Editorial: Microsoft is singing the right tune with some wrong notes

<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> <img alt="DNP Editorial Microsoft is singing the right tune with some wrong notes" data-src-height="412" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/03/microsoftsurfacewindowsrt53.jpg" /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">In an episode of <em>Elementary</em>, a TV reinvention of Sherlock Holmes, there is an audacious product placement for the Microsoft Surface tablet. Holmes, a techno-adept detective working in New York, whips out a Surface to do some quick research. He snaps on the keyboard with the same hearty click made famous in Microsoft commercials. Then the kickstand! The patented three-step maneuver is so distinctly set apart within the scene, there might as well be a blinking "Advertisement" notice across the sequence. (Holmes follows up by searching on Bing, turning the product placement into an ecosystem placement.)</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> I don't know whether seeing a fictional genius using Surface helps sales, but if so, it's not helping enough. The Surface slate is on the skids in retail, as are Windows 8 computers. It is perhaps not surprising that Microsoft's retail users are slow to migrate from the familiar (PCs running Windows 7 and XP) to the unfamiliar (PCs running the radically different Metro interface, and a new product category in Surface). But swampy sell-through is definitely surprising financial analysts, some of whom are cutting Microsoft's revenue forecasts.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Microsoft is doing a lot right in placing its long bet on ecosystem coherence. But along the way it is making unnecessary mistakes.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> The Surface RT and the Windows 8 operating system were both released on October 26, so Microsoft is more than four months into its grand experiment. The panicky media coverage of Surface sales carries over to Windows 8 computers with even more alarmed punditry. Windows 8 machines are sitting in stores. Some observers are calling Windows 8 the new Vista -- a hard and mostly undeserved slap to the face. Vista was functionally poor; Windows 8 is battling an inertia problem due to its unfamiliar interface and lack of compelling problem-solving. Two of Lenovo's five best-selling laptops (updated hourly) are Windows 7 machines as I type this.</div><blockquote class="quote left" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> PC sales have been slowing across the board, quarter by quarter, as consumer dollars shift to slabs and phones.</blockquote><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Two reasons for slow Windows 8 PC sales come readily to mind. First, touch-enabled laptops running the new OS are more expensive than non-touch versions, giving consumers a reverse incentive to adopt a new screen experience which is clearly designed for touch. Second, PC sales have been slowing across the board, quarter by quarter, as consumer dollars shift to slabs and phones.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Meanwhile, Microsoft's many lines of business add up to a healthy company whose last quarterly report (fiscal Q2 2013, ending December 31) showed substantial year-over-year gains (26 percent top-line advance for the Windows division). At quarter's end, the company had sold more than 60 million Windows 8 licenses. That robust figure implies that consumers are reaching for OS upgrades on existing machines, a generally successful operation, rather than unnecessarily spending more for a hardware refresh.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> The Windows business as a whole enjoys powerful momentum. Windows is a multiple-versioned product, obviously. On the enterprise side, more than 60 percent of desktops are running Windows 7. Overall, Windows 7 owns 45 percent of the market, and XP steadfastly hangs on to 39 percent. <span>Windows 8 claims a slim 2.6 percent share as of February. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> <span>The point of this pie-charting is that Microsoft's computer OS footprint is a mighty 92 percent across all Windows versions. That sprawling dominion can seem threatened by slow Windows 8 uptake, in the context of an accelerating post-PC world. But Steve Jobs was not really right about that -- at least, not yet. It is less a post-PC world than a co-PC world. The computer is far from dead, and infotaining tablets are far from being productive replacements. The high-powered Surface, in fact, is the most-aligned to productivity in the field. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Technology ecosystems are complex matrices of cross-wired businesses, and the major examples sharply differ from each other. Each of the chief players -- Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft -- imprints a unique eco-template on the marketplace. Each seeks to capture as much digital living within its branded walls as possible. These lifestyle silos include walking around, driving around, being passively entertained in the living room, being productive in the home office, working a job, creating media, searching / finding information, shopping, storing digital possessions, navigating the virtual realm, navigating the physical realm, talking on the phone, texting, socializing in other ways, gaming, etc. Each aspect of life is a business unit in one or more tech ecosystems valued at billions of dollars.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Windows 8 and Surface together represent a prodigious bet to round out an eco-branding ploy which hits all major product categories with a consistent look and feel. It is the insistence of that last point, the Metro interface everywhere, that is unnecessary and harmful.</div><blockquote class="quote right" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> The important question isn't whether consumers will adopt Windows 8; the question is whether Microsoft needs consumers to adopt a computer OS that looks like Windows Phone handsets and Surface tablets.</blockquote><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> The important question isn't whether consumers will adopt Windows 8; the question is whether Microsoft needs consumers to adopt a computer OS that looks like Windows Phone handsets and Surface tablets. Does a desktop OS need to provide interface continuity with the organism's mobile extensions? Apple, the ecosystem champ since it first brought iTunes to market, doesn't build that way. The functional Windows 8 operating system isn't the chief retail problem. The Metro interface, the blue-tiled placard of a new Microsoft, so different, so strangely touchy and so clearly emblematic of mobile functioning, is what is driving product confusion and refusal to engage.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Removing the Start button in Windows 8 is Microsoft's first misjudgment. The second is refusing to allow booting to the familiar desktop, which would be a friendly and inviting OS customization.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> <span>In Windows 8, you can revert to the Windows desktop experience via a tile, and you can further customize the interface with third-party apps which revive the Start experience and return Windows 8 to a 7-like environment. These solutions, while handy, have to make early adopters wonder why they bought into Windows 8 in the first place, especially if they are not using a touch screen.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Microsoft has underestimated how tiny usage obstacles loom large in the consumer experience. The company clearly doesn't want users to avoid Metro. Why not? Why, in fact, shouldn't Microsoft and its retail partners emphasize the desktop interface alternative as a point of reassurance? Is there anything in business more valuable than 92 percent of the market fiercely committed to your core product? Microsoft is marketing like a bully, as if the consumer message were, "We know your technology future better than you do. So you must adopt our vision of it."</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Forcing loyal users through a usage quirk at every boot, just to arrive at the starting point that millions of people have loved for years, is wishful thinking at best, user hostility at worst -- and self-damaging in either event.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> It's early days still for Microsoft, and category trends are changeable, like swiftly flowing mountain streams carving new paths in the hillside. Mini tablets might complete a takeover of that category, creating headroom for laptop sales to revive. The Surface is just reaching international markets now. The rumored OS update, Windows Blue, could be a corrective that proves more accommodating of consumer hesitation.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Over the last 20 years, ever since Microsoft under Bill Gates missed the internet like a hitter striking out with the bat on his shoulder, Microsoft has proven its willingness to arrive late to the party, to persist and to drink its share of the punch.</div><hr dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" /><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> <em>Brad Hill is a former Vice President at AOL, and the former Director and General Manager of Weblogs, Inc. He uses Windows computers, iOS handhelds and fine-point pens.</em></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><em> </em><img alt="Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro" class="" data-ls-image-ref="fm_477110" data-ls-use-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zet/9zet.jpg" data-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zet/9zet-460.jpg" height="345" src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zet/9zet-460.jpg" style="opacity: 1;" width="460" /><img alt="Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro" class="" data-ls-image-ref="fm_477113" data-ls-use-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zew/9zew.jpg" data-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zew/9zew-460.jpg" height="345" src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zew/9zew-460.jpg" style="opacity: 1;" width="460" /><img alt="Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro" class="" data-ls-image-ref="fm_477115" data-ls-use-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zey/9zey.jpg" data-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zey/9zey-460.jpg" height="345" src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zey/9zey-460.jpg" style="opacity: 1;" width="460" /><img alt="Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro" class="" data-ls-image-ref="fm_477116" data-ls-use-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zez/9zez.jpg" data-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zez/9zez-460.jpg" height="345" src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zez/9zez-460.jpg" style="opacity: 1;" width="460" /><img alt="Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro" class="" data-ls-image-ref="fm_477117" data-ls-use-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zf0/9zf0.jpg" data-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zf0/9zf0-460.jpg" height="345" src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zf0/9zf0-460.jpg" style="opacity: 1;" width="460" /><img alt="Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro" class="" data-ls-image-ref="fm_477118" data-ls-use-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zf1/9zf1.jpg" data-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zf1/9zf1-460.jpg" height="345" src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zf1/9zf1-460.jpg" style="opacity: 1;" width="460" /><img alt="Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro" class="" data-ls-image-ref="fm_486621" data-ls-use-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/475/a6s8/a6s8.jpg" data-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/475/a6s8/a6s8-460.jpg" height="345" src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/475/a6s8/a6s8-460.jpg" style="opacity: 1;" width="460" /><img alt="Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro" data-ls-image-ref="fm_490599" data-ls-use-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/479/a9v1/a9v1.jpg" height="345" src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/479/a9v1/a9v1-460.jpg" width="460" /><img alt="Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro" class="" data-ls-image-ref="fm_477131" data-ls-use-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zfe/9zfe.jpg" data-src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zfe/9zfe-460.jpg" height="345" src="http://media.gdgt.com/img/products/465/9zfe/9zfe-460.jpg" style="opacity: 1;" width="460" /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div>

