AllThingsD » Steve Wozniak

Fusion-io Brings Flash Madness to Workstations and Movies Like "Hugo"

Arik Hesseldahl — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:35:02 +0000

After working mostly in the realm of servers, Fusion-io — the founding member of the AllThingsD Flash Madness Club and last summer’s hot IPO — said today that it is bringing its flash technology to workstations. It is calling the product ioFX.

One early customer is Rob Legato, the visual effects supervisor who won an Academy Award for his work on the Martin Scorsese-directed hit motion picture “Hugo.” Legato will be talking about ioFX with Fusion-io chief scientist and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak at a conference in Las Vegas next week.

Fusion does some cool stuff with flash memory. Here’s the part where I roll out the old metaphor that has served me so well: In pretty much any computer, you can think of the processor as a fast-moving, highly efficient, type-A personality, constantly in a hurry, and always waiting impatiently for the rest of the system to give it more work to do. The slowpoke in the deal is the hard drive, which, though it’s already spinning at a super fast rate, just can’t get data to the processor fast enough. So the processor sits around, tapping its foot and looking at its watch, waiting for the other parts of the system that feed it data to work to keep up.

In high-performance computing, where there’s more data to be crunched than in most average computing situations, this is sort of a big deal. You want the processor to be as busy as possible — mainly because the systems are so expensive, and you want to get your money’s worth out of them — but also because jobs get done faster.

So Fusion-io’s stock in trade is a series of insert cards that bring flash memory right up next to the processor. The flash chips grab great big armloads of data and hold on to it, handing it off to the processor in a way that keeps it happy and busy and not impatiently waiting — at least not so much.

We’ve seen the technology brought to bear at places like Credit Suisse, which added Fusion’s flash cards to its trading systems. And its technology is also used in data centers belonging to Facebook and Apple.

On top of that, Fusion has relationships with all the big server vendors: Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell and SuperMicro all sell systems with Fusion-io on board.

Workstations are essentially heavily tricked-out PCs that are used primarily in two professions: Animation and special-effects work for movies and TV and computer-assisted design and modeling, used by folks who design buildings and cars and planes and pretty much anything else you can think of. They have the same problem that servers have — agitated processors constantly waiting for the rest of the system to catch up with them.

At this point, none of the workstation vendors are offering the card as an option, but if you’ve got a professional workstation — like, say, an Apple Mac Pro, which has three PCI Express slots — you might add one of these cards and speed up your work. In the meantime, the company is working with workstation vendors to get the ioFX insert cards certified. My guess is there will be more than a few visual artists who won’t bother to wait.

Fusion-io shares are up almost 11 percent — or $2.64 — to $27.30, as of 11 am ET; not so much on this news — workstations are kind of a low-volume market — but on an analyst report from Piper Jaffray suggesting that Cisco Systems may be close to a deal to add Fusion-io’s flash technology to its Unified Computing System platform.

The report goes on to suggest that Cisco could, over the next three or four quarters, become one of Fusion’s bigger customers, along with Facebook and Apple, and could account for more than 10 percent of Fusion’s business — which could, in turn, lead to a doubling of revenue this year. For the record, sales were $197.2 million in Fusion’s fiscal 2011. Do the math.

In Defense of Daisey

Eric Johnson — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 06:59:56 +0000

I didn’t get the sense that Mike was anti-Apple. I think he loves Apple’s products and I told this to Steve Jobs. I think Mike was looking at Apple to become one of the positive forces for having influence on improving things.

– Steve Wozniak, in an interview with CNET’s Greg Sandoval about Mike Daisey

Woz Plus Spock Equals a Geek Swarm

Arik Hesseldahl — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:20:23 +0000

In what can only be described as a strange collision of two distinct yet oddly similar universes of the geek canon, Steve Wozniak — Apple co-founder, friend of Steve Jobs, and chief scientist of chip memory concern Fusion-io — will have a conversation at Thursday’s DEMO conference with Leonard Nimoy, the actor famous for playing Spock in the “Star Trek” TV and film series.

Fusion just announced the pairing on its corporate blog. The company says the two will “share their thoughts on technology’s past, present and future.”

It’s probably no surprise that Wozniak was a fan of the original 1960s vintage TV show in his early adulthood. In a speech he delivered at a conference earlier this year he said that during his days working at Hewlett-Packard designing calculators, he’d come home from work “watch ‘Star Trek,’ eat a TV dinner, and do electronics projects.” So Woz will probably be thrilled to hang out with Nimoy, who’s always been a favorite among the “Star Trek” fan community.

It’s a little hard to guess precisely what all this will have to do with Fusion-io’s flash memory technology, which essentially speeds up conventional servers by adding an extra layer of memory to keep data close by the processor so it doesn’t stand around waiting for the hard drive to catch up. Nimoy is, however, an old hand at talking about how consumer technology that was science fiction on the TV show — mobile phones are essentially “Star Trek” communicators, for example — is now a reality. (See the video below for an example of that.) I’m sure it will be fun to see regardless.

One thing that will happen: A geek swarm on Foursquare. Woz is active on Foursquare, so expect lots of his followers to check in all at once and maybe trigger a swarm.

QOTD: Wozniak on Jobs

John Paczkowski — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:07:41 +0000

Apple is full of some incredible people, and Steve would not leave this company not feeling it has got a good push for right now to keep the ways of thinking that lead to the great products that Steve has employed. Short-term, I would expect Apple might come up with home run after home run after home run again.

— Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak

Essay: Jobs's Departure as CEO of Apple Is the End of an Extraordinary Era

Walt Mossberg — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 01:18:37 +0000

Steve Jobs’s resignation as chief executive officer of Apple is the end of an extraordinary era, not just for Apple, but for the global technology industry in general. Jobs is a historic business figure whose impact was deeply felt far beyond the company’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters, and who was widely emulated at other companies.

