I observed that Google’s not in the operating system business, so Chrome OS isn’t expected to be their bread-and-butter. It’s expected to be one mechanism (of many) to allow their bread to continue to be buttered by making the online experience better for the casual user. The less barriers there are to an enjoyable online experience, the more of a market Google can enjoy. All the fancy offline features of various Google products are ancillary benefits to a small segment of their userbase: the bulk of Google services and applications are intended to be used and enjoyed online. I’d wager that Google would be happy to drop Chrome OS development if Microsoft Windows presented a demonstrably superior online experience.

Abu-Hadba gets this. He recognizes that Chrome OS isn’t a direct threat to Microsoft’s cash cows, the Windows and Office product lines. Chrome OS may eventually be one part of a larger paradigm shift, and it may even be a major part of that shift, but it’s important to remember that this does not represent a significant change in Google’s strategy. They’re not abandoning their core services to become an operating system developer, any more than Microsoft is abandoning their core offerings to become a search provider.

The thing that interests me vis-à-vis Google and Microsoft is the manner in which each pursues these secondary, and in some cases tertiary, endeavours. I think we can all agree that Google makes some cool stuff, and then just floats it out there for people to use. They seem to focus on making products that are genuinely useful, and allowing the customers to figure that out on their own. Microsoft, on the other hand, sets out to compete in new product spaces, and aggressively works to market their stuff against the competition. Silverlight, anyone? I suspect, without having done any analysis at all, that this is one of the reasons why everyone is so quick to claim that Chrome OS is or is not a threat to Windows: because all of Microsoft’s products are intended to be a threat to some established player.

And I can’t pass on the irony of Microsoft calling anyone else’s products as “defensive”. What was the last truly original thing Microsoft created? I suppose a case could be made for Bing — I admit I haven’t looked at it at all yet, because it doesn’t really interest me.

There are two interesting things about the new New York Times Reader application. First, the company has abandoned SilverLight for Adobe Air, thereby ensuring cross-platform compatibility without that nasty Microsoft aftertaste. Second, the application is great.

Full disclosure: I’m a regular contributor to the NYT but I’m not employed by them full-time and act as a freelancer. But I still read the paper every day.

Now, for the good stuff. I used the earlier app briefly and put it away. I find that this new version is much cleaner than the earlier iteration. The front page is extremely readable and sections are clearly laid out. The application stores up to seven days of content and includes the crosswords as well as much of the standard print layout. You can’t do a full, site-wide search through the app simply because that data isn’t there. However, you can read the paper on a laptop.

There is a bit of lag in the Air app under OS X and I’m not sure if it’s buffering or there are other issues with the UI.

But is this the proverbial straw that broke the even-toed ungulates’ back? I’ve been toying with the idea of canceling my paper subscription for years now but there is something in me that thinks I won’t get the news if I don’t have it arrayed on the surface made of fibrous material. I like moving from page to page, scanning the interesting articles, and ignoring the rest. I can get that job done over breakfast.

However, when I was traveling my NYT couldn’t come with me. I would suspend delivery and never read a word of the paper. Now, with this app, the NYT is not longer a physical thing. But it’s not as simple, I think, as digitizing the times. I originally thought the Kindle would be the answer to my prayers but again, I haven’t found a good analog for the newsprint experience. This – and potentially the DX – might finally relegate the print edition to the obsolete folder in my head.

A few strange behaviors I noticed included the occasional disappearance of the front page images as well as a problem with in-book images, like this image-less obituary. Articles from a few days ago had their images intact.

This is, however, the way to go. The service costs $14.95 a month. Paper service costs about $40 a month in Brooklyn, a considerable cost savings. I suspect using this service will be a lateral move for me – just as it will be for many print hounds. After using the Reader and reading the paper for a while, the paper version will become little more than a vestigial tail. While part of me is sad – I’ll miss the paper – the rest of me knows this is the only way to keep this crazy thing we call journalism alive.

Again with the Plex. I know, I know. But! Today’s news is legitimately interesting: Netflix is now fully functional within Plex, the best damn Mac media player out there.