Editorial: Microsoft is singing the right tune with some wrong notes

  In an episode of Elementary , a TV reinvention of Sherlock Holmes, there is an audacious product placement for the Microsoft Surface tabl...

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Editorial: Google Glass contest elicits mild uses for wild tech

<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><hr dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" /> <div class="copy post-body" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> <div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="Editorial Google Glass contest underlines mediocre uses for brilliant tech" data-src-height="350" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/ifihadglass.jpg" /></div>Google's #ifihadglass contest advertises for "bold, creative individuals" to start carrying pre-production builds of Glass later this year. Since most people flatter themselves as dauntless and inspired, Google's challenge casts a wide net and applications are piling into Twitter. The contest apparently also seeks prosperous individuals willing to pay $1,500 for the prize, plus travel expense to pick it up. There might be good fiscal reasons for Google's parsimony, but I can't help noting that the $12 million of revenue generated by eager beta testers represents five-thousandths of 1 percent of the company's market cap, or one-tenth of a percent of its liquid cash.<br /> Putting aside whatever demographic-shaping is in play, the more interesting question is whether Google will find its desired 8,000 bold creative types. The applications do not foretell blazing originality among foaming early adopters. If there is a depressing strain of mediocrity in the #ifihadglass Twitter stream, perhaps it speaks less to human limitation and more to intrinsic constraints of the device as it is currently understood.<br /> A survey of #ifihadglass Twitter applications (which, by the way, are formally called "essays" in the contest rules, and wouldn't Thoreau be pleased) reveals two things. First, most people aren't trying very hard. Google encourages photos and short videos along with the tweets, but those media enhancements are rare. Applications of fewer than 50 words may also be posted to Google+, but I restricted my research (hey, if tweets are essays, my trolling can be research) to Twitter because I don't know where Google+ is, and am not certain it truly exists.<br /> The second facet of the Twitter supplication stream is its categorical quality -- not unlike the Academy Awards, so neatly do the creative works order themselves into groups. The contest challenge is to describe how you would use Glass. <span>The answers fall into broad divisions:</span><br /> <strong>Record Everything:</strong> This is the obvious use case for a media device that you don't have to pick up or put down. It imagines Glass as a dash cam, where the user's forehead is the dash. I did not break out response types by percentage, but variations on this theme occurred frequently in my sample. Applications of this sort will probably not meet the jury's guiding criterion of "the most compelling possible uses for Glass." Unless the judges get desperate.<br /> <strong>Share My Unique Life:</strong> A subset of the Record Everything bucket, these tweets presume the applicant to be uncommonly interesting, especially when engaged in undisclosed daily activities. One tweet promised (threatened?) the world would "live in my shoes." Another committed to "share an incredible life with the world."<br /> <strong>Travel:</strong> Many submissions pledged to organize global jaunts if Glass were bestowed. Starting with what, for some people, will be a long journey just to get their hands on the prize.<br /> <strong>One Special Moment:</strong> Short-term thinking is evident, sometimes to good effect. One pre-nuptial couple promised on video to us Glass during their wedding ... and the honeymoon.<br /> <strong>Praise Google:</strong> This is the suck-up category in which applicants promise to be viral marketers for Glass.<br /> <strong>Put Glass On Things:</strong> Especially animals. I do hope the judges pick some of these. I know I would not be able to resist clamping Glass on my dogs.<br /> <strong>Gushers:</strong> The core thesis here is, "I should get Glass because I think Glass is the most awesome thing ever."<br /> <strong>Humorists:</strong> Clearly not trying, except to make their followers laugh. Examples include, "I would put my phone down, get some friends, video car accidents and show my new friends." And, <span>"I would stare at my hamster eating and save every precious moment." And, "</span><span>I'd look like elves had given up building a monorail to connect my ears."</span><br /> <strong>GTD:</strong> Productivity-minded hopefuls are among the best candidates in my opinion, as they lift the device's floundering use-case prospects. One tweet envisioned surreptitiously taking pictures in class instead of notes. (That was possibly a joke; see the Humorists category above.) Another student bent on real self-improvement thought it would be valuable to let his archaeology professors watch his work on digs in the field. That guy has to get one. Another interesting appeal: "<span>I would caption everything (I am deaf) using a speech recognition software and language processor that I am helping to develop." (Not to be cynical, but I wonder about copycat submissions, and whether fact-checking is baked into the contest.)</span><br /> <strong>Demonstrations of Skill:</strong> These rare and mighty submissions inarguably illustrate creativity that must be attractive to the judges, even if the applicability to Glass is uncertain -- as in this Android wrist mount, and this 15-second movie. Those are the people Google should <em>give </em>Glass to. (Forget the $1,500 crap. Why is Google willing to risk excluding a rare creative individual who can't afford an expensive and probably buggy gadget?)<br /> In a recent interview, a Glass developer explained that the product concept came to life for her when she observed a long line of people waiting for a bus. Every head in line was buried in a screen, and all hands were busy holding those screens. The product vision solves that scenario by simultaneously bringing technology closer and moving it out of the way. I'm not alone in loving that vision, and standing ready to eagerly adopt wearable computing. But the mundane underlying truth is that Glass is a smartphone with a new form factor. In fact everything that observers know now, a year or so before launch, tells us that Glass is less functional than an average smartphone. (That could change.)<br /> Removing hands from mobile computing provides an incalculable usability gain. But let's remember this about hands. They distinguish us as humans, and hands do most of the creativity in the world. Genius without hands goes nowhere. Human civilization was built with opposable thumbs. Is it a mystery that #ifihadglass contest applicants can't think of anything interesting to do with a handless device? Pics, vids, mapping, texting, sharing. Notwithstanding functions I might be leaving out, at this point it looks like a rudimentary mobile feature set. Nimble as hell, but not very capable aside from that.<br /> I expect the business and product impact of Glass to be tectonic. I will want one. But its usefulness points rather to the ordinary than the extraordinary.<br /><br /><hr /> <em>Brad Hill is a former Vice President at AOL, and the former Director and General Manager of Weblogs, Inc. His planned use of Glass is turning on the video and staring blankly into space.</em><br /> </div></div>

