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Surprise: HP Is Squeezing Every Possible Penny From The Canceled TouchPad

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:12:57 +0000

The $99 TouchPad fire sale was the best way to close the book on webOS and the TouchPad itself. It got the TouchPad into the hands of the fans. Only those that cared about the product lined up outside of Best Buy to grab one of the cheap notebooks. It’s also probably safe to say that most of these people do not have any interest in HP’s crapware notebooks. These people just wanted a solid tablet for a great price. HP, you should have taken your win and walked home. But you didn’t. You’ve screwed up. Again. The TouchPad’s story is a sad one. A product born out of Palm’s inspiring vision for the future of mobile and HP’s expertise at killing innovation. Despite featuring a solid operating system, the product landed with a thud and only webOS die-hards opted for the $499 TouchPad. HP announced just 7 weeks after it launched that it was killing all webOS hardware development and would clear out the remaining supply for just $99, which sold out nearly overnight. The story all along was that another batch of TouchPads was coming. Retailers and even the HP website had sign-up pages to notify potential buyers of available TouchPads. But here we are, a couple months later, and the $99 TouchPad hasn’t resurfaced. However, the TouchPad has randomly popped up at different retailers, but there is often a major caveat. Best Buy got a round of 32GB $150 TouchPads late last month but they were only available for purchase with an HP notebook. Then Tiger Direct (and sister site, Circuit City) started selling the TouchPads but only with an expensive accessory pack, bringing the price up to $279. Then, just today, Office Depot’s Black Friday ad leaked showing a TouchPad deal similar to that found at Best Buy; buy any HP PC and get a 32GB TouchPad for $150. You just know somewhere deep in the corporate machine that is HP, an overpaid executive and his team of cronies thought up this scheme. “People want the TouchPad, right? Alright, then let’s make a quick buck off these people. If they want one, we’re going to force people to buy one of our cheap, adware-filled notebooks. Oh, and we’ll pull support for the TouchPad or, maybe, half-heartedly support it for the stragglers.” This isn’t about capitalism or free trade. HP had a chance to make some friends and earn some good will. The TouchPad is clearly not worth anything to HP. The first fire sale demonstrated that. Now they’re using it as a bait, waving it in front of potential buyers, just hoping to trick someone into buying one of their crappy notebooks. HP has every right to make a buck but sometimes it’s worth foregoing a tiny bit of additional revenue to earn some respect. After years of self-destructive behavior, HP needs respect more than anything else.

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Surprise: HP Is Squeezing Every Possible Penny From The Canceled TouchPad

Better Late Than Never: Wine.com Gets A Mobile Website

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:03:43 +0000

Today, the online retailer for wine enthusiasts (with the killer domain name) Wine.com is finally launching a mobile site at m.wine.com . Like its desktop-sized counterpart, the new site allows customers full access to Wine.com’s inventory of wine, gifts and accessories, site search with filtering, product details, account management, and of course, the ability to make purchases from your mobile device. The mobile site is also able to identify your location automatically so it knows which wines are available for shipping to your region. And after you’ve placed an order, you can track your packages via the new site, too. Alongside the launch, the retailer also announced several milestones, including the fact that it now has over 1 million registered users. Wine.com says it ships over 2 million bottles of win per year, representing 35% growth over last year. As for the size of its inventory, there are over 13,000 different bottles which can be shipped to 90% of the U.S. population, despite the complicated laws around shipping alcohol. The need to go mobile was pressing, as Wine.com reported that over 7% of its unique traffic came from iPhones alone (out of 8% smartphone traffic). And this is despite the fact that Wine.com has fully functional iPhone and iPad apps available in iTunes. That’s something other online retailers should take note of: apps are not enough . If your customers are used to visiting your website on the Web , many continue to do so, even if your cool iOS app offers added functionality (as Wine.com’s does, what with the geo wineries feature and wine cave, etc.). Also interesting: 6% of Wine.com’s overall traffic came from the iPad, but 8% of its revenue came from the iPad. That means either iPad owners buy more wine or the iPad experience is just really great and conductive to shopping. Meanwhile, only 1% of the revenue came from the iPhone, and the iPad average order value is 50% higher than on the iPhone. The company says that should change now that there’s a new mobile website. One would hope. It’s somewhat remarkable to see major retailers that have built mobile applications in advance of a functional mobile website, as Wine.com has. Look, I love a good app as much as the next guy, but really, the app everyone uses the most is still the browser. Thank goodness Wine.com finally figured that out.

