Technology

Verizon partnership tracks cellphone location data to estimate real-time road traffic

Mark Milian — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:59:27 -0700

Traffic on the Ventura Freeway. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

Airsage, the provider of vehicle traffic information to Google Maps and other clients, has secured the rights to tap into a vital tool for tracking congestion on roadways -- your cellphone.

The Atlanta-based company has struck a deal with Verizon Wireless to tap into the location data transmitted by its 80 million U.S. subscribers.

The cellphones are constantly relaying information about their whereabouts to Verizon, whether through smart phones with a GPS chip or by communicating with cell towers. Digesting this stream of data, the carrier can then get a fairly accurate reading on where you are and how fast you're moving.

"It's pretty refined," said John Johnson, a spokesman for Verizon, about pinpointing a phone's location.

That information gets immediately transferred to Airsage, which uses it to infer how packed the highways are. Airsage's clients can use that information in their applications.

Though Verizon's subscribers can't opt-out of providing information about their every location, the carrier says that the data it transmits to Airsage is anonymous and doesn't identify the location of a phone with a specific person.

The concept has been applied similarly by Dash, an Internet-enabled GPS device for cars. The difference is that Verizon can leverage the locations of the largest install base of mobile users in the country rather than Dash's crowd-sourcing of its limited number of devices on the market.

-- Mark Milian

As Twitter and Facebook grow, Google Reader copies features, adding clutter

Mark Milian — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 05:00:00 -0700

Google Reader's increasingly cluttered interface (larger version).

Google Reader is one of the best RSS aggregators out there. But with more blogs and newspapers broadcasting their content on Twitter and Facebook, RSS feeds are becoming less relevant.

Cue the new "follow" and "like" features, which were rolled out to Reader users Wednesday.

"Follow" might sound familiar to Twitterers. The term describes connecting with people and sharing content on the social network. Reader has adopted the idea, which it implemented similarly with "friends" before. But now you can search for users to follow.

Reader also added a Twitter-esque status input at the top. Twitter's box asks, "What are you doing?" Facebook asks, "What's on your mind?" And Reader wonders, "Have some thoughts to share?"

Reader's new "like" feature might seem familiar to Facebook users -- though, FriendFeed had it first. In Reader, you can click the "like" button at the bottom of any feed article to publicly announce your affinity for a particular story.

Google has been trying to follow along with the continued success of the big social networks for a while.

Adding the share feature, which lets you forward interesting content to friends on your Gmail and Google Chat lists, was ...

... akin to the ubiquitous "retweet" on Twitter (and e-mail forwarding, which preceded it). Reader's later addition of note sharing was essentially retweeting with commentary.

Then, Google threw commenting into the mix. Like blogs or Facebook, users could leave their two cents on articles visible to Reader users.

Now, with "like," the interface is getting a bit convoluted.

For example, let's say we have a news article that we like. Well, might as well click the "like" button, right?

OK, now we've told the Internet that we think it's cool, and we can see a list of strangers who also think it's cool.

Hmm, we should also share this with our friends to make sure they see it. Let's click "share."

No, wait.

Let's "share with a note." "This is cool," we write.

OK, cool. Now, let's leave a comment.

Wait, we don't have much to say besides, "This is cool." Let's not.

Maybe we'll tag this as "cool." Done.

Our cousin doesn't use Google Reader, but she'll think this is cool. I'll click the "email" button to send her a link to it.

In fact, we think this is so cool that we're going to click the star button so it will save so that we can come back to it later and just reflect on how cool it is.

In short, these new features aren't that cool. But feel free to do all those things to this blog post if you're seeing it in Google Reader. That would be cool.

-- Mark Milian

Twitter hack is an eye-opener for personal online security

Mark Milian — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:13:00 -0700

Karen Solomon using Twitter from her home kitchen in San Francisco. Credit: Associated Press

One immediate lesson from the leaked Twitter documents for journalists and bloggers, which we wrote about yesterday, is the ethical question of publishing stolen company files.

Further ethical issues came into question in a follow-up post today on TechCrunch in which the blogger claimed that Twitter gave them "the green light" to post the information.

Twitter Chief Executive Evan Williams quickly questioned the claim in a tweet, and Co-founder Biz Stone followed up with a blog post denying giving authorization.

Inside the eye of the ethical hurricane is something everyone can take away from this (or at least those who use computers with any regularity) -- cyber-security is important.

Whether you argue that cloud computing via Google Apps or one of the company's many consumer software is dangerous, having passwords is inevitable in order to use the Internet. If you use e-mail or log-on to WiFi or buy things online, you're going to need passwords. And your account is only as secure as your password.

"Biz Stone said it best in his blog" when he stressed the importance of strong passwords, wrote Google Spokesman Andrew Kovacs in an e-mail, defending cloud computing (what a shocker).

Another Google spokesman adds, "Among the many solutions we offer are tools for consumers that help rate password strength and tips for creating stronger passwords during the sign-up process."

Security experts jumped at the opportunity to stress the importance of smart, safe computing, saying users should ...

... never use words you can find in the dictionary as passwords. Users should also vary capitalization, use numbers and include those wonderful little symbols above the numbers on the keyboard.

Despite TechCrunch pointing the finger at Twitter for having a weak password (saying it used the easily guessable word "password" as its password), Williams implied that that wasn't the case.

"Relieved to learn hack wasn't due to blatantly dumb moves (e.g., weak passwords)," wrote Williams in a tweet. Soon after, he wrote a tweet, saying, "Don't use the same pw or pattern anywhere."