Yup, provided you have a Netflix account, you can stream to your heart’s content using Plex. Fair warning: you’ll need to install Silverlight, so if that’s an issue…

I don’t doubt that people who know what Plex is don’t already have an Xbox 360, that streams the same content and is hooked up to a 40 plus-inch TV, so it’s usefulness is somewhat suspect. But neat, certainly, and demonstrative of the new Plex plugin system.

Another year that March Madness is about to descend upon college basketball fans everywhere and another year that it appears my University of Puget Sound Loggers haven’t made it anywhere close to the big tournament. I’m beginning to think they might NEVER win a national championship. Maybe a little HD video streaming will dull my pain.

Yes, CBS Sports will again be serving up its very-excellent free online live game coverage, but this year we’ll be treated to a 1.5Mbps HD-quality Silverlight option along with standard-definition Flash video. It’ll be interesting to see how CBS’ system holds up, as there are a LOT of people who tap into the live streams while at work.

Now the ultimate question: Who’s gonna win it all this year?

[via Zatz Not Funny!]

We’ve had some laughs, shared some tears (some of you probably made some of us cry, at least), and posted thousands upon thousands of stories – 12,227 and counting, to be exact.

Thanks for making this a great year!

Here are the 100 most popular stories from 2008:

100. End of the world on Wednesday, take a half day today

99. BlackBerry Bold dated, priced for every carrier

98. OS X Leopard-iPhone banners appear at Moscone

97. Facebook partners with iTunes for music store

96. Confirmed- Microsoft cutting Jerry Seinfeld ads tomorrow

95. Amazing mini 3D-display cube developed in Japan

94. Adobe already has iPhone version of Flash running on emulator

93. Macworld 2008 Keynote- Watch it beginning to end, right here

92. MIT students demonstrate their Android applications

91. iPhone turned numeric keypad with Numberkey app

90. Review- Netflix Player by Roku

89. CrunchGear Live at the Apple Notebook Event

88. Review- BlackBerry Bold for AT&T

87. Bigfoot finding a hoax- Say it ain’t so! It is so, though

86. ‘Subtle but noticeable’: Toshiba XD-E500 upconverting DVD player

85. All About Linux 2008- Ten great live distros

84. Jailbreak software for 1.1.3 iPod Touches, iPhones released

83. Black Friday CrunchDeals- Sam’s Club Wii for $224 and it comes with a bunch of extras UPDATED

82. 10 gadgets to help you survive the coming economic apocalypse

81. Simply the best- My gadget picks for 2008

80. Actns-Swif.T virus affecting embedded YouTube vids?

79. T-Mobile @Home offers $10 per month unlimited VOIP

78. Best Buy intros ‘Premier Black’ Reward Zone program

77. 5 reasons damaging your MacBook is a worse idea now than ever before

76. Italian boy diagnosed with ‘PlayStation addiction’

75. Slew of upcoming Verizon phones leaked

74. Ancient computer knew more than just when the Olympiad was scheduled for

73. Leaked- Photos of the cast of the new G.I. Joe film in costume!

72. First Look- MSI Wind [UPDATED]

71. Google hearts the Konami code

70. Toilet aboard International Space Station is broken

69. Aerogel- Glass that is 99.8% air gets put through the paces

68. HP attempts to charge customer $1099 due to “liquid inside keyboard”

67. Tata Nano, the world’s least expensive car

66. Review- Samsung Instinct

65. The G1- Almost perfect

64. Microsoft’s Vista armor starting to fade

63. Live Blogging Apple’s iPhone SDK Event

62. Hack the MacBook to have multi-touch, win an iPod Touch

61. Meet the new Lara Croft, gymnast Alison Carroll

60. Making Galaxies fun again- An interview with the developers of the Star Wars Galaxies PreCU Emulation Project

59. Rumor- New MacBook Pros on St. Patrick’s Day?

58. Attack of the Clones- Garrison Carida of the 501st Stormtrooper Legion

57. Review- Samsung Glyde

56. iPhone 3G for $199 comes with 2-year contract

55. Video- Samsung Instinct

54. Review- BlackBerry Storm for Verizon Wireless

53. Xbox 360 red ring of death repair kit from Team Xecuter

52. PR and the fine art of not being crazy

51. My day with Bigfoot

50. How to add RAM to the Acer Aspire One netbook

49. Swoopo- “Entertainment Shopping” or Scam-

48. Macs getting Netflix “Watch Instantly” with Silverlight