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Better Late Than Never: Wine.com Gets A Mobile Website

Bag Week Review: The Targus Spruce EcoSmart

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:02:10 +0000

When I joined TechCrunch (and AOL, by association), I found myself swimming in company-issued bags. The standard-issue MacBook Pro came with a hefty Targus beater of a shoulder bag, and AOL saw fit to send me a Ogio backpack emblazoned with a giant purple AOL logo. I shoved them both in a closet after a few days. Instead, I lug around the Targus Spruce EcoSmart on a daily basis. It’s not the most expensive, nor the most fashion-forward bag you’re likely to see during Bag Week, but it’s a robust, comfortable day bag that can carry most of your daily necessaries without making you regret it. The Targus Spruce EcoSmart Type: Backpack Dimensions: 13″ x 18.75″ x 8.25″ Pockets: Laptop compartment (up to 15.6″), main cargo compartment, secondary cargo compartment, 3 zippered pockets Features: Lightweight mesh straps, made of eco-friendly materials MSRP: $68.99 Product Page If you couldn’t tell by the name, the Spruce EcoSmart was designed with the environment in mind. No, it won’t biodegrade if you hurl it in a landfill — rather, the bag’s polyester body is made out of recycled plastic bottles. Speaking of the Spruce’s body, it’s pretty nondescript at first glance, but a closer look reveals some fun little flourishes, like a series of hard rubber bumps along the front. While they actually add a bit of character to the bag’s front, they’re also meant to take the hits that come when you carry the bag around. All of the bag’s stitching is green, as are the little plant logos on each zipper. What will really catch your eye though (for better or worse) is the bag’s forest green lining. It seems like a silly way to advertise the bag’s eco-friendly schtick, but it becomes surprisingly useful when trying to dig a hard-to-see doodad out of the bottom of the bag. The bag’s straps are reassuringly thick, but are made of a lightweight mesh that keep the load from digging into your shoulders too much. The right strap also features a little plastic knob that the truly finicky can wrap their headphone cable around. That same foamy mesh is strategically placed near your lower back and shoulders, which makes the whole thing feel very cushy. At over 8 inches thick, it doesn’t seem like the Spruce would have much trouble fitting your things, but it’s a tighter squeeze than you think. That’s because Targus felt the need to compartmentalize things a bit too much — the laptop goes in a sleeve that takes up most of one compartment, while the compartment in front of that is where most of your stuff will go. Another smaller compartment sits in front of that, with pockets for pens, ID, and other miscellaneous bits you may want to throw in. My usual loadout consists of the aforementioned 15-inch MacBook Pro, an iPad, a few notebooks, my Panasonic GF2, and a few extra lenses, all of which fit perfectly inside. The bag’s a great fit for a day trip (even the ones that involve lots of running around), but the Spruce definitely won’t be your bag of choice when it comes to going away for the weekend. Who is this for? Treehuggers, people who carry lots of small things instead of a few big ones, avid day-trippers. Do I want it? That depends — the price is certainly right (especially if you do a little poking around), but you’ll have to make do with some strangely-sized compartments. Still, it’s a mighty comfortable backpack for those who don’t feel an unwavering need to carry their whole lives around with them. Click to view slideshow.

