Microsoft's Vista wins Fiasco Award
Twenty three were nominated. Nine were selected as finalists. But only one could take home top prize in the first-ever Fiasco Awards ceremony, held Thursday night in Barcelona, Spain.
And the winner was …
Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Vista, garnering 5,222 of 6,043 votes (86%) registered via the Web. The successor to Windows XP was cited for being over-hyped, overly complex and riddled with incompatibilities.
A quirky, slightly tongue-in-cheek project of the Catalan Association of Telecommunications Engineers, the Fiasco Awards are designed not to "criticize" or "engage in public derision," according to their website, but to recognize that "technological advance is not a straight path" and that "success and fiasco are … head and tail of the same coin."
"God rewards fools," reads the award's logo.
Using a balloting system weighted to ensure that "an opportunity was given to local projects," a consolation prize went to SAGA, the Administration and Academic Management System of the Catalan Government.
The nine finalists were all over the lot, mixing the famous, the local and the obscure. The list included One Laptop Per Child's $100 computer; Linden Lab's Second Life; Google's (GOOG) Lively; the DAB digital radio system used in Europe; the Madrid-based Mobuzz.tv project; Maresme Digital, a project for bringing digital television to Catalonia; and some Linux-based free software packs distributed by the local government administration.
Vista made a particular strong impression in Catalonia because it was the first version of Windows that could be purchased in Catalan, the language of the region.
"Edison made over 1,000 attempts before inventing the light bulb," according the awards' press release, "so he learned how not to do it in more than 1,000 different ways… "
Edison's example could be applied to the Fiasco Awards themselves. Maybe they'll be better next year.
Via: SciAm.com
What are Intel and TSMC up to?
The world's two largest creators of computer chips are cooking something up together.
On Monday morning, there will be a chip industry summit of sorts: Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world's largest chip foundry, will make a strategic announcement at Intel headquarters in Santa Clara. According to Intel (INTC) PR, the execs on hand will be Intel mobility chief Anand Chandrashekar and sales chief Sean Maloney, and TSMC (TSM) CEO Rick Tsai and sales chief Jason Chen.
What are they up to?
They're not saying – but it's not unusual for the two to cooperate. They've been known to work together on setting industry manufacturing standards. Two years ago they announced that TSMC would make WiMax chips for Intel. Intel has also been known to outsource the production of some chipsets and other items that don't require the very latest manufacturing processes. (The companies share more than WiMax chips; Chen ran sales for Intel before he joined TSMC four years ago.)
They're also competitors. TSMC makes chips for a bevy of Intel competitors including Nvidia (NVDA) and Qualcomm (QCOM).
Given that Chandrashekar and Maloney are attending for Intel, I'm guessing this announcement might focus on mobile and WiMax-type efforts. But considering the tough times in the chip industry – Gartner yesterday said it expects chip sales to plummet by up to a third in 2009 – lots of things could be on the table.
Whatever the deal is, it's probably something TSMC needs more desperately than Intel does. With its smaller chip customers swooning, one has to imagine Tsai might cut Intel a pretty sweet deal to get any business the chip giant would like to send his way. (NVDA) (AMD) (QCOM) (AAPL) (IBM)
Why the recession can't stop wireless
 |
| Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of the Americas and India for Qualcomm, got a lesson on wireless from a Masai warrior. Photo: Qualcomm |
While on safari in Kenya recently, Qualcomm executive Peggy Johnson got a fresh sense of how cell phones are changing every corner of the world.
Johnson's guide, a Masai warrior, explained that he grew up in a family of nomads and attended a boarding school during his high school years – so he inevitably spent much of his vacation breaks trying to track down his highly mobile parents. That changed when he and his parents got cell phones. He could simply call them to find out where they were, transforming his breaks from detective work into family time.
I heard this story during a recent visit to Qualcomm (QCOM) headquarters in San Diego, and couldn't stop thinking about it. Put aside for a moment the odd mental image of the statuesque Masai carrying cell phones – yet more evidence that these days, everyone's got one – and the fact that mobile chipmaker Qualcomm has a vested interest in promoting the idea of a wireless world. The story is a shining example of why, even during these tough economic times, wireless growth isn't stopping.
