Digital Roisters

It’s nearly 40 years old but one leading research company says the days of the computer mouse are numbered.

The world’s first computer mouse didn’t make any money for its inventor

A Gartner analyst predicts the demise of the computer mouse in the next three to five years.

Taking over will be so called gestural computer mechanisms like touch screens and facial recognition devices.

“The mouse works fine in the desktop environment but for home entertainment or working on a notebook it’s over,” declared analyst Steve Prentice.

He told BBC News that his prediction is driven by the efforts of consumer electronics firm which are making products with new interactive interfaces inspired by the world of gaming .

“You’ve got Panasonic showing forward facing video in the home entertainment environment. Instead of using a conventional remote control you hold up your hand and it recognises you have done that,” he said.

Guitar Hero has been praised for its innovative interfaces

“It also recognises your face and that you are you and it will display on your TV screen your menu. You can move your hand to move around and select what you want,” he added.

“Sony and Canon and other video and photographic manufacturers are using face recognition that recognises your face in real time,” he said. “And it recognises even when you smile.”

“You even have emotive systems where you can wear a headset and control a computer by simply thinking and that’s a device set to hit the market in September.”

“This” Mr Prentice said, “is all about using computer power to do things smarter.”

Greatly exaggerated

Naturally enough those in the business of making mice are not wholly in agreement that the end is nigh.

“The death of the mouse is greatly exaggerated,” said Rory Dooley senior vice president and general manager of Logitech’s control devices unit.

Logitech is the world’s biggest manufacturer of mice and keyboards and has sold more than 500 million mice over the last 20 years.

Microsoft has said touch screens will be all pervasive

“This just proves how important a device the mouse is,” said Mr Dooley.

But he also agreed that the number of ways people can interact with a computers were rising and that his own company was manufacturing many of them.

“People have been talking about convergence for years,” he said. “Today’s TV works as a computer and today’s computer works as a TV.

“The devices we use have been modified for our changing lifestyles but it doesn’t negate the value of the mouse,” Mr Dooley explained.

Popularity

The mouse was invented by Dr Douglas Engelbart while working for the Stanford Research Institute. He never received any royalties for the invention partly because his patent ran out in 1987 before the PC revolution made the mouse indispensible.

With a 40 year anniversary planned for later in the year, Mr Dooley said Gartner’s prediction for the mouse was too gloomy given that the developing world has still to get online.

“The mouse will be even more popular than it is today as a result,” he suggested.

The Wii has changed ideas about how we interact with computers

“Bringing technology, education and information to these parts of the world will be done by accessing web browsers and doing that in the ways that we are familiar with today and that is using a mouse.

“There are around one billion people online but the world’s population is over five billion,” he said.

Gesturing

So just how ready are people to wave their hands in the air or make faces at devices with embedded video readers?

Gartner’s Mr Prentice says millions are already doing it thanks to machines like Nintendo’s Wii and smartphones like the iPhone.

“With the Wii you point and shake and it vibrates back at you so you have a two-way relationship there.

“The new generation of smart phones like the iPhone all now have tilting mechanisms or you can shake the device to do one or more things.

“Even the multi-touch interface is so much more powerful and flexible than in the past allowing you to zoom in, scroll quickly or contract images.”

For those who lament the demise of such tried and tested pieces of hardware, Mr Prentice did concede that the keyboard was here to stay for the foreseeable future.

“For all its faults, the keyboard will remain the primary text input device,” he said. “Nothing is easily going to replace it. But the idea of a keyboard with a mouse as a control interface is the paradigm that I am talking about breaking down.”

Source

Now this is hot - the iPhone OS 2.0 software is officially unlocked and jailbroken, cracked by the brains behind the iPhone Dev Team. What made this feat all the more appealing was the fact that OS 2.0 was unlocked before Apple managed to release it to the public. The next step for the iPhone Dev Team would be to roll out their Pwnage tool for everyone to unlock and jailbreak their iPhones soon, but the lack of a specific date has me (and plenty of other people) up in arms. We want our Pwnage tool, and we want it now!

Apple Inc.’s iPhone has been the world’s most influential smart phone since its debut a year ago, widely hailed for its beauty and functionality. It was a true hand-held computer that raised the bar for all its competitors. But that first iPhone had two big drawbacks: It was expensive, and it couldn’t access the fastest cellular-phone networks.

