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I’ll be at
CTIA next week for Bach’s keynote address along with several colleagues, as we check out the latest from Microsoft’s smartphone group. At the moment, Windows Mobile phones are quite popular with the CNET News.com crowd, but there’s not a single company in this industry that isn’t re-examining its future road map after watching the debut of the iPhone.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

Microsoft is getting ready to take the wraps off the latest version of Windows Mobile, according to a report out Tuesday.

The sixth version came with some incremental improvements to Windows Mobile 5.0, according to CNET’s review of WinMo 6. But next year, Microsoft is expected to take a nod from Apple’s OS X and release a touch-screen-oriented user interface as part of Windows Mobile 7.

Microsoft could be getting ready to release an updated version of Windows Mobile 6, shown here.

Windows Mobile 6.1 will be the first major update to ship since version 6.0 made its debut last year. Screenshots that leaked out earlier this year hinted that 6.1 would use a sleeker interface, cutting down on some of the clutter in the 6.0 version.

Pocket Lint is claiming that Microsoft will release Windows Mobile 6.1 next Tuesday, which happens to be the day that Microsoft’s Robbie Bach, head of the Windows Mobile team, is planning to give a keynote address at the CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas. Purely a coincidence, I’m sure, although it will be April Fool’s Day.

A lot of programs you don’t need to start with Windows do anyway, or try to. And many that you try to prevent from auto-starting just re-enable themselves. Yesterday I described how to remove recalcitrant apps from Windows XP’s auto-start list via the System Configuration utility, or Msconfig. Vista’s new Software Explorer makes it easier to get rid of the unnecessary auto-starters on your PC.

In addition to startup programs, Software Explorer lists the processes currently running on your PC, the programs connected to the network, and Winsock Service Providers, which handle TCP/IP and other network protocols. You can end a process listed under Currently Running Programs by selecting the entry and clicking End Process. However, choosing the Task Manager button merely opens that utility; you have to navigate manually to the process’s entry in Task Manager to see more information about it there.

Vista's Software Explorer provides information about the auto-start programs on your PC.

(As I mentioned yesterday, the $30 WinPatrol, the free CCleaner, and many other Windows utilities can be used to prevent applications from starting with Windows. Here I’m focusing on the tools built into Windows.)

To open Software Explorer, press the Windows key, type defender, and press Enter, or click Start > All Programs > Windows Defender. Select Tools > Software Explorer, and choose Startup Programs on the drop-down menu (if it isn’t already selected). Scroll through the list of programs in the left pane, and select one to see information about it, such as the date it was installed, whether it is part of Vista, and its location in the Registry.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

You can either disable or remove the program from Vista’s auto-start lineup. If an item is grayed out, click “Show for all users” at the bottom of the screen. When you disable a program from auto-starting here, you don’t get nagged about any settings changes the way Msconfig bugs you with pop-ups about diagnostic and selective startups whenever you reset something.

Tomorrow: smoothing the transition to OpenOffice.org.

SAN FRANCISCO– “Social is the new black,” Joe Kraus, Google’s director of product management, said at a talk on the company’s social-computing efforts at the Supernova conference here.

Kraus’ view, which can be fairly said to represent Google’s, is that these are the three big trends in the social Web:

Google's Joe Kraus talks about the future of the social Web.

(Credit:
Rafe Needleman/CNET Networks)

Discovery is becoming social
This was the most telling tidbit from Kraus’ talk. He noted that searching on Google is good, but having your friends help you find what you’re looking for is better. He gave an example of how social discovery can work–putting a status message in the IM field in Gmail and waiting for people to chime in to help you. But that is not representative of the state of the art in social discovery.

Takeaway: Look for Google to finally launch an initiative in social search. Or maybe acquire a company like Delver.

How we share is changing
Kraus says that people under-share because they don’t want to appear self-important. Sending an e-mail to friends with new baby pictures, he says, requires “high social activation energy in the part of the sender,” and thus slows down sharing. But guess what, he says: Your friends really do want to know what you’re up to. They might not like being interrupted, but they do care.

