStart International, came up with a device you can pump with your feet that pulls water from 30 feet underground with enough pressure to irrigate up to two acres of land. This enables more frequent harvests of high-value crops like vegetables rather than grains. In Africa, more than 65,000 such pumps are currently in use. Fisher won the 2008 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability for the invention.

10 Chlorine from Salt
For the roughly 1.2 billion people lacking clean water, a bit of chlorine could go a long way toward providing it. Using two ounces of salt water and some muscle, University of Iowa engineering professor Craig Just can make enough bleach to kill the disease-causing microorganisms in five gallons of water. His trick: a hand-cranked device that generates electricity to zap water molecules, splitting them and joining them with chlorine atoms from salt. Just and his students plan to test a prototype in Ghana and Honduras next year.

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New E-Newspaper Reader Echoes Look of the Paper

The Plastic Logic reader, left, has a screen the size of a sheet of paper for a copy machine. Center, Sony’s eReader; right, Amazon.com’s Kindle. The Plastic Logic device, which is yet to be named, can be updated wirelessly and store hundreds of pages of documents.

By ERIC A. TAUB

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The electronic newspaper, a large portable screen that is constantly updated with the latest news, has been a prop in science fiction for ages. It also figures in the dreams of newspaper publishers struggling with rising production and delivery costs, lower circulation and decreased ad revenue from their paper product.

While the dream device remains on the drawing board, Plastic Logic will introduce publicly on Monday its version of an electronic newspaper reader: a lightweight plastic screen that mimics the look — but not the feel — of a printed newspaper.

The device, which is unnamed, uses the same technology as the Sony eReader and Amazon.com’s Kindle, a highly legible black-and-white display developed by the E Ink Corporation. While both of those devices are intended primarily as book readers, Plastic Logic’s device, which will be shown at an emerging technology trade show in San Diego, has a screen more than twice as large. The size of a piece of copier paper, it can be continually updated via a wireless link, and can store and display hundreds of pages of newspapers, books and documents.

Richard Archuleta, the chief executive of Plastic Logic, said the display was big enough to provide a newspaperlike layout. “Even though we have positioned this for business documents, newspapers is what everyone asks for,” Mr. Archuleta said.

The reader will go on sale in the first half of next year. Plastic Logic will not announce which news organization will display its articles on it until the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, when it will also reveal the price.

Kenneth A. Bronfin, president of Hearst Interactive Media, said, “We are hopeful that we will be able to distribute our newspaper content on a new generation of larger devices sometime next year.” While he would not say what device the company’s papers would use, he said, “we have a very strong interest in e-newspapers. We’re very anxious to get involved.”

The Hearst Corporation, the parent of Hearst Interactive Media, owns 16 daily newspapers, including The Houston Chronicle, The San Antonio Express and The San Francisco Chronicle, and was an early investor in E Ink. The company already distributes electronic versions of some papers on the Amazon Kindle.

Newspaper companies have watched the technology closely for years. The ideal format, a flexible display that could be rolled or folded like a newspaper, is still years off, says E Ink. But it foresees color displays with moving images and interactive clickable advertising coming in only a few more years, according to Sriram K. Peruvemba, vice president for marketing for E Ink.

E Ink expects that within the next few years it will be able to create technology that allows users to write on the screen and view videos. At a recent demonstration at E Ink’s headquarters here, the company showed prototypes of flexible displays that can create rudimentary colors and animated images. “By 2010, we will have a production version of a display that offers newspaperlike color,” Mr. Peruvemba said.

If e-newspapers take off, the savings could be hefty. At the The San Francisco Chronicle, for example, print and delivery amount to 65 percent of the paper’s fixed expenses, Mr. Bronfin said.

With electronic readers, publishers would also learn more about its readers. With paper copy subscriptions, newspapers know what address has received a copy and not much else. About those customers picking up a copy on the newsstand, they know nothing.

As an electronic device, newspapers can determine who is reading their paper, and even which articles are being read. Advertisers would be able to understand their audience and direct advertising to its likeliest customers.

While this raises privacy concerns, “these are future possibilities which we will explore,” said Hans Brons, chief executive of iRex Technologies in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

IRex markets the iLiad, an 8.5 by 6.1-inch electronic reader that can be used to receive electronic versions of the newspaper Les Echos in France and NRC Handelsblad in the Netherlands.

