Play Xbox Games on Your Cell Phone

Imagine playing what looks like an Xbox 360 game -- on a $100 cell phone. That, according to Remi Pedersen, graphics product manager at ARM, is exactly what could be possible as soon as winter 2009 with its new higher-end Mali-200 and Mali-400 processors.

Even though he won't discuss individual chip prices, Mali mobile GPUs are already showing up in some phones. The 65nm Mali-55 is a first generation core in LG Electronics' Renoir phone. Partnered with an Arm CPU, that phone runs Flash, but has no shader capabilities. But at least it gets some props for being a tiny OpenGL ES GPU -- good for 3D gaming. (For a little perspective, the iPhone supports OpenGL ES 1.1 as well.)

Pedersen promises 4x Anti-Aliasing out of Mali -- and up to 16x without taxing the system too much. But give it a few months and expect to see handsets rocking the Mali-200 GPU. This is where it'll get interesting: OpenGL ES 2.0 is completely shader-based, a subset desktop code. Difference is, it removes cluttered code but keeps vertex and pixel shaders. It'll run 16 million triangles/second, 275 million pixels/second. And, yep, it'll be able to run Flash and Java games.

The Mali-400 has the same basic performance, according to Pedersen, but is multicore scalable: From a single-core 100MHz mali-400 scaling up to quad-core at 300MHz. It can even scale to produce 1080p resolutions. (ARM even gave me a projected chart for how they see the market going in the next few years).

Considering the potential horsepower I had to check, but Pedersen tells me that, "If you're targeting a low-powered design, I doubt we'll see phone overclocking. It sure would be interesting to see, though."

What I find equally interesting is the work around a software engine. Before the handset design is fixed, ARM is working closely with several 3rd party developers. "It gives us a better view of how different systems will perform. Take feedback from developers to create the next gen CPUs and the silicon partners." Developers usually come late to the party, they get a handset and have to figure out what to do from there.

But at the Game Developers' Conference in San Francisco this coming week, Pedersen gave me a tease to show what the GPU can do: We'll be able to see a port of Project Gotham Racer (Xbox 1) running in OpenGL ES. "Performance-wise, it runs like the original Xbox, but feature-wise it looks like an Xbox 360 title," he says. I can't wait to see what else they have on display.

Apple Resurrects the 17-inch iMac

Remember when Apple discontinued the 17-inch iMac in 2007? Well, it looks like that iMac hasn't gone away at all and is still available to schools for only $899. Italian blog, SetteB.it, discovered the new offering in the March edition of Apple's "eNews of Education" newsletter. "The new iMac line also includes a 17-inch model starting at $899," Apple states in the newsletter. It seems that Apple is providing the model as an enticement for schools in the K-12 range to invest funds they may receive through the Obama Administration's "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act". President Obama has stated repeatedly that he wants to spread access to technology across the country.

Apple's newsletter also links to an Apple white paper that declares that the education funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 "represents a tremendous boost in education spending . . . at a time when the country needs it most." It won't be bad for Apple, either; the company concludes its white paper by stating, "Apple is ready to partner with you as you move forward with plans to invest in education and technology. Apple can assist you in matching your educational goals with the technology that will help you be successful."

This is certainly a great deal for schools, especially as some look for the best way to invest any funds they may receive from the federal government. But if Apple really wanted to capitalize on the current economy, why not release this well-priced device for the entire public? Oddly enough, the 17-inch iMac was originally intended for schools and only became available to everyone in 2002 after public demand grew, according to Ars Technica. Then, in 2007, Apple officially discontinued the 17-inch iMac only to have it resurface today. Currently, Apple offers 20- and 24-inch models to the general public starting at $1199. But who knows? Maybe history will repeat itself if demand grows loud enough. So how about it folks, anybody out there want to buy a 17-inch iMac for less than $1000?

New Killer NIC fixes VoIP for Gamers

A couple years back, Bigfoot Networks stepped into the market with an idea: Build a network card for gamers. This NIC promised to optimize packets and prioritizes games. Heck, the original had a separate USB port so that you could download torrents to a USB thumb drive while playing Battlefield 2. But it sold for $280 at launch--a really hard sell. The $149 K1 is an underclocked version with more features like a hardware firewall that replaces the firewall in the router / system and a bandwidth control tool detects apps that run in the system and throttle stuff manually.

Now, at the 2009 Game Developer's Conference, Bigfoot Networks has two announcements. The first: they are releasing the $130 Killer Xeno Pro card. The big deal this time around is that they've been able to get prices down, beef up the memory and pack on an additional chip that can offload the voice chat. A 400GHz NPU (as in Network Processing Unit -- oh, joy, another acronym!) bypasses the Windows network stack while an integrated audio chip offloads VoIP. We're talking audio input/output jacks as well -- the whole nine yards. Yep, voice applications (which can easily chew up CPU bandwidth) can be handled on the Xeno card. A couple of the big, dedicated software packages -- Vivox, TeamSpeak, and Mumble (a Linux voice app) -- will be supported at first.

That sounds neat, but a fairly major omission is support for GameSpy, which comes configured within many of the new games out there. And what about all those games like, say, Battlefield 2 that have their own internal VoIP code? "A fair question," admits Bigfoot CTO Harlan Beverly, "but we do plan to release firmware updates fairly regularly -- like we've done with our previous cards."

Difference is that this time, Bigfoot won't be producing the cards. The second bit of news: Bigfoot is partnering with EVGA to produce, distribute and sell the upcoming hardware. You'll see the $130 Killer Xeno Pro with 128MB of RAM selling in April. While a slightly "sexier" version, the Killer Xeno Ultra comes with 256MB of RAM (useful) and an 8-panel, 14-segment LED display (not-so-useful) ships in May for $180. How well does it all work? Well, it sounds good on paper. We hope to get some hardware in-house and see for ourselves if it delivers all the goods as promised and really make for a better online gaming experience.

