84. Google+? Still a Minus for Google Apps Users

[Article first published as Google+? Still a Minus for Google Apps Users on Blogcritics.]

Malarchy.

Yeah I said it, and you didn’t misread it either. It’s spelled quite correctly regardless of the squiggly red lines I see below it editing the text. I don’t mean malarkey as in foolish or insincere. I mean malarchy, as in something that can only be classified as governed by the bad. As you all should know by now, unless you live in a spider hole, Google is gearing up their Google+ program, which is their latest try at social networking. Much like Gmail when it first came out, there was a limited trial that used an invitation system to register new users. Originally, this article was supposed to be all about Google+, as I had fully readied myself to sign up and give you fine folks some sort of review and maybe some screenshots of what it’s all about. But I can’t. I can only guess. I can only live vicariously through my friends’ experiences and curse Google, with a shaking fist of indignation held high.

I have 3 invitations, but I still can’t log on. Every time I try I get hit with that same irritating message: “Oops... you need a Google profile to use this feature. Google Profiles is not available for your organization.” Since when am I an organization? Allow me explain, as the definition of “organization” is pretty narrow. You see kids the thing is this: I have a fair-sized ego. In the words of Dr. Cox from Scrubs, “this machine runs on props.” It’s not an ego so big that I would try to trademark a common phrase a la Donald Trump’s “you’re fired,” but big enough that I would (and did) register the domain name tusharnene.com, for no other purpose than to host email addresses from it and run my little blog. That’s right, mine. Doing that through Google and enom was stupidly cheap and they give you Google Apps on your domain to boot. That little detail is what makes me an “organization,” even if I am just an organization of one single damn user. Google+ requires a Google profile. And guess who isn’t allowed to make Google profiles? You guessed it, Google Apps “organizations.”

I figured it wasn’t too big of a problem. I have other email addresses aside from my Google Apps address. So let’s try going through those. “Oops... you need a Google profile to use this feature. Google Profiles is not available for your organization.”… Well damn. Just being logged into my Google Apps account means that clicking invitation links from my Yahoo email address still won’t work. And I can’t do it through my Gmail account, because I can’t be logged into that and my Google Apps account simultaneously. But in my head I still had outs. I tried opening the invitation in my Yahoo address on my phone. Maybe that would do the trick. “Google+ is unavailable for your account.” … Monkeys. No dice. I was signed in under my Google Apps in account on my Droid X as well, which is synced to my email.

Now this doesn’t mean I can’t use Google+ period. I can always log out of my Apps account and use my old Gmail account. But I really don’t want to. My Apps account is open all the time – for email as well as other services like Google chat, Blogger, Feedburner and Google Analytics. I’d have to use Google+ independently if I wanted to see it at all, that is to say I have to be logged out of everything to use it. So if I’m on Google+ I can’t see my email. If I’m on my email I can’t use Google+. It’s a regular conundrum, and one that could have been avoided at that. A few months ago I got notice from Google about changes being made to all Google Apps accounts. After this transition, I couldn’t be logged in to my Apps and my other Gmail account simultaneously, which is something I did before, and something that would have circumvented my current issue. I’ve been reading about some workarounds through Google Reader, but have yet to test.

Now it’s said that Google Profiles and Google+ are still “coming soon” for Apps customers, but then again they said the same thing about Buzz and that never really panned out. It’s the matter of pure inconvenience to me that is turning me off to the entire idea before I even get it up and running. An entire subset of paying customers is being left in the dark. That’s surprising for Google, whose services I’ve generally been very pleased with. I can’t be even close to the only one who uses Google Apps for personal domain registration and use. There must be a bunch of users of equal or greater ego and/or nerdiness that does the same thing. Can this tweak really be that difficult to make?

76. facebook's failed google smear campaign was an idea that purely zucked

[Article first published as Facebook's Google Smear Campaign Backfires with an Idea that really Zucked on Blogcritics.]

