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Here's your cluestick.

The iPhone has 2.8% market share as of August 2008. It's not even close to being the #1 smartphone in the US. Keep drinking that tasty koolaid though.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/smartphones/iphone-greedily-eats-north-american-market-share-334516.php

Canalys has produced a report showing the iPhone has grown massively in North America. The study looked specifically at smartphone market share statistics in Q3, and the iPhone, in a surprisingly short time span, has managed to grab second position. A 27% market share is nothing to scoff at; what Apple has done in a few months, others have failed to do in years.

This was during the quarter that Apple was basically not manufacturing 1st gen iPhones....
http://www.intomobile.com/2008/06/03/palm-centro-boosts-palm-marketshare-rim-sees-blackberry-market-share-rise-apple-loses-in-iphone-market.html

But, there's always two sides to every story. While RIM and Palm saw their market-share increase, Apple saw its market-share slide. The iPhone took a healthy US smartphone market-share of 26.7% in the fourth quarter last year. But, it seems that RIM and Palm's success has eaten in to the iPhone's niche. The iPhone accounted for just 19.2% of smartphones sales in the first quarter of 2008, compared to 26.7% of sales in Q4 2007.

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2227601/apple-iphone-gains-market-share
Oct 7, 2008

The handset now accounts for 17 per cent of the market, second only to Motorola's RazR2. Before the iPhone 3G launch Apple's market share was 11 per cent. ....
Rubin noted that the iPhone is now outselling the BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Pearl and Palm Centro, making it the number one smartphone in the US.

Already exists.

I said it is not as slow on a dual core with 4Gb of RAM,which was kinda the point. It is an OPERATING SYSTEM people! It is supposed to give you access to your hardware and get the hell out of your way! I can put 2K,XP,any Linux,BSD,etc on a 3GHz Celeron with 2Gb of RAM and have it boot and be ready to go so fast I barely get my cigarette lit and my coffee poured before I am ready to work. With Vista anything less than a dual core is nearly always painful.

Note that I said nearly always. That is for the EEE guy. I have found that if you are lucky,and the company has excellent drivers,and you do the Ballmer monkey dance under the full moon you can get an okay experience if you are REALLY lucky. And while it is nice that you managed to get it to go on a EEE,try picking up any Vista machine on sale at Best Buy or Wal Mart and see how long you can stand running it without pulling out your hair. You see,most folks aren't tech nerds like us and buy strictly on price. Thanks to MSFT lying so incredibly hard on the Vista requirements which they put so insanely low it is pathetic,and killing XP which was perfect for low end machines,you have places like Best Buy selling Vista Basic on a Sempron with 512Mb of RAM. You ever have to work on a machine running Vista with those specs? I would rather be kicked in the nuts,it is less painful.

If you want to know what killed Vista,more than the incompatibilities,more than the slow networking,major battery suckage,etc the answer is simple....MSFT. Instead of simply accepting the fact that Vista takes a lot more system resources than any other Operating System in history,which they could have used to marketing effect(a next gen OS for next gen hardware) they lowered and lowered the system requirements,first with that God awful Vista Capable claptrap,and then later by killing XP Home,forcing the OEMs to put Vista on too many machines which simply don't have the power to run it.

From my experience Vista should NEVER be on a Celeron or Sempron based machine PERIOD,and it should NEVER be on a machine with less than 2Gb of RAM. If MSFT would have pushed Vista towards the high end while keeping XP for the low instead of trying to force everyone onto an OS than often simply wouldn't run well on the given hardware we wouldn't be avoiding Vista like the clap now. Instead we get headlines like this and Microsoft has no one but themselves to blame. For their sake Win7 better be a LOT more like XP and a LOT less like Vista or they or going to be giving Apple and Linux a whole bunch of disgruntled ex Microsoft users.

Its not meant for playback of a single video like the GFX cards do, or watch a DVD or Blu-ray, its designed for content creation and distribution. In an early demo, the Cell did 48 simultaneous Mpeg2 streams in real-time.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/playstation/cell-processor-demos-mpeg2-x-48-100853.php

Apple Computer cannot run a record label. Apple Records (the Beatles started that company) have already sued them simply for opening the iTunes store. The only reason the Beatles lost was due to the fact that the iTunes store was deemed to not be a record label, therefore was not in the same market, therefore was not direct competition and could not cause market confusion.