47. New Apple exec Mark Papermaster ordered to stop working immediately

46. Review- T-Mobile G1

45. Review- iPod Touch 2G

44. Instinct vs. iPhone- FIGHT

43. All About Linux 2008- Penguins fly! An interview with Charles Ogilvie, Virgin America’s head of

42. Nokia World 2008- Nokia N97

41. Review- Mio Knight Rider GPS

40. It’s official- Blu-ray wins

39. GTA IV ads pulled from Chicago buses under pressure from Fox News

38. WWDC 2008 Keynote Live – Recap

37. 10+ alternative OSes that may provide next year’s innovations

36. Augmented Reality- The Tuttuki Bako box needs your finger to play with virtual characters

35. Breaking- Apple to launch iChat for Windows on Monday!-

34. A Swiss man just flew over the English Channel with a jet pack

33. Why is Hulu more valued by advertisers than YouTube-

32. Toyota to sell solar panel-equipped Prius next year

31. Microsoft TouchWall can inexpensively turn any flat surface into a multi-touch display

30. Man builds Batman’s Tumbler in his garage

29. MacBook AirHead- why Apple’s new laptop is basically useless

28. All About Linux 2008- Should Microsoft be afraid of Linux-

27. A rumor- Apple to release multitouch keyboard for Apple TV

26. Bierstick- Two beers in under two seconds

25. iPhone 1.1.3 firmware downgrade complete, still unbricks you, SDK docs leaked

24. Blackberry Storm to kill iPhone

23. Morons film selves smoking up, return camera to store, are discovered by all of us

22. IBM creates super-fast memory

21. Review- iPhone 3G

20. Mythbusters’ GPU vs. CPU demo- 1100 paintballs make the Mona Lisa in 275ms

19. Three iPhones, three different screens

18. Old watch-like navigation gadget from 1920

17. Exclusive- iJailBreak Mobile released- upgrade your Jailbroken iPod Touch, iPhone over the air!

16. Locking down laptops from the TSACustoms

15. ‘HiPhone’ looks mighty familiar, almost iPhone-like

14. Sprint Instinct- Could this thing beat the iPhone-

13. Yes, that is a BIONIC EYE

12. Feast your eyes on the the world’s lightest phone- Modu

11. Real Bigfoot carcass to be shown this Friday…or not

10. Overclock world record- Q6600 2.4GHz run at 5.1GHz

9. New Apple notebook spotted, we told you so

8. Cool sunglasses give you super vision

7. Man builds rad trimaran sailboat in yard, now it’s stuck there

6. Exclusive- Star Wars- The Force Unleashed for iPhone

5. Inside Darth Vader’s helmet

4. Kindle 2.0 Coming Around October 2008

3. Windows 7 screen grabs look better than they sound

2. How come nobody told me about the Dallas airport?

1. Breaking- Exclusive leaked pics of the iPhone 2! Thinner design- Check! Different colors- Check!

So there you have it. If you can think of any memorable posts from the past year that didn’t make the list, leave ‘em in the comments section and we’ll all reminisce in unison.

Just a friendly reminder to all Netflix subscribers who own a Mac that the Silverlight-based streaming service is out of beta. That is all.

Sign up here ASAP.

The announcement came from Microsoft General Manager Kevin Dallas in an industry address at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston today (10/28).

It’d previously been casually referred to as Vista Embedded but the platform’s 2010-ish launch date puts it squarely in line to don the overcoat (or undershirt?) of what will be Microsoft’s then-current operating system, Windows 7.

Full release after the jump…

Microsoft Announces the Next Version of Windows Embedded Standard to Be Built on Windows 7

Next generation of Windows Embedded Standard will offer a richer set of solutions for building smart, connected, service-oriented devices.

BOSTON — Oct. 28, 2008 — Today at the Embedded Systems Conference Boston, Microsoft Corp. announced plans for the next generation of Windows Embedded Standard, code-named “Quebec” to be built on Windows 7. Windows Embedded “Quebec” delivers powerful next-generation Microsoft technologies including Silverlight 2, Windows Presentation Foundation and interoperability with Visual Studio 2010. Alignment with Windows 7 features will give OEMs access to the skills and contributions of a global community of Windows developers familiar with Visual Studio. OEMs will be able to quickly develop applications and drivers for connected device scenarios requiring rich applications, services and end-user experiences connecting to Windows-based PCs, servers and Windows Web services.