New Intel Processors and Price Drops Coming Soon

According to sources at motherboard manufacturers, Digitimes reports significant price drops of several desktop processors will occur in April and July of this year. If you're in the market for a new Socket 775 Quad Core, you may want to hold off for a few weeks. Expect the following markdowns to occur April 19th:

*Core 2 Quad Q9300 from $266 to $213 (19.92%)
*Core 2 Quad Q9550S from $369 to $320 (13.28%)
*Core 2 Quad Q9400S from $320 to $277 (13.44%)
*Core 2 Quad Q8200S from $245 to $213 (13.06%)


July 19th will bring more price reductions of numerous models:

* Core 2 Quad Q8300 from $183 to $163 (10.93%)
* Core 2 Duo E7500 from $133 to $113 (15.04%)
* Pentium E5400 from $84 to $74 (11.90%)
* Pentium E5300 from $74 to $64 (13.51%)
* Celeron E1500 from $53 to $43 (18.87%)

In addition to the discounts, the article sheds light on launch dates for several processors. A new duo of Socket 1366 CPUs will be available May 31st. The Core i7 975 Extreme Edition (3.33GHz) and Core i7 950 (3.06GHz) will likely replace the existing 965 and 940 models. Here's a list of Intel's upcoming chips, their prices, and launch dates:

* Core 2 Quad Q8400 for $183 (April 19)
* Core 2 Quad Q8400S for $245 (April 19)
* Core i7 975 for $999 (May 31)
* Core i7 950 for $562 (May 31)
* Core 2 Duo E7600 for $133 (May 31)
* Pentium Dual-Core E6300 for $84 (May 31)
* Celeron Dual-Core E1600 for $53 (May 31)

Convert YouTube Videos to MP3s

Recently, Allen performed a nifty acoustic cover of Britney Spears' Womanizer . Alas, it's not available on iTunes, AmazonMP3, or any other online stores I'm aware of. The only place to hear the track is YouTube.

That doesn't suit my mobile, iPhone-driven lifestyle. So until Lily's people deem fit to let me buy the track, I'm "borrowing" it from YouTube. The site that makes this possible? Video 2 MP3, which converts any video into an MP3.

Just copy and paste the URL from the video's YouTube page and click Convert. Then be prepared to wait a few minutes. Resist the urge to click that big, inviting Download button while you're waiting--it's just part of an ad for a different product.

When Video 2 MP3 is done converting, you'll see a link to the file. Right-click it and choose the appropriate "download" option for your browser. Then add the MP3 to iTunes or your music manager of choice.

Note to Firefox users: There's a Video 2 MP3 extension that adds a download link to each YouTube video page, thus saving you the step of copying and pasting the URL.

Okay, fess up: What artist(s) are you slightly embarrassed to admit to liking? Here, I'll get you started: A certain PC World editor with the initials R.S. is a closet fan of Miley Cyrus.

NVIDIA Provides PhysX for Playstation 3 and Wii

PhysX is coming to a console near you. Last week, NVIDIA signed an agreement with Sony to provide Playstation 3 developers the use of PhysX technology software. With the goal of realistic graphics and highly interactive environments, level designers and animators will be allowed to author and preview physics effects in real time.

"NVIDIA is proud to support Playstation 3 as an approved middleware provider," said Tony Tamasi, senior vice president of content and technology at NVIDIA. "Games developed for the Playstation 3 using PhysX technology offer a more realistic and lifelike interaction between the games characters and other objects within the game. We look forward to the new games that will redefine reality for a new generation of gamers."

Two days after proclaiming the arrangement with Sony, NVIDIA published a similar agreement with Nintendo and the highly successful Wii console. "Adding a PhysX SDK for Wii is key to our cross-platform strategy and integral to the business model for our licensed game developers and pulishers," said Tony.

With PhysX technology now available to more game developers than ever before, it will be interesting to see how well it is implemented in future games, for consoles and the PC. Also, keep an eye on a possible conflict with the use of NVIDIA software in conjunction with the Wii's graphics solution provided by ATI.

Solid-State-Drives: The Fastest Storage Eve... Wait a Second

It only took the site 31 pages to do so, but AnandTech has come out with a thorough, yet easy-to-ready primer on the history and architecture of the modern solid-state drive. But this isn't just a digital textbook: The site has crunched the numbers to determine the veracity of the reports that SSDs aren't as speedy in real-world use as typical benchmarks and evaluations might have you believe.

Here's the deal: A number of print and Web publications run benchmarks on solid-state drives just like they do on standard, magnetic storage. This typically entails firing up a few synthetic benchmark applications--programs that offer speed measurements for a drive, but do so in a fashion that isn't very correlated to real-world use--alongside a few closer-to-real-world benchmarks like PCMark, Iometer, or some kind of measurement from actual applications and games.

These tests are frequently done on blanked (if not unpartitioned) drives, but measured across the whole of the drive as much as possible. By that, I mean that a number of the synthetic benchmarks concoct average speed scores for the hard drive's various operations by measuring its performance from a number of different locations across the drive's spinning platters. Reviewers can't just slap a blank drive in a system, load up a copy of an operating system, and run tests in the OS to simulate the drive's real-world use. They would have no way of controlling the exact methods by which the operating system and hard drive store data after the copy, resulting in incomplete points of comparison against other products--or a lack of apples-to-apples testing.

This isn't a critique of testing methods. But it's important to understand this back-story a little bit, because these same methods are frequently used to test solid-state drives as well. The problem with that is that a solid-state drive can show different performance depending on how many of its flash cells are being used. According to AnandTech, a drive that stores some element of data across all of its blocks--the smallest part of a solid-state drive's flash memory that can be written at any given time--will suffer drops in both its read and write performance.

We'll say that again: Once you've filled your SSD with enough data, performance chokes.

How bad does it get? Depending on the drive, you could see drops of tens of megabytes per second in reads to over a third of your drive's available write performance. This translates into real-world performance losses of anywhere from three to fifteen percent--at least, based on the particular batch of drives AnandTech tested. The site still found that its tested SSDs outperformed the best of the magnetic storage offerings, mostly due to their speedier random-access capabilities. That, and the fact that the affected read speeds of solid-state drives are still beyond those of conventional magnetic storage.

As for the takeaway, AnandTech's results bring forth two points to consider. First, the Declaration of SSD Independence: not all solid-state drives are created equal. This should be obvious, but it's worth emphasizing for those new to this storage spectrum. Drives can be optimized for low random access times, high bandwidth, or a combination of both. AnandTech found that those in the first category, like Intel's X-25M and X-25E line of SSDs, tended to fare much better in post-slowdown performance than SSDs optimized for high transfer rates.

Second, AnandTech's findings cement the need for increased accuracy in solid-state reviews. What good is a benchmark result that will vary in wild and dramatic fashions after you've used the drive for a normal period of time? It would be uncouth to point fingers. But you shouldn't trust the results of any reviewer who only runs a cursory series of benchmark runs on an empty drive. Until this SSD slowdown is corrected on a hardware or operating system level, there's just too much of a chance that reported results won't reflect your real-world performance. And given how much you'll be spending for that brand-new SSD, you really should pick up the best device you can afford to buy.

