I founded omnes.tv, host the Device Drivers show and produce/engineer the Revelator show. With the little time I have remaining I delve deep into tech topics and publish my findings here on TenFingerCrunch.
Best Buy raised questions on Thanksgiving weekend after it suddenly started cancelling Blackberry PlayBook orders. Shoppers have frequently reported orders being dropped, even if the order had already been charged and was virtually ready. Those on Best Buy’s forums have mentioned the retailer being “overextended,” while our own checks had one store say that “all” orders had been cancelled.
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While it’s potentially to discourage rain checks, the cancelled orders come just as Best Buy also appears to have pulled listings for the PlayBook itself, leaving only accessories[…]
If Best Buy is truly “overextended” with sales requests, why would they remove the PlayBook from their listings instead of showing it out of stock? Considering the PlayBook’s lackluster sales—partly due to its limiting software—I wouldn’t be surprised to find Best Buy and other retailers cutting their ties to the fledgling tablet.
The full-length trailer for “Brave”, Pixar’s newest endeavor, is now available on YouTube. The imagery is beautiful—which is standard for Pixar—and the plot is intriguing. From Pixar Wiki:
Since ancient times, stories of epic battles and mystical legends have been passed through the generations across the rugged and mysterious Highlands of Scotland. In Brave, a new tale joins the lore when the courageous Merida (voice of Kelly Macdonald) confronts tradition, destiny and the fiercest of beasts. Merida is a skilled archer and impetuous daughter of King Fergus (voice of Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (voice of Emma Thompson). Determined to carve her own path in life, Merida defies an age-old custom sacred to the uproarious lords of the land: massive Lord MacGuffin (voice of Kevin McKidd), surly Lord Macintosh (voice of Craig Ferguson) and cantankerous Lord Dingwall (voice of Robbie Coltrane). Merida’s actions inadvertently unleash chaos and fury in the kingdom, and when she turns to an eccentric old Witch (voice of Julie Walters) for help, she is granted an ill-fated wish. The ensuing peril forces Merida to discover the meaning of true bravery in order to undo a beastly curse before it’s too late. […]
Brave opens in U.S. theaters on June 22, 2012. I have embedded the video below for your convenience:
According to The Verge, HP CEO Meg Whitman announced to HP employees that the future of webOS is still unknown. It appears their recent attempts to sell-off the webOS platform has not panned out.
From the article, Meg Whitman is quoted as saying:
“It’s really important to me to make the right decision, not the fast decision,” she told those gathered with her on the HP campus, adding that a decision would come in the next three to four weeks. […] “If HP decides [to keep webOS], we’re going to do it in a very significant way over a multi-year period,” she said, adding that “it’s a very expensive proposition, but HP can make that bet.”
If HP were to keep webOS, I wonder how they would make that happen. Considering that their TouchPad sales were only seen as successful after they dropped the price to $99, I don’t hold too much faith in webOS with HP still at the helm.
Several of my customer and partner contacts have told me they have heard from their own Microsoft sources over the past couple of weeks that Silverlight 5 is the last version of Silverlight that Microsoft will release. They said they are unsure whether there will be any service packs for it, and they are also not clear on how long Silverlight 5 will be supported by Microsoft.
Considering Silverlight was Microsoft’s answer to Adobe Flash, this should come as no surprise. With Flash not able to gain solid traction in the mobile space, and Microsoft throwing support behind HTML5, keeping Silverlight around makes little sense.
Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.
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New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.
It appears Adobe has finally realized what Apple was saying all along, and I am happy to see them creating tools to aid in creating great HTML5 content.