Driving Connected Experiences With the Richest Set of Solutions

“Windows Embedded ‘Quebec’ will provide OEMs with the ability to further differentiate their devices by taking rich user experiences to the next level with exciting new input capabilities through multitouch, gesture support and user interface enhancements,” said Kevin Dallas, general manager of the Windows Embedded Business Unit at Microsoft. “It also will feature a rich set of componentized operating system technologies and specific features that let developers optimally size the operating system on their devices with only the drivers, services and applications they need.”

Built on Windows 7, Windows Embedded “Quebec” will offer developers a powerful, familiar and reliable experience that will include the following benefits:

· Rich user experience. The latest Microsoft Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation tools deliver the next generation of media experiences and rich Internet applications for devices.

· Enhanced security and control. Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption and key management to protect data on embedded devices provide greater security. In addition, Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 will provide defense from malicious Web sites and keep data private with improved security and InPrivate Browsing.

· Enhanced stability and improved performance. The new platform will offer enhanced stability and improved performance with investment in multicore architecture, including 64-bit processor support.

· Extended Web capabilities to the embedded device. Customers will have the ability to enable Web capabilities to their devices with Internet Explorer 8 accelerators and Windows Web services, benefitting from powerful, efficient Web applications, including offline capabilities.

Since “Watch Instantly” was introduced about two years ago Macintosh and Linux users have been complaining bitterly about Netflix’s failure to offer the service on their browsers of choice. The company has already offered streaming via dedicated hardware and specially programmed home theater and gaming devices.

The release, below, tells us to expect the Silverlight-powered service to go live by the end of the year.

NETFLIX BEGINS ROLL-OUT OF 2ND GENERATION
MEDIA PLAYER FOR INSTANT STREAMING
ON WINDOWS PCs AND INTEL MACS

Based on Microsoft Silverlight, New Player Features Enhanced Dynamic Streaming, First-Time Use for Macs and Breakthrough Navigation for Fast-Forward and Rewind

LOS GATOS, Calif., October 27, 2008 – Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), the world’s largest online movie rental service, today announced it has begun the deployment of Microsoft Silverlight to enhance the instant watching component of the Netflix service and to allow subscribers for the first time to watch movies and TV episodes instantly on their Intel-based Apple Macintosh computers. The deployment, which will initially touch a small percentage of new Netflix subscribers, is the first step in an anticipated roll-out of the new platform to all Netflix subscribers by the end of the year.

Silverlight is designed for delivery of cross-platform, cross-browser media experiences inside a Web browser. It is expected that Netflix members who watch movies and TV episodes instantly on their computers will enjoy a faster, easier connection and a more robust viewing experience with Silverlight, due to the quality built directly into the player. Among the viewing enhancements with the new player is a breakthrough in timeline navigation that vastly improves the use of fast-forwarding and rewinding. The new Netflix player takes advantage of Play Ready DRM, which is built into Silverlight, for the playback of protected content on both Windows-based PCs and on Macs. That had not been possible with previous generation technologies.

“Silverlight with Play Ready offers a powerful and secure toolkit for delivery of dynamic streaming, which offers faster start-up, and higher quality video, adapted in real time to users’ connection speeds,” said Netflix Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt. “Members who enjoy watching movies and TV episodes from the growing library of choices that can be instantly streamed at Netflix will be thrilled with this next generation improvement of access and quality, on a broader range of platforms, including Intel Macs and Firefox.”

“Instantly streaming from Netflix directly addresses the needs and wants of today’s Web users by providing on-demand, high-quality online video,” said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft Corp.  “By using Silverlight, Netflix can deliver to its subscribers a higher quality video experience on the Web, on more platforms.”

Silverlight was tried and proven this summer as NBCOlympics.com streamed thousands of hours of live and on-demand online video for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

For Macintosh users, the Silverlight player will work only on Intel-based Macs, which currently account for roughly three-fourths of Mac units operated by Netflix subscribers.

