AllThingsD » Web browser

Going Back to Internet Explorer

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:59:04 +0000

A few years ago we moved our company completely off of Internet Explorer to Firefox because you wrote in your column that IE had security holes and lacked speed. Our IT Services provider has told us that IE9 has solved all the pitfalls of previous versions, it’s the safest yet, and there are many business-oriented sites that are much friendlier to IE. So is it OK to go back?

I haven’t done a comparative browser review in a while, but I do agree that Internet Explorer has improved tremendously in speed, security and features. I think IE9 is a good browser and a reasonable choice, assuming you are a 100% Windows shop. IE is the only major browser that lacks a Mac version.

Some caveats: Each of the major browsers has improved, and, by some measures, some competitors beat IE in speed. A new, fast-rising contender since I wrote that old column is Google’s Chrome, which I find to be fast and reliable. IE’s market share, while still the highest, has shrunk dramatically and the browser market is more balanced. Finally, the number of business-oriented sites that require or do better in IE has been greatly reduced from, say, five years ago.

Focus! No Willpower Required.

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 22:30:44 +0000

Sitting at a computer and trying to concentrate can be nearly impossible between incoming email alerts, ever-changing Twitter feeds, new instant message notifications and Facebook lurking a click away in the browser.

Sorry, what was I talking about again?

Sixty-two percent of teens who go online think that the Internet keeps young people from doing more important things, according to the Pew Research Center. And Americans spend more time on Facebook than any other website, says Nielsen.

This week I took a closer look at a few methods to avoid distractions while on the computer. They range from Web browser tools to computer software programs to controls built into the operating system.

Of course, these are of little use if you don’t banish received email. Still, the computer remains the place where people do most of their work. With a little help from one of these tools, you might be startled by how much more you can get done.

Cutting the Cord (Sort of)

Several solutions make computers behave as if they’re not connected to the Internet. Some can be set to a certain amount of time, while others limit social networks and still others limit specific websites.

A software program called Freedom works on Windows PCs and Macs and is free for up to five users. After that, it costs $10 for one copy that works on all computers with the same operating system (like a household with four Macs).

Each time it’s used, Freedom can disable your computer’s networking for up to eight hours. Since most people will try to turn this off, perhaps to quickly check something online, Freedom is designed so it can’t be disabled once a session is started unless a person reboots the entire computer.

Most people won’t do this, because they have several windows and other programs opened and don’t want to take the time to shut down and start up the computer.

In one of my tests, I set a Freedom session to last one hour. I was given the option to maintain access to my local network for things like connecting to a printer or another computer, but I opted to go whole hog. After entering my password (Freedom requires administrator access) and starting the session, I was startled by how much I use the Internet without thinking about it while working.

A $15 program called Anti-Social, made by the same man who created Freedom, specifically turns off social components of the Internet for certain amounts of time. These include Facebook, Twitter, and other programs you name like Skype and email. Anti-Social is currently only available for Macs, but a Windows version is expected to be available in early 2012.

StayFocusd is an example of a free browser extension that limits the time you spend each day on certain specified websites. It works exclusively with Google’s Chrome Web browser. Users can designate how much time each day they want to allow themselves on certain sites.

Setting this up seemed to take a little too much work. For those in need of extreme measures, StayFocusd’s Nuclear option blocks all Internet connections. It can only be disabled by performing a challenge, like correctly retyping a long, heavily punctuated phrase.

Help Has Already Arrived

Some programs that you may already use offer built-in ways of aiding concentration. One example is Microsoft Word for Mac 2011. When used in Full Screen View, all distracting alerts—including pop-up email or instant message alerts, TweetDeck notifications, and even the computer’s clock—are hidden from view. I use this regularly when I’m writing for work, and it helps me a lot.

The Windows and Mac operating systems have built-in parental controls that can limit the amount of overall computer time used by each family member each day. Neither operating system can be set to limit just the amount of online time each family member uses. But both operating systems can be set to limit access to certain websites and programs, so you could potentially set your computer up to disallow access to distracting sites, like Facebook.

Big Brother Is Watching

Another solution is to install monitoring software that tracks behavior and shows you the results. It works a bit like keeping a food journal: Seeing the raw data can shock you into changing your behavior.

I tried RescueTime, which I installed on my PC (it works on Windows or Mac) and it kept a log of the amount of time I spent with each program, including specific websites.

RescueTime sends weekly email summaries, or users can select the program’s icon at any time to see current stats. It collects user data anonymously and reveals how your productivity compares with other users of the product.

RescueTime is offered in a free version and a version that costs $72 a year or $9 a month.

Not everyone will respond the same way to the same distraction-proofing program, but using these types of programs could be the first step toward feeling more productive and in control of your work time.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com

Google Unveils a Laptop With Its Brain in the Cloud

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 01:05:02 +0000

Would you buy a laptop that comes with only one major program—a Web browser—and doesn’t allow you to install widely used software such as Microsoft Office, Apple’s iTunes, Adobe Reader, or, in fact, any other locally installed program?

Are you ready for a laptop that has almost no storage space to hold your personal files, photos and videos, and is designed around the idea that you’ll keep all that precious personal stuff on remote servers?

[ See post to watch video ]

How about a laptop that can do almost nothing unless it has an active Internet connection; for instance, one that wouldn’t let you read and write email, or check your calendar, offline? Would you buy that?

Google is hoping you will. This month it introduced a line of just such radical machines, in partnership with two laptop makers, Samsung and Acer. They are called Chromebooks, after Google’s Chrome Web browser, which is the gateway for everything they do. And they are meant to challenge the two dominant computer platforms, Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s Mac OS X.

These laptops are “cloud” computers—essentially full-screen Web browsers designed to do everything via the Internet. Instead of using traditional programs, you will rely on “Web apps” accessed through the browser—email programs, word processors or photo editors, for example.

Series 5 Chromebook by Samsung, one of Google’s partners on the new laptop.

I’ve been testing one of the Chromebooks, the Samsung Series 5, a handsome, relatively light machine with a 12-inch screen. It costs $430 for a Wi-Fi version and $500 for a model that also includes a built-in modem for cellular Internet connectivity, which requires a monthly fee if you exceed the modest amount of free data Google gives you.

My verdict is that, while the Chromebook is a bold idea that may be a harbinger of the future of computing, it’s too limited and buggy today to be the main computer relied upon by mainstream users. I can’t recommend it over a standard laptop, except perhaps as a secondary machine for techies or early adopters.

The Chromebook does have some advantages over Windows and Mac laptops. But Google concedes these traditional laptops can run all the same Web apps as a Chromebook, in addition to running local programs, storing all your files and operating offline. Even tablets, like Apple’s iPad and competitors based on Google’s Android operating system can run hundreds of thousands of locally installed apps and Web apps as well. And they can run offline and store files locally. The Chromebook offers only about 5,000 Web apps today. Plus, tablets weigh less than half the 3.3 pounds of the Samsung Series 5, and are much slimmer, though they have smaller screens and lack the Chromebook’s physical keyboard.