Source of the fact that the lawsuit occurred (I'm to lazy to look up more info for you): http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home/beatles-losers-in-apple-vs-apple-case-172135.php

Oh, I'm perfectly willing to celebrate, once I know it's true. Remember, just awhile ago, the posted details of the launch, /before/ they launched: http://gizmodo.com/5054776/china-launch-success-hits-web-hours-before-actual-blast+off

Why is it anti-Chinese to want to celebrate /real/ Chinese achievements?

The concern that I have is that this may also be faked.

Your skepticism is likely well placed. These are the same people who posted details about the launch hours before the actual launch took place:

http://gizmodo.com/5054776/china-launch-success-hits-web-hours-before-actual-blast+off

you're wrong so wrong you should take a look at this http://gizmodo.com/363154/audiophile-deathmatch-monster-cables-vs-a-coat-hanger

1. Multitasking? This is 2008, all other phones can download stuff while the user talks and surfs. Not iPhone.

I hate to break it to you, but this isn't a desktop with excessive resources to throw around, it's a mobile device that requires tight memory management.

I work in technical support at ATT, you'd be surprised how often we get calls about windows mobile or blackberry devices running sluggish b/c the average user just doesn't know how to manage their memory well, not everyone is as tech savvy as slashdot readers so please don't assume.

unified notification service is a more elegant solution, applications like IM clients can still notify users of new messages without running in the background, saving more battery life, having a single connection to the UNS rather than having a separate connection for every single internet based app is more efficient.

Imagine for a moment, you have 5 water slides running at the theme park, the water flowing down the slides represents the energy being drained from the battery and the people going down the slides represent an alert or message from an application being sent to your mobile device.

If people are only sliding down at a rate of 5-10 per hour, why not just have one slide running at all times rather than 5? That's exactly the problem, rarely is there a constant stream of data coming into your mobile handset so maintaining numerous connections even though they are idle for the most part seems really wasteful in terms of battery life.

3. Wireless headphones (BT)? - Forget it.

I'm sorry but battery tech has not kept up with mobile tech, yes it is cool but it's not practical, mobile handsets using 3G have short enough battery life, BT headphones would only make the problem worse and what is the only tangible benefit? No wires.

Why not just use the supplied stereo headset, for one it saves battery life b/c it's not wireless, two it adds an extra level of convenience, when a call comes in, just squeeze the mic button to answer the call, three you don't have to worry about your headphones running about of batteries before your mobile handset or the need to charge them.

4. Memory card slot? - forget it.

A lot of calls I get from ATT customers talk about memory card slots being such a great advantage, as if you were saving on money some how, if you compare retail prices of handsets combined with comparable storage sizes to the iPhone you still end up paying either more or equal, and you still end up with less features than what the iPhone provides.

5. MMS? - forget it unless you buy an MMS app.

I can't stand MMS and SMS for that matter, the only reason SMS and MMS even exist in the first place was b/c cell phones didn't have internet access, but now practically all mobile handsets have the option of Internet access, so tell me again why should we allow the telecoms to nickel and dime us to death, it's not a big secret, SMS/MMS is the cash cow of telecoms. Email seems like a much better deal and where we should be moving towards, no more ridiculous international rates for SMS/MMS. Why hang onto such an old technology that can be replaced by something much cheaper for the consumer and with less limitations.

7. Really good signal reception? - forget it. iPhone is on par with 1st gen 3G-phones from 4 or 5 years ago.

Just drop it already, testing already has been done and found it's not the iPhone it's the network.

Swedish Scientists Test iPhone 3G's Antenna: It's Fine http://gizmodo.com/5041239/swedish-scientists-test-iphone-3gs-antenna-its-fine
10. Want to transfer files to/from iPhone without installing special software? - Forget it.

You're right, this was a key feature they were missing, if only they had added this my mom would have bought the iPhone 3G, tough luck Apple.

Just another entry in the iProduct line.

How is this announcement related to the recent 250 GB monthly usage threshold?

The two are completely separate and distinct. The new congestion management technique is based on real-time Internet activity. The goal is to avoid congestion on our network that is being caused by the heaviest users. The technique is different from the recent announcement that 250 GB/month is the aggregate monthly usage threshold that defines excessive use.