The Netflix instant watching catalog of more than 12,000 choices continues to grow with significant new titles from CBS, the Disney Channel and Starz Play, which the company announced recently. In addition to watching instantly on the PC and Mac via Silverlight, Netflix members can enjoy the same movies and TV episodes on their television with a Netflix ready device such as the Netflix Player by Roku, which was introduced in May, the LG Electronics BD300 Blu-ray disc player and the Samsung BD-P2550 and BD-P2500 Blu-ray disc players, which are on sale now at retailers nationwide, and, soon, the Microsoft Xbox 360.

Tamir Khason wrote an article about four years ago theorizing that there’s a direct correlation between the modern-day popularity of a particular programming language and how much facial hair the inventor of that language has. He’s now revisited the subject in a new post called Computer Languages and Facial Hair — Take Two.

The inventors of the following languages have (or had) no facial hair at all; Fortran, F#, Prolog, Objective-C, Java+, C#, RubyCLR, WPF, Silverlight, and IronPython.

The inventors of the following languages have (or had) mustaches; Smalltalk, BASIC, and Perl.

Finally, the inventors of these languages have (or had) beards; C, C++, Ruby, Python, Java, JSON, and PHP (although he’s just got a little chin-beard).

Haskell will be an interesting case because it has three founders; one with no beard, one with a huge beard, and one with a little chin-beard.

Khason speculates that Haskell might do well since the guy with the huge beard (seen left) makes up for the other two.

On a somewhat unrelated note, the guy in the upper left corner of the main photo looks an awful lot like SNL’s Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery.

via Newsvine

Doug Aamoth and Peter Ha here at the CTIA Keynote in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada. I’ll be pounding the keys at Petey snaps photos. Hold on to your hats, it’s surely going to be a psycho-erotic thriller of magnanimous proportions.

That’s it. Thanks for stopping by. More coverage all this week.

10:57 – “The walled-garden wireless company is the company of the past… At Sprint, we want to be the easiest to work with and the most open provider.” More SDKs coming out. Easier for developers to put out web-accessible apps that’ll run on Sprint devices. Will begin exploring true open-source development. We want to own the pole position and we want to own “the now” as the most open network in America.

10:55 – The market is ready for this technology now. We have a very strong lineup of devices and network equipment. It works NOW.

10:50 – Sprint WiMAX network (XOHM) will give them a two year market advantage. Super fast data everything at the touch of a button. Videos from camcorders to TVs and video sharing sites at the same time. Anywhere video conferencing. It’ll be like your at-home broadband experience but anywhere outside your home.

10:47 – Talks about Simply Everything for $99 per month. It’s simple. How about a simple phone? The Instinct by Samsung. Like no other touchscreen phone. Faster. Pre-loaded apps. Entertainment. GPS. Over-the-air downloads. Available for a “very competitive price” this summer.

10:45 – Mobile content industry is exploding. At $72 billion per year, it’s bigger than Hollywood and the music industry.

10:43 – New phones coming later this year from LG, Motorola, etc. but the real excitement will be coming from mobile data services.

10:41 – “Can I download that on my phone has been replaced by ‘how fast can I download that on my phone.’”

10:39 – Sprint’s new CEO Dan Hesse takes the stage after a video about how consumers want everything instantly on their mobile devices without feeling like we’re using mobile devices.

10:35 – Microsoft will have Windows Mobil 6.1 devices on all five major carriers.

10:33 – Sony XPERIA X1 quick UI demo. It moves around. That’s about it. It’s over pretty quickly.

10:30 – Internet Explorer Mobile

- Desktop experience

- Full web pages

- YouTube made possible via Flash Lite

10:27 – Live Search for Windows Mobile

Shows a bunch of different mapping features and says “How interesting is that?” One very quiet clap can be heard. Otherwise, silence.

10:20 – Demo of Windows Mobile 6.1 on Samsung BlackJack

- Threaded text messaging

- Mailbox filtering by typing first few letters of whatever you’re looking for

- Built-in ISP settings and Bluetooth pairing codes for a bunch of different devices and providers.

- “Sliding panel” icons light up as you get new e-mails, voicemails, etc.

10:18 – Windows Mobile 6.1 announcement

Simpler and easier to use for phone functions.