Competition in business is vicious, and that can sometimes lead companies to take what I’ll call the “low road” for the sake of winning.  It’s the same low road politicians use when running for office – instead of highlighting their own strengths they hone in on the weaknesses of a competitor and shine a nice big spotlight on it.  It’s never the fact that they do it that is irritating in itself, but the manner in which they do it that makes it repulsive.  When it goes beyond a comparison of strengths and weaknesses and crosses the line into a deliberate smear campaign, it can backlash into something opposite of what was intended, making the responsible parties now look desperate.  Weak.  And worst of all, brimming with inglorious cowardice.

In the last few days it seems that someone was employing this very tactic against Google, and whispers in Silicon Valley began to spread as to who the responsible party was.  Was it Apple or some other direct Google competitor?  This unnamed party hired Burson-Marsteller, one of the nation’s top PR firms, to feed reporters tips to investigate Google for invasions of user privacy.  Burson even tried to lure bloggers into writing stories about it, making promises that their articles would appear in big-name media outlets like Politico and The Huffington Post. 

Christopher Soghoian, a high-profile activist and security blogger, was one of the people contacted, but unfortunately for Burson and their unnamed client, Soghoian declined their offer after they refused to name their benefactor, and further posted the content of the email online.  Armed with this and some pressing, it was finally revealed that the culprit was none other than Facebook. 

A Facebook spokesperson admitted to hiring the PR firm, and shortly after Burson finally admitted that it was true.  As Soghoian remarks in an interview with BetaBeat, “Well I wasn’t the only one who got this pitch to write an op-ed about Google, a bunch of privacy advocates here in D.C. did… I get pitches on a daily basis, but it’s usually a company talking how great their product, so this one made me immediately suspicious, even more so when they wouldn’t reveal who they were working for.”

Facebook believes that Google is using Facebook data in its own social media constructs, and that what Google is doing raises some privacy concerns.  This all revolves around Google’s “Social Circle,” which lets Gmail users see not only their friends’ information, but also information on friends of friends, which they call “secondary connections.”  In pitches to lure bloggers and journalists into writing about Social Circle, Burson stated that “The American people must be made aware of the now immediate intrusions into their deeply personal lives Google is cataloging and broadcasting every minute of every day—without their permission."  I guess they hoped the dramatics would help.

Facebook has never been 100% immune when it comes to user privacy issues they’ve encountered and user backlash.  The whole privacy fiasco with Beacon is a perfect example.  But this is different.  This is hiring a huge PR firm with the direct intent of smearing Google and making them look like public enemy #1.  Now understand that I’m not defending Google 100% here, as they have their own privacy issues to work out, but still, I’ve yet to see them stoop this low.  And they definitely got theirs.  Facebook gave Burson a big job trying to make Facebook look victimized and at the same time tweaking the news cycle with an anti-Google shift.  Burson completely flubbed it, and now they have egg on their metaphorical face.  This is probably going to hurt Facebook in more than just the obvious ways (for those who play games, think “damage over time” instead of “burst”).

It shows that they feel they’re playing from a position of weakness.  Google’s activity in the social sphere is somehow enough for Facebook to be shaking in their boots.  Here’s Facebook, an innovator of social media, and a company that has worked itself into the very core of digital pop culture, and they’re scared enough of Google’s social activities to try to launch a below the belt pre-emptive strike?  On top of that they’ve changed the story.  Google does in fact have some privacy issues that they need to address, but guess what?  Nobody cares anymore.  The only thing this news cycle is carrying is how Facebook’s whisper campaign failed.

But it gets even better.  Burson sent a letter in to PRNewser after the fact, trying to plead their case, now in full backpedal mode.  They say that they never should have taken the job:  “Whatever the rationale, this was not at all standard operating procedure and is against our policies, and the assignment on those terms should have been declined. When talking to the media, we need to adhere to strict standards of transparency about clients, and this incident underscores the absolute importance of that principle.”  Sounds legit right?  Read through the whole thing.  Their “mea culpa” comes off as one of “We’re very sorry… that we got caught.”

