AllThingsD » connection

Are You "Always Addressable"?

Beth Callaghan — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:04:18 +0000

A recently completed study from Forrester Research says a lot about the persistence of your online habits. Senior Analyst Melissa Parrish describes the “Always Addressable Customer” as someone who “owns and uses at least 3 connected devices, goes online multiple times per day, and goes online from at least 3 physical locations like home, work or school, and in the park.”

Currently, 37 percent of all adults online in the United States today qualify, and it is probably no huge surprise that the greatest concentration occurs among what Forrester terms Generation Y and Generation Z, those between the ages of 18 and 31. But one of the more interesting tidbits here (besides the fact that Forrester describes those between 46 and 55 as “Young Boomers”) is that Generation X will be mostly Addressable by the end of the year — an increase of more than 6 percent.

Chart/data courtesy of Forrester Research

Verizon Wireless Playing the 4G Grinch With Third Outage This Month (Update)

Ina Fried — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 20:46:27 +0000

Verizon Wireless customers from various cities are once again reporting problems connecting to the cellular carrier’s high-speed network.

Users in Alabama, California and Indiana, among other places, are taking to the company’s support Web site to document their connection woes.

The company had an outage last week and another earlier this month.

With the past outages, Verizon has confirmed the issues but declined to discuss the specific causes. A Verizon representative was not immediately available for comment on the latest outage.

Update: Verizon has provided the following comment:

We are investigating reports of some customers experiencing trouble accessing the 4GLTE network. The network itself continues to operate and all customers continue to be able to make calls, send text messages and utilize data services. 3G devices are operating normally.

From iPods to Thermostats: Nest CEO and Founder Tony Fadell Speaks! (Video)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:02:43 +0000

When Tony Fadell left Apple for good in March of last year, the man who has been dubbed the “father of the iPod” said in an interview that his “primary focus will be helping the environment by working with consumer green-tech companies.”

Fadell has kind of kept that promise with the recent launch of Nest, his new start-up that is focused on super-smart, well, thermostats.

Before you drift off to dreamland at the thought of being even slightly interested in the mundane household device that you fight over with your family (along with the remote), Nest is indeed in keeping with the idea of making the home more digitally aware.

With a wheel user interface, a Wi-Fi connection, sensors aplenty and an ability to learn your behavorial patterns, Nest is a temperature-taking version of an iPod.

And it’s also pretty, clad in simple brushed stainless steel, and pricey too. And, also like most Apple products, it is selling like hotcakes.

Here’s the always affable Fadell talking about why he moved in this unusual direction, although he gives up little info about Nest’s funding:

[ See post to watch video ]

It's a So-Lo-Mo World, After All

Kara Swisher — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 00:41:08 +0000

Let it be said: For a digital information junkie such as myself, traveling abroad without any cellular or consistent Internet connection on my spanking new white Apple iPhone is agonizing.

To explain: I switched from AT&T to Verizon recently, in order to actually be able to make voice calls with regularity in San Francisco.

Unfortunately, Verizon does not go international. And, although I am carrying another local feature phone for calls, I am without the rich multimedia mobile experience that I usually get day to day at home.

Worse still, an “unlocked” iPhone only went on sale in the U.S. — which would allow me to use a SIM card bought in Europe –Tuesday, after I left.

Poor little me, I suppose, and there is certainly no need to cry any big, fat digital tears on my behalf.

Still, without the constant certainty of a Wi-Fi connection as I move around, it’s disconcerting for someone whose life has been jacked into the matrix 24-7-365 for far too long to be without consistent digital interconnections.

More to the point — as I watch endless legions of Europeans, who seem even more entranced by and stranded on their individual smartphone islands than in the U.S., obsessively checking out their devices every second — the concept of being completely out of touch with the pulse of the world while in the world is an odd one.

Or, at least the Twitter-fied world, in which I get short bursts of all kinds of information all the time. It takes the lack to understand what it means to be always checking in.

This is a big dose of the obvious, of course, but it was brought home to me in a can’t-miss piece in The Daily, published yesterday by the iPad news service and available here.

Titled “Speed Journalism,” it’s a succinct but important discussion on the push and pull between the ephemera of information we are increasingly getting from real-time Internet sources such as Twitter and the need for longer and more reflective pieces.

Wrote Trevor Butterworth: “The question is whether technology is diminishing our appetite or capacity for this kind of storytelling.”

This is not a new revelation, of course, but it bears repeating and considering again and again as we increasingly use these myriad social-local-mobile — so-lo-mo — devices.

And, as this so-lo-mo way of the encountering the world grows, it creates deep expectations of ever more detailed and immediate information about the world around you that is mostly immediately consumable and highly useful.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad one, I cannot tell yet, except to say that the last time I was here in Copenhagen, I was just 18 years old and I mostly wandered around in circles with an outdated guide book and without a clue.

As it turns out, without my super-duper-smart mobile phone being super-duper smart, very little seems to have changed.

WSJ.Com's "Digits": Is Wal-Mart's Future Bright With Kosmix?

Kara Swisher — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:11:16 +0000

Yesterday, from the back of the official All Things Digital minivan, BoomTown donned the official ATD Ray-Ban Aviators to talk on WSJ.com’s “Digits” online news show about the $300 million acquisition of Kosmix by Wal-Mart announced earlier this week.

The deal for the Silicon Valley site, which has built a social media platform that organizes content by topic, will be interesting to watch, since the retail giant has tried a number of digital moves in years past that seem to have had negligible impact.

Such as its Vudu movie service, which Wal-Mart bought last year for $100 million, as MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka also noted on the program.

(By the way, it goes without saying, I do not pontificate and drive–at least not on a Skype video connection.)

Here’s the video:

Intel Resumes Shipping That Troublesome Chip

Arik Hesseldahl — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 22:22:43 +0000

Remember that troublesome support chip of Intel’s? The one that caused the schedules of some PC manufacturers to slip? Well, Intel is shipping it anyway.

It turns out that if you don’t use the part of the chip that has the problem, it works just fine. The problem is with the SATA port connections on the Cougar Point chipset. There are six such connections ~~and only one is~~ of which four are affected. (For the finer technical points about the design problem, read this post at AnandTech.)

In the days after Intel disclosed the design error on its Cougar Point chipset, PC makers called up to ask if they could continue to ship if they tweaked their designs in such a way that used only the SATA port connections on the Cougar Point chipset that worked. Intel said this was A-OK, and has restarted shipping the chips to those PC makers that have promised to make the necessary changes.

Meanwhile, Intel says it has started manufacturing a new version of the chips, and it should start shipping to new customers later this month

News of the flaw hurt Intel stock last week, mainly because of the potential for financial impact. Intel said it will reduce its revenue forecast for the first quarter by $300 million as it ends production of the old chip and gets volume of the new one ramped up, and that the full impact could reach $700 million for the fiscal year. However, today’s disclosure suggests that Intel may have initially outlined a worst-case scenario just in case. Still, it hasn’t changed its forecast for the quarter. Intel shares, however, are up in after-hours trading.