You can see how sharing is changing on Facebook and FriendFeed, Kraus says. These sites let your friends discover what you’re doing on their terms, and encourage more sharing, since you don’t have to get in your friends’ faces every time you update.

If you’re reading tea leaves here, Kraus’ mention of FriendFeed over Twitter was perhaps telling.

Social sites? No, social Web
Kraus notes that the idea of a site built around user content (like Epinions) is old-school. Today, users expect all sites to be social. They expect that if you’re on a commerce site that you know your friends are also on, you can see what your friends bought there and if they liked it. Social is a feature, he says, not a destination.

This last trend, in particular, backs up what Google is doing now with Friend Connect, a new architecture that enables Web publishers to put modules on their sites that allow cross-site sharing.

Kraus also pointed to three recent standards as the key helpers to the creation of the social Web: OpenID for identity, OAuth for API authorization, and Open Social for building cross-site apps.

Previous coverage:
Google Friend Connect conference call live blog
Google brings Friend Connect to the masses
Yahoo, Google, MySpace form nonprofit OpenSocial Foundation

Here is Kraus’ talk:

I was surprised this has become public, but I suppose I should weigh in now that reports have filtered onto the blogosphere: It’s true. Google is in talks to buy my
car.

I was reluctant to discuss this for obvious reasons. These talks could break down at any time and there is no clear indication when they’ll be concluded and the final price could change dramatically before negotiations have completed.

Nonetheless, with the equally odd acquisition rumor floating Wednesday that Google could acquire the travel site Expedia (now watch them actually do this and make me look like a yutz) and the rumor a few weeks back that Google was looking to acquire my parent company CNET Networks, I thought it was time I owned up to my own talks with the search king.

Sure, Google can buy a new Subaru. But my used Subaru is cheaper.

(Credit:
Subaru)

My discussions with Google to this point lead me to conclude that they are, in fact, kicking the tires on my 2003 Subaru Impreza Outback Sport. Google and its executives, who have invested in hybrid vehicles, lovely shuttle buses for employees, and a cool jet, recently discovered they also need four-wheel-drive vehicles that get decent gas mileage and can fit through a typically small garage door in San Francisco, where my vehicle has been housed since its acquisition from a Subaru dealership in Redwood City, Calif.

At the risk of impacting my talks with Google and drawing the ire of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, I’d like to point out what’s great about my Subaru: In addition to that decent gas mileage and ability to fit through a narrow garage door, it’s excellent in the snow and comes with a ski rack that can be modified to carry bicycles. It has a handy outside thermometer and is a perfect car for the typical Google employee who lives in the city but likes to do outdoorsy stuff on the weekends.

Google is hesitating for several issues: An unfortunate encounter with an automated car wash in 2004 left scratches on the front hood and my 4-year-old daughter’s penchant for grinding the remains of peanut butter-filled pretzels into the back seat upholstery has left little, dry sticky marks that won’t go away.

But sales price appears to be the biggest sticking point. The Blue Book value on my car is roughly $11,000 and Google is holding firm. But based on recent tech deals, such as Microsoft’s investment in Facebook, I believe a fair asking price is $3.42 million. Larry Page, with whom I’m negotiating directly, has so far balked at this price, but I think when he sees that the oil-changing and tire-rotation record on this vehicle is outstanding, he’ll at least meet halfway.

Stay tuned. I’ll have more on these talks as they unfold. And yes, I’m kidding. But I wish we were kidding about the Expedia rumor. By the way, Expedia shares were up 4.32 percent to close at $25.13 per share on Wednesday’s news.

commentary

I had lunch with Gavin Clarke (The Register) and Dave Rosenberg (MuleSource) today at the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC). We ate in the hotel restaurant, rather than getting free food at the conference, because I needed a break. I was willing to pay for solitude. I needed to go “offline” for a bit.