That, according to Stone's blog post, was the ultimate vulnerability that helped the hacker gain access. The administrator whose account information was compromised used the same log-in details on numerous websites. The hacker used a password recovery vulnerability in a service outside of Twitter and Google to acquire the account info, Stone wrote.

And while having strong passwords that differ on every site is the ideal way to avoid these headaches (outside of becoming a digital hermit), Twitter may not be left in the dust if this goes to court.

"If you know that I hide my spare key under my front mat, is it therefore OK to come in my house and steal my things?" said Jonathan Pink, a counsel for the Bryan Cave law firm. "I think it's still an act that most courts would not condone."

-- Mark Milian

Ethical implications of the leaked Twitter documents

Mark Milian — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:02:13 -0700

Twitter co-founders Biz Stone (left) and Evan Williams. Credit: Jeff Chiu / Associated Press.

Last night, TechCrunch Editor Michael Arrington posted an animated article describing 310 private documents from Twitter Inc. that had been leaked to the technology blog. Arrington plans to publish them over a period of time, he wrote.

Needless to say, the idea was polarizing.

As evidenced in comments on the post and in the flurry of tweets that followed, the existence of these secret documents, containing information about user and financial predictions, employees' personal details, TV show pitches and plans for a future office, tickled the curiosity of many.

In addition to feeding an insatiable appetite for gossip about San Francisco's hottest Web start-up, the ordeal also carries obvious ethical implications.

An overwhelming number of readers blasted Arrington for exposing classified papers from the Internet darling, calling the leaks "a violation of privacy," "a bad move," "disappointing" and illegal. The immediate reactions incited a quick response from Arrington, who defended the ethics of his decision.

How the Twitter documents were obtained also calls cyber security into question.

It speaks to the potential dangers of storing sensitive information on "the cloud," as some of the obtained messages were stored using Google Apps, according to a post by Twitter’s Biz Stone stressing the importance of having strong passwords. He and co-founder Evan Williams could not be reached for comment. A Google spokesman said the company doesn't comment on specific user issues.

-- Mark Milian

Appiphilia: Augmented reality iPhone apps for finding subways and Twitter neighbors

Mark Milian — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:30:42 -0700

When Apple announced the addition of a compass to the iPhone 3GS, shortsighted onlookers responded with a yawn. Yay, we can find magnetic north.

But iPhone app developers quickly saw an opportunity, and a new breed of "augmented reality" apps are about to be born.

Holding the phone in front of you, locations are plotted on a live view of the world in relation to where you're standing. The apps combine the phone's key features -- camera, GPS, compass and Internet connectivity -- to create a sort of heads-up display reminiscent of first-person shooter video games.

The first two poised to hit the App Store -- pending Apple's approval, of course -- are Nearest Tube, which plots subway stations in London, and TwittARound, which shows nearby Twitter users.

Nearest Tube overlays information about subway stations, including the stop's name, its distance from your current location and which lines it serves.

The first version of the app, which has already been submitted to Apple, will cost $1.79 per city and will ...

... only support two U.S. cities to start -- New York and San Francisco, said Chetan Damani, director of app developer Acrossair, on the phone from London. You can see a demo of Acrossair's New York version in the video above. Apps for London, Tokyo and Berlin have also been submitted.

Acrossair's website indicates that they're testing versions in Chicago and Washington as well. Despite Google Maps having finally added support for the Los Angeles transit system last week, Damani is unsure whether they'll release a version for L.A. any time soon.

"We need to see if the subway system is big enough," Damani wrote in an e-mail. We expect Acrossair will be fairly disappointed with our comparatively small public transportation system.

But TwittARound will work right off the bat for L.A. techies. Like the subway app, you hold the phone in front of you and then get a view of tweets based on their location data -- as long as the user has decided to share that information. TwittARound isn't available on the App Store yet either, but there's a demo on YouTube for those who can't wait to get a sense of what it's like to step into augmented reality.

IPhone 3GS users are about to get some new toys that will no doubt make users of iPhone ancestors pretty jealous.

-- Mark Milian

Tales from the people who answer KGB's text-message search queries

Mark Milian — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:38:34 -0700

Kid sends a text message to a friend. Credit: andronicusmax via Flickr

When you search for something on Google, the computers that process your questions aren't thinking about what might have motivated the inquiry. Nor are they sharing the bizarre ones with their friends. You punch in a few words and machines spit out a list of related Web pages in less than second.

But as workers for KGB, the people-powered mobile search service, field questions, they find plenty to laugh, worry and wince about.

For those who haven't seen the TV commercials, KGB isn't the Russian spy agency. It's a service that lets you ask questions by sending text messages from your cellphone and returns an answer researched by one of its volunteer laborers called agents (get it?).

Users are charged 99 cents per message, and agents earn 5 cents to 10 cents for every answer they serve up, depending on the amount of fact-finding involved.

People who already own Internet-enabled cellphones might wonder why they would spend a buck when they have Google at the ready. Surprisingly, half of KGB's users have smartphones or cellphones with QWERTY keyboards, according to KGB Chief Executive Bruce Stewart.

"People don't want thousands of links," Stewart said in a phone interview. "They just want the answer." Maybe there is something to Microsoft's "search overload" ad campaign for Bing after all.

But a better question might be: What would motivate these agents to answer our whimsical questions for less than minimum wage?