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Bag Week Review: The Targus Spruce EcoSmart

Half of Water-Damaged UK Cellphones Fall in Toilets [STUDY]

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:26:51 +0000

Have you ever dropped your mobile phone in the toilet, er, loo? A new study reveals almost 15% of Britons have. That might explain how 16% of mobile phones have poop on them . GoodMobilePhones.co.uk surveyed 1,937 mobile users over 18 and found that 31% of respondents have damaged their mobiles with water or another liquid in the past. The number one destination for mobile damage is the toilet, claiming 47% of damage incidents. Spilling drinks on mobiles or dropping mobiles into drinks was the second most popular cause of damage, claiming 21% of cases. Filling spots three through five are dropping phones in a bath or shower (12%), dropping in a kitchen sink (7%) and putting through the washing machine in a pocket (3%). Men are three times more likely to be victims than women, with 73% and 27% respectively reporting to have damaged their devices. The study also revealed 86% of Britons did not insure their phones before their deaths by water. Have you ever damaged your mobile? What was the cause? Image courtesy of Flickr, Plemon Studios [Via Daily Mail ] More About: cellphones , Mobile For more Mobile coverage: Follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Mobile channel Download our free apps for Android , Mac , iPhone and iPad

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Half of Water-Damaged UK Cellphones Fall in Toilets [STUDY]

Express Mobile Hotspot from Sprint launched

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:30:35 +0000

In addition to the new mobile broadband plans launched today, Sprint announced the launch of its new Express Mobile Hotspot. Offering 3G/4G internet access on any WiFi-enabled device while on-the-go, the Express Mobile Hotspot can provide internet up to 5 devices at once. It features a WiFi range of up to 262 feet and has a removable Li-Ion 2,200mAh battery which is said to give up to 7 hours of data time. In addition to working wirelessly, the Express Mobile Hotspot can also be hooked up to a computer/laptop with a USB cable to stay juiced while sharing internet at the same time. It also features a microSD slot (up to 32GB) which you can use to store important documents, hands-free activation and Sprint DataLink capabilities. The Express Mobile Hotspot can be yours for $29.99 with a 2-year contract and a $50 mail-in rebate or $249.99 off contract. Head over to the Sprint website to find out more/buy one. [ Press Release ] Express Mobile Hotspot from Sprint launched , By Ubergizmo . Top Stories : Galaxy S2 Review ,

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Express Mobile Hotspot from Sprint launched

Sprint launches new 3G/4G mobile broadband plans

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:26:17 +0000

While many folks mourn the loss of the Sprint’s unlimited data plan for its non-smartphone devices, it looks like the carrier is trying to make things right with the launch of its new mobile broadband plans. While Sprint isn’t going to give you unlimited data anymore, it has tailored a bunch of plans to suit the needs of different folks. For $19.99 a month, users can get 1GB of data just for tablets, which should be good enough for casual users. $34.99 a month gets 3GB of data for tablets and dedicated mobile hotspot devices. $49.99 a month gets 6GB of data for tablets, dedicated mobile hotspot devices, USB modems/card modems, netbook and notebooks, and $79.99 gets you 12 GB for the same devices. The new plans will be available to all new and existing customers and are available now. Head over to Sprint’s website to find out more. [ Press Release ] Sprint launches new 3G/4G mobile broadband plans , By Ubergizmo . Top Stories : iPhone 4S Review ,

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Sprint launches new 3G/4G mobile broadband plans

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich source code now available

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:26:20 +0000

We still don’t have an official release date for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the first Ice Cream Sandwich phone, in the US but rumors about the operating system’s source code arriving this week have already started surfacing. Well, it looks like those rumors are true because it has arrived ahead of the rumored November 17 th release date. Juean-Baptiste Queru, a software engineer working on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) has just confirmed that the source code for Android 4.0.1 is now available . While this won’t mean much to most of the public (at least for now), it is of significance to manufacturers and the developer community who can start work on creating Ice Cream Sandwich updates for handsets already available on the market. Can anyone say CyanogenMod? Expect various ICS custom ROMs to start popping up left and right in the coming weeks and official updates from manufacturers in the coming months (though it would be a nice change to see manufacturers beat the community to the punch for once). Who’s excited now? Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich source code now available , By Ubergizmo . Top Stories : iPhone 4S Review ,