Facebook’s excuse was even worse.  According to them:  “No ‘smear’ campaign was authorized or intended. Instead, we wanted third parties to verify that people did not approve of the collection and use of information from their accounts on Facebook and other services for inclusion in Google Social Circles — just as Facebook did not approve of use or collection for this purpose. We engaged Burson-Marsteller to focus attention on this issue, using publicly available information that could be independently verified by any media organization or analyst. The issues are serious and we should have presented them in a serious and transparent way.”

Slice it any way you want to.  But in the end, I’m sorry Facebook.  This idea completely zucked.

33. the on-demand life: apple tv and google tv

apple tv, from the official site

i know i write a lot about how things have changed from back in the days of yore to the current digital age we live in.  call me slightly nostalgic.  i've covered gaming, computing, and to some extent social communication.  but that's what technology is all about - catalyzing change in the way we live our everyday lives.  since early on, the theme throughout the history of consumer tech and gadgetry has always been "better, smaller, faster" and tech companies have delivered (the exception of course is the television: the bigger the better as far as i'm concerned).  another common theme that has threaded itself through consumer tech is the concept of "on demand."  it's just in our nature - why wait for things when we have the ability to have it now?  why can't we do things on our schedule?  where this has really taken hold above all other areas is tv and movies.  tivo really took off when it was first introduced, and the concept was so powerful that similar components have been added to DVR boxes from cable companies.  companies like netflix that provide movies on their customers' schedules have taken a solid bite out of blockbuster, hollywood video, and all of those other video stores you see closing up shop.  and if regular netflix isn't fast enough, sometimes it can be streamed from the web!  hell, i can watch movies and tv episodes on my xbox360 and playstation3.  and what about the internet en masse?  youtube?  broadcast channel recasts?  hulu?  it doesn't get more on demand than that.  and we love it.  it's become part of our cluture.  cashier taking too long?  go to the self checkout.  that's just how we roll these days.  in addition to instant gratification this sort of thing gives the customer what they need to want to come back for more - some sort of feeling of empowerment.

and now the battle for your living room begins to unfold.  recently, many are throwing their hats into the metaphorical ring of on demand media on your tv.  this used to be something confined to just cable providers, like comcast and verizon for example (and increasingly, game consoles), but these days you can rent episodes of tv shows for 99 cents each from apple tv and their ilk.  amazon is taking it a step further by letting you keep episodes permanently for 99 cents each.  even tivo is coming back with a vengeance, adding hulu plus to their lineup of offerings on their hardware boxes, and stuff like the boxee box is showing some promise too.  but, as they are the two big names in industry right now, in the midst of a very public war in the mobile realm, most of the scrutiny is going to be on apple tv and google tv.  so what's the difference?  i took a look to at least provide some at-a-glance details between them.

logitech revue with google tv, from the official site

as is the case with all apple devices, the apple tv has a lot of proprietary stuff involved.  their hardware and device guts, will of course, be restricted to apple.  your rentals and on-demand selections will allow you to run netflix, but otherwise you'll primarily going through itunes to get your stuff.  but that's not to say it's a bad device, it's actually a handy little box.  the apple tv has some cool features, like integration with iphone and ipad devices, rotten tomatoes reviews for movies before you rent, flickr for photo sharing in HD, and of course, itunes.  it also will allow you to retain tv shows you rent for 30 days, then give you 48 hours of viewing once you hit play.  at $99, it's a valid choice for users who aren't huge tv and movie watchers, and just want something simple to use their living room media centers to stream music and video.

the problem for apple is, in my opinion anyway, that google's device just looks better for users who are more demanding.  while taking the product tour on google's page, the entire interface felt like a massive version of my droid x interface (which makes sense as it runs android), which i very much like using, and it integrates with your cable box or satellite service.  and it also supports apps, which somehow was absent from apple's unit, even though the "app" is what was responsible (in my opinion at least) for a lot of apple's success with the iphone, ipod touch, and ipad devices.  apps can range from using your android device as a remote control or "flinging" video from it to your television.  according to google, third party developers will be able to make and sell apps as early as next year.  google tv also has hardware partners in sony and logitech, so there's going to be some variations on what kind of living room-esque hardware you'll see coming bundled with google tv in tow, instead of a standalone box.  for the discerning user who heavily uses media and wants a unified media experience with all of their devices this is the route to go.