Editorial: Google Glass contest elicits mild uses for wild tech

Google's #ifihadglass contest advertises for "bold, creative individuals" to start car...

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Rethinking the flagship: The case for Nokia's Lumia 620

<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><hr dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" /> <div class="copy post-body" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> <div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="DNP Is this the phone that could rescue Nokia" data-src-height="340" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/lumia620-1360667015.jpg" /></div>It's easy to dismiss the Lumia 620 as yet another cheaply-priced smartphone, but that isn't the case. In fact, Nokia's latest release made me completely rethink Windows Phone. Sure, the mobile OS lacks the app selection of its rivals, but maybe I didn't need them to begin with. Maybe I didn't need the same processor found in rival Android devices to run an OS that's generally much lighter and more direct. Perhaps Nokia thought the same thing, because in reading over the Lumia 620's spec sheet, there's a lot of decidedly low-to-middleweight hardware. But it's <em>hundreds</em> of dollars less than the Lumia 920 and once I got my hands on it, I realized this was the Windows Phone I had been waiting for.<br /><blockquote class="quote left"> Nokia needs a success. So does Microsoft -- it's been three years to the day since Windows Phone 7 was first announced</blockquote>Nokia needs a success. So does Microsoft -- it's been three years to the day since Windows Phone 7 was first announced. Since then, we've seen Nokia transplant its ill-fated N9 into the stylish Lumia 800; then the bigger (and not as slick) Lumia 900 tried to crack America. On the sidelines, second-string Lumias like the 710 or the 610 arrived to antipathy. They lacked the design punch, build quality (and colors!) of the high-end iterations. Then late in 2012, Windows Phone 8 arrived and the pocket-straining Lumia 920 was unfortunately pitted against the Galaxy S III and the iPhone 5. <span>An operating system that still had to prove itself was now going up against Android's and iOS' strongest players and on a two-year contract, to boot! That's a deep bet to make on a fledgling, niche OS. </span><span>The Lumia 920 attempted to play on its strengths (like admittedly superb low-light photos and an enhanced touchscreen) to warrant the premium, but it doesn't quite hit home for me. </span><span>Dropping any price-tag pretension, it's the Lumia 620 that is Nokia's most compelling Windows Phone to date.</span><br /> <span>What do you want from a smartphone? Apps are important. We've said it. Even phone makers </span>have said it<span>. But they're not important to everyone. I have friends wheeling around </span>One Xe<span>s, </span><strike>conned</strike><span> convinced by me that it was the phone to get, but have they bought into Google Play? Nope; they play a mix of free games (some of them plain awful) and have installed a handful of common apps that they spend most of their time on, most (</span>though not all<span>) of which are available on Windows Phone 8. Not everyone needs</span><span> glossy </span>gaming remakes<span>, </span>DJing apps<span> or </span>news aggregation<span>.</span><br /><div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2012/12/wp8launchevent0029.jpg" /></div>Regardless of mobile OS, the people in my anecdotal sample consistently use the web browser and maps more than any specific app. That fresh two-year-contract-bound slab might be capable of more, but there are plenty out there that will settle for "capable enough." Unfortunately, that's often not been the case with cheaper phones in the UK. Here, plenty of carrier-specific pay-as-you-go Android phones try to offer the full smartphone experience but fail to deliver. Nokia's newest Lumia is priced here at £150 (around <span>$236) </span><span>on O2, contract-free (a canny enough price that's already convinced two Engadget editors to buy one each). This undercuts not only other Windows Phone 8 devices -- </span>HTC's 8S<span> is the closest, but it still costs £100-plus more -- but also capable entry- to mid-level Android phones like Samsung's Galaxy Ace II.</span><br /><blockquote class="quote right"> It's worth mentioning the Korean rival, because it's the very company that's gone on to sell an explosive number of phones in Nokia's stead. Samsung managed to sell 30 million units in five months. That was just one device: the Galaxy S III.</blockquote>It's worth mentioning its Korean rival, because it's the very company that's gone on to sell an explosive number of phones in Nokia's stead. <span>Samsung managed to sell 30 million units in five months. That was just one device: the </span>Galaxy S III<span>. Pull together all those Galaxies and it totals </span>more than 100 million<span>. </span><span>Meanwhile, Nokia sold 6.9 million Lumias (the whole family) in the last six months. It's a</span><span> completely different scale. </span><br /> <span>Nokia has known those kinds of </span>numbers<span> and</span><span> if it wants to get back there, it (and Microsoft) should be pitching not to someone that already owns an old iPhone or Android, but to the remaining crowd that's looking for its first smartphone. Would the company be willing to lose the high-premium flagship fight? Plenty of phone makers hold on to the idea that their best, most technically impressive products will act as a halo, drawing people to its family of devices, where they will then pluck the one most appropriate for their wallet. This is probably why Nokia focused all of its attention (and arguably, affections) on the Lumia 920 at its </span>reveal event<span>, while the lesser 820 was left in a darkened corner of the showroom.</span><br /><div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2012/09/nokialensapps.jpg" /></div>But it's more than that: think of those print features that pit a handful of "top phones" against each other. Even here at Engadget we have to choose which phones to compare against just-announced devices. Were Nokia to focus all their attention on a smaller flagship, would it lose that premium cachet it's built up over the years? Would it get less attention? Something that Apple has learned is that with the highest price comes the highest premiums per unit. If Nokia were selling cheaper handsets, margins on devices that were <i>made</i> to be cost-savvy would likely be even further squeezed.<br /> Should this matter? I don't think it should. Nokia's core smartphone option, Windows Phone, still struggles to claim a meaningful share of the smartphone market. Nokia and BlackBerry are now tragically jockeying for third place -- and even that is a sliver compared to the two frontrunners. It needs to try something different. Until now, Nokia hasn't pushed one of the mobile OS' real strengths: it gets very good mileage on smaller smartphone engines, something that's demonstrated on the Lumia 620. Plus, for better or worse, the lack of intensive gaming apps to push Windows Phones means the two-dimensional titles on offer don't make the most of what's housed inside the HTC 8X or Lumia 920.<br /> <span style="text-align: center;">Many of us just want a good </span><span>camera, </span><span style="text-align: center;">web browser and map experience and</span><span style="text-align: center;"> these last two are well-served on the Lumia 620. </span><span>When we jumped into Internet Explorer, the phone responded nigh-on identically to the bigger Lumia phones. Microsoft's browser might lack the sharing options of Android competitors, but the responsiveness was comparable to similarly priced Google phones. Move on to Nokia's </span>map service<span> and it's still one of the only valid alternatives to Google Maps -- other editors even reckon it's </span>superior<span>. </span><span style="text-align: center;">Read up on our other Windows Phone </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7080182682816192337" style="text-align: center;">reviews</a><span style="text-align: center;"> and you'll find even those initial single-core Windows Phones gave a smooth performance, UI hiccups and weaknesses aside. There's just less need for Android-rivaling processor oomph.</span><br /><blockquote class="quote left"> Nokia's core smartphone option, Windows Phone, still struggles to claim a meaningful share of the smartphone market.</blockquote>Instead of gingerly exploring Microsoft's app store and getting bored wading through the chaff (like I did), Nokia has managed to throw in camera apps, like a GIF maker, burst photography and panorama mode. Then there's its Music service that offers offline music lists for free. These are quickly accessed (and some pre-installed) through Nokia's curated store -- something that that still has a place on operating systems.<br /> The main problem with recommending Windows Phone to those that have already bought an iOS or Android device is the app store continues to lag behind -- Spotify has only just landed on version 8. But if a potential customer's requirements are lower (and coming from a feature phone, they likely are), it's less of an issue, especially when a phone like the Lumia 620 doesn't entail a heavy cash payout. Given that gentle price, there's also a chance for curious smartphone fans to dabble in Windows Phone, buying the phone outright and substituting in their AT&T or T-Mobile SIM -- another opportunity for Microsoft to convince users to make the switch.<br /> As Apple and Samsung dominated the smartphone market, it was a tough 2012 for Nokia and while it pulled in a profit for the final three months, annual losses still amounted to $3 billion. Interestingly, Symbian sales still amou<span>nted to 2.2 million, but those figures are in decline. Its influence in places like India, where Symbian still sells, is </span>fading<span>, while Samsung jostles for space in stores with multiple entry-level devices. Nokia needs new hardware to sell in its place, phones that are better than the noticeably cheaper Windows Phones it's been selling there so far. </span><span>The Lumia 620 is that phone. </span><br /><div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="DNPEditorial This is Nokia's best Lumia phone " data-src-height="340" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/lumiaeditr-1360668641.jpg" /></div>India has the lowest smartphone uptake in the Asian-Pacific region and while the Lumia 510 (already out in India) might be cheaper, it's already trapped in an old version of the OS, with only a $50 dollar difference in price. The more powerful -- and simply more attractive -- Lumia 620 is a far stronger proposition. And there are plenty of people to pitch to -- according to Cybermedia Research (CMR), phone shipments in India totaled more than 100 million in the first half of 2012.<br /><blockquote class="quote right"> Nokia needs to grab those first-time smartphone shoppers and Windows Phone 8 offers a great hardware equalizer, and a chance for success.</blockquote>Smartphones accounted for "just" 5.5 million. The same research puts Nokia first in market share, claiming 22.2 percent of total phones shipped, but focus on smartphones and Samsung (with 41.6 percent) more than doubles Nokia's 19.2 percent share. Stare into the future, and those smartphone-feature phone figures will be flipped. Nokia needs to grab those first-time smartphone shoppers and Windows Phone 8 offers a great hardware equalizer, and a chance for success.<br /> Nokia's proven flair for hardware design, a knack that even Apple's attorney mentioned during its legal scuffle with Samsung, looks like it's finally bleeding down to the rest of the Lumia line<span>. With a lightweight OS and a lack of intensive apps, Windows Phone lets Nokia sidestep (to some extent) hardware one-upmanship at every iteration. The Lumia 620 demonstrates this, with a price that doesn't make your wallet tremble. Not everyone needs a flagship, but everyone</span><span> can appreciate a well-priced </span><span>smartphone that delivers.</span><br /> </div></div>

