512 Pixels

NYTimes.com:

Mr. McAdam was asked if Verizon would allow the Google Voice application, a service that offers free long distance calling, text messages and voice mail. He said it would.

“Either you have an open device or not,” he said. “This will be open.”

Apple has not allowed the Google Voice application to run on the iPhone, which uses the AT&T network. With an Android phone set for the Sprint network shortly, AT&T is now the only major carrier in the United States not to support Android.

While Verizon’s network is no doubt the best in the US, it’s array of handsets has always been disappointing — Blackberrys make the high-end, with random Motorola, Nokia and Samsung devices rounding out the low-end.

Today Verizon announced a new partnership with Google, promising new Android phones by the end of the year:

Verizon Wireless and Google plan to co-develop several Android-based devices that will be pre-loaded with innovative applications from both parties as well as third-party developers. The family of Android phones on the Verizon Wireless network will come from leading handset manufacturers.

“The nation’s best wireless broadband network is a perfect complement to the innovation of Android-powered services and devices,” said Lowell McAdam, chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless. “Together, we’ll work to deliver a compelling new experience to our customers.”

“The Android platform allows Verizon Wireless customers to experience faster and easier access to the web from any location,” said Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive officer for Google. “Through this partnership, we hope to deliver greater innovation in the mobile space to consumers across the U.S.”

This may be the best thing that’s happened to the Android platform — it’s finally getting away from T-Mobile’s grubby hands and will be on a proper (and far more popular) network.

It’s good for Verizon, though, as well. With the iPhone on AT&T and the Pre on Sprint, Verizon was left without a unique offering. With rumors of Motorola and others working on new Android phones for Verizon, they too will soon have a more exciting array offerings for users. No one loses here.

Engadget:

AT&T’s restrictive network policies might have been behind some of the more notable iPhone app rejections in the past, but at least one major class of applications just got the green light, as Ma Bell just eased the restriction on iPhone VoIP calls over 3G. We can only assume this is the result of the FCC’s renewed push for net neutrality and AT&T’s argument that it’s doesn’t need new regulations to remain open, but — what does this mean for you? Well, Skype on the road, for starters, but we’re guessing a flood of interesting new VoIP apps will hit just as soon as devs can get their apps updated and submitted.

This is a good step in the right direction.

Ars Technica:

Bloggers will come under the watchful eyes of the Federal Trade Commission for the first time, as the agency has finalized new rules governing bloggers and the products they write about. “Consumer-generated media” outlets (e.g., bloggers) will now have to disclose if they are being compensated by a manufacturer, advertiser, or service provider when they review an item. So if a blogger gets a laptop from a manufacturer to review and gets to keep it, he or she will have to make that fact public.

The new guidelines don’t tell bloggers how they need to make the disclosure, but they do lay out the penalties: up to $11,000 per violation with the possibility of injunctions to boot. The FTC could also order that consumers be reimbursed in cases where a relationship between blogger and advertiser isn’t disclosed and they suffer financial harm because of it.

[…]

If you’re into gadgets and computer hardware and like to blog about your newest purchases, chances are good that you’ll never draw the FTC’s attention. Those who buy a product “with his or her own money and praise it on a personal blog or on an electronic message board will not be deemed to be providing an endorsement,” read the rules. At the other end of the spectrum, anyone who is directly compensated to write about a product by an advertiser is covered by the new rules.

This further blurs the line between journalists and bloggers.

TUAW recently took a look at Stuffit Deluxe 2010, the newest version of the long-lasting archiving software for the Mac:

First, the installer crashed during the initial installation with no error message in sight, leaving me to try to figure out what had happened. The second attempt was successful, but required that I log out of my current Mac session and log back in. That took an unusually long amount of time, and when I was finally able to use my machine again, iStat Menu showed that my dual-core CPU was pegged at 100%. While DropBox appeared to be the culprit and a reboot resolved the problem, I can’t help but think that the new addition of StuffIt Deluxe contributed to the issue.

Another thing that irritated me during the installation and setup was that I had to enter my registration code three times – once when installing the app, a second time for another purpose that I don’t recall, and a third time when I was signing up for StuffIt Connect. Why couldn’t I just enter my registration code once and be done with it? Well, that seems to be because this is not just a single application, but a set of seven applications that are sitting in the StuffIt folder. To be honest with you, I think there are more StuffIt applications hidden around my Mac, since signing up for Stuffit Connect appeared to launch one more application that wasn’t in the StuffIt folder.