The iRex, Kindle and eReader prove the technology works. The big question for newspaper companies is how much people will pay for a device and the newspaper subscription for it.

Papers face a tough competitor: their own Web sites, where the information is free. And they have trained a generation of new readers to expect free news. In Holland, the iLiad comes with a one-year subscription for 599 euros ($855). The cost of each additional year of the paper is 189 euros ($270). NRC offers just one electronic edition of the paper a day, while Les Echos updates its iRex version 10 times a day.

A number of newspapers, including The New York Times, offer electronic versions through the Kindle device; The Times on the Kindle costs $14 a month, similar to the cost of other papers. “The New York Times Web site started as a replica of print, but it has now evolved,” said Michael Zimbalist, vice president for research and development operations at The New York Times Company. “We expect to experiment on all of these platforms. When devices start approximating the look and feel of a newspaper, we’ll be there as well,” Mr. Zimbalist said.

Most electronic reading devices use E Ink’s technology to create an image. Unlike liquid-crystal display of computer monitors and televisions, electronic paper technology does not need a backlight, remains displayed even when the power source runs down, and looks brighter, not dimmer, in strong light. It also draws little power from the device’s battery.

Plastic Logic’s first display, while offering a screen size that is 2.5 times larger than the Kindle, weighs just two ounces more and is about one-third the Kindle’s thickness.

It uses a flexible, lightweight plastic, rather than glass, a technology first developed at Cambridge University in England. Plastic Logic, based in Mountain View, Calif., was spun off from that project.

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Top 7 Most Overused Techniques & Elements Used In Graphic Design

Written by Jacob Cass

Is all design looking the same too you? Are you following graphic design trends subconsciously?

These are two questions to ponder over the next six weeks in this six part series showcasing the most overused techniques, effects, icons, shapes, concepts, fonts, stock images and clichés used in design today.

There will be an article posted every Tuesday at 9am AEST. (+10 GMT). Click here to subscribe so you do not miss out.

The Six Part Series

• Top 7 Most Overused Techniques & Elements Used in Graphic Design
• Top 7 Most Overused Icons / Shapes Used in Graphic Design
• Top 7 Most Overused Concepts Used in Graphic & Web Design
• Top 7 Most Overused Fonts Used In Graphic Design
• Top 7 Most Overused Stock Images Used in Web Design
• Top 7 Most Overused Clichés In Logo Design

Below is the first article of six.

Top 7 Most Overused Techniques & Elements Used in Graphic Design

Whenever you look for inspiration, you are bound to come across at least one of these techniques / effects / elements. These effects are neither “good or bad” however they are the most common elements found in today’s designs.

Stock images have been used to portray each element. On that note of stock, there was a great discussion about the use of stock art over at GoMediaZine.

1. Sunrays / Rays of Light / Rising Sun

By far the most overused technique used in design today is the infamous rays of light usually found tucked away in the background of a design or at the very forefront of the design such as in the picture above.

2. Black (or Coloured) Silhouettes

Vectorised silhouettes of people and other objects is definitely second on the list. Made famous by the iPod campaign this technique can now be seen everywhere. Notice the combination of the sun rays and black silhouettes?

3. Ink Splatter

Closely contending with number 4, ink splatters are everywhere. Ink Splatters do add a cool / trendy look to a design and they do blend well with grunge style designs however ink splatters should be used in moderation.

4. Swirls / Flourishes / Ornaments

Swirls seem to be all the rage at the moment as they are quite appealing and generally just nice to look at. Flourishes & ornaments go well together to create organic, fresh designs which is quite ‘in’ at the moment.

5. Flowing Lines

Flowing lines generally add motion and fluidity to a design which gives it a certain emotion when combined with other elements (ie. funky circles as seen above) which is generally why they come up so often.

6. Funky Circles

The funky circle colour combo is evident in numerous designs across the web and like the name suggests it does give a design a quite funky look however they are being used everywhere!

7. Smoke Textures

These smoky effects are not as blatantly obvious as the other ones as they are always in the background of a design however if you look a bit closer, these smoky effects are everywhere.

