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Comment: Feedly (Score 4, Interesting) 386

by Mitaphane (#43166775) Attached to: Google Reader Being Retired

Feedly seems to be the best alternative if you've become accustomed to using Google Reader. It synchronizes itself with Google Reader (or it will until July). It even has some the same keyboard shortcuts. Transitioning is seamless; it uses Google's OAuth to gain access to your Google account and pull in all your feeds & tags.

It looks like the app is a little slow right now as they are dealing with the surge in demand.


Comment: Subscription Model? (Score 1) 150

by Mitaphane (#41185157) Attached to: Microsoft's Sneak Attack On Apple: SkyDrive, Not Surface

I've been hearing for years that Microsoft is moving to a subscription model for all its software products. I'm still not buying that this is the heart of any strategy.

Perhaps I can see a complete subscription model working in the Enterprise segment, but the consumer segment? I don't see it. I don't doubt that MS plans on building out services that they hope to attract subscription revenue. They have XBox Live and it's working pretty well. After that, what else is there? They have Office 365 which is competitive but I'm sure it doesn't make up for the revenue lost on traditional Office licenses. Windows? Forget it. I don't see the average consumer getting on board with a subscription tied to the computer unless the computer is subsidized to a free price point. SkyDrive? That's another crowded market with Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, etc. Azure? Amazon, Google, Rackspace...I don't think there's any web service that MS can offer that would be a "sneak attack."

Nope, MS is a behemoth company. As such, it's doing many different things at the same time just like Google & Apple. It has web services like Google. It has hardware like Apple. And all of them are vying to be the center of everyone's computing ecosystem to the point that the barrier of exiting is nearly insurmountable. It's that simple.

MS wants to be on the Desktop, in the cloud, on your mobile device, in your living room, and on your tablet. The question is if they can pull all their disparate teams together to provide something that excels in what Apple & Google has already done.

Comment: Re:Apple must be trembling with fear (Score 2) 175

by Mitaphane (#40823561) Attached to: Microsoft Surface Release Date Confirmed

OS X has come a long way, but it still has a long way to go.

Long way to go for what, market share?

It's pretty clear what Apple's strategy is: sell devices at premium prices to people who value simplicity, stability and reliability over an abundant one-size-fits-all feature set. All they have to do is make quality products and convince the consumer it's worth their premium price. They've done it with the iPhone/iPad thanks to the lower price points and carrier subsidies. The introduction of the Surface shows that MS fears that Apple has already done it for the desktop/workstation computer.

As nice a product as the Surface looks to be, I think Metro's hybrid desktop/tablet interface (another abundant one-size-fits-all feature set) is just going to confuse many customers and push them toward alternative tablets or desktops depending on their use case.

Comment: Re:It's not a policy change, just education (Score 1) 239

by Mitaphane (#38820687) Attached to: Google Consolidates Privacy Policies Across Services

Steven Levy's In the Plex has a great quote about Google's prospectus and it's aspirational language:

Meanwhile the Securities and Exchange Commission was unimpressed by the charms of Page's "Owner's Manual." "Please revise or delete the statements about providing 'a great service to the world', 'to do things that matter', 'greater positive impact on the world, don't be evil', and 'making the world a better place,'" they wrote. (Google would not revise the letter.)

Everything I've read and heard from the Google founders indicates to me that money, in many ways, is a means to an end of bigger goals. Certainly money is driving factor - Page has referenced Tesla, who died in poverty despite his great contributions to the world, as an example of what he doesn't want to see happen with Google - but there are lot of things Google wouldn't be doing if it was a purely profit motivated enterprise.

I would be much more skeptical of Google once the founder's are no longer at the helm. That's when companies start to mutate in profit creation beasts that have no relation to what its founders originally set out to do (e.g. Disney).

Comment: Re:Cloud, eh? (Score 1) 119

by Mitaphane (#35622478) Attached to: Google Starts Testing Google Music Internally

I'm not sure what the OP is referring to about Picasa, but he is definitely on the mark about Chrome. Maybe you haven't noticed IE9's or FF4's UI; both have taken cues from Chrome's original design (tabs on top, pinning tabs, etc). Chrome has also started a browser arms race in terms of performance. The browser is rapidly acquiring market share; at the current rate of growth, it looks like it will overtake FF in the next year or two (http://www.thechromesource.com/tag/chrome-market-share-2011/).

Comment: When you're the biggest game in town... (Score 1) 238

by Mitaphane (#34755908) Attached to: Google's Next Challenge, Spam Results

...guess what's going to happen? You're going to be *the target* to hit for spam. That's the way spam works, volume. Email, Altavista, Google...it doesn't matter what the target it is, as long as it nets you the biggest audience. Additionally, every article I see that complains about Google search spam never uses any good examples.

"Anecdotally, my personal search results have also been noticeably worse lately. As part of Christmas shopping for my wife, I searched for 'iPhone 4 case' in Google. I had to give up completely on the first two pages of search results as utterly useless, and searched Amazon instead."

Hmm, I googled iPhone 4 case. 3rd link...shopping results for iPhone 4 cases which has a huge list of different types of cases, places I can get them, local retailer locations, and so on. How is that "utterly useless?"

Comment: Re:Streaming Search Vid (Score 1) 212

by Mitaphane (#33509204) Attached to: Google Logo Changes Again, Hinting RT Search?

From the TechCrunch article that reported about streaming search awhile back:


The google blog states that they randomly select which computers get used for testing new features like streaming search.


+ - Microsft Vista will cripple PCs

Submitted by downundarob
downundarob writes "From a story at el reg (home of BOFH) comes this article:

If you read just one thing over the holiday break, make sure it's Peter Gutmann's cost analysis of Windows Vista, here. It's an eye opening 20 minutes. Gutmann describes in great detail the various measures Microsoft has taken to lock down Windows on behalf of Hollywood. This isn't a comprehensive look at all of Vista's DRM — Gutmann barely touches on Microsoft's new activation framework; (this is beyond the scope of his enquiry.) In order to playback HD-DVD and BluRay content, Microsoft agreed to degrade video and audio functionality in Windows. Gutmann points out that when "premium" content is being played, component video — YPbPr — and S/PDIF interfaces are disabled. Third party hardware that fails to obey these orders may have it's "certified" status revoked by Microsoft — leaving the user with minimal (eg VGA) functionality. With the introduction of tilt bits, all of the designed-in resilience is gone. Every little (normally unnoticeable) glitch is suddenly surfaced because it could be a sign of a hack attack. The effect that this will have on system reliability should require no further explanation. In short, the Vista specifications explicitly cripple the PC."

+ - Opera Browser available for Wii

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "The Opera browser for Wii has been released for all regions, those of you with WiiConnect24 enabled should have a message for you to download it from the Wii Shop Channel. With Wii flash games sites such as wiicade.com showing up, will the browser result in increased sales? Only time will tell."

The greatest productive force is human selfishness. -- Robert Heinlein