HTC's G1, courtesy T-Mobile USA

After about a year’s worth of hype, an Android based phone is a reality.  Google has spearheaded Android as an “Open Handset Alliance” project. Essentially, it is an operating system and application bundle for use on mobile devices.  It’s based on a Linux 2.6 kernel, and the entire project is open source.  This possibly marks a major paradigm shift in the mobile industry, as up until now, most mobile devices are locked down with at least in part proprietary, closed software.  Google’s plan was to develop an open platform that the open source community as a whole could improve and contribute to.  Rather than allowing developers to add applications as an afterthought (*cough* Apple, you listening?), extending support immediately to developers in a free and open manner was goal #1 of the project.

T-Mobile is the first to bring an Android based phone to market, and presented it to the public at large at a press event in NYC this morning.  The first Android phone is being made by Tiawan-based HTC.  The phone features a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and touch screen support (though apparently not the high-tech “multitouch” found on the Apple iPhone.)  It’s loaded with the full array of Google apps such as GMail, Google Maps, and YouTube.  It also includes “Shop Savvy” to help find the best prices on items while on the go, and “Eco Reo,” a calculator of sorts that helps the environmentally conscious consumer track their carbon footprint.  Amazon also announced this morning along side the T-Mobile announcement, that their MP3 application will also be pre-loaded into the device, which is basically a mobile-phone optimized version of their on-line DRM-free MP3 store.  The phone of course doubles as a music player, and MP3s purchased through the Amazon store can be freely transferred to any other device.

The phone’s web browser is based on WebKit, which is the same technology found in Apple’s Safari, the Apple iPhone browser, and the newly announced Google Chrome browser.

The phone will set you back $179 with a 2-year contract, and has two tiered data plans at $25 and $35; a voice plan is bundled and priced separate and is required.  3G connectivity is only available in select markets at the moment, but T-Mobile is announcing that coverage should reach 80% of their customers by November.  The United Kingdom can expect to see the phone hit their streets around the same time in November, and availability will reach Europe wide into 2009.

Though we can probably expect the open source community to fill in some of the gaps where the phone lacks, some drawbacks named off at the press conference this morning include: the phone CAN NOT be used as a tethered modem, to provide connectivity to a laptop, regardless of your data plan.  It’s mail support is also limited and does not yet support Microsoft Exchange.  The phone is also going to be locked to T-Mobile, so despite hyping up the “open” nature of the software, they’re still going to dictate which provider you can use it with (which seems a little hypocritical to me!)

Much of this phone’s success, and Android phones in general, will depend on the community of users developing new applications for it.  In that sense it’s a bit of a gamble, but my money would have to go down on Android; I’m betting we’ll see some pretty creative and innovative ways to use a mobile phone in the coming months.  Whether or not this can take a bite out of Apple’s iPhone momentum?  We’ll have to wait and see.

By today we’re well aware that the e-mails posted were legitimate, as the McCain campaign has made a statement regarding the situation, and an investigation is under way.

The Register is reporting the investigation may be relatively easy to conclude.  The attacker attempted to cover their tracks using ctunnel.com, a proxy service.  This way, when Yahoo searches their logs, the visits would have appeared from ctunnel.com, rather than the address information of the person(s) who had broken in to the account.  It just so happens that ctunnel.com logs connections for situations such as this, and thanks to screen shots showing a large portion of the ctunnel.com URL in the address bar of the web browser, it’s going to be pretty easy to match that to the log files.

Anyway, now that the dust has settled some, I thought maybe I’d take a few moments to respond to the slew of comments and hatemail about the Pailin e-mails.  It doesn’t seem many understand the nature of the situation, and mainstream media is having a field day with spin and framing the story for whoever candidate they’re biased to.  So here’s my thoughts:

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UPDATE: For a follow-up on the situation, see here.

It appears the infamous group of cyber-mischief makers “anonymous” are up to their old tricks, and this time they had Governor Palin in their sights.

While this has not been completely confirmed, it seems that some time over night or early this morning, somebody was able to compromise “gov.palin@yahoo.com,” by apparently discovering the password to the account.  The password was posted to a public forum, 4chan.org, and a field day ensued.  Within a short time, another “anonymous” had changed the password on the account to effectively lock everybody else out, and later this morning the account had been locked completely by Yahoo.

Anonymous is the same group responsible for such stunts as the NFL dirty bomb threat in October 2006, and has more recently been behind organized global protests of Scientology.