Subscribe to our feed so you do not miss out on the next article in this 6 part series.

Is design looking more and more the same? Why? Is it because of stock art? Do you think the elements above are being overused? Voice your opinions below.

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New Apple Premium In-Ear Headphones With Dual Drivers Only $79

To go with the Skittles smorgasbord of new iPod nanos, Apple's got a bunch of new accessories. By far the most exciting are their new premium in-ear headphones. They've got dual drivers (woofer + tweeter), a setup you don't see until about the $200 mark with say, Ultimate Ears' Super.fi 5 Pro or Shure's E4c-n set, which used to be over $300. And these have got a built-in remote and mic. Yet they're only $79. The first iPod earbuds that don't suck—amazing. Not so amazing: It appears that their remote and mic only work with the iPods launched today.

Ars indicates that mayyyybe the playback controls will work. (Laaaame.) They come with three sizes of silicon tips—which could be a problem, since great isolation headphones gotta have a perfect seal, otherwise they can sound flat. It's why Shures come with a ridiculous number of tips. There's also a carrying case in the box.

Also on the menu are new headphones and armbands. They've got an in-line control feature with volume and playback control (next, prev, play pause) from the button as well. There’s a microphone on the back that works with the voice recording apps, but as with the premiums, the expanded features only work with the new iPods. They'll be $29 next month. [Apple, Apple, Apple]

Original here

iPod touch 2G - first hands-on

by Ryan Block

We just got some hands-on time with the new iPod touch, and we're really feeling this one. Jury's still out on the new nano, but the second-gen touch is a marked improvement over the first gen model. The WiFi antenna looks much better integrated, the speaker doesn't sound like complete trash despite not even having any speaker holes, and the thing is crazy thin. Like, really, really thin.

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Top 5 iPod Features Apple Won't Unveil (Even Though It Could)

By Seth Porges

Nothing sets gadget geeks into a frenzy like an Apple product launch. The drama! (Will Steve Jobs play nice?) The mystery! (Will he unveil a MacBook Touch?) The inevitable disappointment! (What, no iPhone Flip?)

So when Apple holds its event in San Francisco today, the only thing we're relatively sure about is that there will be a few new iPods (the company made this much clear with its "Let's Rock" email invitations). And while most speculation is centering on incremental, evolutionary improvements to the existing product line (and accompanying iTunes software), there are a few features we'd like to see on the iPod (particularly the powerful iPod Touch).

Now this list isn't mere fanboy fantasy: Every single one of these upgrades is something that Apple is perfectly capable of delivering (or allowing another company to deliver through a piece of software or approved iPod accessory). But, we're going to guess that, come this afternoon, we're not going to see any major innovations on these fronts. Stay tuned to PM's Apple Central for instant analysis, but, in the meantime, we can always dream...

1. Wi-Fi VoIP

In the future, phones will likely be data-only communicator devices, ditching minute-based voice plans and instead relying on next-gen wireless networks such as WiMAX or LTE (Long Term Evolution) to transmit your voice just like any other piece of data. Of course, the voice-to-data part of this technology already exists: It's called VoIP (voice over Internet protocol), and it would be fairly easy for a software developer to create a program that would allow you unlimited calling through the iPhone's 3G or Wi-Fi connection slots of similar programs already exist for other phones. And although Apple has already signaled that 3G-based VoIP programs won't be allowed (no surprise, considering it would cannibalize its partner AT&T's business model), it left the door slightly open for future Wi-Fi-based VoIP programs. Still, the prospect is unlikely, as it's hard to imagine AT&T not objecting to people using Wi-Fi connections to avoid paying for phone calls. But there's really nothing to keep the company from putting it on the iPod Touch, which doesn't have a contract-based revenue model to cannibalize.

Why Apple Won't Offer It /// Apple would never put a killer app on just the iPod Touch, without also giving it to the more lucrative iPhone. And it will likely be a lot longer before a third-party developer is given the go-ahead to do this either.