GDC 09: 6 Reasons OnLive Could Be a Bust

Are Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo in deep doo-doo when you can click an "on" button and instantly play the latest video games through a browser or set top box near your TV? That's the promise entrepreneur Steve Perlman (WebTV, Contour) is making with his new "microconsole" service. The idea? Take the processing and configuration headaches entirely out of your hands, then beam pictures at you over your broadband hookup, those pictures amounting to streaming interactive images of the latest top-end games. No muss, no fuss. You tap "Start Crysis" and presto, you're playing the every-bit-as-sweet-looking version as your online compadres.

Pipe dream? Reality. As of this week, that is, when Perlman's Rearden Studios debuted its "stealth development" response to the recent so-called "cloud computing" vogue. It's called OnLive, and its proponents are hoping to capitalize on the rise in broadband usage and commensurate surge in video gaming, while leading the charge in "displacing the limitations, cost and complexity of local computing."

I've hoisted the cloud computing flag twice in 12 months. Back in March 2008, I noted former Xbox Europe honcho Sandy Duncan's suggestion that consoles were set to die "in 5 to 10 years." According to Duncan

...there is a definite “convergence” of other devices such as set top boxes. There’s hardly any technology difference between some hard disc video recorders and an Xbox 360 for example. In fact in 5 to 10 years I don’t think you’ll have any box at all under your TV, most of this stuff will be “virtualized” as web services by your content provider.

And again in January this year, I rapped about AMD's Fusion Render Cloud, which the company claimed would

...transform movie and gaming experiences through server-side rendering -- which stores visually rich content in a compute cloud, compresses it, and streams it in real-time over a wireless or broadband connection to a variety of devices such as smart phones, set-top boxes and ultra-thin notebooks. By delivering remotely rendered content to devices that are unable to store and process HD content due to such constraints as device size, battery capacity, and processing power, HD cloud computing represents the capability to bring HD entertainment to mobile users virtually anywhere.

I know something about cloud computing, or at least something about it before someone employed the phrase to rebrand the old mainframe vs. client/server wrangle. In my other life, I was actually a systems engineer working on enterprise-grade mainframe vs. thin client R&D...essentially studies gauging the plausibility of running client-server applications using Microsoft's Remote Desktop and Citrix's ICA technology, e.g. running apps like Microsoft Office on central server farms and beaming screen data out to cheap "dumb terminals." I've run packet capture studies and composed tedious white papers celebrating the power of the paradigm (yes, it's worthy of that word).

And I tallied this user-friendly list of pros about it in January.

Streaming video games upend gaming as we know it. For starters, the technology challenges the need for offline retail sales, eliminates lengthy software downloads (instant "on" play), removes spiraling local storage requirements, jettisons messy/intrusive digital rights management (DRM) malarkey, obsoletes expensive computer components, and generally speaking fully equalizes the end-game experience.

You'll suffer fewer bugs. For the same reasons that benefit consoles, one-stop central-style gaming reduces hardware and driver compatibility quirks, wipes away the distinction between "PC" and "console" games entirely, and allows patches to be instantaneous. Everyone shares the same problems, and therefore benefits from the same solutions.

Every game, a demo. OnLive's already touting this in its FAQ. Try before you buy, whether for a small demo fee or with a time limitation metric. No more sardonic grumbling on message boards about a developer's "mendacity" because they couldn't be bothered to chisel a try-before-you-buy chunk of code off their product.

It's pirate-proof. Really? Really. Because it eliminates the very thing bootleggers need to do their dirty work — physical media — and adds an online requirement in the bargain. At best, you'd have a nominal number of illicit accounts in circulation, but we've already seen how simple it is for companies like Blizzard to wave a digital wand and topple thousands of felonious players like tenpins.

That wraps my list of ad hoc pros. Now hit the jump and marvel as I upend my own arguments with "Six Reasons OnLive Could Be a Bust."

Reason #1 - "Fair Access Policy." It's your ISP's new euphemism for "Did we say unlimited? Kidding!" While ISPs stand to lose lawsuits leveled by bitter consumers over false or misleading advertising, the short term reality is that many "unlimited" broadband providers cap your bandwidth if you hit your head on their fine print data ceiling. If you've ever been FAP'd, you know the drill: The ISP will claim they've throttled you to a more "reasonable" speed, but in reality, even browsing the web can be a slideshow. If OnLive's to really succeed, it'll have to contend with the mismatch in consumer adoption of broadband and ISP lag lighting (or laying) sufficient pipes, resulting in increasingly restrictive "hidden" strictures.

Reason #2 - Real vs. Test Lab Performance. Our hands-on time with the kit at GDC 2009 is a best-case scenario, as it was playing Crysis on "luxury" detail levels at the Crytek booth all those years ago running on beamed-back-from-the-future PCs to ensure no one griped about performance. Riddle me this: How's Crysis run at maximum grandeur on your PCs these days? For a relative few of you, the answer may be "not bad." For the rest, you're probably still dialing things down considerably.

OnLive promises to make the prettiest settings a collective reality, but sending true 720p pictures across a 5Mbps minimum broadband link in realtime isn't possible. The solution? Compression, which blurs the picture slightly. Microsoft and Sony do something similar with their on-demand digital movie services. Oh sure, the picture runs at 720p resolution, but it's like the difference between a 44.1KHz MP3 ripped at 128Kbps vs. 320Kbps. Watch a 720p movie on a Blu-ray disc and compare with the download version. You'll instantly see what I mean.

What's more, OnLive claims "any time, any where" access, but it won't be. Not really. You'll have to have dedicated broadband access for starters, which isn't everywhere. And while the local coffee shop or library or airport may be offering, you're sharing those nodes with who-knows-how-many others. What OnLive needs to work is what I'll dub "deterministic broadband," i.e. guaranteed, non-shared, uninterruptible speed. In short, it needs the reliability you expect from a hardline TV signal. Broadband isn't there yet, nor are ISPs willing to offer performance guarantees.

Reason #3 - "My Internet Connection's Fallen and It Can't Get Up." When your read/write stream's entirely over a network connection, you need perfect, low-latency, uninterrupted online access. If the connection so much as blips or the latency jitters, it's Game Interrupted (and in the most twitchy games, where microseconds separate you from messy bullet tattoos, it's also probably Game Over). What happens in OnLive if your ISP hiccups? Does the game "freeze-save"? What's the delta between the service's "last known good packet" metric and some sort of emergency fail-safe routine? OnLive has to have this stuff tied up if it wants to woo more than casual gamers content to fiddle with stuff like Luxor Mahjong and Bejeweled 2.