That's true both in developing economies – India broke its new-subscriber record in January, with 15.4 million new signups – and in developed ones. AT&T (T) executives said this week that they're going to spend $1 billion this year expanding its global network capabilities, and a chunk of that money will go towards improving wireless service in the U.S.
Why? Because people are still spending money on wireless. Yes, the industry is taking a hit – handset leader Nokia (NOK) is trimming its workforce, and equipment makers like Cisco (CSCO) are getting pinched as well. But unlike premium cable and fancy dinners, cell phones (even the data plans) are staking their claims in our lives as necessities, not mere luxuries.
If you're that Masai warrior, your cell phone isn't just another communication device. It's your way home. (AAPL) (INTC) (VZ) (S)
iPhone finally reaches 1 million mark in U.K.
It took 16 months, but O2 UK, Telefonica's (TEF) British subsidiary, managed to sell its 1 millionth Apple (AAPL) iPhone before its parent company released its 2008 earnings report Thursday.
But as several news sources (here, here) were quick to point out, Nokia (NOK) a year earlier managed to reach the same milestone in less than half the time, selling 1 million N95 smartphones in the U.K. in just seven months. (link)
"iPhone sales are continuing to accelerate," said Matthew Key, CEO of O2 UK. Despite the dismal economic climate, the division's annual sales were up 10.6% in 2008, thanks in large part, said Key, "[to] the success of our products at the top end of the market, including BlackBerry and iPhone." (link)
Telefonica's worldwide sales were up 6.9% for the year, led by growth in its Latin American (12.9%) and European (5.9%) divisions.
Although it has been since eclipsed — at least in the eyes of the British press — by the iPhone and its imitators, the N95 was considered a breakthrough smartphone when it was released in March 2007 to rave reviews. The Register named it one of the top products of the year. ("It's the Swiss Army Knife of mobile phones: a compact handset that does everything.") (link)
The N95's suggested retail price at launch was 549 pounds ($780), but by the time the iPhone arrived in November 2007, the Nokia was being heavily discounted. It's now bundled into a wide range of service contracts that throw in the device for free.
The iPhone is also available for free in the U.K. with a monthly 45-pound ($64) tariff. See here for O2's current rate plans.
By the end of 2008, Apple had sold 17.38 million iPhones worldwide.
See also:
iPhone finally reaches 1 million mark in U.K.
It took 16 months, but O2 UK, Telefonica's (TEF) British subsidiary, managed to sell its 1 millionth Apple (AAPL) iPhone before its parent company released its 2008 earnings report Thursday.
But as several news sources (here, here) were quick to point out, Nokia (NOK) a year earlier managed to reach the same milestone in less than half the time, selling 1 million N95 smartphones in the U.K. in just seven months. (link)
"iPhone sales are continuing to accelerate," said Matthew Key, CEO of O2 UK. Despite the dismal economic climate, the division's annual sales were up 10.6% in 2008, thanks in large part, said Key, "[to] the success of our products at the top end of the market, including BlackBerry and iPhone." (link)
Telefonica's worldwide sales were up 6.9% for the year, led by growth in its Latin American (12.9%) and European (5.9%) divisions.
Although it has been since eclipsed — at least in the eyes of the British press — by the iPhone and its imitators, the N95 was considered a breakthrough smartphone when it was released in March 2007 to rave reviews. The Register named it one of the top products of the year. ("It's the Swiss Army Knife of mobile phones: a compact handset that does everything.") (link)
The N95's suggested retail price at launch was 549 pounds ($780), but by the time the iPhone arrived in November 2007, the Nokia was being heavily discounted. It's now bundled into a wide range of service contracts that throw in the device for free.
The iPhone is also available for free in the U.K. with a monthly 45-pound ($64) tariff. See here for O2's current rate plans.
By the end of 2008, Apple had sold 17.38 million iPhones worldwide.
See also:
In Japan, iPhones are now free
The price of an iPhone in Japan can't get much lower than this.