And now, for the first time since 1997, he won’t be the company’s chief executive.

To be very clear, Jobs, while seriously ill, is very much alive. Extremely well-informed sources at Apple say he intends to remain involved in developing major future products and strategy and intends to be an active chairman of the board, even while new CEO Tim Cook runs the company day to day.

So, this is not an obituary. But his health is reported to be up and down, and even an active chairman isn’t the same as a CEO.

CEOs resign every day, so why is this departure so meaningful?

Most people are lucky if they can change the world in one important way, but Jobs, in multiple stages of his business career, changed global technology, media and lifestyles in multiple ways on multiple occasions.

He did it because he was willing to take big risks on new ideas, and not be satisfied with small innovations fed by market research. He also insisted on high quality and had the guts to leave out features others found essential and to kill technologies, like the floppy drive and the removable battery, he decided were no longer needed. And he has been a brilliant marketer, personally passionate about his products.

In his first act at Apple, the company he co-founded in 1976, he helped envision and catalyze the personal computer revolution. The Apple II computer he developed with Steve Wozniak wasn’t the only mass-market PC released in 1977, but it was the one that had the most enduring impact.

In 1984, he again upended computing by leading the development of the Macintosh, the first commercially successful computer to use a mouse and graphical user interface. It cemented the template for how every computer works today, even though Apple was handily bested in the PC sales wars by archrival Microsoft.

After being forced out of Apple in 1985, it’s well known that Jobs ran an unsuccessful computer firm called NeXT. But he also did a couple of game-changing things during that exile. First, NeXT developed an operating system that later morphed into the excellent Macintosh operating system, called OS X, and also the operating system that drives Apple’s mobile devices, called iOS.

In addition, he purchased Pixar, a small computer animation firm which he was able, over years, to turn into one of the world’s most successful movie studios and later sell to Disney for billions. It changed animation forever.

In his most recent act, he returned in 1997 to take over as CEO of Apple as part of that company’s purchase of NeXT. What he found was a diminished company which was reputedly only months from bankruptcy and saddled with mediocre products.

Fourteen years later, the company is a highly profitable behemoth, the most financially valuable and influential technology company in the world, whose every product is eagerly anticipated, snapped up quickly by consumers, and aped by competitors, even though they are often priced higher than rival devices.

While CEO of the revived Apple, he introduced the dominant digital music player, the iPod, and created the most successful digital media service, iTunes. He introduced the first super-smartphone, the iPhone, and the only truly successful tablet computer, the iPad, which is in the process of replacing the laptop, at least in part. And he built the world’s largest app store.

One almost forgets that he built a phenomenally successful chain of retail stores, too.

Apple’s devices and software services have dramatically changed the mobile phone industry, the music industry, the film and TV industries, the publishing industry and others.

Meanwhile, even while declaring that we are in the “post-PC era,” Jobs resuscitated his early baby, the Mac. While it may never become the world’s biggest selling computer, it is lusted after worldwide, and its sales have outgrown those of the overall PC industry for five years running. Plus, with models like the sleek, solid-state MacBook Air, he’s actually merging the tablet and the PC.

Now, rumors are rife that Apple is working on re-inventing another common device: the TV. The secretive company won’t say a word about that, but nobody should be surprised if it happens, just based on Jobs’s track record.

And that’s why the day Steve Jobs resigns as CEO of Apple isn’t like the day a typical CEO resigns.

Here is a video of me taken recently, talking about Jobs’s career:

[ See post to watch video ]

Fusion-io Opens at $25 a Share, Worth Nearly $2 Billion (Video)

Arik Hesseldahl — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 16:46:09 +0000

It’s not for just anyone or anything that I will put on a suit on a 90-plus degree day, and yes, you can consider the initial public offering of Fusion-io one of those things. Plus? I’ve never been to an IPO before.

This morning I ventured down to lower Manhattan to witness the Utah-based company do something its CEO David Flynn swore to me in December that he would not be doing in 2011. But? Things change. After pricing at $19 a share yesterday, the shares opened at $25.30.

Fusion did all the usual things you’d expect from a company wanting to make a splash with an IPO. A big banner with the Fusion-io logo adorned the outside of the NYSE building. And Steve Wozniak, the Apple co-founder who is a Fusion-io investor, director and chief scientist was on hand for the obligatory bell-ringing ceremony. After the bell, eager traders crowded around the Barclay Bank post to await the opening of trading, which took place a little after 10 AM New York time. Woz purchased the first 100 shares when trading opened.

At noon Eastern, Fusion shares are holding up, trading at $23.92. As trading debuts go, it’s certainly no LinkedIn, but then again, on the day LinkedIn opened the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 12,605.32, nearly 600 points higher than its open today. Regardless, even at that price, Fusion-io is being valued at nearly $2 billion, or more than 50 times its fiscal 2010 revenue.

Flynn’s next big task will be reporting quarterly earnings next month. Expectations for this company are high, so there’s a lot to worry about. Facebook and Apple combine for about 70 percent of sales but once they’re done building their data centers, they’ll more or less be done buying Fusion-io cards for their servers. And worse, 10 customers account for more than 90 percent of sales.

The good news is that the company has 1,500 different end-user customers. Plus, it has its partners — Hewlett-Packard, Dell, IBM and SuperMicro — to resell its technology into their servers, and there’s lots of interest among financial institutions and other companies in speeding up the flow of data on their servers. It will be an interesting story to watch.

Just moments after the debut in trading, I caught up with CEO David Flynn for a quick chat in the video below.