Reason #4 - R.I.P. Mod Scene. If the creative content's locked up on the back-end, what about enthusiast mods like skins, levels, vehicles, alternative roles, etc.? Would OnLive put up "development" servers that allow tinkering with publisher code for potential deployment on specially designated servers? How well do you suppose the notion of playing on OnLive's terms will go down with independent mod-scene gurus?

Reason #5 - Privacy Issues. You sign up for OnLive and you'll find you've also agreed to allow the company to collect and mine your personal play habits. Question is, do you care if a company's silently accreting data about your play habits and passing it along to third-party vendors and/or using it to pester you about their Next Best Thing? I'm not saying you should or shouldn't, just putting it out there.

Reason #6 - You Don't Own Anything. Buy a standalone game today and you pay for it once, can play it as many times as you like, and still go back to it in a decade or three absolutely free. Buy a streaming game from OnLive and what do you get? The game outright? Rent time based on a subscriber fee? Say the game's an MMO — what happens if a publisher like Blizzard (World of Warcraft) goes under? And what happens if OnLive itself goes kaput?

Peek Pronto Offers E-Mail on the Go

Capitalizing on the less-is-more model, Peek has introduced its latest email-only mobile device, the Peek Pronto. Coming in at just under $80, the Pronto features push e-mail, SMS capability, Exchange support, and access to five different e-mail accounts. You can also view PDFs, Microsoft Word documents, images, and search your e-mail. The Pronto comes with an unlimited data plan for $19.95 per month, and Peek says the Pronto is 50 percent faster than its predecessor.

The original Peek device gained popularity for delivering a basic e-mail service and nothing else. The Pronto builds on that concept by improving its e-mail experience while not expanding the device's capabilities beyond email. It's interesting that Peek is focused on delivering a no-frills e-mail device in an era when most tech companies are trying to cram as many functions as possible into one device.

Given the wide range of capabilities on today's smartphones and netbooks the Pronto seems a little primitive; however, in these uncertain economic times a moderately priced device that gets the job done could attract a strong following. "Peek Pronto gives you...great value and [that] is exactly what folks are looking for during these challenging economic times," Peek's CEO Amol Sarva said in a statement.

The Pronto has 8 MB of user storage, comes in charcoal gray only, weighs less than 4 ounces, and has 4 to 5 days of battery life under normal usage, according to Peek. If you want to get your hands on the Pronto you can get it online at Amazon.com, and the Peek will be available at Radio Shack and www.GetPeek.com in April.

Nasty New Worm Targets Home Routers, Cable Modems

A computer worm has been discovered that can infect 55 different home-based routers and DSL/cable modems including common brands like Linksys and Netgear.

Believed to have originated in Australia and known as "psyb0t" or Bluepill, this is the first worm known to be able to infect residential routers and modems.

Psyb0t is armed with 6000 common usernames and 13,000 popular passwords that it tries in various combinations to gain entry to your home network. Most home-based routers will give you unlimited attempts to get the username and password correct, making these devices an ideal target for infection. Also, unlike your PC, your router and modem are running 24 hours a day meaning psyb0t has a relatively unlimited amount of time to try and gain access.

If that wasn't frightening enough, psyb0t is reportedly very hard to detect and most home users will be unaware that they're infected. Like other worms, psyb0t is designed to infect systems and then carry out commands given by its author, creating what is known as a botnet. There may not be much cause for alarm, though, as APC Magazine is reporting that the botnet capabilities for this worm are no longer active. At its height, psyb0t was suspected of controlling 80,000 tio 100,000 systems.

The DroneBl blog -- a real-time tracker that looks for botnets -- says the threat psyb0t poses or could have posed is overstated. DroneBL believes this is not an "end of the world, all routers are vulnerable" thing. But the appearance of psyb0t is troubling because it is so hard to detect and could be used to steal "personally identifying information," the blog adds.

While the threat posed by psyb0t may not be high, it is still extremely important to take precautionary measures against this kind of attack. The best way to protect yourself is to make sure you are not using the default password and username that came with your equipment. Consult the materials that came with your device or the manufacturer's website for instructions on how to change your username and password. If you're worried you have been infected, a simple factory reset of your device will kill the worm.

Google's New Semantic Search: A Test

You may have heard that Google is joining the race for the semantic search engine. Semantic search is the capability for a computer to understand what you're searching for based on the meaning behind your words instead of just pulling out keyword-based results. Google is up against a wide range of competitors for the semantic crown including newcomers Kumo, Microsoft's upcoming redesign of Live Search, and Wolfram Alpha-a search engine making some outlandish and unverifiable claims.

Now when you search on Google, the company claims, its search engine will be able to understand and associate your queries with related keywords. It will then display more relevant related search terms at the bottom of the page. For example, Google says that if you search for "principles of physics," their search engine will "understand that ‘angular momentum,' ‘special relativity,' ‘big bang' and ‘quantum mechanic' are related terms that could help you find what you need." These subjects are then displayed as related searches at the bottom of the page.

Now I don't know about you, but I am more likely to search for historical events, famous people, or a news story rather than the inner workings of physics. So I thought a test using more common subjects would be a better measure of the new Google.

For my search I wanted to know who the quarterback was for the 1979 New York Jets. Not exactly brain surgery, but it is still a niche subject with related searches that might be of interest. To begin my search I typed in, "1979 quarterback new york jets."

The results

I quickly discovered that Richard Todd was the starting quarterback for the Jets during the 1979 season. But there really wasn't a noticeable difference with Google's related searches. At the bottom of the page I got results for "New England Patriots and the Jets," "Brett Favre," "Joe Namath," "New York Jets Super Bowl" and "Mark Gastineau." While all of these subjects relate to the Jets as a team, only a few of them have anything to do with the 1979 quarterback or the team that season. I also think it's notable that Google didn't have Richard Todd as a related search term at the bottom of the page.

Perhaps this little bit of information is a little too specialized to be a fair test, so I did some other searches using other terms. I won't go into these results because the result was the same: I found what I wanted but I wasn't noticeably impressed compared to my Google experience last week or even last year.

Does this mean anything for Google?

Google is still the same old Google and an excellent first stop for finding information. However, Google is flying the semantic search flag without really delivering a noticeably different experience. If semantic is the future of search, then Google has a long way to go.

China to freeze water use

China is aiming to use no more water in 2020 than it does now, despite forecast economic growth, according to the country’s water resources minister.

Speaking at a conference on Saturday, Chen Lei said that current usage of 229 cubic metres of water per 10,000 yuan ($1,400) of products made would be reduced to 125 cubic metres in 11 years (Xinhua).