Update: I corrected this post because I got the number of affected SATA ports on the chip wrong. Sorry about that.

As Egypt's Last Internet Connection Goes Down, Alternatives Appear

Arik Hesseldahl — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 23:50:29 +0000

Even as the main Internet service providers in Egypt were shut down last week in a move to quell anti-government protests, one connection remained online: The Noor Group (usually found at www.noor.net). Its ties to various financial concerns and the local stock exchange gave it some political cover.

Now Noor is gone too, reports Renesys, the Internet intelligence research firm that has so closely followed the Egypt’s strange disappearance from the digital realm.

That has some Egyptians turning to spotty dial-up connections cobbled together by Internet activists, most of them in Europe. Telecomix, an organization that promotes Internet freedom, published a list of reliable numbers that Egyptians can call with their modems. The French Data Network reactivated a barely used but still perfectly functional bank of modems.

For those with functional fax machines, a German outfit called We Rebuild set up a fax-to-Internet service that allows Egyptians to send fax messages that can then be relayed as email messages or posts they can publish immediately.

Finally, some folks at Google, Twitter and SayNow, the phone service that Google acquired last week, hacked together a Speak-to-Tweet service for Egyptians to use: Call an international number, leave a voice message and it’s published on the Twitter account @speak2tweet. People in Egypt can hear the same messages by dialing the same numbers used to send the messages.

Here’s one message from an Egyptian woman speaking in English:

The iPad Now Can Take Command of Computers

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 02:03:08 +0000

It has long been possible to control one PC or Mac from another, legally and with permission. Though the process can be tricky to set up, companies often use it as a maintenance and training tool, and some consumers use it to help others solve computer problems, or to reach back to their home or office machines while on the road to access information.

But what about remotely controlling a PC or Mac from the newest category of digital device, a multitouch tablet? Well, it turns out there are apps for that.

[ See post to watch video ]

Such apps have been around on super-smart phones like the iPhone for years, but phone screens are so small that using them to open and operate programs and folders on a Mac or PC is very frustrating, at least to me. The iPad, with its roomy 10-inch screen, is a different story. It actually has the real estate to make the process much more practical.

I’ve been testing a couple of these apps on my iPad, using them to remotely control Windows PCs and Macs at my home and office. In fact, I’m typing this paragraph in Microsoft Word on a Mac remotely from the iPad.

My conclusion is that these apps do work, but even on the large iPad screen, they’re too clumsy and confusing to use on a regular basis, mostly because touch-screen tablets aren’t a great match for the way traditional computers—designed for a mouse and a physical keyboard—work. Also, the apps have some functional limitations, and they are heavily dependent on the speed of the network or Internet connection, which can make them slow at demanding things like video.

A view of a Windows PC on an iPad via LogMeIn Ignition.

For my tests, I selected two apps squarely aimed at average consumers. One is called LogMeIn Ignition, and is the iPad and iPhone incarnation of a longstanding computer-to-computer remote-control product called LogMeIn. The other is called iTeleport. It has been around, under various names, since the early days of the iPhone, and now comes in an iPad edition as well.

Both apps get around the complexity of setup by installing a special free program on the computer you wish to control that talks to the iPad app. The apps can see and control all the computers on which you have installed companion programs. I found setup easy and the connections generally reliable and fast enough, except for video.

But the big drawback to these products is that they are clumsy in controlling the target computer. Each allows two basic methods for this. In one, your finger moves the computer’s mouse cursor and you click the virtual mouse by tapping. In the other, you can directly tap on things on the remote screen. In my view, LogMeIn was better at the first method and iTeleport was better at the second. But I found both clumsy and tedious in both programs, especially when I tried to combine controlling the remote computer with the frequent need to use touch to move the image of the screen around the iPad’s display.

LogMeIn Ignition costs a one-time fee of $29.99. The iTeleport app can be used free for 30 days, after which it costs either $2.99 a month or a $24.99 one-time fee. For the next seven days, iTeleport is running a sale that cuts the price to $1 a month, or $10 for the one-time fee.

Both apps can control multiple Windows or Mac computers, at no extra cost. For my tests, I used each to remotely access the same two Windows PCs and two Macs, both desktops and laptops. One limitation: neither app allows you to transfer a file from a computer to the iPad.

While there are some differences between the products, they are fundamentally similar. Once you log in, you see the remote computer’s screen on your iPad screen. In my tests, with both products, I was able to open Web pages, check email, view photos and use productivity apps. I also was able to print documents from the computers on my home printer, even while I was miles away.

In both apps, you pinch and zoom to enlarge or reduce the view of the target computer screen, and can rotate the image of the screen.

The iPad can’t play Flash videos, but these apps allow you to view such videos from your PC or Mac on the iPad. But there are catches. For one thing, neither program lets you hear audio from the computer through the iPad, so the videos (and music you play remotely) are mute. Also, in my tests, even over a fast connection, I could never get a video from the remote computer to play smoothly over either app.

LogMeIn also offers a version for Android, unlike iTeleport, and that allows audio to be transmitted. I tested this on a Samsung Galaxy Tab, and it worked.

One big difference is in the level of security or privacy the two apps offer. Both encrypt the remote connection, but LogMeIn requires you to sign in twice: once to its own service and once to the computer itself. iTeleport skips the computer login, so it feels less secure. In addition, iTeleport outsources its authentication to Google. You sign into the product using your Google credentials. This is simpler, but requires you to trust Google with the privacy of the contents of your computer.

Each program has special keyboards and shortcuts to add things to the iPad that computers use but the tablet lacks, such as function keys. Each also has various gestures you can use as shortcuts. But the overall effect is confusing.

Bottom line: You can control a PC or a Mac from an iPad, without any complex setup, using these two apps. But, unless you spend a lot of time learning to get good at it, the process is clunky and best used only when you absolutely must.

Find all Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, walt.allthingsd.com.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Internet Access in Hotel Rooms

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 02:00:15 +0000

I have a 3GS iPhone. Is there a way to connect it to the Internet cable found in hotel and motel rooms?

Not that I know of. But you can do this indirectly by creating your own Wi-Fi network from the wired connection in the room. There are two ways to do this.

One possibility is to carry a small portable router. These are small devices that plug into the wired connection and propagate a Wi-Fi signal in the hotel room that the iPhone (or other devices, like laptops and tablets) can use. A second option is to plug a laptop into the physical connection and use it as a Wi-Fi base station by setting up what’s called an “ad hoc” or computer-to-computer Wi-Fi connection. Steps for doing this, which can be a bit techie, differ depending on whether you use a PC or Mac.

I have been struggling with a hard drive space shortage for at least a year. I have deleted duplicate emails. I have deleted videos and word files and put them on a stand alone hard drive. Do you have any other suggestions?

