2-worldwar.com

LG launched its first network-connected Blu-ray player in July with partner Netflix. As part of the deal, viewers get access to more than 12,Rolex Watches,000 movies and TV shows from Netflix.

“As millions of U.S. consumers view and download movies or TV shows through the Internet, they are demanding easier ways to access content and more home entertainment options,” Tim Alessi, director of product development for LG Electronics USA, said in a statement. “From Blu-ray to instant streaming from Netflix to CinemaNow and YouTube,Hermes Watches, LG is bridging the gap between packaged media and video-on-demand services to provide entertainment solutions for consumers’ demand for content.”

The company will be showing off the new functionality at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) next week in Las Vegas. (Click here for CNET’s complete coverage of CES 2009.)

The current economic slump is driving some consumers to cancel expensive cable or satellite TV packages and look for video content online. LG believes it can capitalize on this trend by making it easier for consumers to find entertainment online that can be viewed on their TVs.

With Tuesday’s announcement, LG Blu-ray customers will also get access to 14,Pearl Jewelry,000 movies and TV shows from CinemaNow. And they will be able to stream millions of Web videos directly from the Internet to an LG Network Blu-ray Player so they can watch it on their TVs.

LG Electronics will add video streaming features from CinemaNow and YouTube to its 2009 lineup of networked Blu-ray players, the company said Tuesday.

Especially as autotranslation gets better, the benefit of not having populations nationally siloed comes into focus. If we can both read and contribute knowledge to something that primarily exists in a language I don’t know, then we really can share knowledge.

I agree that there’s not always a reason for people to use global services, especially when what they deal with is primarily domestic. But with the wiki world, I think the value of cross-border, multilingual conversation is astonishingly high.

For now, it’s more or less moot. As I reported before, despite the fact that Wikipedia in English is now available from China, the Chinese-language version is still blocked.

“There’s, in fact, no reason for China to use Wikipedia, a service based ‘out there,’” Chang said at the WWW2008 conference in Beijing on Tuesday. “It’s very natural for China to make its own products.”

Other posts from WWW2008 are here, and I’m twittering here.

William Chang, chief scientist leading Chinese search engine Baidu, said it’s natural for Chinese to use Baidupedia (Baidu Baike) rather than the foreign Wikipedia.

Until that utopian vision comes true, though, it very well may be that Wikipedia isn’t yet built ideally for Chinese users. Perhaps Baidu is doing a better job for people in this country. But I hope we can all get to conversing across this divide.

A couple of interesting phones passed through the Federal Communications Commission this week. One is the LG VX1100 and the other is a new HTC Windows Mobile smartphone for CDMA networks. Because the FCC has to certify every phone sold in the United States, not to mention test its digital SAR rating, the agency’s online database offers a lot of sneak peeks to those who dig. And to save you the trouble, Crave has combed through the database for you. Here are a selection of filings from the past week on new and upcoming cell phones. Click through to read the full report.

HTC CEDA200

Huawei C3100

Huawei (Vodafone) V736

LG GB250g

LG L-04A

LG GR500

LG VX1100

Motorola

Nokia (RM-465)

Don Reisinger chats with Mad’s Maddest Writer Dick DeBartolo about some great Digital Home gadgets and Mad Magazine. After that, he talks to Google about its culture of “openness” and tells you why Ticketmaster should die a slow death. Listen now:

Download today’s podcast
EPISODE 6

TODAY’S LINKS: Check out Dick DeBartolo’s homepage to learn about Mad’s Maddest Writer! The Daily GizWiz Thanks to Google! Click at your own risk

It’s the same dilemma Apple has faced over the years. Should the
Mac OS be licensed to any reasonably qualified manufacturer? Clearly, (Jobs) has proven that he can create a great PC business with 5 percent market share.

Forgive my flippancy, but I’m trying hard not to bust into giggles after reading about Rich Miner’s prediction that sales of Android-based devices will outstrip sales of the
iPhone.

But I understand why Google’s drawing invidious comparisons with the iPhone. Apple may yet screw this up but there’s powerful momentum behind the device. One week after announcing an iPhone software development kit, Apple’s registered more than 100,000 downloads.

Android may offer the more open architecture, but Apple’s decision to allow third-party developers to build applications is just the fillip the iPhone needs to win converts in the business world. So if you’re Google, I suppose it comes down to a matter of “why not?” A little bit of FUD at this juncture doesn’t come at a cost. But words alone won’t turn Android into the success its creators envision.