“We must take strict measures to preserve water resources in the face of the severe lack of water worsened by factors such as overuse, pollution and drought,” said Chen.

New Scientist says China’s GDP is actually forecast to grow by 60% by 2020. So a reduction in water use per GDP of around 60% would mean that the country uses exactly the same amount of water. (New Scientist’s headline, ‘Parched China to slash water consumption by 60%’ is rather misleading.)

China Daily says a quota system, with users paying for water used above their quota, will ensure people stick to conservation plans. New irrigation plans for agriculture will also be put in place.

India’s billion dollar astronaut plan

India is following up its Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission with a billion dollar plan to put astronauts into orbit.

The Indian Planning Commission has reportedly signed off a $2.5 billion plan to follow an unmanned orbiter in 2013-2014 with a manned mission in 2014-2015. This is actually slightly less ambitious than some of the rumours that were circulating when Chandrayaan launched, which had India putting people on the Moon by 2015.

“We are planning to put persons in the vehicle and launch them into space for seven days in an orbit of 275 km,” says K Radhakrishnan, director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (various).

The London Times says that although the Indian Cabinet still has to sign off the plan this is a formality now the commission has approved it.

While the merits of manned space programmes can – and will – be debated till everyone is blue in the face, it’s nice to see some new players on the space scene. After all, there’s space for everyone up there (so long as you’re careful).

EVGA Reveals X58 Classified / GTX 295 Red Edition

EVGA recently announced the "Ultimate in X58 motherboards." One of the most anticipated products of 2009, the X58 Classified aims to set the standard for enthusiast motherboards by introducing several new features. It is the first board capable of housing 3-way SLI graphics cards, a dedicated PhysX card, and a PCIe 1x sound card at the same time. Also, there are two 8-pin +12V CPU connectors available to provide up to 600 watts of power. When trying to break world records, you'll need the voltage stability the Classified can provide.

"Many manufacturers are stuffing the CPU core power circuitry with endless phases without looking at the big picture. We take a very first to very last approach instead," says Peter "Shamino" Tan, a renowned overclocker who helped design the board. "First the +12V comes into the board through the 8-pin CPU power connector. We remove the bottleneck here by doubling the current input capability with dual +12V. Next, the +12V is processed through a beefy 10 phase Digital PWM with a switching frequency of up to 1,333KHz, twice the speed of typical digital PWMs and three times the speed of typical analog!"

Don't expect world domination to come cheap. At $450, this is the most expensive X58 board yet as it packs tons of features and unrivaled overclocking capability. Nevertheless, expect demand to be sky high for the first few months and finding the Classified in stock will likely prove difficult.

Just in case you had anything left over from your economic stimulus stash, check out EVGA's GTX 295 Red Edition graphics card. Besides being the fastest card on the planet, it now comes pimped with a racy red paint job to emphasize its elite status. This baby sports a 576MHz core clock with 1792MB DDR3 memory, dual DVI connectors, an HDMI port, and PCIe 2.0 16x interface. For $565, you get a monster video card that provides gaming heaven, instant status, and serious bragging rights.

Device blocks cell phone use while driving

In a move reminiscent of the nascent automobile breathalyzer industry, two inventors from San Francisco are bringing a device to market that blocks the use of a mobile phone while driving. The new device is equally effective against talking on a cell phone or using the phone to send text messages. The new device, which will be marketed as the Key2SafeDriving, takes the form of a high-tech automobile key holder.

The inventors, Xuesong Zhou and Dr. Wallace Curry, say that the key, when inserted in the ignition of the automobile, sends a signal to block the operation of the driver’s cell phone. Each special Key2SafeDriving key is mated to a specific person’s phone. Other occupants of the car are still able to use their cell phones. A demonstration of the device is available in a YouTube video. The device is also able to tell callers, via text message, that the person they are calling is driving and will call them back when they reach their destination.

Texting and talking while driving are becoming significant problems among teenagers and other young drivers, according to statistics. The marketing for the device is aimed at the parents of young drivers, especially in that growing number of US states where using the cell phone while driving is becoming against the law for teenagers. These states are reacting to a rise in cell-phone related automobile crashes among young drivers, which have almost drawn equal to the numbers caused by drinking and driving.

Such devices are becoming more common, according to a Yahoo technology article. Ford Motor company recently introduced the MyKey device to give parents more control over how their teenaged drivers are behaving while driving. The MyKey device interacts with a cars computer system and allows parents to control how fast younger drivers may drive, how loud the radio can be played, and whether or not the seat belts are fastened. The device will become standard equipment on many Ford cars in the near future.

Although the devices are aimed at youthful drivers, there is no reason that they could not be used to control the driving patterns of other groups, especially when coupled with GPS devices, which are already able to report the position of the car in which they are installed. Too much like Big Brother? Only time will tell.

Cellphone capable of detecting HIV and Other Diseases

Cellphone technology has come a long way as companies have taken it one step further by integrating music, camera and video playback capabilities. It seems that scientists made further advancement when they successfully integrated a blood tester into a cellphone.

Cellphones are probably one of the most important technological marvels to impact just about everyone worldwide in recent times. There are third world counties where cellphone towers exist despite the lack of phone and power lines. That is why it comes as no surprise that scientists over at UCLA have developed a cellphone capable of analyzing blood to detect diseases such as HIV, malaria and other illnesses.

Traditionally, scientists have had to use large devices, which are hard to transport to run blood tests. These devices cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and require trained technicians to operate. These devices are also usually kept in labs and are not meant to be used on the field.

With the development of a portable blood tester in a cellphone, scientists and field technicians who work in third world countries could quickly detect diseases on the fly. This technology could change the way many scientists operate out in the field. There would be no more need to send the blood sample off to a lab to be analyzed, as the results could be produced quickly.

Talking about a research project by Intel to develop self powered cellphones not that long ago. The research effort was to develop cellphones that could be powered indefinitely from the environment. If these two technologies could be married, the cellphone would become the ultimate tool for someone working out in the field.

A user could work out somewhere in Africa, testing for malaria for days at a time without having to recharge the cellphone’s battery. Just by looking at the research efforts going on today, it seems cellphones will be playing an even bigger role in the future.

Mercedes-Benz E220 CDI Diesel

For years, Mercedes-Benz has fed its U.S. customers a diet of ever-more-powerful engines in its E-class sedan. It's been decades since the forebearer to today's E-class had a four-cylinder engine behind its signature radiator grille - at least in America. Our lowliest E-class Benz, which isn't so lowly at all, has instead come with a six, with a V-8 as the move-up engine, and, for a time, a supercharged V-8 in the AMG version, which has since switched to a normally aspirated big-block (6.2 liter!) V-8.