[ See post to watch video ]

Start-Up Fusion-io Breaks EMC's "Record" on Enterprise Flash

Arik Hesseldahl — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 15:59:42 +0000

When it wasn’t stuffing cars full of dancers wearing bodysuits, EMC, the enterprise storage company, was busy launching products and telling a room full of customers and analysts at an event in New York last week about how strong its business prospects are.

One of its bragging points was around shipping flash memory to enterprise customers. During his remarks–the theme was “record setting”–EMC President and COO Pat Gelsinger grinned as he said the company had shipped 10 petabytes worth of flash memory in its storage products to customers in the past year–more than anyone else in the industry had.

If indeed that was a record, it isn’t standing for very long. Fusion-io, the Utah-based start-up that sells flash memory add-on devices for use in servers, said today that it has shipped 15 petabytes worth of flash memory to enterprise customers. It says that’s enough to play a continuous stream of HD-quality movies for 199 years straight.

Of course it has had help selling all that memory. Server vendors Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Dell are all selling Fusion-io technology as an option on their servers. There are plenty of customers buying, though few will admit to it. When we last heard from Fusion-io, it had announced that its technology is speeding up trading operations at Credit Suisse. Other customers include Myspace and Zappos.

Putting flash in a server isn’t for data storage in the traditional sense. It’s more about putting data close to the processor in a server. Most of the time–as much as 80 percent of the time–the processor chips inside servers that do the heavy number-crunching are sitting around tapping their feet, waiting to get data to work from other parts of the computer.

That equates to a lot of general waste in IT spending, CEO David Flynn told me. “If the processor is sitting idle 80 percent of the time, it may not sound so bad at first. But when you consider that you’re paying for the power and the cooling and floor space and services, it equates to a massive amount of wasted money.” How much? He thinks speeding data to the processor can eliminate $50 to $100 billion worth of waste in IT budgets. Fusion-io’s argument–and it’s one that numerous companies are buying–is that by putting data on flash chips in the server right next to the processor, you can eliminate a lot of that idle time. It’s the kind of argument that tends to resonate easily with CIOs.

As I’ve noted before, Fusion-io is coming off a busy year. Last year it hired Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak as its chief scientist. In April it landed $45 million in a Series C round led by Meritech Capital Partners, with Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, New Enterprise Associates and Triangle Peak Partners also investing. It also has strategic investments from Samsung and Dell Ventures.

Flash Storage Startup Fusion-io Speeds Up Trading At Credit Suisse

Arik Hesseldahl — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:59:19 +0000

Keep a close eye on Fusion-io. Its flash-memory based storage technology is quietly winning lots of business in data centers around the world. I say quietly, because very often the companies using it don’t like to broadcast that fact to the world.

One who is willing is Credit Suisse, though it won’t say much. The $50 billion Swiss bank says it is adding Fusion-io’s memory – dubbed ioMemory – into its Advanced Execution Services trading platform.

So what does ioMemory do? It uses flash memory – not terribly unlike what’s used in USB drive – to basically re-write the rules of how companies with large database storage needs can work. Add an ioMemory card to a typical server with a five-figure price tag, and it can suddenly behave a lot more like a much larger and more expensive storage area network. The company is also known for its chief scientist, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Credit Suisse says in this case the ioMemory will be used to speed up algorithmic trading, which is using powerful, super-fast computers to analyze and movements in the prices of stocks, bonds and other securities, and determining when to buy and sell, based on a pre-programmed set of rules and conditions. It’s a business where, as The Wall Street Journal’s Donna Kardos Yeslavich wrote in October, milliseconds count, so banks and other financial institutions are constantly on the lookout anything that can speed the process up. (Eventually we’ll be saying femtoseconds count?)

A key bottleneck is the matter of recording trades made. This means getting the data related to the trade out of a computer’s active memory – that would be the DRAM chips similar to the what occasionally have to upgrade your PC – and permanently stored. DRAM is volatile memory, meaning that if it loses power, it loses whatever it’s storing at that moment. Flash is non-volatile, meaning it stores data permanently, even losing power, until it’s deleted. That makes it great for permanent storage that’s also a lot faster than a hard drive. The faster trades get logged, the more trades get done, the more money gets made. “It’s a matter of quickly putting the trade data in a place where it won’t get lost,” Fusion-io’s CEO David Flynn told me. “You have to make sure that your system won’t forget what’s been done, while at the same time doesn’t look track of what it’s doing.”

Credit Suisse didn’t make anyone available for an interview. Banks rarely go into even this level of public detail about the technology they use. However I did talk to Fusion-io CEO David Flynn, who tells me that Credit Suisse has been a fan of the Fusion-io technology for some time. He also says several other financial institutions are using it. “Its easier for them to use it than it is for them to talk about it,” he said.

From the looks of the investments and partners that Fusion-io has landed during the last year, he’s not kidding. In April it landed $45 million in a series C round led by Meritech Capital Partners, with Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, New Enterprise Associates, and Triangle Peak Partners also invested. South Korean electronics giant Samsung, which happens to be the world’s largest manufacturer of flash memory made a strategic investment last year, as did Dell Ventures. Meanwhile Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Dell all offer Fusion-io technology as an option on its servers. Headcount has doubled in the last year from 150 to between 300 and 400, Flynn told me.

So with all this going on, is Fusion-io going to be a hot IPO or acquisition target in 2011? Don’t count on it, Flynn says. “Our VCs are willing to wait for the home-run,” he said. “And we’re not in the business of getting acquired. We have the luxury of being able to grow this company without someone with itchy fingers.”