As for price, there are numerous Windows laptops that cost the same or less. You can buy a Toshiba Satellite with a 15-inch screen, three gigabytes of memory, and a 320 gigabyte hard disk for $400. And it’s powered by one of Intel’s latest and most powerful processors, while the Samsung Chromebook uses the wimpy Intel Atom processor, primarily found on inexpensive netbooks.

But Google is a smart, forward-looking company and there’s a logic to the Chromebook, which it sees as the first laptop designed for the Internet era. And it does have some attractive advantages over PCs and Macs:

Cloud computing is here to stay and many people already rely daily on Internet-based software, like Web mail programs or streaming video services. So a cloud-centric computer isn’t a crazy idea. To help find useful Web-based apps, the Chromebook has a Web app store, similar to the app stores on tablets and smartphones. (The same store is built into the Chrome browser on PCs and Macs.)
The Chromebook starts up almost instantly—in 10 to 15 seconds in my tests—much more quickly than most Windows machines. This is partly because it’s really just a big Web browser. In my tests, Apple’s MacBook Air started just about as quickly, but it costs twice as much.
The Chromebook claims very long battery life—a whopping 8.5 hours for the model I tested. I didn’t do a formal battery test, but I was able to go for several days of intermittent use without charging it.
Because all your apps, settings and files are stored in the cloud, if you lose your Chromebook, or wish to use someone else’s Chromebook, you can just log into your Google account and all your stuff will appear on the new machine.
Google automatically updates the operating system, so you don’t have to deal with manual updates.
Google claims that, because every app runs in a tab in the browser, and those tabs are walled off from the rest of the system, the Chromebook is much more secure than other computers and doesn’t require security software. The system even checks to see if it has been tampered with every time it starts.
As for the offline problem, Google provides a small amount of memory to which you can save some files. You can insert a flash memory card or USB flash drive containing files. Some of these files, like images and PDFs, can be viewed offline in the browser, but not edited.

And the machine contains crude built-in music and video players, and a simple note-taking function, which work offline. Google says a handful of Web apps today work offline as well, and it is planning this summer to bring the same offline functionality to its own Gmail, Google Docs and calendar apps.

Top left, you can log into someone else’s Chromebook and find all your stuff there; while the keyboard is nice, the touch pad was clumsy to use.

But there are problems. For instance, I found watching a live baseball game to be a jerky, halting experience. Google blames this on the weak processor it’s using. And Netflix doesn’t work at all. Google says it’s working on this.

Also, while the keyboard is nice, and even includes special keys for switching between Web pages and browser windows, I found the touch pad on the Samsung to be imprecise and clumsy to use.

The Chromebook also crashed on me four times, mostly because of a “memory leak” problem Google says it will fix.

Printing, which only works over Google’s “cloud print” service and can’t be done via a cable, worked only some of the time for me.

And common files don’t automatically open in Web apps, though Google says it is also working on that.

It’s important to note that when you use a Chromebook you are trusting Google with the privacy and security of your data, and the company has run into occasional issues on both counts.

The bottom line: The best and most numerous programs are still designed for Windows and the Mac, and we still live in a world without ubiquitous, speedy, low-cost, unlimited wireless connectivity. So typical laptop users are better off with computers designed for the current hybrid world, where both robust offline and online functions are needed.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, walt.allthingsd.com. Write to him at mossberg@wsj.com.

A Social Web Browser

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 04:05:44 +0000

Believe it or not, there’s a Web browser out there that’s as obsessed with social networking as you are. Maybe more.

I’m talking about RockMelt, the latest attention-grabbing Web browser that continuously displays information from Facebook, Twitter and news feeds on the left and right edges of its browser window. It lets users instantly share Web content with their social networks, or chat with Facebook friends without ever opening the Facebook site. And RockMelt, which was released to the public last month, runs on the same technical underpinnings as the Google Chrome browser, giving it the ability to run any of Google’s 3,700 Web Store apps within the browser.

[ See post to watch video ]

I got a pre-release version of the RockMelt mobile app for iPhone, now available in the Apple App Store at http://j.mp/g5dCCP, and I have been testing it to see how it fares on the iPhone. (Eric Vishria, RockMelt’s CEO, said the company hopes to bring this app to Google’s Android operating system.) RockMelt is well suited for use on the go, but key elements of the browser are missing in the mobile app.

One of my favorite features of the RockMelt app is that it and the PC Web browser are constantly synchronized. This means any new bookmarks or news feeds I added on either the PC or the iPhone, or any articles marked as View Later—a helpful tool that saves links for accessing at a later time— will be mirrored on both platforms within seconds. So if you mark seven articles as View Later from your desktop PC, then leave the office and stand in line at the post office, you can access those articles from your iPhone.

The RockMelt iPhone app

But the mobile app is missing two key chunks that make this browser so socially comprehensive on the PC: a dynamic search function and friends. The PC version of RockMelt has a search box that automatically includes your Facebook friends in each search and suggests links to Web content in a drop-down screen as you go. The mobile app’s search is limited to a simple Google search box.

On the PC version, the entire left side of the browser window is lined with Facebook friends—a feature RockMelt calls the Friend Edge. Each friend is represented by a thumbnail image of his or her profile photo, and good friends can be starred and sorted into a separate list, helping users quickly see updates or instant-message-chat availability for the people who matter most to them. Hovering the cursor over a thumbnail image displays each person’s latest Facebook activity, and selecting someone’s photo opens a window for Facebook chats, writing on another person’s Facebook wall (Web page) or sending a Facebook message.

On RockMelt’s mobile app, this Friend Edge is missing. Mr. Vishria said that while he doesn’t see chat as a killer addition to mobile, like it is on the desktop, he is still thinking about how to incorporate other aspects of the Friend Edge into mobile.

It’s a cinch to post status updates from RockMelt on the iPhone to Facebook or Twitter, including photos or Web links, which can be automatically shortened. And any website can be bookmarked, marked as View Later, or shared with friends via Facebook or Twitter.

I liked using the Add Feeds button at the bottom of the mobile app. This works as a quick and simple way to automatically retrieve content from certain websites. Feeds can be selected from eight categories of content including Popular, Humor, Sports and Technology. I picked a bunch of feeds, including People.com and the Onion, and each added feed synchronized with the PC version of the browser, showing up there when I next sat down at my computer.

It’s worth mentioning that neither the PC version nor the mobile app is usable unless you have a Facebook account. This is understandable, considering how much Facebook is integrated with the browser, but it alienates a bunch of people who either don’t have a Facebook account or don’t feel comfortable entering their Facebook credentials. A Facebook username and password must be entered when installing RockMelt on any computer or the mobile app, insuring that each version of the browser is synchronizing in the cloud and displaying the same content.