If you don’t want to, or can’t, replace your laptop, and don’t want to be tethered to your external hard disk, you might look into buying a new, larger, internal hard disk.

Many stores and consultants can sell and install larger hard disks, and even transfer the data from your old one.

I have thousands of photos on my computer and external hard drives. I’m in the process of trying to organize them on one hard drive and noticed that there are many duplicates between the different devices. Is there one program that you recommend that reliably detects and allows the removal of duplicate files?

You might try using Google’s Picasa to sweep the drives, locate the photos, and display them.

The program has a feature that can avoid importing duplicates. Once imported, if there are still duplicates, Picasa offers methods to hide or actually delete them from your disk. Information on this is at http://bit.ly/8YKTzy.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the new All Things Digital website, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Apple's Jobs Tops BoomTown's 10 Most Fascinating Techies in 2010 Survey

Kara Swisher — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:02:00 +0000

Of course, he won.

Dominating tech’s mindshare and press coverage in 2010, Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs also handily took the No. 1 slot of a reader poll conducted by BoomTown in the last days of year.

Jobs–who introduced a range of innovative products, such as the iPad, over the course of the 2010–garnered just over 30 percent of the votes for the question that asked: “Who are the 10 Most Interesting People in Tech in 2010.”

Among the reasons he was selected, from comments posted by those who took the survey:

“With the iPad, he’s re-inventing the personal computer. Again.”

“Because he never stops.”

And my favorite: “Because if he had to be dictator of the world, he’d actually take doing a good job of it seriously.”

And, despite not acing him out for Time magazine’s “Person of the Year,” WikiLeaks head Julian Assange got 16.3 percent for the No. 2 spot, followed by Facebook’s co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at 10.1 percent.

Said one voluble commenter: “Whether one agrees or not with the how, governments and the individuals in power tend to do things that, we as a public, need to know, given that their actions, ultimately, impact how we must live our lives. Assange, is merely bringing to light things that many would rather not have brought into the light of day. One could argue that we do not need to know, for security or other reasons. However, negotiations, diplomacy and conflict, are all simply ways or resolving issues. Since, as a public, we allow these people into power, should we not know they are acting on ‘our behalf’?”

Arguing for Zuckerberg and his increasingly powerful social networking site, one person said: “Changed the way we looked at the Web and added another layer of connection between user and the Web, as well as sites connecting to each other.”

A wide range of people, not included by name on the list I compiled, got the No. 4 slot with 7.3 percent. They included Google Android head Andy Rubin, Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, Demand Media co-founder and CEO Richard Rosenblatt, Arianna Huffington and, um, me!

Longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur-turned venture capitalist Marc Andreessen was No. 5 at 6.3 percent.

“Visionary as a grad student, very successful as an entrepreneur, now doing some really interesting things as a VC,” said one person.

The red-hot attention around social buying start-up Groupon–and its gutsy choice not to take Google’s offer of billions of dollars–got co-founder and CEO Andrew Mason the No. 6 slot with 5.7 percent.

Pure curiousness about the future outcome spurred one choice: “Is he really lucky or really good? I’m guessing 2011 is a fairly decisive year. I’d like to know more about him…”

The mishegas around Yahoo and its voluable CEO Carol Bartz put her in the No. 7 position.

Said one commenter: “She’s taken the impossible job and will succeed. However, rewiring is taking more times than expected…”

Innovation put social magazine iPad app Flipboard co-founder and CEO Mike McCue at No. 8 with 2.3 percent.

No. 9 was Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg at the same percentage, with the inevitable Betty White clocking in at No. 10 with 2.1 percent.

The reason for picking the longtime Hollywood movie and television star, after lobbying by rabid Facebook fans got her a gig on “Saturday Night Live”?

Simply put: “She rocks.”

And, indeed, she does.

Here’s my lovely bar chart showing the winners, which, perhaps most fascinating of all, did not include anyone from search topper Google or software giant Microsoft or microblogging leader Twitter (click on the image to make it larger):

IPhone App iTeleport Wants You to Get Excited About VNC

Voices — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 00:12:03 +0000

In app store terms, iTeleport is as old as it gets. In fact, it actually predates the app store, according to founder J Sherwani.

Today, iTeleport’s update will offer the product free for 30 days, and then switch to $3 a month thereafter or $25 for unlimited use.

So, why would a small, profitable company–Sherwani said there have been a total of about 700,000 devices on iTeleport in its two-plus years in existence–decide to give away its only product for free?

According to iTeleport, it’s the thing to do if you want to change how people think of VNC, or virtual network computing.

Essentially, that means you can use one computer to log in to and operate another.

And this two-man shop might not be alone in thinking there’s a future in bringing VNC-style computing to the masses.

Vishal Kapur, the other iTeleporter, said that he thinks there is an untapped consumer group out there for VNC, especially those using Apple’s iPad and iPhone, and that most users aren’t there yet because there haven’t been consumer-focused products built on the technology.

“They [VNCs] have been around for 25 years, but they have always been an enterprise thing,” Kapur said.

But moves by larger companies, such as the recent demo of OnLive’s new cloud gaming and computing system at the D: Dive Into Mobile conference, indicate that the iTeleport team may not be the only ones thinking the future lies in this direction.

In fact, Mobilized’s Ina Fried reported on enterprise software maker Wyse doing pretty much the same thing–taking its basic VNC app and making it free.

While freer access to a desktop’s files on the go might be great, the bigger question here is: What are the hurdles ahead now that it looks like we might have a race?

Sherwani sees a world where you can share a screen, folder or an online shopping experience with a friend just as fast as you can share a link today.

He thinks the biggest barrier to overcome is the narrative about what VNCs are good for, but admits there are technical limitations too.

Thus, he wants iTeleport to rethink what the VNC is and repackage the whole experience to make using your desktop through your iPhone “as good as, if not better than,” sitting in front of it.

Big ideas are important, but there are also some bandwidth realities to overcome.

Today, VNCs don’t include sound, and depending on your connection speed at both ends–your desktop and mobile device–there is enough lag to make modern games and HD video look like a flip book.

Also, many people turn their computers off (or close the lid) when they leave the house, which renders the VNC connection useless.

Sherwani concedes these are big issues today, but said that the first step is to let more people see what VNC can do, and to let them share stories of consumer VNC experiences.

With little app makers like iTeleport in the mix with businesses in totally different weight classes, the future of VNC, or maybe we could call it “mobile terminal computing,” is interesting, if a bit murky.

Will users either gravitate toward OnLive’s model of taking a tiny piece of a very big cloud, or will there be a more scaled model, where the OnLives and the iTeleports of the world exist together and users simply choose seamlessly between how much computing power and interactivity they require to fill a given need?