2. Non-AT&T 3G Modems

The iPod Touch shares the Safari Web browser with the iPhone. But while the iPhone can use AT&T's data network to surf the Web when you step outside of a hotspot, the Touch relies solely on Wi-Fi for its data needs. There are iPod Touch users out there who are happy subscribers to the 3G networks from Verizon and Sprint who would love to take advantage of the Touch's slick surfing abilities without having to get a new device and a new cellular provider. To remedy this, it would be great if the Touch featured the ability to plug in a USB 3G modem from a company such as Sierra Wireless or Novatel. And while there's no USB jack on the iPod, it couldn't be too hard to develop a modem that plugs into that famous iPod dock. Come on, Apple, your competitor Archos has this feature in its new line of portable media players.

Why Apple Won't Offer It /// The only real way of tapping into the iPod's hardware is through Apple's proprietary dock connection. Because Apple controls the distribution of the hardware needed to tap into these docks, the company holds a tight grip over what sorts of accessories can be made. So unless an iPod modem is to come from some under-the-radar Chinese knockoff shop, the chances of us seeing one anytime soon are steep. Why? It just doesn't fit in with the company's character. They like to hold firm control over the entire product ecosystem, and allowing anybody to plug Apple's products into just any data network is a stretch.

3. Bluetooth

If the iPod Touch had Bluetooth, we could stream music to headphones and speakers, or beam files to other devices.

Why Apple Won't Offer It /// As a whole, Apple is allergic to Bluetooth. The iPhone famously only has Bluetooth profiles that work with mono headsets, yet won't work with high-fidelity Bluetooth stereo headsets. None of the iPods (including the iPod Touch) have any Bluetooth capabilities at all. We're not going to spuriously jump to any conclusions as to why Apple won't include the ubiquitous wireless audio standard, but it would allow users to skirt the use of dock-based accessories, which are a steady cash cow for the company.

4. Camera

Apple's iPhone has an integrated 2-megapixel digital camera, but the iPod Touch does not. What gives?

Why Apple Won't Offer It /// Apple's philosophy and business interests are probably to blame for most of this list's feature omissions. But why the company hasn't put a camera on the iPod Touch is anybody's guess. After all, Apple doesn't even make stand-alone cameras that could see sales cannibalized, and they were pioneers when it came to making built-in laptop webcams a standard feature. And the iPhone's camera is pretty impressive, as far as cameraphones go. Still, such a large feature upgrade is unlikely in the upcoming line of iPods (we would have probably heard some rumors about it if it were), but it isn't out of the question for inclusion in the near future.

5. FM Radio

The multitouch capacitive touchpanel on the iPhone and iPod Touch is a groundbreaking technology that Apple's competitors still haven't managed to offer in their products a year after launch. Broadcast radio is a technology with an almost 90-year history that just about every electronics manufacturer has managed to incorporate into at least one portable device. The only way to listen to live radio on Apple products is if that radio station is simulcast on the Internet, and if your Apple device has access to the Internet.

Why Apple Won't Offer It /// Apple has had seven years to integrate a radio tuner into the company's iPods, and has shown no interest in doing so, despite years of expressed interest by iPod fans who just want to tune into their local Lite FM stations. Jobs hasn't budged on the issue, and we don't expect he will now. A creaky old technology like radio in a sleek and beautiful iPod? Never had it, never will.

Original here

Apple rocks out, announces new iPods, iTunes 8

By David Chartier

At the latest in what is becoming an annual September event for Apple, the company today announced a number of new products in time for the holiday rush. We covered the Steve Jobs' "Let's Rock" keynote live in San Francisco, and here is a roundup of the actual announcements and new products.

HD TV shows

Leading off by touting over 65 million accounts worldwide in the iTunes Store, Steve Jobs first announced the arrival of HD TV shows. Shows will cost $2.99 apiece (instead of the typical $1.99 for SD episodes), but unlike the handful of HD movies the store already has, HD TV show episodes can be watched on a computer, not just on an Apple TV. In addition, after a much-publicized breakup, NBC is also returning to the store with its most popular shows, and in HD to boot.

iTunes 8, now with more Genius

The next major announcement is iTunes 8, a major new version of Apple's media management software that governs its iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV ecosystem. Confirming "tons of new stuff" and features that were rumored over the weekend, Jobs announced a new Pandora-like "Genius" feature that can generate playlists of songs "that go great together." A new Genius Sidebar can also anonymously (and voluntarily) send your library info up to the iTunes Store cloud to make smarter recommendations of new music a customer may like. The "Genius Algorithms" that power all of this will also harness everyone's library information to fuel this new community powered music recommendation system.