Just last week, the Washington Post published an article about Sarah Palin’s use of this very same Yahoo e-mail account.  Palin’s use of a public e-mail service rather than the secure state e-mail system raised some eyebrows, as she was potentially communicating about sensitive matters, off the record, on a third party service.  Arguing that she should be using the secure and encrypted state e-mail system, an activist in her state had called for the release of her e-mails.

Well, it looks like lawyers won’t be necessary, as “anonymous” might have done the job for them.

The images below were posted to a Photobucket account owned by a user named “anoncrack.”  They include a message to Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell, a message of encouragement from Amy McCorkell (a member of Palin’s Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in Alaska), general screen shots of Palin’s inbox, a message from the “anonymous” who apparently tried to close off access to Palin’s inbox, and some family photos that were found in attachments.

UPDATE: 2:00PM EST, Wired News is now reporting this story, and has received confirmation from Amy McCorkell that she indeed sent the message that appears in one of the screen shots.

ScienceDebate2008.com is an organization that started as an idea and group of 6 people less than a year ago, and has grown 38,000 strong by latest count – including nearly every major American scientific organization there is.  Their goal was to bring science and technology into the political discussion.

As a group, they’ve come up with a list of 14 questions that they felt were most important in the science and technology fields, given the current political climate and challenges we face as a nation.  They include topics like climate change, energy, genetics, stem cell research, space, and so on.  They then submitted the questions to the candidates to see where each side stands.

Obama’s campaign had supplied answers about two weeks ago – and the McCain campaign has submitted theirs just this morning, so now we can see the responses quite literally side by side.  With all the mud-slinging and lack of actual issues talk that’s been going on since the conventions, it’s pretty refreshing to see both of the candidates talk policy for a moment.

Believe it or not, the candidates actually agree on some of the topics.  They give very similar answers to the climate change question, are both big proponents of NASA, and surprisingly have some of the same ideas on national security (at least in this context), but they differ on energy, and most obviously, on stem cell research.  Rather than “spoil” any more, why not head over to ScienceDebate2008 and read it yourself?

The National Space Society held a press conference this morning to announce a breakthrough in wireless power transmission.  In a demonstration, they’ve been able to transmit power wirelessly a distance of 148km between Hawaiian islands.  This distance, when pointed straight up, is great enough to reach up into the Thermosphere beyond the accepted boundary between our planet and space.  The idea is that solar panels can be launched into space where they can collect energy, and “beam” that energy back down to Earth.

This has a few important implications.  Above the Earth’s atmosphere, solar power is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  The energy is available in its most concentrated form, without any of it having been diffused, absorbed, or reflected by our atmosphere.  There’s no such thing as cloud cover above the atmosphere.  With the ability to transmit it wirelessly, it can theoretically be beamed down to any location on Earth, powering up otherwise hard to reach places, underdeveloped areas, or potentially restoring emergency power during a disaster.

The NSS has created a 2 minute video demonstation of the wireless transmission technology:

The downside of course, is having to launch massive objects into space that would dwarf even the International Space Station.  NSS is confident this will be possible, and possible soon.  With the issue of wireless power transmission solved, the last major hurdle is cost-effective and efficient launch vehicles.  Just a few days ago, another commercial enterprise SpaceX was granted license to use the Cape Canavral launch site.  It’s nice to see private enterprises pushing space technology forward, looking for ways to put it to practical use, and most of all, to see that for a change the government isn’t hindering the process! So while we’re not 100% there, there are pieces falling into place that might make big ideas like this a reality.

The NSS conference this morning was to raise awareness of the technology, and to plug Discovery Project Earth: Orbital Power Plant, which airs on the Discovery channel tonight at 10PM EST.  If you’re interested in seeing more about this tech, you’ll probably want to tune in, as the NSS project will be the topic.

NASA has also published an informational DVD about solar power in space that you can watch in its entirety free of charge here care of NSS & Google Video.

The new iPod Nano

I’m sure you can go anywhere on the web for the nitty-gritty details and discussion about every last word said at Apple’s media event held today in San Francisco, (and in fact, you might not be able to avoid it.)  So rather than go there, let’s try something new: a quick and easy summary, free of fanboy-dom and man-crushes on Steve Jobs… the event wrapped up moments ago, so here’s what it boiled down to:

- iTunes 8: better accessibility features, smart playlist algorithm “Genius” finds related songs

- iTunes Store: Shows will be available in HD for $2.99, NBC came crawling back

-iPod Nano: adds cover flow display, voice recording feature, 8GB for $149, 16GB for $199

-New Apple brand in ear headphones, sold separately, $79.  Includes remote control for iPods, microphone for voice recording.