Since we aren’t in the heyday of the teleport yet, please accept this video interview with the iTeleport team as a substitute:

[ See post to watch video ]

A Device Does Everything But Sing

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 23:02:13 +0000

Just when you think you can’t fit anything else into an all-in-one device that already prints, copies, scans, and faxes, HP ups the ante. The HP Photosmart eStation e-All-in-One performs all those tasks and includes a seven-inch, touch-screen tablet computer that doubles as a display when snapped onto the printer. This tablet lets users do things like check email, Facebook or weather, but I can’t imagine using it much as a stand-alone tablet, at least in its current version. And people who just want basic printer functions may grow tired of the tablet’s extra features.

Over the years, printers have progressively shifted from PC accessories to devices that can work independent of PCs. They started small, as dedicated 4×6 printers that had built-in memory-card readers and used basic photo-editing capabilities, and have matured into models like last year’s HP Photosmart Premium All-in-One with Touch-Smart Web that offered apps for printable things like maps, coloring book pages and recipes.

[ See post to watch video ]

The $400 HP e-All-in-One (http://3.ly/DP8b) takes this concept a step further by enabling even more independence from the PC because its tablet—named the Zeen—is more robust and can browse the Web, check email in a dedicated email program and run a limited selection of apps. It also works as a stand-alone tablet when detached from the e-All-in-One, though it only connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi rather than a cellular connection. It runs on the Android 2.1 operating system, but can only access certain apps rather than any app in the Android Market.

Perhaps an even more important new feature is that this all-in-one will print anything emailed to it from any device connected to the Internet, thanks to ePrint, a cloud-based printing system. This system assigns an email address to the e-All-in-One during its set-up and almost anything sent to that email address will print out, including attachments, no matter where the email is coming from.

One catch is that you must only send the document to the e-All-in-One’s email address and can’t CC anyone else or add another address to the “to” line of the email. A spokesman for HP said that this is done to prevent spam print-outs because batches sent to several people won’t print.

HP also has an exclusive relationship with products running Apple’s latest iOS 4.2 operating system for hand-held devices. Apple’s iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches now have a built-in feature called AirPrint which allows them to print anything directly to HP’s new ePrint printers as long as these devices and the printer are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. I tested this several times using an iPhone and it worked, printing Web pages, emails and photos. I liked the ease of using ePrint and AirPrint. Printouts looked sharp and printed quickly.

But I found the concept behind the e-All-in-One’s detachable tablet screen to be both alluring and confusing. It’s great to be able to do more with the printer’s touch screen and apps—but you don’t want to stand at a desk looking down at this screen, so it makes sense that the tablet is detachable. On the other hand, tablets often work in place of printed paper. I use my iPad for things like finding a recipe online, standing the iPad on my kitchen counter and cooking from that on-screen recipe. If I used the eStation All-in-One like that, I would ultimately print less often, which seems to defeat the purpose of having this big thing in your home. The HP eStation All-in-One measures about 18 inches wide and about 14 inches deep.

HP’s Zeen tablet can be detached from the e-station, but its uses as a stand-alone are questionable.

In order to save energy, the eStation All-in-One goes to sleep when it hasn’t been used for 15 minutes. This is a fine idea for environmental reasons, but in sleep mode, it also turns off its connection to the local Wi-Fi network. This means that if documents are emailed to its assigned address it may not print if it’s not awake and online. An HP spokesman said the company recently issued a fix for this problem that wakes up the printer when something is sent to it, but not all printers have been updated.

The Zeen tablet’s battery recharges every time it’s docked in the eStation All-in-One’s base, and HP estimates that its battery life is around four to six hours with Wi-Fi turned on. Hard buttons for volume and power are hidden on the Zeen’s back edge, as are speakers. A spokesman for HP said that eStation All-in-Ones will be updated early next year to run Android 2.2, which is faster and plays Flash videos.

The Zeen’s four gigabytes of internal memory hold roughly 100 apps, 35 of which come pre-loaded on the tablet. These include apps for MapQuest, Disney, Facebook and the Barnes and Noble bookstore, from which digital books, magazines and newspapers can be purchased and downloaded. Photos, videos, music and other files must be stored on an SD card in the Zeen’s SD card slot.

All documents sent to the e-All-in-One using HP’s ePrint can be seen online at hp.com/go/ePrintCenter as long as users register their printer and set up an account, which I did in about two minutes. Here, too, users can add or remove apps from their printer. I preferred adding and removing apps directly from my Zeen tablet’s screen, but it takes some digging to find the Add More icon for adding apps. Over a dozen HP products support ePrint; they range from $100 to $450.

The concept of ePrint is a smart one, but the printer’s tendency to go into sleep mode to save energy is a problem. I like that the Zeen tablet detaches from the e-All-in-One, but its functionality as a tablet with limited apps and capabilities isn’t very sensible.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Talking 4G, iPhone and More With AT&T's Glenn Lurie

Ina Fried — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:05:38 +0000

For years, AT&T’s Glenn Lurie has focused on his company’s most important product–the iPhone.

But, like the company, Lurie has broadened his view of the world, particularly as all signs point to AT&T soon having to share the iPhone with Verizon, at minimum.

In a video interview with Mobilized just after his onstage appearance at D: Dive Into Mobile, Lurie said the iPhone remains the company’s flagship, but said he is also focused on Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7. Beyond that, he said he looks forward to a day when most of the gadgets on the shelves at Best Buy have some sort of wireless connection–either directly to the cellular network or to another device that is connected.

As for the iPhone, Lurie said he expects that even if Apple were to start selling the phone through another carrier, AT&T would still be able to offer it.

“It’s a very, very important device and it will continue to be for us,” Lurie said. “If anything ever changes, I expect that relationship to continue.”

That said, Lurie went on to say that the company is focused on a broad lineup that includes the BlackBerry Torch, Android devices and Windows Phone 7 models.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

What to Do With Photos Piling Up in a Phone

Roger Cheng — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 02:20:42 +0000

I can be quick on the draw when it comes to pulling out my smartphone to snap a few photographs. Like a lot of people, I’ll let those pictures lay idle on my handset for months.

[ See post to watch video ]

A lot of my reluctance has to with the hassle of transferring the pictures to my PC before uploading them to a photo-sharing website or Facebook. Sure, I can use my phone to directly post them online, but I like to use photo-editing software on my computer to touch up the images. As a result, photos from a May birthday party won’t end up on my Facebook page until November.

With sophisticated cameras going into smartphones—including the 5-megapixel, high-dynamic range shooter found in Apple Inc.’s iPhone 4 and the professional-grade, 12-megapixel Carl Zeiss lens in Nokia Corp.’s N8—more people are leaning on their handsets for all sorts of photo opportunities.

Application developers haven’t ignored the trend. A large number of mobile programs recently have cropped up allowing you to tweak photos, add eye-popping filters, tag them with information about subject and location, and then post them on social-networking sites.

Camera Fun Pro turned this Penn Station corridor into an artistic sketch

Instagram put a retro photo border around a shot of a Penn Station waiting room.

I recently attended a holiday dinner with friends, giving me an opportunity to test some of these mobile photo-editing and photo-sharing apps: picplz, Instagram, Hipstamatic, Path and Camera Fun Pro. All five are either free or relatively inexpensive.