Rethinking the flagship: The case for Nokia's Lumia 620

It's easy to dismiss the Lumia 620 as yet another cheaply-priced smartphone, but that isn't th...

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Tesla vs. The Times: What one review means for the future of auto news

<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><hr dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" /> <div class="copy post-body" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> <div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/tesla-will-2013-01-29-600-6.jpg" /></div>It's been hard to miss, this brouhaha that's been boiling over between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and <em>The New York Times</em> -- specifically with reporter John M. Broder. Broder published a piece over the weekend called "Stalled Out on Tesla's Electric Highway" in which he panned the Model S for inaccurate range estimates and drastically reduced range in cold weather. In fact, about the only thing he <em>didn't </em>hate was the tow truck driver who was ultimately dispatched to pick up him and the charge-depleted Tesla he had been driving through Connecticut.<br /> Musk, likely still stinging from an even more vitriolic 2011 takedown by <em>Top Gear</em>, was quick to take to Twitter and call the article "fake." He later backed that up with comprehensive data logs recorded, apparently, without Broder's knowledge. That data, at least at surface value, shows the <em>Times</em> piece is at best misleading -- at worst libelous.<br /> Case closed? Oh no, this is just beginning. In posting this data, and in chastising Broder's driving habits, Musk inadvertently refocused the situation onto himself. Instead of asking how the <em>Times</em> allowed this piece to be published, many are instead asking whether it's right for Tesla to be placing any sort of expectations on reviewers. And then, of course, there's the disconcerting Big Brother aspect of the whole case. Who's in the right? Who's in the wrong? Let's try to find out.<br /> <!-- adsense --> <h3 id="title0"> Background</h3><div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="DNP As Tesla's Musk battles the Times, we welcome auto journalists to the digital age" data-src-height="411" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/tesla-2013-01-19-600-22.jpg" /></div>I want to start by saying that I recently reviewed the Tesla Model S myself -- in fact, I tested the very same machine that Mr. Broder would later leave sitting on an off-ramp, bereft of charge. My testing of that car was performed in winter conditions, in low temperatures (well below freezing) and often at highway speeds (occasionally, beyond). I did not baby the car and, yes, I certainly suffered from range anxiety at times.<br /> However, I never ran out of charge, never was stranded by the roadside and never had to call in a flatbed. I managed this feat for a few simple reasons: first because I based my trips not on Tesla's estimated maximum range of 300 miles for the car, but rather on the EPA's more conservative 5-Cycle Certified Range of 265 miles. Is that disingenuous of Tesla to post its own, higher rating? Perhaps, but the EPA rating is the one on the sticker on the window, and such estimates -- even the government-mandated ones -- are always highly subjective. (Like, for example, the Roadster that went 350 miles on a charge, despite the EPA rating it for 244.)<br /><blockquote class="quote left"> Despite having to go 40 miles out of my way, I still made it to my destination -- with a somewhat scary 10 miles of range remaining.</blockquote>I also knew where I was going, knew how I was going to get there and knew how long that was going to take. In other words, I had a planned route, and I gave enough of a cushion that I was still safe even should I need to make a detour. In fact, I <em>did</em> make a major detour when the Model S's GPS caused me to miss my correct exit. Despite having to go 40 miles out of my way, I still made it to my destination -- with a somewhat scary 10 miles of range remaining.<br /> This is, of course, very different from how I plan a trip in a conventional car. This requires a lot more work up-front, work that is just fine by me. I'm okay with such investments if it means covering 165 miles in a 416-horsepower luxury car for just 10 bucks' worth of electricity.<br /> Could I have been more aggressive? Could I have pushed the envelope and skipped charging stations just to create drama? Sure, but there was no need. Despite never running out of charge, I now understand the car's real-world range (worst case: about 210 miles with three passengers plus camera gear, driving on and off the highway on a below-freezing day) and, rather than getting stranded by the road, I spent four productive days with the car getting a solid feel for it. That, to me, was the most important thing.<br /><h3 id="title1"> Truths and untruths</h3>Now that we have that out of the way, before we can truly figure this (rather messy) situation out, we need to establish a few facts to build upon.<br /><h4 id="title2"> #1 - The New York Times article contains untruths</h4><div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/tesla-2013-01-20-600-26.jpg" /></div>Many would label the word "untruths" as a weak-willed, politically correct version of the word "lies." But, there is an appropriate use for it, and I believe it's here. "Lies" implies false statements said maliciously. "Untruths," to me, doesn't imply intent, and that's an important distinction. In other words, I'm not willing to convict Mr. Broder of murder, but I believe he is at least guilty of manslaughter.<br /> The <em>Times</em> article is riddled with inaccurate statements, including basic stuff like the length of the legs of the trip and the maximum and minimum speeds along those legs. The HVAC temperature settings were misreported and, when the car was plugged in to charge, Broder failed to use the maximum charge, basically damning himself to failure before he even hit the road.<br /><blockquote class="quote left"> It's quite easy to mistakenly charge the car well short of maximum. In fact, it's the default setting.</blockquote>It's in this last point that the question of malicious intent can be most clearly raised. It's quite easy to mistakenly charge the car well short of maximum. In fact, it's the default setting. A "standard" charge in the Model S is about 90 percent battery capacity. You have to manually toggle the car to "Max Range" (as shown in the photo above) if you want 100 percent. This is because fully charging the cells every time decreases the ultimate longevity of the battery pack, so you're advised to use this only when you're planning on going a long distance. The Tesla rep who briefed me before my review of the Model S made this distinction abundantly clear. I'm inclined to believe they did the same for Mr. Broder.