RockMelt’s roots trace back to the Netscape browser founded in the early 1990s. One of RockMelt’s co-founders was at Netscape and it’s backed by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen’s venture-capital group. It was originally introduced as a private beta (read: downloadable by invitation only) in November and became available to the public last month. However, each account still includes six invitations, which users are prompted to send to friends as a means of word-of-mouth promotion.

Those who will really appreciate RockMelt on the PC and on the iPhone are the same people who think of Facebook or Twitter as their main means of digital communication. (Most sharing in this browser is done via social networks, not email.) If you fit that description, RockMelt will be a great tool for integrating social networking into your Web browsing. Just don’t expect too much Facebook friend interaction on the mobile app.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com

New, Lean Firefox 4: Re-Built to Play Catch-Up

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 01:13:33 +0000

In the long browser wars, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has been the leader. But the sentimental favorite was Mozilla’s Firefox, mostly because it was faster, hewed better to Internet standards and offered an unmatched array of third-party add-ons that enhanced its functionality.

[ See post to watch video ]

In recent years, however, Firefox has slipped. It lost its speed dominance to Google’s upstart Chrome browser and to Apple’s Safari. And as its rivals stripped down their interfaces to make more room for Web content, Firefox remained saddled with lots of toolbars and menus.

This week, Mozilla is striking back. It released a sleeker, faster new edition, called Firefox 4, for both Windows and Mac.

After testing it, my verdict is that this new version is an improvement, but many of its new features are catch-ups to those present in other browsers.

Mozilla, a Silicon Valley nonprofit organization, this week also released a new mobile version of Firefox for phones running Google’s Android operating system. I took a quick look at the Android version, which seems good, but this review is focused on the computer version.

Google on the Firefox browser

Though Mozilla doesn’t say so, I believe one reason for the revamp is to try to win back the hearts and minds of those techies and influential users who shun IE and once swore by Firefox.

My anecdotal observation is that these folks have been shifting gradually to Chrome. In addition, the big gun, Microsoft, last fall released a new version of IE that is faster and slicker than prior editions.

I tested Firefox 4 on three Windows PCs and two Macs, and compared it with its three main rivals (for IE, I was able to do this comparison only on Windows, as it lacks a Mac version).

Snappy Handling

I found the new Firefox to be snappy. It easily handled video-heavy sites and “Web apps,” including Web-based email programs, simple games, productivity sites like Google Docs and the like. Some of these more complex sites use a new and evolving Web standard called HTML 5, which Mozilla has strongly supported. The new browser didn’t noticeably slow down for me, even when many tabs were opened.

But, in my comparative speed tests, which involve opening groups of tabs simultaneously, or opening single, popular sites, like Facebook, Firefox was often beaten by Chrome and Safari, and even, in some cases, by the new version 9 of IE, which has ramped up its own speed.

I should stress that these tests, which I conducted on a Hewlett-Packard desktop PC running Windows 7, generally showed very slight differences among the browsers. Their speeds are converging. But Firefox 4 won only a couple of them.

Options for the synchronization feature

Sleek Features

Still, speed isn’t everything. The main new features in Firefox 4 do a lot to streamline the browser. As with its rivals, the tabs have been moved to the top.

In the Windows version, the menu bar functions have been consolidated into a new orange “Firefox button” at the upper left, though you can turn the menu bar back on if you like. In another streamlining move, bookmarks are now accessed through a single button, though you can turn back to the familiar bookmarks toolbar.

Taking a cue from Chrome, Firefox now lets you permanently “pin” tabs for favorite sites to the tab bar. These appear as small icons to the left of the bar, and are always open. They are called app tabs, because Mozilla assumes they’ll be used primarily for app-like sites such as Web email, which you check frequently.

If something changes on a pinned site, such as a new email arriving, the app tabs notify you with a slight glow effect. (IE embeds icons for favorite sites right in the Windows taskbar.)

Favorite Sites Fast

Another nice new feature is called Panorama. It allows you to group thumbnails of tabs representing favorite sites, name the group, and then open its contents in tabs at once. For instance, you might use this feature to get quickly to all your favorite news or sports sites.

I also successfully tested a synchronization feature, which allows you to view on one PC or Mac the bookmarks, history and open tabs from a copy of Firefox running on another.

It even worked when I tried it on the Android version of Firefox. This ability to synch with mobile devices is likely to be a bigger deal as Web surfing continues to shift away from PCs.

However, like a similar synchronization feature in Chrome, the one in Firefox doesn’t work across different browsers. An add-on program called Xmarks, which I use daily, does.

Privacy Option

Like IE, the new Firefox also includes an emerging, optional privacy feature called Do Not Track that sends a signal to websites to stop tracking your Internet activity. However, the tool won’t be fully useful unless a large majority of sites agree to obey it. The idea, though, is getting traction among some advertisers and publishers.

If you are a Firefox fan, the new version will take some getting used to, but I recommend upgrading, at mozilla.com.

If you currently rely on another browser, Firefox 4 is worth a look, but you aren’t likely to see lots of big features you haven’t seen before.

Find all of Walt’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Microsoft Adds Do-Not-Track Tool to Browser

Nick Wingfield and Julia Angwin — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 07:00:42 +0000

A new version of Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer to be released Tuesday will be the first major Web browser to include a do-not-track tool that helps people keep their online habits from being monitored.

Microsoft’s decision to include the tool in Internet Explorer 9 means Google Inc. and Apple Inc. are the only big providers of browsers that haven’t yet declared their support for a do-no-track system in their products. In January, Mozilla Corp. said it would include a do-not-track feature in an upcoming version of its Firefox browser. Internet Explorer is the most widely used browser.

The moves by Microsoft and Mozilla reflect an unusually fast adoption of an idea—the do-not-track system—that was first officially proposed by the Federal Trade Commission only three months ago. It highlights the pressure the industry faces to provide people with a way to control how they are tracked and targeted online, as lawmakers and regulators threaten to rein in the practice.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Maybe UltraViolet, the Ginormous Media Cloud Locker Thingy, Won't Fail, After All. What Do You Say, Steve Jobs?

Peter Kafka — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:01:14 +0000

I’m very, very wary of typing this, because it’s about a yet-to-be-released product that’s being demoed at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Which means it could all be from the Island of Pretendistan, which supplies a good portion of the stuff you see every year at CES.

But! It’s possible that “UltraViolet,” the super-ambitious/probably-way-too-unwieldy coalition of just about every big media and tech company except Apple, may actually work. If Steve Jobs will let it.

The big idea behind UltraViolet is that it will let consumers purchase media that can work on multiple devices, using a cloud-based “rights locker.” So someone who bought, say, a “Harry Potter” DVD can watch it on their Blu-ray player, but also on their iPad, or their friend’s Google TV, or whatever.