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Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich source code now available

11 Digital Tools for Keeping Tabs on Your Personal Finances

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:33:00 +0000

The Trendsetter Tech Series is supported by smart . Test drive the space saving, eco-friendly, totally unique, smart. Visit smartusa.com to find a new smart center near you. smart — unbig. uncar. Keeping on top of your finances requires near-constant work. Whether it’s getting more for your money or just paying routine bills on time, it’s difficult to understand where your money is going when you don’t have your eye on it. It can be even more of a challenge figuring it out when there are roommates, friends or family also splitting the monthly bills. Tired of swimming in a pile of paper notices and getting lost in your own bank account? These 11 digital tools are super-charged to tackle the depths of financial management. Covering everything from personal budgeting to portfolio management, these apps are easy, intuitive and put your accounts into easy-to-read charts and graphs. Do you have an app that you trust more than your accountant? Tell us in the comments below. 1. Mint A subset of Intuit , free personal finance tool Mint is a go-to for those who are ready to reign in their finances. Mint not only monitors any income deposits, but also tracks spending, bills and fees in easily organized and visually pleasing graphics. “Mint has the advantage of working across 18,000 banks, credit unions and brokerage and investment firms, so you can see all of your balances and a complete picture,” says Mint founder Aaron Patzer of his application, which is now available for the web, iPhone , iPad and Android . Click here to view this gallery. Series supported by smart The Trendsetter Tech Series is supported by smart . Test drive the space saving, eco-friendly, totally unique, smart. Visit smartusa.com to find a new smart center near you. smart — unbig. uncar. Image courtesy of iStockphoto , kizilkayaphotos More About: apps , features , finance , mashable , Mobile , paypal , Trendsetter Tech Series

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11 Digital Tools for Keeping Tabs on Your Personal Finances