<br /> Regardless, if the car was not fully charged correctly, then the <em>Times</em> article is misleading.<br /><h4 id="title3"> #2 - Elon Musk has no say over what The Times writes or how Broder drives</h4><div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/tesla-2013-01-19-600-29.jpg" /></div>It appears the <em>Times</em> article is flawed and should be fixed. Conversely, Musk has no say over what that outlet writes or how it writes it. Frequently his statements have been scathing, not only regarding the factual inaccuracies, but seemingly stepping well beyond that reasonable boundary and into uncomfortable territory.<br /> Musk chides Broder for driving too fast and having the heat too high, attempting to paint a picture of a man who is acting deceptively. Instead, Musk comes off as a protective mother, scolding the world for not acting and driving decently. This does not enamor him with many, but his most damning statement is this:<br /><blockquote> When Tesla first approached <em>The New York Times</em> about doing this story, it was supposed to be focused on future advancements in our Supercharger technology.</blockquote>Again, Musk is attempting to paint a picture of deception, but it's just as easily read as the woeful cries of a man trying -- and failing -- to control the media. It doesn't matter what the <em>Times</em> was <em>supposed</em> to be writing about, the publication found a more interesting angle and went for it. It could certainly be said that misrepresentation of intent like this circumstantially points to a dark, ulterior motive, but nobody can blame the <em>Times</em> editors desk for wanting to change gears. (Figuratively, of course. The Model S doesn't have gears you can shift.)<br /><h3 id="title4"> A lesson for journalists</h3><h3 id="title5" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="DNP As Tesla's Musk battles the Times, we welcome auto journalists to the digital age" data-src-height="411" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/tesla-2013-01-18-600.jpg" /></h3>There's a big divide between those who see this as a simple case of an overzealous journalist getting fact-checked after the fact and those who see it as an overzealous CEO reveling in his Big Brother-like power. (Presumably, cackling mildly whilst stroking a fluffy white cat and sitting serenely in a black leather chair.)<br /> Interestingly, in watching responses on the various social networks in which I take part, opinions seem to be divided between journalists of a tech persuasion and those of an automotive bent. If you'll allow me to generalize broadly, tech journos by and large are siding with Tesla in this affair. The auto bloggers? Not so much.<br /> In chatting casually about the fallout with Michael Spinelli and Matt Hardigree of <em>Jalopnik</em>, the divide became clear to me. Reviewers in the tech industry, like myself, are used to being watched. I've previously had issues with devices I was evaluating, only to have a technical rep check it out and diagnose the problem remotely. Indeed, when a warning light popped on the dash of the Model S, I called Tesla. Its engineers took a peek (from hundreds of miles away) and told me not to worry about it, that it would go away. Sure enough, it did.<br /> Given my history, I thought nothing of it. Most product reviewers, particularly automotive ones, would be left feeling a little uncomfortable. They aren't used to this kind of omnipotent oversight. They're not used to knowing (or at least believing) that each and every action they perform with a review device is being remotely monitored and verified such that if their evaluation strays from the facts they're liable to be called out for it.<br /> But, they'll have to be. The Model S isn't the first car that could dial home for help (indeed, the McLaren F1 of 1992 had a modem through which it could phone home -- if it were plugged in) and it certainly won't be the last.<br /><h3 id="title6"> A lesson for product representatives</h3><div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="DNP As Tesla's Musk battles the Times, we welcome auto journalists to the digital age" data-src-height="411" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/tesla-2013-01-20-600-32.jpg" /></div>In his many rebuttals, Musk has stepped far beyond simple fact-checker and seems to wade into the realm of moral and ethical judge. It's in this that he loses the hearts and minds of many -- and provides us with an important lesson: When correcting others, present the facts and then step away. Let the discussion brew on its own.<br /> <span>It would have been better, we now know, to simply post the logs, point out the most glaring discrepancies and then allow the members of the auto and technology blogosphere to do what they do best: sweep themselves up into a frenzy.</span><br /> Or, perhaps, it would have been better still to simply leave the thing alone. While <em>The New York Times</em> is far from a small outlet, this piece in particular didn't exactly have legs until Musk himself pointed a finger at it. Had he stayed out of it we might have all moved on by now.<br /> Mind you, anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a person who can rest when there's something <em>wrong</em> on the internet, but sometimes sleeping dogs are better left dozing peacefully.<br /><h3 id="title7"> Wrap-up</h3><div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="DNP As Tesla's Musk battles the Times, we welcome auto journalists to the digital age" data-src-height="411" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/tesla-2013-01-20-600-11-1360876307.jpg" /></div>Ultimately we're still left with a messy situation from which neither party walks away clean. Though <em>The Times</em> is looking into the matter, the article still stands, unmodified, while Tesla's data appears to poke at least a few compelling holes through it. Meanwhile, Musk comes out of this with mud on his boots as well. The critical tone in his rebuttals, both televised and in print on Tesla's blog, hasn't won the case.<br /> So where do we go from here? I'm sure someone at Tesla will re-run this route, with proper charging and (presumably) proper driving habits, and show the world that it can be done. But that really wasn't the point of the <em>Times</em> article. The point of that article, it seems, boils down to this: In 2013 you can't just go on a whimsical joyride to wherever you want in an EV. Is that shocker really worth getting this excited about?<br /> </div></div>