On Friday, Apple is launching a second-generation iPhone, called the iPhone 3G, which addresses both of those problems, while retaining the look and feel of the first model’s hardware and software.

The base version of the new iPhone costs $199 — half the $399 price of its predecessor; the higher-capacity version is now $299, down from $499. Yet, this new iPhone is much, much faster at fetching data over cellphone networks because it uses a speedy cellular technology called 3G. And it now sports a GPS chip for better location sensing.

The company also is rolling out the second generation of its iPhone operating system, with some nice new features, including wireless synchronization with corporate email, calendars and address books. And there’s a new online store for third-party iPhone programs that Apple hopes will make the device usable for a wider variety of tasks, including gaming and productivity applications. This new software and store will also be available on older iPhones, through a free upgrade.

I’ve been testing the iPhone 3G for a couple of weeks, and have found that it mostly keeps its promises. In particular, I found that doing email and surfing the Internet typically was between three and five times as fast using AT&T’s 3G network as it was with the older AT&T network to which the first iPhone was limited.

Apple

Apple’s new iPhone operating system includes an ‘App store,’ where you can browse for, and download, third-party software.

The iPhone 3G is hardly the first phone to run on 3G networks, and it still costs more than some of its competitors. But overall, I found it to be a more capable version of an already excellent device. And now that it’s open to third-party programs, the iPhone has a chance to become a true computing platform with wide versatility.

There are two big hidden costs to the new iPhone’s faster speed and lower price tag. First, in my tests, the iPhone 3G’s battery was drained much more quickly in a typical day of use than the battery on the original iPhone, due to the higher power demands of 3G networks. This is an especially significant problem because, unlike most other smart phones, the iPhone has a sealed battery that can’t be replaced with a spare.

Second, Apple’s exclusive carrier in the U.S., AT&T Inc., has effectively negated the iPhone’s up-front price cut by jacking up its monthly fee for unlimited data use by $10. Over the course of the two-year contract you must sign to get the lower hardware prices, that adds $240, overwhelming the $200 savings on the phone itself. If you want text messaging, the cost rises further. With the first iPhone, 200 text messages a month came free. Now, 200 messages will cost $5 a month, or another $120 over the two-year contract.

The iPhone 3G still has a couple of features that made the first version unpalatable to some potential buyers. It uses a virtual on-screen keyboard instead of a physical one. While I find the virtual keyboard easy and accurate, not everyone does. Also, in the U.S. and in many other countries, the iPhone is still tied to a single exclusive carrier, whose coverage or rate plans may be unacceptable to some.

Here is a rundown of the changes in the new model.

Design: The new iPhone looks almost exactly like the old one. It is the same length and width, has the same big, vivid screen, and has the same number and layout of buttons. The main difference is the back, which is now plastic instead of mostly metal and curved instead of flat. It’s very slightly thicker in the middle, with tapered edges, and weighs a tiny bit less.

Apple

The new iPhone 3G (left) delivers much higher Internet download speeds over cellular networks than the original iPhone (right).

Like its predecessor, the iPhone 3G comes in two models distinguished only by storage capacity: 8 gigabytes and 16 gigabytes. The top model is available in black or white.

Apple has greatly improved the audio on the new iPhone. I found the speaker was much louder, for music and for the speakerphone. But the new phone produced an echo when used with the built-in Bluetooth system in my car. Also, the headphone jack is now flush with the case instead of recessed as on the first model, so it can accept any standard stereo earphones.

The camera, however, is still bare-bones. It can’t record video and has a resolution of just two megapixels. The power adapter is now tiny, at least in the U.S., but Apple no longer includes a dock for charging, just a cable.

Software: The basic software is similar. The biggest addition for some users will be full compatibility with Microsoft’s widely used Exchange ActiveSync service, which many corporations use. In my tests, I was able to connect the iPhone 3G to my company’s Exchange servers in a few minutes, and my corporate email, calendar and contacts were replicated on the phone. Any changes I made on the iPhone were reflected almost instantly in Microsoft Outlook on my company PC, and vice versa. Email was pushed to the phone as soon as it was received on the company’s servers.