The Steam-Punk Dream Computer: Watch the Babbage Difference Engine in Action

Drake Martinet — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 14:00:39 +0000

After All Things Digital finished up a recent tour of the not-yet-reopened Computer History Museum, conducted by Apple co-founder Steve “Woz” Wozniak, one of the curators offered a special treat for a few of the geekiest reporters in attendance.

That meant the cult-legendary Babbage Difference Engine, a Hummer-size calculator originally designed by Charles Babbage in 1847 and later built from the original plans by the Science Museum in London in 2008.

Every part, and there are over 8,000, was finished by hand, using only techniques available in Victorian England.

The bronze, cast-iron and steel engine uses a dizzying series of gears, cams and catches to calculate and print tables of numbers that you might be familiar with if you’ve used one of those little brown pocket reference books.

Plus, it’s the only computer that requires an oil pan.

When “turned on,” which means turning the hand crank, the whole thing clatters to life in a decidedly organized symphony of metallic motion.

There are only two Babbage Engines in existence, and the maintenance alone means they’re almost never brought to life.

But, just for our nerdtastic audience, here is a short video of the whole thing in action in Silicon Valley–something you’ll probably not see again if you wait a lifetime.

Geek on:

[ See post to watch video ]

Back in the Day With Woz: A Sneak Peek Inside the New and Improved Computer History Museum

Drake Martinet — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 17:51:56 +0000

What could be better than listening to legendary Apple co-founder Steve “Woz” Wozniak wax poetic about his first and favorite gadget–which turns out to be a transistor radio?

Well, doing it inside the newly renovated Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., certainly raises the geek factor to 10.

The museum has spent the last five years planning and installing “Revolution: The First 2,000 Years of Computing” and will open the doors to the public on January 10, 2011. That’s “011011,” Woz reminded the small crowd of journalists invited for an early tour of the new Silicon Valley facility.

The museum has more than doubled its public space to accommodate the new exhibit, which includes an impressive collection of the rare, revolutionary and ridiculous–mostly relating to computing from the 1950s onward.

The whole shebang was largely funded by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whose name features prominently in the signage.

Woz led a tour that highlighted some of the machines that meant most to him. He recounted hours spent at the IBM Model 026 punch card machine, and fawned over a Honeywell Kitchen Computer.

That device was originally sold by Neiman Marcus, complete with mod ’60s styling and bearing the “Mad Men”-esque slogan: “If only she could cook as well as the Honeywell computes.”

Woz said it was the machine that inspired him to believe computers could be attractive things for the home.

After a long meander through many, many more Woz-ly musings, the tour ended at the Homebrew Computer Club exhibit, complete with an Apple 1–signed by Woz–basically identical to the one that recently sold at Christie’s of London for $210,000. (Woz flew there and signed that one too.)

Once open, the expanded museum promises to be the perfect spot to take that über-geeky date, or just wander and reflect amidst hundreds of miles of wire and mountains of transistors.

No word on whether Woz will also be on permanent display.

He seemed to enjoy it, but you can judge for yourself by checking out our highlight video reel from the tour, complete with an interview about Woz’s first and favorite gadget, the coming robopocalypse and the iPhone as a future historical artifact.

Enjoy:

[ See post to watch video ]

"My Life on the D List" Meets All Things D

Kara Swisher — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:15:32 +0000

While in Washington, D.C., this week, BoomTown got to go to a dinner in honor of comic Kathy Griffin.

Griffin’s reality television show is called “My Life on the D List,” and we’re proud to share the same terrific letter.

She made much hay of her relationship with Apple (AAPL) co-founder Steve Wozniak on the show, so there’s yet another tech link.

And, in the video–in which she talks about her lobbying on Capitol Hill to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding gays in the military–she also uses a very naughty term for tweeting on Twitter.

So, apropos of it being Friday, here’s the video of Griffin, who also told me she is a big fan of the Flip digital video camera:

[ See post to watch video ]

The Year in Wisecracks

John Paczkowski — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:45:01 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

The Woz Says He'll Buy Apple Tablet, Steve Jobs Doing Well

Marisa Taylor — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:42:06 +0000

Steve Wozniak may no longer be an active Apple (AAPL) employee, but he’s still a loyal shopper, saying Wednesday that he’ll buy the much-discussed Apple tablet once it’s released next year.

“If there is such a thing,” he said at a conference. “I buy everything Apple comes out with.”

He then added, “There is no such thing,” after which Fusion-io President David Flynn interjected, “You’re talking to a guy who has seven [navigation] systems in his car. So he will definitely be buying it.”

The men were there to announce that Fusion-io’s technology will be used for a new solid-state-disk storage technology offered by IBM’s (IBM) servers, called the High IOPS Adapter.

The company said that these technologies are a “new tier of memory,” faster and more cost-effective than disk drives, which will change the way data centers and computer architecture are designed.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

If Woz Ran Apple

Nitrozac and Snaggy — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:59:31 +0000

Apple Co-Founder and Dancing Fool Steve Wozniak Talks!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:56:37 +0000

Today, at the Silicom Summit at Stanford University, BoomTown was on a panel about consumer media, and right in the front row paying rapt attention was Steve Wozniak.

It was the same Woz–the famous nickname of the Apple (AAPL) co-founder–who was also staring back last week at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference and taking it all in.

Thus, I used Woz as an example from onstage today, in making my point how to practice a new kind of journalism using simpler tech tools–like the Flip digital video camera and this blog, as well as Twitter and more–and doing quick and informative reporting about, say, well-known tech figures I see all over Silicon Valley.

As in: See Woz, stick my trusty Flip in Woz’s face, ask Woz annoying questions and, presto, we’ve got a lovely post about what he’s been up to.

