E-books after the Amazon fiasco: The Bottom Line
Now that Macmillan showed that a publishing company could get Amazon to raise prices on e-books, will others follow? We talk to Clayton Morris and Brian Heater to make sense of the still developing e-book landscape.
Guests:
- Brian Heater , PC Mag
- Clayton Morris , Fox News Channel
Netbooks, home theater equipment and waterproof MP3 players: Black Friday
Yes, its another day in the week of Black Friday, and today we're talking with Nilay Patel from Engadget and Brian Heater from PC Mag about their picks for themselves and loved ones.
Guests:
Rumors spread about Apple Tablet: potential product or hearsay?
Yes... it's back again. More rumors about the Apple Tablet. This time, courtesy of iLounge who offered some extremely specific details. Among them? The new tablet will run on the iPhone OS, be 10.7 inches, and launch in January of 2010.
What's the odds that this will actually happen this time, and will people care about it? We talk to Andrew Nusca from ZDNET and Brian Heater from PC Mag.
What's your take, do you think the Apple Tablet will be worthwhile, or is it destined to be Apple's first portable flop? Sound off in the comments.
Guests:
LG unveils Android-capable phone, plus Apple drops AppleTV price
It's no shock that LG is showing off a new smartphone which runs Google's Android under the hood... but does this signal anything for the industry at large, or is it yet another manufacturer jumping on the Android bandwagon? We ask Brian Heater from PC Mag, and Jason Hiner from Tech Republic. They're both less than thrilled about the phone, and since Google has simply developed a solid underpinning and is leaving it up to the individual manufacturer to create a user-interface with pizzaz, something LG has repeatedly failed at in the past. But hey, at least it's progress away from the myriad LG dumphones with awful interfaces AND awful underpinnings.
In other underwhelming tech news, Apple says it's dropping the price of the AppleTV down to $229 from $329 for a 160GB model, and the company is removing the 40GB model all together. If it were us, again both Brian and Jason concur, we'd hold off on the AppleTV unless you're extremely sold on the concept, or have some cash to spend. If the latter is the case, why not be a pal and send it to the starving producers of TechVi instead?
Guests:
Nikon’s new DSLR shoots video and records audio, are camcorders doomed?
We've talked before about the lifecycle of cameras and how there seems to be this polarizing force between fast / cheap and nice / expensive... and today with Nikon announcing a D300s which packs an external mic input, it seems like we're well on our way there. What's today's announcement mean for the gang of camcorders? We talk to Erica Ogg from CNET News#mce_temp_url#, and Brian Heater from PC Mag about the future of imaging.
Guests:
Facebook: Losing its cool?
It's inevitable... at some point a company loses its "cool" factor, and while we're not ready to declare Facebook as "uncool" just yet, it's definitely prepping the waterskis for a potential shark jump. A report says Facebookers have either stopped going to school, or have at least stopped pegging their high schools and universities into their profiles. Can the company with the 25-year-old CEO keep its cool? We ask two of our "coolest" tech journos friends, Matt Burns from CrunchGear and Brian Heater.
Guests:
Is the free web in danger? Plus, what’s next for Steve Jobs?
Yes, the economic sky is still falling for tech companies. Despite glimmers of hope in the markets and data, advertising, which is traditionally a key source of income for both online content producers and application creators, isn't expected to rebound till long after the economy is on the right track. That means, at least in PC Mag editor-in-chief (and occasional TechVi guest) Lance Ulanoff's view, the end of the free web is coming. Soon. Is he on th emoney? And more importantly, will you fight for your free content? We ask Technologizer founder Harry McCracken, along with Brian Heater of PC Mag. Harry sees other platforms like the Kindle primed for innovation, since people are currently successfully charging consumers real dollars, and people seem to be paying. Brian's take is similar, pointing out that since the free cat is out of the bag, it's going to be awfully difficult to get it back in. My hope is someone will want to pay for content, maybe by going to an NPR style of begging for money. Someone's gotta do it. (Oh, and if you want to give us cash, we're more than willing to accept, for the record.)
We also talk about the news that Steve Jobs won't be the main keynote speaker for Apple's upcoming World Wide Developers Conference. Brian mentions that it might be a bit of a red herring, given the carefully worded press release, and that Apple's "One More Thing..." might be Jobs' appearance. Harry, on the other hand, thinks regardless of whether Steve steps up to the plate, Apple has plenty of good leadership that haven't dropped the ball thus far, despite Stevie J's day-to-day micromanaging absence.
What's your take? How crucial is Steve Jobs to the future of Apple in the presentation role? Could he pop in here and there without being the main presenter and still have the draw to keep up the reality distortion field? Also, is there any content you'd pay for (other than TechVi, naturally)? What's the maximum amount you'd think about investing, or do you think content will figure out how to be free, regardless of ad dollars?
Palm’s next WebOS phone leaked, plus Pure Digital updates the Flip
It's scarcely a few hours since we heard about Palm's rumored Eos smartphone, which looks to fall in line with the Centro, but since then we've had a few hours to process its potential impact, and we brought in Brian Heater from PC Mag and Stuart Miles from Pocket Lint to talk about the potential impact. The takeaways? Brian thinks it could be a compelling device, and more to the point we don't have enough info to know it's true impact, but at least Palm seems to be releasing significant devices at last. Stuart's take pegs the Eos to the potential Pay-As-You-Go market, and thinks a dual market strategy might be one that works for Palm. I'm still cautious about the validity, though I trust Engadget's specs, but if Palm pulls off the platform play, it'll be good for everyone, including consumers.
Also, the next iteration of the Flip hit store shelves today, and this new model is a replacement to the older Ultra, but still is less pricey than the MinoHD. Brian points while it's nice that it shoots in HD, it's missing some basic features (like shooting in SD, for instance) but it's still an attractive offering. Stuart concurs, and says the more competiton in the space the merrier, plus the addition of the HDMI port makes it one up some of the other competitors in the space. I'm still waiting for Cisco's acquisition of Pure Digital to take effect, and have Cisco add WiFi syncing capabilities. Here's hoping, anyway.
Adobe brings Flash to TV and Mobile video launches in DC
Adobe has long been seen as the market leader in video on the web, with its Flash player seeing such a large install base. Now, Adobe is looking to bring Flash support to TVs and set-top-boxes, initially bringing widgets for displaying data like stocks or weather info, similar to the Yahoo Widget Engine implementation on some Sony TVs. It seems to me that this might be the first volley by Adobe at shoehorning itself into as many devices as possible, making Flash a defacto standard for video both on the web and on TV. One of our guests, Brad Linder of Liliputing, sees it as purely the way Adobe has sold it, since TVs already have enough TV content, and content providers are scared of splitting their broadcast revenues. On the other hand, as Brian Heater of PC Mag points out, Adobe has signed some notable content partners, including Disney, which might make an interesting match for on-demand content.
Also on the show, and in the TV world, Washington, D.C. has become the first city to roll out the new mobile DTV standard for broadcasting. The new service, unlike other subscription services from cell carriers, is free to watch and doesn't use data networks of any sort. That's great and everything, but mobile TV isn't exactly new, nor is it a high demand feature for our panel. Do you think you'd like mobile video? Or is it a product in search of a market?