For some, it's a paid form of entertainment. Kurt Briesemeister, a 30-year-old agent from Carlsbad, Calif., calls himself "a fan of knowledge for the sake of knowledge." He used to do similar crowd-sourced work for Amazon's Mechanical Turk, which operates and pays recruits similarly. With KGB, he hasn't earned more than $3.50 an hour.

"A lot of people try to stump us," he said. "I love digging into the Internet and finding that information."

Briesemeister also appreciates the occasional oddball. "I had one question in particular that was...," he said, pausing to recall the exact phrasing of the question, "How many babies standing on each others' heads does it take to reach Mars?"

"They try to say, Ah-ha! I got him," Briesemeister said. "Well, actually, no, you don't -- because the average length of a baby is 21 inches. So, how many inches in a mile? How many miles to Mars? And do the simple math, and there you go -- 582 billion babies."

Briesemeister later got a similar question about hamsters to the moon. Both questions took less than two minutes to figure out, he said. Good thing because agents usually get less than 10 minutes per question to respond.

B.J. Ellis, a substitute teacher and director of a Philadelphia improv comedy show called the N-Crowd, also finds time for KGB on some nights. He averages about $2 per hour. "I do it because I enjoy learning random things," he said. He fires up the software "in my free time, when I'm watching TV," he said.

Ellis, too, is no stranger to fielding weird queries including, "Could Charles Manson adopt me?"

"Really? Someone spent 99 cents to find that out?" he wondered. "I said, 'Most agencies frown on convicted felons adopting.' "

Nathan Venard, a 21-year-old actor in Los Angeles, puts in about 20 hours per week, earning up to $6 an hour during evening shifts. In addition to the fun factor of learning random facts, he appreciates the flexible schedules and ability to work from home.

"Especially with L.A., the job market is so difficult," he muttered grimly.

Many are turning to services like KGB or ChaCha as an entertaining way to add a small income source. "It's just a few bucks -- pays for some gas," Ellis said.

Alongside questions seeking teenage relationship advice, the age-old "What is the meaning of life?" and "Is Tupac really dead?" Ellis notes, is one of the most common queries, "Are you a real person?"

KGB has received this one so often that they've automated the response, Ellis said. "Yes, we are." And that will be 99 cents, please.

-- Mark Milian

Be my guide: Reader-driven road trip from New York to Los Angeles

Mark Milian — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:08:23 -0700

To mark my transition from intern to full-time journalist with the L.A. Times, I started a cross-country drive on Monday, which I have been blogging for the L.A. Times Daily Travel and Deals Blog.

But this isn't your grandfather's road trip. I didn't even take a paper map.

Instead, I'm relying on an iPhone and a laptop, with tools such as Google Maps for directions to each city and crowd-sourced suggestions from readers, Twitter users, blog commentators and review site Yelp for places to stop.

Online social media have proved an invaluable tool for getting an array of travel tips from locals without actually being in that city. And because I'm a huge music fan, websites such as Upcoming are helping me to find rockin' concerts along the way.

The next stop on my two-week road trip from New York to Los Angeles is Detroit. If you have tips for music venues or other hot spots in Hitsville or any other city along the way (click "Read more" to see my itinerary), post comments on this blog post, send tweets to @mmilian or e-mail mark.milian@latimes.com.

To follow my road trip status live, visit twitter.com/mmilian. For daily recaps, visit Be My Guide on the Travel Blog.

-- Mark Milian

Mark Milian's Cross Country Itinerary:

New York (June 22)
Washington, D.C.
Cleveland
Detroit
Chicago
Nashville
Montgomery, Ala.
New Orleans
Houston
Austin, Texas
El Paso, Texas
Albuquerque
Las Vegas
Los Angeles (July 5)

-- Mark Milian

Digg brainstorming new communications tool for users

Alex Pham — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:26:45 -0700

Photo: A bird's-eye view of the crowds at the Digg Meetup a couple of weeks ago in New York. Credit: Mark Milian

Ever since Digg removed a popular feature that lets its users communicate with one another a few weeks ago, some of the site's members have complained that the company yanked the "social" out of the social news site.

For those who are not steeped in the ins and outs of Digg culture, here's some background. The site used to have a feature called "shouts," which members could use to let their friends know about a story or item that they especially liked. Sounds harmless enough. But it turns out that some skillful Diggers used shouts to game the system and promote their pet posts, many of which landed on the homepage.

The upshot: Digg removed the feature and is now back to the drawing board to come up with another tool that's not as susceptible to spamming. That turns out to be easier said than done. Digg has to tread a delicate line between keeping its core members happy and being a website that is useful to millions of broader readers who rely on Digg to unearth interesting news stories, not just niche posts that were interesting only to a handful of power users.

"What we want is to give our users the ability to communicate," said Digg Chief Executive Jay Adelson during an interview at a Diggnation event in New York a couple of weeks ago. "What we don't want is to create a system that's easy to abuse."

Adelson admits his San Francisco company hasn't yet found a solution. But he did share with us his broader thoughts on what it would look like. First, it would be ...

...a tool that would focus on actual conversations, rather than the mass dumping of links that polluted shouts, he said. Adelson said Digg is considering making the tool a "one-to-one" service, implying that it could be something like a chat function.

"It's not so much a sharing problem," Adelson said. "It's more of a communication problem, where I have one user who wants to talk to another user."

Second, the tool would create conversations in separate categories -- movies, sports, celebrities or science, for example. This dilutes each user's influence, so those who consistently submit popular video game news but are not so great at finding sports-related content would find their prominence rising in just the game category.