Such as this video interview, in which Woz talks about a wide range of things from Apple to Google (GOOG) to sassy Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz (he’s buying stock!) to Twitter to innovation to social networking and, yes, dancing.

Woz, a verifiable tech legend, loves to talk–but not about his ex-partner Steve Jobs’ health this time–and it’s good to listen.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Weekend Update, 4.04.09

Oliver J. Chiang — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 19:36:24 +0000

Welcome once more to Weekend Update! I’ll be filling in today for your regular host, Beth Callaghan, who’s on vacation.

And what sane person wouldn’t be, after the slew of Silicon Valley silliness inspired by April Fools Day this past week? Digital pranks were the name of the game as Google (GOOG) and others heaped so many tepid hoaxes upon us that we wanted to call April Fold so as to quickly end this round of gags.

But no bag of tricks was needed for one Web site to April Fool itself into crying wolf about an imminent Google (GOOG) acquisition of Twitter, when a real story around the corner was aboutGoogle turning Turbo Tax tweets into ads.

Meanwhile, one of the biggest jokesters of them all, The Onion, won one of the biggest awards in journalism, a Peabody, meaning that the best sense of humor goes to that panel of judges. And to Stephen Colbert, who was willing to entertain (for a while) Twitter spokesmodel Biz Stone’s biz-model-less thoughts in an interview on “The Colbert Report.” Also on BoomTown this week: Facebook’s former CFO Gideon Yu is out, as was a leaked memo from Mark Zuckerberg about Yu’s departure and the company’s situation.

A sense of humor is certainly an invaluable feather to have in your cap these days. Digital Daily wrote about the most recent doom-and-gloom predictions and events to happen in this econalypse, like analysts’ predictions of YouTube losing $470 million in 2009, the barren IPO-less wasteland VCs are bemoaning and a major global slump in semiconductor sales. Other headlines weren’t quite so dreary: Google’s foray into VC land, the folks at BlackBerry HQ celebrating surprisingly good fourth-quarter results and the world’s worst-kept secret, the anticipated merger between IBM (IBM) and Sun (JAVA).

There was a similar mix of dark clouds and silver linings over at MediaMemo. The National Collegiate Athletics Association forced Twitter and partners AT&T (T) and Federated Media to take down one of its first ad campaigns, “March Tweetness,” crying copyright foul. Also running afoul with big companies in legal waters, free music Web site Seeqpod filed for bankruptcy. And video site Veoh laid off a significant amount of staff and kicked out its old CEO, replacing him with founder Dmitry Shapiro and refocusing the company on its “Video Compass” browser plug-in.

Online video is generally a turbulent space these, but the waiting is the hardest part for Hulu when it comes to the rumored Disney deal in which Disney (DIS) seems to be playing the field. Other gems of the week were URL-shrinking Web service bit.ly’s raising of $2 million and media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s Kindle envy.

In a new Mossblog, Walt Mossberg gives us his first impressions of the BlackBerry App World store in which Research in Motion (RIMM) takes a bold step into what was formerly the sole domain of Apple (AAPL). In Personal Technology, Walt reviews a network hard drive from Western Digital (WDC) that makes the technology gloriously simple for everyone. And in Mossberg Solution, Katherine Boehret takes a look at several laptop trays, designed to protect the–ahem–family jewels and family members in general from laptops’ scorching undersides.

Finally, our exciting Woz-watch, after many weeks, has come to a sad end: Steve Wozniak was voted off “Dancing with the Stars” this week after one misstep too many. Down, but not out, the Apple co-founder swore that the “geeks shall inherit the earth”… just not the dance floor, any time soon. Please.

More next week.

Woz Gets Hipchecked Off the Dance Floor: Big, Big Sigh…

Kara Swisher — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 08:20:07 +0000

Oh horror of horrors–Steve Wozniak got sent home last night on the ABC celebrity hoofer-fest, “Dancing with the Stars.”

Whatever will BoomTown do without the peculiar gyrations of the Apple (AAPL) co-founder to praise effusively and mock relentlessly at the very same time?

But with a truly terrible Tango and the lowest judges’ score (12 out of 30) of the remaining 11 contestants from his Monday night outing, Woz’s only chance was the voters at home.

That had worked the week before.

But, sadly, the tally this week was not enough to save him and his partner, Karina Smirnoff, or “The Girls Next Door” star Holly Madison and her partner Dmitry Chaplin. Both couples were dinged at the same time.

Said Woz about his experience, which included a hamstring injury and a foot fracture, as well as allegations of voting hijinks:

“I will dance wherever I am. I will take ballroom lessons. I’ll make it a part of my life. I hope there are a lot of other people like me that never danced their entire lives. [People] sitting at a computer terminal all day long, who are afraid to [dance]. You can actually go out there and dance and have fun.”

Well said.

And to show you what he means, here are the four videos of his clumsy but adorkable dancing efforts on “DWTS,” as well as some post-loss interviews in reverse order:

Good Morning America (with funny Footloose segment):

Jimmy Kimmel Live (with shoe-burning):

Elimination:

Week 4–Argentine Tango:

Week 3–Samba:

Week 2–Quickstep (dance-off):

Week 1–Cha-cha-cha:

Woz to DWTS Judges: "I'm Still Standing" (And Still Dancing as Bad as He Can!)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:38:20 +0000

Apple (AAPL) Co-founder Steve Wozniak revved his damn-the-judges juggernaut into high gear this week with yet another low-scoring performance on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” and a full-bore mangle of the Argentine tango last night.

Interestingly, as the trio of judges dinged him for the fourth week in a row, they also tried to compliment Wozniak at the same time, telling him they loved his spirit.

