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Lack of sentiment is killing technology

At what point is a technology dead?

A quick straw poll in the Times Online office reveals that only one person still has a video player connected to a TV, and even that hasn't been used in a couple of years.

The fall from grace for VHS has been swift, where other analogue technologies are still thriving.

Vinyl has been pronounced dead many times since the days of the cassette, but it continues to sell and now looks like it may even outlive the CD. The tactile nature of vinyl still seems to be a draw for many, but since it scratches easily and has sound that is inferior (and no, it's not a 'warm' sound, it's just the sound of added static and hissing) to many digital formats, why is it still around?

A Facebook tale of woe from Westminster

Tom Brake, the Liberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington in South London, is not a happy techno-bunny.

In an e-mail that thudded on to the Tech Central desktop this morning, Mr Brake made the following alarming statement: "Only hours after a huge public demonstration organised by Tom Brake and a team of young local campaigners, the Lib Dem Member of Parliament has had his account disabled by Facebook".

Mission improbable? The resurrection of Polaroid instant film

Thought you’d seen the last of the Polaroid instant camera, as described in this rather fabulous vintage commercial? Not necessarily…

The aptly named The Impossible Project is a bid to save the venerable Polaroid from extinction. Yes, we know about the PoGo, but instant print-outs just aren’t the same.

Anyway, if you’re feeling nostalgic, you may be shocked to find out that the last factories dedicated to the production of the famed photographic sheets was shut down in 2008. But do not fret. This is where The Impossible Project steps in.

Google Chrome OS: it's a really, really big deal. Honest

The news that Google is developing an operating system has really caught the imagination of the blogosphere. Just check out the technology news aggregator Techmeme this morning and you will see close to a hundred stories about it.

The biggest new revelation since yesterday is that Google does have netbook manufacturers on board with the venture.

Among the companies Google will be working with are Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba. This shows that Chrome OS is not pie-in-the-sky thinking. Google is deadly serious about having it on a PC near you. Very soon.

The media reaction to the story has been largely to frame this as a battle between Google and Microsoft (guilty as charged). We journalists have a annoying habit of reporting on titanic battles to the death, where in fact nothing more than gentle competition is taking place. But I really do think this is an important moment in computing, as well as a huge and possibly fatal challenge to Microsoft.

Google Chrome OS - what does the internet say?

What would we technology journalists do without Google to inject a little excitement into our lives?

Today's announcement by the internet search giant that it is developing a new operating system to rival Microsoft's Windows and Apple's OS X, has sent the web into a frenzy of speculation and crazed comment.

Why are all film-based games so rubbish?

Most games linked with movies are bad. The production timeline is short, the budget for design and code is tight, because budgets are eaten up by licensing payments and there is always a requirement to put in events from the film, whether the situations lend themselves to video game play or not.

I had high hopes that this was about to change with the release of Ghostbusters: The Video Game a few weeks ago. The production time was flexible, with only the 25th anniversary of the film to worry about. With no new film to coincide with the game launch, the need to shoehorn events from a movie was also avoided. Even better, Aykroyd and Ramis, who wrote the original film, also wrote the script for the game, which featured all of the original actors. So why is the game so bad?

Top 5 tips for spammers

The anti-virus specialist McAfee has just released its July 2009 research report, which identifies the top ten key spam trends across 15 countries. Interestingly, it appears that different countries and cultures respond to subject messages in a different way.

This, of course, is opening up whole new areas of research and development for professional spammers, who are desperate to find fresh ways to make us click that “open” button. Here are five subject lines that piqued our interest.

1. “Hello”
Users in 15 countries were analysed, and in nine of these, people were fooled into opening messages with “hello” in the title, including the US, Taiwan and Brazil. Simple, effective. It’s a spam classic.

2. “Call us for a masters degree”
Germany and Belgium fell prey to the highest amount of diploma scams of the 15 countries. France and Chile also featured such “diploma opportunities” in their spam lists, though not as many. In barbarous Britain, for some reason, the promise of further education seems to hold no allure at all.

3. “RE: DISCOUNT 80% OFF on Pfizer!”
Not sure what Pfizer is? Well it’s the pharmaceutical company that produces, among other things, Viagra. This stand-up scam featured as number one on both China and Taiwan’s lists, though users in France and the UK were also tempted.

4. “Your house switched off”
No, you read right, “Your house switched off” did indeed feature on one country’s spam list. Just one. Can you guess which one? That’s right. It’s the UK. What are we thinking of? What’s next? “Your diesel-powered dog”?