Tesla vs. The Times: What one review means for the future of auto news

It's been hard to miss, this brouhaha that's been boiling over between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and ...

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Editorial: iWatch app speculation is filler, not killer

<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><div class="byline" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> By <strong>Brad Hill</strong> posted <span class="time">Feb 11th, 2013 at 5:08 PM</span> <a class="comment-count" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7080182682816192337"> <span class="livefyre-commentcount" data-lf-article-id="20455728" data-lf-site-id="296092">111</span> </a> </div><hr dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" /> <div class="copy post-body" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> <div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="Editorial iWatch app speculation is filler, not killer" data-src-height="340" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/untitled-1-1360615169.jpg" /></div>Innovation is problem-solving. Radical innovation is seeing normalcy as problematic, and solving it. That level of invention, which solves a generally unrecognized problem to create a new product category, or user experience, can be difficult to recognize in the conceptual stage. A far-reaching idea can seem trivial if it solves routineness. Sometimes it takes the product itself, the manifested experience, to demonstrate how to rise above the customary. Email solved postal mail, which died another incremental death last week by announcing a proposal to end Saturday letter deliveries. Cell phones solved the disconnect between phones and the walking-around life. Mobile apps solved the gap between computers and cell phones. Perhaps HTML5 will solve apps.<br /> So forgive me if I'm being small-minded, but Bruce Tognazzini's speculative manifesto about an Apple iWatch fails to make a convincing futurist case for the imagined device -- despite whipping up a whirlwind of attention. What is the future of wearable computing?<br /> With a knowledge of Apple-owned patents, and a professional expertise in product usability, plus a cultural understanding of Apple from his years working there (1978-1992), Tognazzini set conjecture in motion by writing about "The Apple iWatch development team that I expect exists." If you miss that crucial hypothetical you might suppose the article is about established product development -- everything is "will," not "might." Other sources report that Apple insiders confirm development of a curved-glass wearable device.<br /> Tognazzini frames the innovation conundrum by acknowledging that most people don't want, or think they need, a smartwatch. His article strongly opposes such indifference, straight from the first sentence: "The iWatch will fill a gaping hole in the Apple ecosystem." That's a bold declamation. Gaping holes are major. Dial-up connection speed in the early days of the web -- that was a gaping hole; gradually closing it with increasingly fast modems drove adoption of the entire online ecosystem. As an innovation setup, Tognazzini is saying that normalcy (Apple's ecosystem) is broken and a smartwatch can fix it.<br /> <span>Tognazzini surveys existing smartstraps </span>Cookoo<span>, </span>Pebble<span> and </span>Martian<span>, and his chief complaints with existing devices are size (too big), and charging need. He's right, especially on the second point. Dumb watches don't need to be charged or wound, so smart replacements start by taking a step backward in that regard. </span><br /><div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="Editorial iWatch app speculation is filler, not killer" data-src-height="413" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/zsh2f0a6509.jpg" /></div><span>A handicap by itself isn't necessarily enough to kill an idea, a business or an industry. Cable TV chained television sets to the wall and made reception expensive. You might have thought those points would be dealbreakers. Even computers get away with malfunctions</span><span> -- if cars crashed as often as computers they would be outlawed.</span><i> </i><span>Innovation sells through detriments if it provides enough added value.</span><br /> This is where Tognazzini suffers a failure of imagination, and doesn't do Apple any favors in trying to stimulate interest in smartwatch usability concepts. The article is mostly interested in the iWatch as a device controller, much as the Pebble functions when paired with a portable music player. The post evangelizes "extend[ing] the capabilities of your other devices," but really seems to mean extending your distance from them. This vision is a play on convenience through miniaturization, like a Bluetooth headset freeing your hands from the phone. Here is that conundrum: Either normalcy is unbroken, or the value of fixing it is not apparent.<br /><blockquote class="quote left"> Intermediation is not truly groundbreaking</blockquote>Intermediation is not truly groundbreaking. In addition to the general intermediary role of helping you manage your other portables, Tognazzini postulates "killer applications" that are not only mere go-betweens, but also puzzlingly trivial. The article froths with agitated exclamation points around the idea that an iWatch could log you into your iOS device, sans typed password, like a key fob for your car. I'm sorry to be harsh, but this is a truly uninspiring bit of futuristic imagination. Is this the gaping hole -- typed passwords? It's like proposing that someone is inventing fire, and the chief differentiating characteristic that will propel its adoption is a pretty orange color.<br /> The article's second killer app is an iPhone location feature that simplifies the current Find My iPhone system that can track down a missing device anywhere in the world. Tognazzini's ecosystem-mending locator would find your phone anywhere ... well, in the house. My portable phone does that when I push a button in the base unit. It's nice. As I sit here thinking of how nice it is, my mind reflects on the history and quality of killer apps. Texting -- there's one. MP3 playback -- yes. The internet browser -- I do believe that app did some damage. Finding your phone in another room -- that's a killer app that doesn't even think unkind thoughts.<br /> A third proposed killer app makes the iWatch an NFC payment enabler. That is a sensible, but marginal convenience gain over using an enabled phone to do the same thing.<br /> If Tognazzini's iWatch vision is flat, it might be just a matter of emphasis. His article does touch briefly on health and fitness apps, and this is an area in which a smartwatch, and body-attached computing generally, might soar into a productive realm of differentiated innovation.<br /><div class="more-info"> <h3> More Info</h3><ul><li> NYT: Apple experimenting with wrist-worn iOS devices</li><li> Pebble smartwatch review</li><li> Cookoo smartwatch hands-on</li></ul></div>Medicine has been involved with technology for decades -- think pacemakers, cardiac shunts, artificial joints, time-release drug capsules and mountains of other untethered devices. In fact, these examples go beyond wearable tech to embedded and ingested tech. Emergent curative medicine might have been the inspiration for the Borg.<br /> Medical technology is a B2B industry for the most part. Its customers are doctors and hospitals. Crossing into the consumer universe is either useless or illegal. Wearable tech like smartwatches can intersect with consumers at the juncture of personal health. Doing so is a perfect dovetail with two cultural trends: massively increased information flow around health and medicine, and a large boomer generation that wishes to live forever. The power of information meets the quest for immortality, and the smartwatch can play a role important enough to drive a market.<br /> Tognazzini does get far-sighted in a brief rumination of possible health and fitness apps. He says in part, "People will write apps that will carry out other medical tests that will end up surprising us, such as tests for early detection of tremor [...] Because the watch is always with us, it will be able to deliver a long-term data stream, rather than a limited snapshot, providing insight often missing from tests administered in a doctor's office."<br /> All in all, Tognazzini's iWatch meditation was more about filler apps than killer apps. He did not address a gaping hole in Apple's ecosystem. But he could address gaping holes in technology generally, and the personal ecosystems we build with it. Perhaps he will yet.<br /><br /><hr /> <em>Brad Hill is a former Vice President at AOL, and the former Director and General Manager of Weblogs, Inc. He doesn't wear a watch, and tells time awkwardly by looking at his phone. </em><br /> </div></div>