Oh, these judges know that a Silicon Valley mob riding Segways could run them down at any minute if they got too mean (and there was actually a video of just that possibility on the television show).

“The judges have forsaken me,” said Woz, sounding more and more like a very appealing nerd cult leader. “But the geeks shall inherit the earth.”

One judge, Bruno Tonioli, still had the temerity to speak the truth about Woz’s tango: “This really stunk.”

Retorted the cute-as-a-button-who-can’t-dance Woz: “I have three words for you: I’m still standing.”

That he is. So you better get out there and vote early and often (you can vote up to 10 times).

Results come tonight, but here is the video from last night:

Weekend Update, 3.28.09

Beth Callaghan — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:15:16 +0000

Another week into challenging times and the theme for Weekend Update is undoubtedly cost-saving, with a healthy dose of revenue-seeking.

On the revenue-seeking side, BoomTown’s Twitter Business Plan Count-Up hasn’t yielded any real keepers yet. There is a real contender, though–since Jennifer Aniston so publicly broke up with her boyfriend, John Mayer, on account of his Twitter “addiction,” BoomTown suggests offering “Twitter rehab” for those not willing to lose their relationships just yet. Not sure how zoning would work on that one, but the profit margin could be nice. The Guardian’s Changing Media Summit in London didn’t provide a lot of hard answers to the revenue question either, but it did gather the curious together to discuss the matter further, ponder the Next Big Thing, and talk about what the media company of tomorrow looks like. And, perhaps proving that during hard times Americans love an unlikely hero (a Seabiscuit for our own economic disaster?), Steve Wozniak escaped elimination from “Dancing With The Stars” for yet another week–undoubtedly due to the will of the people and their appreciation of his determined and goodhearted willingness to look silly on national television. The Pillsbury Doughboy bit probably didn’t hurt, either.

On the cost-saving side, MediaMemo wrote about job and salary cuts at the New York Times (NYT). The job cuts were on the business side, but the company slashed all of its nonunion salaries by 2.5-5 percent. It will ask for similar cuts from its unionized newsroom employees, in a spirit of “shared sacrifice.” Google (GOOG) sacrificed 200 more jobs, this time from sales. One of the most drastic signs of recession, however, may be the fact that Condé Nast’s higher echelons are cutting back on chauffeured cars to get them around Manhattan.

According to Digital Daily, It was Black Thursday at IBM (IBM) on the 26th, with 1,674 job losses (and counting). 5,000 jobs are expected to be cut overall, with many of the lost U.S. positions being transferred offshore. Better news over at Viacom’s (VIA) MTV games–according to new statistics, the company’s Rock Band franchise recently surpassed $1 billion in North American retail sales, making it the number one title of 2008 across all genres, based on revenue. And that’s before Beatles: Rock Band even comes close to shipping. That’s the kind of magic shown so far by Palm’s (PALM) forthcoming Pre handset, which–without a price or a release date–has boosted the company’s share price more than $7 based on little more than a CES debut and some enthusiastic analysts. Digital Daily noted that not everyone feels magical, but the launch will tell.

Over in Personal Technology, Walt Mossberg offered quick reviews of the iPhone apps he uses most often and that make the shiny Apple (AAPL) gadget worth the price. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt pointed out the usefulness of IE8′s compatibility button, which makes the browser act like IE7 in certain instances, on Web sites that were coded around the peccadilloes of the earlier versions of the Microsoft (MSFT) software. Other readers had questions about ordering broadband service without a land line and burning movies to Blu-ray discs using an iMac. Katie Boehret spent the week testing out a new TV from Samsung–the first to integrate with the Yahoo (YHOO) Widget Engine, which enables viewers to watch shows and access the Web on the same large screen. Her thoughts are in The Mossberg Solution.

More next week.

Woz Lives to Stumble Around, Oops, Tango, Another Day!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:01:03 +0000

Getting a foot fracture, pulling a hamstring, claiming there was a voting conspiracy, getting an abysmal score of 10 out of 30 from the judges (the lowest score ever) and, of course, dancing with as much grace as a block of cement were not enough to sink the Good Ship Wozniak last night on “Dancing With the Stars.”

Instead, the people spoke loud and proud for continued goofiness by voting for the clod-hopping Apple (AAPL) co-founder in droves and tossing off actress and Charlie Sheen nemesis, Denise Richards.

“I was more shocked than any time in my life,” said Woz. “Maybe except when I got served with divorce papers.”

It helped his cause, I think, that the judges tried to hand him walking papers on Monday, with one calling his dance “the worst samba I’ve ever seen.”

Well, that was technically true. But the people have chosen to ignore that little detail and are focusing instead on the sheer entertainment value of Woz.

Next up: Tango Argentina!

Or, most likely in Woz’s version: Mangled Argentina.

Here’s the video from the ABC show of the announcement last night, when the shocked Woz and his partner, Karina Smirnoff, found out they were were safe, including a very cute Pillsbury Doughboy moment right after.

That the rotund Woz allowed a Pillsbury Doughboy moment on national television tells you all you need to know about why he is still in the competition:

Sam-bad: Woz Gets a 10 Out of 30 on "DWTS"

Kara Swisher — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 07:00:52 +0000

At least Apple (AAPL) co-founder Steve Wozniak can pun through the pain of his foot fracture and pulled hamstring.

“Hey, well, one thing I learned is that if you mix a little dancing with a little Smirnoff, you might end up in an ambulance,” he joked, riffing on the name of his partner, Karina Smirnoff.

What he can’t do, of course, is dance very well, which was why he got the low, low score of 10 out of 30 last night from the judges on his third week of “Dancing with the Stars.”

“Steve, on your knees and beg forgiveness–this was the worst Samba I’ve ever seen, I think–just bad,” said Bruno Tonioli.