5. “Super Obama’s pants”
The funniest celebrity-related spam comes from France’s top ten, with Canada’s “Eminem’s buttkissing interview” coming in second. Australia’s top ten reflected a slightly seedier approach to celebrities, with “Naked Rihanna in bath” coming in at number five. Nice.

Thanks to Joanna Drag for this contribution.

Engadget founders get sociable, with gdgt.com

It's often said by people who don't know what they're talking about that gadget lovers are lonely people, sequestered away from society with a collection of shiny objects with buttons.

Well, not any more they're not.

In a move that seeks to unite social networking with a love of all things gadgety and gizmo-noid, Peter Rojas and Ryan Block, the founders of the gadget site engadget, have launched a brand new start-up, called gdgt (pronounced as separate letters).

After a free registration process (don't put any gaps in your postcode, UK dwellers), users are invited to tell the world about the gadgets they own, place them in order of preference, or start discussion groups about problems or annoyances.

The idea is not a new one - in fact long time followers of Tech Central may recall our coverage of Fixdit back in February - but it is very neatly executed.

Fixdit is undoubtedly the more technically impressive of the two sites, but possibly to its detriment, in that the 3D photography and multiple tools require users to learn quite a bit to make sense of it all.

gdgt, on the other hand, is as simple as blogging, and there's an introductory video that doesn't overstay its welcome. The site is only on its second day live, so don't expect to find every gadget ever made, but all the usual suspects (iPhone, PS3 etc etc) are already present and correct. Any gaps you spot, you're welcome to fill in yourself.

The photo at the top of the article by the way, is from gdgt founder Ryan Block's own Flickr account, and shows the very first sticker that gdgt produced to publicise the site and its logo. His pictures also provide a glimpse of a lifestyle that might just tinge you green with envy.

More moaning about Sony

What the heck is Sony up to?

I don't mean to turn July 1 into "let's give Sony a kicking day", but first the Japanese corporation refuses to celebrate the 30th birthday of its talismanic Walkman, then it launches a new line of Blu-ray players that are perhaps best described by what they can't do than by what they can.

So, meet the new BDPS 360 (above). It will sell in the UK for around £230. It plays Blu-ray discs, DVDs and CDs and connects to BD Live via ethernet.

Now for what it doesn't do.

There's no wi-fi. There's no on-board storage. It doesn't play photos or music from a USB stick (only from a disc). Sony can't guarantee Divx playback.

The USB port is used for extra storage of downloaded content only. It is located at the back of the machine. You know that bit you can't quite get at? Yep, just there.

As a Blu-ray player, it seems proficient and it has nice menus.

But then so does the PlayStation 3, also by Sony, which does have wi-fi, onboard storage (lots of it), USB ports at the front, and plays Divx files. The PS3 costs around £40 more, or the price of two Blu-ray films.

So why, why, why, would anyone ever buy the Blu-ray player? Even if you never play a game in your life, surely the PS3 is a bargain? And if the unconfirmed rumours of an imminent PS3 redesign are true, it will be a better-looking bargain. So, come on Sony. What are you thinking?

Monster Hunter lair located

London-based graffiti artists End of the Line are putting the finishing touches to a central London building that will host the UK's largest ever gathering of monster hunters.

Not that the capital's current tropical heatwave has produced a resurgence in prehistoric fire-breathing reptiles. Rather, video game company Capcom, the company responsible for Resident Evil, has taken over an art gallery near Tottenham Court Road, re-christening it the Monster Hunter Gathering Hall, in aid of Capcom's latest game, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, which comes out on July 3 on the Sony PSP.

In its native Japan, the Monster Hunter franchise is a genuine phenomenon, and since the game's launch there in April it has shifted over 2 million units. Monster Hunter mixes many of the elements of a multiplayer online game with a classic bit of Japanese role-playing, in which you are set monster-mashing missions by a village elder, and off you go.

The PSP version promises a richer online experience than ever before, but if you want to find out what all the fuss is about, you might want to get competitive with other players in the Gathering Hall. Turn up clutching a PSP and a copy of the game and admission is free.

The Gathering Hall will be open seven days a week at 121 Charing Cross Road, London WC2 0EW, and free soft drinks and top tips will be on tap for all players.

Sony poops Walkman birthday party

For a bigger version of this Sony Walkman image, click here

It's hard to believe, but one of the most iconic brands of the 20th century was born 30 years ago today.

The Walkman TPS-L2 went on sale in Japan on July 1, 1979, priced at a tad under 50,000 yen (then around 213 US dollars).