New home screen.

New browser that replicates desktop experience.

New platform for entertainment experiences.

System Center Mobile Device Manager for businesses. Easier for IT depts to work with Windows Mobile phones on company networks.

10:16 – Innovation — Infrastructure: Microsoft PlayReady (DRM), NVIDIA. Web: Silverlight, Flash Light. Services: Tellme, Danger, Musiwave, ScreenTonic.

10:14 – Not just Windows Mobile — all of Microsoft will be dedicated to the mobile device revolution. Key idea will be choice. Work with 160+ mobile operators around the world.

10:11 – Robbie Bach, President of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division. Says mobile devices are the future. Software and services are the engine.

10:09 – Asks who wants a one-way trip to Mars to help build the city. A bunch of people go up on stage.

10:05 – The US wireless industry is exciting and innovative. Branson believes in the MVNO model. Virgin Mobile Festival August 9th and 10th in Baltimore. Kyocera is the sponsor.  New festival phone coming out. Looks kinda like the LG enV. Foo Fighters will headline. Jack Johnson, Kanye West, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots.

10:03 – In 1997, the wireless industry needed help and wireless consumers needed a champion. Virgin Mobile was born. Emphasis on flexibility, customers first.

10:00 – Virgin Mobile is doing a lot for the environment. Postage paid envelopes in new phones to send in old phones to be recycled, zero carbon music festivals, etc.

9:58 – Need to clean up the Earth’s atmosphere. Need great minds. Virgin’s putting up $25 million for whoever can figure out a good way to extract carbon from the environment when it gets too hot and then put it back in if it gets too cold. Will invest $3 billion — all the profits from their “dirty businesses” as Branson calls them — to find better alternatives. Encourages other companies to do the same.

9:54 – Virgin and Google have partnered to form “Virgle” — this might be an April Fool’s Day joke. “We’re building a giant space ark powered by the Sun. We’ll be taking 30 animals, people, etc. on board and will put people on Mars and build a city on Mars.” People are clapping, some enthusiastically. He’s gone on to the next subject now — hasn’t said it’s a joke.

9:52 – Took on train industry by using environmentally-friendly, yet superfast trains. So trains, planes, and now maybe space flight. Virgin Galactic. “Are any of you signed up already? Does anyone want to go to space?” People clap.

9:50 – Wanted to see if this “brand adventure” would work for other industries. Went on to start 300 or so other Virgin-branded companies.

9:48 – Began Virgin Atlantic in 1984. People laughed, newspapers called them nuts. “Too old to rock and roll, too young to fly.” Nobody will fly on an airline called “Virgin”. Virgin Atlantic has gone on to be the airline of choice between the US and the UK.

9:45 – Record company starting an airline seemed weird but record company execs fly all the time and the experience is horrible. Why not start an airline? Originally had a canceled flight to Puerto Rico so he chartered a plane for $2000 and sold tickets to all the other passengers for $39 and called it Virgin Airline.

9:42 – Back in 1966, Virgin first started talking about environmentalism. People laughed. Original company name was Slip-Disk Records, changed to Virgin. Patent office wouldn’t let them register the name for three years because it was rude. Branson and co. decided that Virgin could be a brand name for a bunch of other stuff.

9:40 – Talks about doing things their way. Going against the grain, etc.

9:38 – Here come Sir Richard Branson. He looks dreamy! He’s charming like Hugh Grant but rough-and-tumble like Chuck Norris and smart like Rockefeller.

9:36 – Video playing showcasing what Virgin’s been up to lately. Virgin likes to shake up the big conglomerates. It’s taken on travel, music, mobile, etc. “Sabotage” by The Beastie Boys plays over some commercial and event footage. 

9:35 – Dan Schulman, CEO of Virgin Mobile, comes out to introduce Richard Branson.

9:33 – Talks about E911. It’s good, but let’s make it better. Thanks and goodbye.

9:29 – Big carriers have finally embraced open standards. He will vote against Skype’s request to open up cellular networks. Everybody claps.

9:27 – Rural areas will benefit from the 700MHz spectrum. Wireless data rivaling DSL and cable internet speeds. Open platform requirement, although initially opposed by the wireless industry, has and will be good for consumers. Good for choice and competition.