"There are users who are just much better at finding good content" in areas in which they have some expertise, Adelson said. "This new tool would create 'tastemakers' in various categories."

Adelson did not specify a time frame for when Digg would likely launch a new tool. In the meantime, avid Digg users have resorted to Twitter or Facebook to talk to each other, an irony that's not lost on Adelson and Co. as they attempt to dig themselves out of their current dilemma.

-- Mark Milian

AT&T, Apple prepping for iPhone 3G S launch

Mark Milian — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:01:00 -0700

'Twas the night before iPhone 3G S, and all through the town, not a creature was stirring...

Except for AT&T factory workers. And Apple Store salespeople. And enraptured technophiles with expiring wireless contracts (and still others who refuse to wait until their two years are up).

Yes, the newest iPhone launches today, when some stores will open at 8 a.m. to tend to the inevitable lines of unruly Apple enthusiasts.

An AT&T spokeswoman sent along a video, seen above, that the company put together, showing the packaged iPhones rolling off the assembling line at one of the telecom's distribution centers. For those itching to get your hands on the speedier, video-enabled smartphone, this should whet your appetite.

For those who abstain from biting into the Apple hype, you may freely wince in disgust.

-- Mark Milian

Appiphilia: Apple releases iPhone 3.0 software update

Mark Milian — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:47:59 -0700

The iPhone's cut-copy dialog . Credit: Robert S. Donovan via Flickr

The time every iPhone owner has been waiting for is here. No, not the launch of the iPhone 3G S -- that's Friday.

The third major software update, iPhone 3.0, is available for download through iTunes -- free for iPhone owners and $9.95 for iPod Touch users.

Of course, we've been testing betas of the new version for more than a month. Not to rub it in or anything. But that means we've had plenty of time to try it out in real-life scenarios. We'll tell you what shines and what gets forgotten.

Cut, copy and paste: It's pretty sad when a feature that's been in most smart phones for years (and just about every computer for decades) is the biggest news. But lo and behold, we're actually getting excited for copying text or photos and pasting them into other programs.

All jokes aside, the feature is well executed. Double click or hold your finger down on a word, and up pops a small window asking whether you want to cut or copy the text. You can drag ...

... the blue dots at either corner of the highlight box to grab a larger block of text. Navigate to where you want it pasted, and do the same finger trick to paste.

Finally! We found this to be the most useful addition overall.

Spotlight search: Located at the top of most apps, including Mail, iPod and Notes, is a search bar. There's also a universal search that scours most of the files on your phone. Like on the Mac, results are displayed in seconds.

Still, we found ourselves using this considerably less than expected. Maybe we're just used to going to the Phone application to dial a contact or flip through the home menus to find an app. Maybe we're just not fast enough with the iPhone's virtual keyboard to want to use it for every function.

But for the times when you're really not sure where something is on your phone -- say, that e-mail from your boss that you got a couple of weeks ago -- it's handy. And the ability to search e-mail that's stored on the server (rather than on your phone) is great -- just too bad Microsoft Exchange doesn't support it.

The iPhone's landscape keyboard. Credit: Apple

Landscape keyboard: The wider keyboard that gets activated in the Safari Web browser when you turn the phone on its side has been rolled out to a lot more apps. This is a crucial addition in text-input-heavy apps, like Mail and Notes.

Voice Memos: What's this? A new app! Sure, Apple could've just left it up to some enterprising third-party developer to slap together a voice recorder. But why let them have all the fun?

The new app displays a microphone graphic that shows a sound levels readout, which changes depending on how loud it is at your location.

You've got a record button and another button that lists previous recordings that can be edited within the app. Completed sound snippets get synchronized with iTunes and show up in a playlist called Voice Memos.

The fidelity of the audio recordings is surprisingly good. Very handy for reporting. Seriously, we've considered replacing our field recorder with this.

Sure, it's another feature that phones have had for many years. So if Apple is going to take this long to get it in there, we're glad they did it right.

Other additions: Apple has tweaked some things here and there that you're bound to notice. But they won't drastically change the way you use the phone.

For example, the iPod app has Shake to Shuffle -- a feature recently added to the iPod Nano. This is particularly useful when you're working in another app and want to switch your music to the next song. You can double tap the home button, shake the device, then return to what you were doing. Cha, cha, cha!

The Stocks app now has business news and a more detailed stock ticker. Automatic log-in for Wi-Fi is handy, and auto-fill for Safari, which remembers user names and passwords, is even nicer.

Some of the biggest changes, however, won't come into play for presumably a more few days, as developers release updates to their apps. IPhone 3.0 opens a bunch of new features for third parties to take advantage of.

Soon, ESPN will be able to use push notifications to display score updates or audio alerts even when the app is closed. Twitter apps could pop up a text overlay when you receive a new direct message on the service.

You'll also be able to purchase small additions, like new vehicles or levels in games, through the App Store. Developers can also tap into the Google Maps library of information to offer geographical information.

Those features AT&T won't let us have: Finally, we have multimedia messaging (MMS) and Internet tethering. Or rather, we don't have them.

These two features won't be available for American consumers for some time, but many of our international brethren can already take advantage of them. Don't call us bitter.

OK, yeah, we're bitter.

AT&T says MMS for iPhone is coming before the end of the summer. Before long, you'll be able to send and receive goofy snapshots, videos, audio snippets and location data to and from your friends.