Instagram, a free app launched by Burbn Inc. in October for the iPhone, is among the most straightforward. After taking a photo, you are given a choice of a dozen filters that give the picture a retro twinge. Some of the photos shot while sitting in an Italian wine bar looked like something from a movie set.

After choosing your filter, you have the choice of adding a caption. You can add the location as well, although it requires the phone to have a working GPS or network connection, so you can’t get the information while on a subway or in a dead zone.

The program gives you an option to upload the photo to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, Foursquare or any combination of the social-networking sites.

I also liked the feed Instagram creates to show you all the photos you’ve taken, giving you a nice timeline of your shots. There is also a section devoted to the most popular photos taken from all Instagram users, giving me some new ideas.

Picplz, another free app, available on iPhones and smartphones using Google Inc.’s Android software, gives you the same capabilities, but only half the number of filters. As a result, I found myself using Instagram more frequently.

A popular app is Hipstamatic ($1.99) from Synthetic Corp., which allows your iPhone to mimic an old-fashioned camera, complete with a virtual old-fashioned case with swappable lenses and flash bulbs on the front, and a small viewfinder on the back. There are several options for types of film, allowing for a large number of different combinations.

Hipstamatic gives this smartphone shot of New York’s Penn Station a ‘real-life’ photo look.

While I appreciated the options, I also was a little overwhelmed. The app isn’t ideal for spontaneous moments, because you have to choose the film, lens and type of flash bulb (or whether to have flash at all) before taking your shot. The costs for the app could add up if you add virtual accessories: types of film, lenses, flashbulbs and camera case. Each feature retails for an additional 99 cents.

Hipstamtic has been around for nearly a year, but in September, Synthetic added the capability to order print versions of photos. The packs of photos range between $4.99 and $9.99, depending on the print size. I didn’t get a chance to test out the service, but the company says it has won over many repeat customers.

A more recent app is personal-photo network program Path, which launched in November for the iPhone. The aim for Path is slightly different from the normal sharing program. Rather than post the picture to Facebook and your entire network, the program will share the photo with 50 friends, which Path Chief Executive Dave Morin says is the maximum number of relationships a human can maintain at any given time.

Hipstamatic transforms an iPhone into an old-fashioned camera, complete with swappable lenses and flash bulb.

The initial version of Path, however, required my friends to have the application. My friends ended up receiving an email asking them to sign up for Path, which most promptly ignored. As a result, I wasn’t sharing my photos with anyone. Mr. Morin says the company will release an update that opens up the program, sending email links to the photos that don’t require downloading the program.

The app that got the most attention around the dinner table, however, was Camera Fun Pro from SpiceLoop. While it has been available for the iPhone since January, it arrived on Android devices in September. The app, which costs 99 cents, applies a live filter over the camera, allowing you to see what you get before taking the photo. The 19 filters’ effects on photos aren’t subtle: They implant a bulge, stretch, give a 3-D effect, or tint subjects Avatar-blue. If those aren’t enough distortion for you, you can go back and layer effects on a photo.

Testing the app out on Samsung Electronic Co. Ltd.’s Epic 4G, my friends and I especially enjoyed the sketch filter, which makes everything look like it was hand drawn with a pencil. The photos were reminiscent of A-Ha’s famous music video, which used a similar sketch effect, and had us humming the ’80s pop tune “Take On Me” during the meal.

Write to Roger.Cheng@dowjones.com. Walt Mossberg is on vacation and will return Dec. 16.

Verizon Gets Ready to Launch 4G

Ina Fried — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:27:42 +0000

Verizon Wireless is about to move from talking about 4G to actually launching its service. The company announced that it will hold a press event on Wednesday to officially spill the beans.

A lot of those beans, though, are already out there. The company has said it will launch the 4G network (using the Long Term Evolution, or LTE, protocol) in 38 cities before the end of the year. It’s also bringing 4G to more than 60 airports across the country.

Although Verizon’s network will launch in December, it will be only for laptops for a while, with 4G consumer phones expected by the middle of next year. As with past leaps, the big plus of the 4G network is faster connections.

For those still getting up to speed on 4G (including yours truly), here’s a recap. Sprint has already launched its 4G network using a different technology, WiMax, in a number of cities. AT&T is planning to use LTE for its 4G network, with its rollout slated for next year. And, just to further confuse things, T-Mobile has recently started billing its faster-speed 3G network using the term 4G and launching devices like the myTouch 4G.

The big question now is just what Verizon will want users to fork over for its speedy network and how it approaches the question of tiered pricing and unlimited versus capped pricing at the high end.

In any case, Mobilized will be covering the Verizon event tomorrow, which is set for noon Eastern Time and will feature Verizon Wireless CTO Tony Melone.

Here's a Better Name for RockMelt: The FaceBrowser (Plus BoomTown's Two-Dude Video)

Kara Swisher — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 17:08:02 +0000

At the end of this video interview with BoomTown about RockMelt–a new social browser that debuted in beta last night via yet another broken news embargo (thus, I have just joined the army of TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington on this irksome issue)–the two founders politely tried to gloss over my calling it a “Facebook browser.”

Except, um, it is.

Sure, as Eric Vishria and Tim Howes correctly note, there are Twitter and other news apps present. And I even like the mantra for RockMelt, which “re-imagines the browser around friends, feeds, and sharing.”

But that would be–for the most part right now–friends on Facebook, feeds from Facebook and sharing with Facebook.

In fact, the whole shebang is essentially–as you can see from the screenshots below–a big wet kiss to Facebook.

Still, RockMelt certainly could cause a bang, since it is funded by Marc Andreessen, via his venture firm Andreessen Horowitz–along with a passel of Silicon Valley luminaries such as longtime exec and mentor to the tech stars, Bill Campbell.

Andreessen, of course, is the legendary entrepreneur who invented the browser and founded the first commercial Internet company–Netscape–16 years ago. (He is also, coincidentally or not, on the board of Facebook.)

Still, with all its pluses, the Mountain View, Calif.-based RockMelt could have a hard time breaking through the crowded browser software market to reach consumers.

Microsoft now dominates the market with its Internet Explorer, followed by other big players, such as Google’s Chrome, Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox.

While not the first browser focused on social networking–that would be Flock, which is still around–RockMelt is trying to distinguish itself using these now-popular and innovative services.

You sign on to it using Facebook, natch, and the friends you choose are arrayed down one side vertically, while news and other apps are on the other.

It’s built on Google’s Chromium open source technology, which makes RockMelt a truly Silicon Valley creation.

It will be interesting to see how RockMelt does with its powerful and myriad social connections, but until we find out, here are Howes (who once worked at Netscape) and Vishria talking about their plans:

[ See post to watch video ]

And here are the screenshots of RockMelt (click on the images to make them larger):

Masan, South Korea: The Place With the Fastest Internet

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 22:35:10 +0000

When it comes to connecting to the Internet quickly, the best place to be isn’t Silicon Valley, or even Japan. It’s the city of Masan, South Korea, according to a report released Wednesday by Akamai Technologies Inc.