A new button in the iTunes 8 interface offers easy access to these new Genius features. When you're listening to a song, for example, pressing this button will generate a new playlist based on similar music you already have in your library, as well as recommendations of music in the iTunes Store you might like. iTunes 8 should appear in Software Update for both Mac OS X and Windows users, but you can also easily grab it from iTunes.com.

New iPod nano

The first iPod-related announcement today was an actual discontinuance of the largest traditional iPod, the 160GB iPod classic. "No one buys the thick" one, Jobs said on stage. The iPod classic line will slim down to a single 120GB model for $249, which should be the same size and dimensions as the current 80GB model.

The iPod nano line got a refresh today with an entirely new version as "the thinnest iPod we've ever made." (First, hands-on review of Infinite Loop) It has an oval, tapered shape with a black wheel, and fits "beautifully" with the iPod nano's original, taller portait design. The new iPod nano can create Genius playlists on the go, without having to connect to iTunes, and it also gained the accelerometer from the iPhone and iPod touch for viewing Cover Flow album art, photos, and video when turned sideways. The iPod nano is also gaining a number of new hardware and software features that typically could only be had through third-party accessories (if at all), such as a built-in voice recorder and the ability to shake it to shuffle.

Other new iPod nano features include an iPhone-like headphone set with a new clicker, volume control, and microphone. You can double-click to skip to the next song, press once to pause, three times to go to the previous song, and record voice memos with a microphone on the other side. This set of headphones will cost $29 and arrive next month, along with a new set of higher quality in-ear headphones that will sell for $79." We think we really got it right this time," Jobs said about the new headphones.

Apple claims a "great" battery life for the iPod nano with 24 hours of music and 4 hours for video. The new iPod nano should be in stock in the next few days, if not early next week, and will cost $149 for 8GB, $199 for 16GB.

New iPod touches

Calling the iPod touch "an incredible product," Jobs bragged that even though it's "unlike anything in the marketplace... well, for the holiday season we're making it even better." The new iPod touch (first hands-on review on Infinite Loop) has the same 3.5" display but gets thinner with a tapered, stainless steel back (probably to differentiate it from the iPhone). The iPod touch will gain the iPhone's integrated volume controls on its side, and gains a built-in speaker like the iPhone which Jobs claimed was "really hard for something this thin, for casual listening." Genius playlist creation will also be built into the iPod touch.

Another unique feature of the new iPod touch is the integration of the Nike+iPod system for tracking running statistics. Unlike the iPod nano, the hardware receiver has been built into the iPod touch.

The new iPod touch is rated for an "astounding" 36 hours of music and 6 hours of video, will work with the same new clicker headphones as the nano, and is available today in sizes of 8GB for $229, 16GB for $299, and 32GB for $399. Steve Jobs' and Apple's marketing tout the new iPod touch as "the funnest iPod ever." No, that isn't a typo.

New iPhone OS 2.1

The iPhone also got some time in the spotlight today with the much-anticipated announcement of iPhone OS 2.1, the software and firmware that runs both the iPhone and iPod touch. The major update should "significantly" improve battery life, problems with droppped calls, fix a lot of bugs, and backing up to iTunes should be "dramatically" faster. New iPod touches ship with the 2.1 OS update, and it should be available to download for free for all other iPhone and iPod touch owners running iPhone OS 2.0 this Friday. iPod touch owners still using 1.x will need to pay the 2.x upgrade fee of $9.99.

That's a wrap

Jobs ended the event by exclaiming that this is the "Strongest lineup of iPods we've ever had for holiday season '08." As Apple typically ends major keynotes with a performance, Jack Johnson took the stage to wrap up the event.

Original here

No matter what Apple says Tuesday, it'll disappoint

Posted by Don Reisinger

As Tuesday's Apple event gets under way and journalists from all over the world are waiting with bated breath to see what Steve Jobs has to say, it's abundantly clear that the vast majority of people going and those who read the news, will be disappointed.

