In the yet-another-Google-phone-rumor department, Rediff.com is reporting that Google is just “a fortnight away” from launching its Google Phone.

According to Rediff Google is in talks with service providers in India for an exclusive launch. The Gphone will launch simultaneously in the U.S. and Europe.

Ummm. That’s was fast. I have my doubts on this one. Google must have the most tight lipped employees in the world of no one else saw this coming. Just seems odd to me. I’m putting my money on it that this does not happen anytime soon. But I have known to be wrong many a times. I guess I’m not the only one that is thinking that this is a bit of a farce.

Maybe it’s the fact there’s a Google Phone rumor every other week or so. Perhaps it’s the unnamed sources.

According to Rediff.com Google only needs FCC approval and it’s ready for lift-off. That’s a pretty big hurdle for a launch that’s supposed to happen real soon. And then there’s the whole partnering with wireless carriers thing Google has to work out for the Gphone.

I think this would be a neat new gadget for the market, but honestly does anyone really believe this?

Well maybe not. I know everyone is sick of hearing about the Jesus phone, I know I most certainly am. But I wanted to touch on a topic that is driving me insane. I see new articles about it everyday. Its driving me crazy. Now all of you are saying, “What is driving you crazy?”, all the articles about people finally UNLOCKING THE iPhone! I have read hundreds of claims that people have unlocked the iPhone. But the thing is that is all we ever hear are claims. I know some people have actually done it, but to what extent are you prepared to go to unlock that ironclad device. In the end you might find yourself spending more on unlocking it then actually ponying up the cash for AT&T.

I understand the people that don’t want to give into the system, and that’s neat and all. But really why waste your time, energy, and hard earned money on simply unlocking a phone that might or might not work with your carrier. Plus what happens when your phone dies, or has a malfunction. Do you take it back to Apple? I don’t think that will really work. Granted most of the people that are trying to unlock these things are pretty savy with the gadgets, so I assume they would probably be able to fix most issues on their own, and that’s the rub, not everyone is savy with the gadgets. Its a glass half full type of situation.

Now some people are claiming they unlocked the phone monkeying around with the internal hardware, and some claim the TurboSim card unlocks the phone via blocking it from getting any AT&T info, and a recent one I heard today about people doing it via a firmware hack. Once again I reiterate that this is not a bad thing. This is how people discover things about technology and how innovations are created in the marketplace, simply by taking a device apart and seeing how it works. That’s how technology evolves, which is a great thing. But as these shenanigans keep on progressing I really do not see one true process to unlock these devious devices. So I say this once and once only, that the Apple iPhone is the most secure smart-phone to date. If the Apple iPhone was a building it would be Fort Knox, but I think it would be even more secure then Fort Knox. You see Fort Knox is not open to the public, which the iPhone is, and if Fort Knox was open to the public for 2 months people would have already found a way into the safes. But their are many claims of partially unlocked iPhones as well (Thats like partially stealing the gold then getting shot on the way out by the tower guards).

When I say secure, I don’t mean secure software, or secure from software exploits, I mean it is locked down to the mother-ship and the tractor beam is strong. Their are thousands of some of the best PDA/Smart-phone crackers in the world working on this, and no one has came out with a true unlock method for the masses. The funny thing is that whenever if ever their is one Golden Key to unlock the palace, Apple and AT&T will sit and watch as people start unlocking the phones. Now this is the painful part, they will watch, but they wont be upset. They will be sitting over a tech’s pc telling him to deploy the new firmware that will brick every single one. ONE KEYSTROKE. Then the process begins all over again.

My point to all of this is that the masses will not go along. Once they have touched that glassy interface they will not be able to go back to any other smart-phone. So they will eventually cough up the cash for the AT&T service, and it will come with another rush of profits for the two companies.

Like I wrote about last week, these companies thrive off control. They want to control the influx of information, they want to control your hardware and software. Frustrating at best, but what can we do? Except not buy there hardware and software. This is why I have taken a stand. I would love to have that gorgeous phone, but it does not work with my carrier. So I am waiting for the revised version of the HTC Touch.  To me its as close to an iPhone as any other device.