Gizmodo's take on the thing is much easier to read.

Going over the 250GB cap will get you disconnected, but your bandwidth will get throttled long, long before that if you do anything their software deems "excessive."

According to their sources, these commercials are still a go.

Gizmondo - Rumor Crushed "In fact, Crispin Porter has another completed spot featuring the lovable, affluent couple in the can, ready to air (even though it won't quite yet). And while the agency has prioritized development to the anti-Mac ads, there are still full plans to go ahead and produce more Seinfeld/Gates spots unless Microsoft were to pull the plug first (which, once again, they have not at this time)." - Gizmondo

Would the hammer solution solve this problem?

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/wireless/how-to-disable-the-rfid-chip-in-us-passports-224321.php

http://gizmodo.com/5051682/microsoft-ads-featuring-bill-gates-and-jerry-seinfeld-not-canceled

This report turned out to be anti-Microsoft bullshit. Why is slashdot propagating lies? Is the McCain campaign running this site now?

Obviously not content to rely on his reality distortion field, Steve Jobs now looks to be even more forward-thinking than his press would have you believe.

and this is coming from someone who plans what games to buy months in advance and is normally too cheap to buy more than a game every few months.

sounds like you need a psp, and/or a Wii.

The Sky and Telescope article is much better than the Gizmodo blog. The article explains why it can't be closer than 130 ly due to no parallax, though IDK why they didn't use a more sensitive satellite for measuring parallax of objects up to 1600 ly away. Maybe it was only seen after the fact, or the other satellite was not sensitive enough? The thing could not be farther than 11 billion ly either, since otherwise the light would be distorted as it passed through interstellar hydrogen clouds (i.e. "cosmic hydrogen absorption in its spectrum"). The Sky and Telescope article even includes a reference to the original paper describing the phenomenon. I suggest you read that article instead. It is much more interesting!

This will work.

And while we're being pedantic:

And I did precisely nothing to promote that I have found a solution to that particular problem.

Well, you did blog about it on a webserver connected to the WWW, which you must know is indexed by a lot of search engines.

If I know that a Google Street View van will be driving around in my neighborhood and I paint something on the outer walls of my house so the van will photo it and people will see it online, won't you say I'm promoting it?

Doesn't this count as promoting Target? http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/maps/roof-wanted-for-google-maps-ad-149029.php

In other words, I don't think saying you "did precisely nothing to promote that you have found a solution" is correct at all, you actually did a lot to promote it by blogging about it.

just get yourself one of these

For the typical consumer how has no idea what Linux is, there is little point in a preloaded Linux system.

Have you heard of Splashtop? It's a linux distro ASUS is including on every motherboard. It boots in five seconds. You can browse the internet, watch Youtube videos and do Skype with it, among other things.

There's a lot of point in that. Five seconds from power to browsing videos on Youtube. What's the point in that? The point is that the bloated pig Windows has become can be avoided for most uses, and optionally loaded only when you must have those occasionally useful programs that require that crutch because they're poorly written to depend on it. As people more and more avoid the pain of loading Windows more and more software houses will get the point that if they want their apps to be run, they had better run in the lightweight environment that is used by most of the people most of the time.

hardly gave them any time

Manufacturers had more than full year before the release date.
But some manufacturers (Creative comes to mind) didn't ship proper Vista drivers for an additional eight months after Vista Business Final was released.
 

Boy do I agree with you about how much easier it is with console games. I wanted to go buy Spore until I found out how restrictive its copy restriction is. WTF. I just want to play the game, not 'register' it. To answer your question, CD-ROM drives in PCs server different duties from consoles. It's a much bigger pain to swap out discs on a PC for a game when other things are going on. It's the nature of the beast.

No, it's because PC games companies don't give half-a-shit about the quality of their product. If a console with significantly wimpier hardware than my desktop computer can do it, then there's NO reason a PC can't also do it. And since most PC gamers have been beat-down over the years by low-quality products, they don't demand any better.

BTW you're not missing anything:
1) Spore is an EA game, and therefore practically guaranteed to suck
2) Spore is a highly-hyped high-concept game which is also a year late; I've been a gaming fan long enough to know that games like this are also guaranteed to suck. (See: Black and White or Fable, for example.)