Those are big issues for a program that’s been around for 20 years. TUAW also discusses the bloat that has been introduced with the newest version, which is disappointing. Back in the OS 9 days, Stuffit was a lean, mean archiving machine. It’s sad to see it go the way of say, Microsoft Office for Mac.

CNET:

“MythBusters” has now completed production on 134 episodes, and to Hyneman, that much experience has allowed him and Savage to be much more advanced in their approach to busting myths than they were at the beginning.

“The kinds of insights that we’re seeing as far as the physics and the chemistry (and) all the dynamics of what’s going on there,” Hyneman said, “we’re starting out at a much higher level now, and so the results that we’re getting are not quite as basic as they were when we started.”

I like the caption for this photo:

While they have worked together on the show for years, they make a point of explaining that they are not friends off-screen and that any tension that comes across on camera is real.

The iPhone is hurting AT&T’s image so much that the stock photo from the AP used with CNN’s story is of a jailbroken device:

The Macalope, on the “Apple tablet will save journalism” story:

Sources at The New York Times told Lam that Apple approached the paper about putting its content on what everyone assumes will be a tablet. Lam doesn’t say what the Gray Lady’s response was, but given the current state of the newspaper business, the Macalope’s advice would go something like this: “When you’re standing on the deck of the Titanic, ankle-deep in icy cold water, and someone asks if you’d like a ride to the future in their time machine, you go.”

PreCentral:

As rumored, this morning’s webOS 1.2.1 update did indeed bring a fix to Media Sync, allowing the Pre to yet again sync more-or-less seemlessly with iTunes 9.0.1. The update brought another tongue-in-cheek changelog note from Palm: “Resolves an issue preventing media sync from working with latest version of iTunes (9.0.1).”

Resolves the issue of Apple now wanting you in, eh? Now it’s time to figure out what Palm did this time that took less than 40 hours of work, and how long it will take Apple to put out an iTunes update to break it again. Eventually we’re going to reach a point where either Apple will have to radically overhaul the iTunes sync structure to block the Pre, or one of the two parties relents and stops hacking/patching their software. Given the enormous number of iPods on the market right now, it’d be a daunting task for Apple to completely reprogram iTunes to block the Pre, and at this point they’re starting to run out of ways to tell if an iPod is really an iPod, short of asking for serial number authentication.

From where I sit, this back and forth isn’t good for Palm — or Pre owners — in the long run. Why would I want to use a device that had a major feature that only works sometimes?

Gizmodo:

I know it’s frustrating when your phone is borked, but telling an Apple Store staffer that you’re “so mad I could pop a 9mm at it” — before revealing you actually have a real 9mm concealed — probably won’t help matters.

But that’s what a man allegedly did yesterday at the Apple Store in Cincinnati’s Kenwood mall. According to reports, the man continued, “I’ll do it right now. Look!”, and opened the right side of his shirt to show a black 9mm handgun.

Kudos to the Apple Store employee who stayed calm and said she’d get it fixed. She walked him over to a technician before informing her manager, who called police.

Wow. Bad day at the Genius Bar.

Macworld:

Why the lack of love? The reasons are varied, but many tie back to a central thread—Apple’s emphasis on control. It’s hardly surprising that that might raise the hackles of independent developers, who are used to running their businesses as they see fit—as one presentation put it frankly, “we’re all control freaks.” The App Store puts all the power in Apple’s hands, determining when developers can release updates, what they have to charge, and in many cases even how they market their apps. For independent developers, it’s like handing their baby over for someone else to raise.

MacDailyNews has a piece titled “Bing bong the bitch is dead: Microsoft’s ‘decision engine’ loses significant share in September.” Here’s a sample:

According to a report by analytics firm StatCounter, Microsoft Bing’s share of the U.S. search market decreased by more than 1 percentage point in September," Oreskovic reports.

“Bing, which Microsoft is backing with a massive marketing campaign, had 8.51 percent share in September compared with 9.64 percent in August,” Oreskovic reports. “Google’s share of the U.S. search market increased to 80.08 percent in September compared with 77.83 percent in August.”

[…]

MacDailyNews Take: Bing bong! The bitch is dead. Which old bitch? The wicked bitch! Bing bong! The wicked bitch is dead!

There’s a line between reporting the news with thoughtful — even slanted — insight and being a bleeding-heart fanboy who loves to fling poo at the “enemy.”

Good job, guys. You just lost your place in my Google Reader subscription list.