“I just hope the viewers enjoyed it as an entertainment, because for me, it was consistent–it was terrible from start to finish,” said Len Goodman.

And, while she called Woz “adorable,” Carrie Ann Inaba delivered the bomb: “At some point, the novelty wears off…you’re like the uncle at the party that we just root for.”

Well, maybe for her it gets old, but not the rest of us completely riveted to exactly what wacky stunt and what level of atrocious dancing Woz will deliver next on the ABC television show.

Oh, it was a bad Samba. A very bad Samba. Sam-bad.

But from his decidedly odd “worm” to his accusing the producers of vote-rigging to his pink boa, Woz should still get the ballot box stuffed Silicon Valley-style.

Woz was cheerfully defiant about his performance, joking that he probably deserved a lesser score even: “I enjoy it and I am going to try to bring my form of entertainment to the world.”

World geek dancing domination!

So vote early and often tomorrow so that he can overcome his lack of dancing ability and win first place on this ridiculous show!

Here’s the video:

Also here are Woz’s missives to the fans on his Facebook page from yesterday, after the jump:

On Mar 23, 2009, at 1:53 AM, Steve Wozniak wrote:

Yesterday evening I was sure that I couldn’t dance on Monday, due to so much pain that I would wince when I walked. It wasn’t pretty.

My partner, Karina, is very familiar with such injuries and worse. She was of the opinion that if I withdrew from Dancing With The Stars, rumors would fly that I was using this injury as an excuse. She has danced with pulled hamstrings many times. I can tell you from how this one felt, that it’s not the same for a 20 year old as it is for a 58 year old.

Karina modified our routine to keep it as good, but avoid a few maneuvers that caused me extreme pain. We practiced a few times last night on the real DWTS stage and I decided that I could do the dance, a Samba, on Monday (tomorrow).

We practiced today. I had very little problem with my pain in the dance but now had to learn different sequences of the whole routine, and connect them. You have heard of muscle memory. One step reminds your foot of the next step, and so on. But now we took chunks in the middle and rewrote them. Plus we lost nearly 2 days of rehearsal due to my inability to do anything, not to mention hospitals and MRI’s and more over 2 days. So rehearsal-wise, we are behind everyone else, but we are feeling confident that we can do something of value tomorrow. You’ll have to see.

I have much more to say to you all, but it’s an incredibly tired time for me.

Please, keep email and phone calls to an absolute minimum. I will not necessarily be by either with any time at all tomorrow. I have to ask your help in minimizing this.

thanks,

Woz

On Mar 23, 2009, at 2:41 PM, Steve Wozniak wrote:

http://abc.go.com/primetime/dancingwiththestars/index?pn=aboutthevote

If that URL doesn’t work, go to –Dancing With The Stars–click the “Vote Now” tab.

I can’t stress how important in my case the audience voting is. It can fairly easily make the difference between last place and first place. When you are in the dance-off, you have to take extra time preparing for it instead of your next dance, which gets you further behind for the next week’s dance. It’s unfortunately a case of positive feedback and votes can pull me out of that situation. If you pull me out, I will owe you and love you all forever, as I do people who attended my US Festivals.

best regards,

Woz

On Mar 23, 2009, at 6:46 PM, Steve Wozniak wrote:

Dress rehearsal had a wardrobe malfunction

My pants were falling down and I had to keep pulling them up!

Ha ha, everyone loved it.

Also, before heading to the stage, Karina was looking for me and the camera went down to me crawling on the floor with a hurt leg. They loved it so much they asked us to do it live tonight.

The pants are being repaired now. I can’t tell you how it feels to have your pants falling off in a dance. I lost too much weight again.

The worm went great in dress rehearsal. Enjoy the show tonight.

best wishes to all,

Woz

"DWTS" Diva Woz "Hams" It Up–Another Injury, Vote-Rigging and Teletubbies!

Kara Swisher — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:41:59 +0000

Apple (AAPL) co-founder Steve Wozniak sure knows how to make things dramatic.

For the second time, after a foot fracture, his continued appearance on the ABC celebrity show “Dancing With the Stars” (pictured here with partner Karina Smirnoff) appears in jeopardy, due to an apparent hamstring injury he suffered at practice on Friday.

Curiously, a photo of Woz on a stretcher and an update of his injured status were taken off his Woz.org blog sometime over the weekend (I saw the picture on Saturday night, but it is impossible to find now).

Also previously 86ed was a letter he had posted and then unposted about his contention that some vote-rigging was taking place on the show, which he leveled earlier in the week.

Woz had picked and then unpicked this fight with the “DWTS” producers about their use of drama to goose ratings, related to his dance-off last week as a last-place contender.

“The producers play games to get viewers and don’t disclose the numbers. If they disclosed the numbers, it would be less of a game, but still suspect,” he said at first last week.

In a follow-up email soon after, Woz did the verbal equivalent of a clumsy 180-spin: “Yesterday, I wrote my suspicions of the secret ‘Dancing With The Stars’ audience vote tabulations. I wrote that the producers were liars, simply because I truly believed in that possibility, not because I had a shred of evidence. I hurt a lot of honest people.”

Also, even better, Woz favorably compared himself to a Teletubby on his Web site (see picture here by Janet Wozniak).

Whew! And all this before he has even stepped onto the floor for the third week of “DWTS,” which airs live tonight.

All the hubbub seems to have worked, since the blogs are full of Woz’s antics and not those of other contestants. It is, in fact, a modern miracle that Woz has garnered more attention than the publicity heat-seeking missile that is Denise Richards.