9:26 – Recent FCC auction was good. Doubled amount of available wireless spectrum. It made a bunch of money. I missed the exact figure, but I bet it’s more than my salary. Times a million.

9:25 – Competition is good. About 95% of Americans can choose between three wireless providers and 90% can choose between at least four. Prices go down because of competition. Adoption goes up.

9:23 – The industry is growing. You (consumers) will be a big part of it. Hopefully we (the FCC) will be a smaller part.

9:21 – FCC Chairman Kevin Martin takes the stage.

9:19 – 2007 wireless revenue was $23 billion. 48 billion text messages sent each month.

9:18 – 255 million wireless subscribers as of December, 2007. That’s 84% of the entire US population.

9:16 – CTIA president Steve Largent takes the stage. He looks like Brian from “Wings” — you know, Joe’s brother.

9:15 – The next 25 years will make the first 25 years look like the on-ramp to some sort of superhighway. Welcome to CTIA!

9:13 – Exciting new heights for the wireless industry. “If you think this is a maturing industry, think again.” Some think 4G will generate up to 50 billion dollars in revenue out of the gate via interoperability. Good for consumers too. Seamless data transfer between mobile, computers, TVs, etc. More integrated into life, like wireless refrigerators, medical devices, and whatnot.

9:11 – To policymakers, 1) Regulation slows down rapid growth. 2) The wireless industry adds greatly to the economy. It’s not been affected by recent economic depression. Don’t mess with a good system. 3) Regulation prevents newcomers and stifles innovation. Also, there’s too much tax levied on consumers.

9:08 – Wireless industry doesn’t want government regulation. “Let us continue to compete…Customers provide the best type of regulation by their ability to choose.”

9:07 – CTIA has 1200 vendors covering 400,000 square feet

9:05 – Showing a video about all the stuff wireless can do. Car emergencies, business use, etc. “Ready for whatever America wants next.”

9:03 – Wireless industry invested $24 billion last year. Good for the economy, creates jobs. In 25 short years, we’ve created a whole new way of working, living, and playing. Praises number portability, free evenings and weekends, ringtones. Five years ago the buzz was wireless broadband. Now it’s here. Three years ago, it was wireless TV. We did that too.

9:01 – Verizon Wireless’ Lowell McAdam takes the stage to welcome everyone. He reminisces about how small the conference used to be. It used to fit in a single conference room! He thanks some industry pioneers and the 30 members of the CTIA board. Thanks for another great show this year, etc.

9:00 – The lights have dimmed and I can’t see my keyboard. Ah, now there are searchlights flailing to and fro. It’s like a concert for people who wear suits.

8:57 – Peter is feverishly typing something that may or may not be related to CTIA. He keeps hitting the backspace key — a sign to me that he’s typing too fast.

This is a good move on Microsoft’s part. It’s got its own Flash-like technology in Silverlight but it’ll be a while before it’s ready for deployment on mobile devices. This is also a good move on Adobe’s part after Steve Jobs made it clear that he’s not too keen on Flash or Flash Lite.

Both Flash Lite and Adobe Reader LE will be made available to OEMs and I’d hope that current Windows Mobile users would be able to download a Flash Lite plugin for IE Mobile. According to Adobe’s press release, “Adobe Flash Lite and Reader LE availability for Windows Mobile phones will be confirmed later,” so I guess we’ll wait to hear more.

Adobe Mobile Products to Ship with Windows Mobile Phones [Adobe.com]

Steve Ballmer was surprisingly candid — yet still fairly quiet — about Microsoft’s plans to port Silverlight to the iPhone. He basically said “Yeah, maybe, if we want to.” As for ActiveSync, he also said “Yeah, maybe, if our partners want to.” As we all no, competitors rarely comment on others developments for fear of sounding like a whiner. Let’s just say that this is well in the realm of possibility and leave it at that.

Ballmer on Apple’s iPhone announcement [News.com]
TC Mix Coverage: Keynote 1, Keynote 2

This is starting to get interesting. First Radiohead released “In Rainbows” Online, then Saul Williams released the Trent Reznor produced “The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust.” Now it seems that movie studios are, at least to some degree, following suit.