The Death Of The Spec

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:14:37 +0000

Earlier today, my colleague Matt Burns wrote a post noting that most tablet makers may be largely failing because they’ve sold their soul to Android and are now just in the middle of a spec war, which no one can win. I’m gonna go one step further in that line of thinking: the spec is dead. There have been a few key stories from the past couple of weeks that highlight this new reality. Barnes & Noble unveiled the new Nook Tablet . Consumer Reports looked at the iPhone 4S . And the first reviews came in about the Kindle Fire. On paper, the Nook Tablet is the Android-based reading tablet to buy. It has twice the RAM of the Kindle Fire, twice the built-in storage space, a better battery, and it’s lighter to boot. Yes, it’s $50 more expensive, but come on, the RAM difference alone is worth well more than that. Clearly, this is the better value for your money. And yet, the Nook Tablet will not outsell the Kindle Fire. That’s the thing: “on paper” doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that the Kindle Fire comes with Amazon’s content ecosystem attached to it. Perhaps more importantly, it will be peddled like no other on the all-important Amazon.com homepage. The specs are secondary in this race at best. The reality is that they will be an afterthought. Or again, the Nook would win. Next up, Consumer Reports’ take on the iPhone 4S. Hey, this time, they actually like it! And thank god , because as everyone saw the last time around, their damning report really hurt iPhone 4 sales — to the tune of all-time record sales of the device, leading Apple to their most profitable year ever. More on that in a second. First, it’s important to note that while Consumer Reports liked the device, they didn’t like it as much as a few other Android devices. Why? Specs. Marco Arment ripped this apart last week already, but the thing reads like a bad joke. For example, they love the LG Thrill’s ability to capture stills and videos in 3D. This is one step short of knocking the iPhone 4S because it doesn’t have frickin’ laser beams mounted on the top of the device. And such comparisons show just how clueless Consumer Reports has become. Last year, they milked “Antennagate” for the pageviews, not realizing that it could actually undermine their own credibility if the device still sold well. “Sold well” ended up being a major understatement. So in effect, they themselves highlighted that no one cares about Consumer Reports anymore. And why not? Because they Consumer Reports largely cares about specs. And consumers do not anymore. The NPD Group just released their latest numbers . The number one selling smartphone last quarter was the iPhone 4. The over-a-year-old phone which Consumer Reports refused to endorse over a year ago, remember. Meanwhile, the number two phone for the quarter? The two-year-old iPhone 3GS. Does anyone really think that the LG Thrill is going to outsell the iPhone 4S this quarter? What about the Motorola Droid Bionic? Maybe the Samsung Galaxy S II? Consumer Reports now matters just as much as specs do. Which is to say, not at all. Finally, we have the Kindle Fire. This is likely to be the final nail in the coffin for the spec. By pretty much all accounts, this is a cheaply-built device. Spec-wise, it’s pretty ho-hum. But it’s a cheaply-built device that comes at a cheap price. That matters more — especially when paired with Amazon.com, as I previously mentioned. The Kindle Fire outselling the Nook Tablet, even though the latter wins the spec argument, will be one thing. But if sales compete with the gold standard of tablets, the iPad, that will really be something. So far, no other tablet device has come close to remotely competing with the iPad. The Kindle Fire should. They’re clearly different devices — the iPad is a much larger form factor and a price that is more than double the Kindle Fire — but I have no doubt that for many people, the Kindle Fire will be a good enough tablet that they’ll at least wait on an iPad 3 (or iPad 2 HD, or whatever it will be called). That’s a key thought: “good enough”. None of the initial reviews say that the Kindle Fire is better than the iPad — because it isn’t. It can’t match Apple’s product in either specs or polish. But it is $199 versus $499. That matters far more than any spec. You’re paying for something that’s perhaps half as good as the iPad, but it’s less than half of the cost. There’s at least perceived value there. And “good enough” also speaks to where we’re at in the broader computing world. I used to get excited for Sunday inserts in the local paper so I could see what new machines were available at Best Buy, Circuit City, or CompUSA. The only thing I cared about were the specs. Which Intel chip did it have? What was the clock speed? How much RAM? How big was the hard drive? How fast was the CD burner? How much cache? Those things mattered. Then three things happened. First, computers kept going more mainstream — the above listed specs look like gibberish to most people. Second, the web took over and most computers quickly became more than fast enough for the majority of users. Specs became a thing that PC gamers cared about. This contributed to the rebirth of the Mac, because it was never much of a gaming machine throughout the years — especially in the PowerPC years when it was getting smoked by Intel chips (which Apple, of course, eventually adopted). And third, buoyed by the first two things, new platforms arose. During the PC years, specs also mattered because there was one common dominant force in computing: Microsoft. Because Windows was everywhere, you could fairly reliably gauge the performance of one machine against another. But with the rise of the Mac and more importantly, smartphones and tablets, you can’t as easily stack machines up against one another performance-wise. My MacBook Air doesn’t have the specs of a brand new HP PC laptop — but it still feels faster. Maybe it’s OS X, or maybe it’s the solid state drive. Point is, consumers don’t and shouldn’t care. They care about which machine will boot faster and which will be easier to navigate. Time to web matters. And now connected ecosystems matter more than specs. This again helps Apple and Amazon. Does the machine seamlessly integrate with the iTunes ecosystem? Does it have access to the App Store? Can it access the Kindle Bookstore or Amazon’s streaming video service? We’re starting to see backlash against reviews of products that just do spec-by-spec rundown. Because really, who cares how the device sounds on paper? It’s how it feels that matters. Is the Kindle Fire smooth? Is the Nook Tablet fast? Is the iPad a joy to use? Drew Breunig spoke to these things last week in a post entitled “ Device Specs have Become Meaningless “. Dustin Curtis put this more succinctly in two tweets last night: Follow @dcurtis @dcurtis dustin curtis The section headings for a Kindle Fire review should not be "battery, internals, screen;" they should be "reading, surfing the web," etc. about 14 hours ago via Twitter for Mac Reply Retweet Favorite I agree. Why base reviews around specs when specs don’t matter? You could certainly argue that Apple is the company which has ushered in this post-spec era. They’ve flourished in recent years despite (and maybe because of) being cagey with most spec information on their newer devices. Does the iPhone 4S have 512 MB or RAM or 1 GB? Apple refuses to say. But who cares? It’s the fastest iPhone yet. (It’s 512 MB, for the record.) Apple is more traditional with the Mac when it comes to specs (undoubtedly due to legacy), but they still mostly bury that information. Whereas PC sites often trumpet the processor and other specs on the main landing page for their products ( HP laptops, for example ), Apple instead focuses on natural language descriptions: “The new, faster Macbook Air”. But the post-spec era works both ways. If the iPad specs don’t matter when going up against the Motorola Xoom, they also don’t matter when going up against the Kindle Fire. What matters is how the device performs, the ecosystem, and the price. In other words, the way you compete in computing now is to do so by focusing on things that human beings understand. On things that matter.