Will the hobbled Woz be dancing the samba or foxtrot in that clodhopper nerd style that has endeared him to those in Silicon Valley who have voted early and often to keep him alive?

As they say: Tune in tonight!

Weekend Update, 3.21.09–March Madness Edition

Beth Callaghan — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:10:23 +0000

Technically, the term refers to the frenzied flow of games and the intensity of the contenders for the NCAA Championship crown. But the NCAA doesn’t have a corner on “March Madness”–those descriptors work well in other instances, too. To wit:

BoomTown posted from various spots in Europe this week, yet managed to follow the geek-tastic goodness of Silicon Valley’s own contender, Apple (AAPL) co-founder Steve Wozniak, who competed while injured this week on “Dancing With the Stars”–and escaped elimination via the love of viewers in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Another founder made the headlines this week–BoomTown noted that Steve Case appeared at a huge pep rally at Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL. Case and former AOL exec Ted Leonsis gave their support (and a lucky green tie) to new CEO Tim Armstrong. Elsewhere, Pure Digital, the maker of BoomTown’s favorite gadget–the ever-present Flip digital video camera–sold itself to Cisco (CSCO) for $590 million in stock, and BoomTown urged Silicon Valley to remember it’s not immune to the recession, to put its nose to the grindstone and to avoid party-hearty inanity.

Guess no one’s taking heed of the warning, though: MediaMemo reports that no one’s getting anything done at work–CBS (CBS) says its March Madness Web traffic is up 57 percent compared to last year. On top of that, television viewership rose various percentages throughout the week. MM wasn’t watching much basketball this week, though–there was plenty to blog about: The New York Times (NYT) cracked down on unauthorized use of its photos; Discovery Communications (DISCA) announced a patent infringement suit against Amazon and its Kindle Reader; Palm (PALM) delivered dismal third quarter results, putting even greater pressure on the success of the Pre; and in a Q&A with BusinessWeek editor Stephen Adler, Steve Ballmer said he’s open to a phone call from Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz whenever she’s ready to talk. Oh, and in case you were wondering what happened at SXSW, MediaMemo got a Google (GOOG) guy to explain it.

Digital Daily’s March Madness started with a liveblog of Apple’s St. Patrick’s Day press event to unveil version 3.0 of its iPhone OS, a chronicle of the myriad features displayed onstage and a live photoblog to back it up. DD noted that sales of the iPod touch and iPhone have outstripped RIM’s (RIMM) combined BlackBerry sales by a factor of… well, by a LOT. Kind of supports the data that say mobile Web use doubled over the last year. Which is good, because Mac sales were no good in February.

In Personal Technology, Walt Mossberg reviewed the latest release of Microsoft IE8 (MSFT), its most comprehensive release in many years. His verdict? Mixed, of course. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt talked to readers about the many models of BlackBerry phones and how they differ from one another, the new iPod shuffle and its earphone compatibility and upgrading Vista to Windows 7. In the Mossberg Solution, Katie Boehret reviewed the Ee Top, Asus’s first foray into the all-in-one PC market.

More next week. Go Woz!

Woz-Tastic? Well, No–But Steve Lives to Dance Another Day!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:41:51 +0000

Doing the quickstep and wearing taped nerd glasses to the tune of Buddy Holly’s “Oh, Boy!,” Steve Wozniak’s dance stylings on “Dancing With the Stars” this week was more like “Oh, Brother!”

Nonetheless, support of geeks world-wide and an infectious spirit kept the Apple (AAPL) co-founder in the running on the ABC television competition by besting former Go-Go’s singer Belinda Carlisle in dance-off elimination.

With his very patient partner, Karina Smirnoff, and with an injured foot, Woz keep up the pace and did his Monday night dance over on Tuesday, as one of the two lowest-scoring couples.

And while the judges dissed his skills again, even though they did compliment Woz’s enthusiasm, the viewer votes sent him over the top–proof that it is marketing and not product quality that can sometimes win the day.

Woz is dancing as badly as he can with a pink boa, Silicon Valley, so get out there and make your 13 votes each count!

In any case, here’s his latest outing:

An Injured Woz Dances On: You Owe Him Your Vote!

Kara Swisher — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:32:08 +0000

Last week, BoomTown turned partisan in what is perhaps our only truly fair election these days: “Dancing With the Stars.”

Because he is so lovably dorktastic, it seems as if Silicon Valley has to pull out all the stops to make sure the anti-Fred Astaire stylings of Apple (APPL) co-founder Steve Wozniak remain in the television competition.

Woe to everyone when it was revealed that he had hurt himself dancing, with a fractured leg.

But–unlike other competitors who have been sidelined by injuries–Woz is sticking, and is headed into a quickstep routine tonight.

There are several updates by Woz on his Facebook page here, with one note yesterday saying, in part:

“I found that I was getting delirious from the energy expenditure of yesterday and I could barely walk at all, even in my socks. I have never looked so funny or so in pain in my life. It took me about 5 minutes just to maneuver my body into the bathtub. I don’t take baths normally, and anyone who knows me knows that it would take a great occasion or emergency to get me into a bath, but I needed it badly.”

TMI! But let’s try to ignore it and move on!

The next broadcast of “Dancing with the Stars” is tonight at 8 p.m. EST, with the voting open for various times after the show via phone, SMS or online. Also, Chicago-style, you can vote up to 13 times, but check with the ABC site for all the rules.

The first results show is tomorrow night. That’ll be scary given that Woz scored a paltry 13 points from the snotty judges for last week’s cha-cha disaster, although it’s not clear what the public thought of his debut dance.

So, if his quickstep is–it has to be said–like quicksand, stuffing the ballot box is the only option for geek domination.

As you will see from this video of his first outing, Woz needs all the help he can get:

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