While filming “Jackass 2,” the crew apparently created enough content for two entire films. In the spirit of this new Online distribution model, Paramount and MTV has decided to stream “Jackass 2.5″ in conjunction with Blockbuster via Microsoft Silverlight.

It’s essentially a collection of DVD extras and commentary, but it’s cut together like an extra of sorts, hence the 2.5. Highlights include The Cajun Obstacle Course, The Poof and a whole lot of homoeroticism. At any rate, if you’re a fan of “Jackass” and the movies, it’s about an hour of hilarity and it’s free.

Jackass 2.5

Microsoft LiveStation is kind of a Joost-meets-Orb except that it’s live TV (unlike Joost) only and it requires broadcasters to participate (unlike Orb). The guy in the video refers to LiveStation as “Slingbox without the box.” Sort of, but Slingbox doesn’t require broadcaster participation. He’s dead on about the box, though. Slingbox does have a box, LiveStation does not.

LiveStation’s got a real purtty mouth — programmed using Microsoft’s new Silverlight technology and looking to replicate the real-life experience of flipping through your TV channels. I think that this could be a great service, in theory, if they can talk all the major broadcasters into signing on.

That’s going to be a pretty spicy meatball, though. I’ll be floored if they can get sticklers like Major League Baseball, the NFL, and dinosaurs like NBC to play along. The more progressive hipsters like the NHL and, to some extent, ABC and CBS might be easier to woo. Microsoft does have friends in some pretty high places so maybe they’ll be able to pull it off after all.

If this LiveStation project does come to fruition, guess who’s really going to throw a hissy fit? That’s right, your local cable company (and probably DirecTV). I’ve been wanting to bid adieu to shelling out $100/month for TV for quite some time, but there’s been no viable alternative that works well enough to replace TV.

If I could get most of the same channels that I get through Comcast via LiveStation or a similar service, you’d see me pushing Comcast out the door to endure the walk of shame home wearing my least favorite sweatshirt. You can keep the sweatshirt Comcast. I don’t want it back. Not if it means talking to you ever again.

Of course, the holy grail of TV would be a mixture of Slingbox, Joost, Orb, and LiveStation. Ubiquitous access from any computer or TV set, DVR functionality, and free or low-cost access. I think that Joost will ultimately come closest but the Slingboxes, Orbs, and LiveStations of the world will still fill that need for up-to-the-minute news and live sports. It hasn’t been said that LiveStation won’t offer PVR and time-shifting functionality down the road. If they do, they could have a real winner here.

UPDATE: Apparently, this is not a Microsoft project. London-based Skinkers is developing the service independent of Microsoft after purchasing the rights to a Microsoft Research project. Sorry for the confusion.

Microsoft LiveStation: Slingbox Without the Box [TechCrunch]

10. On Monday, Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s incoming chief software architect, declared that AJAX was dead. Long live Silverlight.

9. Yahoo CEO Terry Semel is a foreign car kind of guy, while Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is strictly Detroit.

8. Steve Case, architect of the AOL Time Warner merger, made repeated “Boo Hoo!” crank calls to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

7. Microsoft executives balked at marketers’ “We’re No. 2″ ad campaign against Google.

6. Yahoo had second thoughts when Microsoft’s Hotmail service spit back all the wedding invitations as spam.

5. The matchmaking computer recommending the two pair up ran Linux.

4. The computer recommending against the matchup ran Windows Server Longhorn Beta 3.

3. Old school guy Ballmer thought that the bride should pay the $40 billion dowry.

2. The court clerk’s computer, running Windows 98, crashed when generating the marriage license.

1. Semel refused to run Windows Vista on Yahoo computers until the release of Service Pack 1.

[via Microsoft Watch]

Microsoft drops hints about Internet Explorer 8 [Ars Technica]

It supports playback of WMV files on both PC and Macintosh, with many options for interactivity during playback; with just a couple of lines of code, you can provide a platform-neutral way to handle all your movie files. Silverlight supports full-screen 720p video and offers seamless transitions between full-screen and windowed mode without losing your position in the video (something that media sites are crying out for today).

Sounds good to me. We’ll give it a whirl and let you know how it works.

Introducing Microsoft Silverlight
SilverLight Clip