Starting Friday, Softbank Mobile, the exclusive carrier of Apple's (AAPL) smartphone in Japan, will give anyone who signs a two-year contract a free 8GB iPhone 3G. If customers prefer the 16GB model, that will cost them $118 (reduced from $350).
Writing for CrunchGear, Serkan Toto reports that SoftBank Mobile’s data plan is also being discounted from $62 to $45.60 per month for both new and existing subscribers, a move he attributes to weak iPhone sales in Japan.
[Reader Kidong Yun points out that even at the reduced data rates, Japanese customers still pay nearly $150 a month for iPhone service, roughly double what users pay in the United States.]
The promotion is scheduled to end in May. It follows a data plan price cut in August — less than a month after the iPhone's Japanese debut.
Toto, a marketing consultant based in Tokyo, had predicted that Apple might have trouble getting traction in Japan's highly competitive cell phone market. In June, he posted 10 reasons why Japan will hate the iPhone (or maybe not). To get a feel for how the iPhone is perceived in Japan, we re-post them below the fold:
White hat hackers target the iPhone
How secure is your smartphone? We may find out next month.
Hackers and computer security experts gathering on March 18 in Vancouver, British Columbia, for the third annual Pwn2Own contest will be targeting five smartphones: an Apple (AAPL) iPhone, a Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry and phones running on Google's (GOOG) Android, Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Mobile and Nokia's (NOK) Symbian operating systems.
The contest, sponsored by 3Com's (COMS) TippingPoint computer security division, will award $10,000 prizes to anyone who can break into one of the phones and "pwn" it — hacker and Internet-gamer slang meaning to conquer or gain ownership. The smartphones themselves will be awarded as prizes to whomever cracks them first.
Under the rules of the contest, the organizers will reduce the difficulty each day that the smartphones are able fend off the attacks. The first day the phones with be "raw metal," with no applications installed, forcing contestants to use Wi-Fi or network exploits. On the second day, the rules will be relaxed to allow the applications that come installed with the phones, including e-mail and Web browsers, but no third-party apps or downloads.
A second Pwn2Own contest track will pit hackers against browsers, with $5,000 prizes for contestants who can break the security of one of these five Web browser configurations: Internet Explorer 8, Firefox or Chrome installed on a Sony (SNE) Vaio running Windows 7 as well as Safari or Firefox installed on a Macbook running Mac OS X.
The prizes are awarded on a "per bug" basis. If more than five people win prizes, TippingPoint will award additional $5,000 bonus prizes for Most Interesting Browser flaw, Most Interesting Mobile Device Flaw, and Best in Show.
The Pwn2Own contest is run in conjunction with the annual CanSecWest security conference, now in its 10th year. The contest made headlines in the Apple press last year when Charlie Miller, a former National Security Agency employee, broke into a MacBook Air in less than two minutes under the second day's relaxed rules, which permitted him to direct the laptop to a website preloaded with an exploit code. See here.
When it's not running contests, TippingPoint operates a so-called ZeroDay Initiative in which it pays computer security specialists — also known as "white hat hackers" — a bounty for previously undiscovered vulnerabilities in return for a promise not to exploit them.
TippingPoint, in turn, notifies the vendor and simultaneously develops a patch that it offers to its security clients. Once the vendor has developed its own patch, TippingPoint and the vendor coordinate public disclosure. The researcher can either be given credit for the discovery or, if he or she prefers, remain anonymous.
Pwn2Own 2009 runs from March 18-20. The rules and prizes are posted here.
A peek inside Apple's shareholders meeting
The press was barred from bringing laptops, iPhones or any other communication devices into the Apple (AAPL) shareholders meeting that began at 1 p.m. EST (10 a.m. PST) Wednesday — much to the chagrin of CNBC's Jim Goldman, who had advertised his plans to live blog it.
But at least a couple members of Investor Village's AAPL Sanity board (registration required) seem to have made it in with wireless handhelds and have been posting what appear to be dispatches from inside Apple's Town Hall meeting room.
Cheddarmuff and idannyb's reports are pasted below the fold.