What's even harder to believe is that Sony is steadfastly refusing to celebrate the event, despite the acres of free publicity it could generate for itself. We at Tech Central think this is crazy, so we've decided to do Sony a favour.

"We don't really understand it either," a bemused-sounding Sony spokesperson told us when we rang them up. "But this is coming from Japan. They're just not interested." Well, sorry Sony, but we are.

Set your heart aflutter on Twitter

Couldn't resist this completely barmy device from Japan, which comes courtesy of Crunch Gear.

As you can see from the video, what this little box does is send details of your current heart rate to Twitter.

We think you may need a heart monitor to use it, but for the truly ostentatious hypochondriac, money is surely no object.

Our resident expert on all things Japanese is preparing a translation of the captions as you read this, but for now just take a look at the video and appreciate the admirable madness behind it.

Fancy a pink iPhone? Buy a white one. And wait.

With over one million sales since its launch in June, the new iPhone 3G S has certainly helped put Apple in the pink. In more ways than one, it would seem.

A report has surfaced on the French-language site Journal du Geek, which claims that a brand new iPhone 3G S first started to run hot, then change colour  The photo above was posted to the site by the iPhone's owner, Ben.

The pink ring that has appeared on the casing of the phone appears to follow the contour of the battery inside.

The new Microsoft ads are weird - but in a good way?

Microsoft has launched a new advertising campaign for Internet Explorer 8. The ads are strange.

So strange that I can’t actually tell if they’re any good. They feature Dean Cain - star of the old Superman TV series – and jokes around lolcats and vomiting.

Malcolm Gladwell vs Chris Anderson: a very intellectual bust up

Two of the world’s leading thinkers are in the middle of a spat. Admittedly, it’s all very polite and considered - but a good, old-fashioned bust-up is what it is.

It all started when Malcolm Gladwell reviewed Free: The Future of a Radical Price, the new book by Chris Anderson.

In fact, this was not so much a review as a  demolition job, in which Gladwell calmly dismantled Anderson’s theory that in the world of the web, most things will eventually be – and should be – free.

Gladwell and Anderson are two leading theorists whose once revolutionary ideas have now become orthodox thinking. Gladwell is the author of a number of books, but his first, The Tipping Point explained how certain ideas, behaviour and trends spread quickly after reaching a critical mass.

How to blow up a CD

From coffee coasters to novelty earrings and bird frighteners, each of us has our own favourite use for unwanted compact discs.

We at Tech Central were particularly impressed by this instructional video, which mixes primitive pyrotechnics with lung power to produce a truly extraordinary bubble.

As an added bonus (as if a bonus bonus were needed), all data on the CD used is rendered useless. This should prove equally handy for sensitive data and old David Essex CDs.

Why Wikipedia was right to stop the revelation of David Rohde's kidnapping

Wikipedia has grown up.

A story in the New York Times yesterday reveals that the newspaper colluded with the people running the online encyclopaedia to stop news of a reporter being kidnapped in Afghanistan from being released.

Some may see this as censorship - going against Wikipedia’s ethos to freely release all information. But speaking as a biased journalist, I think this is an example of Wikipedia showing responsibility and understanding its power and importance in the digital age.

The story is this: one of the Times’s reporters, David Rohde, was kidnapped by the Taliban several months ago - he recently escaped. The paper, fearing for Mr Rohde’s safety, wanted to keep the news secret. The paper thought that

publicity would raise Mr. Rohde’s value to his captors as a bargaining chip and reduce his chance of survival

Keeping the news secret was easy when it came to dealing with the mainstream media. The executive editor, Bill Keller, simply called another editor and it was agreed not to report Mr Pohde’s disappearance.

But the process wasn’t so easy on Wikipedia. The NYT reports:

A dozen times, user-editors posted word of the kidnapping on Wikipedia’s page on Mr. Rohde, only to have it erased. Several times the page was frozen, preventing further editing — a convoluted game of cat-and-mouse that clearly angered the people who were trying to spread the information of the kidnapping

Stopping the release of this information was a joint effort between Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, the website’s administrators and people at the Times.

But Mr Wales admitted that co-operating with the paper wasn’t a given.

"We were really helped by the fact that it hadn’t appeared in a place we would regard as a reliable source,” he said. “I would have had a really hard time with it if it had"

It was entirely possible that the people trying to update Wikipedia on this news were not being malicious. They are anonymous, and could not be told about the high stakes this information had. But I for one, am glad that Wikipedia took this decision.

There are two competing values to balance here. The first is freedom to disseminate information. The second is the effect it has on individual concerned. Put another way: freedom of speech vs a right to privacy. 