Throughout lunch Dave was checking email on his Blackberry, and took a few calls (from his wife, so no foul called on that). It was probably the only time all day that I was disconnected. (I’m typing this from the back of a taxi.)

Gavin and I reminisced about our days in Canterbury, England, where we both did some of our studies. I used to walk to class - 45 minutes through “downtown” Canterbury - and remember having thoughts. I haven’t had a thought for years (as regular readers of this blog will know). I don’t have time. I’m too busy emailing, blogging, checking Arsenal scores, or doing something online.

Kim Polese asked my opinion on software distribution strategy the other night at dinner. Opinion? That would require thought. Instead of answering I sought an exit so that I could fritter away hours in front of the
Mac overlord in preparation for an early start to OSBC.

Why has technology become so all-consuming? Or is it simply that work is all-consuming in an entirely different way from “the bad old days?” A farmer in the 18th Century likely spent most of his time farming. As Nick Carr writes in The Big Switch, homemakers in the same time period had little time for anything else. Ditto for those idyllic hunter gatherer types.

Maybe they hated how “connected” they were, too. Maybe they wanted less time prodding the oxen to pull the plow and more time to just chat.

But at least they could think. The web and the technology world that gives it birth is so noisy, so chatty, that I find it hard to be thoughtful except in bursts.

Am I alone? Or do you suffer the same affliction? Is there a solution beyond the advice to “Just unplug!” which I’ve tried unsuccessfully to follow?

One idea that just hit me (when I looked away from the screen long enough to have a thought): My next team call will require all laptops closed so that we actually communicate. It’s a start. Now if I can just hit “Publish” and focus on beautiful Los Angeles traffic.

Several lawmakers and professional sports organizations are urging the Federal Communications Commission to delay a vote on opening spectrum known as “white spaces” for unlicensed use.

On Friday, the Sports Technology Alliance, a trade group that represents eight major sports leagues, including the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and NASCAR, filed a petition with the FCC asking the agency to open up a comment period on a proposal that would open white-space spectrum for unlicensed use.

Several members of Congress, including eight who signed a single letter as well as House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.), have also sent letters to the FCC asking the agency to delay its planned November 4 vote on a white-space proposal.

The congressional leaders and sports leagues join the National Association of Broadcasters in asking for a 60-day comment period on the proposal.

“White spaces” are slivers of unused spectrum that sit between licensed broadcast channels in the 150MHz to 700MHz spectrum bands. The FCC tested several proof-of-concept devices this summer to see if companies can develop products that could use this spectrum without interfering with licensed spectrum services in these bands.

In a report released last week, the commission’s Office of Engineering Technology concluded that for the most part devices with geolocation and sensing technologies could be used to avoid interference with broadcast TV channels. But tests regarding interference with wireless microphones, which also operate without an FCC license in that spectrum band, produced mixed results.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who supports the use of “white spaces,” has already begun circulating a proposal for rules for white-space use that the agency will vote on at their open meeting on November 4.

Technology companies, such as Google and Microsoft, support the use of “white spaces,” because they believe the spectrum can be used to help deliver new wireless broadband services. Earlier this week, Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel for Google, wrote a blog urging people to write to the FCC to make sure the vote occurs on November 4. Whitt called the current petitions to the FCC merely stall tactics used to “derail the technology before the rules of the road are even written.”

“The enormous promise of white spaces is simply too great to get bogged down now in politics,” he said. “We’re less than two weeks away from a vote that could transform the way we connect to the Internet. The time for study and talk is over.”

Tech industry: Critics have had plenty of time
As a group, the technology industry has also filed comments with the FCC. The White Spaces Coalition, which represents these companies, said in a petition filed this week with the FCC that white-space critics have had more than enough opportunity to comment on this issue.