What Margaret Mead could teach techs
 |
| Anthropologist Genevieve Bell helps Intel understand what people around the world are doing with technology – and what they'll want to do next. Photo: Intel |
While traveling in China, Genevieve Bell figured she'd have no trouble getting a cell phone. With cash, a passport and official documents from her employer, she went to a local shop where phone packages lined the walls, and asked for one.
I don't have any, the shopkeeper said.
She noted that she could see boxes of them all over the store.
They're bad phones, he said.
I'm only here three weeks, she confided; it can be a terrible phone. But he still wouldn't sell her one. "It was like a really bad Monty Python routine," she recalls.
The problem, it turns out, wasn't the phones — it was the phone numbers. Numbers carry symbolic significance in China (8 and 3 are good, 7 is awful) — and when this particular shopkeeper had run out of good numbers to match with phones earlier in the day, he stopped selling phones altogether. Come back tomorrow at 9 a.m., he said, and I'll sell you a phone with a suitable number.
The encounter illustrates how technology and culture blend in new ways in a global society powered by cell phones and PCs. It also serves as an example of why Intel (INTC), a company known for employing computer scientists, employs Bell, an anthropologist.
Full story (XRX) (MSFT) (IBM) (HPQ) (AAPL) (AMZN)
Windows 7: Trouble on the upgrade path
Fasten your seat belts. There could be some bumpy nights ahead in the IT department.
When the information technology guys discover how painful it can be to upgrade their current PC hardware to Microsoft's (MSFT)Â Windows 7 — the successor to the much-maligned Windows Vista — they may be tempted to switch to Linux or Apple's (AAPL) Mac OS X.
That's the conclusion of the product specialists at CRN's Channel Web — a publication geared more to IT professionals than to the typical Mac user — after running the latest Windows 7 beta through their Test Center.
"On both fresh hardware and on first-look upgrades from Windows Vista machines, Windows 7 met the world looking like a champ," writes Channel Web's Ed Mozen in a post published Tuesday. "Upon closer look, though, it appears as though Windows 7 could actually be more of a challenge for businesses than Vista ever was. The upgrade path from Windows XP – which is still the predominant desktop OS in businesses — can be described graciously as 'ugly.'" (link)
Part of the problem is that you can't install Windows 7 beta directly from Windows XP. Instead, you have to upgrade to Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later before attempting an install — a process the Channel Web team found to be non-trivial.
Among the scariest quotes in their report:
- "While Microsoft has assured the world that if the hardware works with Windows Vista it will work with Windows 7, the reality is that is misleading at best."
- "We've almost lost count of the number of blue screens we've seen in the CRN Test Center during the Windows 7 evaluation process."
- "We tried to do the upgrade on an Acer TravelMate, but were stopped in our tracks by Bluetooth driver incompatibilities."
- "On a series of 3-and-a-half year old ThinkPad T43s, an IBM security processor refused to let the notebooks boot up with Windows 7. We needed to crack open a couple of four-year old desktops … to add memory just to try to get a system image."
- "Across the XP-Vista-Windows 7 landscape, Microsoft has fostered an ecosystem that now holds out the prospect of a mind-numbing number of incompatible drivers, unsupported devices, unsupported applications, unsupported data, patches, updates, upgrades, "known issues" and unknown issues."
Channel Web concludes:
"One at a time, these problems can be blown off as inconsequential or simply what happens during beta testing and an upgrade process. But, taken together, these problems are appearing all at once after Microsoft's botched XP-to-Vista upgrade and during the worst economic decline in generations….
"A solution provider can now expect to spend many hours, billable or otherwise, dealing with all the extra pain points brought about by having to navigate through a mine field of three concurrently used Microsoft operating environments.
"Or they could opt to give Linux or Apple's Mac OS X a try. That's not as crazy an idea as it may have been in years past." (link)
During his annual "strategic update" conference call Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told Wall Street analysts that while Apple "has probably increased its market share over the last year or so by a point or more," he was more focused on the competitive threats posed by Linux and Google (GOOG). (link)
In response to a request for comment, a Microsoft spokesperson wrote:
"Customers can purchase upgrade media and an upgrade license to move from Windows XP to Windows 7; however, they will need to do a clean installation of Windows 7."
Windows 7 is scheduled to ship in early 2010.
