It’s about time that AT&T catches up with Verizon and Sprint in the mobile TV race. They finally started making sense to me when they proposed a mobile TV service yesterday. Right now, I am not worried at all if the 3G network from AT&T can’t handle it. It can already handle live video, so why couldn’t it handle regular TV? I just hope they gain a competetive edge in this market by lowering the prices. They are already beat by Verizon in the most widespread network in the U.S. Maybe they could go ahead of Verizon in at least one more area. And what better area other than multimedia content?

Right now, it doesn’t look that many phones have mobile TV support, let alone 3G capabilities. I am worried about you AT&T. Verizon has most, if not all of their phones equipped with EV-DO. If you don’t step up your game in the phone department, you might lose your game to Verizon. I don’t know if I have mentioned it already, but I hate Verizon even though it offers one of the most comprehensive cell phone service in terms of wide-spread internet access and cell phone service coverage. Their high prices is what makes me want to scream. This is very believable considering I am from the poor man’s cell phone service, T-Mobile.

All in all, I am rooting for you, AT&T! Probably only because I don’t want for them to fall into the hands of Verizon. Other than that, I pretty much hate AT&T’s guts (No offense to all you AT&T fans )

Apple, this is a shocker from you. My precious Apple is going down like the rest of the corporations that have false advertisements. Originally, I didn’t hear of the lawsuit filed against you in May in 2007. Here is how Jacqui Cheng states the situation:

The plaintiffs, Fred Greaves and Dave Gatley, originally brought the suit against Apple in May of 2007, alleging that Apple’s displays were “grainy” and “sparkly,” and that some customers had observed banding (when the display shows you bands of different shades when it is supposed to display a smooth gradient). Their proof, aside from their own observations, were pages of printed discussion threads from Apple’s support forums. The lawsuit alleged that customers who complained about the displays were allegedly told that they were being too picky or that they were imagining the problems.

Apple, I would have never expected something like this from you. I thought you were different from the rest of the evil corporations.  You have let me down. But enough of my rant.  Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. Apparently, they used dithering to attempt to acheive what the advertisements actually say. Along with their observations (the people who filed the lawsuits), they used forum discussions to support their case. As many lawsuits are, the agreements were undisclosed. This type of deceptive advertising seems pretty low on a corporate standard. I better watch for you Apple.

 VIA Ars Technica

Sony looks like they are planning to enter the music subscription service. They look very promising from a detail you will hear afterwards. Even though Sony BMG is a record label, that can’t stop it from being a crash-and-burn music download service. The price range is just your average US $9-12 per month. Song BMG CEO Rolf Schmidt-Holtz also said that there will be also way to buy “unexpiring” music a-la-carte in addition to subscribing to the service which will you all-you-can-download music store. Nothing new there. But what he added is that the music library downloads will be compatible with all types of DRM devices, including the iPod! I would be very excited to see all-you-can-download type services for the iPod that doesn’t involve breaking any DRM code. Maybe we can actually see someone competing with Apple’s iTunes. I am very anxious to know when this service will be released, but Mr. CEO did not specify a time.

VIA Ars Technica

Apple, once again you have lit my fire for the day! Even if this is all speculation, I am pumped! If Apple hears about this, maybe it will have plans to include such a thing! According to AppleInsider:

More specifically, he claims that a 3G version of the iPhone hardware due in a few months will employ two digital cameras situated back-to-back — one on the front side of the unit behind the transparent touch-screen, and a second one on the back of the handset as it exists today

“He” is the Digg social networking site’s founder Kevin Rose. Sure, he claimed the Apple iPhone would have some extra features it didn’t turn out to have, but what does that have to do with being pumped about an idea like this? Along with being obvious, it seems second-nature for 3G video chat to be included with the Apple iPhone.

Apple hasn’t let me down YET, but I am definetely keeping my fingers crossed for this one.

VIA AppleInsider

Microsoft, I have got to admit this is step up from your complaint-filled Vista Service Pack 1 launch. But not too big of a step up. I don’t think this move from will attract a lot of attention because it was pretty obvious. Just about everyone would have seen this type of thing, and I pity the ones who didn’t.

It is not suprising to see that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is starting to become even more of a failure, especially when it’s not even their fault. We already saw a lot of driver issues in the first release. Again, this should have been obvious that this was going to happen. The driver problems overrun about all of the other issues Microsoft haven’t worked out in SP1, and it isn’t even their fault. Poor Microsoft. If you weren’t such a pain in the first place, maybe I would have donated.

