pomoz-im.org

All in all, it’s off to a great start, and compared to competitor TypePad, which had its app available at the launch of the app store, WordPress is just as full featured and opens up mobile blogging to the millions of WordPress.com and WordPress.org users.

I successfully connected two Wordpress.com hosted blogs to the app in just a minute or two, although I ran into problems connecting my personal hosted blog that uses the software install from WordPress.org. It’s worth noting you’ll need version 2.5.1 or higher to hook it up to a hosted blog, although updating to the recently released 2.6 is definitely worth it for all those extra publishing goodies.

I’ve embedded screenshots and the screencast below.

Unfortunately there are some serious shortcomings to the iPhone that bring the app down a notch. If you’re used to adding links to your posts there’s not a lot you can do without copy and paste. HTML code is fully supported, so as long as you’re good with your href tagging (which is brutal on the iPhone’s built-in keyboard) you’ll be able to add links from memory just fine.

Another quibble of mine is that drafts created on your computer won’t show up in your post queue on the iPhone app, meaning you won’t be able to start a post on your computer and finish it on the road. Ideally, future revisions will include better shortcuts for adding links and some support for fetching drafts from the cloud.

Just a week and a half ago WordPress for the iPhone was announced with a pretty killer screencast detailing what you could do with it. Tuesday morning it finally showed up on the app store (download it here), and I’ve had ample time to play with it. The good news is that it’s very enjoyable to use and quite capable for creating posts on the go. The bad news? You’ve got to have an
iPhone or
iPod Touch to take advantage of it.

Hardcore users with a lot of readers will also be pining for some sort of comment management feature in future revisions. As it stands, you’ll have to log in to your WordPress dashboard from Safari and administrate them from there, which isn’t terrible, but it would be far more enjoyable to write and manage in one place.

The key benefit to using this app is writing and publishing quick posts on the go. What I found after using it, though, is that it offers up far more to the discerning user who wants to use it as a very powerful publishing tool. You can upload photos either from your existing library or snap a quick shot with your phone’s camera. I can see this leading to many food-related photo blogs. Also nice is that whatever you write can be saved on your phone, so you can work on dozens of posts at once and only publish when you want. There’s also a great preview function that will show you what your post will look like without kicking you off to
Safari.

Nanosolar started manufacturing late last year and said that its first cells were destined for a solar park in eastern Germany.

Upstart Nanosolar says that it has built the Ferrari of solar cell manufacturing: a one gigawatt machine that prints solar cells at 100 feet per minute.

In the company blog, CEO Martin Roscheisen on Wednesday said that the one gigawatt machine is a first for the solar industry, orders of magnitude more “capital efficient” than existing production techniques.

Companies like Nanosolar, Miasole, HelioVolt–and now IBM–are developing processes more cost-effective manufacturing techniques to undercut existing technologies.

“This feat is fundamentally enabled through the proprietary nanoparticle ink we have invested so many years developing. It allows us to deliver efficient solar cells (presently up to more than 14 percent) that are simply printed,” he wrote.

Roscheisen said that the secret to Nanosolar technology is that cells are literally printed from a liquid. From his blog:

Nanosolar is one of several companies betting on CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) to lower the price of solar electricity. Compared to traditional silicon, CIGS cells don’t require nearly as much material.

Speed, as well as cell efficiency, are the name of the game when it comes to being competitive.Traditional CIGS manufacturing processes are done in vacuum chambers and are slower.

“Most production tools in the solar industry tend to have 10-30MW in annual production capacity. How is it possible to have a single tool with Gigawatt throughput?

With about 80 percent of the world’s population living within range of a cell phone network, Stephenson believes the industry is poised for tremendous growth that will impact economies throughout the world.

LAS VEGAS–Mobility will be the key driver of growth for phone companies in the coming years as they expand their businesses to include new services like TV and broadband, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told attendees at an industry trade show here Tuesday.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson

He used Monday’s U.S. Open final as a perfect example of how mobility is changing usage. Stephenson said that he wasn’t able to watch Tiger Woods clinch the U.S. Open golf title on his big screen TV at home, so he watched it on his mobile handset that uses the MediaFlo mobile broadcast TV service offered through AT&T.