One drawback: While you can have both personal and Exchange email accounts on the new iPhone, if you synchronize with Exchange calendars and contacts, your personal calendar and contacts are erased.

The new iPhone and upgraded older iPhones also will be able to use a new Apple consumer service, MobileMe, which offers synchronized push email, calendars, photos and contacts.

There are other improvements. You can now delete multiple emails at once, set parental controls and search your contacts. You can also save photos in emails or from Web sites. You can also now open Microsoft PowerPoint files sent as attachments, though I found in my tests that opening larger PowerPoint files crashed the phone.

Some software features missing from the first iPhone are still AWOL on the new one. There’s no copy and paste function, no universal search, no instant messaging and no MMS for sending photos quickly between phones.

Network: Like the old iPhone, the new one can perform Internet tasks using either Wi-Fi wireless networking or the cellphone networks. But the addition of 3G cellular capability makes the new model more useful for Web surfing, email and other data tasks when you’re not in Wi-Fi range. In my tests, in Washington and New York, I got data speeds mostly ranging between 200 and 500 kilobits per second. By comparison, the original iPhone, tested in the same spots at the same time, mostly got cellular data speeds between 70 and 150 kbps on AT&T’s old EDGE network. The new iPhone typically was between three and five times as fast as the old one.

While AT&T now has 3G networks in 280 U.S. cities, and aims to be in 350 by year end, it is converting its cellphone towers gradually, so not all areas of included cities have 3G coverage. The new iPhone falls back to EDGE speeds when 3G isn’t present.

One side benefit to 3G is that in some areas, voice coverage improves. At my neighborhood shopping center, where the first iPhone got little or no AT&T service, the iPhone 3G registered strong coverage. But I still found that calls regularly broke up on some major streets. In New York City, riding in a taxi along the Hudson, one important call was dropped three times on the new iPhone. Finally, I borrowed a cheap Verizon phone and got perfect reception.

Battery life: Apple claims that over 3G, the new iPhone can get five hours of talk time, or five hours of Internet use. Talk time is twice as long on the older EDGE network, and Internet time is an hour better with Wi-Fi.

I ran my own battery tests using the phone’s 3G capability. Although I left the Wi-Fi function on, I didn’t connect it to a network, so the phone had to rely on 3G. In my test of voice calling, I got 4 hours and 27 minutes, short of Apple’s maximum claim and nearly three hours less than what I recorded in the same test last year on the original iPhone. In my test of Internet use over 3G, I got 5 hours and 49 minutes, better than Apple’s claim, but far short of the nine hours I got using Wi-Fi in last year’s tests.

More important, in daily use, I found the battery indicator on the new 3G model slipping below 20% by early afternoon or midafternoon on some days, and it entirely ran out of juice on one day. I overcame this problem by learning to use Wi-Fi instead of 3G whenever possible, turning down the screen brightness and even turning off 3G altogether, which the phone permits.

The iPhone 3G’s battery life is comparable to, or better than, that of some other 3G competitors. But they have replaceable batteries. The iPhone doesn’t.

Third-party software: If things go as Apple hopes, third-party software could be the biggest attraction to the new iPhone 3G, and to upgraded older iPhones. By some estimates, there will be hundreds of these programs, some free and some paid, almost immediately.

Apple didn’t supply me with programs for testing, but I managed to try several on older devices upgraded to the new operating system. I tested a game that used the phone’s motion sensors to control the action, and I tested several programs from America Online, including AOL Instant Messenger; AOL Radio, which streams music from the Internet; and AOL’s Truveo video search engine. All worked very well.

Among the programs Apple has publicly previewed were a sales automation program from Salesforce.com, a game called Super Monkey Ball from Sega and a program for bidding on eBay. Also made public were a news reader from the Associated Press, a program for following live games from Major League Baseball and several programs for doctors, including the Epocrates drug reference.

Bottom line: If you’ve been waiting to buy an iPhone until it dropped in price, or ran on faster cell networks, you might want to take the plunge, if you can live with the higher service costs and the weaker battery life. The same goes for those with existing iPhones who love the device but crave faster cellular data speeds. But if you already own an iPhone, and can usually use Wi-Fi for data, you probably should hold off and get the free software upgrade before deciding whether it’s worth getting the new hardware.