No, it's not because Apple will waste time or that all those people are Windows fanboys and want nothing to do with Apple. Instead, it's because Apple, unlike every other company in the technology industry, has created such a hype machine that unless it offers something major like a touch-screen Mac or a new iPhone, it'll disappoint even the most giddy fanboy.

See, the problem with Apple's success is that it's expected to keep up with it. How many times has the company announced a press event, carted Jobs onstage, who then announced a few minor upgrades, only to see less than shining press opinions later on because it wasn't "newsworthy" enough? Probably more times than we can count.

Apple's success over the past few years has revolved around these press events. The company has consistently made huge announcements at Macworld and other assorted locales over the years. But in recent years, it hasn't. Not because it's failing to release good products, but because it's so difficult to create and release groundbreaking products every few months.

But it's Apple's fault that all this happened. The company is big on these events and it does its best to build up the hype around each of them. I can't blame it--it's in the business of good coverage and big profits and the best way to do that is to build up some serious hype.

But because it relies on these events so much, the very thing that makes it successful is also becoming a problem. How can you satisfy the press and make sure that they continue building the hype, while ensuring that the right products are made available at the right time? After all, doesn't Apple have a responsibility to its shareholders first?

So when Jobs takes the stage Tuesday, he'll probably show off some nominal upgrades that the majority of the press will scoff at. But can we really expect Jobs to do anything more than that? He can't come up with new, innovative products every few months and he has a vested interest in seeing existing products succeed.

What's the solution to this dilemma? Evidently, Apple has already made the decision on how to handle it: keep building hype, keep holding these events, and don't worry about some cynical posts about the released products. With a few major announcements every few years, the press will keep coming back.

And who can argue with the logic? It's worked so far and there's no indication, judging by the coverage, that it'll slow down anytime soon.

Original here

Let's Rock: Ars Technica's live Apple event coverage

By Jacqui Cheng

Newest updates are at the top!

-Steve Jobs says thanks, it's over! Check Infinite Loop for hands-on with the new iPods!
-Jack Johnson is getting a standing ovation
-Music is done, Steve Jobs is back
-There's a guy in the camera pit dancing to the music
-Playing another song
-Song is over, Jack Johnson is thanking Steve Jobs, thanking iTunes
-(Made a few clarifications/fixes to what was typed below)
-Jack Johnson now performing
-Special guest today is Jack Johnson
-"Whenever we have a music event, we like to remind ourselves why we do it"
-We appreciate the chance to share this with you this morning (sez Steve)
-"Strongest lineup of iPods we've ever had for holiday season '08"

-Software is available this Friday for both iPhone and iPod touch
-Backing up to iTunes is dramatically faster, less crashing
-Significantly improved battery life, fewer call drops, fixed a lot of bugs
-New software for iPhone too, 2.1

-Free update for iPod touch users from 2.0, $9.99 from 1.x
-New iPod touch comes with new version of software, 2.1
-All models are available today. Now playing new iPod touch ad

-3 models: 8GB for $229, 16GB for $299, and 32GB for $399
-"The funnest iPod ever" -- Yes, he said funnest, and so did the slide
-Environmentally, checklist looks like nano. Arsenic-free glass, BFR-free, mercury-free, PVC-free, highly recyclable
-"Battery life is astounding" 36 hours of music, 6 hours of video
-Steve Jobs is back to round up iPod touch stuff. "Works with the new headphoens coming out next month"
-"Transport a... package... across town"
-Demoing an EA game coming out later this year, Need for Speed (coming out for all platforms including iPod touch and iPhone at the same time)
-Now demoing Gameloft, "Real Soccer 2009" brand new game shipping today
-"Animations and graphics and interactivity is just incredible!"
-Demoing Spore specifically for the iPod touch (Spore Origins), just released the other day
-Inviting Phil Schiller on stage to give a demo of games that are not yet out on the market
-Now demoing iPod touch features
-App Store available in 62 countries now, all available on iPod touch
-About 700 games on the App Store today
-"This is mind-blowing!" Launched only 60 days ago
-App Store: users have downloaded over 100,000,000 applications