That isn't what I said. By the time 2 years have gone by, the game is typically no longer availble for sale. Many of the people will no longer be able to easily dig up their copy of it. Etc. There's really a number of reasons why somebody'd go download it later. Settle down.

It's still piracy, regardless of how much time has gone by! (Well, until the game is put in the public domain.) I'm unsettled because you are justifying the piracy of software by saying it's "ok" to take if the game is two years old. Wrong. It's legally wrong, and it's morally wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

This is the EXACT kind of weak-ass justifications that pirates tell themselves while they rob game developers of income. Which was the grandparent's entire point: if you're going to pirate games, don't waste our time and yours coming up with weak-ass justifications that wouldn't convince a kindergarten, and just admit you're pirating games because you're cheap.

Not buying it sends the message to game publishers that people don't want the game. It's no more informative than that. If the game is highly pirated but sales are low, they'll start asking questions like if the price was too high. If it's a given that copy protection won't work, they won't have much other choice than to find out why.

If people don't buy it, but tons of people pirate it, it sends the message that gamers are crooks who don't give a shit about paying for goods they consume. The fact that people pirated it means you're coming to the wrong conclusion; obviously people willing to break the law to get the game actually *do* want it. Duh.

If people didn't buy it, and people didn't pirate it, that would indicate that people don't want it. But that's basically the opposite scenario to the one we're talking about.

It's not a given that copy protection doesn't work; you have to be pretty uber-nerd to even attempt to break copy protection on a PC game. You have to actually mod hardware to break copy protection on most consoles, and throw away your ability to play online. (I dunno about the PS3, actually, I just have an Xbox.)

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/02itunes.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/09/yahoo-music-to-recor.html
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hooray-for-no-drm/amazon-jumps-headfirst-into-drm+free-music-download-market-with-12000-record-labels-260898.php

^^ Three major music distributers stopped using DRM. This is despite all of the MP3 files floating around on the internet. Success.

Music store... music store... music store... this is relevant to video games, how?

no but you can order a "Bucket o'food" for $75 that will give you 275 "meals"

Not at the moment. Any "new" features in Chrome are easily replicated with FF extensions.

Cool, can you point me to the stop-fragmenting-memory-and-slowing-down extension, and the multi-process-isolation-so-the-whole-browser-doesn't-crash extension?

If the only thing that comes out of this is that it is a wakeup call for Firefox, then it was still worth it IMO.

Not at the moment. Any "new" features in Chrome are easily replicated with FF extensions.

I think their cars pose a bigger threat to their customers than to their competitors. I didn't know you could get a crash test rating so low (at least until I saw this one).

http://gizmodo.com/383451/cat5-wedding-bands-pronounce-you-geek-and-geek Seriously though, I think the Iridium idea is neat and very unique. If you can find someone to do it, it would probably have to be cast in place, and most likely you would be out of luck if she ever needed it sized or worked on. Just some things to keep in mind.

Biden his VP choice is against net neutrality

I think Obama has lost his mojo.

"I buy Apple products. It just makes me feel special."

http://cache.gizmodo.com/gadgets/images/iProduct.gif

After all, there are some people still with no computer at all.

I would imagine that there are more people with a PC running Windows or Linux who want to program for a phone than people with no computer at all who want to program for a phone.

They would have to pay just as much to develop for Android.

Even for someone buying a first computer or a replacement for a thoroughly obsolete computer, there are bargain-basement Windows and Linux PCs. There aren't bargain-basement Macs. There's even a $300 Linux/XP PC that looks like a Wii, which might be the direct counterpart to the Mac mini.

Honestly, most developers these days have macs anyway (take a look around any technical conference)

You mean other than WWDC or another Apple-specific con?

8.9" WSVGA TL 1024x600 (WLED) screen

I wonder if that screen is one of those awful "glare" screens. Anyway, does anyone have specs on the brightness of that screen? Other netbooks do not have sufficient brightness for use under a bright sky. This picture seems to show it's surface is mirroring :-(

Thankfully the pictures do show an RJ45 interface, specs published a while back on a german site made me believe there would be only WLAN included.

If the keyboard is usable and that screen is halfway decent, it just might be my choice of netbook (currently, over the EEE PC 1000).

That was NOT the thumbs up signal. That was the beginning of Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A B A.

Ah, so you saw this too?

