Wize Blog

Google's Gone Green in U.S. Cities

Say you wanted to take public transportation from San Francisco Airport to Dolores Park (S.F.'s current hotspot hangout). Google maps can tell you to take the Pittsburg/Bay Point BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train from the airport to the 16th and Mission BART station in San Francisco. When you get off the service tells you to walk for 10 minutes to Dolores and 18th with a map showing you how.

All you have to do is go to Google Transit (google.com/transit), look at the list of cities covered (listed on page), then type in the start and destination addresses and the date you're leaving for that city.

A map then comes up with your directions via mass transit.

There's an information site with a video that tells you all about the new feature.

What is DRM?

Digital Rights Management is supposed to be a platform "to protect and deliver content," according to the Microsoft Web site. In effect, some say Digital Rights Management keeps users from accessing movies and music.

DRM is the reason you can't download movies from Netflix on a Mac.

According to a January post about Mac streaming from Netflix, MacRumors.com states:  "A key issue for delivering movies online is that the studios require use of DRM (Digital Rights Management) to protect titles. There's not yet a studio-sanctioned, publicly-available Mac DRM solution (Apple doesn't license theirs)."

And so it goes...Netflix states on it's site that only PCs can be used to stream or download movies from its site.

"You must have a computer running Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or higher, or Windows Vista; Internet Explorer version 6 or higher; Windows Media Player version 11 or higher; an active broadband connection to the Internet; 1.0 GHz processor; 512 MB RAM; 3 GB free hard disk drive space."

Stream may come soon, though, from Microsoft's Silverlight video technology, which will support both Mac and PC platforms.

Psystar and Internet Hoaxes

It's becoming obvious that the $399 Mac clones that were announced yesterday are much ado about nothing. Computerworld is reporting that Psystar isn't taking orders online and has a disconnected telephone number.

So much for deals too good to be true.

There's two questions that this whole fiasco brings up:

1. Can another legitimate Mac clone maker come along and offer a $399 Mac clone?
2. How do you know what you're seeing online is true, such as a product offer at a cut-rate price?

To be sure a computer maker could come along and offer a Mac clone. I mean everyone on the Internet believed the Psystar deal to be true.

It's very doubtful, though, that when a product is offered at a price where the company can't make any money off of it the offer is for real.

Case-in-point: When I was shopping for a lens for my Canon 5D (rated 95 at wize.com) camera I found prices offered by companies online that sounded too good to be true. After doing my research on those companies, I found that most couldn't live up to what they were offering. People who had phoned to inquire about the price found that the seller wouldn't give up the product at the stated price without adding some expensive extra with it.

So, basically, after investigating the super good deals, none ended up to be what they had been stated online. I ended up going to a reputable camera store (Samy's) where I got a good-but-not-great deal.

Company Making Cheap Mac Clones

Psystar, a company that's making cheap Mac clones could be gearing up for a fight with Apple. The company first named its computer OpenMac, a name that, without a doubt, captured Apple's attention. Even though Apple hasn't responded to the development yet, the small company changed the name of its computer to Open Computer.

Buy Open Computer Online

The computer runs Leopard, Apple's OSX operating system. The base configuration, according to the Psystar Web site is as follows:

• 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 Processor
• 2GB of DDR2 667 memory
• Integrated Intel GMA 950 Graphics
• 20x DVD+/-R SATA drive that is Lightscribe-capable
• 4 rear USB Ports

People can purchase the computer by navigating drop down menu bars on the Psystar Web site to order from a variety of configurations.

We'll have to wait and see what happens to this open can of worms.

Walt Mossberg Speaks

Walt Mossberg speaks. The Wall Street Journal writer's latest gig at the Finnish embassy in Washington tells of the Internet's current "broadband" not being adequate to compete with traditional TV.

Here are some of his conclusions about the state of technology in the U.S., including a hint that the Apple iPhone (rated 87 at wize.com) will be available in 3G in two months.

Web doesn't connect well to the television set
People are dying to get Internet content on their television sets, especially the big movie-like TVs that everyone seems to be buying.
It will happen, maybe with Apple TV (rated 89 at wize.com).
Someone has to be more creative with Internet video.
Download vs streaming--both are good.
Biggest obstacle in United States...we really su_k at broadband...768 kb/sec is not broadband in world standards. Government needs to not call it broadband.
The video resolution is not going to happen with "broadband."
iphone will be 3G (Internet access from anywhere) in 60 days.
We need a president to say that "this" is just as strategic as the Interstate highway system. Government needs to be involved.

Yahoo Firm in Waiting for Better Microsoft Offer

AP reports that Microsoft is about to "go hostile" with respect to it's takeover of Yahoo. The software giant gave Yahoo an ultimatum: "accept 41 billion dollar buyout or bid goes to shareholders."

Yahoo doesn't mind being taken over by Microsoft at this time in the takeover game, however it wants a better offer.

The details of this wrangling for a merger are presented in the video below--

Blockbuster Offers Compete with Netflix

Watch out Netflix, Blockbuster's offering competing deals. When you sign up for a free trial with Blockbuster Online, you'll get two free movies for a month, one at a time. After the trial the the deal costs $3.99 a month.

Netflix offers a free trial, but it only lasts two weeks, and after the trial it's $4.99 a month for two movies.

Netflix free offer includes a free movie download; Blockbuster does not, but at Blockbuster you have the option to trade movies at one of it's on-ground stores.

Rumor has it that people are cheating the return system. The Consumerist has complete details.

New Gadgets from CTIA

Now that CTIA is over, we can take a look at some of the gadgets that vendors showed off. The first set consists of 17 new gadgets that Channelweb.com selected.

The second set are included in the video below.

Shine a Step Below USA Today in Content

Yahoo launched Shine today, a Web site for women. The top story reveals how Kate Bosworth feels about her new movie 21. The article includes a video interview with the star talking about her card-cheating character from the new movie which takes place in Las Vegas. The feature pleases, but could have included at least a clip or two of her in the movie.

Shine dives into a variety of topics for and about women. Links to articles at the top of the page include: fashion+beauty, healthy living, entertainment, parenting, love+sex, work+money, food, at home, astrology.

Reaching into the healthy living section, one can find  good and bad articles, most, though, don't even live up to the academic sustenance of a USA Today article.  But what they do after the short, vapid articles is provide links to better-written fare from the major magazines.

All Shine ends up being is a glorified search engine with cool graphics and headlines for and about women. 

Will Everything Go WiMax?

Reports that inspectors might be looking at the WiMax wireless system on the new Eee PC 900 to see if it's radio waves interfere with other more important radio waves.

The report leaves many with the questions of--

What is WiMax?
Will everything go WiMax?

WiMax is, according to WiMax.com,  a wireless system that covers dozens of miles within a metro area.

The system is receiving a lot of attention lately because big corporate entities like Time Warner and Sprint are teaming up to build a national WiMax network.

According to Howstuffworks.com, WiMax is cheaper and faster than the high speed Internet (LAN or local area network) that needs to be accessed through a cable from a service provider base station because WiMax (MAN or metro area network) sends a wireless signal directly from the base station to your PC.