Thursday, September 27, 2007

Palm Centro drops October 14th, 2007


It's got a touch screen, QWERTY keyboard, e-mail, IM, texting, EVDO, calendar, etc. etc. It's just another mediocre smart phone...except for the price: $99*. That's the upshot.

*After $100 mail-in rebate. Requires new activation, two-year service agreement and purchase of $25 data plan or higher.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Remote Backup / Online Storage


In September 2006, I lamented the sad state of online storage options:
"...Mac users get ONE gigabyte of storage for $100/year at .Mac or FOUR (4) gigabytes of storage for $200/ year. Xdrive.com will give you 5GB of remote storage for just $120 and backup.com will give you 5GB for $500..."

A quick glance shows that online storage is a much more appealing option now and should definitely be part of everyone's backup plan.

.Mac still costs $100 / year, but Apple now offers users 10 GB of online storage as part of the package. Backup.com now offers storage plans as low as $4.95/month...Still not super inexpensive, but if you look at it in the context of insurance, it's a good deal. Renter's insurance for a modest apartment runs ~$100 / year. Now with a service like Backup.com, you can insure the survival of you priceless items (i.e., photos) for ~$60 / year...not bad.

Xdrive gets the ThriftyTechie endorsement, however. 5 GB of remote storage for FREE. You can't beat that. Additional storage is available for a fee.

A year ago, online storage was a tough sell, now it's a no-brainer. Back that thang up.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Power to the People

Computers once filled entire rooms. Now they fit in our pockets. How a generation formed our tech landscape. (Steven Levy/Newsweek)

Nice article. The last 30 years have been amazing. Here's to hoping the next 30 will be even more amazing...

Pocket More Green With 'Green' Hype

Pocket More Green With 'Green' Hype (by Dan Gross / Newsweek) is a refreshing bit of skepticism about green initiatives in the business realm.

Although businesses' environmental interests often coincides with their business interests (i.e., saving resources and minimizing waste often saves money), it is becoming more common for businesses to tout their "green" credentials to distract attention from their other less savory actions...

In short, "seeming green" isn't the same as "being green". Example: Leo DiCaprio seems green with his new movie and his love of hybrid cars... but the irony is that your average truck-driving Joe who lives in an apartment (and not a 10,000 sq. foot mansion) is most certainly greener than any jet-setting hollywood star...no matter how green he may seem.

Be Green. Save Green. The first step to doing this is to avoid being duped. Think critically and don't always believe the hype.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Vudu Economics


Video rentals have become more and more convenient over the years. In the stone ages (i.e., the early 1990's), renting a video meant making a trek down to the local video shop – a Blockbuster if you were lucky. Netflix revolutionized video rentals in the late 1990's using a typical web 1.0 business model: bring in customers via the web, use snail mail to deliver the goods. As a result, people could rent and return DVDs much more conveniently; only a trek to the mailbox required. The business of sending videos through the mail was a simple concept, but it was indeed a killer app. With no late fees and a buffet-style ordering protocol, millions of subscribers found that in addition to being convenient, Netflix was economical too. It was a no-brainer to use Netflix.
Now with the power of Web 2.0 the trek for video rentals is becoming shorter and shorter...just a few steps to a remote control or computer. Services such as Amazon's Unbox and Apple's iTunes deliver content on demand to your computers. Cable companies deliver movies straight to your TVs. But these services all have faults: Cable's on-demand selections are limited only to specific recent releases, Amazon's Unbox and Apple's iTunes don't send movies to your TV's.
Enter Vudu. By all accounts (see links below), Vudu is a well-executed device and service. The upshot:
- movies available for rental (~$3) or purchase (~$20)
- movies can be searched by genre, title, director, etc. in a well executed, easy-to-use interface
- movies start playing instantaneously in better-than-DVD (but not HD) quality
- requires high-speed internet connection

Sounds great, right? Killer app, right? Well, no. And it's not because of the limited movie selection, which is a problem that can be fixed. The problem is an economic one: Vudu costs $399 up front just to get started. That's about 2 years worth of Netflix or about 100 movie rentals at your neighborhood shop. Suddenly the trek to your mailbox or to the corner video store doesn't sound so bad, eh?


Vudu according to Gizmodo
Vudu according to NY Times