expect this to be a big area of development for media.  it can be said that consumer tech companies are no longer interested (relatively interested, before you jump all over me for this one) in direct sales dollars.  now don't get me wrong, that's not to say that they don't like money.  instead, the competition has become a race for pure percentages of their consumers' lives.  the battle for your time while moving from point A to point B is still raging with smartphones and other mobile devices.  and the next battlefield is your living room.

see the combatants for yourselves!  check out the official sites for apple tv and google tv here:
apple tv
google tv

21. IBM spreading malware, google celebrates pac-man in style

i know it's been a while, and yes, i'm still alive.  now that that's out of the way:

i'm sure some of you have had to attend some sort of conference for work or school before.  generally these are pretty dry and full of boring booths and seminars.  but your consolation is usually a bag full of free (mostly useless) stuff and booth giveaways - that's right, the delicious conference swag.  granted, the swag you get isn't nearly as cool as it would be at, say, E3, but there's generally some fun knick knacks in there nonetheless.  living in the digital age, a lot of companies give out USB flash drives as their trick-or-treat offerings.  makes sense right?  small, useful, and most of all, imprintable with your company's logo so they'll never forget who gave it to them.

turns out that last part is a double edged sword.

enter the ausCERT conference, held in australia's gold coast last week.  IBM's giveaways were, as anyone who read the first paragraph can guess, USB flash drives.  these weren't ordinary flash drives though - with these there was a slight twist - they came pre-infected with malware.  here's the real kicker - the whole ausCERT production?  it's a damn computer security expo.  collected in the RACV royal pines resort for this conference was a veritable who's who from the realm of network security - representatives from many antivirus/antimalware companies, the guy who co-invented public key cryptography, up to and including the the chief security officer for cisco.  IBM's message to ausCERT delegates:

"at the ausCERT conference this week, you may have collected a complimentary USB key from the IBM booth. unfortunately we have discovered that some of these USB keys contained malware and we suspect that all USB keys may be affected."

ouch.  the rest of the note went on to explain that any current antivirus/antimalware software would catch and quarantine it, but still, ouch.  i wouldn't exactly consider W32/LibHack-A a value-add software to bundle with a piece of hardware.  when i first saw this i thought it was a marketing ploy, maybe something like an IBM security solution demo on the drive.  until i saw the rest of the note IBM sent out.  after letting the delegates know that they may have infected them, they asked for anyone that had one to (1) not use them and (2) send them back to ibm.

now this isn't new - there have been other companies that have passed out infected memory sticks before, including IBM themselves in 2002.  but still it has to be embarrassing to be a bigshot like them, at a conference that IT professionals go to to hear lectures on the latest and greatest security techniques.  i just don't see how they didn't have some tighter QC, given the situation and their audience.

now from ridiculous to awesome - time to celebrate the 30th anniversary of pac-man, and out of all the tributes that exist on the web, google topped everyone.  by a mile.  google always has a lot of "doodles" to replace their stock logo on their search homepage to commemorate special days.  but today's takes the cake.  their doodle is a pac-man level shaped with the google logo, and it's playable, complete with sound.  if you're reading this and it's still friday the 21st, head over to google and click the "insert coin" button and have some fun.