“After more than four years, multiple notice and comment periods, multiple rounds of lab and field testing, and over 30,000 filings by the public, broadcasters now accuse the commission of a rush to judgment on the white spaces,” the coalition said. The group went on to say that these critics have also already filed more than 16 oral and written presentations with regard to the engineering report to the FCC.

Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates also made a plea to the FCC this week to help move the process along. According to FCC filings, Gates talked to FCC commissioners and urged them to wrap up the issue by early November “to allow companies to begin the process of bringing the benefits of white spaces to consumers.”

Not all lawmakers are opposed to voting on the white-space issue. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Chairman Martin urging the Commission to move forward and establish guidelines for the initial use of white-space technology as scheduled.

For its part, the FCC has said that it is considering all the petitions. But so far the agency has kept mum about whether it will delay the vote. Considering Chairman Martin’s strong support for the vote, it seems unlikely the agency would delay its vote. But given the mounting pressure, it’s difficult to say what it will do. So stay tuned.

Getting legal clearance for samples and covers can be a real problem. For samples, if the copyright owner of the sampled song discovers you’ve used it without permission, they can sue to receive a portion of the proceeds–even if the sample’s unrecognizable. Even getting permission doesn’t always save you, as the Beastie Boys discovered. An article in a recent issue of SSA explores the issue in detail and concurs with Beck’s assessement in 2005 that the legal issues with sampling will basically kill the practice in mainstream commercial music.

Who you gonna sue?

Covers generally require permission from the publisher, and some songs are never allowed to be covered–apparently, Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” is one of them, although that hasn’t stopped plenty of bar bands from trying.

But I was under the impression that parody is free game. There’s legal precedent in a case called Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, in which rappers 2 Live Crew were sued by the publishers of “Oh Pretty Woman” for their parody cover version. The case went to the Supreme Court, and 2 Live Crew won. But even if they won, the risk of lawsuits (and plain old bad blood) is big enough that parodists are wise to ask permission–as Weird Al Yankovic does for every song he covers.

But the weirdest case I’ve ever heard is the story of Animal Collective, which interpolated a few lines from Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You” in their song “Purple Bottle.” According to somebody who worked on the album, Stevie Wonder’s representatives would have given clearance if Animal Collective had sung the song more or less like the original. But because they changed the lyrics–”I just called to say I like you/I just called to wonder if you care”–and melody slightly, they thought Animal Collective were making fun of the song, and denied permission to release it. The band might have been able to go ahead anyway–it seems like it would be covered under parody law–but the legal fees aren’t worth it for a band that sells tens of thousands rather than millions of records. So they re-recorded the song without the offending part.

Fortunately, some enterprising souls took it upon themselves to release 500 copies of the original verison on “white label” vinyl. As Animal Collective member Geologist explains, white labels are a common way that techno and hip-hop artists release music with uncleared samples–because there’s no information about the artists or manufacturers on the label, there’s nobody to sue. Plus, the releases are usually in such small volume that it wouldn’t be worth the rights-owner’s time to sue anyway.

It doesn’t sound like parody to me, but rather a kind of sweet-hearted reinterpretation. If you want to hear for yourself, a streaming version is available here (at least today…it may be gone tomorrow). The borrowed lyrics start around 2:30.

A journalist's best friend? Maybe, one day.

(Credit:
Twitter)

After the derision that greeted The New York Times’ blogging-will-kill-you story on Sunday, I’m probably not going to do much for the reputation of the mainstream media with hard-core bloggers. So it goes.

Out of curiosity, I drew up a list of 55 technology journalists to find out how many use Twitter, arguably one of the most important social-media technologies on the scene. I included names of some online reporters–including colleagues from CNET as well as TechCrunch–but in the main, the list is comprised of people employed by A-list newspapers and periodicals.

I don’t pretend to have come up with a statistically representative list. Call it my weekend science experiment. What’s more, some people may have crossed me up by hiding behind pseudonyms. Truth be told, I only changed my “coopeydoop” handle to “Charles Cooper” on Saturday after realizing it made searching for me on Twitter that much harder. So, apologies in advance if I inadvertently lumped anyone in with the wrong list.