It’s supposed to start rolling out this spring, and it’s a good idea. In theory.

In practice, even if the group putting this together–everyone from Akamai to Sony to Microsoft to Time Warner–can get the technology to work on every platform, the fact that Apple isn’t playing along is a huge problem. The music industry used to have a “works on most devices except for Apple” standard, and it was called Windows Media Audio. Remember? No?

But today Akamai, which is powering the back end for UltraViolet, will demo a version of the service on four devices: A Windows-based PC, a Mac, an iPad and an iPhone.

The UltraViolet people still don’t have Apple’s buy-in on the project, but the demo is meant to prove that the coalition can still work with Apple’s products, even if Apple doesn’t formally sign up. They’re accomplishing that by playing the Mac stuff on a Web browser, and on the iPhone and iPad via an iOS app that Akamai hasn’t submitted to Apple yet.

But the Akamai people say they don’t see why Apple will have a problem with the app, and stress they’ve been working closely with Apple to make sure that their tech synchs with the iOS platform.

They could be right, too. Apple lets plenty of other companies sell products that compete with Apple’s own media offerings via the App Store: Amazon’s Kindle, Pandora, Hulu, Spotify (sort of), etc.

If so, then UltraViolet really could pan out, if the coalition doesn’t screw it up with byzantine restrictions and pricing tiers–$X amount for a DVD, $X+Y for a DVD with iPhone privileges, etc. (It’ll probably do just that, actually.)

Still, Steve Jobs has been very successful at tending a walled garden. And if UltraViolet really works, it means he’d be letting someone else manage Apple customers’ media, and letting all that work he’s put into nurturing the Mac/iTunes/iOS ecosystem go to waste.

Theoretically possible. But so is a lot of the stuff we see at CES that never shows up anywhere else.

AKAMAI DEMONSTRATES DELIVERY OF ULTRAVIOLET ENTERTAINMENT

· Prototype unveiled at CES for delivering content that meets the UltraViolet specifications
· UltraViolet is a new industry standard that makes it easier for consumers to purchase, access and watch digital entertainment from a variety of locations and devices

2011 International Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas – January 6, 2011 – Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading provider of cloud optimization services, today announced its involvement with the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) LLC, and demonstrated a prototype for delivering digital home entertainment content according to DECE’s recently announced UltraViolet specifications. UltraViolet represents a new way for consumers to enjoy greater choice and flexibility in how, when and where they collect and watch digital movies and TV shows.

While not yet commercialized, the prototype Akamai unveils at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will detail how its video delivery platform will allow consumers to experience UltraViolet movies and TV content they have purchased. It is also designed to enable retailers to more easily bring UltraViolet services to market. When consumers buy UltraViolet entertainment, the access rights to that content can be stored in their UltraViolet account and digital locker, which is accessible across multipleplatforms and devices. In addition to easy access, UltraViolet is designed to increase the value of digital entertainment by enabling streaming as well as download and burn to physical media functionality.

“One key facet of UltraViolet’s open-specs design is the ability for world-class infrastructure and B2B service providers like Akamai to accelerate retailers’ deployments, with premium-quality enablement and delivery on a cost-efficient basis,” said Mark Teitell, general manager of DECE. “As a member of DECE, Akamai’s prototyping of this UltraViolet experience is a great example of how individual companies’ initiative and market development will combine with our industry-standard technical specs to bring UltraViolet to consumers this year.”

The integrated Akamai video delivery platform and the UltraViolet digital locker are designed to enable leading retailers to quickly bring premium, turn-keyUltraViolet-compliant services to market. Beginning with the sale of physical media like Blu-ray discs that come with UltraViolet, retailers will be able to extend their relationship with consumers to include UltraViolet-compliant services to stream high definition content to connected devices such as Internet TVs and Blu-ray players, and mobile apps for smartphones and tablets.

“Over the last decade, Akamai has had the privilege of working with the top retailers, consumer electronic manufacturers and media and entertainment companies to accelerate their websites and enable high-quality digital media experiences,” said Steven Chester, Akamai Vice President of Film. “Akamai believes that our distributed global network is uniquely able to provide the scale, security and quality required for the industry’s next phase of business model innovation. Akamai’s goal is to enable retailers and content providers to take advantage of the incredible opportunity presented by UltraViolet, and be a part of bringing the next generation of premium home entertainment services to the market.”.

Google Goes To the Cloud For New Idea In PC System

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 02:03:25 +0000

In the personal-computer industry, where things change fast, one fact has been a constant for years: There are two major, mainstream operating systems for consumers. One, Microsoft Windows, runs on many brands of hardware and dominates sales. The other, Apple’s Mac OS X, runs only on its maker’s Macintosh computers, and has had a resurgence in popularity in recent years. Other contenders, such as various versions of Linux, have remained on the fringes.

[ See post to watch video ]

Next summer, however, Google hopes to add a third broad-based computer-operating system to challenge the duopoly. It’s called Chrome OS, and is based on Google’s Chrome Web browser. With Chrome, Google isn’t just aiming to elbow its way into the OS business. It’s hoping to change the entire paradigm. Instead of storing most programs and files on your computer itself, the Chrome OS will mainly run programs from, and require you to keep your data in, the cloud—remote servers located on the Internet. In effect, it turns your entire computer into a giant Web browser, instead of treating the browser as just one among many local programs.

The Chrome OS isn’t finished, and isn’t ready for broad public testing. Google readily concedes it has lots of bugs and rough edges. But the company has designed a small test laptop with the new operating system installed and distributed “a few thousand” of them to outsiders to try.

A Cr-48 test machine, with Chrome OS installed. Chrome will be licensed to select manufacturers.

I have been using this machine, called the Cr-48, for about a week, and have some explanations and first impressions to share. This isn’t a formal review; that will have to wait till the product is finished and is on commercial computers.

I focused mainly on the software, which is built on a Linux underpinning. That’s because Google doesn’t ever intend to sell the Cr-48 hardware, an all-black, unbranded laptop with a 12-inch screen, a rubbery surface and a large, buttonless touchpad that resembles those pioneered on the Mac.

In my tests, I found this early Chrome OS machine to be fast, with decent battery life and almost instant resumption from sleep. It handled most Web sites fine, and worked almost exactly like the very nice Chrome browser on Windows and Mac.

I also liked the one hardware feature worth mentioning: a radically redesigned keyboard. Instead of function keys, or various legacy keys such as Caps Lock, Chrome OS keyboards feature dedicated browser-oriented keys, like ones for moving back and forth among Web pages and windows, refreshing a page, entering full-screen mode, or quickly opening a new tab and beginning a search.

The Chrome OS will have a big advantage. Because it is mainly a front-end-to-cloud service, if you lose your laptop, you can get another one and just sign into your cloud accounts. You should be able to find all your stuff waiting for you.