As for tethering, which lets you hook up your phone's 3G Internet connection to your computer to browse the Web, AT&T is mulling over its options -- which will probably include charging a premium for it.

But we hear whispers that some folks have discovered that you can hook it up for free right now by downloading a small patch on your phone. Of course, that's not supported by either AT&T or Apple, so you'll have to decide whether it's worth the risk. And if you think it is, the hack probably won't last very long.

-- Mark Milian

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Apple's Snow Leopard operating system hits Windows 7 in the wallet

Mark Milian — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:00:42 -0700

Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Credit: Apple

SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple's upcoming Mac operating system, Snow Leopard, is an important release for the Cupertino company. Much of that has to do with Microsoft.

Software giant Microsoft is revving its engines in anticipation for its critical follow-up to Vista, called Windows 7, in October. But Apple stuck a branch through Microsoft's spokes at the Worldwide Developers Conference Monday with the announcement of a $29 upgrade price and a September release.

Microsoft, which doesn't have much of a hardware presence to recoup its costs compared with Apple, is unlikely to match that price.

As if that and all of the Windows Vista-bashing that Apple has done in its ad campaigns weren't enough, Bertrand Serlet, Apple senior vice president of OS X software development, took some direct jabs at Windows during his speech.

Serlet started by highlighting the low corporate adoption of Vista. Then, he pointed out how ...

... some of the biggest headaches for developers inherent in Windows will still be there in the upcoming version. Windows 7, Serlet argued, would be just another Vista.

"We come from another place," Serlet said. "We love Leopard."

So Apple went behind the scenes and focused much of its efforts on crafting a sturdier, faster version of its nearly 2-year-old operating system.

Snow Leopard adds some new features, such as an improved version of QuickTime and a feature that integrates the dock with Exposé to simplify switching between windows. It also integrates Microsoft Exchange across key applications, which is designed to sway business users away from Windows.

But there's not much in the way of new bright, flashy features.

Developers, however, get a ton of new kits and gizmos to play around with. And everything is supposed to be a lot more finely tuned. For example, when you install Snow Leopard on top of the current operating system, you actually save hard drive space -- about six gigabytes. Huh?

Retailing as a $29 upgrade for Leopard users, compared with Leopard's $129 price tag at launch in 2007, or $49 for a family pack that's good for five installs, it probably won't be a major revenue driver for Apple.

But the fact that Apple devoted a major chunk of its two-hour keynote to touting the features and technical capabilities of Snow Leopard is telling. True, this was Apple's developers conference, and it's in the company's best interest to get coders excited about the platform.

Still, Apple is doing everything in its power to make users want to upgrade -- and better yet, stay away from Windows.

-- Mark Milian

A closer look: Apple upgrades laptops and adds 13-inch MacBook Pro

Mark Milian — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:20:36 -0700

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro. Credit: Apple

San Francisco -- Apple's laptop computers got a lot more professional today.

The company showed off its updated line of MacBooks at the Worldwide Developers Conference that included a new 13-inch Pro model. Of course, the new Pro is really just the old MacBook with a few but important new features crammed in.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro has the same design as the current 13-inch MacBooks with their "unibody" casing made from a single sheet of aluminum, but with an SD memory card slot and a FireWire high-speed connection, bringing it in line with the upgraded 15-inch MacBook Pros that were also presented at Moscone Center today.

Perhaps the most enticing addition for portable users is the new lithium-polymer battery in the Pro models, which runs for seven hours -- two hours more than the previous MacBook Pro.

Add to that the ...

... high-speed processor and Nvidia graphics chip, and the white, plastic MacBook begins to look pretty stale.

Apple offers custom builds of all of its computers, and the MacBooks are no exception. If you so choose, these new models can cram in some really high-tech stuff, including a massive 500-gigabyte hard drive and a whopping 8 gigabytes of RAM -- all without increasing the thickness of the machine. It will, however, decrease the thickness of your wallet.

But for most users, the standard configurations should pack plenty of power. The 13-inch MacBook Pro costs $1,199 for the 2.26-gigahertz version, and the 15-inch laptop is $1,699 for the 2.53-gigahertz model. The super-powered 17-inch computer received an upgrade, too, and a $300 price drop -- to $2,499.

Apple also announced upgrades to its MacBook Air, the less popular, ultra-thin laptop that doesn't include a DVD drive. No, the company didn't add a disc reader, but it did drop the price to $1,499 for the 1.86-gigahertz version.

-- Mark Milian

AT&T responds to iPhone 3G S pricing and (lack of) features [UPDATED]

Mark Milian — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:44:46 -0700

San Francisco -- AT&T looked battered and bruised coming out of today's keynote at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

Apple announced a bunch of cool features that would be built in to the new iPhone 3G S when it's available June 19 -- multimedia messaging (MMS) for sending photos, videos and location data, Internet tethering to access the 3G connection from a computer, and faster 3G broadband Internet.

Problem was none of those would be supported by AT&T, the sole U.S. carrier for Apple's smartphone, at launch.

The reality incited boos and hisses from the audience during Apple's announcement, and there was no AT&T representative at the conference to defend the company. But AT&T spokesman Steven Smith assures us that all of those features are coming in due time.

"We absolutely will offer MMS on iPhone 3G S," Smith said. "We're expecting that to be available in the late summer."

But why, as many tech bloggers have pointed out, can't they immediately offer a service that's been available on nearly every other cellphone for the past couple of years?

Smith says there's a technical limitation. AT&T must upgrade ...