And Masan’s speeds are blazing fast. It’s the only city in the report with average connection speed above 20 megabits per second. In contrast, the fastest city in the U.S., Monterey Park, Calif., had an average speed of 6.9 Mbps.

It’s not clear why exactly Masan, a coastal city with a population of about half a million and a name that means “horse mountain,” ranks so highly. But the top 10 cities in the report were all in South Korea, which simply has a different technology environment from that in the U.S. For years the Korean government has spent billions on high-speed networks and subsidies to encourage broadband connections. And unlike in the U.S., competition between broadband services in Korea is cutthroat, driving down prices.

The quarterly report by Akamai highlights how the U.S. is being pummeled by cities in Asia and Europe when it comes to Internet connectivity. It’s part of the justification for the Federal Communications Commission’s push to spread the accessibility of high-speed broadband.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Video: Even Apple Product Marketing Head Schiller Touts Facebook Connection, Which Has Now Disappeared on Ping

Kara Swisher — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:00:05 +0000

The plot thickens!

While two official Apple pages tout an ability to use Facebook to find friends on Ping–its new social music offering in ITunes–which would be very useful, the feature is now not available on the service.

CEO Steve Jobs, in fact, told me at the Apple (AAPL) event where Ping–and more–was unveiled yesterday that the lack of Facebook connection was due to unspecified “onerous terms” that the social networking giant had sought and Apple declined.

Which is why it is odd that Apple’s SVP of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller said in the interview below, which I also did at the confab minutes apart, that “you can use your Facebook contacts to find friends who are also on Ping and hook up to them.”

So what happened? A last-minute yanking of Facebook funtionality, it appears, after it was launched.

BoomTown has inquiries into all the parties, but until then, here is my video interview of Schiller talking about Ping’s Facebook love, before it was spurned in a Silicon Valley mystery and more, from yesterday:

[ See post to watch video ]

Liveblogging Facebook's F8: Behind the 8-Ball on a Stairway to Heaven!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:10:48 +0000

So, BoomTown was at the Design Center Concourse in San Francisco today for Facebook’s f8 developers conference.

There is a giant logo of an 8-Ball looming over it all, which suggested a questioning mood.

Not at all!

Lots of stuff was announced, including ventures with partners like Microsoft (MSFT). That particular one is called Docs.com, an in-the-cloud effort to smack Google (GOOG).

The staff of the social networking giant showed up in overwhelming force here, stuffing the press into the giant hall’s front rows as if we were prisoners on a United Airlines (UAUA) flight.

Free us, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg!

But, wait! At events like this past, Zuckerberg’s awkward speaking style–a younger version of Microsoft’s Bill Gates–has been painful, so this was clearly an elaborate plot by COO Sheryl Sandberg to torture the media.

Well played, Sheryl (and PR mastermind Elliot Schrage)!

While we waited and were being pummeled with loud hip music like Al-Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo Bay, I might add that it was impressive to see all the folks here–mostly dudes–paying homage to the massive growth of Facebook.

Here we go:

10:07 am PT: Zuckerberg–dressed in jeans and a hoodie and sneakers–ambled onto the stage quite casually without a lot of fuss.

BoomTown was expecting some fanfare–perhaps a brass band.

Like the geek he is at heart, Zuckerberg launched into the details right away, after a cursory nod to his company’s huge surge in size and influence.

He began talking about “social plug-in” offerings, namely a “Like” button that lets you share content from many Web sites without a lot of friction.

It is essentially Facebook’s clever plot to take over the entire Web and its conversation. I am extremely wary.

Let’s all try to remember: Facebook is Google is Facebook is Google. And so on until they both control our every breathing moment on this planet.

Like a nerd version of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

But, admittedly, it was cool and innovative.

10:25 am: Zuckerberg brought out Bret Taylor, the guy from FriendFeed, which was bought by Facebook last August for $50 million.

It seems worth the dough, since Taylor is a natural presenter with the easy charm that all Zuckerberg’s money will never be able to buy.

He ran through the stuff–social plug-ins, recommendation boxes and a toolbar.

Taylor called Zuckerberg “Zuck” several times. He’s friends with Zuck!

He also is channeling Zuck with the idea that Facebook should be at the center of all things. Either a black hole or a benevolent god, depending on your point of view.

Soon, he moved onto the “Open Graph Protocol,” which he called a “valuable real-time connection” between Facebook and Web sites.

“My identity is not just defined by things on Facebook, but on things all over the Web,” added Taylor.

Things the evil geniuses of Facebook will control!

10:40 am: Taylor moved on to search, always an issue on Facebook, which still feels like it is a giant library with all the books strewn on the floor.

Yet another smack at Google! And Twitter.

He also announced that Facebook is adopting that OAuth open-source standard for authentication.

More divide and conquer.

10:45 am: Zuckerberg returned to intro Docs.com with Microsoft.

Zuckerberg then closed rather awkwardly, although somewhat endearingly, saying okay-that’s-it-you-can-go-now quite abruptly.

Realizing the oddness of the moment, he pulled it back to relate an anecdote about his girlfriend, who is studying to be a doctor.

Although Zuckerberg did not quite land it, it was all about feelings and memories.

“The essence of this is that we have a lot of early memories that, man, the world can be a lot better and we can make it that way,” said Zuckerberg.

Then he made an inexplicable reference to being in heaven and how everything is exactly how we want it there.

Let’s build it, said Zuckerberg, a very mortal–but now a very, very powerful–digital god.

Next up: Press conference with Zuck and more info about his stairway to heaven!

Until Facebook gets us there, though, here’s a video of the Led Zeppelin classic, “Stairway to Heaven,” which always reminds me of slow-dancing in a school gym and forever makes me just a little bit sad for, as Zuckerberg said, feelings and memories long gone by.

Not that Facebook or any Silicon Valley Web company is ever going to be able to retrieve even a scrap of them for real, no matter how many billions of social plug-ins and Like buttons they toss all over the Web.

Still:

iPad Wi-Fi Woes?

John Paczkowski — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:56:13 +0000

Though a marvel of design and engineering, Apple’s iPad, like most first-generation devices, is not without flaws. Just two days at market and already some new iPad owners are flocking to Apple’s support forums, complaining about temperamental Wi-Fi connectivity.

“I have…noticed very weak wifi signal in my 16GB iPad,” one post to Apple’s iPad support discussions reads. “Even when standing in front of the wlan router the signal fluctuates from strong to very weak. The router has very strong signals as every other computer here has full signal strength, even 20-30 meters from the router. So there is definitely a wifi signal issue here with the iPad.”

“I’m having the same problem,” reads another. “iMac, Macbook, Macbook Pro and iPhone all work great 3 rooms from my house (all connecting through an airport). My iPad is only getting 1/3 on Wifi and frequently dropped the connection.”