-When you're panning/shuffling in a song, a genius icon will appear, just tap it and it'll save it into your Genius playlist
-Software is all built in for Nike, don't need to plug in the Nike receiver like on the nano, it's all built-in
-UI is "even nicer than it has been," also built in Nike+iPod
-Genius playlist creation, App Store built-in
-built-in speaker like on the iPhone, "really hard for something this thin, for casual listening"
-Integrated volume controls into the side like on the iPhone
-New iPod touch has same 3.5" display, even thinner (looks tapered, stainless steel on back, just like schematics)
-Unlike anything in the marketplace, well for holiday season we're making it even better
-Let's move onto iPod touch: iPod touch is an "incredible product"

-Showing new iPod nano ad
-Also have new in-ear headphones, sell for $79 in October, "we think we really got it right this time"
-New headphones are $29 next month
-Back side has microphone which works great with voice recording app
-Also has volume controls up & down, all right from headphone cable
-New headphones have a little thing on the cable like from the iPhone, if you double click it, goes to next song, single click pause, triple click previous song
-Shipping today, 8GB should be in stock next few days, 16GB available next weekend, "early next week at the latest"
-$149 for 8GB of memory, second model 16GB at $199
-huge range of colors (silver, indigo, blue, lime green, yellow, orange, red, magenta)

-nano-chromatic, "best colors we've ever done"
-New iPods are looking great: arsenic-free glass, BFR-free, mercury-free, PVC-free, highly recyclable -We want to be really environmentally sensitive with these products, biggest thing we worry about are the toxics, we use an internal environmental checklist -That's it for the iPod nano! Great new features, great battery life, "24 hours for music, 4 hours for video"
-Shake to shuffle (awesome) -- if you want to skip to the next song, just shake the nano
-Software extras that are "normally" shipped (voice recorder, calendar), now demoing
-Turn it sideways and see full-size album art, see photos in landscape mode, video
-Can create Genius playlists from the nano itself without connecting to iTunes -What are some of the feature? Curved aluminum, curved glass over display, thinnest iPod ever, enhanced UI, accelerometer from iPhone/iPod touch and brought it to the nano
-The one he's showing is silver metal with a black wheel
-"Thinnest iPod we've ever made," oval shape, fits in "beautifully" with the line of first/second gen portrait mode
-New iPod nano for holiday season: tapered, has a black wheel, looks just like the rumors
-Shipped first nano 3 years ago, then second and third gen, became very popular
-iPod classic: discontinuing thick and just going with thin (no one buys the thick): upgrading to 120GB for $249

-Now talking about updates and new products for holiday season
-Over 5,000 accessories for iPod, incredibly thriving ecosystem, "they announce products even before we want them to. It's so funny."
-Now to talk about iPod stuff: Latest NPD data is from July, iPod holds 73.4 percent of the market

-iTunes 8 is available today as a free download
-"Boom," creates a genius playlist that go with the song you're playing
-Going back to music, playing John Mayer (Gravity), just go down to the bottom and push the genius button
-Demoing HD TV shows right now (The Office)
-Now Steve is Demoing the Genius feature ("just one click!") and iTunes

-As people keep using it, Genius keeps getting smarter and smarter, sends back down results
-But it's not just info from you, Apple will combine it with knowledge of millions of other iTunes users as well
-It's all voluntary, your library will send info into the cloud (anonymously) with track names, how many plays, etc.
-How's this all work? iTunes Store is in the cloud, added "Genius Algorithms"
-Genius sidebar makes recommendations from iTunes Store of songs you might want to buy
-Genius: automatically make playlists from songs in your music library that go great together
-New browsing feature
-HDTV shows
-Accessibility
-Genius
-Tons of new stuff
-Biggest thing with iTunes today is iTunes 8, next major release
-All NBC's great shows are coming back not only in SD, but in HD as well
-NBC is coming back to iTunes
-HD shows are $2.99 and you can watch them on the computer (not just Apple TV like movies)
-Adding new content to iTunes: adding HD TV shows
-This has enabled Apple to become the #1 music distributor in any format!
-Over 65 million accounts in iTunes right now
-Music: let's start with iTunes
-"Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"
-Steve Jobs is out, "We've got some really exciting stuff to share with you"

-We're in, waiting for the event to start. Apple is cracking down on photography from the main area, so we'll have to see about photos. (There's a photo pit, but we're only allowed one spot today.) It's getting dark!