... its system to support MMS. But that didn't stop 29 other wireless carriers covering 76 countries from having it ready for launch.

But what about iPhone tethering, which allows you to connect the phone to your computer to access the Internet wirelessly via Bluetooth or using the USB cable that also charges the device? Twenty-two carriers in 42 countries will offer it at launch (again, none of which are AT&T).

Smith says his company definitely plans to offer a tethering service, but it has no dates or prices to announce.

"Typically there's a monthly charge associated with that,"Mark Siegel, another AT&T spokesman, said of Internet tethering. "We have not announced what that will be."

Fine. Faster 3G Internet? AT&T this year said it will support the high-speed 7.2 wireless technology that the iPhone 3G S is built to take advantage of.

The 7.2 standard allows a theoretical download speed of up to 7.2 megabits per second. It doesn't always perform at that speed, but wow! That's like a song download every six seconds or so. Surely, that should at least be close to done? Not so fast.

"AT&T plans to begin deploying ... 7.2 later this year," Smith said. "We anticipate completing that upgraded 3G network by 2011."

The iPhone is a cornerstone of AT&T's device lineup. The company has activated 5.9 million iPhone 3Gs in the year that it's been available. That figure doesn't include those who bought the original phone. Thanks to pricey data plans, iPhone users generate 1.6 times more revenue for AT&T than the typical customer.

If the lack of support from AT&T isn't enough to deter immediate adoption of the 3G S when the phone comes out June 19, maybe the price points for existing customers will.

New and qualifying (those not currently bound by a contract) customers get the competitive 3G S prices -- $199 for the 16-gigabyte model, or $299 for the 32-gigabyte version. But an AT&T subscriber who wants to upgrade their iPhone 3G but is still under contract would have to pay $399 and $499, respectively. Consumers who want the phones without a contract, tack on an additional $200, bringing the price to $599 for the 16-gigabyte version and $699 for the 32-gigabyte model.

"You know, we really feel we've priced this at something that provides our customers with great value," Smith said. "We're certainly hopeful that our customers find that to be the case."

Do you find that to be the case?

Corrected, 8:08 a.m.: A previous version said the 7.2 3G wireless Internet technology is capable of download speeds of up to 7.2 megabytes per second. In reality, it can reach 7.2 megabits per second. Later in the story, the original version said that customers who want the phone without the contract should add $100. Fuzzy math. In fact, it's $200 more than the early upgrade price.

-- Mark Milian and Dan Fost

A closer look: Apple iPhone 3G S is faster and has video recording

Mark Milian — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:23:57 -0700

Video editing can be done directly on the iPhone 3G S. Credit: Apple

San Francisco -- Don't let its name or looks deceive you. Though it looks nearly identical to its predecessor, there are some key features that really set the new iPhone 3G S apart.

Apple unveiled the newest version of its smart phone today at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, adding video recording and voice control to the device.

The "S" in its name represents "speed," said Philip Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, after revealing the much-anticipated product during his keynote at Moscone Center.

And if the stats are to be believed -- Apple didn't have the gadget available for us to test -- it's pretty darn fast.

Applications and image-heavy websites load up to twice as fast as the current iPhone 3G. And the 3G S is set to take advantage of faster broadband Internet as soon as wireless carriers roll it out across their networks.

Video recording and editing were crowd pleasers when Apple demonstrated the features at the event. The 3G S, with its three-megapixel camera and auto-focus settings, is a noticeable step up from the grainy photos produced by the current phone.

Voice Control is a new addition that makes the iPhone a lot more automobile-friendly. Once activated, say a command like "play next song" or ...

... "play more songs like this," and the iPod cooperates. You can also use the feature to dial a number or call someone from your address book, hands free.

Hikers will appreciate the built-in compass and refined Google Maps app.

Other key features include multimedia messaging for sending photos, videos and GPS locations (all of which won't be supported by AT&T until later this summer) and USB wired or Bluetooth wireless Internet tethering to access your 3G connection from your computer (also not supported by AT&T).

The iPhone 3G S will be in stores nationwide and in seven other countries June 19. A 16-gigabyte version retails for $199 and a 32-gigabyte version goes for $299.

Today the current model of the eight-gigabyte iPhone 3G drops to $99 (with a two-year contract, of course), putting Apple's smart phone at a very competitive price point. Look out, Palm Pre.

Current iPhone owners won't be completely left in the dust, however. That cheaper iPhone 3G along with every iPhone on the market is eligible for a free software download available June 17 that adds a slew of new features.

Those features include copy-and-paste functionality, push notifications, systemwide search and a new voice recorder app, among others.

Apple announced no upgrades to the iPod Touch today, but owners of the gadget will be able to pay $9.95 for the operating-system upgrade that adds many of those same features, including one that lets iPhone and iPod Touch users rent or purchase movies from iTunes directly from the devices rather than having to go to a computer.

-- Mark Milian

Apple unveils new iPhone 3G S, MacBook Pro and a $29 Snow Leopard OS at WWDC; Steve Jobs a no show

Alex Pham — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:57:59 -0700

Apple's iPhone 3G S has speech recognition, an internal compass and faster processing. Credit: Apple.

San Francisco -- The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco was packed with new product announcements today, but Steve Jobs and his mammoth stage presence were noticeably absent.

In standard Apple fashion, keynote speaker Philip Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, waited until the end to unveil the company's most anticipated product -- the updated iPhone 3G S, scheduled to hit stores June 19.