Let’s call Google on what this really is: Considering how there are currently ZERO Android devices in the market, Miner is engaging in (pardon the pun) major trash talking. Maybe Microsoft became such an easy target that Eric Schmidt decided it was the right time to pump up the volume at Apple’s expense. I don’t think Steve Jobs is sweating any. Down the corridor from me, my colleague Dan Farber recalled correctly that Apple’s following the same playbook that’s served it quite well in its other markets.

Know where this guy can score an iPhone?

“Once you have devices out there from Motorola, HTC, Samsung, and so on, there’s a much larger potential market on Android than for the iPhone,” he said during a conference held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. He later added, “There are things I saw people doing with the first version of the Android SDK that it seems like you can’t do with the iPhone at least at the moment.”

The first crop of phones resulting from Google’s Open Handset Alliance aren’t expected until the second half of the year. And yes, Android will not be tied to a specific device and thus the potential for monster sales exists–at least on paper.

(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET News.com)

All of which may be true and yet totally beside the point.

And before the service was even really off the ground, EarthLink pulled the plug. Still, Wireless Philadelphia, the nonprofit created to support the digital inclusion part of the service, said it isn’t giving up hope.

EarthLink is giving its nearly 6,000 customers in Philadelphia 30 days to transition to other services before it shuts down the network. Service will be terminated on June 12. The roughly 900 subscribers who were getting service subsidized as part of a “digital inclusion” program will be offered free EarthLink dial-up service for a year, EarthLink’s Putala said.

While it’s clear that the citywide Wi-Fi experiment has left EarthLink with some financial loss, the citizens of Philadelphia are also losing something. The network, which was dreamed up nearly four years ago, was supposed to bring more broadband competition and affordable service to the community. A major component of the network was to also provide free or low-cost broadband service to low-income families in an effort to bridge the digital divide.

EarthLink claims it had offered to donate the network free of charge to OneCommunity as well as pay cash and donate new Wi-Fi equipment, but the “transfer unraveled due to unresolved issues among the city, Wireless Philadelphia and the nonprofit.”

“Despite today’s announcement, Wireless Philadelphia and the city are still working actively together to identify alternatives for preserving this network and applying it to numerous civic, commercial, and social purposes,” Greg Goldman, CEO of Wireless Philadelphia said in a statement. “Regardless, Wireless Philadelphia is utterly steadfast in its determination to extend Internet access to all members of the community, and we intend to do everything in our power to continue the momentum generated by WP in support of digital inclusion.”

OneCommunity was not available for comment.

“The business model was tenuous at best,” he told The Inquirer. “I think what we have here is a market going in a different direction.”

EarthLink, which had once seen citywide Wi-Fi as its best hope for a post-dial up existence, said in February that it was getting out of the citywide Wi-Fi business. The company wiggled out of several contracts in cities such as San Francisco and Houston. In the five cities where it had built or was building a Wi-Fi network, the company looked to sell the network.

Mayor Michael Nutter told The Philadelphia Inquirer that he was “disappointed” by EarthLink’s decision. He indicated that the city might still hold the company accountable to some of the financial obligations in the 10-year contract it signed two years ago. But he acknowledged that it was highly unlikely that another network operator would take over the network at this point.

Chris Putala, a spokesman for EarthLink wouldn’t identify the nonprofit group. But a Philadelphia Inquirer article named the nonprofit as Cleveland-based OneCommunity, an organization that provides a fiber network to public and nonprofit institutions in Ohio.

EarthLink issued a press release on Tuesday stating that it was unable to find a buyer for the $17 million network that has been 80 percent completed. It also claimed that after months of negotiations with the city and a nonprofit group interested in running the network, it was unable to close the deal.

As for the Philadelphia network, EarthLink has already filed a proceeding in federal court to start removing Wi-Fi radios from city street lights and cap its potential liability at $1 million.

Last month, it announced it had transferred ownership of its networks to cities themselves in Corpus Christi, Texas, and Milpitas, Calif. But in New Orleans, where no agreement was reached with the city, it shut down service.

In its court filing, EarthLink said that its subscriber base covered less than 50 percent of its operational costs to run the Philadelphia network. And the company disclosed that it has been losing between $180,000 and $200,000 per month on the network.

The company has not yet commented on its plans for its network in Anaheim, Calif., which was the first EarthLink citywide Wi-Fi network to launch.

EarthLink said Tuesday that it is pulling the plug on its citywide Wi-Fi network in Philadelphia.

“The losses were simply not sustainable,” Putala said. “EarthLink had every incentive to make this network work. Despite our best efforts the Wi-Fi industry just didn’t live up to our expectations.”

“Since we have exhausted our efforts to find a new owner of the network, our only responsible alternative now is to remove our network at our cost and assist our Wi-Fi customers with alternative ways to access the Internet,” Rolla Huff, EarthLink’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement.