Editorial: iWatch app speculation is filler, not killer

By Brad Hill posted Feb 11th, 2013 at 5:08 PM 111 Innovation ...

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Editorial: BlackBerry slumps into history of Super Bowl tech ads

<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><hr dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" /> <div class="image-container" dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="Editorial BlackBerry slumps into history of Super Bowl tech ads" data-src-height="337" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/screen-shot-2013-02-04-at-6.04.42-pm.png" /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> The comparison is obvious: BlackBerry's already-infamous "Can't Do" commercial in this year's Super Bowl vs. Apple's legendary "1984" spot in the 1984 game. Let's do the comparison anyway, and consider some other tech advertising over 35 years of Super Bowls.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> BlackBerry is taking scorn for its capricious ad depicting several fantastic scenarios created by, or solved by (it's not always clear what the heck is going on during the montage), the upcoming Z10 smartphone.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Analysis from the commentariat complains that the ad fails to illustrate what the phone <em>can </em>do, which you might think would be good market preparation for its March US debut. Such criticism, though, disregards the traditional role of Super Bowl advertising, which is to make a memorable brand impact. Uninformative, absurd, nonsensical commercials are standard, even expected.</div><div class="image-container" dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="Editorial BlackBerry slumps into history of Super Bowl tech ads" data-src-height="334" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/screen-shot-2013-02-04-at-6.10.00-pm.png" /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> More to the point is the lack of a jolt, big statement, brand shaping, majesty or even pop. I don't mean to pile on; as I've written before, I'm rooting for BlackBerry. But this is where the Z10 commercial suffers a patent and predictable comparison with Apple's "1984." The setup is roughly the same: both commercials are prologues to imminent product launches (the Macintosh in Apple's case). It might seem unfair to contrast any modern commercial with a piece of creative work that has, over time, accrued luster as one of the great TV ads in and out of the Super Bowl. But remember, BlackBerry's CEO said at the BB10 launch event last year "We are at the beginning of a new era of mobile computing." If, now that TV advertising has begun, the product messaging cannot carry forward that level of aggrandizing rhetoric, it is a branding failure.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> The truth is that BlackBerry does not have a category-changing product on its hands -- classy, smart and effective though the device is. Did Apple know that the Macintosh would change computing and (arguably) justify the titanic imagery of the "1984" ad? The company was conflicted internally, with execs battling the board, which opposed airing the piece. Notwithstanding the extent to which the Apple ad was a gamble, it reached for the glory of extreme hyperbole, and brazenly set user expectations to the sky. There were no product spec details, but the 60-second drama promised revolution and salvation.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> The "Can't Do" ad (dreadful title, by the way) promises only that the Z10 phone can do unspecified things, and too many of them to describe in a commercial. That's a vague dispatch. Other tech commercials are also necessarily concise, but some focus their messages on solving problems.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Amy Poehler's flirtatious energy enlivens Best Buy's pedestrian retail message: the salespeople are helpful. "THANK YOU!" she screams at the end, exiting the store wearing noise-canceling headphones. The spot resonates with an ethos of the venerable <em>...for Dummies</em> book line -- tech is fun and we can make you understand it.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> GoDaddy.com, a veteran of controversial ads, stirred two commercials into this year's stew. The first mocks would-be entrepreneurs who fail to act on their ideas (solution: we make it easy to protect your new trademark). The second veers onto the company's well-trod ground of sexploitation to promote a hybrid view of the brand as both sexy and practical. The service's two sides are cemented by a long kiss between a swimsuit model and a stereotyped geek. A kiss by itself not being sexual enough for GoDaddy's shock tradition, the scene is recorded with a high level of lip slurps. Queue Twitter explosion of disgust.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> GoDaddy has stepped into the big game before, but E-Trade is the champion of Super Bowl website advertisers with the placement of seven ads in six games. This year's entry is disappointingly weak and unfunny in my opinion, but look again at the first talking-baby commercial from 2008, with its laconic voicing, low-fi webcam production value, expert editing and surprise ending.</div><div class="image-container" dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="Editorial BlackBerry slumps into history of Super Bowl tech ads" data-src-height="297" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/screen-shot-2013-02-04-at-6.11.52-pm.png" /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> E-Trade placed its first Super Bowl spot in 2000, the bubble year for Web 1.0 ad invasions. The 2000 game featured messages from Buy.com, HotJobs.com, Computer.com, Epidemic.com, LifeMinders.com and the notorious Pets.com spot -- the emblem of the dot-com bust. And while E-Trade is known best for the talking babies which came later (the greatest of which might be this one -- "What, I can't flex the golden pipes?"), in 2001 it presented a remarkable symbolic eulogy of doomed dot-coms from the year before in a commercial called "Ghost Town."</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Going back further, the 1976 Super Bowl featured a Xerox ad that set a template for future insouciance and cleverness. Entitled "Monks," the spot depicted a scribe saving his aching hand by machine-copying 500 replicas of an illuminated manuscript -- at two pages per second. ("It's a miracle!") The opening line of the ad's script foretells a good amount of contemporary tech culture: "Ever since people started recording information, there's been a need to duplicate it." Could be an ad for BitTorrent.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Back in this year, SodaStream represented the quirkiest tech ad in the 2013 game. The home-carbonated drink maker put out a confusing environmental message of conserving bottle consumption with DIY beverages. It would have made more sense to introduce this product to millions of new people by emphasizing fun, unique flavors or cost-saving benefits. But we certainly get a splashier commercial when stacked crates of soda in a warehouse suddenly lose their bottles and fizzy liquid pours everywhere.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Samsung had the most delightfully loopy messaging of this year's ad crop in tech, with a couple of loose, self-deprecating, 60-second riffs featuring Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen. They hook into the Galaxy line and its existing "Next big thing" tagline. But the attitude remains too cool to attempt making a point, selling a feature, solving a problem or caring whether we receive a coherent message. The opposite of Apple's long-ago aspirational epic, Samsung's nonchalance also skewers BlackBerry's earnest deflection.</div></div>

Editorial: BlackBerry slumps into history of Super Bowl tech ads

The comparison is obvious: BlackBerry's already-infamous "Can't Do" commercial in...