The new iPhone focuses on speed enhancements, and to make you consumers get it, the "S" in its name stands for "speed." It promises to load applications and graphics-intensive websites up to twice as fast as the current iPhone 3G. It will also support the new and faster 3G broadband Internet when wireless carriers roll out the technology over their networks.

The iPhone 3G S will also come with loads of new features -- some of which will be available to current iPhone and iPod Touch owners in a software update available for download June 17.

Features exclusive to the 3G S include a video camera and voice control, which enables you to dial numbers or pause music using speech recognition software. The iPhone 3G S will cost $199 for the 16-gigabyte and $299 for the 32-gigabyte version. The current 8-gigabyte iPhone 3G will drop to $99 starting today.

Apple also refreshed its line of laptop computers. The 15-inch MacBook Pro has a more vivid color display and seven hours of battery life -- up from five hours in the previous version.

The 13-inch MacBook got a promotion, too. It now carries the name MacBook Pro, like its bigger brother. In addition to battery and ...

... processor speed enhancements, the new laptops get a FireWire high-speed data port and an SD memory card slot.

The 13-inch MacBook Pros start at $1,119, the 15-inch computers at $1,699 and an updated MacBook Air, the thinnest laptop, at $1,499.

On the software front, Apple demonstrated its new operating system called Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Many of the features touted during the keynote were recycled from Apple's presentation at MacWorld in January.

The operating system's seamless support for Microsoft Exchange is targeted at business users, while the operating system's $29 price tag is aimed at pleasing all customers. That price should also provide some headaches for Microsoft, which is preparing to launch its newest operating system, Windows 7, in October -- a month after Snow Leopard.

Despite all of these announcements, the Steve Jobs pizazz was sadly missed. The Apple chief executive had planned to return from a six-month medical leave at the end of June, and some had predicted his return would come as early as today.

As Schiller hesitantly sauntered off-stage a few minutes after noon, when the keynote ended, some in the audience couldn't help but turn to folks nearby and whisper, "No Steve Jobs?"

-- Mark Milian

Live updates from Apple WWDC 2009 on Twitter

Mark Milian — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:01:00 -0700

The annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicks off today with a keynote address at 10 a.m., and we'll be there live-Twittering the event.

Apple executives, led by Philip Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, will speak to a crowd of news reporters and more than 1,000 independent developers.

Since this year's annual Macworld conference in January was set to be the company's last, WWDC now will be Apple's only major yearly venue for product announcements. We should expect a slew of new gadgets, computers and software to come out of today's speech.

The Technology Blog will be at Moscone Center in San Francisco to bring you up-to-the-second updates on announcements made during the keynote address.

We'll be Twittering the event, which you can follow at @LATimestech. Click the "read more" link below for a stream of those updates.

New tweets should appear automatically. If not, refresh the page.

follow @LATimestech on Twitter

-- Mark Milian

Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa sues Twitter for impostor account

Mark Milian — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:27:00 -0700

St. Louis Manager Tony La Russa after the Cardinals defeated the Detroit Tigers in the 2006 World Series. Credit: Jamie Squire / Getty Images

The sports world may have welcomed Twitter with open arms, as athletes, team owners and sports news giant ESPN post tweets with practically every game detail.

But Tony La Russa, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, isn't on Twitter, despite appearances. In fact, he's suing the social networking company for hosting an impostor account.

The lawsuit, filed last month in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco (where Twitter Inc. is based), seeks unspecified damages, the Associated Press reports:

La Russa's lawsuit said the page bearing his name was hurtful to the 64-year-old manager, who has led the Cardinals since 1996 and also managed the Chicago White Sox and Oakland A's during a 30-year managerial career.

The lawsuit includes a screenshot of tweets with the heading "Hey there! Tony La Russa is using Twitter," with a picture of the manager. Among other things, the lawsuit claims the page includes distasteful references to two Cardinals pitchers who have died in recent years.

The fake account has since been deactivated. Another user called NotTonyLaRussa, with a scant seven followers, still appears in a Twitter person search for the Cardinals manager, but the page cannot be accessed.

The bio listed on NotTonyLaRussa, as well as the one highlighted in the suit, reads, "Parodies are fun for everyone." The real La Russa is apparently excluded from that party.

-- Mark Milian [follow]

Celebrities pick their favorite iGoogle homepage gadgets

Mark Milian — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:28:37 -0700

Celebrities listed on iGoogle Showcase.

Google seems to have a case of celebrity envy. Renowned entertainment personalities like Ashton Kutcher and Ryan Seacrest can't seem to stop shouting about their love for Twitter.

But Google has gotten their stamps of approval, along with more than two dozen other stars, with iGoogle Showcase.

The page displays Google homepage gadgets handpicked by each celeb, along with, in some cases, a snippet of commentary about individual ones.

With iGoogle, users can customize the search dashboard with tons of little widgets that show weather, news or e-mail. Showcase allows users to add the celebrity pages as tabs or choose individual gadgets to install.

Showcase gives a quick glance into these celebrities' daily haunts -- assuming they do actually use Google's custom homepage -- without having to dig through hundreds of tweets.

For example, Al Gore picked the 'Notable Jon Stewart quotes' and 'Rolling Stone: Features' gadgets in addition to Current News, which is run by the company he owns. On 'Rolling Stone,' Gore wrote, "I've been a fan of this publication since my college days."

"Punk'd" star Ashton Kutcher and wife Demi Moore chose similar gadgets, including Twitter, Digg and YouTube. They're so hip with the new media.