Feel free to email Walt Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com for more free iPhone 3G columns and videos online.

In the end, Microsoft is almost surely going to end up owning Yahoo’s search business. That’s the only conclusion I can come up with, having spent months talking to Microsoft’s senior leadership for a recent story on the company. And even what does seem like erratic behavior on the part of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer et al points toward that inevitable conclusion.

To understand why Microsoft so desperately wants Yahoo’s search business - which even in its earlier pursuit of the whole company was its primary target - you have to understand how Microsoft sees Google.

Google drives Microsoft crazy for two fundamental reasons. One, Google has developed the fastest-growing new pool of profit in technology with its ad-supported search business. And secondly, it has taken the mantle of “greatest and most powerful tech company” away from Microsoft, with all the associated benefits that go along with that, most notably a very high stock-market valuation.

But Microsoft does not accept that Google is the best tech company. And neither do I. It is a fundamental misreading of Google’s market success to describe it as the industry’s technology leader. It has one very good business which it has managed superbly well, and it lucked into a uniquely powerful business model to support that business with search advertising.

No, what Google has done is not to have created the world’s best tech company but to have created the world’s most powerful and profitable marketplace. The development of that marketplace flowed from having superior search technology in the company’s earlier days. But today Google is not unequivocally the best place to search for information.

Microsoft owns a site called Live.com that offers search results that in many cases are just as good as Google’s, and sometimes are better. But nobody knows Live.com exists, and there’s little likelihood that will change.

Microsoft knows it must create not comparable search but a comparable marketplace. Both in my most recent magazine opus on Microsoft and in an earlier story I wrote about online chief Kevin Johnson, I explained the Microsoft view - the more searches that take place on a site, the more advertisers who are likely to come there. And the more advertisers who are there, the more bidders there are in competition for slots adjacent to the searches. Thus, the larger a search company’s scale, the more money it can charge per search. Not only is Google larger, but it is more profitable per search.

Think of it the way you think of eBay - you probably wouldn’t want to sell your stuff anyplace else because there just aren’t many buyers elsewhere. Google has acquired that kind of position in search advertising. If it were to succeed in the recently-announced deal to combine some or all of Yahoo’s searches with Google’s, the problem for Microsoft would become even more severe.

So even though Microsoft has with painstaking and expensive effort come near to par with Google on search technology, it still shows little likelihood of competing successfully with it as a search business. In fact, despite Microsoft’s recent gains in search quality, its market share has been declining dramatically in recent months - down over a full point in market share to an anemic 8.5% of searches, according to comScore. Yahoo, meanwhile, still commands 21%, to Google’s 62%.

The only way Microsoft can compete with what the business of Google really is - a large marketplace for advertising and searches - is to somehow achieve much greater scale. No method of creating dramatically greater scale seems available other than combining with Yahoo’s search.

It’s a chicken and egg argument - only with scale can Microsoft compete with Google, but Microsoft cannot get scale without successfully competing with Google. Unless, that is, it combines with Yahoo. It doesn’t want or need Yahoo’s people or its search technology, though it would probably take them on happily. What it wants is the search volume, and the Yahoo brand that would seem to be required to continue attracting it.

Microsoft doesn’t see any other large business that it could conceivably enter that compares with search-related advertising for its profit potential. So it bid $47.5 billion to buy Yahoo a couple months ago, and now it is engaged in a fitful effort to find another way to get its hands on Yahoo’s search. It cannot afford not to compete with Google and cannot compete with Google without Yahoo’s search.

Reports have Microsoft toying with all kinds of methods to get its hands on that search business. Most of them reportedly involve teaming up with either Time Warner’s AOL or News Corp.’s MySpace, which would somehow take on the remainder of Yahoo that Microsoft less desperately wants. There are also reports of Yahoo talking to AOL about a combination. Everybody wants to compete with Google, though MySpace and AOL - whose only tools are sheer traffic and a display advertising business - will likely have very little success against Google.

Microsoft and Yahoo both seem to have been inept and flatfooted during the last few months’ negotiations. Yet now the market seems to think something could still happen - Yahoo’s stock is up slightly in recent days.

Mark my words - Microsoft is not giving up.