13. china and google III: china is zod

yeah i skipped part ii - do something about it. i'll nutshell it below.

back in january, when i first started this project, my first actual post talked a little bit about the controversy between google and the chinese government (and i apologized for it being long - that was rather silly). to give you the cliff notes, china was playing big brother on some gmail accounts, and google considered putting an end censoring their search results, regardless of what that would mean for their chinese enterprise. next came the decision (part ii) - google stopped the censoring, by trying to run a flea flicker by redirecting mainland chinese users to their uncensored hong kong servers. but the great firewall of china would not be thwarted - a simple rework severed google internet connections to hong kong on searches on the democracy movement and other "anti chinese" sentiment. so much for free mainland browsing. now for part iii - inevitable fallout.

kneel.

google's search functions now won't be included on android mobile devices serviced through china unicom - basically the at&t/cingular of china, as long as the decision to not censor searches is active. the chinese central government is still keeping its message to them the same - "you must obey." i can't help but picture general zod in my head - not kid zod from the new superman/smallville noise - i mean terence stamp general zod from superman ii in 1980, whose two options, on every situation, were more or less obey or die.

all he asks is that you kneel. "come to me, son of the internet, and kneel before zod."

china mobile could be next, since other smaller businesses have already parted ways with them, including chinese web portal tom.com. while the small fries really don't mean too much, china mobile dumping google would leave a pretty powerful sting, since their partnership is what has allowed google to compete with china's other search powerhouse (and chinese government pet) baidu. the government has made it stunningly clear that those that keep relations with google would not be viewed favorably. next, i'm sure, will be the advertisers. with the heavily gimped google presence in the region, advertisers are all likely to jump ship and head to baidu, where they'll have a solid number of traffic and ad view. clients of zenith optimedia have already started.

this brand of fear mongering in a business sector that's supposed to about the expansion and sharing of thoughts and ideas is complete ideological opposite of google's "don't be evil" mantra, and sticking to their guns may cost google around $600 million in lost revenue (by to a jpmorgan chase forecast). but other companies may adopting similar policies in the region - as an example, godaddy.com is jumping on the google boat out of china. godaddy.com is one of the world's biggest domain name registrars, with a lot of their growth, like most companies and industries, being in the chinese and asian markets. they have announced that they will now stop dealing with chinese domain names (i.e. web addresses with a .cn extension). the chinese law now applicable to them is far harsher than just censorship - it's tantamount to spying on its own citizens. in addition to a name and basic contact information, they now require much more personal data, including physically signed documents, personal and business identification numbers, and a color photograph from the shoulders up. this includes retroactive data collection of its existing customers, and shutting down any site with disagreeable content. godaddy's response: "we decided we didn't want to be agents of china." solid.

it's very encouraging to see that other tech and internet companies are following their lead and sending a message that doing what's right is what's important. google and godaddy both received bipartisan praise from congress for their decisions, namely from senator byron dorgan (d - north dakota) and congressman chris smith (r - new jersey) who at the same time slammed microsoft for censoring their chinese version of bing. rep. smith is also responsible for proposing the global online freedom act in 2009 (GOFA) - the purpose of which is to prevent american firms from being forced to "kneel before zod" and cooperate with goverments that censor media and the internet. it's still evolving, but it's a step in the right direction.

07. apple vs google via htc

lawsuits are always a good time (as long as you're not involved, of course). patent lawsuits - even better. tech patent lawsuits - main events announced by bruce buffer in the octagon.

let me preface by saying this - patent law is one of the most, if not the most, ruthless fields in all of the business world. it is the grown up equivalent of "one of the other boys pushed me on the playground and took my toy." quick example - microsoft lost an infringement judgment a couple of months ago against a canadian company called i4i, specialists in XML technology. the lawsuit was over XML usage in the microsoft office 2007 software package, a feature that most users and businesses don't even regularly use yet. seems pretty minor, right?

yeah. it was minor. minor to the tune of $290 million.

so there you are - patent cases can even cost the giants millions. now in the case of microsoft, they have the money ($14.5 billion net in 2009 for those keeping score) and industry position to weather it.

but on to the matter at hand - apple vs htc. when i first heard about this i figured it would be a case about multi-touch technology. but i was only partially correct - the lawsuit is concerning twenty (20) alleged infringements by HTC's android OS powered mobile devices. but why only HTC? there are plenty of other companies that manufacture android based touchscreen phones - but somehow motorola, LG, sony ericcson, and samsung ducked the crosshairs.

one solitary answer floats to the top of the pile of possibilities - apple doesn't care about htc specifically, the quarry they're after is google itself. google gives away their android OS for free, and since the introduction of android based phones, i have a feeling steve jobs has been getting a little nervous with passing time.