In Europe, Mercedes offers those same engines, but they're the tippy top of a much larger pyramid. Four-cylinder gasoline engines and diesels, considered insufficiently muscular to power a compact C-class over here, comprise the bulk of E-class sales over there. For 2010, the redesigned E-class has a new family of four-cylinder gasoline and diesel engines at the base of its powerplant pyramid.

The two gasoline engines are turbocharged and direct injected. Both displace 1.8 liters. The more powerful version makes 201 hp, which isn't much shy of a typical V-6's output and is enough to send the E250 CGI from 0 to 62 mph in a not too shabby 7.7 seconds. With its five-speed automatic, the E250 CGI is rated at 32 mpg (combined city/highway, European test procedures). Its lesser powered but more economical sibling is good for 181 hp and is a full second slower to 62 mph, but returns 35 mpg in the E200 CGI, which has a standard six-speed manual.

The diesels, however, are even more impressive. The three four-cylinder units are all the same size: 2.1 liters, and all three are turbocharged (naturally) and use common-rail direct injection. Output of the three engines varies much more in torque than in horsepower. The E200 CDI, with only a single-stage turbocharger, is rated at 266 lb-ft of torque. The E220 CDI upgrades to a dual-stage turbo and musters 295 lb-ft of torque. The E250 CDI pumps out a V-8-like 369 lb-ft. Interestingly, all three diesels achieve the same, 44 mpg combined fuel economy rating, with their standard six-speed manual gearbox.

Curious to see how a 44-mpg diesel E-class would meet my American expectations, I grabbed an E220 CDI for a spin during the launch of the new 2010 model. Unfortunately, it was equipped with the optional automatic, thus making it a 39-mpg diesel E-class. Still, that's a long way from the mid-20s combined fuel economy of the U.S. market's gasoline V-6...

As with so many modern diesels, the E220 CDI blows old notions of turbo-diesel driveability out of the water. The sound quality is different from a gasoline engine's, but it's really only discernable during acceleration, not when cruising or at idle. The two-stage turbo is seamlessly integrated, so throttle response is predictably linear.

I drove an automatic, which was a five-speed (with a traditional shift lever on the console) rather than the seven-speed automatic (with electronic, column-mounted PRND selector) that Mercedes puts in our V-6 and V-8-powered E-class cars. Factory-measured acceleration is a brisk 8.3 seconds from 0 to 62 mph, and indeed the diesel steps out quickly off the line, thanks to an ultra-low (1400 rpm) torque peak. Mid-range acceleration is more leisurely than with our gasoline engines, but would be plenty for most drivers. High-speed cruising, though, is effortless. The only time the E220 CDI feels slow is when you try to drive it hard through tightly curving back roads; this is not a car that wants to charge from one apex to the next.

Overall, though, this 39-mpg E-class comes across as a very convincing executive conveyance that just happens to be more economical than even the smallest econobox. Should the dark days of $4 a gallon gasoline return - and who thinks they won't? - Mercedes, with this engine, or better yet, the just as economical but even more potent 369-lb-ft E250 CDI version, could blow Americans' minds by providing hybrid-like fuel economy and a luxury-car driving experience.

South Korea to Get Super High-Speed Broadband

Internet users in South Korea soon may be able to download a movie in just two seconds, if a new high-speed Internet project moves forward as planned. South Korea plans to build a super broadband infrastructure with upload and download speeds of 1 Gbps by 2013. The project will cost about 24.5 billion dollars, and will largely be funded by the private sector, according to the Agence France Presse.

Officials with the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) say this will make it possible to download a movie in about 1-2 seconds through a fiber optic cable. Some dispute that estimate, however, and believe the download time will be closer to an insufferable 12 seconds for a feature length film.

The new service will be available in large cities, with smaller South Korean towns making due with a paltry 50-100 Mbps connection. South Korea was already one of the most wired places on earth, where its citizens enjoy an average download speed of 43.3 Mbps. The average American download rate, by comparison, hangs around 8.9 Mbps, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

If you're suffering with a poor download rate, don't despair: broadband access may change across America in the next few years. A study commissioned by North Carolina's e-NC Authority has already called for the United States to meet South Korean speeds by 2015. President Obama has also said that he wants to "deploy next-generation broadband" and "work towards true broadband in every community in America;" however, he doesn't specify what ‘true' or ‘next-generation' broadband means.

Last week, Charter Communications launched America's fastest high-speed service with 60 Mbps download speeds in the St. Louis area, and will soon boost its service nationwide to 20 Mbps. That seemed like an enormous leap forward until South Korea's announcement today. One thing is clear; America's cyber infrastructure has a long way to go if it wants to keep up with the rest of the developed world.

Seagate Readies its First 2TB Enterprise Hard Drive

Less than one week after Western Digital's 2TB Caviar Green WD20EASD hard drive hit stores (as we reported here), Seagate has up-and-launched its own rival hard drive family featuring a 2TB storage titan. The company's new Constellation series of enterprise drives will arrive in 2.5- and 3.5-inch varieties, and you can expect that this is just the first salvo that paves the way for a future addition to the Barracuda 7200.12 family: A consumer-grade 2TB hard drive.

Two Point Five

The two hard drives in the 2.5-inch Constellation series are coming in at a boring 160GB and a whopping 500GB. Well, ok, so Seagate's been shipping drives of this size for some time now. The company's Momentus line of hard drives has already hit the 250 GB/platter mark, so this isn't so much an announcement of capacity as it is of feature sets. The two 2.5-inch drives will arrive with either a SATA 3.0 Gb/s or SAS 2.0 (6.0 Gb/s speeds) connection interface. Borrowing a page from Western Digital's Green book, the 2.5-inch drives will incorporate Seagate's PowerChoice technology--allegedly spinning the drives down when they aren't in use. It's not quite the modulating 5,400-RPM to 7,200 RPM power savings feature of Western Digital's Green-branded drives, but Seagate alleges that the move will allow enterprise customers to cut power consumption by 54 percent.

Three Point Five

Here's the meat and potatoes. Seagate is releasing a trio of Constellation ES 3.5-inch drives at sizes of 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB. Since the company has capped out its areal density at 500 GB/platter, expect the three drives to run on one, two, and four platters respectively. This should give the 7,200 RPM drives a delicious amount of speed, as increasing the areal density of a platter allows the drive head to access more data in an equivalent period of time as a disk that uses less areal density. In simplified terms, consider a drive's areal density to be a measurement of how closely the data is mashed together. When you mash more data together, you're only increasing the amount of data that can be read from a single location. Similarly, you're decreasing the length the drive head has to travel to access new data.