But people willing to put tens of thousands of dollars and six months of their spare time into actually BUILDING an electric vehicle proves there's an actual demand out there, not just politically-correct lip service.

Not necessarily. People spend lots of time and money building jet powered bicycles also. I doubt there's much demand for those.
Elec cars, yes. But tinkerers do not always reflect public demand.

ORLY?
Slashdot you say?

How about Kotaku?
http://kotaku.com/5035242/ninty-forbids-miyamoto-to-discuss-his-hobbies

Or Gizmodo?
http://gizmodo.com/5036013/miyamoto-gagged-by-nintendo-apple-style

I know Slashdot bashing is very popular, but then again, what are you doing here if you hate it that much?

It wasn't pirated. The following link (in Chinese), which is traced from this other link (which comes from the Gizmodo article) says they were 120 HES Axon Media Servers running XPe (Windows XP Embedded).

Regardless, I can see some heads rolling as result from this failure.

In other news, a giant BSOD was spotted on the roof during the ceremony..

caused the Blue Screen of Death?

http://gizmodo.com/5035456/blue-screen-of-death-strikes-birds-nest-during-opening-ceremonies-torch-lighting

No, this is an application kill switch. It can be used to kill any application. Sure, that's all well and good. But the amount of power it puts in their hands shouldn't be trusted. Maybe I should just go back to wearing my tinfoil hat, aye?

Compare it to the watch that does not show time (for only $300k):
http://gizmodo.com/377071/300000-watch-doesnt-tell-time-but-shows-if-the-sun-is-up

Mine says not to leave *on top of* the microwave, or even the TV. So I do. It also says not to bend etc., I do that too.

Actually though, five seconds in the microwave should be enough to disable the chip.

There have been lots of discussions on the very point, see for example:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/09/renew_your_pass.html
http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20832&page=2
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/wireless/how-to-disable-the-rfid-chip-in-us-passports-224321.php
http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/26/how-to-disable-your-e-passports-rfid-chip/

Or you could do a search for disabling passport RFID or something like that.
(What I got out briefly reading those discussions is either a magnet (CRT computer monitor or TV I guess would be easiest), or else a hammer.

for the iPhone Flea

One song and 5 phone numbers - that's all I need.

And it even works for desktops too!

Here's two estimated cost breakdowns of the iPhone for comparison. $10 is way out of touch.

Yes, the tilt sensors are very precise, but you do get some random noise that you have to account for in your software. Current tilt-based games such as Labyrinth (marble table game) and Super Monkey Ball are very playable, and the motion detection is incredibly sensitive and quite realistic. An anonymous EA developer actually commented on the iPhone's accelerometer's characteristics as an input device in this story, where it is compared with the Wii remote minus the Motion Plus additions.

According to the manufacturers website this will be a thin film coating that is applied by submersion of the device in the coating material. Meaning, anywhere that water could possibly go would all ready be coated by this substance. They also claim they have coated speakers that are able to play underwater, and our researching the coating of camera optics.

Also, according to Gizmodo, the coating of your electronic devices will be offered as a service for $50-$75. They also have a nice demo video posted.

A friend of mine (who loves to hate on the iPhone) sent me a great link that might be of interest:

Gizmodo article on devel limitations

Some of the points raised:

• Developers can't touch or enhance iTunes or iPod functionality in any way, shape or form -- they can't even access your music directory, meaning you better like the way the iPod button works just the way it is.
• No processes can run in the background -- apps have to completely quit when exited, completely contained in their little sandbox.
• Devs can't integrate apps or functions into the OS. Third-party apps will always be second-class citizens, and can't significantly alter iPhone functions, including accessing the calendar or SMS messaging or adding any content to the otherwise useless lock screen that appears when you wake up the phone.
• Pirated games, movies or whatever are a no-no in the App Store, obviously. (duh)
• A bit different than the piracy concern, apps using copyrights, trademarks or intellectual property of a major company are sticky, and the App Store will steer clear of them if they're not developed by the company itself.
• Devs don't have deep access to the hardware.
• Apple's app review process is a complete mystery to developers and takes forever, which can affect app quality and horribly delays app updates.
• Apple limits app testing to five devices, so there is basically is no beta testing.
• Apple's number one priority is Apple.

I defend the phone and Apple as much as I can, but I have to admit that these are some pretty good points.