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Editorial: Facebook vs. Vine is another chapter in the book of 'We Own You'

<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><hr /> <div class="image-container" style="text-align: left;"> <img alt="Editorial Facebook vs Vine is another chapter in the book of 'We Own You'" data-src-height="386" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/01/brad-hill-pic-1359380274.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> Oh man, Vine is fun. It is already apparent that with creativity and planning you can produce something approaching an epic experience in a 6-second video. <span>Vine is a perfect enhancement of Twitter's casual "what's happening now" social base. With stop-and-go videos that resemble animated GIFs, Vine puts greater movement and reality into life-casting. I showed it to my wife, who is not remotely a Twitter user, and she immediately began storyboarding microvideo adventures for our Serta sheep. So my message to all seven people who follow me on Vine: You've got a lot to look forward to.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"> Speaking of followers, let's consider the tectonic unfriending that transpired in the ongoing skirmish between Facebook and Twitter, the serfdom of social media users and the historical risks of walled gardens.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> A bit of background. Vine is a Twitter-owned mobile startup represented by an iOS-only app for iPhone / iPod touch (it works on iPads too) that turns the device's video function into a rudimentary real-time editing machine. The sweet-and-simple interface keeps the video rolling for as long as your finger is touching the screen, for six seconds. You can lift and replace your finger (stop and start) as fast and often as you like, creating jumpy, time-crunched stories like an entire commute to work or cooking an elaborate dinner dish.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> Don't get haughty about this before trying it -- unless you're an Android user, in which case haught away. There's been a fair amount of "So what?" user commentary posted since Vine launched last Wednesday, along with generally positive critical reviews for the app. Surfing Vine as a stand-alone service is rewarding, but as you might expect, quality and substance are spread unevenly, as in Twitter. The cute brigade is bulking up with cat and dog clips, foodies assume we have an appetite for 6-second visual timelines of dinner devouring, and stop-motion specialists are reborn in the new format.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> After joining this thing I started seeing Twitter photos differently, as underpowered Vine potentials. I am not a disciple of the internet's tidal migration to video, and I worry about already debilitated attention spans in the online citizenry. But Vine is too much fun on its own to quibble, and it's a perfect Twitter accessory.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> The people I stalk on Twitter don't seem to be rushing in: of the 385 individuals I follow, only 12 had signed up (via their Twitter accounts) by Sunday night. If I could expand my fledgling Vine community with Facebook friends ... oh, never mind. In a well-publicized<span> maneuver, Facebook cut Vine's access to Facebook's friend-finder API which external platforms use to connect their members to Facebook friends.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"> Facebook cut a path through <span>confused and generally negative media coverage by revising its </span>Facebook Platform Policies<span> for developers. The chief explanatory addendum related to the Vine cut-off says this: "</span><span>Replicating core functionality: You may not use Facebook Platform to promote, or to export user data to, a product or service that replicates a core Facebook product or service without our permission."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"> You might not think that Vine's quick-vid, point-and-shoot app replicates a core function of Facebook, since uploading a video directly to FB can be a soul-tormenting experience that ends in failure and dismay. Facebook is in the media-sharing business for sure, and in that broader context the new clause apparently applies. A parallel context is an assumed reciprocal animosity between Facebook and Twitter -- when Facebook acquired Instagram, which was and is rabidly used in tweets, Twitter cut the same friend-finding cord to Facebook.</div><div class="image-container" style="text-align: left;"> <img alt="Editorial Facebook vs Vine is another chapter in the book of 'We Own You'" data-src-height="350" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/01/vine-on-phone.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> The truest context is the largest, and shines light on the role of social media users in ecosystem battles. Facebook and Twitter are both naturally motivated to keep visitors magnetized to their respective platforms. Facebook doesn't mind its users stepping into the larger internet for unrelated activities. But the company fears losing its grip on addicted users who might be lured onto a platform that has out-innovated Facebook in a certain space. It's not really that Vine is "replicating core functionality" now, but it is anticipating what Facebook might want to launch and monetize in the future.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> These argumentative feints seem painfully trivial since anyone can join Vine at any time. For Facebook, maintaining scale in a relentlessly competitive environment involves plugging possible usage leaks. For users, the complaint is about an artificially fragmented social graph.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> Many people who are socially active online enjoy the variety and contrasting features of different platforms, and are happy with multiple residences and communities with more or less overlap. My three main hangouts -- Facebook, Twitter and SoundCloud -- are distinct from each other. Twitter is the most virtual; I haven't met most of the people I follow. Facebook is better for extending offline relationships onto the screen. My SoundCloud connections are kindred around music creation.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> Even with this degree of separation, users are right to expect porous boundaries when liquidity is wanted. Sharing content across walls is part of it; I can extend tweets to Facebook, and share SoundCloud tracks everywhere. The more important user need is accessing friendship connections in different networks. The desire might not arise often, but when it is blocked, the ensuing friction feels artificial and hostile.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> The issue arose in both the Instagram acquisition (by Facebook) and the Vine launch (by Twitter), for a reason that will become more common with new waves of mobile apps. <span>It is about the creative quality of those apps. When we create something above and beyond the bedrock social function of connecting to friends, we naturally want to gather together a large community for sharing. It is when sharing a creation, even a photo or 6-second video, that we want to flip our conception of our social graph from several independent networks to one integrated network. It's like a 3D painting that suddenly becomes deep when you look at it in a certain way.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote class="quote right"> If there is one giant lesson of the last 20 years in the online community industry, it is that walling the garden never succeeds in the long run.</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;"> When Facebook or Twitter cuts the cord which integrates our friendship circles (the friend-finding part of their API), it becomes frustratingly clear that we are owned. We don't freely own our social connections across the internet. Social users are owned assets, like dollars in the bank, guarded by platform policies and hedged by developmental roadmaps that seek to cut off competing apps at the knees. I'm not the first to speculate that Facebook might develop a Vine-like function pronto. If so, Facebook users might be delighted with it, and settle ever more comfortably into the walled garden. That's fine.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> But if there is one giant lesson of the last 20 years in the online community industry, it is that walling the garden never succeeds in the long run. AOL was the case study during the web's emergent period. Hugely successful during a span of years when mainstream confusion about the internet was neatly solved by carving out a comforting oasis, the company was eventually brought to a point of reinvention by better knowledge and better access. When you're a galaxy you can't hide the universe forever.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> Facebook has attained much greater scale than AOL ever did. This business with Twitter / Vine is just a snarky play in a continuing poker game. But as an ongoing strategy, disabling users from calling back to their friends from another social destination depersonalizes Facebook and contradicts the social ethos that it was founded on. No secrets, Mark? Then the users of whom you demand that standard should be allowed to tell their friends about Vine, and the next one, and the next. Beat your competitors if you can. But don't obscure them from your users.</div></div>

Editorial: Facebook vs. Vine is another chapter in the book of 'We Own You'

Oh man, Vine is fun. It is already apparent that with creativity and planning you can produce somet...

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