tech: July 2005 Archives

This just in: HP to stop selling re-branded Apple iPods.

Actually, it's worse than that: they never even really re-branded them. For a company whose motto under Carly Fiorina was Invent, few saw the logic in her decision to merely re-sell Apple's breakthrough player instead of trying to develop one from within HP. About the only thing HP contributed was the embarassing idea of "tattoos" which you were supposed to print out on your HP inkjet and iron-on to your iPod:

Quick, somebody tell the webmaster...

Interesting article about how Adobe chooses the design of its product boxes and splash screens. Wonder if the butterfly on the InDesign box survived the x-raying?

The Company Once and From Now Forward Known as Palm put out a press release today announcing their most recent name change, from palmOne back to Palm, Inc.

Actually, it's worse than that: the logo wasn't palmOne but instead pa1mOne, with an arabic numeral one replacing the L. Typo or pathetic attempt at "1337" humor? You be the judge:

A few years ago they split the original company into two and divided the brand (palmOne for the devices and PalmSource for the operating system) with the tagline "Some ideas are too big for just one company."

Apparently after two years of little innovation (other than the Treo 650 technology acquired from Handspring) and steadily ceding ground to Windows Mobile and BlackBerry, the Palm ecosystem has now shrunk to the point where the ideas are once again small enough for one company, and indeed contracting at an alarming pace.

So the hardware company (paONEmOne) bought the rights to the name from their former co-workers, PalmSource. For THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS. The president of palmOne, apparently reduced to apoplexy about how to refer to his own brand, resorted to kindergarten spelling games: "The letters P-A-L-M reflect a prized brand with significant customer awareness..."

What of PalmSource? They can use the name for a four-year "transition period." With the recent decision to scuttle the upcoming next-generation operating system (based on the acquisition of BeOS) in favor of Linux, I suspect that this branding agreement may indeed outlive the platform itself. When the Slashdot crowd loses faith, the writing is on the wall.

The ridiculousness of the situation is brought home by the schizophrenic brand message confronting customers and shareholders on the Palm website today:

A woman in Microsoft Technical Recruiting has an interesting article on the office complex in which I'm working this summer, RedWest. It's a bit north of the main Redmond campus, but I'm often in other buildings nearby for meetings. Be sure to check out the linked pics of our waterfall!

Google has an interesting demo online of how to issue search commands via SMS (text messages):

Finally at least one cell provider gets it: T/Mobile is dumping their proprietary WAP homepage and just using google.com -- or at least the mobile version thereof.

The so-called "walled gardens" of proprietary content, like AT&T's mMode and T/Mobile's t-zones are embarassingly poorly-designed, full of sponsored links to expensive ringtones and background and game downloads, and generally felt like you'd driven off an interstate highway and into an expensive tourist-trap for yokels from which you couldn't find the exit.

CNET has a front-page story today (actually just an excuse to expose their product ratings) on which notebook computers would work best for a heavy Photoshop user.

Not entirely convinced that you want a big laptop for such a task -- I prefer a small one, such as my Vaio TR1A, coupled with an external CRT monitor. But an interesting article nonetheless. I was at Fry's the other day and was shocked (as I always am) at how huge "laptops" are becoming nowadays. Sooner or later they're just going to cut out the battery and have a big AC powercord hanging off the back, like a Kaypro.