More than that, expect Seagate's 7,200 RPM drives to pull in faster overall read and write speeds than Western Digital's 2TB drive (previewed here). That's because the WD drive modulates between 5,400 RPM and 7,200 RPM rotational speeds--it's a function of the drive's power-saving features. What Western Digital gains in constant power savings, it loses in overall performance. By contrast, Seagate's Constellation-class drives spin at 7,200 RPM and only power down when the drive isn't being used. I've seen this performance gap play out when all the major drive manufacturers released their 1TB drives, and I'd expect nothing less to happen with the 2TB varieties. Western Digital's Green line just isn't geared for speed when you compare it to its counterparts.

Toshiba Announces iPhone Challenger

BARCELONA, Spain--Jumping the gun on an expected slew of handset announcements at next week's Mobile World Congress, Toshiba has formally announced the latest challenger to the iPhone: A slick-looking Windows Mobile-based touch screen phone with super-high screen resolution powered by a new, high-performance Qualcomm mobile chipset.

Toshiba's announcement from Barcelona, where Mobile World Congress begins its run on Monday, basically confirms leaked reports (with images) about the TG01 that have appeared over the last couple of weeks.

Slated to appear in Europe this summer, the TG01 will boast a 4.1-inch screen with 800-by-480-pixel resolution. By way of comparison, the iPhone's screen measures 3.5 inches and has a 480-by-320 resolution (held in landscape mode). In fact, the TG01's display specs are more similar to those of Sony Ericsson's debut Windows Mobile handset, the Xperia X1.

Toshiba says the screen uses fine-tuning technology developed for its Regza line of LCD-TVs to ensure vivid colors and quality playback of fast-moving video images.

The TG01 will be the first handset based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon technology, which integrates a 1GHz CPU with support for GPS, multimedia, Wi-Fi and quad-band 3G networks (with HSDPA/HSUPA data support) in order to enable the handset's super-skinny and lightweight (less than four-tenths of an inch, a tad over 4.5 ounces) profile.

While based on Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows Mobile 6.1 platform for handhelds, the TG01 will have its own custom user interface, including a couple of imaginative innovations. You'll be able to shake the phone to answer it, and you'll be able to switch between applications by tilting the phone.

Toshiba rates the phone's 1000mAh battery life as up to 11 days standby time and 5 hours talk time.

The TG01 will have 512MB of ROM and 250MB of RAM, but its micro SDHC slot will support up to 32GB of additional storage. Other features include a 3.2-megapixel camera and Java support.

The TG01 boasts excellent multimedia support. It will play H.263, H.264, MPEG4, and WMV videos, and MP3, AAC, AAC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, WMA, and WAV audio files.

At launch the TG01 will be available in two colors-white and black. There's no word yet on exactly which European networks will offer it, or what it will cost.

Lithium Batteries that Recharge in Three Seconds - Coming Soon

In the very near future, we may see batteries that can recharge in just three seconds. Researchers at MIT (where else?) have discovered a method of recharging lithium ion batteries at greatly increased speeds. The best news is that their method uses common materials and therefore could hit the marketplace in as little as two years.

Byoungwoo Kang and Gerbrand Ceder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts sped up the process in which lithium ions are torn from the cathode compound and sent back to their anode store. In plain English: Kang and Ceder essentially changed the structure of everyday lithium ion batteries by building nanoparticle clumps and mixing the ordinary concoction with carbon and other materials.

The practical uses of this new battery recharging system are widespread, as lithium ion batteries already are widely used. Electric cars, cell phones, laptops, portable gaming systems -- you name it; it's likely the device sports a lithium ion battery.

Kang and Ceder are most excited about the innovation their discovery will bring to the electric car. "The ability to charge and discharge batteries in a matter of seconds rather than hours may open up new technological applications and induce lifestyle changes," the team writes in their Nature paper.

With the world steadily going green, advancements in the practicality of an electric car and its ability to recharge speedily could alter the roads of the world and hugely impact the environment. That's all fine and well. But c'mon -- we're mostly excited about souping up our iPhones in the time it takes to exhale.

10 Ways Microsoft's Retail Stores Will Differ From Apple Stores

Microsoft announced plans to open retail stores, hoping to boost visibility of many of its products and its brand. The move seems to be an effort to mimic the success that Apple has had with its retail stores. The news is just too tempting not to have some fun with. So here are some yet-to-be-officially-revealed details about the Microsoft stores.

1) Instead of Apple's sheer walls of glass, Microsoft's stores will have brushed steel walls dotted with holes -- reminiscent of Windows security.

2) The store will have six different entrances: Starter, Basic, Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. While all six doors will lead into the same store, the Ultimate door requires a fee of $100 for no apparent reason.

3) Instead of a "Genius Bar" (as Apple provides) Microsoft will offer an Excuse Bar. It will be staffed by Microsofties trained in the art of evading questions, directing you to complicated and obscure fixes, and explaining it's a problem with the hardware -- not a software bug.

4) The Windows Genuine Advantage team will run storefront security, assuming everybody is a thief until they can prove otherwise.

5) Store hours are undetermined. At any given time the store mysteriously shuts down instantaneously for no apparent reason. (No word yet on what happens to customers inside).

6) Stores will be named Microsoft Live Retail Store with PC Services for Digital Lifestyle Enthusiasts.

7) Fashioned after Microsoft's User Account Control (UAC) in Vista, sales personnel will ask you whether you're positive you want to purchase something at least twice.

8) Xbox 360 section of the store will be organized in a ring -- which will inexplicably go red occasionally.

9) DreamWorks will design a scary in-store theme park ride called "blue screen of death."

10) Store emergency exits will be unlocked at all times so people can get in anytime they want even if the front doors are locked.

Apple Debuts 'World's Fastest' Web Browser, Safari 4 Beta

Apple is upping its ante in the browser war between Microsoft, Firefox, and Google with the release of Safari 4 beta. Apple announced availability of the browser Tuesday touting it as the world's fastest - able to render core Web applications such as JavaScript more than four times faster than Apple's previous Safari 3.2 browser. Apple claims Safari 4 is 30 times faster than IE 7 and nearly three times faster than Firefox 3 at executing JavaScript. When it comes to loading straight HTML Web pages Apple says it is three times faster than IE 7 and Firefox 3.

Among the ways Apple's Safari 4 browser differentiates itself from its competitors is by incorporating signature Apple Cover Flow technology into a new Full History Search feature. This feature allows you to review browser Web page history in a way similar to browsing songs/albums in the iTunes store and on the iPhone and iPod.