Original post:

It's Tuesday, September 9, which means Apple's special event is mere hours away. We have touched down in San Francisco and are preparing for what we (and most others) believe will be a very iPod-focused event. This is the post that will contain all of our live event coverage when it kicks off at 10am PDT, so keep checking back here for our updates before and during the event. Let's rock it!

A shot of press outside the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, waiting for Let's Rock to begin:

Original here

Microsoft to follow Apple's lead with third-gen Zune players

By Sam Oliver

Like Apple, Microsoft is expected to announce this month a new family of Zune media players that will introduce some new features while adopting others that have been available on iPods since this time last year.

The plans were outed over the weekend when electronics retailer Frys inadvertently published specifications and a photo of an third-generation, flash-based 8GB Zune model.

The webpage, since removed, listed the players as being in stock, suggesting the Redmond-based software giant may make an attempt to steal some of the thunder surrounding Apple's Let's Rock event by introducing the new Zune offerings on Tuesday or shortly thereafter.

Like Apple's iPods, the 8GB Zune will come pre-loaded with a selection of games. "Play the popular poker game Texas Hold'em or challenge yourself to a game of Hexic, and make sure you play your favorite song from your collection to create your own personal game soundtrack," read the spec sheet leaked by Frys.

Similarly, the player will also let users browse the Zune Marketplace for new songs when connected over Wi-Fi. The capability is documented as one of the features of a new "Device to Cloud" technology that will also let users exchange favorites with friends and purchase songs tagged through Zune's built-in FM radio application.

Another feature described in the spec sheet, called "Channels," will reportedly support "custom programming stations" that deliver personalized playlists to Zune users.

The leak by Frys arrived on the heels of a similar slip by online retailer Amazon.com, which posted to its web store a listing for a $250 120GB hard disk-based Zune that appeared otherwise identical to the outgoing 80GB model.

According to the information published by Frys, the 8GB flash-based Zune will retail for $150 and come in new colors that include blue and silver. A 16GB model is expected to fetch $200.

For its part, Apple is widely expected to announce steep price cuts on a new line of iPods to be introduce Tuesday, likely undercutting those planned by Microsoft for its new Zune line. Much of that speculation was drawn from comments made by Apple chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer during a July 21st conference call with analysts.

"We have some investments in front of us that I can’t discuss with you today where we’re going to be delivering state of the art new products that our competitors just aren’t going to be able to match," he said.

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Apple’s new target: 12.8 million iPhones in 2008?

“And this is exactly what we’re going to try to do in 2008, our first full year on the market. Is grab 1% market share, and go from there.” – Steve Jobs, Macworld 2007

There’s been a lot of confusion about what Jobs meant when he set that sales target for the iPhone in January 2007. The giant screen behind him showed “10M units” — 10 million being roughly 1% of the nearly 1 billion mobile phones sold worldwide in 2006. But did Jobs mean that Apple would try to sell a total of 10 million phones in 2007 and 2008? Or did he mean 10 million phones in calendar year 2008 alone?

The timing question should have been settled once and for all when it was put directly to Apple COO Tim Cook and answered unambiguously: Steve meant calendar year 2008. (See the earnings call transcript here.)

But now a new wrinkle has emerged. The cellphone market has not stood still since January 2007, when Jobs gave the Macworld keynote speech that introduced the iPhone. Worldwide sales of mobile phones hit 1.15 billion in 2007 and is expected to grow to 1.28 billion in 2008, according to a report issued last week by Gartner, Inc. (see here).

So is Apple’s (AAPL) 2008 sales target still 10 million iPhones? Or is it 12.8 million, 1% of the current worldwide market?

That depends, once again, on what Steve Jobs said and what he meant. You be the judge. Listen to the relevant section of Jobs’ 2007 keynote, available here and pasted below, and decide for yourself.

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4 Reasons the iPhone Is Evil

This week's installment of The Weekly Evil makes the case that Apple's iPhone has a blackened soul--even the new white ones. Anyone who reads this blog regularly (I'm looking at you, Carol Alt and Linda Evans) knows I've never been shy about my affinity for the gadget, so I guess I just hope there's good 3G coverage in hell.

Posted by matt tobey

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