-New iPod classic.  Only available from now on in thin form factor.  120GB for $249.

-Revised iPod touch: thinner, small-built in speaker for “casual listening,” also has Genius playlists, more eco-friendly manufacturing, 8GB for $229, 16GB for $299, and 32GB for $399

- Software updates (available Friday) for iPhone & iPod touch.  Better battery life, fewer dropped calls, bug fixes, faster & more reliable iTunes synching

In usual form, you can already pick up all the new products on the Apple store (though the headphones appear to be pre-order, they say “coming soon”).  The store was off-line during the talk, but just came back up.  No sign of iTunes 8 on software update just yet.

With the flip of a giant 7-foot tall symbolic switch, FCC chairman Kevin Martin and mayor Bill Saffo officially announced the city of Wilmington, North Carolina as the first to make the transition from analog to digital TV.  This switch is mandated by the government this coming February, 17, 2009, and Wilmington has graciously volunteered to be the nation’s guinea pig.  (More coverage on the Wilmington switch here.)  Digital TV will provide better quality picture and sound, but the transition won’t be without some headaches.

So this had me thinking – if Wilmington is already there, where does Buffalo stand?

There’s millions of dollars allocated to raise public awareness on the switch in the coming months – so expect to hear more about it.  There’s also over a billion dollars allocated to help you cope… and a lot of them have gone un-spent so far.

Here’s a couple tips and things you want to know if you haven’t gotten up to speed on the switch to digital yet.

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Blogs have been buzzing over the past few weeks since Microsoft’s announcement of their deal with Jerry Seinfeld as Windows Vista’s new poster boy.  (Well, by “buzzing” I mean mostly joking, and mocking.)  A comedian whose prime was when Windows 95 was cutting edge, to team up with a man who’s about as exciting and photogenic as taking snapshots with the lens cap still on seemed like an unlikely team to bail out the sinking ship that is U.S.S. Vista… I’m no marketing expert, but it seemed like a queer choice.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Well folks, the first of many TV spots is up on YouTube.  Check it out.  It’s a commercial about nothing.

Am I alone when I say… “uhhhhhh”….?  Windows is moist and delicious?  This is the hip new advertising campaign supposed to sway Apple-curious consumers who are intrigued by the “Mac vs. PC” ads?

What kind of weed do you think they have in Redmond?  I think the marketing team got into the programmer’s stash.

Google just put up a download link.

This is the Beta version, for Windows.  Mac and Linux users still have to wait a little longer.

In my totally preliminary and totally unscientific observation, I will say it certainly has a fast “feel” to it.  Things like opening several tabs & switching between them, scrolling up and down complex pages, and moving around within Google maps all have a very smooth and responsive feel.  Other first impressions: It’s simple.  Which is kind of refreshing. I like the “most visited thumbnail view” that the browser opens to – instead of a homepage, you see thumbnails of sites you visit frequently… think of it like multiple home pages, that configure themselves based on your habits.  It also took me a moment to notice – there’s no search bar! (which took me by surprise seeing its a Google web browser and all) – until I realized the regular address bar doubles as the search bar when something besides a URL is typed in.

So far so good.  It’s worth a shot…  It was a quick download and painless installation.

It looks like another potential game-changer on the Internet as we know it, care of Google.  In classic Google style they’ve found a way to ignore the traditional avenues and appear to be announcing this decision via…  comic book!  The comic book stars caricatures of several of Google’s engineers and programmers who tell the story of why new thinking in web browsing is justified, and just how they plan to accomplish it.  Ironic yet is that the comic book was printed on old fashioned paper, and distributed by good old “snail mail” to journalists and bloggers.

The browser is to be titled Chrome and will be an open-source project.  The main driving force behind it is to design a browser that actually reflects what we use the web for in modern times: applications.  In the web’s early days, it was simply designed to be a large scale document repository, allowing any document to be linked to any other document.  As it’s evolved, these mess of loosely tied documents have grown into full blown applications.  Rather than just retrieving and using information, we use the web on a daily basis to perform interactive computing tasks.  We check our e-mail, we network with friends, go shopping, get driving directions, share videos and photos.  Google thinks we should have a web browser that puts applications first, rather than the current paradigm of hacking applications into the old document storage-and-retrieval framework the web works on today.  Plans are to incorporate an entirely new scratch-built Java virtual machine which they’ve code named V8 to power much of this progress.

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