“The opportunity is fleeting in this business,” he said. “Markets are moving fast. And not one us has the time for misfires or missed deadlines.”

Today, roughly 2 billion people connect to the Internet. And by 2011 that number is expected to increase by another billion with most of these new broadband users coming from the developing world. But unlike the first 2 billion Internet users, these new users will access the Net from mobile devices, like Apple’s new
iPhone, Stephenson said.

When devices and services are mobilized, Stephenson said, usage of all services shoots up. As an example, he said that even as AT&T’s traditional phone business declines, voice minutes are growing 10 percent every year.

But he said that the industry must work through the challenges of a complex ecosystem to ensure the industry can deliver on its promise.

“As we mobilize services more things accelerate,” he said. “We stimulate economic growth and drive prosperity on a global scale.”

(Credit:
Marguerite Reardon/CNET Networks)

He also made historical references to the Sony Walkman cassette player that essentially changed the music industry and made LP records obsolete. The same thing has happened to music yet again with devices like the
iPod and now the iPhone, which allow people to take their digitized music on the go and even allow them to get their music wirelessly.

AT&T and the entire telecom industry have been transforming themselves over the past few years as traditional phone business slowly dies. No longer are these companies simply offering telephony, but they also offer TV, high-speed Internet, and wireless services. But it will be the mobilization of new services that will drive growth for companies in the next few years, Stephenson predicted during his keynote speech at the NxtComm trade show.

And as AT&T and other phone companies grow their video and broadband services, mobility will once again accelerate the market.

“These are exciting times to be in this business and the industry,” he said. “We are on the verge of an innovation explosion.”

According to Hoffman, the first copy, which was a poorly lit “camcorded copy,” did not surface until 48 hours after the film’s release. There’s no way to confirm that, but it sounds about right.

“It is impossible to monitor every single screening at every theater worldwide to prevent it from being camcorded,” Hoffman said. “Sadly, it is inevitable that an illegal copy of the film will eventually surface. What was a true accomplishment and unprecedented given the amount of interest and Internet buzz about The Dark Knight was despite hundreds of pre-release press, review, and promotional screenings worldwide, not a single copy of the film leaked prior to the official release.”

“We actively search for these sites and services and have them taken down,” said Craig Hoffman, a spokesman for Warner Bros.’ worldwide antipiracy and technical operations. “While so far we have had compliance with our requests, we certainly reserve our rights to take whatever legal action necessary to protect our intellectual property.”

Studio says the first illegal version to show up online was a poorly lit, ‘camcorded’ copy.

“It was that copy that propagated on the Internet during the first days of the movie’s release,” Hoffman said.

Warner Bros. does see one positive in the pirating of The Dark Knight, Hoffman said. No copies of the film circulated before the film’s theater debut.

Warner Bros. is going after the sites that posted pirated copies of the film The Dark Knight.

CNET News reported Monday that copies of the hit new Batman film could be found at several Web sites. Now, a spokesman for the studio said Warner Bros. is taking action.

(Credit:
Warner Bros.)

CableCard was effectively a one-way technology, so it was incompatible with any interactive services, including video-on-demand and pay-per-view services that customers have grown to like, and cable companies depend on as a major revenue stream.

TVs with CableCard support often charged a slight premium over their non-CableCard counterparts–meaning that consumers were often paying more, but (as evidenced by the laundry list of issues above) getting less.

CableCard setups are notoriously finicky, and often require one or more follow-up visits from the cable technician.

Update (5/29/2008): Be sure to read the detailed comment below from reader MegaZone (who runs the Gizmolovers website). He offers some important corrections and expansions to my CableCard/Tru2way analysis.

(Credit: CableLabs)

If the industry press is to be believed, Tuesday’s announcement that Sony would be producing TVs with Tru2way compatibility was a watershed event–the electronics world equivalent of the Magna Carta or the Treaty of Versailles. But let’s step back a bit and examine what this really means.

The CableCard installation and setup still required the cable companies to “roll a truck” to the customer’s home–so it didn’t save the company any time or money versus a cable box setup.