This is obviously a supremely annoying problem since Wi-Fi is the iPad’s only means of connecting to the Internet.

It is not yet clear how widespread this issue is. As I write, there are several iPad Wi-Fi-related discussions on Apple’s support forums, the largest of which hosts about six pages of comments.

That said, I have not had any problem with my iPad–moments ago, I streamed a Netflix (NFLX) movie to it from the sidewalk in front of my house–and my informal poll of friends and colleagues who own the device turned up no reports of weak or temperamental Wi-Fi connections. Which is not to say they don’t exist or that they’re the result of user error, just that they appear to be fairly limited in scope at this point.

In any event, Apple (AAPL) has posted two support documents (1, 2) for iPad owners to troubleshoot ornery Wi-Fi connections.

UPDATE: A commenter below points out a list of potential fixes.

If It's Tuesday, It Must Be the National Broadband Plan–If Your Connection Isn't Too Slow, You Can Tune In Online

Kara Swisher — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:33:28 +0000

Finally, after much advance leakage, the Federal Communications Commission will unveil its National Broadband Plan on Tuesday, March 16.

The two key questions about the effort to get the United States up to speed, so to speak, with decent digital access: Will it be toothless or not and will there be any money to pay for it, given the cash-strapped federal government?

A possible highlight of the plan concerns whether spectrum should be allocated for a free or inexpensive high-speed wireless service. It was a notion mentioned by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski at a meeting in Washington, D.C., earlier this week.

This is not an idea that telecom providers have warmed to in the past, of course, since they so enjoy sticking it to consumers with spotty service and high prices.

And if the report proposes the restoration of some regulations lifted in the previous Republican administration, you can be sure the Prada-wearing political lobbyist brigade will be at the ready.

What the FCC opus will surely point out is the obvious: The U.S. needs high-speed access to improve dramatically across the nation, especially for poorer citizens and in rural areas.

As BoomTown and many others have pointed out many times, our high prices and low speed make the U.S. the laughingstock of the digital world.

And the federal government’s lack of attention to the one innovative arena this nation shines in–tech–is appalling.

The plan will be the first big move by Genachowski, the longtime Internet exec who will appear as a speaker at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June.

One certainty about the latest plan: It will be a long document of hundreds of pages, so save some trees and get it online here at the aptly named Reboot.FCC.gov site.

In fact, the FCC open commission meeting, where the plan is being unveiled at 10:30 am ET on March 16, will be streaming live on the Web at the site.

A recent FCC report noted that two-thirds of consumers in the U.S. have some sort of broadband connection. On average, they pay $41 for this sometimes dubious privilege.

Incredibly, six percent of Americans still use dial-up access and four percent have no broadband at home at all.

Not surprisingly, poor people access the Web a lot less, although longtime gaps among races are closing, with African-Americans and Hispanics gaining in access and usage.

So whatever the FCC proposes, at least it will shine a light on this critical issue.

And a new plan is better than none at all–I think–so let’s see what’s what on Tuesday.

Get Your Storage Out of the Cloud

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:35:34 +0000

Ask anyone in the technology industry to talk about trends and “the cloud” is sure to come up in conversation. The cloud is a hip way of describing Web-accessible storage, and whether people know it or not, they’re using this more each day. Social networks save account information in the cloud. Photo-sharing sites store images in the cloud. Web-based email programs keep messages in the cloud. People also are starting to back up the contents of their computers to the cloud, which makes files accessible from almost anywhere using an Internet connection.

[ See post to watch video ]

Not everyone is gung-ho about storing personal data somewhere other than on their own PC. They might wonder who else can access the cloud’s contents and if the cloud is a truly reliable option for storage.

This week I tested Pogoplug (pogoplug.com), a $129 solution that lets people back up their digital files and access them via a Web browser, or mobile devices. It streams content through the cloud (Pogoplug servers), but never actually stores anything in the cloud. People keep their content on their own hard drive—the Pogoplug lets them access it elsewhere via the cloud.

For the most part, Pogoplug works like a charm. One downside is that files can be a bit slower to open from remote computers or mobile devices than on computers within the same network as the Pogoplug. But its single best attribute is its ability to do the job without trying to tell you every smart thing it’s doing in the background.

Unique Model

Pogoplug comes from San Francisco-based Cloud Engines Inc. and its business model is unlike other cloud-storage solutions. Pogoplug users pay upfront for the device and a hard drive of their choice, which is the storage device, and they never pay again. Other services store content in the cloud, making for faster remote access to files. But these services charge users monthly or annually for storage. ZumoDrive offers 2 gigabytes of storage free but charges annual fees ranging from $30 for 10 gigabytes to $800 for 500 gigabytes. SugarSync, a cloud-based synching program, also offers a free 2-gigabyte program, but charges from $50 to $250 a year for 30 to 250 gigabytes.

Pogoplug uses in-home storage with through-the-cloud access.

Cloud Engines sent me a hard drive for my testing: Seagate’s (STX) FreeAgent Go with 250 gigabytes of storage. This little rectangle costs $90 on Seagate.com or $69 on Amazon.com (AMZN), bringing my Pogoplug set-up total to $200. This is $180 less than just one year of ZumoDrive’s 200-gigabyte plan, or $50 less than SugarSync’s one-year, 250-gigabyte plan.

The Pogoplug is a white box with an electric pink strip running down one side and its underbelly. Three cables attach to it and run out to the wall socket, a router and whatever storage you choose (a hard drive or a small thumb drive). Each Pogoplug has four USB ports, allowing four hard drives or several USB hubs with additional USB ports to connect to the gadget at once.

A Mini Computer

The Pogoplug runs as a mini computer with its own processor that sends files out to the cloud for streaming whenever you want to see them. It creates thumbnails of photos and organizes media, making it easier to find on the my.pogoplug.com Web site. And Pogoplug also uses advanced networking to create a secure connection so people with firewalls and extra secure network settings can leave them just as they are.

Setting up Pogoplug is as simple as plugging in its three cords and pairing it with a computer. I shared with the Pogoplug at least 100 files from a Windows 7 PC and a MacBook Pro. I also set sharing to synchronize with Pogoplug whenever new files were added to designated files on my computers. All of this content was stored on the Seagate hard drive and neatly displayed on my.pogoplug.com.

Hunting for Files

This Web site looks sort of like a bare-bones version of iTunes. Three sections on the left—My Media; Show My Files (sorted into today, last week, last month, those I shared and those shared with me); and My Library—opened content in a large panel. Options at the bottom of the screen changed the way this content was displayed, and a search box enabled hunting through all types of files for specific words. I tried “snow” and found many results, thanks to photos taken of the recent storms in Washington, D.C.