I guess I have not been struck with the Jesus phone syndrome yet?

Here are some examples of the claims I have been talking about:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I think ten example are enough, I could link to different stories all day.

Success! Paramount and Dreamworks Animation are exclusively running with HD-DVD. They have said sayonara to Blu-Ray and hello to HD-DVD. The rumor mill is fully buzzing on this one as well. Saying that a $150 million dollar “consideration fee” was payed outright to the studios. People are already screaming “bribe”, “consideration Fee” or “bribe” does it really matter? Don’t you think the Blu-Ray fellows had to lay some dough out for the Blockbuster and Target deal ? I think this is a great thing for HD-DVD, I am a bit bias though since I have already purchased an HD-DVD player and HD-DVD’s. So you will get nothing but bias reporting from me on this one. I did this silly tango when laser-discs came out as well, so I pray I wont have to eventually buy a Blu-Ray player, I better not be wrong like I was with the laser-discs, those things were awful.

I cant wait for Transformers on HD-DVD. Take that Blu-Ray! More info on this deal below.

(more…)

Consumer: 1, Google: 4556788890

“I guess they made it official today.   Let’s examine what this means:

- Google made $10B in 2006 revenues, 99.9% from search.
- If Google could generate revenues from another revenue stream, it would welcome it.
- Google could not generate meaningful revenues from paid downloads, so it is going completely free.
- By buying YouTube, Doubleclick (not closed yet) and Feedburner, it has already decided what its next billion dollar revenue stream will be: more ads, but in lieu of it all coming from paid search, it will be videos, display/banner/rich media and feeds/emails.

Folks, mark this week as the week where consumers made it official and defeated paid content.  Both the NY Times and Wall Street Journal this week announced or considered making their sites free (or more free).

Part of this, of course, has to do with there not being a viable micropayment system.  But maybe because advertising is shifting so aggressively online is the reason why we don’t have a viable micropayment system, and not the other way around.

This is why all of those projections about the future of paid content are, for lack of better words, full of it.”

Via Hip Mojo Via Ashkan Karbasfroos

What can I say about SkyDrive that has not already been touched on?

Well first off this is really a great service that is free. Their is a lot of competition in this sector of “Cloud Storage” but the majority of them are clunky and are not that easy to use for the everyday user. The best site I have found for online storage is BOX.net. But that is not the greatest either. You have to pay quite a bit for monthly and yearly service, and you really don’t get that much storage for what you pay.

So I do have a couple qualms about this it so far. I do understand it is still obviously under beta. But I thought I would criticize it anyway, not to be a jerk, but just some suggestions on which directions they should head for.

1. MORE STORAGE!

2. Ability to map your SkyDrive as a mapped drive.

3. Allow users to connect via ODBC. (or just me:))

4. KEEP IT FREE!!!

I obviously don’t think this service will continue to be free. If they do intend to keep a portion of it free I hope they at least give the user 1GB of free space. I am already starting to use the SkyDrive around the office, loading smaller utilities and other work oriented documents on it. So far so good, no hang ups at all.

Once I read Brandon Leblanc’s post over at the Windows Vista Team Blog about the new change over from the “Live Spaces” name to “SkyDrive” it got me really excited. As I was reading through his post it got my little brain running with ideas on what I could use SkyDrive for. To me “Cloud Storage” is the future. So many small businesses’ use similar services already because of the easy and worry free way to backup all data. But at the same time these services can get very expensive. Hopefully MS notices this, and they act on it. It’s so hard for the small business owner or even home user to find out what company and service is reliable and trustworthy when it comes to virtual storage. Everyone knows MS and the MS brand. I think if they were able to work themselves slowly into this market of small business it could really spark a lot more interest with SkyDrive. But I think as of now they are more directed at the everyday user rather then small business and mid grade enterprise, which is fine for now.