The internet (and newspapers generally) are, to my mind, skewed correctly towards freedom of speech. But sometimes someone’s right to privacy is so important it overrides the rule. Trying to keep Mr Rohde alive is one such example. Wikipedia’s maturity should be applauded.

Windows 7 pricing and promotions - all the details

Microsoft has announced the pricing and availability for Windows 7, its good-looking new operating system. It seems that the European Commission's decision to investigate (and shortly to fine) Microsoft for bundling its Internet Explorer browser into Windows in the past has resulted in some inconvenience for European users.

First of all, the details:

Windows 7 will launch worldwide, as we know, on October 22. All versions of Windows 7 in the European market will have the 'E' assignation and will come without the new IE8 browser unless it is bundled in by the computer maker. (It is likely that most if not all of them will.)

The standard retail pricing for Windows 7 will be £149.99 for Home Premium, £219.99 for Professional and £229.99 for Ultimate.

The good news is that Microsoft is offering Windows 7 for free to those who buy a computer from tomorrow Friday June 26 which has Vista on it. Buyers of a new laptop or whatever will get a voucher for a free copy of Windows 7 (the equivalent level of whatever Vista they have) when it comes out in October. So those who need to buy a computer now won't be penalised. That should help computer sales in the next few months.

UK users will also be able to preorder Windows 7 for a discount. In other words if you are set on getting Windows 7, then get your order in. For instance Home Premium will cost £79.99 on preorder (£149.99 full price). This offer starts on July 15 and ends in theory on August 14 while stocks last. The bad news for British consumers is that the US prices are exactly the same but in dollars - so Brits are paying substantially more.

Earlier Microsoft operating system upgrades, such as the upgrade from XP to Vista, have been offered with reduced-price 'Upgrade' versions for Windows users running the previous version. But now Microsoft says that "technical issues" (ie they have not had time to test it properly) with Windows 7E make this impossible. So you can only get the full packaged version of Windows 7 in Europe (with no browser).

What this means is that those who are using Vista at the moment will have to - as it were - start again with Windows 7 and do a full (custom) installation themselves. As Microsoft admits, a custom installation does not preserve your files, setting and programs. So you will have to back up your files etc to an external disk or drive and then reinstall them. That, quite frankly, will be a major pain for many people. Microsoft's advice is here.

As a concession to European users, Microsoft has said users can buy the standalone product at the (notional) upgrade prices for a limited period from launch date until early in the new year. 

The BBC reports that a European Commission spokesperson dismissed Microsoft's claim that the company was taking the action to comply with European anti-trust laws:

"The essential point of our case is consumer choice. We would want to look extremely closely at the terms under which Microsoft is making Internet Explorer available to computer manufacturers. For them [Microsoft] to claim that this is somehow imposed by the Commission or is going to resolve the problem with the Commission is far from clear."

So those who are annoyed by the lack of an upgrade version should shout at... who?

Overall this is a good package and for those who get in there and preorder, not a bad price at all. But the lack of an upgrade version for Europe will cause some chaos, I predict.

All the details and video from Microsoft are here.

YouTube uploads spike since iPhone 3G S launched

Wow. According to Google video uploads to the site have shot up from mobiles have 400 per cent since Friday.

Why?

Well, the iPhone 3G S was launched then, and people have been exploiting its new video capability.

The rise isn’t that suprising really – afterall, over a million handsets have been sold in the last week.

Google say this is all part of a larger trend, with uploads from mobile phone videos jumping 1,700 per cent in the last six months.

A spokesperson said:

This growth represents three things coming together: new video-enabled phones on the market, improvements that make it easier to post a video to YouTube from your phone, and a new feature on YouTube that allows people’s videos to be quickly and effortlessly shared through social networks

Did Steve Jobs use his money to jump the transplant queue?

It seems that he did - but that is just the way the system is set up in the States. And it explains why he had the surgery at a transplant centre in Tennessee, half way across the country from his home in California.

A well-researched and thoughtful piece on CNN explains:

"The reason that some people might be able to get transplants more quickly is that they're standing in more lines. Nothing prevents someone from being evaluated and listed at multiple transplant centers. As long as a patient has the wherewithal to fly around the country -- and be available at the drop of a hat if a liver becomes available (this is where the private jet comes in handy) -- a patient can, in theory, be evaluated by all the transplant centers in the country.

The piece is careful not to make any accusations of blame against Jobs and neither am I - but it does show up another instance of the financial inequalities in the American health care system. Read the CNN piece for the full story.