Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Long annoyed with Apple’s barbs and those “Get a Mac” ads, Microsoft has called in the help of comedian Jerry Seinfield for their latest ad campaign. Along with retired Bill Gates, Seinfield will be helping to promote their new “Windows not walls” tagline.

Their newest ad campaign is running them $300 million, which makes it one of their biggest ever; and $10 million of that is going straight to “key celebrity pitchman” Jerry Seinfield for his assistance. Not a shabby paycheck there Jerry, especially since you usually displayed Macs in your apartment on your show. 

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This is where we call out by names the actions and companies that seem odd, out of touch or just plain straight up smokin crack.  Technology is an odd realm where PR speak doesn’t hold a lot of water if the 1s and 0s don’t line up.  This week sees posturing, positioning and flat out insanity.  Here is what caught my eye this week:

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There was a lot of talk about who would take the biggest blow in the smartphone world with the intro of the iPhone.  A Changewave study shows this chart.  What’s interesting isn’t the data the graph is making obvious, it is the totals. 

If you add up the % of the smartphone market, you’ll find the total market segment being served by Palm, Rim and Apple throughout this period isn’t changing.  It is staying relatively flat at about 2/3rds of all smartphones.  So this would suggest, the merry trio are not bringing new folks into the smartphone market, rather just cutting up the pie differently.

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If you are headed to the beach, pick up Microsoft’s 10-K filing with the SEC for some light reading.  It’s filled with characters you know and love and their almost comic book struggle to restore peace in the galaxy bring profitability to Microsoft.  If you follow the report carefully, you’ll learn Microsoft is, in fact, a software company.  And what software company doesn’t want to get their applications on the hottest mobile computing device going?

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This is where we call out by names the actions and companies that seem odd, out of touch or just plain straight up smokin crack.  Technology is an odd realm where PR speak doesn’t hold a lot of water if the 1s and 0s don’t line up.  This week sees posturing, positioning and flat out insanity.  Here is what caught my eye this week:

iPhone 3G stock - Apple seems to be going to the Nintendo Wii’s model of avoiding any price deterioration: keep the darn thing out of stock.  Almost 3 weeks after launch and still lines in most stores to pick one up; if they even have the stock.  This doesn’t seem to be settling down; and it is looking like a huge customer grab for AT&T.  Amazing, either demand is just huge or Apple is playing with the supply figures.  Either way, crack is involved.

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“You thought the sleeping giant was still sleeping?” Microsoft’s VP of Windows Vista consumer marketing recently said. “Well, we’ve woken up, and it’s time to take our message forward.” And apparently the company is putting their money ...LOTS of money… where their mouth is. They have begun an ad campaign in the continuing market struggle with Apple that could feasibly end up running them an incredible $300 million investment. Their campaign claims we just need to learn the facts about Vista.

I’ve heard the tales from both sides of the fence. How Vista is horrible, horrible, horrible. Then again, how Vista is wonderful, oh so beautiful, secure, and simply the best OS ever made. The truth can probably be found somewhere in the middle of the two. The main battle that Microsoft obviously needs to overcome is, why do I want Vista when I’m perfectly content with XP?  And that is the question they are not having much luck answering to most users’ satisfaction.  No matter how beautiful they claim Vista to be.

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Ubuntu’s founder, Mark Shuttleworth, has proposed a plan to make his distro of Linux just that much more popular. He plans on overtaking Apple’s Mac OSX in the looks and desktop experience departments in order to overtake the art-savvy giant. Sure, these plans do sound a bit confident for where Linux is now, but that almighty force of Linux programmers is really starting to leave an impression on the industry.

Shuttleworth believes the idea that open source operating systems need not only be for the tech savvy and he aims to push for easier, more stable, and more attractive aspects to updates to his operating systems.

With Ubuntu updates popping out about every 6 months now, this dream may not be as much as a reach as it may seem. If there was one Linux distro that had the best chance of changing the software industry, it would definitely be Ubuntu. Shuttleworth has established the goal of “revolutionizing the open source ecosystem” by the summer of 2009 and finally “beating” Apple by 2010.

Read [The Register]

According to recent reports it looks like the Netflix player from Roku has almost hit the 100,000 unit sold milestone. The Netflix player was originally launched back in May of 2008 and was quickly sold out. Overall not a bad set of numbers, especially considering that Apple has sold just 400,000 AppleTV units in two full years.

My question is, assuming that Roku did in fact hit 100,000 units sold, how many of them are actually being used? Personally mine collects dust most of the time, because the current availability of movies is just not where it should be.

Of course, that just brings me to a good point, assuming Netflix had a much larger and more desirable movie selection, can you imagine how many units Roku could have sold.

Via [paidContent]

Gemei has a new PMP called the X780 which is similar to another one of their PMP’s called the X760. This one is the newer and more improved model, and comes with a few improved features.

One of the main features in Gemei’s PMP’s are the gaming-like qualities. Gemei’s previous PMP’s, the X900 and the X590 featured gaming emulators, but weren’t iPod Touch knockoffs at the time. However, with the X780, Gemei seems to hope to create something similar to the iPod Touch, and they sacrifice gaming support to achieve this. Some features include a 3-inch WQVGA touch screen, TV out and FM tuner.

The X780 also has support for a wide variety of media formats to include MP3, WMA, WAV, APE, FLAC, RM, RMVB, FLV, AVI, MPG, MPEG, DAT, ASF, WMV, VOB, 3PG, MP4, JPG, BMP, GIF, and PNG.

Unfortunately, no word on pricing or availability at this time.

Via [PMP Today]

It seems for Mike Arrington and the 560+ commenters that there is a desire in the market for a web tablet.  Arrington is proposing they build it as a project and bring it to market themselves in a bold bid to build traffic and a product that many seem to seek.

In truth, what they look to build is an inexpensive ($200) giant iPod touch.  My touch lives in my living room.  I use it to surf the net, play games and be connected whenever I feel like it.  The instant on, quick WiFi and fun operation make it a staple I am not sure I’d be happy living without at this point.

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