Each file saved to Pogoplug is represented by a thumbnail image on the Web site and can be downloaded, shared or previewed by you or others with whom you share. Videos are, by default, shortened to 10-second previews, but an option in settings allows videos to always show in their full formats. An Upload button at the bottom lets people share content from whatever computer they are using to Pogoplug, and a Sharing button sends files to friends via email or social-networking sites including Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. Options let people set sharing so Pogoplug constantly updates friends whenever new data is added, like new photos added to an album.

Both Macs and PCs worked for me while I tested accessing Pogoplug on the three main browsers that run on both machines: Mozilla’s Firefox, Google’s (GOOG) Chrome and Apple’s (AAPL) Safari. Internet Explorer worked on Windows. I simply opened my.pogoplug.com, entered my username and password, and I could see all the files on the Seagate hard drive. A desktop app for the Mac or PC treats Pogoplug as a local drive, making it easy to drag and drop media to it.

Most common files types can be stored, accessed and shared through the Pogoplug. I tested sharing movies, music, photos, Microsoft Word documents, PDFs and others. These digital files can reside solely on the hard drives plugged into the Pogoplug. Computers in the same network opened files faster than computers or smart phones working in other places, but the wait wasn’t unbearable.

I also used a free Pogoplug app on the iPhone and Palm (PALM) Pre, and the interface was just as simple as the my.pogoplug.com site. A Pogoplug app also exists in the Android Market app store for Android phones, but the app for BlackBerry isn’t yet in RIM’s (RIMM) App Catalog and must be installed via the Desktop Manager. Even without an app, I used the iPhone browser to open shared files sent to me in emails, and had no trouble viewing images or listening to songs.

Pogoplug is a terrifically simple way to back up files and make them accessible from afar or on the go. Starting in March, Pogoplug will be capable of synchronizing and backing up content through the cloud service with other Pogoplugs located elsewhere. For instance, you can keep Pogoplug at home and one at the office and have a backup to your backup device.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

iPad TV?

John Paczkowski — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:31:38 +0000

Could Apple’s (AAPL) future as a multichannel video distributor lie not with AppleTV but with the iPad? Might the “best of TV” iTunes subscription offering the company has been pitching to TV networks since last November be primarily intended for that device, which Apple is positioning as the successor to its sleeper AppleTV platform? With company executives still dismissing AppleTV as a “hobby” and TV itself becoming a more personal, intimate experience, it’s worth thinking about.

Consider this scenario from Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett.

Imagine a portable set top box, but with its own killer screen. When in the home, it would be docked in a cradle connected to iTunes via a wired broadband pipe. Navigation of programming guides and iTunes listings would occur on the iPad, using an intuitive touch interface. Output would go directly to the wide-screen TV on the wall…until you left the house. Then, you’d simply pop the device out of its cradle and take it with you. And in the process, you’d be taking your TV with you as well. A 3G (and eventually 4G) wireless connection would allow you to keep watching live TV in the back of the car or cab. Once you got on the airplane you could choose from a library of your favorite shows saved on your DVR…which also happens to be a half-inch thick ergonomically gorgeous high definition tilt-sensitive screen that fits comfortably in your hands.

A dockable, portable set-top box with LED-backlit widescreen display? Seems a bit of a stretch at this point. And it would be enormously bandwidth-intensive. But it’s not entirely inconceivable, is it?

UPDATE: Mark Sigal recently made a similar observation over at O’Reilly Radar, using MLB’s iPad app as an example:

Similarly, MLB (Major League Baseball) showcased their MLB app, which overlays graphics, information feeds, video clips and live game programming in a way that is simultaneously immersive, interactive and highly entertaining. It is both suggestive of a media-centric killer app for the IPad and a bellwether for the future of TV Anywhere, yet another reason that I believe Apple’s ambitions with respect to Apple TV remain very much alive.

Flying the Digitally Friendly Skies: Gogo, Google and the Facebook PR Guy in 17D

Kara Swisher — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:11:20 +0000

So, BoomTown–who cannot be unplugged from the matrix for very long without breaking into a cold sweat–was pretty excited to have free Wi-Fi on my Virgin America flight to Washington, D.C., early this morning.

The service from Gogo Inflight Internet is free since earlier this week until Jan. 15, courtesy of Google (GOOG), on Virgin, as well as at 47 airports. It usually costs anywhere from $6 to $13.

Like the search giant, other Web companies–presumably wanting to goose usage and, more to the point, their brands–have also leaped in.

Delta has a promotion with eBay (EBAY) on several hundred planes for a week around Thanksgiving, and Yahoo (YHOO) is footing the bill for anyone using computers or smartphones in Times Square in New York for one year.

Pretty much what the government and big cable and wireless companies should be doing, but let’s not look a digital gift horse in the mouth.

So far on the flight, the Internet has been pretty solid, although video plays even slower than my Comcast (CMCSA) connection at home.

Also, electricity on the flight has been in and out; when it doesn’t work, it pretty much negates Internet use on a long flight.

But more interesting, as most who use the Web in the air seem to feel, is the ability to make a lot of online connections, including with people on the same plane.

While I was no fan of the goofy seat-to-seat connections offered on some airlines, I did get an email from a Facebook public relations guy sitting in the row behind me on the same flight asking if I wanted to meet the social networking site’s DC staff.

Without ever seeing him I now have a meeting on Monday with them, so–apparently–mission accomplished!

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Comcast Won't Talk About NBCU, Will Talk About Internet Video

Peter Kafka — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:49:33 +0000

Wall Street has been displeased with Comcast (CMCSA) since news of its interest in NBC Universal broke in late September, and the company didn’t do much to mollify investors today: Executives refused to say much about the deal except to refer to reports of the deal as “rumors.” Silly, but expected.

Comcast did have reasonably good news to deliver this morning. It signed up more new customers than Wall Street expected, though it had to cut prices to do so. We’ll see if that mollifies investors, who really have been salty–look what’s happened to CMCSA shares since news of the GE (GE) transaction broke:

Since Comcast barely addressed the NBCU deal during its earnings call this morning, it had more time to tackle other topics. A recurring theme: How would increased Web video consumption affect the company?

The answer: No one knows, exactly.

On the one hand, there’s the threat that consumers will be less likely to pay for cable TV if they’re getting their shows over the Web, whether it’s through illegal streams or legitimate “over the top” services like the one Apple (AAPL) is trying to assemble.

That’s why Comcast CEO Brian Roberts described his company’s “authentication” efforts, which are in a beta test now but are scheduled to go nationwide next month, as an effort to make sure that people who consume Web video do so “in a way that secures the existing model.”

That is–he’d like them to keep paying Comcast for a TV subscription even though they’re watching shows online. Tough sell.

On the other hand, even if you stop paying for cable TV, you still have to pay someone to connect you to the Web, and it’s very likely that company will be Comcast. And if you’re not paying Comcast for TV, there’s a very good chance you’ll pay more for your Internet connection.

“I’ve been saying for a long time that I think video over the Internet is more friend than foe,” Roberts said this morning. Let’s see if Wall Street agrees.