Out of the 55 names I randomly came up with, 15 were found on Twitter while the remainder were missing in action. When I pinged one of the reporters asking why–sorry, names of the innocent are being withheld–here’s what he answered:

“I don’t have a Twitter account, because I think it’s silly,” the answer came back. “Twitter is lame.”

OK, but my guess is that by year’s end, most of the folks on the holdout list will get with the program. Not because it’s necessarily an elegant system–I’m keeping my pet list of Most Needed Improvements on the service if any of the Twitter folks is interested. Rather, it’s a question of self-interest. News often breaks on Twitter before it hits blogs. And companies are paying attention to what comes over the transom. For instance, Mike Arrington’s Comcast novella over the weekend did not go unnoticed by the company’s monitors.

“Within 20 minutes of my first Twitter message I got a call from a Comcast executive in Philadelphia who wanted to know how he could help. He said he monitors Twitter and blogs to get an understanding of what people are saying about Comcast, and so he saw the discussion break out around my messages.”

You’re going to see more of this in the weeks and months ahead. More than anything else, self-interest will decide the question for the Fourth Estate. As TechMeme’s Gabe Rivera twittered a few days ago, resistance is futile.

The Twitterers
Michael Arrington, Techcrunch; Charles Cooper, CNET; Caroline McCarthy: CNET; Kara Swisher, The Wall Street Journal; Tom Foremski, SiliconValley Watcher; Ina Fried, CNET; Saul Hansell, The New York Times; John Markoff, The New York Times;
Om Malik, GigaOm; Duncan Riley, Techcrunch; Dan Farber, CNET; Jim Kerstetter, CNET; Sara Lacy, BusinessWeek; Elinor Mills, CNET;Maggie Reardon, CNET; Stephen Shankland, CNET; and Dan Terdiman, CNET.

The Holdouts

George Anders, the Journal; Mark Boslet, San Jose Mercury News;
Anne Broache, CNET Networks; Peter Burrows, BusinessWeek; Ben Charny, Dow Jones; Don Clark, the Journal; Elizabeth Corcoran, Forbes; Don Clark, the Journal; Cliff Edwards, BusinessWeek; Benny Evangelista, San Francisco Chronicle; Mary Jo Foley, ZDNet; Deborah Gage, San Francisco Chronicle; Jim Goldman, CNBC;
Dan Goodin, The Register; Rob Guth, the Journal; Quentin Hardy, Forbes; Miguel Helft, The New York Times; Mark Hendrickson, TechCruch; Rob Hof, BusinessWeek; Michael Kanellos, CNET; Rich Karlgaard, Forbes; Verne Kopytoff, San Francisco Chronicle; Matthew Karnitschnig, the Journal; Tom Krazit, CNET; Brian Krebs, The Washington Post; Martin Lamonica, CNET; Adam Lashinsky, Fortune; Declan McCullagh, CNET; Stefanie Olsen, CNET; Therese Poletti, Marketwatch; Benjamin Pimentel, Marketwatch; Mike Ricciuti, CNET; Eric Savitz, Barrons; Erick Shonfeld, TechCrunch; Jon Swartz, USA Today; Dean Takahashi, VentureBeat; Pui-Wing Tam, the Journal; Wendy Tanaka, Forbes; Ashlee Vance, The Register; and Troy Wolverton, San Jose Mercury News.

*******

Oops. The original post lumped Tom Foremski and Saul Hansell with the wrong group (though Saul writes that he doesn’t really use the account much.) Also, Benjamin Pimentel is now with Marketwatch. Sorry guys.

commentary

Open source has become so commonplace, about the only time that one sees press releases around it is when a company releases all or a significant chunk of its software under an open-source license. The other time is when a company new to open source releases code, and wants to tell the world that slowly but surely it is getting a clue.