“we can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said steve jobs, apple’s CEO. “we think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

do you think you're slick, steve? do you think no one's picked up on what you're doing here? don't play that game.

and here was htc's response. this only came after being asked about the issue by engadget - apparently it hit htc out of nowhere.  apple had thrown their press release to the media before even serving htc with a single scrap of legal complaint:

"we only learned of apple’s actions based on your stories and apple’s press release. we have not been served yet so we are in no position to comment on the claims. we respect and value patent rights but we are committed to defending our own innovations. we have been innovating and patenting our own technology for 13 years."

right, like that's jobs' primary concern. he's already had to answer to infringement suits against the iphone in the last few years. it's impossible to hide the fact that jobs is just sore. others have come up with viable alternative options to the iphone, new ones hit the market everyday, and google's android OS facilitates it.  let's face it, in today's digital world, mobile is a far more fertile development ground than stationary office desktop applications and market share is survival. apple was the commercial pioneer for touchscren style mobile devices, starting with the iphone and ipod touch in 2007. but they're not alone anymore - not even close. the cell phone market is now littered with touchscreen web-enabled offerings from sprint, verizon, t-mobile, and even non-iphone options from AT&T.

but google is too strong to take on head-to-head. so what's apple's strategy? pick the sickly gazelle, htc, and slow roll google's business partners one by one until what's left can be taken out much easier. i mean who cares about the consumer, right? i for one am targeting an htc android-based device for my next smartphone, and if apple succeeds in getting this injunction, i am going to be pissed. unfortunately, i'm seeing this as an opening salvo in a war apple is not going to end anytime soon.

it's kind of like trying to pick off the annoying adds in a video game boss fights. remember the lavos bits at the end of chrono trigger? onyxia's whelps in warcraft? oh that's right, you know what i'm talking about.

google has already released a statement in effect saying that they have their business partners' backs, which creates an interesting environment for retaliation. when you open up safari on your iphone, apple will direct you to google as its default search engine. apple also proudly touts on the iphone website the ability to run youtube - another google product. and under that section for "find my phone" - is that... yes, as a matter of fact it IS google maps! these were also two google technologies prevalent in the big ipad reveal in january. since they'll support their business partners, this could possibly play out in a very violent way (metaphorically violent, of course - i don't actually foresee physical bloodshed).

steve jobs is a genius, i'm not even going to try to argue that point, but he's also a selfish prick. but sometimes that's what you want in a bigtime CEO. when he wins he wins huge, but he will sulk and whine like a child if something doesn't quite go his way. during the ipad launch, an infuriated jobs asked the wall street journal's alan murray to delete one of his tweets that he found, well i guess, enraging. the tweet said:

"this tweet sent from an ipad. does it look cool?"

heroic.

jobs doesn't like competition, and looking at the 20 patents he's claiming, there's at least a few where his case doesn't really hold any water. come on stevie, if you just drop the AT&T exclusivity you'd have tons more sales, and could maybe go back to spending time on innovating change, not trying to bully your competitor's little friends on the playground.

i also hear that he parks his fancy cars in handicapped spaces.

for those curious to specifics, here's links to 10 of the publicly available contended patents. provided, ironically, through google's "google patents" service

5,455,599: “Object-Oriented Graphic System”
5,848,105: “GMSK Signal Processors For Improved Communications Capacity And Quality”
5,920,726: “System And Method For Managing Power Conditions Within A Digital Camera Device.”
6,424,354: “Object-Oriented Event Notification System With Listener Registration Of Both Interests And Methods”
7,362,331: “Time-Based, Non-Constant Translation Of User Interface Objects Between States”
7,469,381: “List Scrolling And Document Translation, Scaling, And Rotation On A Touch-Screen Display”
7,479,949: “Touch Screen Device, Method, And Graphical User Interface For Determining Commands By Applying Heuristics”
7,633,076: “Automated Response To And Sensing Of User Activity In Portable Devices”
7,657,849: “Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image”
7,383,453: “Conserving Power By Reducing Voltage Supplied To An Instruction-Processing Portion Of A Processor”