Apple's Safari 4 beta browser is available now for download for both the Mac and Windows OS. System requirements include a PC running Windows XP SP2 or Vista. Mac users must be running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6 or Mac X Tiger 10.4.11 on at least an Intel Mac or G3 system or better.

"Safari 4 is the fastest and most efficient browser for Mac and Windows, with great integration of HTML 5 and CSS 3 web standards that enables the next generation of interactive web applications," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing, in a press release.

Speed and performance increases are a direct result of a new JavaScript engine called Nitro. Apple is using the open source browser engine WebKit for rendering Web pages - the same engine used in Google's Chrome browser and the Google Android browser.

Here is a breakdown of new Safari 4 beta features from Apple:

Top Sites, a display of frequently visited pages in a stunning wall of previews so users can jump to their favorite sites with a single click

Full History Search, where users search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages to easily return to sites they've seen before

Cover Flow, to make searching web history or bookmarks as fun and easy as paging through album art in iTunes

Tabs on Top, for better tabbed browsing with easy drag-and-drop tab management tools and an intuitive button for opening new ones

Smart Address Field, that automatically completes web addresses by displaying an easy-to-read list of suggestions from Top Sites, bookmarks and browsing history;

Smart Search Field, where users fine-tune searches with recommendations from Google Suggest or a list of recent searches

Full Page Zoom, for a closer look at any website without degrading the quality of the site's layout and text

Other improvements include:

Built-in web developer tools to debug, tweak and optimize a website for peak performance and compatibility; and a new Windows-native look in Safari for Windows, that uses standard Windows font rendering and native title bar, borders and toolbars so Safari fits the look and feel of other Windows XP and Windows Vista applications.

Windows Mobile 6.5

It looks like you'll barely have time to get the wrapper off Windows Mobile 6.5 before Windows Mobile 7 will move in to replace it.

Yesterday, at a "strategic update meeting," Microsoft Chief Steve Ballmer said the company will release Windows Mobile 7 -- Microsoft's OS for smart phones -- in 2010. That statement is a little surprising when you consider Microsoft just last week introduced Windows Mobile 6.5, which isn't slated to ship until later this year.

With Windows Mobile 7 coming out so soon, some people may just forget about Mobile 6.5 altogether and wait for the more advanced system. This is particularly problematic for Microsoft, since it's already clear that Windows 6.0 and 6.1 device owners won't be able to run Mobile 6.5. So if Mobile 7 is also going to require a new device, then why not wait a few more months for the newer system?

However, rushing through to Mobile 7 may be Microsoft's attempt to overtake its competitors by offering two significant platform releases relatively close together. Ballmer sees the smart phone market as one of Microsoft's biggest areas for expansion in the coming months, despite the economic downturn. He said the company is investing heavily in that area as Windows and Windows Mobile continue to share technology. Ballmer said he also looks forward to the day when the two systems are based on the same central components. At that point, the lines will truly be blurred between the smart phone and the PC, and that's where Ballmer says Microsoft is headed.

Nevertheless, Microsoft's chief confirmed the company will not release its own phone. "It's our strategy to sell software that we can use and support across a wide range of device manufacturers to encourage choice... in devices [and]...in the operators," Ballmer said.

iPhone Rules

Apple's iPhone is king of the mobile world, according to reports from two different metrics firms. The Global Intelligence Alliance Group (GIA) released a report recently that says the iPhone has the leading app store for mobile devices, while Net Applications says Apple's Safari is the most popular web browser among mobile device users. The data indicate that Apple not only leads the market place on both counts, but its main competitors lag way behind the iPhone.

The numbers from Net Applications' analysis of mobile web use for February 2009 gives the iPhone a gigantic slice of the mobile web browsing world with 66.61 percent. Following Apple at a distant second are browsers based on Java's ME application platform with a mere 9.06 percent, and Windows Mobile takes the bronze at 6.91 percent. Rounding out the top five are Symbian, found primarily on Nokia handsets at the moment; and Google's Android. Research In Motion's Blackberry devices rank seventh taking only 2.24 percent of mobile web browsing activity.

GIA's report, on the other hand, is not as clear cut since the analysts wanted to determine which company or platform produced the best application store for mobile devices. The study analyzed application stores from six different retailers including Apple, Nokia, Google, Microsoft, Research in Motion (aka Blackberry), and Palm. The app stores were judged on five categories: when the app store opened in comparison to its competitors (time to market); capability to attract developers to create apps for the device; success of roll-out and sales of a given brand (rate of device adoption); efficient interface and user experience at the app store; and the number, variety and appeal of apps offered for sale. GIA gave a maximum of two points for each category with ten possible points overall.

According to GIA, Apple scored nine points, followed by Google and Nokia in second place with seven points apiece. Windows came next with a score of six, and RIM and Palm rounded out the list with scores of five and three points respectively. GIA says Apple's success is due to its ground-shaking concept that a smart phone is not just a piece of hardware with a bunch of features, but a software platform that embraces third-party applications developed from both corporations and start-ups. Apple was also one of the first and most popular app stores to launch, and the fact that people were already accustomed to making purchases through iTunes made it easier for iPhone users to figure out the iPhone App Store.

While I don't dispute Apple's success as characterized by GIA, it seems to me that this report is a little problematic. In fact, I don't think it gives a clear picture of the current mobile world. We have to bear in mind the mobile phone industry is in a huge state of flux. This is due largely to the introduction of the iPhone, which significantly opened up the smartphone market to non-business users and reshaped the smartphone's potential. Since then every company has tried to come out with an "iPhone killer," and adapt the iPhone-App Store ecosystem to its own business model.

GIA's analysis doesn't seem to account for this flux. If you look at GIA's scores, for example, a company gets a zero if there isn't any data for that category. So Nokia, RIM and Palm get a zero for "number, variety and appeal of apps." That score is not entirely surprising since both Nokia and RIM haven't even opened their app stores yet, and Palm's relevance in each category will certainly change after the company releases its own "iPhone killer," the Palm Pre. In fact, when you look at the scoring, Apple is the only company that didn't receive a zero in at least one category. That's because Apple already has its pieces in play for each category, while the others are either trying to consolidate a wide range of products or are in the middle of launching their devices and/or app stores.

It seems to me that GIA came out with this report too soon, and if the researchers revisit the situation in a year, the numbers will be significantly different. Most likely Apple will still be on top, but some of the other competitors will probably change places and perhaps even score closer to Apple.