And why will companies like TiVo bother developing Tru2way boxes if the consumer will be forced to use the drab cable company interface versus the far superior TiVo UI? Just imagine, for instance, if a future Apple TV offers Tru2way compatibility, but instead of its slick Apple home screen, you’re stuck with a Comcast/Time Warner/Cox EPG the minute you toggle to live TV. For most users, that would eliminate the whole reason for upgrading in the first place.

What do you think: Will Tru2way make for a better cable TV experience? Or will it be the latest consumer electronics scheme to overpromise and underdeliver?

There are plenty of other potential advantages. Tru2way TVs should be able to offer additional functionality, such as built-in DVRs. (A handful of CableCard DVR/TV combos were released, but they never took off, thanks largely to the problems outlined above.) And including the tuner inside the TV would offer the potential for better picture quality, since a TV signal native to the TV would no longer be reliant on the so-so video processing found on most set-top boxes.

Tru2way is designed from the ground up to be interactive, customizable (for the cable provider), and plug-and-play. Switched digital video, video-on-demand, pay-per-view, HD channels, dual-tuner support–it should all work without a hitch, and deliver an identical experience on your local cable system, no matter which Tru2way TV you’re buying.

CableCard was incompatible with Switched Digital Video (SDV) technology, which more cable providers are–or will soon be–utilizing to deliver more HD channels despite bandwidth limitations. As a result, CableCard devices such as the TiVo HD DVR need an outboard tuner (basically, a second cable box) to receive those channels, which often include the newest and most desirable HD stations.

Color us skeptical
The bottom line is this: Tru2way certainly looks to offer the potential for cable customers to return to the simple, halcyon days of “cable ready” TVs–just one wire, just one remote. But until we see the products hit stores in the real world, and see how–or if–they work as advertised on cable systems around the country, color us skeptical. In the meantime, we’ll be waiting patiently in the downstairs rec room, sitting on hold with tech support, trying to get the CableCard PC up and running.

Not surprisingly, there was an immediate clamor for “CableCard 2.0″ to address all of those issues. And that’s effectively what Tru2way is: the next-gen CableCard, without the physical card. (You may have heard it mentioned during its years of development, when it was alternately referred to as “OpenCable” or “Open Cable Application Platform (OCAP)”.) And–on paper, at least–it seems as if CableLabs and its partners finally got it right this time.

The electronic programming guide (EPG) interface on most CableCard TVs was either bare bones or nonexistent. That was bad for users who’ve grown used to increasingly sophisticated EPGs (on TiVo and satellite DVRs). It also frustrated cable providers who were used to controlling that interface on their own boxes, where–for better or worse–they could add advertisements, customized graphics, and other “branding” that so excites multimillion dollar corporations.

So what’s not to like? Nothing–except that none of this yet exists in the real world. Until you can actually buy one of these Tru2way products at Best Buy, Circuit City, or Amazon.com, it’s all theoretical.

Tru2way is a digital cable technology developed by CableLabs that’s designed to be built directly into TVs, eliminating the need for an outboard set-top box. In theory, you’d be able to buy a Tru2way-compatible TV, bring it home, connect it to your coaxial cable, and instantly be able to receive your entire lineup of digital cable and high-def channels–including all the interactive video-on-demand and pay-per-view channels that currently require a cable box.

Original CableCard setups were limited to just one tuner, so dual-tuner applications–such as picture in picture and the ability to record one show while watching another–were unavailable. (This issue was addressed with dual slots on the TiVo HD, as well as the multi-stream “M-card,” which allowed for dual tuning–it was rarely deployed by cable operators.)

Sony joins Panasonic, Samsung, and RCA on the Tru2way roadmap, but whether any of these companies will actually deliver a real world Tru2way product before the end of the year remains to be seen. And even if they do, there are plenty of other questions. How much will cable companies charge you for the privilege of connecting a Tru2way product to their pipe? (Our guess: exactly the same fee they charge for renting the box you have now.)