However, users of the Chrome OS will have a huge adjustment to make. They will have to give up the rich, local programs they have spent years learning to use and tweaking to their liking. You can’t install local programs on a Chrome OS computer. Instead, Google provides a Web Store inside the browser that allows you to download icons for “Web apps”—mostly websites designed to look and work like standard programs.

Some of these, like Gmail, are familiar and popular. Others are newer. For instance, the New York Times and AOL already designed Web-based news apps for Chrome OS, and there is a Web-based version of the TweetDeck program for Twitter. These apps, and the store’s own icon, appear on the new Tab screen of Chrome OS (and also are available in the current Chrome browser.)

In my tests, I found these apps generally worked fine. But most aren’t as rich and versatile as local Windows and Mac programs. For example, there was no way to play my local, personalized iTunes music collection, unless I spent many hours uploading it to some Web-based service.

I also had to settle for Web-based productivity programs—like word processors and spreadsheets—with many fewer features than standard local ones, such as Microsoft Office.

And I ran into plenty of frustrations. At this stage, Chrome OS can’t do anything with USB flash drives or SD memory cards, and can’t synchronize phones. And it has a very limited ability to store, or allow you to do anything with, email attachments or other files you might download and prefer to keep locally rather than on a server controlled by somebody else.

Printing was a chore, requiring a complicated setup on a Windows computer that Chrome used as a conduit to a printer.

Plus, Chrome OS is hardly stable yet. I suffered numerous crashes of Adobe’s Flash player, and even Google’s own Google Talk instant-messaging service, which appears in a little pop-up window on top of the browser. The company says it hopes to fix these problems by next summer.

Finally, the biggest downside: Because it’s a cloud-oriented system, Chrome OS is almost useless if you lack an Internet connection. Google says it plans to offer some limited offline functionality, and to encourage makers of Web apps to do the same. It will also eventually be able to make some use of some files stored on external hard disks. But the basic operating mode will require you to be connected to the Internet.

To help with this, the Cr-48 has a Verizon cellular modem built in, to supplement its Wi-Fi connectivity. Verizon is offering 100 megabytes of data free, but that is a small amount, and you have to pay for more.

Like the Mac OS, but unlike Windows or Google’s own smartphone operating system, Android, the Chrome OS will be deeply integrated with hardware. So, Google doesn’t plan to distribute or license the new operating system to every hardware maker—at least not at first. You won’t be able to install it on an existing computer. It will be available in 2011 on a limited number of computer models from selected manufacturers.

Google says this is because security is a high priority and requires special hardware designs that tightly bond with the software.

Also, Chrome OS computers will, in some respects, be more like iPads than laptops. They won’t have hard disks, just a limited amount of flash-memory storage, and they won’t have DVD drives.

They are an attempt to realize the old idea of a “network computer,” or one which is mostly a front end for network services.

Of course, many people already spend most of their time with their PCs and Macs connected to the Net. Many use Web-based email programs or streaming music programs instead of local software.

So the time may be right for a cloud computer, a change in the paradigm. Google certainly hopes so.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

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

Putting Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 Through Its Paces

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 22:17:34 +0000

In the continuing tug of war between apps and the Web, Microsoft offered a little bit of both last month in its beta release of Internet Explorer 9, the latest iteration of the world’s most popular Web browser. IE 9, as it’s nicknamed, is designed to make websites look richer, respond faster and behave more like the apps installed on your PC so you forget that you’re browsing the Web.

[ See post to watch video ]

Alas, you are still browsing the Web and the occasional sluggish behavior doesn’t always magically abate after downloading a shiny new browser.

I tested IE 9 against its rivals, including speed tests with stopwatch in hand, as well as overall use tests to see how this new browser handled websites with complex graphics.

Fast, Sometimes Faster

I found my experience with IE 9 to be fast, and in some tests, faster on average than Google (GOOG) Chrome, Apple’s (AAPL) Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox browser. It also handled graphically rich websites with no trouble. (IE 9 is free for Windows PCs at beautyoftheweb.com.)

I used two Windows 7 PCs for testing, and though one performed without any problems, the other crashed two times while I used IE 9.

After a thorough analysis of the PC, a Microsoft (MSFT) spokesman attributed this to a graphics-driver problem and suggested a work-around of switching settings in IE 9 so it would use software rather than hardware graphics acceleration, which this new browser uses to improve speed and performance. This switch would cause the browser to perform slower than if it had used the richer hardware-accelerated graphics.

Using the four major browsers, I measured the average time for how long it took each to completely open five typical websites: Facebook, Google Gmail, Twitter, WSJ.com and my sister’s WordPress blog. IE 9 opened Facebook fastest and tied with Chrome in opening WSJ.com fastest. Firefox clocked the best time for opening Gmail and Twitter, and Safari opened my sister’s WordPress blog the fastest.

Handling Intense Graphics

But most of these time differences were within tenths or even hundredths of a second. What interested me more were how these browsers handled intense graphics on certain websites written in a rich format called HTML5.

I opened and interacted with websites including Livestrong.com, BMW’s joydefinesthefuture.com and IMDB.com. All the browsers could handle these sites except for Firefox, which couldn’t open the BMW site—a Web page that shows interactive diagrams of car designs. Videos played smoothly in all browsers, but seemed to start a smidge faster, on average, in IE 9.

If users aren’t impressed with IE 9′s enhanced speed and ability to handle graphics-filled websites, they’ll have a harder time ignoring the way this browser melds with Windows 7 to do some pretty cool things. For example, to automatically create a shortcut to a website, click on its representative icon, whether from the browser’s address bar or from a New Tab page, and drag it down and pin it to the task bar.

This pinned site is represented with its own unique icon and can work as a notification feature for a site’s content. Facebook, when pinned to the task bar, displayed a red asterisk when I had new notifications, messages, or friend requests waiting for me.

A Microsoft spokesman says there should be more sites that take advantage of these notification capabilities in coming weeks.

Once pinned to the Windows taskbar, the Livestrong.com site gets its own jump list, or set of commands that can be selected from the task bar.

Getting Pinned

Like anything pinned to the task bar in Windows 7, each of these pinned sites gets its own jump list, a set of commands that can be previewed and selected right from the task bar. Other functions also work from here, like playback commands for websites with videos. And any opened site can be previewed in thumbnail view by mousing over it in the task bar.

IE 9 is visually enjoyable thanks to some small but helpful tweaks.

The browser’s back button, an arrow in a circle, is much larger than other browsers, making it easy to find and use when you want to navigate back to the last page you were on. This back button and the forward arrow button beside it change colors according to the dominant color used in the opened website.

For Gmail, the arrow buttons are red, on AllThingsD.com, the buttons are green and on my sister’s WordPress travel blog, they’re light blue. This artistic touch makes the overall page easier on the eyes.