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The Death Of The Spec

Twitter Can Predict Who’s Winning the GOP Presidential Race [STUDY]

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:08:08 +0000

Political candidates do better in the polls when they gain more Twitter followers, new research reveals. National polls happen all the time but it’s possible to predict when certain candidates will climb in the rankings based the rate they are followed. Zach Green, CEO of Twitter election researcher 140elect, wrote in a blog post Friday that he anticipated this trend, but now has the stats to prove it. “A lot of people were surprised [Newt] Gingrich is now in second place, but we’ve seen that coming since Sep. 7,” Green told Mashable . “Twitter indicates he’ll continue to pick up.” Gingrich (visualized below) gained a slew of new followers when he announced his candidacy on May 11 and on Sept. 7 after an impressive GOP debate performance. Both events led to poll gains. The candidate’s Twitter momentum has steadily increased over the last two months, which Green predicts will lead to continued poll gains. There are similar trends for the other candidates. Rick Perry’s Aug. 13 candidacy announcement led to his greatest spike in followers. He then rose in polls for the following two weeks. Green notes that although Perry is now talked about a great deal on Twitter, he is often mocked and isn’t gaining new followers at the same rate. It is more important to be followed than to be discussed, especially if the discussion is negative. Michele Bachmann’s rate of new followers has been in decline since Aug. 15. She’s been falling in the polls ever since. Mitt Romney’s three largest Twitter spikes — after his June 2 announcement, the Sep. 22 debate and the Oct. 11 debate — were all followed by growth in the polls. However, his recent Twitter decline preceded his Nov. 11 fall in polls. Green expects to see current front-runner Herman Cain lose his lead following his sexual harassment allegations, which effected his likability and standing with women. Though he was on the rise following three of the GOP debates, Cain has lost his Twitter momentum. Green estimates Cain will drop to approximately 17% popularity in the polls. Statistics analyst and data visualizer Lori Williams with Tableau Software combined the 140elect Twitter data with information from HuffPost Pollster, resulting in the above visualization. What do you think of the findings? Are Twitter and polls a case of cause-and-effect or just coincidence? BONUS: 10 Unforgettable On-Air Political Bloopers Rick Perry: “Oops” 2012 presidential candidate Rick Perry drew a massive blank Wednesday night during CNBC’s “Your Money, Your Vote” GOP debate. On stage in Michigan, Perry attempted to rattle off three federal government agencies he would eliminate, but failed to remember number three: “Commerce, education and the … uh, um, what’s the third one there. Let’s see … ” The mental block lasted about 40 more seconds before Perry uttered, “Oops.” Click here to view this gallery. More About: campaign , Politics , primaries , study , Twitter

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Twitter Can Predict Who’s Winning the GOP Presidential Race [STUDY]