If this sounds familiar, it’s because many of the same promises were made several years ago with a technology called CableCard. TVs that shipped with a CableCard slot were called “Digital Cable Ready” (DCR); they required a smart card, provided by your local cable operator, to receive digital and HD channels. The problem with CableCard was that it was an interim solution that satisfied nobody. Everyone–cable companies, hardware manufacturers, government regulators, and consumers–found CableCard technology lacking. Among the problems:

Beyond the TV, Tru2way functionality could be built in to third-party DVRs (TiVo is already said to be working on a “Series4″ DVR that utilizes the technology) and accessories. Among the other possibilities: a Tru2way Slingbox with a built-in tuner; an adapter that turns the
Xbox 360 or
PS3 into a cable-ready DVR; true home theater PCs; and portable TV viewers (such as the Comcast/Panasonic player shown in January).

If Verizon responds to the petition and reiterates its position or decides not to address the issues, it will be up to the FCC to decide what it will do next. It is within the FCC’s right to deny Verizon access to the licenses, Whitt said. But considering what is at stake, it’s likely that won’t happen. I’ll be following this drama as it unfolds to see how Verizon responds.

Verizon, which plans to use the new spectrum to build its 4G wireless broadband network, initially opposed the open access rules. And once the rules were adopted, it filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to find those conditions unlawful. It eventually withdrew its appeal after that court denied Verizon’s request for an expedited review.

“We’re not trying to delay the process,” he said. “And we aren’t trying to block Verizon from getting those licenses. What it comes down to is we want to make sure that Verizon Wireless acknowledges and accepts the conditions put on these licenses by the majority of the FCC.”

Google wants reassurance from Verizon Wireless that it will comply with open access rules that were part of the Federal Communications Commission’s recent 700MHz auction.

According to FCC procedure, Verizon has an opportunity to file its reply to Google’s petition within the next two weeks. A spokesman for the company said it would be doing that, but he didn’t seemed alarmed by Google’s petition.

Verizon Wireless was the winning bidder in the auction of an important sliver of spectrum licenses in the 700 MHz spectrum auction, which raised a record $19.6 billion for the U.S. Treasury. As part of the rules of the auction, the winner of the C-Block licenses is required to allow any device to connect to the network and is also required to allow any application to be downloaded on devices that use the network.

This reasoning appears to be similar to how Verizon has set up its Open Device Initiative, a program announced in November that will expedite the certification process for device makers to get new devices on Verizon’s network. This program is separate from the 700MHz rules, but it could provide some insight into how the company interprets open access.

Verizon has not specifically said since the auction that it won’t live up to its obligations under the rules of the auction. Whitt said that Google doesn’t necessarily mistrust Verizon, but he said that the company is taking Ronald Reagan’s advice to “trust but verify” that Verizon will do what’s expected.

Google contends that Verizon has argued previously that the rule should apply only to devices that consumers bring to the network and should not include devices that Verizon sells to its customers.

Google, which also bid on the spectrum during the auction, was one of the main proponents of the open access rules and helped effectively lobby the FCC to include the rules as part of the auction.

“What a surprise,” he said in an e-mail. “Google submits yet another regulatory filing to the Federal Communications Commission. Google’s filing has no legal standing.”

Google filed a petition with the FCC on Friday asking the agency to make sure that Verizon really plans to adhere to these rules before the FCC officially grants the company the licenses in the C-Block of the 700MHz auction.

Whitt said that what Verizon is doing with the Open Device Initiative is commendable. He applauds the company’s efforts to embrace openness as a business model, but he said that it’s too early to tell if the initiative will live up to the rules that the FCC has mandated for C Block licenses in the 700MHz spectrum auction.

Now that the auction is over, Google claims that it wants to make sure that Verizon will really comply with the rules so that software developers can begin working on new innovative applications. It wants Verizon to state publicly that it plans to adhere to all aspects of the open access rules, including a provision the company opposed in written and oral arguments to the FCC as well as in court papers filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals. Specifically, Google wants Verizon to say that it will allow any application to be downloaded on any device using the C-Block network.