IE 9 lets people drag website icons down into the task bar for one-click access.

Many sites look the same on IE 9 as they do on other browsers, but some sites look better, filling the screen with slightly bigger illustrations and larger fonts that are easier to digest. I noticed this when viewing Twitter.com and several news websites.

The Birthday Slip

But I missed some of the visual pluses of other browsers. For example, you can’t close one of several opened browser tabs just by clicking on its red “x” icon unless you select—and, thus, view—that tabbed webpage.

Chrome, Firefox and Safari all allow closing of tabs by just mousing over a tab to see an “x” to click to close the website.

Handy shortcuts like this are especially helpful if you’re browsing online for a birthday gift, the intended recipient suddenly appears beside your PC and you need to slyly close a tab.

I’m also not crazy about the New Tab page in IE 9. This uses tiles with names of websites and small icons on each to represent your 10 most visited websites so you can quickly select one of them rather than typing out the page’s URL.

But I prefer the way Google Chrome displays the eight most visited sites as mini web page representations, which are easier to quickly recognize and select.

Likewise, the click of a button in Apple’s Safari browser shows mini representations of your 12 top websites in a concave view that makes you feel like you’re sitting in a round room. And though IE 9 has a handsome translucent border, when I had it opened in front of Google Chrome, I could see Chrome’s tabs behind that translucency, showing just how much more computer screen real estate Chrome offers.

Aside from my unusual PC crashes, IE 9 worked quickly and is smartly designed to handle websites with intense graphics. The Web will continue to fill with more and more of these visually rich, interactive sites, so people will benefit from using a browser like IE 9 that can take the heat.

Email Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com.

Opera Reports Surge in Mobile Web Use

Beth Callaghan — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:11:08 +0000

Opera Software ASA, maker of Opera Mini, the dominant mobile Web browser, reports that as of August 2010, global usage grew 108.3 percent since August 2009, and 6.8 percent since July 2010 alone. Pageviews increased 143.2 percent since 2009, and 14.3 percent since July 2010. Opera Mini commands 24.8 percent of the mobile browser market–BlackBerry, iPhone and Nokia, its closest rivals, each have 17 to 18 percent market share.

Tecca, Best Buy's New Shopping App, Isn't a Best Buy Shopping App

Peter Kafka — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 04:02:17 +0000

Here’s another shopping app: Tecca promises to “help you find, buy and get the best from personal technology.” It’s available for Apple’s (APPL) iPhone and Google’s (GOOG) Android, as well as Web browsers. I’ve only given it a cursory look so far, but it seems like it could use some work.

Why bother noting it? Because of its interesting lineage: Tecca is a product of the digital media fund that Best Buy and Fuse Capital assembled last year.

And while you’d think the big-box retailer would be interested in overhauling its own e-commerce platform, which is both unwieldy and very popular, Tecca is supposed to exist at arm’s length from Best Buy: If you want to buy stuff via the app, it won’t necessarily send you to the retail chain.

So that’s interesting. I haven’t given Tecca a real going-over yet, but in my brief spin through, it seemed like the app was reluctant to send customers to Best Buy’s biggest competitors, notably Amazon (AMZN). But perhaps there’s a good reason for that.

In any case, Tecca is worth watching because it’s the first visible sign of activity for the fund that Best Buy and Fuse assembled in the spring of 2009.

Ross Levinsohn, the digital media veteran who runs Fuse, says he and his team have been advising Best Buy on other topics–perhaps the overhaul of its Napster acquisition, which hasn’t gone well at all. And Levinsohn says the group will be rolling out more products in the future.

Steve Levitan Gets His Wish: "Modern Family" Leaves Hulu (Briefly)

Peter Kafka — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:39:15 +0000

“Modern Family” creator Steve Levitan says he loves the Internet, but says he wants his show off the Web. Because the eyeballs it attracts don’t do him any good.

Wish granted! Temporarily.

Turns out, Levitan’s show has been off the free Web–Hulu, ABC.com and ABC’s free iPad app–for the past month or so. Hulu, which is co-owned by News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, Disney’s (DIS) ABC, and GE’s (GE) NBC, explains that its streaming rights for the show expired on July 27. And that the show will be back this fall.

That seems a little weird, because you can still watch online episodes of most other big network shows that aired last year. But I’m told that while some ABC executives were actually in favor of taking Levitan at his word, “Modern’s Family”‘s temporary absence isn’t a punishment, but has to do with the release of the show’s first DVD set, due out later this month.

Which makes sense. Because even in 2010, Hollywood–in this case News Corp.’s Fox, which produces the show–still values analog dollars more than anything the Web can produce. So if the TV guys think there’s a chance that free Web shows cut into DVD sales….

And while these windows/channel conflicts aren’t going away anytime soon, they remain confusing.

For instance, you can still watch the last episode of “Lost” on Hulu, even though the DVDs of the last season went on sale a couple of weeks ago. But Hulu says the series finale will disappear from its site on September 20. And that it won’t be showing seasons 1 to 5 after the end of 2010. Go figure.

But! You can still watch “Modern Family” on the Web, without breaking the law. All you need to do is wrangle a Hulu Plus invite, and you can watch it on your Web browser, or on your Apple (APPL) iPad or iPhone, for that matter. Is that worth $10 a month to you?

In the meantime, cheapskates will have to get by on free Web clips like this one:

And here’s a clip of Levitan explaining his beef with Web video, at our D8 conference in June:

[ See post to watch video ]

Nokia Noshes Novarra

John Paczkowski — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:04:38 +0000

Nokia has snapped up another small company: Novarra, a developer of high-speed mobile Web browsers. A wise acquisition for the Finnish cellphone maker, whose S60 browser is often criticized for its middling performance compared with Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and handsets running Google’s (GOOG) Android OS.

Terms of Nokia’s (NOK) acquisition, which is expected to close during the June quarter, were not disclosed.

Sharing E-Books and a Clean Sweep

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:54:53 +0000

One of the intrinsic values of a hard-copy book is the ability to physically pass the book to another person once I have completed reading it. Are there e-readers out there that allow you to buy an e-book, install it on one e-reader, and then pass it on another e-reader of the same brand?

Yes, but not with as much freedom as lending a physical book. One of the advantages of the Barnes & Noble (BKS) Nook e-readers is that some, though not all, titles, can be lent to the user of another Nook, or to a friend who merely uses the company’s e-reader software on a computer or a smart phone. Each book can only be lent once, however, and each loan expires after two weeks.

If I totally erase my computer’s hard disk and then do a fresh reinstall of the operating system, will that also delete any and all would-be viruses, cookies, etc.—and restore the computer to its original “virgin” status?

I’m not sure what you mean by a “would-be virus,” but the answer is yes. If you fully erase your hard disk with a utility that overwrites the files and free space with nonsense data, and then reinstall the operating system, the computer should act like it was new. You’d be free of any files you didn’t want.