All of which makes HP’s announcement that it is contributing its Tru64 Advanced File System (AdvFS) to the Linux community a bit puzzling. It’s a significant contribution, yes, but it’s not as if HP hasn’t been contributing actively to the Linux community for years. Why the press release?

It’s not the sort of announcement that IBM would make. If you read through IBM’s open source-related press releases of the past few years, you won’t find this sort of announcement, despite IBM’s heavy involvement in Linux and other communities. So why did HP feel compelled to announced the AdvFS contribution?

It’s a bit gauche, really. Everyone already knows that HP is a significant contributor to Linux. Why flaunt it?

Google is investing $10 million in “enhanced” geothermal systems–essentially technology for tapping underground heat–which it says is one of most promising forms of renewable energy.

Through its philanthropic arm Google.org, the Internet giant will invest in two geothermal technology start-up companies and give a university grant to study the potential of geothermal resources.

Heat underfoot: a Google Earth representation of geothermal resources. Click the image for a larger view.

(Credit:
Google Earth)

The move is part of Google.org’s RE<C (shorthand for Renewable Energy Less than Coal), an initiative with the goal of producing one gigawatt of electricity–larger than a typical coal-fired power plant–through renewable sources.

Google has invested in solar thermal companies eSolar and BrightSource Energy as well as wind company Makini Power. It has also installed a large 1.6-megawatt solar array, established a plug-in hybrid station at its headquarters, and spearheaded energy-efficient computing programs like Climate Savers.

The latest investments are meant to spur development of geothermal, which a Massachusetts of Institute of Technology study last year found was underutilized. Like fossil fuel power plants, geothermal plants can supply electricity during peak times, while wind and solar have limitations in this regard.

Mixing water and hot rocks

The two companies Google is investing in–AltaRock Energy and Potter Drilling–focus specifically on so-called enhanced geothermal technology.

Typically, geothermal plants, which are in the Western U.S., tap into existing wells of hot water or steam thousands of feet underground. The retrieved hot water or steam turns a steam turbine to make electricity.

Enhanced geothermal technology pumps water underground to crack hot rocks. The heated water or steam is captured to turn a turbine and then pumped back down underground.

The U.S. Department of Energy says that these advanced techniques can dramatically increase geothermal potential–by 40 times.

“EGS (enhanced geothermal systems) could be the ‘killer app’ of the energy world. It has the potential to deliver vast quantities of power 24/7 and be captured nearly anywhere on the planet. And it would be a perfect complement to intermittent sources like solar and wind,” Dan Reicher, director of climate and energy initiatives for Google.org, said in a statement.

Google is putting $6.25 million into AltaRock Energy, part of a larger $26.5 million second round of investment. First round investors included high-profile
green-tech venture capital firms Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

AltaRock Energy is looking to develop a cost-effective method for pumping water underground and recuperating it. It plans to launch a pilot project and is targeting utilities in Western U.S. states that have renewable energy mandates.

Google.org will also invest $4 million in two separate “tranches” into Potter Drilling, which is making drilling products designed for hard-rock environments like granite. The technology can also be used for carbon capture and storage and nuclear waste storage.

Meanwhile, Southern Methodist University’s Geothermal Lab will get a $489,521 grant to study the size and distribution of geothermal energy resources in North America.

While geothermal power plants are now in the Western U.S., the MIT study found that large-scale geothermal power production can be done in some parts of the Eastern U.S.

In an FAQ, Google.org said that development of enhanced geothermal systems means that renewable energy “could conceivably be deployed almost anywhere, and is essentially limitless in supply.”

Reicher said enhanced geothermal system technology “hasn’t received the attention it merits.” Google.org is pressing for policies and commercial investment to better encourage EGS development.

Google is also said to have been in discussions with Israeli geothermal company Ormat Technologies.

For a discussion about Google.org’s geothermal investment and the growing interest in clean tech, see the Daily Debrief video.