“We want Verizon to acknowledge their responsibility to comply with the C-Block license conditions,” said Richard Whitt, the Washington telecom and media counsel for Google who signed the petition. “In other words, we want them to live up to their side of the bargain. And we want their interpretation and implementation of the rule to be consistent with the spirit and intent in which the FCC adopted those rules.”

Web TV network Revision3 had a temporary outage on Tuesday, the company said.

All I could get out of a Revision3 representative was this statement: “The Revision3 Web site experienced a disruption in service earlier today, but it has been addressed.”

Now who would want to attack Revision3?

But Valleywag reports that Revision3 co-founder David Prager attributed the outage to a possible distributed denial-of-service attack.

The news was originally reported on Twitter by none other than Gen X Web 2.0 personality and former CNET producer Veronica Belmont, who was recently hired to work on Revision3’s Tekzilla program. “Holy DDOS attacks, Batman! Rev3 is under fire!” she wrote.

Report: Studios want interoperable DRM

In UK, iPhone ad banned over ‘all Internet’ claim

Also in today’s episode: the RIAA wins an important victory, film studios possibly collaborating on a new DRM scheme, and a Facebook movie might be in the works. Listen now:

Download today’s podcast

Jeff Howe on ‘crowdsourcing’

Israel to display Dead Sea Scrolls online

A new browser plug-in from Mozilla allows anyone to slice and dice the Web in almost anyway they want. It’s a command-line interface called Ubiquity, and Webware.com’s Rafe Needleman stops by to explain what this and similar applications like it mean for the future of the Web.

Today’s stories:

‘Facebook: The Movie’: Now, who should play Mark Zuckerberg?

Mozilla Ubiquity and the fracturing of the Web

So I’m not sure that MySpace Music will be a game-changer. Fans of big bands already know where to buy merchandise–the band’s Web site, or Amazon’s CD section, or iTunes, or their local retail store. Sure, big fans who count major-label acts among their “friends” might now stay within MySpace to buy new songs from these bands, and some MySpace users might discover (and buy music from) new acts via friends of friends. But a lot of fans don’t know (or care much about) the difference between major and independent artists, and might wonder why only some acts make their wares available for purchase. The inconsistency will be confusing, and drive users back to the traditional music-buying sites (or free file-trading services, which aren’t going away).

The real game-changer comes when MySpace offers a full e-commerce store–downloads, CD sales, the works–to every artist with a musician’s page on the site. That way, users would never have to leave the site to buy any music they heard on the site. The challenge would be building the infrastructure, but once things like billing and provisioning downloads are in place for the majors, it might not be much harder to set up a CDBaby-like system for everybody else.

A truly killer MySpace music service would let users buy downloads and merchandise from any act on the site.

But major label acts are a small part of the MySpace experience. The only reason you ask The Police or Death Cab to be your “friend” is to show off your impeccable taste to your real friends, the individuals and small-time artists who you’re actually connected with. These are the folks who leave individualized comments on your page and send you instant messages, and their gigs appear right alongside Radiohead’s on your home page. MySpace is the ultimate long tail site for musicians, where bar bands and small-town heroes can appear in the same context as the biggest bands in the world.

Today, MySpace announced a deal with three of the four majors (EMI is sitting out for now) to offer DRM-free MP3 downloads, ringtones, and merchandise through the artist pages on MySpace. This is long overdue: the music industry needs to go where their fans already are, and with 30 million people regularly listening to music on the site, it’s a mystery why the labels haven’t tried to reach these folks before now.

(Credit:
MySpace)

But there was always a major gap: if we wanted to sell downloads, CDs, or anything else, we had to guide fans to another site or service, such as our own home page with a PayPal account or CDBaby.

MySpace is essential for independent artists. Every band I’ve played with in the last five years has had a MySpace page, and it completely changed how we did things compared with the pre-Internet days. Getting gigs, maintaining mailing lists, fliering–all of those formerly labor-intensive tasks could be accomplished by sitting in front of a computer. One group I played with got 90 percent of our gigs through other bands on our friends list. Another had a couple dozen teenage fans who’d come to every all-ages show when they read about it on our MySpace page. (We were all in our late 30s and 40s and had no idea that ska would appeal to that demographic.)