I see a lot of potential with SkyDrive, a lot. Hopefully Microsoft pays attention to the all of the customer reviews and criticisms of the service and changes them to suit their user base.

The two most important features I would like to see are more storage and a way to connect via ODBC connection. Other then that I probably would not mind paying a small monthly fee of lets say $8.00- $15.00 for 7-15GB of storage, as long as I was able to map the drive and connect via ODBC. Obviously not everyone is as picky as I am. This program has a wonderful future, and I hope this is not a project that gets left on the back burner of Live Labs.

Chairman of the FCC Kevin Martin

Eh…. Not really. Wow that was by far the longest title yet. Well so it happened today, we all new it was going to happen, the 700mhz frequency was approved today by the FCC . The 700mhzland has been long sought after frequency for the great distances it can reach. Since Google wants to melt there doughy little hands into every aspect of every market they said, “Hey lets buy a Radio frequency”. Don’t quote them on that, they probably said something a lot more sophisticated and in-depth.
Now all in all this approval really isn’t that bad, but only if the FCC keeps to its “Open Access” plan. But the FCC being a part of our government we never know who’s hand might get greased to push a vote or favor through. A total of 60 megahertz will be auctioned off, with twenty-two of them “open,” and another 10 set aside for a “national public safety” network. The auctioning off of the frequency is expected to raise as much as $15 billion for the federal treasury.

The auction begins sometime early next year, and so it begins…..

I wanted to give a little info out about Chairman Kevin Martin, and who he has worked for, and what he did in the past. Here is the excerpt about him from the official FCC website:

“Chairman Martin was nominated by President George W. Bush to a Republican seat on the Commission, and was sworn in on July 3, 2001. He was designated chairman by President Bush on March 18, 2005. Chairman Martin was re-nominated for a second term as commissioner and chairman by President George W. Bush on April 25, 2006.

Before joining the FCC, Martin was a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. He served on the Bush-Cheney Transition Team and was Deputy General Counsel for the Bush campaign. Prior to joining the campaign, Martin was an advisor to FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth. He has also served in the Office of the Independent Counsel and worked as an associate at the Washington, DC law firm of Wiley, Rein & Fielding. Before joining Wiley, Rein & Fielding, Martin was a judicial clerk for U.S. District Court Judge William M. Hoeveler, Miami, FL.

Martin received a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Masters in Public Policy from Duke University, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the Federal Communications Bar Association.”

Now Chairman Martin is no virgin when it comes to ethic scandals, does anyone remember the Bellsouth & AT&T merger?

I never try to mix politics with technology but sometimes they just mix , and a lot of the time it ends up in a negative manner. So that is why I am so skeptical of this “Open Access” plan. Now I am not saying Google even has the cash flow to play the game, if it stays open I hope they have the cash on hand. I just hope the FCC plays nice with everyone and does not play favors.

Can anyone give me a reason to not think like this?

The last time we heard anything about Delorean was in 1982 when the last of the iconic Back to the Future mobiles rolled off the assembly line in Ireland. But today they are back a group of gear heads from Houston, TX. have bought the name and the right to make those stainless steel beauties once again. Granted they will only be making 200 of them from the original refurbished 2.8L V6. No one is really sure on the price yet but they are already selling refurbished complete cars for around $42000.

Now we all know it was never a great performer, but it was the envy of so many childhood dreams for so many of us. If I had a open spot in the garage and an extra $42000 to lay down I think I would probably buy one, but only if they installed the rope-a-light (flux-capacitor).

That’s a lie, I would really just buy a Lotus Exige.

The fight continues!!!

Well we here at TheGeekery are no porn buffs, or at least we don’t admit it. Some of you might be wondering why the hell am I going to write about the porn industry. Well lets face it, the porn industry is huge, according to forbes in 2001 the porn industry was a 14 billion dollar industry. Now it is an estimated 50 billion dollar a year industry. The porn industry is kind of like the illegal drug industry no one talks about it, no one talks about the profits, no one talks about the growth of that market.