The Web site, which launched last July, acts as a broker between consumers and eBay or an electronics recycler.

To unload your old Treo or Canon, you write the product name into Second Rotation’s “dynamic pricing” application. You rate what kind of shape it’s in and the program tells you what Second Rotation will buy it for.

You can then print out a shipping slip and arrange a pick up. Second Rotation then rehabs the goods to be sold on eBay. A small percentage–10 percent–are sent to reputable recyclers, says CEO and founder Rousseau Aurelien. It makes money brokering the transaction.

Admit it: somewhere in a drawer or stashed in your closet, you have an old cell phone or digital camera with no practical purpose.

“Forty percent of
car sales have a trade-in but if you look at consumer electronics, it’s not a significant number–less than 1 percent,” said Aurelien. “So we have our work cut out for us. There needs to be a little bit of change in consumer behavior, too.”

Second Rotation is a Web site designed to find a home for that used and no-longer-loved electronic gear. On Tuesday, the company announced that it has raised $4.4 million in funding led by Venrock to expand its product catalog and ramp up marketing.

Second Rotation already takes cell phones, digital image and video cameras, gaming consoles, digital music players, and GPS systems.

In the summer, the company plans to expand its product catalog to laptops, beyond the trade-ins for Macbooks it already offers. Aurelien said the company’s ambition is to broker sales of more than just electronics.

Electronic waste is a growing problem. The Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month month launched a cell phone recycling program in an effort to raise consumer awareness.

Tired of that iPhone? Find a buyer online.

People can sell their stuff directly on eBay, of course, but Aurelien argues that it’s still too troublesome for most consumers. Only one in 30 of eBay’s registered users actually sells anything, he said.

Even if it had raised a bunch of money through a stock deal–and market conditions are pretty tough right now–Danger still would have been limited by investor expectations in how much it could invest in research.

The talks started last summer, Nothhaft said, even before Danger went forward with its IPO plans. The deal was code-named Party of Two, the name of one of Nothhaft’s horses. He wouldn’t say if other companies entered the picture, but he did say he owns 10 other horses.

For months, the company has been talking to Microsoft about strategic possibilities. At the same time, Danger had also filed an initial public offering to stay independent and raise money.

“There’s too much going on in the mobile Internet and it’s too exciting,” he said.

But, in the end, he said, Microsoft was the best fit for Danger, if not for himself.

Nothhaft said he plans to stay on through the deal’s close and a short while longer “to make sure everything gels,” but he won’t be staying at Microsoft. Nothhaft said he hasn’t decided what he’s doing next, but said he doesn’t plan on retiring.

Microsoft, meanwhile, can afford to invest as much in the market as the business justifies, particularly given the company’s desire to do better in the consumer market.

An IPO might have been tough, although Nothhaft said that route remained open. “Market conditions will improve and I’m sure we could have executed an IPO at some point in the near future.”

Ultimately, though, Nothhaft decided that the company really needed to be part of a bigger stable. Hence, Monday’s announcement that Danger is being sold to Microsoft.

Nothhaft, who has been running Danger since 2002, has known for some time that the company needed more resources to fulfill its potential.

Hank Nothhaft has pretty much the same approach as a CEO that he does as a thoroughbred owner–try to guide the race horse to the winner’s circle.

I’m left wondering if Otellini would be so confident about the global macroeconomic environment if AMD were in any better shape. AMD’s quad-core server chip, Barcelona, has just started to arrive to end users after a year-long delay, and Intel has a much better position in the notebook segment, as well. AMD will report its results on Thursday, and we’ll get a better picture of its plans for the rest of the year then.

Server sales were also strong as companies like Google and Amazon continue to expand massive data centers to enable concepts like cloud computing, Otellini said. He noted that Intel is selling components directly to these companies, which isn’t a new channel for Intel but might have been expanded in recent months.

Intel’s shares rose 8 percent in after-hours trading.

The first quarter is always slower compared to the fourth quarter of the previous year, coming off the holiday season. Revenue in both Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group and Mobility Group was down compared to the fourth quarter, but DEG processor revenue was up 16 percent compared to last year’s first quarter, and mobility processor revenue was up 12 percent. DEG consists of chips for servers and business PCs, while the mobility group owns Intel’s Centrino and Core 2 Duo efforts.

The chipmaker reported revenue of $9.7 billion, up 9 percent from the same period last year and a little better than Wall Street analysts were expecting. Net income was $1.4 billion, or 25 cents a share, in line with the company’s revised expectations after realizing its flash memory business went in the tank for the quarter.