There are easier ways to erase all cookies, by using a function in your Web browser. And the method you suggest would require you to spend considerable time installing any OS updates that have been issued since your operating-system disk was created, and reinstalling your programs and data files. Should you choose to do this, I’d urge you to back up your key files first.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox and my other columns at http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Target Targets Your Cellphone

Geoffrey A. Fowler — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:00:53 +0000

Your iPhone can now save you $1 on cheese.

Giant discount retailer Target (TGT) announced on Wednesday that it was rolling out a program to beam coupons directly to customers’ smartphones. The mobile coupons work just like their old-fashioned paper cousins: the checkout clerk scans them right from a barcode on your cellphone screen.

You get the coupons by signing up to receive SMS from Target, either at http://m.target.com or by texting COUPONS to 827438 (TARGET). After doing so, you’ll get text messages about once per month with a link to a mobile Web page that contains multiple special offers for super-techie shoppers. It would work on any cellphone that includes a Web browser.

Target is hardly the first brand to experiment with mobile coupons – there are apps aplenty that proffer deals at local stores, and J.C. Penney has tested a similar effort in some of its stores. But Target may be just about the largest retailer to roll out this sort of effort in all of its stores.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

No, the Microsoft Browser Ballot Will Not Include an "I'm Feeling Lucky" Option

John Paczkowski — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:26:59 +0000

Microsoft will begin rolling out its “No Browser Left Behind” scheme in Europe next week, offering Windows users a choice of Web browsers, as stipulated by its antitrust settlement with the European Commission.

And so, beginning on Feb. 22, Windows users in the U.K., France and Belgium will be presented with a ballot screen offering them an opportunity to swap out Internet Explorer for one of 11 other browsers from rivals like Mozilla, Apple (AAPL), Opera and Google (GOOG).

“The browser choice screen software update will be offered as an automatic download through Windows Update for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7,” Microsoft (MSFT) Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Dave Heiner explained in a blog post announcing the move. “The software update will be installed automatically, or will prompt you to download or install it, depending on which operating system you are running and your settings for Windows Update.”

Once that’s done, users will be shown a ballot screen offering the option of installing one of the listed browsers, learning more about them or postponing the browser choice to a later time. Simple enough–assuming that automatic updates is enabled and that they actually care about browser choice.

If that’s the case, many probably dumped IE for an alternative long ago, right?

Anyway, as I said, a limited ballot screen rollout begins next week with full-scale deployment across the rest of Europe a week later, potentially reaching some 170 million PCs. It will be interesting to see how many of them end up switching to a new default browser.

PREVIOUSLY:

Boxee: Either Jeff Zucker or Jason Kilar Is Lying About Booting Us Off Hulu

Peter Kafka — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:21:31 +0000

Little Boxee, the much hyped Web video service, played a cameo role at today’s Congressional hearings on the Comcast (CMCSA)-NBCU deal. And as sometimes happens when Boxee and big media intersect, controversy ensued.

The short version: Rep. Rick Boucher, the Virginia Democrat who heads the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, asked NBC head Jeff Zucker about last year’s incident involving Hulu’s effort to bar Boxee from using its feed.

At the time, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar said his actions were prompted by his “content owners,” which most people, including me, assumed meant GE’s (GE) NBC and/or News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, the media conglomerates that had invested in the video service.

But today at the hearings, Zucker pointed the finger back at Hulu (full clip at bottom of this post):

This was a decision made by the Hulu management to, uh, what Boxee was doing was illegally taking the content that was on Hulu without any business deal. And, you know, all, all the, we have several distributors, actually many distributors of the Hulu content that we have legal distribution deals with so we don’t preclude distribution deals. What we preclude are those who illegally take that content.

In a blog post, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen points out the seeming inconsistency between the two statements–though he’s incorrect in saying that Kilar blamed NBC, because Kilar didn’t actually say that in his original blog post. That makes sense, because Kilar is one careful and cautious dude, which you have to be when you’re running a joint venture that’s now co-owned by three big media conglomerates.

Ronen also restates his general case–that Boxee is not much more than a Web browser, so it’s not taking anyone’s content at all, just displaying it, ads and all. And from what I can tell, that argument is gaining increasing traction among some big media players.

But while I’ve never been able to get a straight answer from Hulu or its owners about the Boxee incident, I do get the sense that it’s one issue that sticks in the collective craw of Hulu managers. So I’m not sure things are going to get resolved anytime soon at that site.

I’ve asked Hulu and NBC for comment and will update if I hear back.

New Mozilla Email Is Easier to Use, But Not Easy Enough

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:04:53 +0000

The good thing about open-source software is that it harnesses the talents of techies around the world. The bad thing about open-source software is that it’s too often geared toward such techies, not average folks. That’s why there haven’t been many widely popular open-source products for mass-market computer users. The shining exception is the Firefox Web browser, which is published by the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation.

Now, Mozilla is trying for another win, with a new, overhauled version of the companion email program for Firefox, called Thunderbird. Unlike Firefox, Thunderbird never really caught on, partly because it was too complicated. The foundation has spent two years streamlining, simplifying and automating the email program. The result is the newly released Thunderbird 3, which will compete with products such as Microsoft Outlook on Windows and Apple Mail on the Mac.

[ See post to watch video ]

While many people these days are content to store and manage all their email using Web-based interfaces provided by Yahoo (YHOO), Google (GOOG) and others, plenty of folks still want to use local programs. These save the messages to their own hard disks, include oodles of customized features, and can be more easily used offline.

But the choices among such local email programs are dwindling. Outlook, which can be bloated and slow for consumers, has driven out many competitors on Windows, and the new Windows 7 doesn’t even come with a built-in email program. On the Mac, most people seem to use Apple’s (AAPL) very good built-in email program, Apple Mail, but it’s hard for third parties to customize.

So, can Thunderbird 3, which is free and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux computers, become the Firefox of email, the go-to choice for average users looking for an alternative to the big guys?

After testing the new edition for about a week, I believe that Thunderbird 3 is a significant improvement over earlier versions of the product. It is indeed a step forward, with some interesting new features and generally simpler operation. But, in my view, all the techie rough edges still haven’t been sanded off and it’s still clumsy in a few places.

First, the pluses. Mozilla has brought tabs, now standard in Web browsers, to Thunderbird. If you simply double click on an email in a list, it opens in its own tab. That way you can consult key emails when you need them without opening a welter of overlapping windows. If you do a search, the search results appear in their own tab.

The new Thunderbird also has a very cool filtered search system. It not only brings up all messages containing your search term, but shows a graphical timeline of the message traffic on that search term. In a left panel next to the list of search results, it lists all the people mentioned in the messages turned up by the search—even if you weren’t searching for them—and lets you further refine the results by just clicking on their names.