We also learn that Rachel Ray is a huge movie buff, as she notes in her use of Flixter, and that Martha Stewart is an avid photographer, as she mentions in her choice of Picasa. Oh, and apparently musician Dave Matthews really wants to own a monkey.

Wow, who knew there's actually a gadget called Monkey Photos?

-- Mark Milian

Google's Suggest feature makes for some surprising fill-in-the-blanks

Mark Milian — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:51:30 -0700

Google's suggested search terms for "Charlies Darwin is."

Computers can be unintentionally funny. Take the unlikely vein of amusement buried within Google's search suggestion feature.

Launched in December 2004 as a beta product called Google Suggest, the doohickey attempts to finish your thought as you type a search query. Suggest wasn't integrated into Google.com or various Web browser toolbars until last year.

Since then, users have found plenty of Google-generated phraseology quirks to snicker about. The most amusing findings have percolated on social bookmarking websites Digg and Reddit.

The game works like this: type a partial search like "Barack Obama is" or "Bill O'Reilly is" into Google.

The search engine then uses a series of algorithms designed to guess the most likely ending to your query, a Google spokesman wrote in an e-mail. Which means the results are derived from actual user queries, not with Google's software.

Anyway, if those guesses are entertaining enough, snap a picture of the list and submit it to your local social website.

For those too lazy to punch the previous two terms into Google, the search engine irreverently suggests that Barack Obama could be an idiot, a Muslim, a socialist, the Antichrist, "hot" or your new bicycle -- whatever that means.

Google offers a similarly variegated list of characteristics for Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly, which swings from racist, to idiot and back to the more flattering "nice."

Type "Charles Darwin is" and you'll find that in addition to suggesting that the British scientist is, yet again, an idiot -- the words "wrong," and "satan" may be just as likely...

...to satisfy some online searchers.

Then there's the head-scratcher for "What would Jesus do?" the popular Christian phrase. One option: "What would Jesus do for a Klondike bar?"

The answer is not given.

Another Digg classic is "how long does ..." which shows that search engines may be more likely to be used to skirt a drug test than to learn how long it takes to boil an egg.

Even Fail Blog, a bulletin board for the world of the tragically funny, caught on to the meme with an example it picked from Silicon Alley Insider: "I am extremely ..."

Of course, hilarity has been expunged from other Google products before. Creed fans (yes, they do exist) weren't happy with Google's related search term for "the worst band in the world." And there's the array of entertaining moments captured on tape by Google's Street View van.

The Suggest meme, however, has apparently gotten so out of hand that one Reddit user took it upon himself to manufacture his own version to end the madness. His plea: "please stop." But why, sir, why?

-- Mark Milian

How excited is Google about the ad blocker for Chrome?

Mark Milian — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:45:59 -0700

With one quick download, Google's browser will soon enable users to do something that the company can't be happy about -- block online ads.

Google Chrome, the company's recent entry into the Web browser market, will begin accepting software extensions developed by third parties, similar to what Mozilla Firefox has offered for years.

The company, which derives the vast majority of its revenue from online advertising, recently made an API tool kit available to developers that would help them create powerful extensions to Chrome.

These third-party features aren't available yet to the public, but an extension called AdSweepwill be one of the first on tap. Similar to a popular extension for Firefox, AdSweep hides advertising on Web pages.

The extension has been available since March, but Google hasn't yet cemented a way to easily install such features.

Asked for comment, Google did not directly address the issue.

"We are designing Google Chrome's extensions to be flexible enough to support all different types of features, and we are encouraged by the development that we've seen in this area so far," a Google spokesperson wrote in an e-mail.

Surely AdSweep, specifically, isn't the source of that encouragement, right?

"Put a different way, we are encouraged by the work that developers are doing as they experiment with building tools on our extensions platform," the spokesperson wrote.

Google, being an advertising company at its core, probably won't benefit from ...

... this particular extension, which, if it ever became popular, could bleed money from Google's ad revenue. After all, the wide array of free tools the company puts out couldn't exist if not for the ad revenue that supports them.

Realistically though, this probably won't be the catalyst that propels ad blockers beyond the avid Web surfer niche.

"I don't think this really puts a dent into Google's revenue," wrote AdSweep developer Charles-Andre Landemaine in an e-mail. "There are so few users of Chrome, let alone AdSweep, so the loss of revenue for Google is peanuts, really."

Still, we certainly wouldn't expect Google to shoot any sort of "there's an extension for that" commercialspromoting AdSweep.

As more companies are opening up their software for independent developers to tinker with, they should expect to encounter plenty of third-party applications that they might not want. Baby Shaker, anyone?

-- Mark Milian

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Appiphilia: Apple releases iPhone 3.0 software update

Apple's Snow Leopard operating system hits Windows 7 in the wallet

A closer look: Apple upgrades laptops and adds 13-inch MacBook Pro

AT&T responds to iPhone 3G S pricing and (lack of) features [UPDATED]

A closer look: Apple iPhone 3G S is faster and has video recording

Apple unveils new iPhone 3G S, MacBook Pro and a $29 Snow Leopard OS at WWDC; Steve Jobs a no show

Live updates from Apple WWDC 2009 on Twitter

Apple WWDC 2009 live updates

Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa sues Twitter for impostor account

Celebrities pick their favorite iGoogle homepage gadgets

Google's Suggest feature makes for some surprising fill-in-the-blanks

How excited is Google about the ad blocker for Chrome?