Left unsaid in much of Otellini’s commentary was the dismal situation over at Intel’s only main competitor, AMD. The smaller chip company is laying off 10 percent of its workforce after seeing weak demand across all parts of its business, in contrast to Intel’s rosy outlook.

The real upside to Intel’s results was its guidance for the second quarter, which exceeded analyst expectations. Intel is predicting revenue between $9 billion and $9.6 billion, the midpoint of which is higher than previous expectations of $9.2 billion. The second quarter is generally the slowest period of the year for chip companies.

Intel and Micron are going to push out the construction of a new chip plant in Singapore as a result of the current oversupply situation, Otellini said. Intel is assuming that oversupply will last all year, said Stacy Smith, Intel’s chief financial officer.

Server processors, particularly in the U.S., were strong in the first quarter, Otellini said on a conference call following the release of Intel’s numbers. Any concern about PC shipments to Wall Street–one of the PC and server industry’s best customers–in the face of the credit crunch were offset by strong server sales to that group, he said.

But in Intel’s regular PC and server chip business, things are looking pretty good. “Our first quarter results demonstrate a strengthening core business and a solid global market environment,” said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO, in a press release. Those words will come as a relief to those who follow Intel as a bellwether of the technology industry.

Updated 4 p.m. PDT with executive comments from Intel’s conference call.

Intel’s first-quarter earnings should go a long way toward reassuring the tech industry that the world is not coming to an end.

There was one thorn in Intel’s side during the quarter, that woeful flash memory business. Intel sold off its NOR flash memory assets in forming a new company called Numonyx with STMicroelectronics during the quarter, but it’s still subject to the volatile NAND flash market through a joint venture with Micron.

On the PC side, notebook growth has been so strong, and desktop growth so weak, that Otellini now expects the notebook/desktop crossover to happen this year. Notebook shipments weren’t expected to make up the majority of PC shipments until 2009, but Intel thinks that strong growth combined with interest in low-cost “Netbooks” could make that milestone happen this year.

So let’s raise a glass–shaken, not stirred, of course–to Q and the rest of the team. Happy birthday, Mr. Fleming. the man whose imagination contributed mightily to popular thinking about all those cool high-tech toys.

Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, was born 100 years ago Wednesday in London.

While that historical footnote passed with hardly any mention in Silicon Valley, Fleming’s spy novels deserve a place on the shelf in the section titled “history of technology.” Fleming, who rose to the rank of commander in the British Admiralty during the World War II, introduced Bond in 1953 with the publication of Casino Royale. The subsequent Bond books and films brought to public notice everything from luminous watches to
car phones and pagers–long before they became commonplace commodities in contemporary society.

We also can thank Fleming for the popular phrase, a “James Bond gadget.” For a look back, take a look at the list compiled on Wikipedia.

(Credit:
IanFlemingCentre.com)

Of course, Clear’s various snafus and problems, as ZDNet’s Jason Perlow writes, couldn’t have helped.

(Credit:
Matt Asay)

Expect a backlash.

Ironically, Clear was apparently charging Clear subscribers’ credit cards right up until the announcement, as revealed by the commenters to a Los Angeles Times’ article on Clear’s closure. I guess the company needs every little bit as it heads to bankruptcy proceedings.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

Clear's announcement via e-mail.

commentary

Sigh.

But over the past few months, I’ve had more occasion to benefit from the service, and I can say that I will truly miss Clear. It has saved me from missing more than one flight. I want it back.

It would appear, however, that the cost of maintaining the service exceeds the roughly $52 million in subscription fees that Verified Identity Pass was able to bring in to support the Clear service. With costly biometric scanners and several Clear employees at each security station, it’s not hard to see how the costs could add up.

Despite pulling in 260,000 travelers at $199 each, Clear’s expedited security-clearance program in 18 airports has shut down.

Despite signing up for Clear almost from its inception, at first I wasn’t a big advocate of the service (though CNET’s Dave Rosenberg was). At my home airport in Salt Lake City, the difference between Delta’s Medallion line and Clear’s security lane was minimal.

The message to Clear subscribers like myself: “Get back in line.”

Verified Identity Pass, which operates the Clear service, said via e-mail and on its Web site that it was “unable to negotiate an agreement with its senior creditor to continue operations.” The Clear service was suspended at all 18 airports as of 11 a.m. PDT Monday.

Regardless, I doubt that many will appreciate Clear apparently renewing subscriptions right up until the moment the announcement of its closure. That’s bad form. I understand the need to satisfy creditors. But in the age of blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, it seems like an ill-advised policy to charge for a service you’re about to shutter .