There is also a rapid way to add email addresses in a message header to your address book: You just click on a star icon next to the name. There also are multiple ways to view folders. With one click, you can choose to see a list of only unread folders, or favorite folders, or recent folders.

Another cool feature is an attachment reminder. If you are writing a message and you include words like “attachment,” “attached,” or “enclosed,” Thunderbird will pop up a yellow warning at the bottom of the screen reminding you to attach a file.

And, throughout the program, the designers have tried to simplify things, so you don’t have to be an engineer to use it. One example, which is a catch-up feature, is an account set-up wizard that spares you from knowing the names of servers.

But there are still too many issues for me. Thunderbird can’t be set to automatically show a CC or BCC line in a new email you’re composing. Every new address you add is set as a “To” address, and you must click on a drop-down menu to change it to CC or BCC—an extra step that becomes tedious quickly.

In addition, unlike in Outlook or Apple Mail, you can only have a single signature for each account. The program also doesn’t support Microsoft Exchange for corporate mail, unless IT administrators make changes at their servers.

And I found that the program’s preferences and settings, while improved, can still be too techie. For instance, to tell the program to display certain graphics in email, even though they can pose a security risk, you must choose an option called “mailnews.message_display.disable_remote_image.”

To be fair, because Thunderbird is an open-source program, it relies on third-party add-ons and extensions for some features, such as multiple signatures. But some of the add-ins I tried, like a built-in calendar that can synchronize with Google, took multiple complicated steps that would likely deter a mainstream user.

If you’re looking for a new email client, the new and improved Thunderbird is worth a try, but it’s not yet the Firefox of email.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Internet Explorer: Should You Stay or Should You Go?

Nick Wingfield — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:30:32 +0000

French and German government agencies have told people they should ditch Microsoft’s (MSFT) Internet Explorer browser, at least temporarily, because of a security hole that hackers are thought to have exploited on recent cyberattacks against Google and other companies. What should you do?

Switching to an alternative Web browser like Firefox or Google (GOOG) Chrome is one possibility. For now, security companies like McAfee (MFE) have only identified the latest security exploit as an Internet Explorer issue, but there’s no guarantee that they won’t find vulnerabilities in other browsers that were involved in the broad attack on Google and others.

Generally speaking, a browser switch is going to be a lot easier for an individual than it will be for corporate users, where IT policies often dictate which browser people use on their computers. Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant and security firm Sophos, said in a blog post Monday that companies may cause “more problems than it’s worth by summarily switching browsers” because of the potential for employee confusion and Web site compatibility problems caused by the new software.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Google Uncrates Chrome

John Paczkowski — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:00:19 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Windows 7 Upgrades and Screen Readability

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:42:02 +0000

(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)

I have a vision problem and can barely read low-contrast print, even the light colors on your Web site. Any ideas for how I and others can solve this problem? I use a Mac and the Firefox Web browser.

A: If your Mac is running the Leopard or Snow Leopard operating systems, you can use an onscreen slider control or keyboard commands to enhance the contrast. You can even switch the display to white-on-black, which really boosts the effect. This works system-wide. These settings are found in System Preferences, under the Universal Access preference, in the tab called “Seeing,” in the section called “Display.”

The new Windows 7 also has a similar feature that applies a “high contrast theme” when you press a certain key combination. It can be enabled or disabled in the Control Panel, under Ease of Access. You click on “Ease of Access Center,” and then “Make the computer easier to see.”

Where can I download the Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade edition for my Vista Home Premium computer?

A: Windows 7 can be downloaded at http://store.microsoft.com/home.aspx. And, after you’ve installed it, you can upgrade to higher versions anytime, if you like, for a fee. This is called the Windows Anytime Upgrade, and is explained at this site: http://bit.ly/VrV58.

Do you know if the new Windows 7 Home Premium will be offered at less than the retail price of $120 to current Vista PC owners who wish to upgrade?

A: That $120 price is the upgrade price for Vista owners moving to Windows 7 Home Premium, though of course some retailers might discount it. The “full,” or non-upgrade, edition of Home Premium lists for $200. Microsoft did run a sale on Windows 7 pre-orders earlier this year, but that’s over.

You can also get a Windows 7 upgrade from participating PC makers free, or for a nominal fee, if you buy a new PC equipped with Vista before the end of January, 2010, or bought one after June 26, 2009. For the latter offer, consult: http://bit.ly/rjAz4.

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

Corrections & Amplifications

An earlier version of this column erroneously stated that Windows 7 had to be purchased on a disk.

Nvidia's Graphics Headed for the Cloud

Don Clark — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:00:43 +0000

Computer graphics usually comes with a tradeoff: Users get to see extremely realistic images, or pictures that can be viewed interactively, but not both. Nvidia (NVDA) believes those days are ending.

The Silicon Valley chip company on Tuesday announced plans to offer a combination of hardware and software that can generate three-dimensional images that are almost indistinguishable from photographs–and do so in a matter of seconds, not the hours that such chores typically require.

Most importantly, Nvidia says, the images are rendered on servers and electronically delivered to a Web browser on any garden-variety PC. Ordinarily, the most realistic images are reserved for machines equipped with high-end graphics cards–of the sort powered by Nvidia chips–and specialized software. In other words, the technology will run “in the cloud,” as Silicon Valley marketeers like to say, rather than on a desktop or laptop machine.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Europe, Microsoft to Test "No Browser Left Behind" Scheme

John Paczkowski — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:15:13 +0000

Microsoft’s proposed antitrust concessions, particularly its offer to give European computer users a choice of Web browsers, appear to have gone over well with the European Commission. This morning, the EC announced a market test of the browser ballot feature Microsoft plans to include in Windows 7. If it’s successful, the feature will become standard in European versions of Windows and resolve the ongoing antitrust case in which the EC accused the American firm of abusing its Windows monopoly.

“I’m absolutely of the opinion that this is a trustful deal that we’re making. I trust Microsoft,” Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said during a press conference this morning. “There can’t be a misunderstanding. Here is the final result of a long discussion over a long period.”

Microsoft (MSFT) was equally upbeat on the EC’s decision. “We welcome today’s announcement by the European Commission to move forward with formal market testing of Microsoft’s proposal relating to web browser choice in Europe,” General Counsel Brad Smith said in a statement. “We also welcome the opportunity to take the next step in the process regarding our proposal to promote interoperability with a broad range of our products.”

There were, however, a few that were not so welcoming of the move. Top among them, ECIS, an industry group whose members include Oracle (ORCL), Sun (JAVA), IBM (IBM) and Nokia (NOK). “ECIS notes that the settlement does not appear to deal with the inadequacies of Microsoft’s standards compliance, unfair pricing practices or other concerns related to patent abuse or standards manipulation,” the group said in a statement.

Europe, Microsoft to Test "No Browser Left Behind" Scheme

John Paczkowski — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:15:13 +0000