Sony Corp. has started offering more technical support to the adult film industry in Japan, movie makers said at the Adult Treasure Expo 2007 in Chiba, Japan, and the problem of finding companies to mass produce their movies appears to be over.

It’s an important step for Blu-ray Disc. HD DVD has already taken over the U.S. adult film industry through its lower costs and ease-of-use. People in the industry say they’ve received plenty of help from backers of the format, including Microsoft Corp. and Toshiba Corp. But Blu-ray is different. Sony and one of the biggest movie makers in the world, the Walt Disney Co., object to pornography, and Disney maintains a policy against having its own movies replicated by any company working with adult movie titles.

“In Japan, there are some problems. Companies cannot press Blu-ray discs because they cannot touch adult-related contracts,” said Kiyotaka Konno, director of administration at Assist Corp., a Japanese company that authors and replicates DVDs for the adult industry in Japan. “So we asked some makers in Taiwan to do the work, and then we import the discs back to Japan. The Taiwanese company was able to obtain a pressing machine from Sony and will start mass production in August.”

The adoption of Blu-ray Disc by the Japanese porn industry could make all the difference in the format war. The adult film industry has long been a first mover in using new technologies, and many analysts say the industry played a key role in making VHS the winner in the video cassette fight against Sony’s Betamax video tape standard years ago. Blu-ray Disc, also a Sony technology, is now vying with HD DVD to be the high-definition disc of choice in the 21st century.

Now because I love HD DVD, and I am planning on purchasing an HD DVD player, so I am going to ask all of our Canadian porn moguls to the north to start stamping those HD DVD’s out. Don’t give in to the Blu-side.

Honestly their were no purposeful puns in this article…

The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry will start developing with 10 automakers an operating system for automotive electronics.

The decision will be announced this week, a ministry source said. European auto makers are in the process of developing a commmon OS for automotive electronics.

Japanese companies, which have been developing their own operating systems separately, will begin joint development of an OS, aiming to create a global standard in this field.

The ministry will commission the task of developing the OS to JasPar–Japan Automotive Software Platform Architecture–a joint venture comprising leading automakers and auto-parts makers and, electronics firms, including Toyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Co., Honda R&D Co., Denso Corp. and Toshiba Corp.

The ministry plans to seek more than 1 billion yen in funding for the project in its budgetary request for fiscal 2008. The joint venture aims to have a prototype OS completed in fiscal 2009 and to market it in five to 10 years.

In an automobile, various electronics control devices are used, including those controlling fuel injection, brakes, air bags, power steering and power windows. An OS is the basic software for operating these devices.

OSEK, the operating system developed by German firm Bosch, the world’s leading auto-parts maker, is effectively the automotive version of Windows, with about 70 percent of the world market share.

Meanwhile, BMW, DaimlerChrysler and other European automakers are jointly developing a next-generation OS and are expected to complete a prototype in 2008.

While the number of electronic control devices installed in a typical automobile stood at about five in the 1980s, more than 30 such devices are installed now, with the number exceeding 100 for some luxury models.

The cost of electronic and electrical parts is said to account for about 20 percent of the overall production cost of an automobile. For a hybrid-type model, which requires a complex control system to switch the power source back and forth from the engine to a motor, electronic and electrical parts account for nearly 50 percent of the production cost.

For me WIMAX and the whole idea of broadcasted open public free wireless is a thing of beauty. I live for anything that’s wireless and free like slurpee’s . Granted the proposed 37 city wireless project is probably the biggest yet. But don’t be a doubter some of the biggest names in the biz are backing the project like Cisco and Big Blue.

The project is estimated to cost $85-150 million. It will be broadcasted through the silicon valley area, the first test nodes will be in Palo Alto and San Carlos, they will start later this year on testing. I pray for the boys up in the Silicon Forest to start a project like this. The final network will probably start construction around 2008. Google where ya at on the funding??? Oh I forgot they are to busy trying to bribe the FCC…cough cough.