VIA ChannelWeb

Wow Microsoft. You’ve done it again. You have screwed up Vista once more, and this time I don’t think you can redeem yourselves. You have discouraged me even more from the software with a hefty price tag known as Windows Vista. Forum users and bloggers around the nation are angry and upset about why they can’t upgrade to Vista Service Pack 1. It appears that Microsoft has set some prerequisites that you have to meet, among those comes certain language packs and compatible drivers.

Now that I think about it, I think I am being a little too unfair by putting all of the blame on Microsoft. Maybe I should take some heat off of them and put some on the drivers. It’s not really Microsoft’s problem that drivers aren’t updated by their corresponding manufacturers. Maybe it was just karma that Microsoft has these driver problems. Or maybe it’s just them. Whatever it is, I highly doubt I am going to switch to Windows Vista as of posting this article.

VIA ComputerWorld

Hey guys! I am really sorry for all of the downtime we have been having. But all of this downtime does have its rewards, for us at least . We are now running our own DNS servers courtesy of UnlimitedNet running our second DNS server. We are also running e-Mail services courtesy of Postfix, Dovecot, and Postfixadmin (Spammers, I’d like to see you try us). If you’d like to ask a question, leave a comment, or just say hi, please do so at maury [en] techiegonemad [punto] net . As of Sunday, we will not have any more downtime and we will keep this running 24×7!

I would have never seen something like this coming from Apple. Now that iPod sales have died down, it appears that they are looking into taking action to keep those sales figures up. They are talking about bundling unlimited iTunes library downloads with the purchase of an iPod. Once again Apple, you have made my day. Just them talking about something like this makes me so excited.

It seems to me that Apple has a lot of projects that they are trying to keep up with. Maybe they are starting to lose their shine in light of all of the criticisms of their products. I mean, first comes the iPhone 2.0, then the new Apple TV, and now this. Apple, watch your back! I would hate to see your products go down the drain . Maybe the Apple-haters out there can finally gloat in the Apple-lover’s faces. Enough of my rant, back to the news.

The only thing keeping me back from a deal like this would be the price tag and the fact of buying a new iPod. I mean how high can Apple go for this type of thing? They aren’t one of those wacko outrageously priced sellers that I too often see in the industry these days, such as HDMI cables. But pushing that aside, buying a new iPod after less than a year’s use seems to be overdoing it a little. But we will keep our eyes peeled for any news on this again.

For all of you Vista fans, this is your time to celebrate! Microsoft finally released Windows Vista Service Pack 1, after a year full of complaints. Workers of businesses, looks like your company might be taking the plunge to Vista if they think it’s worthy. Here are some of the features of SP1, as Emil Protalinski describes it:

File copying should no longer have an ETA of hundreds of years

UAC has been altered slightly, including fewer prompts in specific scenarios

DirectX has been updated to support not only DirectX 9 and 10 hardware, but the backwards-compatible 10.1 as well

WGA has been tweaked to address two of the most popular exploits

Further support has been added for third party search solutions

I am excited to see UAC on that list. When I was using Windows Vista on a friend’s computer, I was experimenting with the administrative control panel. Every single thing I wanted to do (in my opinion, of course) required a dimming of the monitor to answer the “Windows needs your permission to continue” box. Although you can disable this feature for administrators all-together, I am glad they are letting up on the restrictions a little bit so people can make the feature useful in family-type environments.

I have yet to get Vista because of my stubbornness to pay the money needed to get it. It seems to me a lot of people are not taking the leap to Vista (legally, of course) because the price tags for it are so hefty. In my opinion, piracy is part of the reason Windows Vista prices are so high. I am glad Microsoft is taking yet another stand and they’re cracking down on these WGA exploits so maybe I could buy the basic version, at the very least.

I will be keeping my eyes peeled on those Vista forums to check out the user feedback from the new service pack. Hopefully their praises will convince me to buy it knowing that it’s better than the original version.

VIA Ars Technica

I really don’t know what’s with me and Apple. I think we are starting to having a relationship with all of these posts. But anyways, Microsoft attempts to kill the iPhone trend with a deal with licensing Adobe’s flash for mobile devices dubbed “Flash Lite.” Microsoft finally has a comeback that looks like it will do something to encourage end-users to buy their Windows Smartphone. I’m sorry I have to betray you Apple, but this looks like it can do some damage to your sales. This deal actually encourages me to get a T-Mobile Dash (if they’re still available in May for the same price) knowing that it could play YouTube content.

Looking at the Adobe Flash lite version comparison chart, Flash lite 3 is inferior to the Flash Player 7 SDK. As long at YouTube could work, I am all for it.

But with all these applications focusing on the iPhone and Windows Mobile OS devices, who is focusing on the BlackBerry? Yeah, I know it isn’t meant for things like this because of it’s “professional” storefront, but can that stop us from having a little bit of fun with it once and a while?