02. google's china syndrome, and my favorite toy from CES '10

to start with a more serious topic, we turn to china.  as you may or may not know, google shared news of a cyber attack on their chinese infrastructure in december.  newer reports indicate that this was not just a routine hack, but an attack aimed specifically at gmail accounts belonging to human rights activists in china.  as a result, google has announced that it is no longer willing to filter searches in its google.cn webspace, and if that means leaving the chinese market, so be it. google's official blog states:

"We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech."

and further:

"These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

of course the ramifications of this move are tremendous, not only to google and the people's republic of china, but to the world as a whole.  china has been responsible for a large percentage of global economic growth in the last decade, particularly with the U.S., partially due to some opening of the chinese information channels to the rest of the world.  as google is a major player on a number of levels, will other companies also start withdrawing?  how much of a victory is this for human rights in asia pacific?  this would be a fanTAStic point of discussion - now i just need to get some readers... you know, to participate.

everyone should be in full support of google's decision, and understand the difficulty that must have gone into it.  i believe that free speech is a natural right that everyone is entitled to.  i feel bad for the people involved with google china that will suffer for this with their jobs, but it's important that someone of google's size and magnitude stands up and says that the social good is as important as profit.  which they may stand to lose a lot of.  millions of dollars from their adsense service adding up over years will result in billions in lost revenue.  timing also couldn't be worse while sales of driod-powered mobile devices are beginning to ramp up.

oh well, i guess there's always baidu.


on to something a little lighter perhaps?

last week was one of the big weeks of the year for my fellow geekkind, as the 2010 consumer electronics show descended upon las vegas.  it's nice out there in sin city, as opposed to new jersey, which has a wonderful gray haze this time of year.  unfortunately my view of CES was on a couple of monitors under said darkened sky, with a server buzzing in my ears.  sad, i know.

... damn it i really should have gone to vegas.  monkey.

from what i've seen, the trend over the last few years continues on at CES.  wires and cables are the devil (except HDMI, which may in fact be a source of the purest light of the heavens above), and wireless tech is the way to unshackled freedom, and salvation from the tyrant 6 foot cords that rule you.  which is why, out of everything that was shown at CES, forget the phones, forget the note/net/smartbooks, what caught my attention was WiDi - wireless display. it has always been one of those "wouldn't it be cool if..." items that i've always wanted badly, but not badly enough to try designing.  i figured i'd leave it to the pros.  WiDi makes it possible for intel core/centrino procc'd laptops to transmit video through wireless adapters to LCD/LED televisions, through HDMI (and you know how i feel about HDMI).  it's early but looks solid (though the folks at cnet claim some signal lag), but i can easily see this being an integral part of my digital life, and sooner than you think.  netgear's WiDi offering, the push2tv adapter, will be hitting stores later this month, and will be bundled with WiDi enabled laptops from dell, sony, and toshiba.  think about what this is going to do to our computer and entertainment center setups.  why even bother buying monitors anymore?  just wireless into your tv.  tank ICC on your 1080p.  fully replace your dvd and blu-ray players.  stream those sweet divx movies that you may or may not have acquired yourself through, shall we say, alternatively legal ways? (not that i encourage that, of course)

and do it all from the center of a cushy 5.1 (7.1 for the truly ballin') system blasting a couple kilowatts of sound into your person.

yes.

sorry this was so long, but at a post a week it's going to be.  i had more stuff on lots of other things, like the recent release of bayonetta and darksiders, but time and space, and my need for sleep are factors.  damn it, i might have to start doing these every day.  see you all tomorrow?  maybe?